ARTICLE IX. DOMINICI DIODATI I. C. NEAPOLITANI, DE CHRISTO GRÆCE LOQUENTE EXERCITATIO. Translated by O. T. Dobbin, D. D., of Western Independent College, Exeter, England. Continued from p. 459, Vol. XI. PART II. Arguments adduced to show that Christ, the Apostles, and all the Jews used the Hellenistic tongue. OUR former part has been devoted to an exposition of the means by which the Greek language was introduced into Palestine. Our present task is to sustain, as best we may, the position that all the Jews, Christ and his apostles, employed no other tongue as the common medium of their intercourse but this. We must, however, prelude our argument to this effect with a remark or two designed to throw light upon all that is to follow. We begin, then, with stating: In the first place, that the Greek language was widely dif fused throughout Palestine 199 years before the Christian era, and that under Antiochus Epiphanes it struck its roots deeply into the national mind. In the second place, that the Jews retained the use of the Chaldee until the time of the Maccabees, so as to be bilingual. Thus among themselves they used the Chaldee, which they called their native tongue (linguam patriam), and with foreigners the Greek, the vernacular language of their masters. This fact is proved by innumerable passages in the books of Maccabees, and the works of Flavius Josephus, which mark with sufficient clearness the distinction between the one as a recent introduction, and the other as native to the land. Thus, in the second book of the Maccabees, we read that the second brother replied to the one who asked him would he eat swine's flesh or die, in the following words in his native tongue, “I will not do it ;" and again a little after it is said, "Their mother exhorted each of them in their native language boldly." also when the mother was summoned by Antiochus, and enjoined to persuade her only surviving son to eat the swine's flesh, she promised the monarch, in Greek, that she would do as he desired, but directly addressing her son in his native idiom, urged So him to persist, and bending towards him, mocked the tyrant while she said, "Have mercy upon me, my son,-fear not this cruel monster," etc., etc.* Judas Maccabæus, too, when engaging in battle against Gorgias, addressed his soldiers in the same language; "Judas invoked the Lord to be their keeper and their leader in the fight, beginning in his country's tongue," ete., etc. The Jews, moreover, when they had routed the forces of Gorgias, used it-for we read that "they shouted with tumultuous joy, and blessed Almighty God in their own tongue," etc., etc.‡ To the same cause must we attribute the excellency of 'he Syriac version, the translator's "native tongue" being the Aramean, as we gather from Second Maccabees 15: 37. This double use, however, gradually passed away, from the length and closeness of the intercourse maintained with the Greek settlers, who occupied the country for nineteen years, namely from 161 to 142 before Christ. From that period the Jews began to use the Greek exclusively, and to lay aside the Chaldee altogether. In the third place, we affirm, as we have already done more than once, that the Jews adopted no other dialect than the Hellenistic. By this we mean that the elder Jews, familiar with the Chaldee tongue, retained in their adopted Greek occasional Hebrew and Chaldee words and idioms: for instance, ó viòs tns ánwheías, son of perdition, for an utterly abandoned person; τίς με ξύσεται ἐκ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ θανάτου τούτου, who will deliver me from the body of this death, for from this mortal body; Aun héyoo vuiv, amen I say to you, for truly I say to you; thus also eis réervár into Gehenna, for into the place of torment; Roavvà for save now; 'Paßßi for master; Paßßor for my master; heaven of heavens, for the highest heaven; to speak to the heart, for to comfort; do justice and judgment, for just judgment, and unnumbered other instances of the same sort of which Solomon Glass, Brian Walton,|| and especially James Rheinfort, in his Syntagma of Dissertations on the * Lib. 2 Mach. cap. 7, v. 8, 21, 21 et seq. [ лargią gary.] Joseph. de Imp. Rationis, p. 513, § 12, p. 517, § 16. † Lib. 2 Mach. cap. 12, v. 36 et 37. Lib. 2 Mach. cap. 11, v. 19. Walton in Proleg. Polygl. p. 45 ad 48. Style of the new Testament, treat more at large than we can venture upon here. That this dialect of Greek, called by Biblical critics the Hellenistic, prevailed among the Jews from the time of the Maccabees and was common to Christ and his apostles, I hope to demonstrate in this division of my essay. In the first place, then, as to its prevalence among the Jews in general. CHAPTER I. Designed to prove that from the age of the Maccabees, the Hellenistic dialect was the vernacular language of Palestine, and was that commonly spoken by the Jews. § 1. The Jews composed their Books in the Hellenistic dialect from the time of the Maccabees. Most of the writers of antiquity, as was natural, composed their works in the dialect of their respective countries; but the Hebrews were impelled to the same practice, not only by the more obvious reasons, but also by a superstitious dislike to unnecessary communication with foreigners. They thought it unbecoming to study a foreign tongue, or be more than commonly versed in their own, because, as Josephus avers,* these were accomplishments shared by slaves. They therefore never wrote in any other language than that which was current among their own countrymen. Hence it was that, when the Jews spoke Hebrew, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, etc., wrote in Hebrew. In accordance with the same rule, when the Jews during the Babylonian captivity had taken up the Chaldee, we find Ezra, Daniel, and Nehemiah writing in that language. The Law, moreover, was translated into it, according to the testimony of the Rabbis Azariah† and Gedaliah. When, then, from the age of the Maccabees, we find the Jewish books, canonical and uncanonical, alike (xavovizoì àxavóviotoi) composed in the Grecian tongue, nay more, the Hebrew, and Chaldee books translated into that tongue, are we not constrained to own that about that time the Greek was the familiar and vernacular language of the Jews?§ * Joseph. in Antiquitat. in fine. R. Azar. in lib. Meor Enaim cap. 8 et 9. R. Gedalias apud Waltonum, 9 Prol. p. 60. n. 14. [In codice Megilla, fol. 18, lingua Græca Judæis dicitur vernacula.-ED.] Let us, however, glance at these books and their authors in detail. * We begin with those in the canon. About the year 160 before Christ, the Book of Wisdom was written in Greek by Philo the Elder. This volume has been called navάgerov by the Jews, as containing the sum of all virtues. About the same period the book of Ecclesiasticus was translated from the Hebrew by Jesus the son of Sirach, of Jerusalem. The third book of the Maccabees, which was the first in order, was composed in Greek; the second of the Maccabees, which was the fourth in order, was also composed in Greek; as was the first also, in the first case by its author, a fact the distinguished It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that Diodati writes as a Roman Catholic. Translator. † V. Hieronym. Præfat. in Proverb. Salomon. t. 9, p. 1294. Huet in Dem. Evan. Prop. 4, de lib. Sapien. § 11. "William Beveridge is the only writer whom I can ascertain to have known that the first book of Maccabees was originally composed in Greek. The generality of the learned, conceive it to have been first written in Hebrew or rather in Chaldee. Let us examine the reason upon which they lean. They rely first, upon the testimony of Origen, who says Ἔξω δὲ τούτων ἐστὶ τὰ Μακκαβαϊκὰ ἄπαρα ἔπιγέγραπται Σαρβηθ ΣαρBave &λ. Besides these, are the books of the Maccabees inscribed Sarbeth Sarbane el." From this Hebrew title they infer that the first book was composed in the Hebrew language. But on such a reason as this the opponents of a Greek original ought not to lay much stress; for if from this Hebrew inscription they conclude the first book to have been composed in Hebrew, for precisely the same reason should they conclude the second and third to have been written in the same language; and this the more, because Origen does not speak of a single book but of all the books of the Maccabees (τà Mazzaẞaïxá). Yet no one has been hardy enough to venture such an assertion as this, inasmuch as all agree in assigning a Greek original to these latter. If, then, our learned opponents would but be consistent, they must own they gain little by the testimony of Origen. But, secondly, they lean upon the authority of Jerome, who declares in his Prologus Galeatus, that he met with the first book of the Maccabees in Hebrew. But this of Jerome does not any more effectually aid their cause, for his assertion is not that the book was originally composed, but simply that 1) Origenes, Comm. in Psalm. 1, t. 2, p. 529, edit Paris. Beveridge was acquainted with.* The fourth book, although anonymous (avovvuos), and always considered apochryphal, Sixtus Senensis + declares he saw in Greek in the library of Sanc he found it, in Hebrew. Is there no difference between these two assertions? Consider, moreover, that before Jerome's time all the sacred books had been translated into nearly all the languages of the world-the Persian, Indian, Scythian, Thracian, Sarmatian, Moorish, Armenian, Roman, British, etc. -as Eusebius, Theodoret,2 and Anastasius Sinaita3 testify; much more, therefore, would those books, which were not originally in Hebrew, be clothed in a Jewish garb, as the one peculiarly sacred to religion. We may, then, from these considerations, conclude that Jerome fell in with a translation of the Greek original made by some Jew. The same is indeed apparent from the very expression he employs: "The first book of the Maccabees I found in Hebrew." Thirdly, they rely upon the circumstance that the Latin version and the Greek text (which they also call a version) are disfigured with Hebraisms, whence they smack, say they, of a Hebrew original. But are not the Evangel, the Epistolary writings and the Apocalypse of John covered with Hebraisms? Is not this characteristic of the writings of Peter and Paul and James? Yet who would now-a-days deny that these were first written in Greek? Granted, however, for argument's sake, that the first book of the Maccabees was written in Hebrew by its author, and that this was the text Jerome read-where, we ask, is now that Hebrew text? It is no longer extant, they tell us; the Hebrew original has perished, and the Greek version alone remains. Now is it credible, we rejoin, that those who have gone before us, the Church, the Councils, and the Fathers, would more carefully preserve the Greek translation than the Hebrew text itself? "Credat id Judæus apella non ego." Not one of the Jewish doctors, however large may be their faith, could be persuaded of this. Since, then, there is no sound reason nor trustworthy authority for believing that this book was written in Hebrew, we are led to the conclusion that it * Beveregius apud Cotelerium, cap. 9, § 2, tom. 3, p. 111. Sixtus Senen. in Biblioth. 5, lib. 1, t. 1, p. 51. 1) Eusebius de Laud. Constant, p. 772, t. 1, ex ed. Can. |