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St Melito of Sardis, ANF 8
VI
The Syriac and the Hebrew use the word “suspended,”2 as more clearly typifying the cross.
The word Sabek3 some have rendered remission,4 others upright,5 as if the meaning, agreeing with the popular belief, were-a goat walking erect up to a bush, and there standing erect caught by his horns, so as to be a plain type of the cross. For this reason it is not translated, because the single Hebrew word signifies in other languages6 many things. To those, however, who ask it is proper to give an answer, and to say that Sabek denotes lifted up.7
Notes
- In the edition of the LXX. published by Card. Caraffe, 1581.
- κρεμάμενος. The Hebrew is נאחז, the Syriac ***, both meaning simply “caught.”
- See note on the fragment just before.
- ἄφεσις.
- ὄρθιος.
- Lit. “when translated.”
- ἐπηρμένος.