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A Short Syntax of New Testament Greek. by H. P. V. Nunn. University Press, 1912. 2s. 6d. net.

James Hope Moulton

The Classical Review / Volume 27 / Issue 05 / August 1913, pp 177 - 178 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00005369, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00005369

How to cite this article: James Hope Moulton (1913). The Classical Review, 27, pp 177-178 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00005369

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 130.126.162.126 on 17 Mar 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 177 served in the Berlin Museum, except A Short Syntax of New Testament Greek. Biblical texts. Dr. Schubart's well- By H. P. V. NUNN. Cambridge known skill as a decipherer of papyri University Press, 1912. 2s. 6d. net. guarantees sufficiently the minute ac- curacy of their reproduction ; and his MR. NUNN has written an unpretentious colleague, with expert knowledge in little book for the help of students, another field, secures the thoroughness assuming no knowledge of grammar of the editorial work. It can hardly be beyond the accidence. Indeed the first said that the contents modify greatly twenty pages presume that even English the sense of disappointment with which grammar is in need of summary restate- we scan the remains of Christian ment as a basis of a reasonable under- as preserved on the papyri. The non- standing of Greek. The precaution is literary and non-Christian documents *not at all needless, as many teachers are of endless value for lexical and gram- will witness, when Greek enough for matical study of the Greek , and the reading of the New Testament has even for its Realien; but neither literary to be acquired after the atmosphere of nor non-literary papyri of a definitely grammar has become a memory of Christian origin give us any large rather distant schooldays. I am glad amount of help. The volume has four to see Mr. Nunn's plea for this late and patristic texts. Ignatius ad Smyrnaeos simple Greek as a desirable first step iv.-xi. (plus a few lines before and even for those who intend to pursue after) is presented from a codex of the their studies into the classical literature. fifth century, which is six centuries older Hellenistic may be found a powerful than our only existing MS., and has ally for the endangered study of the important variants. Hermas follows Greek language and literature. Mr. (Sim. ii. 7-10, iv. 2-5, viii. 1) in some Nunn's summary of syntax is simple third-century fragments, an additional and accurate, and based on sound witness to his popularity in Egypt. teacher's instinct, which makes large Then come two anthologies, from Basil use of comparison with English, and and from Gregory of Nyssa (both fifth Latin in a more limited way. There century). An Easter pastoral, by Alex- are not many criticisms of detail to be ander, patriarch of Alexandria (seventh suggested, and most of them are in the century), will interest students of Byzan- opening pages, before the syntax proper tine Kunstprosa, of whom, I fear, I am not is reached. The example illustrating one. The rest of the book (pp. 110-132) is ' Diphthong' (p. x) will not help an occupied with sundry fragments, mostly English reader, who can recognise no liturgical, and nearly all very late. diphthong in ' Caesar.' The definition Indices to the new texts and two fac- of ' Deponent' verbs (p. 7) might be similes complete the volume. For the brought up to date; and TreipiXtfcrofiai philologist its interest will be mainly in (p. 10) guarded with a remark that it is the presence of accented texts, such as a very limited example of the Future the Osterfestbrief, which was as ambitious Perfect. In the same table it is hardly in its form as in its style. In the accurate to deny Hellenistic the Perfect Continuous. English only has it in peri- Ignatius text (1. 33) I note AOPATOI, phrastic form, and Greek is not devoid with which the editors compare of this. On p. 64 I should greatly question Mark 1523 as an instance of • AN0ECTHKE in the Basil excerpt (1.69). repeated action in the Imperfect (' kept The aspirate had vanished centuries giving'): iBiSovv is conative, ' offered.' before from pronunciation: it is inter- The Epistolary Aorist (p. 66) is not esting to see its tradition surviving in a wholly replaced by our Present: Phil. place which our modern orthography 225, Mr. Nunn's example, might as well will not recognise. Latin forms like be rendered ' I thought it necessary to Euhemerus, Euhodius, etc., may be com- send E.' On p. 76 I notice 0/ 7ro\Xot pared. mistranslated ' many.' The misprints JAMES HOPE MOULTON. tonitruum (Ace. Sing.) (p. 88) and el T'I (p. 115) may be noted. Mr. Nunn is to Didsbury College, . 178 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW be congratulated on a sound and useful of words, management of metre, and little manual. other matters leave something to be JAMES HOPE MOULTON. desired. H. R. Didsbury College, Manchester.

The Frogs of Aristophanes. Translated Opferbrduche der Griechen. Von PAUL into kindred metres by A. D. COPE. STENGEL. Mit 6 Textabbildungen. Pp. 95. Oxford: Blackwell, 1911. Teubner. M. 6 ; cloth, M. 7. 3s. net. STENGEL has here included in one THE Frogs tempts translators, and Mr. volume his scattered papers on Greek Cope has evidently enjoyed his task. ritual. They consist chiefly of short He has put it as a rule into simple and discussions of the meaning of a number natural English, though occasionally the of words (the chief are lepr/iov, irpcoTo-verse seems to me to jolt or the stress to 701/0?, TeKrjeaaa eKaTOfi^r)) tivrjeis, dveWa, fall on words that are not quite the 0v6e(.<;; dvrjXal, dveiv and Bveadai;right ones to bear it. Some of his turns iirdp^aadai he-rrdeaaiv, evri/iveiv, aipea- of expression and equivalents for the 6cu TOW fiov<;) and of certain details in Greek are happy, and his ' kindred ritual, as libation, the victim's tongue, metres' give a very fair idea of the colour and sex of victims. If they do original. I append two short specimens: not always contain original views, they are reasonable and give the evidence. 416. Let's now unite our wit, And Archedemus his, Stengel translates reXtjeacra i/caTOfifir) as Who'd got no teeth, and joined no guild, a sacrifice of full-grown victims; cupea- at seven years old. 6ai TOV? /Sot)? as lifting the body, after He's now, up overhead, the sacrificer had knocked the victim Mob-leader of the dead, And comes out top in everything that's down with a mallet, and holding the bad and bold. head in the proper position. With re- 717. It has very often struck us that our State gard to sex and colour of victims he behaves the same only says enough to show that these To those citizens of ours who best of all were not always (perhaps not often) deserve the name As to our old-fashioned coinage and the fixed. It is a pity no one has fully gold of recent date ; examined this question, and also what For we've ceased to use the finest coinage victims can be shown to have been offered found in any State, to the various gods. Generalisations Unalloyed and undebased, and stamped are often heard, but no one has ever col- with dies that none excel (Such at least is our opinion), ringing clear lected the evidence both of literature as any bell, and the bas-reliefs. Coins that pass among the Greeks and W. H. D. R. foreigners where'er they be ; No, instead of these we've got this wretched copper novelty. The Plutus of Aristophanes, in English HERBERT RICHARDS. Verse. By LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY. Murray, 1912. 5s. THE translation adheres very closely to' Griechische Papyri zu Giessen. Band I. the sense of the original. The style it Heft 3. Von E. KORNEMANN und does not reproduce with equal nicety. P. M. MEYER. Leipzig and Berlin : A translator has not done his duty well, Teubner, 1912. who renders a few plain words by ' Sup- THE first volume of the Giessen Papyri, pose you, pray, you wrong me not in begun two years ago, is concluded by this ?' as though the language were this third part, containing sixty-nine heroic, and, when he comes to Xeyeis fioi documents—of which the texts of rather Xap&v, Xeyet? fj-01 fioav gives us the more than half are printed in full—and unelevated ' Glorious tidings ! I could the indispensable indices to the whole shout for joy.' The choice and order volume. As in the preceding parts, a