Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - Introduction and Appendix (1882).pdf/353

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SYLLABIC DIVISION OF WORDS
315

times, and have affixed the accents accordingly (see Lobeck Paralip. Diss. vi; Mehlhorn Gr. Gr. 26, 31, 158; Cobet N.T.Praef. li; K.H.A.Lipsius 31 ff.). The example of C.E.C.Schneider, who usually shews good judgement in these matters, has encouraged us to drop the unnecessary mark or space distinguishing the pronoun ὅτι from the particle.

412. In the division of words at the end and beginning of lines we have faithfully observed the Greek rules, of which on the whole the best account is in Kühner's Grammar, i 273 ff. (ed. 2). It has been urged that the scribe of א copied an Egyptian papyrus, on the ground that some of the lines begin with θμ, a combination of letters which may begin a word in Coptic, but cannot in Greek. The truth is that θμ, following the analogy of τμ, is a recognised Greek beginning for lines. It was a Greek instinct, first doubtless of pronunciation and thence of writing, to make syllables end upon a vowel, if it was in any way possible; and the only universally accepted divisions between consonants occur where they are double, where a hard consonant precedes an aspirate, or where the first consonant is a liquid except in the combination μν. Among the points on which both precept and practice differed was the treatment of prepositions in composition as integral parts of a word, in the two cases of their being followed by a consonant or by a vowel: in allowing division after πρός and εἰς, but joining the final consonant of the preposition to the next syllable in other cases, even after σύν, we have been guided by the predominant though not uniform usage of אABC. In most particulars of the division of syllables these MSS habitually follow the stricter of the various rules laid down by grammarians, more closely indeed than such papyrus MSS as we have compared with them by means of facsimile editions, though miscellaneous deviations may occasionally be found. The rarest of such lapses are violations of the rule that a line must on no account end with οὐκ, οὐχ, or a consonant preceding an elided vowel, as in ἀπ', οὐδ', ἀλλ'; in which cases the consonant must begin the next line, unless of course the separation of the two adjacent syllables can easily be altogether avoided. In the case of compound Hebrew proper names, as Βηθλεέμ, we have ventured for the present purpose to treat each element as a separate word.

413. Quotations from the Old Testament are printed