and I do not know but that a critical sagacity must be our best guide in publishing a Greek Testament at last, since Dr. Bentley's plan (as I am told it was) of adhering to the Alexandrian MS. is found to be defective.

Besides a correctness of text, some there are who expect an elegance of diction in the New Testament. Dr. Middleton, in particular, alleges the uncouthness of it as a proof that it could not be inspired; for he, with some others, imagines that inspiration has extended not to the matter only, but to the words, or might be expected to do so.

It is enough to answer, with the late Archbishop Secker*, "that the "authors of the New Testament, had they been masters of the most elegant Greek, would have acted wisely in preferring to it that vulgar kind "which the persons to whom they wrote ordinarily used, and understood "better." Inspiration did not hinder that familiar style which might be expected from them without it. The very ingenious writer of the Letter to Dr. Leland, p. 21, observes, "When the Greek language was first in"fused it would no doubt be full of their native phrases, or rather it "would be wholly and entirely adapted to the Hebrew and Syriac idioms. "This would render their expression somewhat dark to their Grecian "hearers; but it would be intelligible enough to those to whom they principally addressed themselves, the Hellenistic Jews; who, though they "understood Greek best, were generally no strangers to the Hebrew idiom. "Nothing hinders 'but they might, in the ordinary way, improve them"selves in the Greek tongue, and superadd to their inspired knowledge "whatever they could acquire besides, by their conversation with the na❝tive Greeks, and the study of their language.-All this is very supposable, "because their turning to the Gentiles was not till near TEN years after "the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles; and the date of their "earliest writings, penned for the edification of the Church, was not till "TWENTY after that period. In all which time they had full leisure," &c. Inspiration then facilitated their acquiring it more perfectly by natural

means.

I would observe, farther, that much the greatest part of the New Testament was written by persons who were not Apostles, and consequently not inspired with the gift of tongues, as far as we know, at the day of Pentecost.

* Sermons, vol. VI. p. 77.

Matthew,

Matthew, who was an Apostle, and we suppose present at that day, wrote his Gospel, as it is generally said, in Hebrew, which was afterwards translated into Greek, for the use of the Christians*.

Mark was not an Apostle, and therefore probably absent. He might acquire Greek by being a companion of St. Paul in his travels. Grotius says of him plus cæteris pate.

Luke was born at Antioch, the metropolis of Syria, at a time when Greek was spoken there more than Syriac. The successors of Alexander, who were possessed of Syria, kept their court in this city; and, if they did not efface the original language of the country, introduced at least a new one, the remains of which are preserved there to this day. Their religious and civil polity here seem to have been carried on in Greek: both which appear on their coins inscribed always with Greek legends in honour of Grecian Gods, as ΖΕΥΣ ΦΙΛΙΟΣ. ΖΕΥΣ ΚΑΣΙΟΣ. ΠΡΟΣ ΔΑΦΝΗΝ, the name of an adjoining village, where a temple was erected to Apollo. Here the Disciples, who were dispersed by the persecution which arose after the death of Stephen, having preached to the Jews only before, addressed themselves to the Greeks §, and in consequence of it were first called Christians, a word of Grecian not of Syriac extraction. Had it been a translation of the latter, the sacred Historian would have said Meoσeiu or Μεσσιανοί, ὅ ἐστι Χριστιανοί, as John i. 42, Μεσσίαν, ὅ ἐστι μεθερμηνευόμενον, Xplos. This the Syriac interpreter was well aware of, who justly preserves the nominal term in Syriac letters, though for Christ he elsewhere writes Messias, or wholly omits it, as for a very obvious reason in the place just cited. Luke therefore had no occasion for inspiration to learn Greek; who, by the way, has as many peculiarities of style as any of the rest.

St. John, writing his Gospel the last of them all, had opportunity to make himself master of Greek by that time; and it is one proof of his writing the Revelation before his Gospel, because the language in the former is more incorrect than in the latter. "Thence it may be gathered,” says Sir Isaac Newton ||, "that it was written when John was newly come "out of Judea, where he had used to speak the Syriac tongue, and that "he did not write his Gospel till by a long converse with the Asiatic Greeks

* See Michaelis, sect. lxxxix. + See Sandys's Travels, under Greeky. Noris de Epochis Syromacedonum, passim. Cum OMNES nummi qui hanc [urbem] spectant, Græcis sunt scripti characteribus. Harduin. Num. Pop. et Urb. || Observations on Prophecies, p. 238.

§ Acts vi. 19, 20.

"he

"he had left off most of the Hebraisms." Bengelius* instances in several appositions of different cases hardly to be found in any other writer whatever, as c. i. 5, “ἀπὸ Ἰησᾶ ὁ μάριος ὁ πιστός. ii. 20, τὴν γυναῖκα ἡ σε λέξασα. iii. 12, τῆς καινῆς Ἱερεσαλὴμ ἡ καλαθαίνεσα. viii. 9, τὸ τρίτον “ τῶν κλισμάτων τὰ ἔχοντα ψυχάς. ix. 4, τῷ ἀγέλῳ ὁ ἔχων τὴν σάλπιγγα. « χίχ. 12, τῶν ἁγίων οἱ τηρῶνες. xviii. 11, seq. τὸν γόμον αὐτῶν ἐδεὶς ἀγοράζει εκέτι, γόμος χρυσό. xx. 2, τὸν δράκοντα ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος. xxi. 10, ó ó “ 12, τὴν πόλιν ἔχεσα. And nearly the same xiv. 9, τῷ θηρίῳ καὶ τὴν εἰ“ κόνα αὐτῷ. xvii. 4, βδελυμάτων καὶ τὰ ἀκάθαρα; and iv. 4, vii. 9, xiii. "7. In summâ, Hebraismus toto regnat libro."

Fourteen Epistles to particular Churches were written by St. Paul, born at Tarsus, of the same country with the Poet Aratus, whom he cites.

The three remaining, Peter, James, and Jude, might owe their ability of writing Greek more to their own Industry than to Inspiration, if we consider the partial effects of the latter, and the fair opportunity given for the exertion of the former. Grotius on 1 Thess. v. 19, observes that the gift of tongues in general was temporary, and that the power was dormant except when it was occasionally exerted: "Spiritus sunt dona sanationum "et linguarum, quæ sicut in ignis forma data erant, ita igni rectè comparantur, ac proinde recte dicuntur suscitari, 2 Tim. i. 6, studio pietatis. "Illa dona non vult dare, aut servare, nisi credentibus et piè viventibus. "Vid. Matt. xvi. 17." The opportunities they had of learning Greek, which was no ways obstructed by Inspiration, I now proceed to shew.

From the conquest of Alexander, as Salmasius observes, one common Greek was spread over Syria, Egypt, and all Asia: which I the rather mention because Mr. Dodwell charges him with overlooking this circumstance. The Jews, wherever they were born, retained their native language with the Hebrew; and Greek was used in the Synagogues at Jerusalem, which rendered it in some measure familiar to them. It was the fashionable language of the time over great part of the world. It was * Appar. Crit. sect. i. 5, p. 778.

† Alexandri posteri et successores reges in Ægypto et Syria eam linguam adeò fundârunt, ut præ patrio Syrorum et Ægyptiorum sermone Græcus prævaluerit.-Sic per totam Asiam et Græciam Kown evasit, quæ antea peculiaris erat unius populi dialectus. Salmas. de Lingua Hellenistica, p. 442.-Non est dubium quin ætate Apostolorum plures Hierosolymis vixerint veri et germani Judæi, id est, Hebræi, qui etiam linguam Græcam apprimè calluerint, pp. 193 and 442.-This Mr. Dodwell overlooked, when he says, Lingua Macedonum. Græca, etiam Romanis imperantibus, in oriente obtinuerit. Mirum hæc in rixis suis non vidisse Salmasium, p. 13, tamen illum tunc magis movebat studium opprimendi Heinsii, quam studium veritatis. Diss. in Iren. p. 437.

well'

well known (says Grotius on Matt. xxvii. 37) to the people of PALESTINE, and the neighbouring nations; and Harduin, "Græcus sermo fuit Galilæis "familiaris à temporibus regum Græcorum*." Public edicts were fixed up at Tyre and Sidon in Greek and Latin, and even at the temple of Jerusalem, prohibiting strangers from entering beyond the outer court. The woman of Canaan, on the coast of Tyre, to whom Christ went, Matt. xv. 22, is said by Mark vii. 26, to be a Grecian, and Syrophoenician by nation, in the neighbourhood of Judea. And, I speak it with diffidence, a prosecution against our Saviour could not well be carried on by the chief Priests before the Roman Governor without using Greek. The inscription on the cross was in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, to notify the crime alleged, to the multitudes of people who came to the Passover.

From such considerations as these, Rualdus, in his Life of Plutarch, c. xiv, tells us, that some of the learned in his days concluded, that the Apostles were able to write it without inspiration. But, having given several instances of the Provinces' attachment to the Greek language in opposition to the attempts of the Romans to establish the Latin, he dubiously inclines to the common opinion concerning the inspired writers, for the reason commonly given, their low condition. But, allowing the Greek language to be understood by the better sort, where shall we draw the line to exclude the writers of the N. T. (poor as they were) from acquiring it? The Hellenists were continually bringing it in among them: for whether, with D. Heinsius, they were Jews Græcising in their own language, and using the Greek version of the LXX; or whether, with Salmasius, they were Jewish Proselytes born of Grecian parents, Greek, it is allowed, they retained; the dispute between these great men being, as F. Simon observes, only about whose property the shadow of the ass should be§. When St. Paul harangued the mixt multitudes at JERUSALEM, Act. xxi. 2, it is said they kept the more silence, because he spake in the Hebrew (i. e. the Syriac) tongue. It was indifferent to him in which language he should speak: and many, there, were ready to hear him in either; but were better pleased that he honoured the popular dialect of the country. Thus much may be allowed, without going into the extravagances of Isaac Vossius, who, in

* Harduin. Chron. V. T. p. 608, et Grot. adnot. in Matth. et Mill. Prol. 377.

↑ Jos. Ant. xiv. 10, 2, 13, 5, xv. 11, 6.

The other interpretations of this word see in Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. 1. iv. c. v. p. 226. § Castigat. ad Opusc. Is. Vossii, p. 161.

defence

defence of the inspiration of the LXX, would turn the tables upon us, maintaining that Greek was the patriot tongue of Jerusalem; and that Syriac was spoken by none but poor ignorant people in the country villages; in which he has been candidly confuted by Dr. Wotton *.

I

I would observe further, To suppose the Writers of the N. T. acquired the language by their own application, accounts very naturally for their writing it in the style of the neighbouring countries, and the time in which they lived. The Inscription of Ptolemy Euergetes, found at Adule, preserved by Cosmas in his Indicopleustes, and printed by the late Mr. Chishull, abounds with expressions peculiar almost to the LXX and the N.T. as the learned Editor has observed: such as èñoñéμnoa xwpas, šovm &c. debellavi regiones, &c. with an accusative, as Isai. xxxvi. 10, xxix. 1. He instances further in εὐχαριστάμην, εὐχαριστίαν ἔχειν τῇ ἐμῇ γῇ; which I can inform the Reader he retracts in a MS note in the margin, from having found the same expressions in more approved authors. I will beg leave therefore to give the Reader another instance from p. 81, of avalonñs, which occurs in Matt. ii. 2, quod in singulari apud idoneos Græcos vix invenies, says Beza; and yet we find it in the same Inscription, and in Philo de Monarch. vol. II. p. 223, ed. Lond. I will add Barns, scarce to be found any where but in the same writers, Philo De Agricultura, vol. I. p. 314, and Matt. xi. 12. Matthew, or his translator, seems to have been led into the use of the words, not from the rudiments of the tongue inspired, but by an acquisition of it from familiar use and conversation; and has fallen into some errors, which discover themselves by their small variation from the Syriac, as is seen in ch. x. 10; and y 'Ieda, ch. ii. 6, where the Greek construction is wrongt. Eù eiras, Matthew xxvi. 25, 64, is put for 1 rectè dixisti, after the Hebrew manner. But as φημ y is used to signify assent, omnino vere, in Aristoph. Plut. I. II. p. 8, in

* Miscellaneous Dissertations relating to the Misna, Preface, p. ix. et seqq.

My late learned friend Mr. Maittaire takes great pains, and goes out of his way too, to reduce a passage here to the rules of construction, Mon. Adul. p. 81. Ai nv "xw Tov μégiolov toy po "Any suxagiolíav, quamobrem gratias habeo maximas Deo Marti. But how can that be fetched out of the Greek? He therefore proposes it should be translated: Propter quod beneficium habeo, sive agnosco, Martem maximum Deum, i. e, di'ny ev xaprotian Exw tòv μégiolov tóvμ"Agny. Index in Marm. Oxon. voce Syntaxis inconcinna. No doubt it should be read [wpos] rèv μégiotortov μs "Agny, the preposition having been, as is common, omitted at the beginning of the line in the press; and I should ask pardon of this Gentleman (scirent si agnoscere manes) for having been accessary to creating him this unnecessary trouble. ‡ Introductory Lectures, sect. lxxxix. p. 222, and sect. vi. P. 12.