tivity, had greatly fallen into disuse, or, at least, been much corrupted, but a mixture of the ancient Hebrew, the Chaldee, and the Syriac. It was composed chiefly of the two last, and hence has been denominated Syro-Chaldaic. Chaldee was the prevailing dialect in Jerusalem and Judea, and Syriac in Galilee. The difference between the dialects consisted, not so much in words, as in the manner of pronouncing them'. The Galileans frequently gave a sense to expressions, by their inaccurate and confused mode of speech, totally unlike the meaning which the same expressions conveyed from the lips of natives of Judea.

It was immediately perceptible, when Peter replied to the charge of belonging to Jesus, that he had been brought up in the province of Galilee.

"These two dialects differ so little from each other, that, with the exception of the Nun of the third person future, Syriac, when written with Chaldee letters, and without points, becomes itself Chaldee." Bishop Marsh. Origin of the Three first Gospels.

2 See a collection of instances, which show how the Galileans differed from the inhabitants of Jerusalem in their mode of pronunciation, in Lightfoot's Chorograph. Cent. c. 87. Or see Buxtorf. Lexicon Talmud. and Wetstein, Matt. xxvi. 73. Buxtorf says: Galilæorum lingua crassa fuit, barbara, impolita et rudis, literas distinctas confundens, voces diversas inconcinne jungens, vocibus. peculiaribus in Judæa inusitatis utens, sicque dialecto ab Hierosolymitanis discrepabat, ut non mirum fuerit Petrum fuisse sermone suo proditum ut pro Galilæo agnitum.

"They, that stood by, said: Surely thou art one of them, for thou art a Galilean, and thy speech agreeth thereto 1.” The disciple would have denied his country, as he denied his Master; but it was impossible. His speech bewrayed him. It was marked by a provincial peculiarity, which he was quite unable to disguise3. It was so obviously unlike the manner of speaking of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that the difference was instantly noticed even by the most common class of observers.

Yet this man of Galilee, whose native rustic dialect was that alone in which he could express himself before the crucifixion, was a ready and powerful speaker, on the day of the succeeding Pentecost, in the languages of foreign nations.

Could the presence of God with the Apostle have been more plainly manifested? Could it have been

1

Η λαλιά σου ὁμοιάζει-Thy manner of speech is like to that of the Galileans. Mark xiv. 70. Ἡ λαλιά σου δῆλόν σε ποιεῖ— Thy manner of speech, or dialect (Vulg. loquela) "bewrayeth thee." Matt. xxvi. 73. The old Saxon word bewray, now almost out of use, is one of common occurrence in Spenser, Sidney, and our early writers.

2 Sermo prodidit. Liv. lib. xxiii. 34.

3 In like manner, the Ephraimites could not pronounce the word Shibboleth. They called it Sibboleth, according to the pronunciation of their tribe. Judges xii. 6. We know that the natives of particular parts of our own, and other countries, have an accent and idiom, which denote the districts in which they were brought up, after the longest residence in other places.

made more evident, that it was not Peter, who spake, but "the Spirit of the Father, which spake in him '?"

Is it to be collected from the History, that one of the powers of expression, with which Peter was gifted on this day of Pentecost, was a correctness of utterance in the very dialect, in which he had shown his want of skill at the time of the examination of Jesus? There are passages in his recorded speech, after the multitude came together, which have a particular application to the natives of Judea and Jerusalem 2. He began by adverting to the reproach of intoxication brought against himself and his brethren, which most probably came from native Jews, to whom the foreign languages, in which the Apostles had been speaking, were unintelligible; and he appealed, in the course of his address, to men, who knew what miracles and wonders Jesus had performed in the midst of them, and who, notwithstanding, with wicked hands, had crucified and slain Him. If he addressed this class of auditors in language free from Galilean barbarisms, he was master of a talent, which we have proof that he did not possess when, a few weeks before, he was interrogated in the hall of judgment. That such was the case, the History seems to

1 Matt. x. 20.

* He begins "Ανδρες Ἰουδαῖοι. The following words—καὶ οἱ κατοικοῦντες Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἅπαντες—are, probably, descriptive of the strangers, who came up to the feast.

intimate, for the dwellers in Judea are distinctly mentioned as joining in the question expressive of amazement: "Are not all these, which speak, Galileans?" Why should the people of Judea have united in this exclamation, and said, with the men from other countries, "How hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born," and, "we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God," unless the Galileans had suddenly lost their native peculiarity of speech?

Some writers have suspected that Judea, in ver. 9, is not the original reading, thinking that the inhabitants of Judea could scarcely have esteemed it miraculous that the Apostles should express themselves in their language; but if Peter and his Galilean associates were able to correct instantaneously a corrupt dialect, fixed and confirmed from childhood, and to discourse almost in another tongue, by assimilating their pronunciation to the usage of Jerusalem, the men of Judea might properly have raised their voices, with the concourse from foreign countries, in admiration of the new and marvellous attainment of the preachers of the faith of Christ.

CHAPTER VII.

ST. PETER'S DETECTION OF THE SIN OF ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA, AND THE SIGNAL JUDGMENT WHICH FELL UPON THOSE PERSONS AFTER HIS EXPOSURE OF THEIR FRAUDULENT DESIGN, ARE EVIDENCES THAT HE ACTED UNDER DIVINE GUIDANCE.

"A CERTAIN MAN, named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the Apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled' thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias, hear

1 ÉTλNOWσEV TÙY кapdíav σov-excited, or emboldened, thine heart. IIλnpów has here a signification corresponding with the Hebrew of Esth. vii. 5. Eccles. viii. 11.