Atkinson — On a South-Coptic Text of M. Bouriant. 279 



in the very best work. But the work I have here criticised is not the 

 hest : it is not even good. 



Even in the Greek words there is an extraordinary want of 

 critical treatment shown by M. Bouriant. Cf. e. gr. his rendering 

 of TrpcoroaTToXoyta [248, 7], des la premiere parole ] [245, 3] thyrdn, 

 des insignes, but it is Ovpeov, ' shield', cf. Ps. xlv. 10 ; what is KwXa- 

 jceue [249,9]? li^ow does eTrt^vyuet [251, i] become 'choleric'? or 

 what is a^oTo? [258, z] ? 



And why render [245, 4], les armes perissalles de ce monde, when 

 the text has nhShnaau nte peikosmos, i.e. '■vessels of this world'; 

 for the word does not mean * arms, weapons,' it means vessel, vase, 

 hotvl, lashet, ayyos, ayyetoi/, Kpar-qp, o-keBos ; cf . 2 Beg. xvii. 28 ; Prov. 

 ix. 23; Ps. XXX. 13; Jerem.xiv. 3; Amos viii. 1; generally 'implement.' 

 To make it mean ' weapons,' it would have to be determined by some 

 following word; e.gr. hnaau n-ka sote is ' an implement for keep- 

 ing arrows,' a quiver, (Ps. x. 3; Job xxx. 11; Ezek. xxvii. 11), just as 

 hnaau n-shai, 'implement for writing,' is used for ypat^ts, Ezek. 

 xxiii. 14. Just so hnaau mmise may be used for 'fighting imple- 

 ments'; but the Greek word oVAov is regularly itself u^edi in both 

 South and ]S"orth Coptic; cf. Ps. v. 13; xxxiv. 2; xlv. 10; Ivi. 5; 

 xc. 4 ; Ezek. xxxii. 27. Then in the Coptic, why edit solp [246, 3], 

 "qui nous attend'''', when it is plainly Bom. viii. 18, and should be 

 colp? why translate wrongly [246, 7], instead of " so that I do not 

 find thee equal to him" ? what is [246, y] ji sojp e, in a passage 

 obviously from Hebr. xi. 7 (KarcKpive, ji sojne?) ? and the last line, 

 which means : " it was testified, ' I have not found &c.' " ? why render 

 nhboos, pour te cacher [249, 8], when it is plainly only hboos, 

 ' garment ', (the previous y^Xajx-q^ (sic) being perhaj)s only a mistake 

 for lakm) ? why omit " (cannot take it) from Mm''\ [249, 12]? 

 why edit mn twepe for mntw epe [250,5]? ^'^^ '^^J '^'>^t He 

 sauvees, for VnQ future [247, 6] ? why ignore the particle je [254, 10], 

 "in heaven they call his name viz. Tlie Greatest^' ? what is tinasent 

 [256,5]? ^% glitle over c6, " Je still that I may see them", 

 [256, 14] ? why omit ntaka as [258, 10] ? why ignore naa [258, 3] ; 

 [259, 10]? or why edit wrongly [258, 12] mpe woeis, for it is 

 m-pe-woeis? what is ntafei iitho [260, i]? and what is wam- 

 thma [260, 5] ? &c. &c. 



Words of a quite definite meaning are tortured or twisted into 

 something quite foreign to their real drift. Thus he takes the 

 common preposition nwes n, which simply means 'without', and 

 makes of it a compound of the verb wos ' to desire ', to which he 



