ana translation

138 SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES.
NOTE
ON THE USE OF ^-> WITH PRONOMINAL SUFFIX IN THIS VERSION.
The possessive pronoun used adjectivally, or the genitive of the
personal pronoun used possessively, of the Greek, is commonly represented,
in Syriac as in Hebrew, by a pronominal suffix attached to the
noun denoting the object possessed. But sometimes (though exceptionally),
even in the earlier Syriac, it is expressed as a separate word,
formed by attaching the suffix to the particle ^*J. So in the Peshitta
N.T. we find wi.Xu> |l^1 = 6 KCU/>OS 6 e/^os (Joh. vii. 8, cp.
vii. 6).
In the later Syriac, especially in translations from the Greek,
notably in the (seventh-century) Syro-Hexaplar O.T. and the Harklensian
N.T.,
this usage is so frequent as to have become habitual.
In our Philoxenian Four Epistles it occurs, not indeed normally,
yet by no means rarely, in all twenty-one times (in
2 Pet. eleven
times, in 2 Joh. once, in 3 Joh. thrice, in Jud. six times) ;
whereas in
the Harklensian text of the same Epistles it has almost superseded
the vernacular use of the pronominal suffix with the noun, which
remains only here and there in that text apparently
from the prior version.
as a survival
In six of these twenty-one instances, the suffixed ^M> represents
the adjective ?3ios (2 Pet. i. 3, 20; iii. 3, 16, 17 ;
Jud. 6) ; yet not
uniformly, for in two of the places (eight* in all) where iSios occurs,
it is expressed (2 Pet. ii. 16, 22)f by the pronominal suffix attached to
the noun affected (which is
the Peshitta usage in representing iSios).
In the remaining instances likewise (fifteen
in all) there is not uniformity
of usage, nor is it to be expected. Our translator's habit is to guide
himself not by definite rules, but in each place to choose what word or
form seemed to him best to convey the sense of his original. But in
six of these fifteen places it is to be noted that his ^*J with suffix
represents the genitive (possessive) of a personal pronoun placed before
the noun which denotes the object possessed (2 Pet. i. 16 ;
ii. 2 ;
iii. 7 ;
Jud. 3, 18, 20). In these places the displacement of the pronoun presumably
has some significance in the Greek, which the Syriac attempts
* Seven of these are in 2 Pet., in which Epistle it is a favourite word.
f In one of these places (ii. 16) the VStos has no special force (iSias irapavonia?) ,
and Philox. loses nothing by neglecting it. In the other (ii. 22) Philox. repeats
verbatim the words as cited from Prov. xxvi. 11 (Pesh.).