PIIILOMETOU
122
PHELOPONUS
btcation in both languages essentially coincide in this: i hat /■ ngth in ili< vowel is i quivah ni to another consonant. We might take room to exemplify these rules, but the modern Bcholai will readily Bee t In i r truth. In none of iIh' later cognate languages i> this principle regarded with mucb uniformity, although from the nature of the vocal organs themselves, it follows, even in bo arbitrary a tongue (or rather bo historical^ spelling) as the Eng- lish, thai a vowel is naturally long when it ends the syllable, and Bhorl when a consonant closes the Bound. But in the Greek and Hebrew the law we have pro- pounded is consistently carried out in a complete system of euphonic changes which lie at the very threshold of either language.
v irdingly, in exactness of phonetic representation these two languages have no rival, not even in the Ger- man, Italian, or Spanish. Though the original sounds are now somewhat uncertain, yet it is evident (unless we take the degenerate modern Greek, and the discrepant modern Rabbinical pronunciations as perfect guides i thai each Letter and vowel in both had its own peculiar pow- er. The two alphabets, we know, were identical in or- igin; for if we distrust the story of the importation of the Phoenician characters by Cadmus into Creece, we have hut to ci m 1 1 'are (he names, order, and forms of the written signs (reversing them, as the two languages were read in opposite directions), in order to satisfy ourselves thai they are essentially the same. Even the unappreciable N has iis equivalent in the spiritus /mis (as the " may lie visually represented by the spiritus asper), and the old <lii/<iiiiui<i (far) reappears in the consonantal 1- Perhaps the reason why )■ initial al- ways has i he rough breathing is owing to its affinity to both these lasl named. See Ai.ru vbkt.
We trusl \\c have said enough to illustrate our propo- sition thai these two lingual families, and especially i heir i wo chiefly interesting representatives— which, widely variant as they are in age, culture, flexibility, and genius, yel by a remarkable Providence have been brought together in the only revelation written for man — have no ordinary or casual points of resemblance. We
WOuld he glad to see t he suhjeel extended by some com-
petenl hand. esj,,.,ia]iy by a comparison of the vener- able and rich Sanscrit and Arabic. See Shkmitk Lan- guages.
Philome'tor I fctAou^rwp, moth r-lovwg), the sur- name of Ptolemseua VI of Egypt (2 .Mace, iv, 21). See Ptoli mi.
Philon. See l'tlll.o.
Philopatris is the name of a dialogue found among the writings of Lucian (q.v.). It is quoted in Church history as .a contribution to the heathen satires against Christianity. It is a frivolous derision of the character and doctrines of the christians in the firm of a dialogue hit we. ii Critias, a professed heathen, and Triephon, an Epicurean, personating a christian. It represents the Christians as disaffected to the government, dangerous to civil socii ty. and delighting in public calamities. It calls St. Paul a half-bald, long-nosed < ralilsean,who trav- elled through the air to the third heaven (2 Cor. sii, ii. Ii combats the Church doctrine of the Trinity, and of the procession of the Spirit from the Father, though not by argument, bul only by ridicule. Not its intrinsic value, but its historic ref( n nces, make it a valuable production. The authenticity of the work has been called in question by Gessner, in his D< ,,t,it, ,t an,/,,,-, dialogi Lucianei, qui Philop. inscribitur (Jen. 1711: Leips. 1730; Gbtting. 1741 ; el in tom.ix,ed. Kip. ). who ascribes i,, ii a post-Nicsean age. < >f like opinion are Neander (Church Hist. ii. 90) and Tzschirner (FaU des Heidenthums, p. 312). Niebuhr (Kleim histor. ». philoloff. Schriften, ii, 73) dates it from the reign of Nicephorus Phocas I 963 969 i, hut this date i~ : . rn ral- ly regarded as t,„, recent. Compare Beruhardy, Berl. Jahrb. 1832, ii. 131; Ehrmann, in Stein's Studien der
evangel. Geistlichkeii Wurtembergs, 1839, p. 47; Schmid, De Pkilopatridi Lucianeo dialogo u'<<-<i dissert. (Leips. 1830); Wet/lar. I>< tetate, vita scriptisqut Luciani Sa- ntos | Marh. 1834) : Schaff, Ch, Hist. ii. 79. (J. II. W.)
Philoponists, a sect ofTritheists in the 6th cen- tury, named after a famous Alexandrian grammarian. Nature and hypostasis, he affirmed, wi re id< ntical, unity nut being something real, hut only a generic term, ac- cording to the Aristotelian logic. See Philoponus.
Philoponus, Joannes (^liaawnc. <J <t>i\c'<7rovoc), or Joannes Grammaticds (.'> rpafiuanKoc), an Alex- andrian theologian and philosopher of great renown, hut which he little deserved on aCCOUnl "I his exl re me dul-
ness and want of good-sense, was called $i\6Voi/0£ be- cause he was one of the must laborious and studious men of his age. He lived in the 7th century of our sera; one of his writings, Physica, is dated .May L0, 617. lie calls himself ypafifiarucoc,, undoubtedly because he taught grammar in his native town. Alexandria, and woidd in earlier times have been called rhetor, lie was a disciple of the philosopher Ammonius. Although his celebrity is inure based upon the number of his varied productions and the estimation in which they were held by his contemporaries than upon the in- trinsic value of those works, he is yet so strangely connected with one of the most important events of his timet though only through subsequent tradition) that his