Page 54 - New English Book L

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Before explaining the signification of the noun sapha
I have to tax again the patience of those of my readers
who are not acquainted with the Hebrew. The Arabic
language lacks the p sound in its alphabet just as much as
do the Hebrew and other Semitic languages, in which the
letter p, like g, is sometimes soft and is pronounced like f
or ph. In English, as a rule, the Semitic and Greek words
containing f sound are transliter ated and written by the
insertion of “ph” instead of “f,” e.g.Seraph, Mustapha,
and Philosophy. It is in accordance with this rule that I
prefer to write this word sapha to safa.

When Jesus Christ (pbuh) surnamed his first disciple
Shim’on (Simon) with the significant title of “Petros” (Peter),
he must evidently have had in his mind this ancient sacred
sapha, which had been lost long ago! But, alas! We cannot
positively state the exact word, which he expressed in his
own language.

The Greek form petros in the masculine gender -Petra
in the feminine- is so unclassical and un-Greek, that one
is astonished at its being ever adopted by the Churches.
Did Jesus (pbuh) or any other Jew ever dream of calling the
fisherman Bar Yona, Petros? Decidedly not. The Syriac
version called Pshitta has frequently rendered this Greek
form into Kipha (Kipa). And the very fact that even the
Greek text has preserved the original name “Kephas,”
which the English versions have reproduced in the shape of
“Cephas,” shows that Christ spoke the Aramaic language
and gave the surname “Kipha” to his principal disciple.

The old Arabic versions of the New Testament have
frequently written St. Peter’s name as “Sham?un’ asSapha”;
that is to say, “Simon the Stone.” The words of Christ: “Thou
art Peter,” etc., have their equivalent in the Arabic version in
the form of “AntaSapha” (Matt. xvi. 18; John i. 42, etc.).