renderings of ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου with some justifiable expectation of obtaining help. As a matter of fact, we get none at all. The ordinary rendering in the Old Syriac documents, as in the Peshitta N.T., is b'reh d'ʾnâshâ—a phrase sufficiently like barnashâ 'a human being' to sound original, but really just as little native Syriac as 'The Son of Man' is English. 'The Son of Man' has no natural meaning in English: it is a mere conventional rendering of ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. Similarly, b'reh d'ʾnâshâ has no natural meaning in Syriac. Moreover, it is not the rendering of the O.T. Peshitta in Dan vii 13, which has bar ʾnâshîn which means (if it has any real meaning) 'son of some folk.' Nor is this all. if B'reh d'ʾnâshâ not a very illuminating translation, is at least inoffensive. But the earliest Syriac documents give us here and there, sometimes singly and sometimes in conjunction, the amazing alternative b'reh d'γaβrâ. This is a literal, a too literal, rendering of ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. It means filius uiri, 'the son of the man.' The fact that so inadequate a
