[B-Greek] Ambiguity in Cyril of Alexandria

Dan and Rachel King dan_rach at ntlworld.com
Thu May 13 14:24:32 EDT 2004


Apologies if this is off-topic a little. I have come across a sentence which
seems to have two possible meanings (in fact, its modern editor has taken it
one way and the ancient Syriac version takes it the other way, but I won't
way which is which!).

FASI TOINUN KATA TOUS ANWQEN ETI KAIROUS (HTOI CRONOUS) DIHiRHSQAI TOUS TE
APO TOU KAIN GEGONOTAS FHMI KAI TOUS APO TOU hENWS

Either
"They say then that in still earlier times (or periods) there was a
distinction between the descendents of Cain (I would say) and the
descendents of Enosh"

Or
"They say then that the descendents of Cain were distinguished by still
longer times (or periods) [sc. their longevity]; and I say that the
descendents of Enosh were also [distinguished in this way]."

Can anyone give any thoughts on which makes better sense? Perhaps one of
them should actually be ruled out. They both seem possible to me, but I may
have missed something. The difference would appear to lie in whether one
takes FHMI as an interjection with no syntactical effect or as a second main
verb. In the latter case, I would have rather seen a DE instead of a KAI, so
maybe I plump for the first option. Any advice would be most welcome...

many thanks

Dan King




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