My comments about Horner was more about how he apparently felt obliged to use “the” (albeit qualified by “(lit. a)”) in his literal translation, despite Bohairic having ⲟⲩ-. I thought it was a good example of how we are kind of conditioned to think “the Holy Spirit” each time ⲡⲛⲁ ⲉⲧ-/ⲉϥⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ appear.
Off hand, I wonder if Horner’s use of “lit. a” is misleading in light of the use of the single article with many uncountable nouns, such as ⲟⲩⲙⲟⲟⲩ (“one/some water”). I guess the question is whether ⲡⲛⲁ (“spirit”) was treated both as countable and uncountable, like perhaps ⲟⲉⲓⲕ, as Wiktionary says. I had presumed only the former in my post, but after reflection believe it must have been countable in some contexts.
Your reference to the alternation between ⲡⲛ̅ⲁ ⲉⲧⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ and ⲡⲛ̅ⲁ ⲉϥⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ also strikes me as interesting for such a pivotal concept and suggests that a unique label was not considered necessary at the time of these translations. I had assumed that the later usage of ⲉϥⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ was only possible with the nuance I would associate with a prenominal adjective in Latin, Greek, French (Saint-Esprit), Spanish, etc. Then again, the understanding I had of the term “the Holy Spirit” according to my usual English stress pattern is exactly what I would have understood from a prenominal adjective in those other languages or from ⲉϥⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ.
With the prenominal usage in those languages, ⲉϥⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ, and my customary English stress pattern, I understand “Holy Spirit” to mean something like “spirit I/we consider to be holy.” With the postnominal usage and ⲉⲧⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ, I had understood the term to mean something like “spirit that is uniquely holy, unlike ordinary ones.” I did not fully perceive until now that I understood the nuance of the term differently according to what language I was reading. I wonder if French speakers feel any difference between the word orders Saint-Esprit and Esprit saint and whether Coptic speakers felt any difference between ⲡⲛ̅ⲁ ⲉⲧⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ and ⲡⲛ̅ⲁ ⲉϥⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ, and whether the difference was the same.
I know such variation in adjective placement does generally exist to some degree in Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, etc., but I have no idea about whether Coptic bothers about this difference. Even if Coptic does not make such a distinction, I am still intrigued they didn’t keep the same syntactic pattern when possible. Perhaps it seemed advisable to keep ⲡⲛ̅ⲁ ⲉϥⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ unchanged, because this collocation could be used both for a definite and an indefinite noun phrase, while ⲡⲛ̅ⲁ ⲉⲧⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ could not be used when an indefinite noun phrase was needed.
- another line of thought, not necessarily in opposition to the first one, is how ϩⲛⲟⲩⲙⲟⲟⲩ follows the same pattern as Coptic adverbs (ϩⲛⲟⲩⲙⲉ > in-a-truth > truly). Could ϩⲛⲟⲩⲙⲟⲟⲩ be something like “waterly” here? In this case, the emphasis here could be on the practical aspect of things “I baptize waterly/using water [and not something else]”. And once this piece of information has been introduced to John’s interlocutors, he can shift to ϩⲙⲡⲙⲟⲟⲩ (=“you know what I’m talking about, I just told you about how I baptize”)
- while Nestle-Aland has ἐν ὕδατι in both 1,31 and 1,33, some manuscripts do have ἐν τῷ ὕδατι. Could it simply be that the Coptic translator was working with a text that had no definite article in 1,31 but used one in 1,33 and that they chose to mimic the Greek?
I find this analysis intriguing and more compelling than what I had suggested. For further evidence, the Coptic Bible I found online also has for John 1:33:
33ⲁⲛⲟⲕ ϩⲱ ⲛⲉⲓ̈ⲥⲟⲟⲩⲛ ⲙ̅ⲙⲟϥ ⲁⲛ ⲡⲉ. ⲁⲗⲗⲁ ⲡⲉⲛⲧⲁϥⲧⲛ̅ⲛⲟⲟⲩⲧʾ ⲉⲃⲁⲡⲧⲓⲍⲉ ϩⲙ̅ⲡⲙⲟⲟⲩ ⲡⲉⲧⲙ̅ⲙⲁⲩ ⲡⲉ ⲛ̅ⲧⲁϥϫⲟⲟⲥ ⲛⲁⲓ̈ ϫⲉ ⲡⲉⲧⲕⲛⲁⲛⲁⲩ ⲉⲡⲉⲡⲛ̅ⲁ ⲉϥⲛⲏⲩ ⲉⲡⲉⲥⲏⲧʾ ⲉϥϭⲉⲉⲧ ⲉϩⲣⲁⲓ̈ ⲉϫⲱϥ. ⲡⲁⲓ̈ ⲡⲉⲧⲛⲁⲃⲁⲡⲧⲓⲍⲉ ϩⲛ̅ⲟⲩⲡⲛ̅ⲁ ⲉϥⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ ⲛⲙ̅ⲟⲩⲕⲱϩⲧ.
This version of John ends with: “He is one who will baptize with holy spirit and fire,” which uses the indefinite article and has a clear focus on contrasting substances used to baptize.
If ⲃⲁⲡⲧⲓⲍⲉ ϩⲛ̅ⲟⲩⲙⲟⲟⲩ is a generic usage of water, meaning something like “to water-baptize,” then ϩⲙ̅ⲡⲙⲟⲟⲩ is very unlikely to also be a generic usage. If this is true, I must confess that I cannot find a meaning for ϩⲙ̅ⲡⲙⲟⲟⲩ or even for ἐν τῷ ὕδατι that doesn’t seem very awkward to me. French is a language I have some feeling for with a roughly similar pattern of definite, indefinite, and zero articles, and I can’t seem to translate these sentences into French in a way that I would ever use. If I started with some sort of generic usage, I could not switch to another form of article for the same noun without some sort of stronger determiner to highlight the change. Your suggestion of a translation effect sounds like the best explanation to me for the variation in Coptic.
When I read the Greek and take into account the word order, I understand that the first reference to baptizing (ἐν ὕδατι βαπτίζων) takes the use of water as unremarkable. The focus is on “baptizing.” The next two references (βαπτίζειν ἐν ὕδατι and ὁ βαπτίζων ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ) use a word order that emphases what is used to baptize: water or holy spirit. I definitly do not see this change in emphasis reflected in the Coptic variation.
The translators went for zero article, which is common after ϫⲏⲕ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ⲙ-:
I could not find an acceptable translation for ϫⲏⲕ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ in the two online dictionaries I use online, Good for you that you apparently found one.
