Page 57 - Demo

Before explaining the signification of the noun sapha53I 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 Greekwords 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’ asSaphā”; 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 “AntaSaphā” (Matt. xvi. 18; John i. 42,etc.).