Welsh Journals

504 Old Price's Remains, GRAVIORA. Adversaria on the Greek Testament. The following notes on the Verb Substantive " hfu to be," would have appeared sooner if I had found them. I think the subject a very important one, capable of affecting many statements of vital consequence, if not the whole of truth as expressed or expressible in language. A question about words is, necessarily, an idle ques¬ tion, only when it is mistaken for one about facts; a mistake which wastes a whole evening in the discussion of a point where there are not, and could not be, two opinions! This is a " Logomachy." But, a verbal question, taken up advisedly as such, is a question of fact, viz.: a fact of language ; and may, in its place, be as weighty as any other question whatever. A friend wrote as follows (about December, 1862) :—Referring to the texts Matt, xxvi., 26-28—" tovto iari"— Mark, xiv. 22-24, Luke, xxii. 19-20, he asks, " Is the presence of the Greek verb, " iifu to be," in a sentence to be understood as if it were not there in our idiom, and its absence, as if it were there? In the first case, would it read thus : ' This (ia-rt) represents my body ;' and without ea-rc, ' this is my body ?' I replied :—It seems to me hardly possible, that a word, when " absent," {i.e., omitted, or understood,) should have a more forcible meaning than when present, (i.e., expressed.) The very opposite might be urged, plausibly ; but I think not truly, either. E'a-ri, the Latin est, &c, are apt to be omitted when their use, as " Copula," is evidently implied.