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AN EXAMINATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HYPOTHESIS 
 ADVANCED IN A RECENT PUBLICATION, 
 
 ENTITLED 
 
 " PALiEOROMAICA." 
 
 MAINTAINING, IN OPPOSITION THERETO, 
 
 THAT 
 
 THE TEXT OF THE ELZEVIR GREEK TESTAMENT IS 
 NOT A TRANSLATION FROM THE LATIN : 
 
 AND 
 
 VINDICATING THE ORIGINALITY OF THAT TEXT WHICH IS PRESERVED IN THE 
 
 GREEK MANUSCRIPTS OF THE APOSTOLICAL WRITINGS, AND IN 
 
 THE WORKS OF THE GREEK FATHERS COLLECTIVELY. 
 
 WITH OBSERVATIONS, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE OF MANY WORDS, IN LESS FREQUENT USE, 
 
 EMPLOYED BY THE APOSTLES, 
 
 AS WELL AS OF THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF THEIR STYLE. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. WILLIAM GRANT BROUGHTON, M.A. 
 
 CURATE OF HARTLEY WESFALL, IN HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED FOR C. AND J. RIVINGTON, 
 
 st. paul's church-yard, 
 and waterloo-place, pall-mall. 
 
 1823. 
 

TO 
 
 THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 SIR GEORGE PRETYMAN TOMLINE, Bart. 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, 
 
 AND 
 PRELATE OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 To desire that the sanction of your name 
 should be bestowed upon any work not de- 
 voted to the service of religion, would in me 
 be a mark of great and unbecoming pre- 
 sumption. But the distance between the 
 highest and the lowest stations in the Church, 
 is diminished by the consideration, that the 
 occupiers of them are labourers together in 
 the service of one common Master ; under 
 the same engagements to contend with ear- 
 
VI 
 
 nestneas against all opinions, which, by di- 
 minishing their veneration for the written 
 Word of God, may injuriously affect the 
 eternal interests of mankind. In this view 
 of the nature and duties of our sacred func- 
 tion, I trust that a work, professedly di- 
 rected against an attempt which has been 
 made to detract from the authority of the 
 New Testament, may without impropriety 
 be offered to the notice of a Prelate, whose 
 theological labours have so materially con- 
 tributed to establish the Inspiration of the 
 Scriptures, and to furnish a correct represen- 
 tation of their doctrines. 
 
 It is not, I am sure, in the spirit of any 
 order of the Clergy, in the present day, to 
 desire that any restraint should be imposed 
 on a fair discussion of the claims of Chris- 
 tianity to acceptance and belief ; or on the 
 most strict and critical examination of its 
 historical records. But it is evident that, in 
 proportion to the extension of this licence, 
 
Vll 
 
 our vigilance must be exerted to preserve 
 the unwary from the contagion of scepticism. 
 Our attention must be especially directed 
 against those who sow their seed while men 
 are, as it were, asleep : and who are thus 
 enabled not unfrequently to effect their pur- 
 posed mischief before any alarm of danger is 
 excited. From solid argument and legiti- 
 mate reasoning the Christian religion has 
 nothing to fear ; but there is a species of 
 sophistry which seeks indirectly to attain its 
 end : not by avow r edly attacking the belief 
 of any man, but by covertly instilling prin- 
 ciples in connection with which a firm faith 
 cannot long subsist; principles which, though 
 they have apparently no immediate bearing 
 upon the truth or falsehood of religion, yet 
 generate a sceptical habit of thinking, and 
 thus undermine impressions which would 
 have stood firm against every open and di- 
 rect assault. Against these I have written ; 
 conceiving that to detect and expose such 
 
Vlll 
 
 fallacies, as often as they present themselves, is 
 a duty which every Clergyman owes to his own 
 station, and to the welfare of that community 
 which he is specially ordained to admonish 
 and instruct. 
 
 I have the honour to remain, 
 My Lord, 
 Your Lordship's most obedient 
 
 And very humble Servant, 
 
 W. G. BROUGHTON. 
 
 Hartley Wespaix, 
 October 22, IS23. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Before the attention of the reader is directed 
 to the following pages, I am anxious to explain 
 to him that the reasonings which they contain 
 are founded on no such assumption, as that the 
 writings of the Apostles are above all scrutiny, 
 and that every opinion which appears to intrench 
 upon their authority must therefore a priori be 
 necessarily false. That it may be proved to be 
 so I have not the smallest doubt ; and therefore 
 feel less hesitation in admitting that these wri- 
 tings may be subjected to every scrutiny, with 
 respect to their origin and internal structure, 
 which can be reasonably instituted concerning 
 any other compositions not professing to be of 
 divine authority. This only I venture to claim 
 on their behalf; that every discussion respecting 
 
X 
 
 them shall be conducted temperately, and with 
 the reverence which is due to the subject where- 
 of they treat. 
 
 In what language the Books of the New Tes- 
 tament were originally composed, is therefore 
 admitted to be a fair object of critical examina- 
 tion ; and if the author of Paleeoromaica had 
 been contented to give an impartial statement of 
 the prevailing opinion, and of the grounds on 
 which it rests, with a candid recital of the 
 objections to which he conceives it liable, the 
 enquiry, thus excited, might have been con- 
 ducted and terminated without any injury to 
 the cause of religion. 
 
 But his scheme of argumentation, instead of 
 confining itself to this single and definite object, 
 branches forth into two great divisions. In the 
 first of these he states, and endeavours to con- 
 fute, an argument which is represented by him 
 as being very generally adduced to prove that 
 the Apostles would probably write in Greek. 
 But, in reality, the prevalence of the Greek 
 
XI 
 
 language in the Apostolic age (for that is the 
 argument of which I speak) has never been as- 
 serted, by accurate reasoners, to prove that the 
 Apostles probably would write in Greek, but to 
 shew that, in the condition of the world and in 
 the circumstances of its inhabitants at the time, 
 there is nothing to invalidate the evidence which 
 we possess, that they actually did employ that 
 language in their writings. It is a question of 
 fact, not of inference; and it is, therefore, to be 
 the more lamented that the author of Palseoro- 
 maica has omitted to give any statement of the 
 grounds on which the generally-received opinion 
 rests : thus leaving it to be inferred, by all who 
 cannot examine such questions for themselves, 
 that they have been hitherto deceived by the 
 persons, to whom, upon such subjects, they look 
 for instruction, and that no valid evidence can 
 be offered in support of an opinion which they 
 have adopted on the authority of those who are 
 regarded as the best and properest judges in 
 enquiries of this nature. In the second division 
 of the work is introduced the celebrated Hypo- 
 thesis, that a Latin text, now no longer existing, 
 was the basis of that Greek text which has gene- 
 
 3 
 
Xll 
 
 rally borne the character of being the original of 
 the Apostolic writings. 
 
 These propositions, although it be scarcely 
 possible, in treating of them, to preserve them 
 entirely distinct, are yet, it is evident, not mu- 
 tually dependent. If the received opinion, as to 
 the originality of the Vulgate Greek text, be 
 well-founded, the Palseoromaican hypothesis, 
 which denies that originality, must be false ; but 
 it does not conversely follow that, if the last 
 mentioned theory be disproved, the justice of the 
 prevailing opinion will thereupon be necessarily 
 established. The two Propositions, above re- 
 ferred to, are therefore not mutually dependent ; 
 nor, as I conceive, are they equally important. 
 With respect to the main hypothesis of Palseo- 
 romaica and the suppositions upon which it is 
 founded, there is little difficulty in shewing that 
 
 " — these are false, or little else but dreams, 
 Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm ;" 
 
 and, if the hypothesis had been the whole of the 
 question, it might have been safely left to work 
 
Xlll 
 
 its own confutation. But there is another, and 
 more important, branch of the argument ; that 
 in which no effort is omitted to prove that we 
 have insufficient grounds for thinking that the 
 original writings of the Apostles still survive, 
 and have been preserved in the Greek New 
 Testament. Upon this behalf I must observe 
 that the writer who is the subject of this " Exa- 
 mination," appears to belong to a class of writers 
 whose object is to produce doubt rather than 
 conviction ; not to fix, but to unsettle, opinions, 
 by insinuating that the most general and the 
 longest established persuasions of men may be 
 false, rather than by shewing that their own are 
 true. This purpose they strive to effect by 
 assuming an air of superior candour ; by starting 
 doubts which they make no effort to satisfy ; by 
 affectedly suspending their opinion, even upon 
 points where their own reasonings, if so forcible 
 as they profess to think them, ought to have 
 produced a settled conviction ; and by seeking 
 covertly to instil a belief that all who oppose 
 their views have some interested motive for re- 
 pressing enquiry, and for discountenancing the 
 pursuit and discovery of truth. The work 
 
XIV 
 
 Palseoromaica itself is one of the most artful of 
 its class ; nor do I remember to have met with 
 any in which more real dogmatism is concealed 
 under the mask of so much apparent diffidence. Its 
 necessary tendency, if it be not its concealed pur- 
 pose, is to excite an apprehension that, since so 
 much may be said against an opinion, esteemed 
 to be almost self-evident, there can be no per- 
 suasion whatever founded in certainty ; none in 
 support of which, if it be vigorously attacked, 
 convincing evidence can be adduced. Thus, it 
 is plain, a way is opened for the admission of 
 universal doubt ; and it requires no sagacity to 
 foresee that a mind, which can be led to think 
 that the originality of the Greek text may justly 
 be called in question, is trained and equipped 
 for the highest flights in the regions of scepticism. 
 For this reason I have been less anxious to shew 
 that the Paleeoromaican hypothesis is false, than 
 to prove that the common opinion is correct ; 
 and to make it appear that this new theory fails, 
 not so much from want of skill in the proposer, 
 as from the certainty with which the Greek ori- 
 ginal of the New Testament may be deduced 
 from historical evidence. And, lest any who 
 
XV 
 
 hold this persuasion should yet be distracted by 
 an undefined apprehension that it may not be 
 true, I have endeavoured to give a clear and 
 popular view of the positive arguments on which 
 it is founded, and a reasonable solution of the 
 objections to which it has lately been considered 
 liable. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page line 
 
 114, 21, dele , 
 
 115, 18, for Apostle's read Evangelist's 
 163, 28, for xpeGeug read xprjcrewg 
 
 178, 6, after pallium place , 
 
 179, 4, for ,n?ep3 read mB33 
 
 204, 28, /or Pbilomis Legat. ad Caium read G. D. Kypke 
 
 Observ. Sac. in N. F. Libb. 
 208, 7, for caenis read ccenis 
 
 236, 9, 10, dele " after points and insert after advantages 
 290, 24, for au read an 
 
 29, for Apostolica read Apostolico 
 
AN 
 
 EXAMINATION, 
 
 The hypothesis of which it is" proposed, in the 
 following pages, to undertake the examination, 
 is so extraordinary in its nature, and, if it be well 
 founded, so immediately affects the character of 
 those writings which compose the New Testa- 
 ment, that no apology can be necessary for an 
 attempt to ascertain the degree of credit to which 
 it is entitled. " There is a toy," says Lord Ba- 
 con, " which I have heard, and I would not have 
 it given over, but waited upon a little. They say 
 it is observed in the Low Countries (I know not 
 in what part), that every five and thirty years the 
 same kind and suit of years and weathers comes 
 about again; as great frosts, great wet, great 
 droughts, warm winters, summers with little heat 
 and the like ; and they call it The Prime \" The 
 instance of Palaeoromaica would almost seem to 
 countenance a belief, that there is a Prime in 
 
 * '• Essay on the Vicissitude of Things." 
 
 B 
 
opinions as well as in the seasons ; that is, a per- 
 petual renovation and disappearance of the same, 
 at stated intervals, in a certain regular cycle. After 
 having, as was imagined, seen finally disposed of 
 and laid at rest for ever the visionary conjecture 
 of Hardouin, that the Romish Vulgate is the ori- 
 ginal writing of the Apostles, and the Greek Text 
 of the New Testament a mere translation from it, 
 it is somewhat startling to find it rising up again 
 attended by this additional paradox : that, al- 
 though the Received Greek Text be nothing more 
 than a translation from the Latin, it is a trans- 
 lation from a text which is not preserved in 
 the Vulgate, nor in any existing copy of the 
 New Testament. The mere statement of this 
 opinion may suffice to shew that, even if its 
 establishment would excite no uneasiness as to 
 the evidences of Christianity, it must at least 
 render necessary a complete change in the man- 
 ner in which those evidences are now stated, upon 
 the supposition that the writings which collec- 
 tively form the New Testament are the actual 
 productions of the Apostles. For this reason, 
 and because the author's hypothesis is advanced 
 with the appearance, at least, of learning and 
 candour, his statements require and deserve exa- 
 mination ; and, I think it may be added that, as 
 far as his leading and peculiar opinions extend, • 
 they admit of a very satisfactory reply. 
 
 His work is evidently the fruit of lengthened 
 
 
3 
 
 labour and meditation ; the attention of his mind 
 to the establishment of his hypothesis has never 
 been relaxed ; and, whatever may have been his 
 line of reading, he has found, or fancied he has 
 found, something directly or remotely bearing on 
 the subject of his meditations. Of himself he 
 affirms that, " He has collected facts with un- 
 wearied industry; stated them with as much 
 fairness as he can ; and exerted his best powers 
 in judging of them," (p. viii.) It is unnecessary 
 for me to observe ^that, whatever may be the in- 
 dustry of a collector thus circumstanced, and 
 however clear may be his natural powers of dis- 
 cernment, those powers are most liable to perver- 
 sion when directed to the promotion of a long- 
 cherished and favourite hypothesis. The judg- 
 ment has no longer fair play ; the very extent and 
 variety of the illustrations by which the hypo- 
 thesis is surrounded, may hide, from the framer 
 of it, its inherent and radical weakness ; and a 
 jar inferior degree of scholarship may enable 
 another to point out those defects in the offspring 
 which to the parent are imperceptible. At any 
 rate, the author of Paleeoromaica professes him- 
 self so warm a friend to free and universal en- 
 quiry, that to him no apology is necessary for 
 entering, with whatever qualifications, upon the 
 examination of his statements. 
 
 I cannot but think that he is requiring more 
 than will be conceded to him, when he expresses 
 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 a desire that his work should be considered " phi- 
 lological rather than theological," (p. viii.) If 
 the word theological be used in the sense which it 
 ordinarily bears, when referred to the controver- 
 sies carried on between different sects of Chris- 
 tians, the work may possibly escape that charac- 
 ter which the author so greatly deprecates ; for 
 it can hardly be pretended that the establishment 
 of his hypothesis would give to any particular 
 system of theology an advantage over those which 
 differ from it b . But in reality^ their present re- 
 lative situation, whatever it may be, would be 
 secured to the various existing modes of belief, 
 not because none of them would be affected, but 
 because all would be equally affected : because 
 the blow is aimed not at any particular body, but 
 
 b I speak here only of the abstract hypothesis itself; but the 
 application of it to particular texts is sometimes made to favour 
 the views of those who deny the Divinity of our Blessed Lord ; 
 Thus, John iii. 4$. 6 wV lv ry epavy. u It appears to me that 
 ivTijt apavtpi in the above passage of our Elzevir text," (as if the 
 passage were found in no other text) " is a bad translation of 
 Cselestis," (p. 188.) And again, " I believe the import of this 
 passage (nvzevtrz eig rov Qeov, TTfrevere Kai eig e/*e) John xiv. 1, to be, 
 Trust or confide in God, trust also in me" (p. 263.) Here then 
 we find advantage taken of the hypothesis to explain away the 
 sense of two very important texts. What a presage do these 
 observations afford, of the purposes to which such a system may 
 be applied ! and of the uncertainty which the admission of one 
 false supposition may introduce into the entire Word of God. 
 
 En quantis unus portentis pullulaf; error ! 
 
at the system itself. The work is only not theo- 
 logical, because its tendency is to destroy the 
 very science of theology ; to make the question 
 henceforth not so much why men are Arians or 
 Arminians, Catholics or Protestants, as why they 
 are Christians. Philosophy, it is notorious, that 
 of nature as well as that of metaphysics, has fur- 
 nished arms to infidelity ; and is infidelity so fas- 
 tidious in the choice of its weapons that philology 
 may not do the same ? To me it cannot for a 
 moment be a matter of 4teubt, whether or no the 
 abettors of infidelity would think their cause ad- 
 vanced by the establishment of the hypothesis 
 proposed in this work ; let theology or philology 
 be the class under which it must be ranked. 
 May not some lurking apprehension of this na- 
 ture, in the mind of its author, be the reason why 
 the object of tbe work is not more immediately 
 and explicitly exhibited in its full extent ? It is 
 allowed to open upon us only by degrees ; and, 
 when we have finished the perusal, we find that 
 we have been carried much farther than the wri- 
 ter's original statement of his design gave us 
 reason to expect. Thus the title page proposes 
 as an object of enquiry, " whether the many new 
 words in the Elzevir Greek Testament are not 
 formed from the Latin ?" Herein there is appa- 
 rently nothing to alarm the most sensitive appre- 
 hension : most readers are prepared to admit 
 the postulate, here proposed in the form of a 
 
6 
 
 question, not only with respect to the Elzevir, 
 but with respect to every edition of the Greek 
 Testament which ever yet appeared. If it be 
 true concerning one edition, it will be true con- 
 cerning all : our only question will be, are there 
 more new words in the Elzevir than in any other ? 
 and, if not, why should the enquiry be thus limit- 
 ed to that edition ? This limitation may hereafter 
 appear not to have been without an objeGt : but 
 to proceed. 
 
 The next enquiry idAated to be, " whether 
 the hypothesis ^tj^fc^ne Greek text of many 
 MSS. is sr translation from the Latin, does not 
 seem to elucidate many passages, &c. ?" This 
 question has its limits somewhat extended at the 
 opening of the Preface, (p. iii.) where it is stated, 
 that " the main object of its author is humbly 
 to enquire of persons skilled in, the Greek lan- 
 guage, whether the Greek text of some MSS., 
 and printed copies of the New Testament, does 
 not bear very strong marks of being a translation 
 from the Latin?" The imputation is here ex- 
 tended from the single edition of the Elzevirs to 
 some MSS. and printed copies; but the charge, 
 being yet somewhat indefinite, is pointed with 
 more direct aim and extensive range, (p. ix.) 
 " Whatever was the primitive language in 
 which the books of the New Testament were 
 originally composed, and admitting that it was 
 Greek* it is shewn by numerous phenomena, that 
 
 2 
 
at least our Elzevir text or its basis, and indeed 
 that of several other copies of the Greek Testa- 
 ment in the author's possession, (none of them, 
 however, so old as our received English version) 
 bear strong marks of being a version from the 
 Latin. It is submitted, that it seems not im- 
 probable that a translated, or re-translated, text 
 may (as in St. Matthew's Gospel, and various 
 other remarkable instances which are exhibited,) 
 have supplanted the original." From this pas- 
 sage, then, we are enabled to collect the follow- 
 ing propositions as e&J^biting the hypothesis 
 which, by collation with existing phenomena, 
 the author desires to establish. The Greek text 
 of the Elzevir edition, and of some other copies 
 is not the original language of the apostles, but 
 is a version from the Latin. The Latin text, here 
 spoken of as forming the basis of our present 
 text, may not itself be the original, but may be 
 a translation, or re-translation, from some other 
 language. The original writings of the apostles, 
 in whatever language composed, exist no longer, 
 having been supplanted by the Greek version 
 which is now in our possession. In all the state- 
 ments here quoted there is an ostensible limita- 
 tion of the charge to the Elzevir edition ; or, 
 at the utmost, it extends to some other copies of 
 no very great antiquity. In all this I must con- 
 tend there is something like unfairness ; the ap- 
 pearance of a design to entrap the unwary into 
 
8 
 
 the admission of an hypothesis, without a full 
 perception of the consequences which it entails, 
 or necessarily involves. Of these consequences 
 a glimpse, but a very imperfect one, is afforded 
 in a note at p. 20 ; where, after a statement of 
 the author's reasons for fixing on the Elzevir 
 text, it is added, " of course, however, the ar- 
 guments apply to all other MSS. and editions 
 which concur with the Elzevir copies." Nothing 
 can be farther from my intention than to main- 
 tain, that the consequences to be deduced from 
 any opinion furnish a reason for its rejection, or 
 afford any criterion of its truth. This hypothe- 
 sis, like every other, must be judged indepen- 
 dently, by its own merits, and not by its conse- 
 quences. But at the same time those conse- 
 quences ought to be fully understood ; above 
 all, there should be no unfair or partial statement 
 of them. An author who professes to state " not 
 corollaries but problems," (p. viii.) should have 
 either confined himself to the establishment of 
 his proposition limited to the Elzevir text, leav- 
 ing others to make their own deductions, or 
 else have stated fully and fairly what his argu- 
 ment really embraced. If the charge were to be 
 at all extended beyond its original limits, we 
 ought to have been informed that it involved, by 
 implication, not only all other MSS. and copies 
 which agree with the Elzevir, but all other MSS. 
 and copies that are, or ever have been, known to 
 
the world. Let us refer to any edition whatever, 
 from the Complutensian down to the latest of 
 Griesbach, and will it be pretended that such a 
 disparity between the texts of any two of them 
 can be discovered as to warrant a conclusion, 
 that they were derived from sources essentially 
 distinct ? If the existence in the Elzevir text of 
 words " formed from the Latin," furnish " a 
 very strong mark of that text being derived from 
 the Latin," the existence of the same words in 
 every other edition must furnish an equally 
 strong proof, that they are all versions from the 
 Latin. Neither, it is manifest, can the imputa- 
 tion terminate with the printed copies ; it must 
 mount upward, and affect the sources, that is 
 the MSS. from which the editions are derived. 
 This indeed, it is admitted, must be the ultimate 
 effect, if it be not the immediate design, of this 
 novel hypothesis. " The author trusts," he says, 
 " that he will not be supposed to mean, that 
 the Greek text of the Elzevir edition, 1624, was 
 translated from the Latin by the editor of that 
 edition, or by any other person in the seven- 
 teenth century. Let the Elzevirs be supposed, 
 if the reader pleases, to have printed from a MS. 
 of the third century, this will not in the slightest 
 degree affect the conclusions in the subsequent 
 work," (p. ix.) Assume then, that the text of 
 this edition affords a perfect exemplar of this 
 supposed MS., that is of a MS. older by three 
 
10 
 
 centuries than any which we are now acquainted 
 with, and what will be the result of comparing 
 it with the text of any other edition, or with any 
 other MS. now extant ? Discrepancies we shall 
 meet with, unquestionably many in number ; but 
 estimate them collectively, and to what do they 
 amount ? Like the sum of an infinite series of 
 evanescent fractions, to little more than nothing. 
 Take then any two MSS., or any two editions of 
 the Greek Testament, lay them before any man 
 of competent understanding, and say to him, 
 one of these contains a version from a certain 
 original, the other is not a version. Upon the 
 slightest investigation he must pronounce this to 
 be impossible. The variations, though numerous, 
 are so unimportant, separately or collectively 
 considered, while the concordances are so pre- 
 valent and so striking, that you would never be 
 able to persuade the most cursory inquirer, that 
 the texts of these two MSS., or editions, were in 
 their origin completely different : the one a ver- 
 sion ; the other not a version. By way of con- 
 trast to this, let us refer to the author's favourite 
 instance of Simplicius ; an instance which he 
 continually adduces in confirmation of his opi- 
 nion with respect to the possible loss of the ori- 
 ginal apostolic writings. Here we have, in the 
 Aldine edition, a re-translation from the Latin 
 version of Moerbeka; while the Turin MS. con- 
 tains the original text of Simplicius himself. Do 
 
11 
 
 we then in this case discover a series of pheno- 
 mena analogous to those which any two copies 
 of the Greek Testament present ? On the con- 
 trary we learn, that Peyron " on collation found 
 that the Turin MS., and the Venetian edition, 
 though agreeing in sense, and often accompanying 
 each other literally for several words, had a dif- 
 ferent text'' (p. 80.) But, in the case of the 
 Greek MSS. of the New Testament, we find not 
 only a constant agreement in sense, but, incalcu- 
 lably oftener than not, an agreement in the very 
 words through entire verses and chapters. The 
 variations are in no instance greater than may 
 have arisen from the errors of transcribers, or the 
 attempts of critics to amend the Sacred Text, by 
 the introduction of their own conjectures and 
 supposed improvements. In fact, although dif- 
 ferent MSS. exhibit, critically speaking, different 
 recensions, yet is the text in all so similar, not 
 to say identical, as to prove that the same ori- 
 ginal character must belong to all ; that as one is 
 a version, or not a version from the Latin, so are 
 all the rest ; or, to speak with more correctness, 
 so is the Greek text of the New Testament itself 
 without any reference to particular editions, to 
 this or that recension, or to any class, of MSS. 
 whatever. 
 
 I am not, of course, to be understood as offer- 
 ing these remarks by way of proof that the Greek 
 Text of the New Testament, as possessed by us, 
 
12 
 
 is not a version from the Latin ; but in order to 
 shew what is the true and necessary extent of 
 the principle laid down in Palseoromaica ; and 
 that, if it can be established in the instance of 
 the Elzevir edition, or of any edition or MS. 
 whatever, the imputation must extend to all the 
 rest. We can then have no certainty that we 
 possess so much as a single word of the aposto- 
 lical writings ; on the other hand it will rather be 
 certainly established, that those writings have 
 been totally lost to the world during a period of 
 more than seventeen hundred years ! 
 
 To enter however upon a question which, if it 
 do not form the immediate subject of discussion, 
 is very closely connected with it, namely, the 
 original language of the Apostolical writings ; it 
 is unnecessary to dispute the correctness of this 
 author's opinion, that " Our Saviour preached 
 in a dialect of the Hebrew language," (p. 1.) It 
 is still more indisputable, that we possess no re- 
 cord of his discourses in that, their original, lan- 
 guage; to borrow an expression from Palaeoro- 
 maica " of Him who spake as never man spake, 
 not more than twelve words remain in the origi- 
 nal," (p. 62.) If upon this, however, it be in- 
 tended to raise a question whether or no we pos- 
 sess any authentic record of his ministry upon 
 earth, I must maintain that that question re- 
 solves itself into another ; Were the writers who 
 have left us an account of his words and actions 
 
13 
 
 inspired? and did that inspiration enable them 
 to compose a narrative which should represent 
 the exact substance of what he did and taught, 
 though in the words of another language ? So 
 long as we admit in the writers of the New Tes- 
 tament an inspiration of suggestion and superin- 
 tendance, sufficient to secure this fidelity of re- 
 presentation, and we have an assurance that the 
 writings which bear their names were the imme- 
 diate productions of the apostles themselves, we 
 have sufficient and satisfactory grounds for a 
 reasonable faith ; and our religious persuasions 
 will rest on a foundation not the less solid be- 
 cause the original expressions of our Lord have 
 not been preserved. The apostles themselves, 
 supposing us to possess their own words, form 
 an unobjectionable medium of communication 
 between our Lord and the Christian Church, be- 
 cause they were authorized and appointed by 
 him to record his sayings ; and because this de- 
 legation affords a sufficient assurance that all 
 which they delivered possessed the sanction of 
 God Himself, and may be received as necessarily 
 free from error. But, if these original and au- 
 thorized writings have perished, and we possess 
 nothing more than translations at first or second 
 hand, executed by men who were not thus sanc- 
 tioned and inspired, and who therefore did not 
 possess that immunity from error with which the 
 Apostles were invested, we can have no certainty 
 
14 
 
 that the Scripture in our possession is really 
 Scripture, or the genuine Word of God. I will 
 not positively affirm that there may not, even in 
 this case of the loss of the Apostolical originals, 
 be grounds for faith in Christ ; but the stedfast- 
 ness of our conviction must be diminished with 
 the diminished authority of the instrument on 
 which it rests : and it would be difficult, to say 
 the least, to reply satisfactorily to objections 
 which might be raised, if the Greek Text of the 
 New Testament were proved not to be the origi- 
 nal writing of the immediate followers of Christ. 
 Its claim however to such originality I cannot 
 admit to be in the slightest degree impugned by 
 an inference which is attempted to be drawn from 
 the dialect in which the discourses of our Lord 
 were delivered. " One should have supposed/' 
 it is maintained, (p. 1.) " that the most authen- 
 tic documents " (it should be the only authentic 
 documents) " concerning our Lord, would be 
 found in his own language and that of his Apos- 
 tles." But the probability, whatever it may 
 amount to, arising from this circumstance, is more 
 than counterbalanced by a probability of an op- 
 posite nature arising from the genius of the He- 
 brew language itself. That language is not formed 
 for wide diffusion ; it possesses none of those qua- 
 lities of fluency or precision which could recom- 
 mend it to foreign nations as a medium of general 
 intercourse ; and, except to those who reverence 
 
15 
 
 the Sacred Writings, it is, in point of literary at- 
 traction, inferior, perhaps, to any tongue that ever 
 was spoken. An erroneous view of this subject 
 appears to have been taken by many pious and 
 learned men ; who, conceiving it to be impossible 
 that the language of the Word of God should not 
 be free from defect, have been greatly pained by 
 the accusation of sterility which has been alleged 
 against the Hebrew ; and have undertaken, more 
 zealously than wisely, its defence against all such 
 imputations. The truth, however, may be, that 
 those very qualities, which are usually characte- 
 rized as the defects of the Hebrew, adapted it to 
 the purposes of Providence so long as it was de- 
 signed to confine the light of revelation to the 
 narrow limits of a single territory. But, when the 
 partition wall between Jew and Gentile was to 
 be broken down, the characteristic peculiarities 
 of that language would confine and retard, rather 
 than promote, the general circulation of documents 
 composed in Hebrew; and it is therefore not 
 reasonable to conclude that any dialect of that 
 language would be employed in the records of 
 the New Covenant. I write under a constant 
 sense of the justness of the remarks, made by the 
 author of Palaeoromaica, on the inutility, as well 
 as impropriety, of any attempt to determine, a 
 priori, what Providence would or would not do 
 in any particular case ; and I perfectly agree with 
 him in thinking that arguments from presumption 
 
16 
 
 probability carry very little weight. Yet, 
 since it is admitted that the Canonical writings 
 of the New Testament have been preserved to 
 the world in the Greek language only, when we 
 are called upon to prove the originality of these 
 existing Greek records, it is surely very perti- 
 nent to the point at issue to shew that there is 
 nothing in the character or circumstances of the 
 Greek language which can militate against the 
 supposition that it was employed by the Apos- 
 tles : but that from its general diffusion, it was at 
 least as well suited as any other for the compo- 
 sition of writings which were designed to be uni- 
 versally diffused and understood. The author of 
 Palaeoromaica evidently betrays his sense of the 
 reasonableness of this presumption by his anxiety 
 to shew c that the Greek language was not so 
 universally received and spoken in the age of the 
 Apostles, as is generally supposed. 
 
 The disquisition, in which he attempts to de- 
 monstrate this opinion, exhibits a considerable 
 extent of reading, although much of the reason- 
 ing is vague and inconclusive ; and most of the 
 critical inferences, as I hope to prove, cannot be 
 maintained. I must however offer one prelimi- 
 nary remark ; that the entire Disquisition might 
 have been spared, as it forms no integral part, 
 nor even a necessary adjunct of the author's hy- 
 
 * " Disquisition I" 
 
17 
 
 pothesis. The true enquiry, he often affirms, is, 
 or ought to be, not concerning the original lan- 
 guage of the Apostolical writings, but whether 
 the present Greek Vulgate be not a translation, 
 or re-translation, from the Latin. " Our argu- 
 ment," he says, " is not, or, at least, need not 
 be that the Apostles wrote originally in Greek, 
 Syriac, or Latin," (p. 209.) Wherefore, then, 
 since the consideration of the original language 
 is not necessary, are all these pains bestowed to 
 prove that it was not Greek ? The hypothesis 
 will still stand upon its own merits ; the confir- 
 mation, if any there be, derivable from internal 
 structure and peculiarities of style, will be just as 
 valid, upon the supposition that all the Canonical 
 books of the New Testament were (as is granted 
 concerning the Epistle to Philemon) originally 
 written in Greek ; and that our present Greek 
 text is a version of a Latin translation derived, 
 through an indefinite number of intermediate 
 versions, from the original Greek which no longer 
 exists. But, though the hypothesis might thus 
 hold together, the author of it has too much 
 acuteness not to be sensible that, in proportion as 
 it shall be rendered probable that the original 
 was Greek, his theory will be pressed by an in- 
 creasing weight of improbability. For to suppose 
 that a collection of Greek records should be com- 
 posed by inspired men only to disappear, and to 
 have its place occupied, not supplied, by a trans- 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 lation of a translation, also in Greek, and exe- 
 cuted by men not inspired, this would not only 
 seem to be unaccountable on the principles of 
 human action, but even to bespeak an inconsis- 
 tency in the operations of God, who does nothing 
 in vain. The theory maintained in this work 
 would, upon this supposition, have to encounter 
 an argument (insurmountable except by direct 
 and positive testimony to the fact) derived from 
 the extreme improbability of the supposition; and 
 therefore, although the establishment of some 
 other than a Greek original do not necessarily 
 form an integral part of this hypothesis, it is ne- 
 cessary as a buttress to a weak part. It will 
 therefore be desirable to examine more minutely 
 the arguments by which it is attempted to shew 
 that " the position of the universality of Greek 
 in the time of the Apostles is not so incontrovert- 
 ible as is usually supposed." 
 
 Entering upon an examination of the facts 
 stated by Mr. Falconer, in his Bampton Lectures, 
 as confirmatory of the position last mentioned, 
 the author of Palseoromaica says, " I cannot 
 help observing that if the gift of tongues were 
 permanent, as is generally supposed, it should 
 seem there was little occasion for such a gift ; 
 since no more than a knowledge of Greek would 
 have been necessary," (p. 4.) Not having any 
 farther acquaintance with Mr. Falconer's work 
 than that which is derived from the passages 
 
19 
 
 quoted in the work before nie, I cannot exactly 
 ascertain what limit he observes in his argument; 
 but I can hardly suppose that he applies the 
 term universal, to the diffusion of the Greek lan- 
 guage, in its most extensive or proper sense ; or 
 that he designs to affirm more than that, at this 
 period, a knowledge of Greek was very general in 
 most parts of the world. This latter opinion, 
 I think rests upon solid grounds ; but cannot 
 admit that it leads to any inference against the 
 necessity and utility of even a permanent gift of 
 tongues. That gift served not only as a medium 
 of communication between the Apostles and the 
 people of the countries which they visited in the 
 course of their ministry, but also as a mark of 
 their inspiration and authority. It afforded a 
 manifest assurance that God spake by them, 
 and was beyond almost all other signs calculated 
 to secure the attention of their hearers. Now 
 a knowledge of Greek alone would not have done 
 this ; not to mention that the fact of Greek 
 being very generally spoken is not inconsistent 
 with the opinion that there might be some coun- 
 tries which the Apostles visited, in which it would 
 not be understood. In every country indeed there 
 must have been many who comprehended no 
 other than their native language. The gift of 
 tongues therefore was necessary, in order that 
 the Apostles might be enabled to explain the 
 nature of their errand to every congregation in 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 every country (for which Greek alone, unless it 
 were literally universal, would not suffice) and, at 
 the same time, by the mere multiplicity of the 
 languages in which they conversed, it excited, 
 in all who heard them, attention to their declara- 
 tions. The sensation thus excited would be si- 
 milar to that which is described as having oc- 
 curred at the first effusion of the Holy Spirit on 
 the day of Pentecost d . From the account of 
 this transaction, delivered in the passage here re- 
 ferred to, the author of Palaeoromaica deduces an 
 inference which proves that he misconceives the 
 entire tendency of the history. " We are told," 
 he says, (p. 69.) " that on the day of Pentecost, 
 there were at Jerusalem strangers from Rome, 
 Jews and proselytes, who wondered at the Apos- 
 tles speaking in their tongue ; and that this was 
 not Greek but Latin is evident from the enume- 
 ration of others whose language was Greek." 
 That Latin was the native language of these 
 strangers from Rome, no one, I suppose, can have 
 any inclination to dispute ; but to infer from this 
 that many, or even the greater number of these, 
 could not speak and understand the language of 
 Greece, is just as reasonable as it would be to 
 argue that, because German is the language of 
 Vienna, the French language cannot be spoken 
 by the inhabitants of that city. A still greater 
 
 d Acts ii. 6. 
 
21 
 
 degree of incorrectness appears to pervade his 
 remarks on the question addressed by the chief 
 captain to St. Paul e ; and far from arriving at the 
 same conclusion with this author, I deduce from 
 it one of a directly opposite nature. The words 
 of St. Luke are — as Paul was to be led into the 
 castle, he said unto the chief captain, May I speak 
 unto thee ? who said (eWrjvi^i yivbxsicuq ; ) Canst 
 
 thou speak Greek ? Ovk apa av u o AiyvnTiog ovtoq, 
 o irpo tovtcjv T(t)v tifxtpwv ava^aTWffag Kai d^ayaytov eig 
 Tt\v Eprifxov T8Q TtTpaKigy^iXiovg avSpaq twv ffiKapiwv ' 9 
 
 The author of Palaeoromaica, adopting the sense 
 of these words contained in our public version, 
 " Art not thou that Egyptian which before these 
 days madest an uproar, &c. ? ' conceives the 
 chief captain to intimate that, having in the first 
 instance supposed St. Paul to be that Egyptian, 
 he was now convinced of his error on hearing him 
 speak Greek ; an accomplishment which few of 
 the Egyptians possessed. To me however it 
 seems that an alteration in the version of the 
 above passage is necessary ; an alteration which, 
 although apparently unimportant, as extending 
 to only one single word, and that of a trivial 
 kind, gives a totally different force to the whole 
 passage. 
 
 The chief captain had entertained no previous 
 
 c Acts xxxi. 37. 
 
22 
 
 suspicion that St. Paul and the Egyptian were 
 one and the same person ; but, as soon as the 
 former addresses him in Greek, and in conse- 
 quence solely of that circumstance, he begins to 
 suspect that it may be so, and accordingly puts 
 to him the above questions, which I would thus 
 render into English — " Canst thou speak Greek ? 
 Art thou not then (aoa) that Egyptian which be- 
 fore these days madestan uproar ?" &c. The well- 
 known power of apa f is to deduce a consequence 
 from something which preceded ; and its usage 
 in this sense is strongly marked in many pas- 
 sages in the New Testament. The chief captain 
 then, I say, hearing St. Paul speak Greek, has 
 by that circumstance a suspicion excited in his 
 mind that he may be an Egyptian ; possibly that 
 
 f Satis perspicua erit primaria hujus Particulae et ubique do- 
 minans potestas, si ipsius thema statuimus apw. Nam ut hoc 
 notafc, membris sive particulis cujuslibet rei apte inter se com- 
 
 positis, orno, apto, stabilio, frmo, compingo si hinc translata 
 
 intelligitur similitudo ad argumentations genus quern Logici 
 syllogismum dicunt, in quo tria pronunciata ordine ac legitime 
 posita quam firmissimum argumentum formant, perspicuum est 
 Particulee hujus in consequentiis syllogismorum officium. (Hoo- 
 geven. Doctr. Partic. Vol. I. p. 107.) The syllogistical argu- 
 ment, by which the chief captain arrived at his conclusion, is 
 very perspicuous, although part of it only is expressed, and the 
 remainder passes in his own mind. Thou canst speak Greek. 
 But most of the Egyptians can speak Greek* Therefore art 
 not thou the Egyptian which, &c 
 
 
23 
 
 very Egyptian who had excited such tumult and 
 terror at Jerusalem : and this conclusion he 
 would hardly have formed so rapidly unless the 
 qualification of speaking Greek had been very 
 common, I forbear to say universal, in Egypt. 
 The eagerness with which the officer catches at 
 the most distant chance of his proving to be the 
 Egyptian, was very natural in his situation. This 
 demagogue, as we learn from Josephus, whose 
 testimony Eusebius confirms, had assumed the 
 character most dangerous in a rebel in Judea — 
 that of a prophet ; and had carried his audacity 
 to an extreme height. The wish of the Roman 
 government would be proportionably strong to 
 obtain possession of his person, and their muni- 
 ficence, to those who should apprehend him, 
 answerable to the importance of the service. The 
 Roman officer, therefore, eagerly makes the en- 
 quiry ; but it is not a favourable omen to the 
 author of Palseoromaica, that the only mark of 
 nationality on which he fixes, as characteristic of 
 an Egyptian, is his speaking Greek. 
 
 The circumstances, indeed, which attended 
 the conquest and colonization of Egypt, by 
 Alexander, could hardly fail of perpetuating, in 
 the chief city at least, the language of the con- 
 quering nation. The successions of the Aus- 
 trian and French dynasties to the throne of 
 Spain, and of the house of Hanover to that of 
 
 2 
 
24 
 
 Great Britain, are alluded to by the author of 
 Palseoromaica, (p. 5.) But these cases are not 
 analogous to that of the settlement of the 
 Grecians in Alexandria. The modern princes 
 did not enter their dominions in the charac- 
 ter of conquerors ; nor transplant with them 
 entire hordes of their own countrymen, to be 
 placed, as colonists, in cities of which they 
 were themselves the founders. The case of 
 Alexandria, deriving its existence from the edict 
 of a single monarch, affords no parallel to the 
 cases of London and Madrid ; cities established 
 for centuries, and in which revolution changed 
 little more than the person of the monarch. But 
 I would ask the author of Palseoromaica, whe- 
 ther the conquest of England by the Normans 
 did not introduce a foreign language into the 
 country ; and whether the effects of that intro- 
 duction, and strong traces of the Norman lan- 
 guage, be not visible, in our own tongue, even 
 to the present day. In the capital of Egypt cir- 
 cumstances combined still more forcibly to intro- 
 duce, and render permanent, the use of the lan- 
 guage of the conqueror. In a city which had 
 newly risen into existence, when the contest, in 
 its mixed population, was between the languages 
 of Macedonia and Judea, it was not difficult to 
 foresee that the advantage must rest with the 
 former, even independently of its being the Ian- 
 
^25 
 
 guage of the preponderating party. If there be 
 any justice in the remark of the author of Palaeo- 
 romaica, that the Latin language must have pre- 
 vailed in Corinth because it was a Roman colony, 
 the same conclusion must obtain as to the pre- 
 valence of the Grecian dialect in Alexandria, 
 which was founded and inhabited by Macedonians. 
 The authority of Theocritus may alone suffice for 
 the confirmation of this argument ; for since, 
 through his residence in Alexandria, and the 
 patronage he enjoyed from its ruler, he must 
 have had abundant opportunities of forming an 
 acquaintance with the manners of its inhabi- 
 tants, no testimony upon this question can carry 
 greater weight than his. Now in the seven- 
 teenth Idyll, celebrating the Ptolemies, - Lagus 
 and Philadelphus, he seeks in Greece exclusively 
 the materials of his eulogium ; he compliments 
 them on their connection with the Grecian Her- 
 cules, and with Alexander the Great ; and the 
 birth and parentage of the younger Ptolemy are 
 illustrated by reference to those of Diomede and 
 Achilles. The imagery and sentiments of the 
 poem are, with the exception of a very few allu- 
 sions, entirely Grecian ; they must be admitted 
 to prove that the predilections of the Egyptian 
 court, and the literature of the country, were at 
 that period strongly turned towards the Grecian 
 model; and a necessary consequence of this 
 
26 
 
 feeling was a very considerable prevalence of 
 the Grecian language in Egypt. It may be al- 
 leged, that this has reference only to the court of 
 Alexandria, and not to the mass of the popula- 
 tion. We possess, then, in the Adoniazusse of 
 the same poet, a representation to which no 
 such objection can apply. In this most charac- 
 teristic poem we find the most natural picture of 
 the manners of the populace in that busy metro- 
 polis : and the notices hence acquired, concerning 
 the language of the people at large, are not less 
 valuable or correct because they are incidental. 
 The poem in question, it is well known, describes 
 the setting out of two Syracusan women of hum- 
 ble condition, in company with their female 
 slaves, to witness a representation, which is 
 spoken of as attracting from their homes the en- 
 tire population of Alexandria, (v. 44.) That the 
 language spoken by these women was Greek, is 
 evidently established as well by the country 
 from which they emigrated as by their own 
 avowal, (v. 91, 92.) In this language they are 
 represented as entering into conversation with 
 every stranger whom they incidentally fall in 
 with ; nay, such critics of propriety are the com- 
 mon people of Alexandria, that one of them calls 
 these Sicilian Greeks to account for their broad 
 Doric pronunciation, (v. 87, 88.) In addition to 
 this, the nature of the shew itself may be ad- 
 duced as leading to the same conclusion ; it is 
 
27 
 
 entirely Grecian; a lamentation for the fate of 
 the youthful Adonis. The choice of this subject 
 for a popular entertainment might not alone 
 prove any thing concerning the language of the 
 people, any more than the annual representation 
 of " Tamerlane," on the night when King Wil- 
 liam landed, which was formerly customary in 
 England, proves that our ancestors spoke the 
 language of Turkey or Hindoostan. But it is 
 not probable that the dramatic monologue, which 
 accompanied a representation designed for the 
 general amusement of the Alexandrians, would 
 be recited in any language but one whiclj was 
 ordinarily spoken and understood by them. Now 
 it is evident that the language which Theocritus 
 represents as employed by the singer, in the 
 dirge or lament of Adonis, was Greek ; because 
 the Syracusan women are described as under- 
 standing the words of the song. And since it 
 would be absurd to imagine that those words 
 were intended for the amusement of these, and 
 other foreigners who might happen to be present, 
 rather than of the natives of the city, it is in a 
 manner certain that the mass of the population 
 there must have understood Greek g . 
 
 g Before we quit this most diverting poem, the Adoniazusae of 
 Theocritus, I could wish to propose an emendation of a passage 
 in it which is undoubtedly corrupt, and, as it now stands, unintel- 
 ligible. The example of the author of Palaeoromaica, and of 
 his shameful failure in a proposed emendation of the first two 
 
28 
 
 Proceeding, in the next place, to the other 
 continent, we find three circumstances stated as 
 evidently shewing, in this writer's opinion, that 
 
 lines of the Hecuba, ought perhaps to deter me from any such 
 attempt. His conjecture respecting the true reading of these 
 lines is not only totally uncalled for, but has the singular merit 
 of being the very worst critical emendation of an ancient writer 
 that was ever yet proposed. (See Pal. p. 398.) It would have 
 provoked in the matchless editor of the Hecuba, had he been 
 yet living, a fit of laughter, or a fit of spleen. My own emenda- 
 tion, however, is I trust so far excusable, as it relates to a passage 
 which has been given up as desperate by all the critics. The 
 ninety-fourth and ninety-fifth verses are read as follows in the 
 editions : 
 
 Mr] <pvy, MfXirwfof, 6q afiwv Kaprepog an 
 UXav kvog' etc aXeyo), /in /not Keveav airofia^iig. 
 
 It is unnecessary to enumerate the many unsuccessful at- 
 tempts which have been made by all the editors of Theocritus, 
 to deduce some meaning from these lines as they stand, or to 
 supply, from conjecture, a better reading. The most consider- 
 able of these may be seen in Briggs's late edition of the Greek 
 Bucolic poets from the Cambridge University press ; or in 
 Valckenaer's edition of Theocritus^ p. 387. The result of the 
 enquiry is summed up by the latter scholar in these words : 
 * ' His animadversis Lector incertior hinc abibit quam venerat." 
 By a slight correction however a clear and appropriate meaning 
 is restored to the lines, which I propose to read thus : 
 
 Mi? <pvy, MtXiTUidzg, 6g afiwv ttaprcpog tirf 
 UXav kvog' ovk aXoxv pa eouce, veav, atzora\au 
 
 Praxinoe, in reply to the rebuke of the stranger, contemptuously 
 exclaims, O Proserpine, let there not be who may have the rule 
 over us except one (i. e. her husband) ; it's a becoming thing, 
 
29 
 
 the Greek language was but slightly prevalent 
 in Judea. The first of these is the inscription 
 affixed by Pilate to the cross of Christ, written, 
 as the Evangelist informs us, " in Hebrew, 
 Greek, and Latin." " If," he says, (p. 13.) 
 " the common Jews could not have understood 
 an inscription of a few words, unless it had been 
 written in their own language, we may judge of 
 their ability to understand a whole Gospel." Is 
 
 forsooth, young man, to lay your commands on one who is not your 
 
 wife ! This expression is very characteristic of the speaker, and 
 
 suitable to the occasion : and every part of the emendation, I 
 
 believe, may be supported. Notandum est hoc adverbium (a*) 
 
 non tantum nominibus adjectivis, verbis, particulis, et aliis adver- 
 
 biis, verum etiam substantivis prsemitti. Thucyd. lib. iii. cap. 
 
 95. 'Q Q a irpoetdiZavTO dia Ti\g Aevicatiog rrjv OY nEPITEIXISIN* 
 
 Addatur Lucian in libro, qui Verarum Historiarum men- 
 
 titur titulum, primo. Vide Clariss. Duker : ad Thuc. lib. 
 
 i. cap. 37. Viger. de Id. p. 160. § 13. cap. 7. Similarly 
 
 St. Paul, Rom. X. 19, cyw 7rapa£)f\w<rG> vfiag tir bk &vti. I will 
 
 provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people.— Ma 
 
 iffoSwafisi Ty ftatai ut hie quidam putant jurijurando et affirma- 
 
 tioni servire, et idem valere ac integram lectionem Doricam pa ya 
 
 i.e.ftarsp ya. JEschyl. Swppl. v. 897 et 906, /xa ya. JEmil. 
 
 Tortus, in Lex. Dor. v. Mattairii. Dial. Sturz. p. 324 — vtav. See 
 
 Sturzius de Dial. Maced. et Alex. (p. cxcii. ed Valpy) v. Meytraveg 
 
 Hue etiam refero quae Apollonius Dyscolus in grammatica sua 
 
 scripsit (v. Vossii ex ea excerpta ad calcem libri Mattairiani de 
 
 Gr. dial. p. 571.) £?iv ow Tpiafieyvzog, Kai irapa tovto /ityirav, Zvvog 
 
 ri kcli %vvav ttpafiev de ev irepoig Kai irapa to vsoq vtav. et Phavorinus 
 
 in v. veaviag, irapa to viog yivtrai vtav. This seems indeed to have 
 
 been a word peculiarly Alexandrian ; and Salmasius conjectures 
 
 that its termination was copied by the Egyptians from the Persian. 
 
30 
 
 it necessary to repeat my disavowal of an opinion, 
 so pertinaciously imputed by this author to those 
 whom he opposes ; that the Greek language was 
 universally spoken in any country whatever, ex- 
 cept in Greece Proper, and in the Grecian colo- 
 nies ? The utmost which I desire to maintain is, 
 that in Judea there was, at this period, a very 
 prevalent acquaintance with Greek ; and I am 
 very much mistaken if this inscription of Pilate 
 do not prove the fact. The state of the country, 
 in a few words, was this : the Romans governing ; 
 the Jews in subjection. The latter forming the 
 bulk of the inhabitants ; but having a great in- 
 termixture of the former nation; especially in 
 Jerusalem. To each of these component por- 
 tions of the population it was natural that every 
 proclamation should be addressed in their own 
 language ; because, whatever might be the case 
 with the greater number of individuals, there 
 must have been still many who were acquainted 
 with no other than their native language. This 
 then accounts for the use of Latin and Hebrew 
 in the inscription; just as at this time, in a city 
 somewhat similarly circumstanced, the city of 
 Calcutta, we should expect to find proclamations, 
 designed for general circulation, drawn up in 
 English and Hindoostanee. But the inscription 
 was affixed also in Greek : and why should 
 Greek be used ? That was not the native lan- 
 guage of either the conquerors or the conquered. 
 
31 
 
 It is, indeed, a circumstance not to be accounted 
 for, unless we suppose that there was yet ano- 
 ther component part of the population consisting 
 of those to whom the Greek language was more 
 familiar than any other ; and that this class con- 
 sisted not of a few individuals only, but was so 
 numerous as, in affairs of public interest, to de- 
 mand equal attention with those who spoke He- 
 brew and Latin. If, to resume a former illus- 
 tration, we were to meet with a proclamation 
 drawn up in English, Hindoostanee, and Portu- 
 guese, should we not without hesitation con- 
 clude, even if we were not informed whence it 
 originated, that it must be designed for circula- 
 tion and publicity in some East Indian settle- 
 ment, now under the government of England, 
 but in which (and there are such instances) the 
 language of its former possessor, Portugal, was 
 still very generally prevalent ? And is not this a 
 case precisely analogous to the Latin, Hebrew, 
 and Greek inscription, exhibited by a Roman 
 governor in the country of the Jews ? The prac- 
 tice thus adopted in the instance of our Lord 
 leads indeed to a still more extensive inference. 
 This happened in Judea ; but we are not in- 
 formed, nor have we any reason to believe, that 
 the Romans here departed from the usual prac- 
 tice of their government : or that, in the circum- 
 stances of Jerusalem, there was any thing so pe- 
 culiar as to introduce there a different rule from 
 
32 
 
 that, which, in similar cases, prevailed in other 
 foreign cities under their jurisdiction. 
 
 If Pilate, then, in this instance acted accord- 
 ing to the general practice of his government, it 
 would seem that their ordinary custom, in all the 
 conquered countries, was to make proclamations, 
 intended for general information, in the language 
 of the country itself, in Latin, and in Greek. The 
 first two, being the languages of the governed 
 and the governors, are, as was observed, natu- 
 rally accounted for ; but I see not what grounds 
 can be assigned for the general adoption of Greek, 
 unless Greek were very generally spoken and 
 understood in all the great cities within the com- 
 pass of the Roman empire. In the case of Jeru- 
 salem it is no sufficient answer to say, that at the 
 time of the Passover great multitudes of Greeks 
 were attracted thither by the ceremonial of reli- 
 gion, or for the purposes of trade ; and that, for 
 the information of these, recourse was had by 
 Pilate to their own language. Was there not, at 
 the same period, also a concourse of " Parthians 
 and Medes and Elamites, and of dwellers in Me- 
 sopotamia," and from every nation under heaven? 
 Yet we find not that any of these were held in 
 such consideration as to have an inscription in 
 their tongue appropriated for their information. 
 Neither is it possible to account for such a provi- 
 sion having been made for the Greeks, and for 
 such as spoke their language, except by suppos- 
 
33 
 
 ing that these together formed so great and as- 
 signable a part of the whole population as to en- 
 title them to this notice : and in this, I must 
 repeat, there is no reason to suppose that there 
 was any thing peculiar to Jerusalem; any thing in 
 which the other great cities of the empire did not 
 all and equally participate. 
 
 Concerning this inscription Doctor Paley re- 
 marks k , " That it was also usual, about this time, 
 to set up advertisements in Jerusalem in different 
 languages, is gathered from the account which 
 Josephus gives of an expostulatory message from 
 Titus to the Jews, when the city was almost in 
 his hands ; in which he says, Did ye not erect 
 pillars with inscriptions on them in the Greek and 
 in our language, ' Let no one pass these bounds ? ' " 
 The remark of the author of Paleeoromaica on 
 this passage is, "To what purpose an inscription 
 in any language but Greek if Greek, as is assumed, 
 was universally known ? " Again, disclaiming any 
 such assumption, let me observe that, under any 
 circumstances, common sense would dictate the 
 employment of the Latin tongue in an address to 
 a Roman army ; because it was certain that this 
 would be understood by every native Roman in 
 its ranks ; while, with respect to any other lan- 
 guage, (Greek for example) it could not be cer- 
 tain, but only very probable, at the utmost, that it 
 
 k Ev. Par. ii. c. vi. § 24. 
 D 
 
34 
 
 would be intelligible to any considerable number. 
 That the Jews might very safely have trusted to 
 Greek alone, and that the purport of an adver- 
 tisement in that language would have been very 
 generally understood by the Roman soldiers, is 
 exceedingly probable ; but it cannot be denied 
 that, as far as the native Romans were concerned, 
 this end was more certainly answered by the addi- 
 tion of a Latin inscription. But it is well known 
 that a Roman army consisted, neither wholly nor 
 in the greater part, of native citizens; many 
 thousands of mercenaries, proceeding from every 
 country of Europe, Asia, and Africa, bordering 
 on the Mediterranean, were found under the 
 command of every general, and therefore of Titus. 
 Since then the Jews, not having the power to 
 address themselves to this mixed multitude in 
 each of their several languages, would select in 
 addressing them, that language which they be- 
 lieved to possess the quality of being intelligible 
 to the greatest number, it will surely be granted, 
 from their employment of Greek, that this lan- 
 guage was considered, at that period, as more 
 universally diffused than any other : and this is all 
 for which I think it necessary to contend. 
 
 I must yet beg leave to extend to one other 
 instance, this practice of deducing from the same 
 passage a conclusion directly the reverse of that 
 which the author of Palseoromaica endeavours 
 to establish. From Hamilton's Strictures on 
 
35 
 
 Knowles's Primitive Christianity, he copies a quo- 
 tation from Josephus \ " Now Simon and John, 
 and they that were with them, desire a con- 
 ference with Titus, which he granted. He placed 
 himself on the western side of the inner court of the 
 temple, and there was a bridge that parted them. 
 There were great numbers of the Jews waiting 
 with these two tyrants, and there were also Ro- 
 mans on the side of Titus. He ordered his sol- 
 diers to restrain their rage, and to let their darts 
 alone, and appointed an Interpreter m ." This pas- 
 sage is adduced by Mr. Hamilton, to prove that 
 the Greek language was " totally unknown' among 
 the Jews. " For what occasion," he observes, 
 " for an Interpreter if the leaders of the Jews were 
 acquainted with the Greek language, of which 
 Titus cannot be supposed to have been ignorant, • 
 it being a necessary part of the education of the 
 Roman youth of distinction ? " Whether the 
 leaders of the Jews understood Greek or not is 
 here nothing to the purpose ; the utmost which 
 this passage can be admitted to prove is, that 
 they were unacquainted with Latin : for that 
 language, it is certain, and not Greek, would be 
 employed by Titus in this conference. Has the 
 author of Palaeoromaica so soon forgotten the 
 passage quoted by himself (p. 29) from Valerius 
 Maximus? (1. ii. c. 2) where speaking of the 
 
 1 Booh I. vii. c. 6. § 2. m Pal. p. 14. 
 
 d2 
 
36 
 
 Roman policy, that writer says, " Inter cetera 
 obtinendse gravitatis indicia, illud quoque magna 
 cum persev.erantia custodiebant ; ne Grsecis qui- 
 dem nisi Latine responsa darent. Quinetiam, 
 ipsa linguae volubilitate, qua plurimum valent, 
 excussa, per ifiterpretem loqui cogebant, non in 
 urbe tantum nostra, sed etiam in Grsecia et Asia/' 
 If this were their systematic treatment of the 
 Greeks, whom, as a nation, they professed to 
 reverence 11 and did reverence, if they forced 
 
 n " Quapropter incumbe toto animo et studio omni in earn ratio- 
 nem, qua adhuc usus es, ut eos, quos tuae fidei potestati que se- 
 natus populus que Romanus commisit et credidit, diligas et omni 
 ratione tueare ; ut esse quam beatissimos velis. Quod si te sors 
 Afris, aut Gallis praefecisset, immanibus ac barbaris nationibus, 
 tamen esset humanitatis tuae consulere eorum commodis, et utili- 
 tati saluti que servire. Cum vero ei generi hominum praesimus, 
 non modo in quo ipsa sit, sed etiam a quo ad alios pervenisse 
 putatur humanitas, certe us earn potissimum tribuere debemus, 
 a quibus accepimus. Non enim me hoc jam dicere pudebit — 
 nos, ea quae consecuti sumus, his studiis et artibus esse adeptos, 
 quae sint nobis Grcecice monumentis disciplinis que tradita. 
 Quare praeter communem fidem, quae omnibus debetur, praeterea 
 nos isti hominum generi praecipue debere videmur, ut quorum 
 praeceptis sumus eruditi, apud eos ipsos, quod ab iis didicerimus 
 velimus expromere," Cicer. ad Q. Fr. Lib. i. 9. It is unnecessary 
 to quote passages to prove the degree of aversion and contempt 
 with which the Jews were regarded by the Romans. It was im- 
 possible that this national feeling should be more forcibly ex- 
 pressed than by the refusal of Vespasian, when he triumphed 
 for his successes in Syria, to accept the title of Jadaicus ; consi- 
 dering it as a mark of opprobrium rather than of honour, Dio. in 
 Vespas. In these feelings it is more than probable that his son, 
 the leader of the above-named conference, fully participated. 
 
37 
 
 them, even in their own country, to employ an 
 interpreter in their intercourse with the Romans, 
 it is far from probable that, towards the Jews, the 
 latter would assume a more condescending de- 
 portment. It was not towards those whom they 
 regarded as the basest and most contemptible of 
 mankind, that they would relax any of the " ob- 
 tinendae gravitatis indicia," or swerve, in nego- 
 ciating with them, from their customary employ- 
 ment of the Roman language. To this we may 
 add, that the obstinacy of the Jews was at least 
 equal to the haughtiness of their besiegers ; and 
 that this feeling might induce Simon and John to 
 insist on an adherence to their national dialect 
 also, and to speak only in Hebrew. Here then 
 were two reasons for the intervention of an inter- 
 preter, however perfectly we may suppose both 
 parties in this conference to have been versed in 
 Greek. 
 
 On the Roman side we must conclude that 
 this was no uncommon acquirement, since we 
 find that Josephus, having composed a history 
 of the Jewish war in the Chaldaic tongue, for 
 the use of the Parthians, Babylonians, Ara- 
 bians, and other Eastern nations, translated it 
 afterwards not into Latin but into Greek: " in 
 order," to use his own words, *? that some of 
 the Romans, who were not in the wars, might not 
 be ignorant of these things °." For the purpose 
 
 Bel. Jud. in Prooemio. 
 
38 
 
 of investigating the extent to which the literature 
 and language of Greece were diffused in Rome, 
 at the beginning of the Christian era, it is surely 
 unnecessary to go back to a period antecedent to 
 this by nearly five hundred years ; when the 
 laws which were afterwards arranged in the 
 twelve tables, were imported from Greece. How 
 slight, in every respect, is the resemblance be- 
 tween the Romans of this early period, and their 
 descendants under Augustus and Vespasian! 
 All that we can conclude from this narration p is, 
 that, from the very dawn of their history, the 
 attention of the Romans was turned towards 
 Greece as the source of every valuable institu- 
 tion : as at a later period they regarded that 
 favoured clime as the mother of the noblest arts, 
 and of every elegant refinement. There cannot 
 be a more forcible proof of the very general and 
 familiar manner in which the Grecian language 
 was employed at Rome in the age of Nero, than 
 is derived from a circumstance mentioned by 
 Suetonius. Towards the conclusion of the reign 
 of that emperor, the citizens began to exhibit 
 strong demonstrations of impatience at continu- 
 ing so long subject to his odious dominion. Va- 
 rious were the devices employed to excite the 
 popular indignation ; and among the rest, says 
 that historian, " Statuae ejus a vertice currus 
 
 p Pal p. 21. 
 
39 
 
 appositus est cum Inscriptione Giueca, 
 JVimc demum agona esse, et Traheret tandem*" If 
 it be necessary that any production whatever 
 should be drawn up in language generally in- 
 telligible, it must be one which, being designed 
 to excite a popular commotion, is addressed to 
 the lowest of the populace. Such was the in- 
 tention of the device and inscription mentioned 
 by Suetonius ; and the anonymous contriver of 
 it, by employing the Greek language, must have 
 defeated his own intention, unless the lowest 
 classes had been so familiar with it as to be 
 capable of understanding this summons to in- 
 surrection. 
 
 Looking then at the evidence adduced by the 
 author of Paleeoromaica in support of his opinion, 
 we find that it leads, in general, to a directly 
 contrary conclusion ; namely, that a knowledge 
 of the Greek language was very prevalent, in most 
 countries, in the age in which the Gospels were 
 written". All which I think it necessary to 
 
 q Suet. Nero. lib. vi. 45. As Casaubon conjectures, Nw ya^ 
 
 tr ay<i)v, vvv Set tkavvtiv. 
 
 r We have an incidental confirmation of the same truth fur- 
 nished by Dio. Chrys. {Or. ix. p. 138.) who relates that Dio- 
 genes, the Cynic, being at Corinth at the time of the celebration 
 of the Isthmian games, went down to the Isthmus ; and that 
 there came around him as auditors, not the Corinthians only, 
 the Ionians^ Italians, and Sicilians, but some of those who were 
 from Africa, of those who came out of Thessaly, and from the 
 Borysthenes. It is scarcely conceivable that those persons 
 
40 
 
 maintain is that some, a considerable number, in 
 almost every country, understood Greek ; but, 
 that the knowledge of it was in any proper 
 sense universal, is an assertion which, although 
 it may suit our author's purpose to attribute it 
 to his opponents, he must allow me, again and 
 finally, to disclaim any intention of supporting. 
 The purposes of God, as far as is permitted us to 
 judge of them, did not require the employment 
 of an universal language ; because it does not 
 appear to have been designed that the claims 
 and statements of the Gospel should be instantly 
 submitted to universal examination. It was 
 enough if, in every country, there should be 
 found men capable of understanding the original 
 documents, and of testifying to their authen- 
 ticity ; as a foundation for the faith of their 
 own and after-ages. This point being secured, 
 and prophets and interpreters ordained in every 
 church, there was sufficient certainty obtainable, 
 wherever the Gospel was preached, to satisfy 
 the mind of every humble and devout enquirer 
 after truth ; and the contents of the Sacred 
 Writings of the New Testament became readily 
 known, even by those who were unacquainted 
 with the language of the original. We shall but 
 mislead ourselves, in seeking what cannot be 
 
 would have hastened down with curiosity to listen to a Greek 
 philosopher, unless they had understood the language in which 
 his harangue was delivered. 
 
41 
 
 found, if we undertake the search after a lan- 
 guage through the medium of which the records 
 of the Apostles might become directly and uni- 
 versally accessible in every nation. There is 
 not, there never has been, such a language ; nor, 
 as has been observed, did the purposes of God 
 require it. The doctrine of Christ was not de- 
 signed to burst with a sudden and resistless 
 flood of light upon mankind at large ; but, from 
 the smallest beginnings, and through many ob- 
 stacles, gradually to win its way to universal 
 acceptance ; and, step by step, to accomplish 
 the evangelism of the world. We must remem- 
 ber the emblems under which it is represented : 
 the leaven, hid and overwhelmed for a time in 
 the midst of a mass, through every particle of 
 which it is destined eventually to penetrate ; the 
 grain of mustard-seed, from its original minute- 
 ness overlooked by careless observers, rising by 
 degrees to the form and dimensions of the cedar 
 of the forest. The very principle of such a sys- 
 tem renders a partial developement necessary at 
 first. The miracles of our Lord, on which his 
 claim to a divine character was founded, were 
 performed before such crowds as casually came 
 together, and without any care being taken to as- 
 semble the greatest possible number of spectators. 
 Even the last great miracle of his resurrection 
 was avouched to the senses of only a few chosen 
 witnesses. The only provision for the making 
 
42 
 
 of which, great care seems to have been taken, 
 was this ; that there should be sufficient moral 
 proofs of the certainty of these events, to serve as 
 the foundation of a reasonable faith in those, who 
 were not, and could not be, eye and ear- witnesses 
 of them. The case of the composition and pub- 
 lication of the Gospel records is precisely analo- 
 gous to this. They were composed in a lan- 
 guage which some, which a great many, in almost 
 every country, could understand. They were 
 therefore sufficiently open to instant examination 
 and remark, to prevent the possibility of an un- 
 true or spurious narrative obtaining currency in 
 the world. Suppose the Apostles not to have 
 written in Greek, but in Latin, or in any other 
 language that you please ; still, more than this 
 could not have been done, and I humbly profess 
 to think that more was not intended. 
 
 It seems therefore to be an useless undertak- 
 ing to engage in a lengthened disquisition con- 
 cerning the absolute extent to which a know- 
 ledge of the Greek tongue prevailed in the apos- 
 tolic age. There is, I conceive, an end of the 
 argument, if it can be shewn that there existed 
 in the world a knowledge of Greek sufficient to 
 enable a writing in that language to effect the 
 purposes which God had in view. Now it is no 
 longer matter of conjecture whether a Greek 
 writing can effect those purposes, namely, the 
 making known and preserving the facts and doc- 
 
43 
 
 trines of the Gospel, because it is matter of re- 
 cord and of observation that a Greek writing has 
 done this. The writings of the Apostles, histo- 
 rical and epistolary, have, it is well known, 
 come down to us only in the Greek language. 
 From the days of Clemens, and Ignatius, down- 
 wards, from the time when our religion was in 
 its cradle, the world has had no other ultimate 
 appeal than to a Greek original : and if any writ- 
 ing antecedent to this ever existed, whether a 
 Syriac, a Latin, or a Greek text different from 
 that which is now in our hands, it perished too 
 soon to exercise any influence on the faith even 
 of those who came nearest to the age of the 
 Apostles. Whatever religion the world had then, 
 or possesses now, has been derived directly from 
 a Greek New Testament. It is therefore, I re- 
 peat, needless to enquire within what limits that 
 tongue was familiarly spoken ; because were we 
 even to admit that it was never understood be- 
 yond the bounds of Attica and the Peloponnesus, 
 it would yet remain an indisputable fact that it 
 has effected, in the service of religion, all which 
 could have been required of a language, if such 
 there were, the diffusion of which was as un- 
 limited as that of the light of heaven. The 
 Greek language was sufficient to accomplish, be- 
 cause, under the loss of the supposed originals, 
 it has accomplished the purposes of God ; and 
 this is a sufficient reply to the enquiry why it 
 
44 
 
 was employed. Other languages, it is possible, 
 might have equally accomplished the end pro- 
 posed ; but this is a question which it is impos- 
 sible for us to determine ; and which we have 
 therefore little right to meddle with \ But is it 
 
 s The contest for pre-eminence, with respect to extent of dif- 
 fusion, lies principally between the Latin and Greek languages ; 
 and the enquiry made by some is why Latin was not employed 
 by the Apostles ? It is not our province to penetrate into the 
 counsels of Providence, and to determine the principles by 
 which they were directed in any particular case ; but I think 
 that a reason may be assigned why the employment of Greek 
 in the Apostolical writings may have been preferably directed ; 
 even though the Latin tongue were, in that and after ages, as 
 widely diffused and as well understood. The key to the reason 
 is furnished by the following remark of a writer whose calmness 
 of imagination protected him against the danger of setting up 
 imaginary causes. " Immediately after speaking these great 
 things to St. Peter, (thou art Peter, and upon this rock, &c.) 
 our Lord, as it were with a particular view, that it might be 
 left upon record as a guard against the extravagant opinion 
 which he foreknew future ages, for the purposes of tyranny and 
 worldly dominion, would entertain of St. Peter's personal autho- 
 rity, our Lord, I say, takes occasion in his very next discourse 
 to rebuke him with a sharper severity than he ever used towards 
 the rest of his disciples. — Of the same kind seems to be our 
 Saviour's affecting, as it were, to speak always with very small 
 respect of the blessed Virgin, ' Woman, what have I to do with 
 thee?'" &c. Dr. Clarke's Works, fol. vol. ii. p. 458. Tenth 
 Occas. Serm. A similar reason* I think, may have prohibited 
 the employment of the Latin language by the writers of the 
 New Testament ; namely, that the arrogance of the Romish 
 Church, and its suppression of the Scriptures, might not pass 
 
45 
 
 unreasonable to say that a language which, by 
 the event, is proved to possess the qualifications 
 confessedly desirable, if not indispensable, under 
 the given circumstances, has a stronger claim to 
 be considered as the language selected by the 
 Almighty, than other languages which, not hav- 
 ing been subjected to such a test, may or may 
 not possess the properties necessary to qualify 
 them for so important a trust ? 
 
 In coming to the more immediate considera- 
 tion of the question, whether the Vulgate Greek 
 Text of the New Testament be a translation, or 
 re-translation, from the Latin, it cannot escape 
 observation that, if any man shall choose to 
 maintain such an opinion, it is impossible, strictly 
 speaking, to prove a negative. The facts of the 
 case are these. We have before us a Greek text 
 which all the world (Father Hardouin always 
 excepted) has hitherto agreed in regarding as the 
 original ; and from which all the translations now 
 extant have been, mediately or immediately, de- 
 rived. No such anterior text, as that which is 
 contemplated as the basis of the Greek, is now 
 
 beyond all bounds. Compelled as that Church is to use a trans- 
 lation of the New Testament in its own service, we still see 
 how obstinately it attempts to shackle the consciences of men, 
 by denying their right to search the Scriptures, and by confining 
 salvation within its own pale. What then would its pretensions 
 not have been if it could have appealed to the Apostolical writ- 
 ings delivered to it originally in its own language. 
 
46 
 
 in existence ; not a fragment of any such, as far as 
 we are aware, has come down to us ; neither was 
 its existence ever spoken of, nor the cause of its 
 disappearance attempted to be accounted for, 
 until the author of Palseoromaica assumed the 
 first of these points, but unfortunately neglected 
 to furnish any explanation of the latter. Such 
 then being the facts of the case, it can scarcely 
 be deemed unreasonable to say that, against the 
 presumption hence arising in favour of the ori- 
 ginality of the Greek text, nothing but the most 
 positive evidence, the most express and irrefra- 
 gable proofs to the contrary, can be admitted to 
 prevail. Still, I must repeat, if any man will 
 seriously maintain the position, that our present 
 Greek text is nothing more than a translation 
 from a Latin text which has perished, it is im- 
 possible to prove a direct negative : the case 
 does not admit of it. Not that I would be 
 thought to argue as if my opinion were that any 
 such burden could fairly be thrown upon those 
 who stand opposed to the hypothesis of Palaeo- 
 romaica ; the obligation lies upon the proposer of 
 that hypothesis to shew, by reasonable arguments, 
 that the world has hitherto entertained a false per- 
 suasion ; that the theory which he promulgates 
 grows naturally out of certain previously esta- 
 blished propositions ; and, when applied to the 
 facts of the case, appears to be consistent with 
 itself, and to furnish a solution of difficulties, 
 
47 
 
 otherwise insurmountable, without introducing 1 
 other and greater difficulties in their stead. 
 
 We shall discover in the sequel how far the 
 theory of Palaeoromaica complies with these re- 
 quisitions. In the mean time the arguments, 
 by which it is defended, may be classed under 
 two heads : the first external, derived from the 
 greater probability, which this writer maintains 
 to exist, that Latin rather than Greek would be 
 the language employed in many at least of the 
 Apostolic writings ; the second internal, derived 
 from an examination of the writings themselves. 
 With respect to the first of these classes I shall 
 here only observe, that an inspection of the state 
 of the world, in the Apostolic age, exhibits a 
 very general acquaintance with the Greek lan- 
 guage ; an acquaintance which must be deemed 
 sufficient to account for its adoption by the in- 
 spired writers. What is still more to the pur- 
 pose, a Greek text, professing to be of their pro- 
 duction, has come down to us, and has, beyond 
 dispute, effected the important purposes of main- 
 taining and extending a knowledge of Chris- 
 tianity in the world. We have a right to say, 
 that this extension is as wide as the original 
 itself, whose existence is assumed, could have 
 produced, and as complete as God designed it 
 should be. For otherwise, he would surely 
 have interposed for the preservation of this sup- 
 posed antecedent text, by the agency of which 
 
48 
 
 alone his purposes could be completely effected. 
 This, to say the least, affords a very strong pre- 
 sumption that the text, which has thus carried 
 the Gospel to its appointed limits, is the origi- 
 nal word of God. The second class of argu- 
 ments, namely those which are derived from an 
 analysis of the Greek text itself, require a more 
 extended examination. 
 
 If, on inspection of any work, we find it to be 
 written in a style perfectly different from any 
 which we have good grounds for believing the 
 reputed authors would have employed, or in a 
 style which is ascertained not to have prevailed 
 until some ages after that in which the work 
 claims to have been produced, it is certainly in- 
 cumbent on those, who maintain it to be the com- 
 position of such an author and of such a period, 
 to account, by probable reasons, for the appear- 
 ances here noticed ; and any failure on their part 
 to do this, would render the correctness of their 
 opinion very problematical. Let us refer to the 
 celebrated instance of Phalaris. I do not speak 
 of the anachronisms, the mistakes in geography, 
 and as to plain matters of fact, which the great 
 detector of this forgery adduced as conclusive 
 evidence, that the Epistles were not written by 
 their reputed author, or in the age and country 
 to which they professed to belong. It is not pre- 
 tended that any analogous errors are discoverable 
 in the writings of the New Testament ; nor could 
 
49 
 
 such an objection indeed be urged by one, whc* 
 admits that the prototypes of these writings were 
 the actual production of the Apostles. His argu- 
 ment reaches only to the unsuitableness of the 
 style and language of the Greek Testament to the 
 reputed era and circumstances of its authors. A 
 precisely similar objection is urged in the case of 
 Phalaris. " Had all other ways failed us of de- 
 tecting this impostor, yet his very speech had 
 betrayed him : for his language is Attic ; — but he 
 had forgotten that the scene of these Epistles was 
 not Athens but Sicily, where the Doric tongue was 
 generally spoken and written ; — How comes it to 
 pass then that our tyrant transacts every thing in 
 Attic *? ' These questions bore closely upon the 
 point at issue ; and they were fatal to the advo- 
 cates of Phalaris, who were unable satisfactorily 
 to reply to them. It was not the mere detection 
 of this peculiarity in the writings attributed to the 
 Sicilian prince, but it was the impossibility of 
 accounting for it, consistently with what is known 
 with certainty respecting his history, which led 
 directly to the conclusion, that he could not be 
 the author of the Epistles bearing his name. 
 Taking a similar objection in the case of the 
 Apostles, the author of Palseoromaica urges, that 
 the style of the books attributed to them is un- 
 classical ; filled withbarbarous and hybrid phrases;: 
 
 *' Bentleys Diss, on Phal. § xii. p. 310—323. ed. 1817. 
 
 i 
 
50 
 
 abounding in foreign idioms and unauthorized 
 forms of speech; exhibiting some Hebraisms, 
 although the greater number of what go under 
 the name of Hebraisms are in reality Latinisms ; 
 and that so many traces of a Latin original are 
 every where visible as to afford reasonable ground 
 for thinking that the entire substratum of the pre- 
 sent Greek text was composed of that material. 
 Now it is evidently here assumed, that the Apos- 
 tles must have written with greater elegance and 
 correctness than are visible in the received text 
 of the Greek New Testament ; that if we had the 
 originals themselves they would display none of 
 the peculiarities of style and phraseology here 
 enumerated. The entire question, therefore, as in 
 the previous case of Phalaris, is, Can we account 
 for such appearances, and are they consistent with 
 the belief that the writings, in which they are 
 found, came from the hands to which they are 
 attributed ? 
 
 With respect to the first charge, that the style 
 of the Greek New Testament is unclassical, al- 
 though some well-meaning persons have attempt- 
 ed its refutation, representing it as an imputation 
 on the credit of the Gospel itself, we may surely 
 on more reasonable principles maintain, that it 
 would have been strange had it been otherwise. 
 Would it not have been a circumstance justly 
 productive of suspicion, if the Apostles, repre- 
 senting themselves as mean and illiterate persons, 
 
51 
 
 not even natives of any part of Greece, had yet 
 delivered to us their compositions in a highly po- 
 lished style, adorned with those graces and re- 
 finements of expression which areusually acquired 
 only by a long familiarity with the best models of 
 literature ? It might then have been asked, in the 
 words of Bentley, How come our Galilean fisher- 
 man to transact every thing in Attic ? nor do I 
 very well see what reply could have been made 
 to such an objection. But, unquestionably, the 
 language which they do employ lays the authen- 
 ticity of their writings open to no such suspicion; 
 for their style is such, in point of refinement and 
 purity, as might be expected from the inhabitants 
 of a rude and remote province, whose occupations 
 had been, of all others, the least likely to render 
 them familiar with any dialect superior to that, 
 which persons of their own rank employed in the 
 common intercourse of life. The author of Pa- 
 lseoromaica, who, while he professes to reverence 
 the Christian faith, exhibits too often a very un- 
 becoming sympathy with its infidel opposers, 
 quotes, and apparently approves (p. 473,) the 
 flippant attack of the superficial Shaftesbury on 
 the inspiration of the writers of the New Testa- 
 ment : where the whole force of the sneer, for 
 reasoning it cannot be called, is made to rest on 
 the imperfection of their style. But with what 
 justice is purity or impurity of language made 
 
 e2 
 
52 
 
 the test of inspiration u ? or what ground is there 
 for assuming that the Spirit of Truth would bestow 
 on the Apostles any skill, in the arts of composi- 
 tion, beyond what they previously possessed ? 
 It is very manifest that, whether we consider 
 our Greek Text as the original, or look beyond 
 it to some preceding text, there cannot have been 
 
 n " I must differ widely from Dr. Campbell when he refers, (as 
 he does in p. 20, vol. i.) to the Bishop of Gloucester's (Dr. 
 Warburton's) Doctrine of Grace, for the best refutation of the 
 objections against the inspiration of the Scriptures derived from 
 the want of classic purity in its language. I would on the con- 
 trary direct the reader's attention to the Dissertation on the Prin- 
 ciples of Human Eloquence, in which the bold paradoxes of the 
 Bishop are set aside, and the argument placed on a sound and 
 legitimate basis by the learned Dr. Thomas Leland, formerly a 
 fellow of this (Dublin) University, 
 
 " The Bishop, it is well known, had held that the want of purity 
 in the writings of the New Testament supplies in itself a proof 
 of their divine original; and had defended this position upon 
 reasons nearly subversive of every just notion of the nature of 
 human eloquence. Dr. Leland, on the contrary, with a due regard 
 to the principles of elegance and taste, and of common sense, 
 and in the direct maintenance of them all against the attacks of 
 this very formidable assailant, more discreetly and successfully 
 contended for the truth of this proposition, that ' whatever rude- 
 ness of style may be discoverable in the writings of the New 
 Testament, it can afford neither proof nor presumption that the 
 authors were not divinely inspired.' See p. 97, or rather indeed 
 the whole of the judicious discussion from p. 88 to p. 118 of the 
 Dissertation." Magee, Disc, and Dissert* on the Script, Doctrines 
 of Atonement, vol. i. p. 256, 7. 
 
53 
 
 any suggestion of the very words to be employed. 
 The Apostles, then, being left to depend upon their 
 own faculties in the choice of their expressions, 
 it is rather surprising, considering their previous 
 opportunities of acquiring knowledge, that they 
 should have written so well as they have done, 
 than that their writings, in a critical point of 
 view, should exhibit many defects. This objec- 
 tion of Palseoromaica cannot certainly boast of 
 novelty ; it has been urged over and over, from 
 the very beginnings of Christianity, by the mem- 
 bers of that sect, the Minute Philosophers— of 
 which there should seem never to have been a 
 more ardent disciple than the writer now under 
 examination. Hear the microscopic and dispu- 
 tatious Alciphron declaiming on this very topic. 
 " Be the tradition ever so well attested, and the 
 books ever so genuine, yet I cannot suppose them 
 wrote by persons divinely inspired, so long as I 
 see in them certain characters inconsistent with 
 such a supposition. Surely the purest language, 
 the most perfect style, the exactest method, and 
 in a word all the excellencies of good writing 
 might be expected in a piece composed or dic- 
 tated by the Spirit of God : but books wherein 
 we find the reverse of all this, it were impious 
 not to reject but to attribute to the Divinity \" 
 It is just and necessary, I am aware, to make a 
 
 % Berkeley's Mm, Phil. Dial. vi. 6. 
 
54 
 
 distinction here. The design of Alciphron and 
 his associates was to attack directly the inspira- 
 tion of the Apostles ; that of Palaeoromaica is only 
 to impugn that of the writings which now pass un- 
 der their names. While he agrees with the Mi- 
 nute Philosophers in thinking these writings to 
 be, in point of style, unworthy of, and incapable 
 of having proceeded from, inspired writers, he 
 yet avoids the necessity of directly questioning 
 the divine commission of the Apostles. This he 
 does by means of the supposition of an original, 
 now lost, in which that purity of language, and 
 those excellencies of writing, above spoken of, were 
 actually found. As far however as his objection 
 extends, as far as it proceeds to question, on the 
 above grounds, the originality of the present 
 Greek Text, it agrees in substance with that of 
 Alciphron ; and cannot be better replied to than 
 in the temperate and reasonable language of the 
 great writer already quoted. — " O Alciphron, if 
 I durst follow my own judgment, I should be 
 apt to think there are noble beauties in the style 
 of the Holy Scripture : in the narrative parts a 
 strain so simple and unaffected; in the devo- 
 tional and prophetic so animated and sublime ; 
 and in the doctrinal parts such an air of autho- 
 rity, as seems to speak their original divine. But 
 I shall not enter into a dispute about taste ; 
 much less set up my judgment on so nice a 
 point against that of the wits, and men of genius 
 
55 
 
 with which your sect abounds. And I have no 
 temptation to do so, inasmuch as it seems to me 
 that the Oracles of God are not less so, for being 
 delivered in a plain dress rather than in the en- 
 ticing words of mans wisdom y ." The final end, why 
 the delivery of those oracles was entrusted to 
 these despised and ignoble instruments, to men 
 whose style of expression is suitable to their 
 want of education, and low estimation in the 
 world, is sufficiently evident to vindicate abun- 
 dantly the wisdom of God in making this selec- 
 tion. His purpose, apparently, was to afford no 
 ground for the pretence, that the beauties of 
 their style, and not the importance of the doc- 
 trines they revealed, had led to the general ac- 
 ceptance of the Apostolical writings ; and thus, 
 had those writings been different from what they 
 are, the cross of Christ might have been made 
 of none effect. " I never thought nor expected," 
 continues the judicious Berkeley, "that the Holy 
 Scripture should shew itself divine, by a circum- 
 stantial accuracy of narration, by exactness of 
 method, by strictly observing the rules of rheto- 
 ric, grammar, and criticism, in harmonious pe- 
 riods, in elegant and choice expressions, or in 
 technical definitions and partitions. These things 
 would look too like a human composition. Me- 
 ihinks there is in that simple, unaffected, artless, 
 
 y Min, Phil. vi. 6. 
 
56 
 
 unequal, bold, figurative style of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, a character singularly great and majestic, 
 and that looks more like Divine inspiration than 
 any other composition I know \" With respect, 
 therefore, to any objection founded on the em- 
 ployment of an incorrect and inelegant style by 
 the Apostles in general, that is of a style likely 
 to be used by persons of their condition and ac- 
 quirements, it appears, as has been often shewn 
 before, that there is very little in it. 
 
 But the case of St. Paul, it may be said, dif- 
 fers greatly from that of his brethren ; and, as 
 upon this the greatest stress is laid by the au- 
 thor of Palaeoromaica, it may be proper to exa- 
 mine the question somewhat more at large. 
 ■ ' If," he says, " the style of the other books of 
 the New Testament be such as might be ex- 
 pected from the fishermen of the lake of Genne- 
 sareth, the style of Paul ought perhaps to be 
 such as we might expect from a man of talent 
 and education, who was a native of the learned 
 and polished city of Tarsus." (p. 145.) Again, 
 " How shall we account, upon the common hy- 
 pothesis that the Apostles were themselves the 
 authors of our Vulgate Greek Text, how shall we 
 account for the circumstance that the Greek 
 style of a native of Tarsus, and of a man too of 
 learning and exalted genius, should be less pure 
 
 1 Mm, Phil. vi. 7, 
 
57 
 
 than that of Peter a fisherman of Galilee ?" (p. 
 152.) To determine this question let us first of 
 all hear St. Paul's own account of himself. " I," 
 he says, " am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, 
 a city of Cilicia; a citizen of no mean city a ." So 
 again b , " I verily am a man which am a Jew, 
 born in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, yet brought up 
 in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught 
 according to the perfect manner of the law of 
 our fathers V What assertion can be plainer 
 than that, although he was born in Cilicia, he 
 was brought up and educated in Jerusalem ; and 
 what ground is hereby furnished for the surmise, 
 that " Paul spent his youth at Tarsus ;" and that 
 " his instructions from Gamaliel were subsequent 
 to the crucifixion of our Lord?" (p. 153.) At this 
 time, as nearly as can be ascertained, St. Paul 
 was twenty- nine or thirty years of age. Is this 
 then the period at which education usually be- 
 
 a Acts xxi. 39. b Actsxxii. 3. 
 
 c I must think that it would be a more grammatical and 
 therefore a preferable mode of dividing this verse, to place a 
 greater pause after {v ry tto\h ravry, and thus to render the £oh 
 lowing clause more directly explanatory of that which goes be- 
 fore. Thus : fyw fxev ei[ii avqp lovoaiog, yiyevvt}fiivoQ iv Tap<rw ttjq 
 KtXiKtac, avaredpafifievog $s tv ry 7ro\ec ravry rcaga tovq irodag ra/xa- 
 \iij\ 7rtTTaidevfJLevoQ Kara a/cpi/3fiav tov TraTptaov vofiov. " I verily am a 
 man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, but 
 brought up in this city: having been taught, at the feet of 
 Gamaliel, according to the perfect manner of the law of our 
 fathers." 
 
58 
 
 gins ? If it did so, in the case of St. Paul, we 
 need hardly to seek any farther for an explana- 
 tion of the defects and improprieties of his style. 
 But it is manifest that St. Paul could not design 
 to render any such account of himself ; for, if he 
 had come to Jerusalem only at that compara- 
 tively advanced period of his life, could he with 
 any truth or propriety have affirmed, as he does, 
 that he was " bred up {avaTeBpafifuvog) in that 
 city ?" How also could such a supposition be 
 reconciled with his assertion before Agrippa ? 
 " My manner of life from my youth up, which 
 was at the first (air apyr\q from the very beginning) 
 at Jerusalem, know all the Jews ; which knew 
 me from the beginning if they would testify d ," 
 &c. But " his instructions from Gamaliel," we 
 are required to believe, " were subsequent to 
 the crucifixion of our Lord ; for had he been at 
 Jerusalem during the ministry of Jesus he could 
 hardly have avoided seeing him, which however 
 he had never done till the time of his vision near 
 Damascus." To this it is surely sufficient to re- 
 ply, that there is no inconsistency in supposing 
 that St. Paul might be educated at Jerusalem, 
 and yet be absent from that city during the con- 
 tinuance of our Lord's public ministry ; ' before 
 the commencement of which his education must 
 have been long completed. In the next place, 
 
 d Acts xxvi. 4. 
 
59 
 
 however, it does not appear, from St. Luke's or 
 St, Paul's own account of this transaction, that 
 he had never seen our Lord until his appearance 
 to him on the road to Damascus. Even though 
 he had previously known the person of Jesus, 
 yet, having up to that very instant entertained a 
 firm persuasion that he was an impostor, and had 
 not risen from the dead, when he beheld him 
 thus suddenly in a state of glory, he might still 
 enquire, in the first moments of astonishment, 
 hardly knowing what he said, " Who art thou, 
 Lord ?" In the last place, it is by no means cer- 
 tainly declared in the sacred history, that when 
 St. Paul asked this question he had seen the 
 face of the vision, or that he beheld Christ per- 
 sonally, until afterwards when he obeyed the 
 command, " Rise and stand upon thy feet." 
 This reasoning is however purely conjectural ; 
 and, as such, although different minds may arrive 
 at different conclusions concerning it, can never 
 weigh in opposition to a plainly recorded fact ; 
 that Paul was brought up in Jerusalem, and 
 spent his youth among his own nation in that 
 city. Most groundless therefore is the asser- 
 tion, (p. 153.) that " St. Paul had all the advan- 
 tages of birth and education to become eloquent 
 in Greek ; or at least to write the language with 
 purity." It was hardly possible indeed that he 
 could have been placed in a situation less likely 
 to endow him with these qualities. The instruc- 
 
60 
 
 tions of Gamaliel were principally (St. Paul af- 
 firms /car* aKpi|3aav) conversant about the law and 
 religion of the Jews ; the explanation of the 
 Scriptures ; and the traditionary comments of 
 the Rabbinical school : and the only chance, 
 which the future Apostle possessed, of maintain- 
 ing an acquaintance with Greek was in the way 
 of ordinary conversation in a place, where, from 
 the nature of things, nothing like purity of dia- 
 lect could be expected to prevail. What kind 
 of style he would be likely thus to acquire it is 
 easy to conjecture ; we should even a priori ex- 
 pect it to be such as prevails in his writings ; the 
 mixed style of a city, the inhabitants of which 
 were not Greeks ; abounding in foreign idioms, 
 common words taken in uncommon senses, and 
 forms of expression unauthorised by the usage 
 of the pure native writers of Attica and Asia 
 Minor. 
 
 St. Paul, it is undeniable, quotes the Grecian 
 poets; but so briefly that it cannot thence be con- 
 cluded with certainty, that he possessed any ex- 
 tensive acquaintance with their writings. Two of 
 the passages introduced by him, those from Epi- 
 menides and Menander are proverbial expressions, 
 such as in most countries float on the stream of 
 general conversation, and are familiarly applied, 
 from hearsay, by many who have little farther 
 acquaintance with the writings in which such pas- 
 sages are found. The quotation from Aratus is 
 
61 
 
 so very brief, that it enables us to conclude no- 
 thing with certainty. It might easily be applied 
 by one who had been no very diligent reader of 
 poetry. In the same manner Mr. Falconer, and 
 after him the author of Paleeoromaica, argues that 
 St. Paul's acquaintance with the writings of the 
 Greek philosophers must be presumed, because 
 " he would not deserve attention if he had spoken 
 of the wisdom of this world without being ac- 
 quainted with its nature and teachers," (p. 154.) 
 St.-<Paul, it may be replied, judged of the nature 
 of the Greek philosophy by its fruits ; the lives 
 of its professors, more than the writings of its 
 teachers, shewed what it was capable of effect- 
 ing ; and the Apostle, knowing that it could not 
 preach " Christ crucified," or give to mankind 
 an assurance of a life to come, understood enough 
 to be justified in describing such a religious sys- 
 tem, particularly when set in comparison with 
 the Gospel, as false in principle, deficient in au- 
 thority, and ineffectual in operation. My per- 
 suasion therefore is, that St. Paul had not exten- 
 sively studied either the Greek poets or the Greek 
 philosophers ; neither indeed does it follow that, 
 even if he had done so, he would have neces- 
 sarily acquired the faculty of writing their lan- 
 guage with purity and correctness : that is with 
 greater purity and correctness than the Vulgate 
 text of his Epistles displays. How many of our 
 own countrymen have extended their reading 
 
62 
 
 through the whole course of French and Italian 
 literature, and even passed great part of their 
 lives among the people of those nations, who 
 could not write three pages in the languages 
 without committing solecisms ? thus giving evi- 
 dent proof, that to compose in a foreign language, 
 with the ease and correctness of a native, is an 
 acquisition rare indeed ; and which no compass 
 of mere reading can bestow. To take an in- 
 stance, quoted in Palseoromaica (p. 148.) from 
 Dr. Campbell — the instance of Voltaire: " Hardly 
 any foreigner,'' he says, " of the last century, 
 has been more conversant with English men and 
 English books than Voltaire. Yet his know- 
 ledge of our language, on which, I have been 
 told, he prided himself not a little, has not se- 
 cured him from blundering when he attempted 
 to write it." The only particular in which it can 
 be said that these cases are not analogous is, 
 that Voltaire was not an Englishman, whereas 
 St. Paul was a native of a city in which the 
 Greek tongue was very much used. But, if all 
 the circumstances be fairly weighed, this will not 
 appear to have been a very important advantage. 
 The expressions of St. Paul himself intimate a 
 very early removal to Jerusalem ; nor indeed 
 would a longer continuance in Tarsus have been 
 likely to communicate to him the faculty of 
 writing very pure Greek. The Son of a Jew, 
 of a Roman citizen, residing in a Greek city, it 
 
63 
 
 seems probable that, in domestic life, even from 
 his infancy, he must have been placed within 
 hearing of a mixed and motley dialect, similar 
 to that which Dionysius, of Halicamassus, attri- 
 butes to the Romans ; 8r* aKpav jSaptapov^ s8* airrip- 
 
 TKTfxevwg e\\a$a. Tarsus, it is true, receives a 
 high character from Strabo, for the addiction of 
 its inhabitants to philosophy and polite litera- 
 ture ; insomuch that they are said to have sur- 
 passed, in this respect, the people of Athens and 
 Alexandria. Admitting that this description is 
 as accurate as those of Strabo in general con- 
 fessedly are, and that the study of philosophy 
 prevailed to a great extent in the birth-place of 
 St. Paul, it will yet remain to be considered 
 whether this necessarily implies peculiar purity 
 of language in the great body of the people. 
 The mention of Alexandria is somewhat un- 
 favourable to the Palseoromaican hypothesis, 
 since, in that city, we know that, while philoso- 
 phy and literature flourished, the general dialect 
 of the people was vitiated by almost every de- 
 parture from the standard of correctness of which 
 language is capable. This was the state of 
 things in Alexandria ; and the same may have 
 happened, and probably did happen, in Tarsus. 
 That the people of Asia Minor did not in general 
 speak the Grecian language in its purity is very 
 evident from the epithets /3ap€apoc, and fiaptapo- 
 <j>wvoi, applied by the Greeks to all its inhabi- 
 
64 
 
 tants, except the Ionians and iEolians. To the 
 latter two nations the name of barbarians could 
 nbt have been applied, because they spoke Greek 
 with purity, and Greek alone. This was their 
 native language, marking their genuine descent 
 from a Pelasgic stock, and drawing a broad line 
 of distinction between them and the inhabitants 
 of the other provinces. The greater number, if 
 not all of these, also spoke Greek ; but it was in 
 conjunction with their own national languages, 
 and with all those vices of inflexion and pronun- 
 ciation which marked them out to the native 
 Greeks as foreigners, or barbarians ; as the same 
 thing was differently and more opprobriously 
 expressed. We possess indeed the most posi- 
 tive evidence that each separate province had its 
 peculiar native language ; however that of Greece 
 might be in common use among them all. " How 
 hear we every man in the tongue wherein we 
 were born ?" said the crowds assembled at Jeru- 
 salem on the day of Pentecost, " Parthians, and 
 Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Meso- 
 potamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pon- 
 tus and Asia (i. e. Proconsular Asia or Lydia) 
 Phrygia and PamphyliaT From Acts xiv. 11. 
 we learn that the inhabitants of Lycaonia, though 
 they understood the Apostles, speaking Greek> 
 yet cried out in their own peculiar dialect. Phi- 
 lippus, the ancient historian of Caria, relates 
 that the people of that province intermingled 
 
65 
 
 many Greek words with their own native lan- 
 guage. Strabo relates, that the Cibyratse spoke 
 three languages ; one of which, the Lydian, was 
 that of their own country. The Galatians, we 
 learn from Pausanias and Jerome, continued to 
 employ the language of the Treviri conjointly 
 with that of Greece 6 . After this enumeration it 
 is reasonable to conclude, that the inhabitants 
 of Cilicia formed no exception to the case of the 
 surrounding provinces ; but that they also had a 
 peculiar language of their own. This, it is af- 
 firmed by Jerome and other writers, they had ; 
 and, speaking Greek in conjunction with that, 
 they could not have spoken it with such purity 
 as, in the opinion of the native Greeks, to ex- 
 empt them from the stigma of barbarism. This 
 province indeed, by geographical position the 
 farthest of all removed from Europe, and placed 
 in the immediate neighbourhood of Syria and 
 the eastern nations, was perhaps the least likely 
 of all to acquire and maintain an unobjectionable 
 idiom. Even a continued residence in his na- 
 tive place would therefore not have necessarily 
 bestowed on St. Paul the faculty of writing bet- 
 ter Greek than appears in the received text of 
 his Epistles ; because, although in Tarsus lan- 
 guage of a better character may have prevailed 
 
 e On this subject see P. E. Jablonsky's Disq. de Lingua Ly- 
 caonica, $§ 4, 5, 6 ; and the authorities there quoted. 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 than was current in the province in general, 
 there must have been, even there, a very wide 
 departure from Attic purity ; many words adopted 
 from the native Cilician tongue, and many, truly 
 Greek, employed in senses unacknowledged by 
 the standard writers. The example of Strabo 
 himself shows, and even without that it would 
 be obvious, that a native of Asia Minor might 
 write very good Greek ; that is, provided he took 
 pains to avoid the contagion of those improprie- 
 ties which prevailed among his neighbours. But 
 St. Paul was derived from a race which was not 
 disposed to make such exertions ; for the Jews, 
 we learn from Origen f , were not curious in Greek 
 learning; so that, whatever might be the pro- 
 ficiency of the inhabitants in general, the sect and 
 family of -Saul of Tarsus had probably little par- 
 ticipation in it. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that the original rank 
 and occupation of St. Paul, although superior to 
 those of his brother Apostles, were not so greatly 
 exalted as to give us reason to expect from him a 
 display of much erudition, or of any very striking 
 beauties of style. His occupation was in itself 
 respectable, but the exercise of a manual craft 
 . (beyond which it does not appear that he had 
 any means of subsistence) could allow him few 
 opportunities of exercising his knowledge of 
 
 f See Pal. p. 15. 
 
67 
 
 Greek, except in conversation with those by 
 whom that language was spoken in Jerusalem ; 
 and a dialect thus acquired and preserved was 
 not very likely to be the same with that which 
 is in use among classical authors. After he be- 
 came a Christian, if it were not too late in life 
 for him then to amend habits so long fixed, he 
 had a weightier employment at heart, than that 
 of balancing sentences and segregating pure from 
 barbarous forms of speech. He seems to have 
 disregarded, as a thing of little consequence, if 
 he did not even studiously avoid, the imitation 
 of a better model ; and to have gloried solely in 
 the success of his Lord and Master's doctrine 
 without being set off by the adventitious recom- 
 mendation of a regular or embellished style. 
 But it is urged that, after his conversion, " his 
 time was spent at Tarsus, in Ephesus, and in 
 Antioch ; cities which were greatly distinguished 
 for Grecian literature." (p. 155.) If indeed St. 
 Paul had visited these places at an earlier age, 
 and in the character of a student, possessing the 
 means of introduction to the refined and learned 
 part of their society, their literature might pos- 
 sibly have given a tinge to his ordinary mode of 
 expressing himself in Greek, and have taughfr 
 him to avoid the use of many words which, on 
 the authority of the grammarians, we know, 
 were not considered as of the purest standard. 
 But when we recollect, that on his first visit to 
 
 f2 
 
68 
 
 Antioch, in company with Barnabas 8 , he must 
 have been on the verge of forty years of age, 
 (a time of life at which most men's style of ex- 
 pression is too firmly fixed to be easily changed 
 for the better) when we consider too that the year 
 which he abode in that city was devoted to the 
 instruction of " great multitudes," (v. 26.) and 
 that, here, as in other places, the connexions of 
 St. Paul were chiefly with the humbler classes h , 
 who in that age had little acquaintance with 
 literature, and made few pretensions to it, we 
 cannot regard this as the period of the Apostle's 
 life during which he was likely to surmount that 
 tendency to barbarism and impurity of speech 
 which was the fault of his early education. St. 
 Paul, in fact, claims not for himself any supe- 
 riority over his brethren as to power or propriety 
 of expression. As Peter and John were dis- 
 covered from their discourse to be u illiterate 
 
 and of a low Station 1 ,'' (aypafifxaroi tcai i&wrai k ) SO 
 
 * Acts xi. 25. 
 
 h " The first Christians, as we formerly remarked, were, in 
 general, not persons of rank to whom Greek was familiar as 
 French among ourselves, but poor and uneducated persons ; as 
 the Apostle himself tells the Corinthians." (1 Cor. i. 26.) 
 Palceoromaica, p. 169. 
 
 1 Acts iv. 13. 
 . k " Unlearned and ignorant men," in our Established Version, 
 besides being somewhat tautological, is not a very literal trans- 
 lation of the words here quoted, iduarng is a private soldier, as 
 distinguished from one of superior rank ; a subject as opposed 
 
69 
 
 concerning himself he professes that he is icW»f€ 
 TW Xo-y<£> : i. e. rude in speech ; in this respect re- 
 sembling those of the humbler rank ! . We are 
 therefore not yet reduced, as the author of Palae- 
 oromaica too hastily, and with an air of prema- 
 ture triumph, maintains, to the dilemma of sup- 
 posing either that the epistles attributed to St. 
 Paul were not written by him, or that the im- 
 perfections of their style are attributable to an un- 
 known and uninspired translator. It may suit the 
 
 to a governor : and generally, it denotes the person who occu- 
 pies any inferior station. See Schleusner Lex. N. T. in v. It 
 comes, by a metonymy, to signify ignorant, because those of the 
 inferior class usually are so : but this is not its original and pro- 
 per meaning. " Interdum, unus e vulgo ; plebeius ; — per 
 idiutTctQ saepe intelligitur Vulgus indoctum, quomodo et a Demos- 
 thene accipitur." Steph. Thesaur. p. 4403 — 1641. 
 
 'Qualesipsi (sc.Apostoli) fuere,taleetloquendi genus habuerunt. 
 Non fuere autem rhetores, non poetae, non aulici, non philosophi, nee 
 sophistae nee historici, nee omnino docti homines, vel ex eorum ge- 
 nere quopiam qui in excolendo et expoliendo sermone versari so- 
 lent. Idiotae plane sermone fuere sed non scientia, ut ipse de se fate- 
 tur Paulus. Ergo stylus eorum idioticus ; ut poetarum poeticus, rhe- 
 torum rhetoricus, sophistarum sophisticus, aulicorum aulicus,his- 
 toriae scriptorum historicus. Patres omnes Graeci Latinique iduorag, 
 aypoiKHQ, afiaOiig, aypafifiarse, sermone imperitos rudes, illiterates 
 eos appellant ; qui tamen dicendo confutarint mg $Ck»oo<png rug 
 
 pqTopag, rag foiveg eimiv IdiurtKog sermo idem cum koivq et 
 
 vulgari. Nam tfowrai proprie dicuntur homines de plebe, indocti, 
 et solo sermone utentes quo vulgus utitur in conversatione communi, 
 quern que pueri a nutricibus suis imbiberunt. Salmas, de HeU 
 lenist. p. 261. 
 
70 
 
 purposes of a writer, who would reduce us to this 
 extremity, to represent the Apostle as " an adept 
 in Greek : " (p. 171.) it is, in fact, upon this one 
 point that the whole force of his argument hinges. 
 I do however most firmly deny the cogency of 
 it ; and maintain, on the contrary, that there was 
 nothing in St. Paul's birth, early condition, or 
 education, nothing in his subsequent visits to 
 Tarsus, Ephesus, and Antioch, in his occupation, 
 or in the rank of his associates, which gives us 
 reasonable grounds to expect that he would ex- 
 hibit a purer, a more unembarrassed, or, upon 
 the whole, a better style of writing Greek than 
 the Epistles attributed to him display. Of the 
 sentiments and arguments of those writings I do 
 not here speak ; they were the dictates of God's 
 Holy Spirit. My only concern is with the man- 
 ner of expression ; and this, as exhibited in the 
 text of our present Greek Testament, is of ex- 
 actly such a character as, from all previous argu- 
 ments, we should judge most likely to appear in 
 the writings of St. Paul. Let me not from this 
 be supposed to acquiesce in the justice of all the 
 strictures of Palseoromaica, or to argue as if I 
 thought that the written compositions of the Apos- 
 tle presented only a continued series of barba- 
 risms and violations of the ordinary forms of 
 speech. Far from it ; there are frequent passages 
 of unequalled beaitty, to which, even in a philo- 
 logical and grammatical point of view, nothing 
 
71 
 
 can be objected : and it is not one of the least 
 difficulties attending the hypothesis of Palseoro- 
 maica that it requires us to believe that these, in 
 many respects inimitable, passages proceeded 
 from the hand, not of St. Paul, but of a translator 
 at other times so ignorant as to confuse napeKTog 
 with per actus, and to suppose that 6/nupo^voi was 
 the Greek for amaremur. 
 
 The mention of these expressions however warns 
 me to draw somewhat nearer to the main ques- 
 tion, by entering into a distinct examination of 
 these and other alleged instances, which lead, we 
 are told, to a conclusion, " that the genius of 
 St. Paul has had injustice done to it by an im- 
 perfect translation," (p. 152.) The first exam- 
 ples which occur are those of Ka>oa> m , of 6^eipofXBvoi n 9 
 and of tp&eia °, which, as Gregory of Nyssa origi- 
 nally remarked, are used, in the passages referred 
 to, in new and unprecedented senses. To main- 
 tain, as is done in Paleeoromaica, that these 
 words did not proceed from St. Paul himself, but 
 that the chime or echo of Latin words, somewhat 
 similar in sound, suggested them, without any 
 regard to their meaning, to an ignorant translator 
 by whom the present Greek text of the Epistles 
 was put together, this is to cut the knot in a way 
 which can be satisfactory to no one capable of a 
 
 m Phil. ii. 7. 1 Cor. i. 17, and ix. 15. M Thess, il 8. 
 
 * Rom. ii, 8. Gal. v. 20, 
 
72 
 
 moment's just reflection. If I must be persuaded 
 that Ktvoi*) is nothing more than the Latin word 
 exinanio, o^i^ofievoi, than amaremur in disguise, and 
 zp&ua than a mistranslation of laniatio, I cannot 
 help saying that it is high time to search narrowly 
 in every quarter where they may possibly be 
 found, for the original Scriptures of the New Tes- 
 tament : for, if the writings which now pass under 
 that title be thus unfaithful in such manifold in- 
 stances, what assurance do we, or can we, pos- 
 sess that in any other places they furnish a cor- 
 rect representation of the genuine Word of God ? 
 I am willing however to persuade myself that we 
 are yet in no danger ot being reduced to any such 
 extremity. 
 
 The adjective kcvoc, to resume the subject under 
 discussion, in its primitive sense signifies empty or 
 void; as in the material universe to /cevov and to 
 ir\Yipzg stand mutually opposed. Hence, in a 
 literal sense, kcvow is to make or to leave void; to 
 empty any recipient of that which it contains. 
 In this direct sense the word is not used by St. 
 Paul; but metaphorically, to intimate that the 
 thing or person, which is the object of the verb, 
 has abstracted from it some quality or attribute 
 which belonged to it ; and which, without much 
 violence to language, it might be said to contain. 
 It is not perfectly true that kcvow is never used 
 by profane authors in this sense; since Theo- 
 phrastus, 300 years before St. Paul, by the words 
 
73 
 
 §tv$pa KtKzvwfizva describes trees, which by bearing 
 fruit were exhausted, or deprived of the vigour 
 which was in them ; with which, he adds, they 
 require avmrhripaySrivai to be replenished. C. PL ii. 1 . 
 From this the transition is short and easy to the 
 sense in which the same verb is used by St. Paul, 
 when p he argues, that if men could become heirs 
 of God " through the Law," then "faith," /cc/cevwrai, 
 is left void of the efficacy and importance which 
 are its inherent qualities so long as it is considered 
 as the sole appointed means by which " the just 
 shall live." In the same manner, he says, ku\ov 
 
 yap fjtoi juaXXov cnroOaveiv t) to Kavy^rifia /us iva tiq K£- 
 
 vwcrp q . " It were better for me to die than that 
 any one should render this of mine an empty boast." 
 There is, however, one passage r in which this 
 word is used in so awful and mysterious a sense, 
 that it would be miraculous indeed if our limited 
 faculties could rise to a perfect apprehension of 
 its meaning. " Being in the form of God, he 
 thought it not robbery to be equal with God ; 
 nevertheless ' tKtvwcnv eaurov — here I am obliged 
 to acknowledge the difficulty of proceeding ; 
 for, even while I admit, with Zanchius, that 
 " magnam habet emphasin, se evacuavit omni 
 gloria et eequalitate cum Patre," I am utterly 
 at a loss for a word which shall describe the man- 
 ner of HIS humiliation, in Whom, before He vo- 
 
 * Rom. iv. 14. * 1 Cor. ix. 15. r Phil, ii, 7, 
 
74 
 
 luntarily divested himself of it, " dwelt all the 
 fulness of the Godhead bodily." Ordinary lan- 
 guage sinks beneath such a subject; and it is 
 surely a most unreasonable requisition to bid us 
 produce, from some other writer, an instance of 
 this verb used in the sense, which in this passage 
 is attributed to it by the Apostle. No other 
 writer ever was employed in expressing verbally 
 so superhuman a conception as that of the Incar- 
 nation of the Son of God ; and therefore not all 
 other writers united can be expected in every 
 instance to furnish corresponding forms of ex- 
 pression. Considering the subject of St. Paul's 
 writings, it is scarcely to be expected that he 
 should at all times be able to avoid employing 
 ordinary words in enlarged, and, strictly speak- 
 ing, improper senses. To maintain therefore that, 
 because the writings of the New Testament con- 
 tain some few examples of this kind, they cannot 
 be the genuine productions of the Apostles, is a 
 mode of argument which neither does nor ought 
 to carry any weight whatever s . 
 
 s We learn from Cicero that, from certain hyper-critics of a 
 former age, the orators of Athens themselves experienced no 
 gentler treatment, on the score of employing unauthorized 
 words, than the great Apostle incurs in the pages of Palasoro- 
 maica. " iEschini ne Demosthenes quidem videtur Attice dicere," 
 and he adds a remark which they, who employ themselves in the 
 minute philosophy of cavilling and word-catching, would do well 
 to inscribe on the walls of their study, " Facile est verbum aliquod 
 
 \ 
 
75 
 
 Proceeding then in our investigation, we find 
 the next objection raised against the word opupo- 
 Htvoi \ which is supposed to be nothing more than 
 a corrupt derivative {sound not sense being re- 
 garded) from the Latin amaremur, in the text from 
 which it is attempted to shew that the Greek was 
 translated, (p. 157). It is certainly a strong pre- 
 sumption, and with every Christian will be a con- 
 clusive argument, against the correctness of this 
 supposition, that a Latin text, reading in confor- 
 mity with it, cannot be admitted without con- 
 verting the entire passage into sheer absurdity 
 and unmeaning impertinence. Whether it be 
 reasonable or becoming to impute this to the 
 Apostle upon no better ground, than that he 
 cannot possibly have used an omicron where he 
 ought to have employed an iota, let others judge. 
 His words, according to the Vulgate Greek, are 
 these, " not seeking glory from men, neither 
 from you, nor from others ; although we might 
 be in authority as Apostles of Christ; but we 
 were indulgent in the midst of you. As a nurse u 
 cherisheth her own children, so we, being afTec- 
 
 ardens (ut ita dicam) notare, id que, restinctis jam animorum in- 
 cendiis, irridere." Orator, § viii. 
 
 * 1 Thess. ii. 8. 
 
 " Chandler observes that rpoQog here denotes a mother who 
 nurses her own children. If vrjirioi (see Grieshach) be preferred 
 in this passage to rj-moi it will by no means entail a necessity of 
 interpreting, as in Palaeoromaica, (p. 157). " We became babes 
 among you." For if vr\irw be genuine (as Theodoret, Origen, 
 
76 
 
 tionately desirous (o/ieeoo^evoi) of you, are pleased 
 to divide amongst you not only the Gospel of 
 God, but even our own lives ; seeing that you 
 are beloved by us." The image in this passage, 
 and as it stands it is very faithfully and ten- 
 derly expressive, exhibits the Apostles, as indul- 
 gent nursing mothers, engaged in making provi- 
 sion for the wants of a beloved family : desiring 
 nothing from them in return, but surrendering all, 
 even their own lives, for the welfare of their 
 charge. Yet all this the author of Palaeoromaica 
 seeks to destroy by his spiritless conjecture ; by 
 inverting the picture he would rob it of all har- 
 mony and proportion. For if, as he proposes, we 
 are to take the following as the sense of the pas- 
 sage, " We were as babes among you ; even as 
 a nurse cherisheth her children, so ought we to 
 have been beloved by you," there is nothing in the 
 relative situations of the Apostles and their con- 
 verts at all corresponding with this representa- 
 tion. It would indeed be scarcely possible to 
 describe those situations by a less suitable image. 
 And if, to humour the conceit of a Latin original, 
 we place a stop after amaremur, what sense can 
 be deduced from the subsequent words. " We," 
 
 (Ecumenius, and Theophylact read) the passage would be thus 
 translated. " But we, O children, were among you, as, &c." 
 Whitby in loc. The same parental image is again applied, v. 1 1 . 
 " We exhorted and comforted, and charged every one of you, aa 
 a father doth his children," 
 
77 
 
 the children, " are pleased to divide among 
 you," the nurses, &c. Is this then the ordinary 
 relation which individuals of these classes bear to 
 each other ? Is it the usual practice for the nurse 
 to receive attention and sustenance from the off- 
 spring? Nothing can be more opposite to the 
 dictates of nature and experience than the Apos- 
 tle's words, when thus interpreted, become. And 
 the impropriety is rendered more perceptible 
 from the force of contrast; for nothing can be 
 more just or pleasing than the picture, presented 
 by the Greek text, of the Apostle's parental anxiety 
 for the sustenance and well being of these his 
 spiritual children. 
 
 But it is said, what can be made of 'Opzipofievoi! a 
 word, as would appear, unknown to the Greek wri- 
 ters ; and how can it have been used by St. Paul? 
 The genuine word employed by Homer, Herodo- 
 tus, and the Attic writers was 1/mpo/iEvoi, and this 
 was no less certainly the word which the Apostle 
 intended to use v . To account for his improper, or, 
 as we may call it, provincial enunciation of the 
 first syllable (o for i), we must recall to mind in 
 what manner St. Paul acquired his knowledge 
 of Greek. Not, as we have before seen, as the 
 
 v 'ipupo/uu has sometimes, in both these writers, an infinitive 
 mood following. Horn. II. g. 163. and Herodot. Polyhymn. 44. 
 But it is also employed by them, both as to signification and re- 
 gimen, in a manner exactly corresponding to St Paul's : as n 
 KdKuiv t/i€iptr£ rsrwi/. Od» k. 431. and Ifieipetro x^fiaTbtv fxeyaXug • 
 Thalia, 123. 
 
78 
 
 native of any part of Greece Proper or of its co- 
 lonies; not as a foreigner learning a language 
 under proper instructors, and having his attention 
 confined to the best and purest models ; but as 
 the native of a province in which Greek was spoken 
 although the inhabitants were not Greeks. To 
 say the utmost that can be admitted in their 
 favour, the Cilicians among whom he was born, 
 and the Jews among whom he was educated, 
 were (5aptapo(jKjjvoi and fiap$yapoy\i*)<y<Toi : and one 
 of the principal faults objected to these is a vicious 
 pronunciation \ We know that in every country, 
 at a distance from the seat of a correct and stan- 
 dard pronunciation, letters and syllables are 
 interchanged with a capriciousness perfectly un- 
 accountable. As dialects of this kind, in the 
 ordinary course of things, seldom find their way 
 into books, the fact of their prevalence in certain 
 districts does not very often admit of any other 
 than incidental proof; and as no writer expressly 
 alludes to the case of Jerusalem, we have no 
 evidence to prove that a provincial and incor- 
 rect pronunciation of Greek prevailed there, ex- 
 cept that such was the case with respect to 
 other great cities similarly circumstanced. Thus 
 in Alexandria there was a frequent substitution 
 
 * Bap($apog St rj Qojvr) erai kcu airr)xeg to <f>9eyn<x. DlOgen, in Lucian, 
 B. II. (t. 1. p. 550.) rag fiaptapug \t\idovi airtitcaZ&Vi 8ia rr\v a<rvvQe~ 
 tov \a\iav. Hesych. v. xeXt^wr. 
 
79 
 
 of one Greek letter for another : as of A for 
 H : of O for Q ; of Al for E and H : and of 
 O for E, 01 and Q. In the Septuagint we find 
 
 KaSepiZziv for KaSapittiv y ; oikstojv for ikztwv z \ yvverm 
 
 for yiverai a ; and an endless variety of similar 
 improprieties b . Similarly Philelphus, quoted by 
 Gibbon, describing the state of the Greek lan- 
 guage in Constantinople, says, " The vulgar speech 
 has been depraved by the people, and infected 
 by the multitude of strangers who every day 
 flock to the city, and mingle with its inhabitants. 
 But the persons who by their birth and offices 
 are attached to the Byzantine court, are those 
 who maintain with the least alloy, the ancient 
 standard of elegance and purity c ." Now as Je- 
 rusalem was a city exposed perhaps more than 
 any other, by the institutions of the prevalent 
 religion, to a continual influx of strangers, who 
 " mingled with the inhabitants/ ' it cannot be 
 doubted but that a corresponding depravation 
 of language ensued, and was very prevalent 
 there. If under these circumstances a man, 
 not preserved from the infection of a provincial 
 and vicious pronunciation by any intercourse or 
 connexion with persons of rank, (the aulici, as 
 
 y Lev. ix. 15. * Sirach xxxvi. 17. 
 
 * 2 Kings xii. 7. 
 
 b See Sturz. de Dial. Alex. p. 178 — 183. 
 
 e Decline and Fall, vol. viii. p. 157. 
 
80 
 
 they are termed by Philelphus), ran into the 
 error of substituting one vowel for another, and 
 wrote 'O/uiEipofitvoi, when Ipapo/ievoi ought to have 
 been the form, is it better than laborious trifling 
 to seek, on no firmer grounds than these, sup- 
 port for a rickety hypothesis, and to bring into 
 play all the cumbrous machinery by which it is 
 attempted to derive bfxupopLivoi from amaremur ? 
 
 Is it necessary to proceed with other instances ? 
 The next shall be that of tp&tia, on which we are 
 informed, that " above all, the remark which 
 Gregory makes is curious and worthy of con- 
 sideration. He observes, that this (word) was 
 employed by the Greeks to signify not contention 
 and tearing one another d , but ivorking among wool," 
 (p. 157.) With this, for the purpose of exami- 
 nation, we may unite the word eK&^aXaiaxyav, used 
 by St. Mark 6 , improperly in the sense of " to 
 wound in the head." We have here then in- 
 stances of two words which, in the writings at- 
 tributed to St. Paul and St. Mark, have attached 
 to them significations which they cannot pro- 
 perly support. How shall we account for this ? 
 
 d This, let it be observed, is not a correct representation of 
 what is said by Gregory, who, as appears from the Latin ver- 
 sion of his strictures, quoted in Palceoromaica, (p. 156.) says 
 not a word about tearing one another, but represents tpiQua, in 
 St. Paul's writings to mean, " studium contentionis et ulciscendi 
 cupiditas." 
 
 * Mark viii. 4. 
 
81 ' 
 
 Shall we, with the author of Palseoromaica, con- 
 clude that the text, in which these words are 
 thus employed, has been erroneously attributed 
 to the Apostles ? or shall we admit that, in these 
 cases, they made use of words without knowing 
 the meaning they would convey to persons per- 
 fectly acquainted with the Greek language ? The 
 latter supposition seems not improbable; since 
 it assumes only that by those with whom the 
 Apostles lived and conversed these words were 
 used in the senses attributed to them in the 
 Sacred Writings. The source of the confusion 
 is evidently laid in erroneous etymology. First, 
 with respect to cpiSaa : it is very certain that 
 wherever this word is used by St. Paul, he 
 takes it to signify provocation. Thus f he has the 
 phrase rote & e£ eoi&iac, " but to those who pro- 
 voke him ;" as by a similar construction 5 he uses 
 rov e/c 7n<ze(DQ Irjors, for " him who believes in Jesus." 
 Again h he affirms, that " some" *£ ep&tiag " out 
 of provocation to him" (and, as he afterwards 
 says, with a design to add affliction to his bonds) 
 " preach Christ not of sincerity." To the mem- 
 bers of the same church he enjoins, that they do 
 nothing Kara epiQuav r? Kevo$o£,iav, " by way of pro- 
 vocation " to others, or from a vain glorious re- 
 liance on themselves : and where * epiQtia is used 
 
 f Rom. ii. 8. g Rom. iii. 26. 
 
 * Phil. i. 16. ii. 3. * % Cor. xii. 20.— Gal. v. 20, 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 conjunctively with tpig, it is plain that these 
 words were not designed to be synonymous ; but 
 that he forbids not only all actual strife, (spic) 
 but all provocations or irritations, (epAuag) from 
 which it might possibly arise. Therefore in all 
 these cases St. Paul used the word in question 
 not as if it were derived from spiov, wool, but from 
 tp&b> or ep&ilu), to provoke. This error I think it 
 very probable may neither have originated with, 
 nor have been confined to St. Paul ; because in 
 the above etymology there is exactly such an 
 appearance of correctness as would be sufficient 
 to make the word in its improper sense pass cur- 
 rent among foreigners. These, it is true, are 
 nothing more than conjectures ; but in cases like 
 the present, where better evidence is wanting, 
 conjecture must be our only guide. The diffi- 
 culty however, whatever it may amount to, must 
 remain just what it was before ; for it is perfectly 
 certain, that the solution proposed in Palseoro- 
 maica cannot be correct ; that it is, in reality, no 
 solution at all. If it were true that ep&ua is no- 
 thing more than a mistranslation of laniatio, then 
 the substitution of the latter word in the Latin 
 text, which is supposed to have been the parent 
 of, our Greek, ought at all events to produce a 
 clear, unembarrassed and unexceptionable mean- 
 ing. According to the admission of this author, 
 " that must have been plain in Latin which be- 
 came strange and a solecism in Greek," (p. 157.) 
 
83 
 
 Let us then try his present restitution of the 
 original by this test : rote & e£ tp&uag, according 
 to his rule, must have been derived from " lis au- 
 tem qui sunt e laniatione ;" which, if it have any 
 meaning at all, must signify, " But to those 
 who cut and maim?' Let any one look at the 
 context and determine whether this is " plain 
 in Latin," or whether any conjecture so pal- 
 pably bearing with it its own refutation was ever 
 brought to the notice of the world. I do not go 
 through all the other passages, (although an ap- 
 plication of the same test leads in them to a 
 similar result) because it is painful and revolt- 
 ing to our feelings of due respect for the word 
 of God, to allude, even hypothetically, to the vio- 
 lations of sense and propriety which the Palaeo- 
 romaican hypothesis introduces into the language 
 of the Apostles. Let the odium rest on him 
 whose visionary system, in its application, gives 
 rise to such a profanation of things sacred. 
 
 In the case of the next word, e/c^aXaiwo-av, his 
 conjecture is so far more reasonable than the 
 foregoing, that the substitution of expulerunt does 
 not deprive the passage of all meaning. But 
 when I am required to believe that this inter- 
 change of EKE<j>a\aioj<jav with expulerunt, was occa- 
 sioned solely by similarity of sound, it is impossi- 
 ble not to remark that he must have quick ears 
 by whom this similarity is perceptible. It must, 
 to all appearance, have cost the supposed trans- 
 
 g 2 
 
84 
 
 lator, and, if he will speak frankly, the author 
 of Palaeoromaica himself, infinitely more trouble 
 to detect the resemblance than to translate £*«- 
 tydXaiuoav, correctly, twenty times over. Com- 
 menting On the passage, KaKuvov EK£<f>a\ai(t)(rav k , 
 
 and adventuring upon criticism, which is not his 
 province, he observes, " Now certainly we do 
 not hear that the former servant had l , as the 
 Greek seems to imply, been wounded in the head/ 
 (p. 99.) But I must take leave to tell him, that 
 the Greek implies no such thing ; and if he will 
 ever condescend to read two verses consecu- 
 tively, he will find in that which follows that 
 yet a third servant was sent ; KaKuvov amKruvav, 
 from which no one has ever yet inferred that 
 either of the preceding messengers was also put 
 to death. Omitting this point, however, to con- 
 sider the word /cc^aXatow, we must admit that its 
 real meaning, in other Greek authors, is not to 
 wound in the head, but to collect under one head. 
 And since the latter is evidently not the sense in 
 which it can be taken in this passage, we are 
 under the necessity of supposing that the Evan- 
 gelist has used the word in a sense which no 
 native Greek would have recognised. But I re- 
 cal to mind, that St. Mark was not a Greek by 
 birth ; that among his countrymen many such 
 words must have crept into ordinary use ; that 
 
 k Mark xii. 4. J Mark xii. 3. 
 
85 
 
 his writings bear evident marks of being com- 
 posed in the style prevalent in conversation ra- 
 ther than in books ; and that, among persons in 
 his class of life, words would be taken in senses 
 not only different from those acknowledged by 
 the Greeks themselves, but deviating even from 
 the usage of the better instructed ranks of his 
 own countrymen m . 
 
 tt " Aliis uti solet vulgus aliis honestioris ordinis viri, aliis 
 etiam ordo doctiorum— certum est Romoe aliter vulgum locu- 
 tum fuisse, aliter scripsisse disertos." Salm. de Hell. p. 96. Of 
 the accuracy of this last remark there can be no doubt if we 
 write Hierosolymis instead of Romce ; and, if it be equally cer- 
 tain that the Apostles in writing sided with the vulgar rather 
 than with the learned, there appears to be no other account 
 necessary of their employment of some words in unusual and 
 improper significations. That they did employ many such 
 words is evident from the collection made by the same great 
 critic—" BvxapiT£iv pro gratias agere cltthciZuv auctor et exacte 
 eXkriviZwv nunquam dixisset, sed x a pw etdevat. Phrynicus. airoraG- 
 fftcQai nvi pro valedicere barbarum est. Idem Phrynicus an-o- 
 raffaojxai gqi iK<pv\ov navv xPW yap Xeytiv a(nraZ t Qyi,ai <xe^—^crpi]viav 
 pro rpv<pav et Kara<=rpriviav in deliciis et luxu vivere plebeium voca- 
 
 bulum quo et Paulus usus est. tbt^ tx9 r i aavT0 ot rr\v vtaq Kiofit^ScoQ 
 voiijTaiy <f> 8K av fi7] fiavstQ tiq xprjaaiTo, irapov Xcyav rpv<pq,v? De 
 Hellen. p. 99. In the word zvoxnpuv we are a ^ so furnished, on 
 the same authority, with an instance of the manner in which 
 words were gradually deflected from their original and native 
 significations. (t Antiquiores et meliores Graeci evaxnuova de 
 honesto ac moderato viro dixere — melius apud Matthasum pro 
 divite accipietur. Nam et Marcus in eadem historia narranda 
 irkmnov (3a\EVTT)v appellavit ; ergo evcrxrtfitov idem quod irXsmoQ; 
 Cujus notionis hsec ratio est. <rxif*a in idiotismo vestem denotat. 
 
86 
 
 Under these circumstances, obeying, I hope, 
 the Apostle's precept to judge " without par- 
 tiality and without hypocrisy," I profess my 
 inability to discover any ground for wondering 
 at such an occurrence ; for reflecting in conse- 
 quence upon the Evangelist's authority ; or for 
 questioning the authenticity of the Greek text 
 in which this appearance presents itself. In 
 English we could not be greatly surprised at a 
 foreigner who should confuse in like manner two 
 of the meanings of the word head ; as it signifies 
 the seat of the brain, or the section of a discourse. 
 And it must be added that if, in despite of this 
 error, the foreigner's general accuracy were un- 
 impeachable, if his evidence were confirmed by 
 every internal as well as external assurance, by 
 its consistency with itself, and by its agreement 
 with the relations of others, no candid reasoner 
 would lay the slightest stress on so trivial a pe- 
 culiarity. Unhappily the writers of the Gospel 
 have not always candid reasoners to deal with n . 
 
 Unde et schema Plauto pro veste, et servilis schema* Hinc 
 tvoxiinuv pro bene vestito et cui bonum schema. Tales, ut pluri- 
 mum, dittores, qui ex veste bona dignoscuntur. Sed et tv7rarpidat et 
 xiobiles plerumque etiam splendidius ornati. Qua ratione et 
 ivaxnpuv nobilem potest denotare," p. 100. 
 
 n Although my professed and firm persuasion is, that in the 
 Greek MSS. and the Writings of the Greek Fathers collectively 
 the entire writings of the Apostles are preserved, and that con- 
 sequently if tKt<pa\aib)(Tav be found in all of these, it must be the 
 genuine reading, I should feel considerably less difficulty in 
 
87 
 
 We are next led to the consideration of two 
 words, not indeed precisely similarly situated 
 with the last, because it is possible to produce 
 authority sufficient to warrant the use of them ; 
 at all events to shew that their appearance in 
 our Vulgate Greek can furnish no presumption 
 against that text being the original composition 
 of the Apostles. These are Trep-rrepevoiuai °, and 
 fitTzupiCofxai p . With respect to the first of these 
 words, the decision of Schleusner that its deri- 
 vation is from the Latin perperam, and that this 
 sense best consorts with the scope of the passage, 
 seems not to be formed with his usual j udgment. 
 It is not necessary however to interrupt the en- 
 quiry by any discussion of this point, since even 
 
 even resorting to conjecture in this single instance, and thus ad- 
 mitting it to form an exception to the correctness of my general 
 position, than in persuading myself that the solution proposed 
 in Palaeoromaica can possibly be correct. It would be prefer- 
 able, failing every other resource, to suppose that St. Mark 
 Wrote kqkuvov eZeQavXiaav Kai airereikav yTifKo/xsvov. And him they 
 set at nought, and sent away dishonoured ; and that eZe<j>av\i<Tav, 
 through an accidental transposition of some of the letters, gave 
 birth to sKe<pa\ai(»aav. \i6oto\naavTeQ is omitted by the best MSS. 
 and was probably at first a marginal annotation from the parallel 
 passage in St. Matthew. Without the authority of MSS. or of 
 some other description, I admit, no stress can be laid on this 
 conjecture ; nor does it appear to be necessary ; since the solu- 
 tion in the text seems reasonable and sufficient. This imaginary 
 reading is noticed only as being preferable to the random guess 
 in Palaeoromaica. 
 
 ° 1 Cor. xiii. 4. p Luke xii. 29. 
 
88 
 
 its decision in favour of Schleusner would add 
 no force to the argument of Palaeoromaica. The 
 word may have been formed from the Latin, and 
 yet it will not follow that the text of the Epistle 
 to the Corinthians is nothing but a translation 
 from the Latin. This will not follow, because 
 the same word, bearing a sense perfectly suitable 
 to that which the scope of St. Paul's observa- 
 tions requires, is so used by other writers, ante- 
 rior and subsequent, as to render it perfectly 
 possible that it may have been employed by the 
 Apostle himself. I do not profess to have searched 
 for other authorities than those which are fur- 
 nished by Schleusner and Parkhurst ; but from 
 these it appears that Trtpirzozvofxai, or its compound, 
 was known to M. Antoninus, Arrian, and Cicero. 
 In the latter writer Ernesti explains it to signify 
 " reduci Pompeio, novo auditori, me omnimodo 
 jactavi et venditavi, nullo genere prsecipuo orna- 
 mentorum neglecto, quae nunquam ita se mihi 
 obtulerunt ac nunc;" and Suicer, perhaps more 
 appropriately, " Me ostentavi, et quasi juveniliter 
 jactavi; omnibus adhibitis fucis et ornamentis 
 orationi mese, quasi exultavi et placere illi stu- 
 dui." Thus, in conformity with the remark of 
 Casaubon (cited by Parkhurst) he made too great 
 an ostentation of those excellencies he really had ; and 
 it appears hardly possible for St. Paul to have 
 found a word more appropriate to his design of 
 forbidding any boastful exhibition of the faculties 
 
89 
 
 out of pride of heart or from motives of self- 
 interest. We are under no necessity of suppo- 
 sing that St. Paul had read the works of Cicero 
 and copied from him ; for, even admitting that 
 the word was newly formed when the great 
 orator made use of it, there was sufficient time 
 for it to obtain general circulation between the date 
 of the Epistle to Atticus, and that of the First 
 to the Corinthians. But it is far more probable 
 that the word was already in common use ; since, 
 if Cicero, writing familiarly to his most intimate 
 friend, had recourse to a Greek word to express 
 that which no word in their own language was 
 capable of expressing, it seems inconsistent with 
 reason to suppose that he would employ a word 
 which was not in common usage, and perfectly 
 intelligible to his correspondent. That it did 
 preserve its currency is manifest from its appear- 
 ance in the writings of Arrian and Antoninus ; 
 neither of whom can be suspected of having 
 borrowed it from St. Paul q . 
 
 The same remarks are in a great measure ap- 
 plicable to the verb jutrewoifrjuat, which in St. 
 Luke's Greek text signifies " to be in a state of 
 anxiety" or " of doubtful mind ;" The adjective 
 
 i Speaking of the interpretation of TrepTrepevofiai here adopted, 
 Schleusner objects " quam explicationem vero vox sequens 
 QvaiaTcti admittere mihi non videtur." But the distinction meant 
 by St. Paul seems to have been, that TrepTrep svofiai should denote 
 the outward display ', and (pvaioofxai the inward feeling of too great 
 self-complacency ; both of which charity avoids. 
 
90 
 /xerewpoc in a sense precisely similar is employed 
 
 by JosephllS r , tvQa &e juertwpoe y\ re Supia iraaa Kat to 
 JsdaiKov r)v, tK^syojuievov to rfAoc ts SpafxaTOQ. " Then 
 
 was all Syria and Judea in a state of anxious doubt, 
 awaiting the catastrophe of this drama." And 
 again referring to Cicero, Non ero tarn ixeTtwpog 
 quam in Apuleio fui, (ad Att. v. 11.) His libris 
 scrip tis me ad awTa^ug dedi; quae quidem vereor 
 ne miniata caerula tua pluribus locis notandae 
 sint : ita sum ^TEuypog et magnis cogitationibus 
 impeditus. (xv. 14.) And again Bruto, Cumssepe 
 injecissem de opowXoia non perinde atque ego 
 putaram arripere visus est. Existimabam juietelj- 
 poTEpov esse, et hercule erat ; et maxime de ludis, 
 (xvi. 5.) These passages leave no doubt as to the 
 meaning of the adjective ; that of the verb seems 
 to be no less satisfactorily ascertained by the 
 following extract which has been pointed out to 
 me by a learned friend. " Expensis variis mul- 
 torum, quos inter prseclaram, in illustrando hoc 
 loco, operam posuit Dt^esigius, cum in peculiari 
 Commentatione Lips. a. 1734 edita, turn in Com- 
 mentario de Verb. Med. N. F. I. 87, sententiis, 
 non tamen ita diversis ut non conciliari possint, 
 unice veram esse fateor earn qua verbo ^Te^piie^Oai 
 significatio ea tribuitur ut denotet fluctuanti, jactato, 
 inquieto, verbo, sollicito anhno esse. MeT£h)pi£,e<rOai 
 in altumferri, quo sensu apud eundem (Philonem) 
 dicitur, lib. 2. Vit. Mos. p. 661. E, de fluctibus 
 
 , r Bell, Jud, I. }. 3. 
 
91 
 
 marinis ; mXayri apOsvra, Km iroTafxoi METEQPI20EN- 
 
 TES : maria tumentia elati que fluvii. — Sic de Mo- 
 narch, p. 817. A yvw^li §e aeavrov, Kai fxr) (jv/LnrepKpeps 
 tcliq virep Svva/Liiv opfiaiq Kai ZTTiZviuiaiQ, jurjcE <r£ rwv ave- 
 (j>iKTWv ££>o>c aipero) Kai METEQPIZETQ. t(jjv yap sdevog 
 
 ajjLoip-nauq. Nosce teipsum, nee sinas te cupidine 
 rerum quibus impar sis abripi, nee te eorum, ad quae 
 pervenire negatum sit, amor efferat et suspendat : 
 Potieris enim omnibus ad qua pervenire datum sit. 
 Observetur in his verba /xerewpi&o-Seu et <*v}nrzpi$s.- 
 pzcr%i promiscue poni ; ut vere cum eruditis asse- 
 rere videamur, verbum hoc, petita de navibus 
 quse ventis et fluctibus in alto jactantur meta- 
 phor a, denotare anxium suspensum sollicitum esse. 
 Igitur Nolite ait Servator, sollicitudinibus curls 
 quejaetari; Nolite (ut Reinesii Ep. ad Daum. p. 
 226. verbis utar) animo vagari, pnriZecOai Kai £>£ju€s<t- 
 %i, rebus terrenis animum intentum habere modo hoc 
 modo illud expetentem : cui contrarium est in Deo 
 defixas cogitationes habere, de que ejus cur a et pro- 
 videntia securum esse, quod fieri nequit, nisi in 
 potestate habeantur cupiditates, et in promptu 
 sit illud, naturam paucis contentam esse. Quid 
 quseris? exprimitur id quod Horatius, Epist. I. 
 18. 110, sentit et precatur Ne Fluitem dubice spe 
 pendulus horee." Chr. Frid. Loesneri Observatt. 
 ad Novum Testam : e Philone Alexandrino Lips. 
 1777. p. 115—117. 
 
 But it is time that our attention should be 
 turned to a class of words, on the occurrence of 
 
92 
 
 which in the writings of the Apostles the author 
 of Palseoromaica principally rests his hypothesis, 
 That our present Greek Vulgate New Testament 
 is derived, by translation, from the Latin. These 
 are " Latin words in Greek characters, or slightly 
 changed; and retaining their primitive significa- 
 tion," (p. 21 8.) This objection is not now raised for 
 the first time : Evanson in his Dissonance declares 
 that " this single circumstance'' — the mixture of 
 Latin words — induces him " to suspect every 
 passage and writing wherein it is found to be 
 either an interpolation, or fiction of no earlier 
 date than the middle of the second century 5 ." 
 To do justice to the author of Palseoromaica he 
 has no design of promulgating any such princi- 
 ples as lead directly to an agreement with Evan- 
 son, or to the subversion of the Christian faith. 
 He admits that the Apostles did compose in some 
 language, he knows not and cares not what it 
 was, Four Gospels, and as many Epistles as 
 are now canonically received. He is only con- 
 cerned to prove that our present Greek Vulgate 
 is a translation from the Latin, and not the ori- 
 ginal text of the Sacred Writers themselves. 
 But since the supposed Latin original of our 
 present Greek text hath utterly perished, whe- 
 ther that were itself the original, or only a trans- 
 lation, ascending through an indefinite number 
 
 * PaL p. 4, 
 
93 
 
 of translations to the primary text of all, the 
 genuine writings of the Apostles no longer exist. 
 We are therefore precluded from any appeal to 
 the original document for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining its conformity with the only substitute 
 for it which remains in our possession. When 
 with this we connect the other part of the hypo- 
 thesis, namely that the derived text, which we 
 are thus unable to verify, is of uncertain date, 
 and the production of persons unknown, whose 
 skill and authority are alike questionable, it re- 
 quires more ingenuity than I possess to shew 
 that we are not coming to the same point with 
 Evanson himself. 
 
 With respect to the words in question, namely 
 Latin words in Greek characters, if it be asked 
 whence did they originate, the reply is in the 
 prevalence of Roman influence and Roman cus- 
 toms in Judea in the age of the Apostles. The 
 mere occurrence of some such words, let it be 
 observed, is not the ground of suspicion ; since 
 it is admitted " that Roman names and titles 
 should be found in the New Testament was to 
 be expected," (p. 220.) But it is said " the 
 greater number of these words might have been 
 expressed in Greek ; and it seems inconceivable, 
 
 * To the author of Palaeoromaica a disciple of Evanson might 
 Say in the words of Cyrus, ov 8e eig fitv ro avro i\\iw oirevdeic, rro\- 
 X«c Se rivag s\iy/tt©i/£ av(o kcii Kara) TrXaVtoiiivog fioXtg a<j>iicvu otth t)(ieig 
 naXai t/KOfiiv. 
 
94 
 
 or at least difficult to conceive, that in the time of 
 the Apostles the language of the ruling nation 
 could have had so much influence in corrupting 
 the Greek tongue." (ib.) The whole question 
 therefore is reduced to one of time, and one of 
 degree ; whether it be credible that, in the age of 
 the Apostles, the Greek tongue was already so much 
 corrupted by an admixture of Latinisms as the 
 frequent occurrence of them in the New Testa- 
 ment would seem to imply. These questions 
 necessarily direct us to a short review of the 
 state of Judea at this period of its history. 
 
 From the date of the victory of Acilius over 
 Antiochus, king of Syria, (B. C. 190,) which led 
 to the expedition of Lucius Scipio into Asia in 
 the following year 11 , to the victory at Sardes, and 
 to the surrender of all the provinces on this side 
 of Taurus to the Romans x , the influence of the 
 republic became very considerable in the regions 
 which lie to the westward of the river Halys, 
 and the promontory of Sarpedon : and must 
 have laid the foundation of many changes in the 
 manners and language of that quarter of the 
 world. Such an extension of dominion could 
 not take place without occasioning the introduc- 
 
 " Liv. xxx vii. 7. 
 
 * " Europa abstinete, Asia que omni, quae cis Taurum mon- 
 tem est, discedite," are the words which Livy puts into the 
 mouth of Africanus, who, as the lieutenant of his brother,, un- 
 dertook to reply to the proposals of Antiochus, 
 
95 
 
 tion of great numbers of Romans in civil and 
 military capacities ; and the consequent preva- 
 lence of their language even beyond the limit of 
 their own dominion. Their policy, which or- 
 dained that all the proceedings of government 
 should be carried on in the Latin language, 
 must indeed have rendered an acquaintance with 
 it very general in every country which was theirs 
 by right of conquest. Nor could the influence 
 of such a state of things be confined to the ac- 
 tual territories of Rome ; but must to a certain 
 extent have affected the neighbouring provinces 
 and kingdoms of Syria ; each of which, as the 
 tide of conquest rolled onward under the succes- 
 sors of Scipio, must have contemplated its pro- 
 gress in trembling expectation of becoming the 
 next victim of republican ambition. We have, 
 however, no evidence to establish the certainty 
 of any direct communication of importance be- 
 tween the Romans and the Jews, until about 
 thirty years after the defeat of Antiochus, and 
 the conquest of his dominions, when the cele- 
 brated alliance was formed between Judas Mac- 
 cabeus and the Roman senate, (B. C. 161.) 
 
 From this period the connexion with Rome 
 was uniformly maintained, and an acquaintance 
 with the discipline, the manners, and the lan- 
 guage of the Latins became, in the natural course 
 of things, every day more prevalent in Judea. 
 At length, in the age of Pompey, sixty years 
 
iB^B^JSSg* 
 
 96 
 
 before the birth of Christ, and at least a hun-* 
 dred before the earliest of the Gospels was writ- 
 ten, happened the final subjugation of the Jews 
 by the Roman arms, the taking of Jerusalem by- 
 storm, and the reduction of Judea to the form 
 and condition of a Roman province y . During 
 the greater part then of the century which pre- 
 ceded the birth of Christ, Roman soldiers occu- 
 pied the provinces, and garrisoned the capital 
 and other towns of the Holy Land ; all cases, 
 civil and criminal, of any difficulty and import- 
 ance, were decided by a Roman governor before 
 a Roman tribunal ; the proceedings of which 
 were regulated by the laws of Roman jurispru- 
 dence, and carried on in the Roman language ; 
 while the collection of the revenue was superin- 
 tended by officers acting under authority from 
 Rome. It is impossible to conceive that any 
 country could be thus circumstanced, during so 
 long a course of years, without becoming very 
 familiar with the language of its conquerors, and 
 adopting many of their terms and idioms into its 
 ordinary discourse. Even the Attic dialect, in 
 the metropolis of its native province, was ex- 
 posed to changes and corruptions, arising from 
 sources very similar to those which, in Judea, 
 gradually altered the very genius of the Greek 
 language. " The causes of the changes in the 
 
 I Pint, in Pomp. 
 
97 
 
 Attic language are not so secret and abstruse but 
 that a man of less sagacity than Mr. B(oyle) 
 might have found them out ; for, if we consider 
 the great conflux of strangers to that city, the 
 vast number of slaves from all nations, and of 
 foreigners that settled there, the frequent wars 
 twice they had abroad, and the hired troops that 
 they often maintained at home — we shall rather 
 admire that the alterations in their dialect were 
 so few, than affirm with Mr. B. that there were 
 none at all*." 
 
 In the same manner the constant succession of 
 " strangers from Rome" arriving in Jerusalem, 
 the number of slaves, familiar with the language 
 and customs of the imperial city, who constantly 
 attended the civil and military functionaries of 
 the province, the presence of " the Italian band" 
 as a body guard to the praetor, and the enlist- 
 ment of many Jews in the Roman legions, must, 
 in the course of a hundred years, have made in- 
 numerable words connected with the arts, the 
 arms, the discipline, the finances, the dress, and 
 the amusements, of the governing nation, no less 
 familiar in Jerusalem than thev were in Rome. 
 This formation of a mixed language is the un- 
 avoidable effect of a constant admixture of the 
 people of any two nations. The purity of the 
 Hebrew language, it is plain, suffered greatly 
 
 z Dissert, on Phalar. p. 402.— 290. Lend. ed. 1817. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 from the preponderance of the Roman ; and 
 many Latin words, which the common engage- 
 ments of life required to be in frequent use, are 
 found expressed in Hebrew characters also ; 
 • ' slightly changed and retaining their primitive 
 signification." The usual good sense and un- 
 rivalled penetration of Bentley, are displayed 
 in his remark, that " the long continuance both 
 of Hebrew and Syriac, was because the na- 
 tions continued unmLved, and separate from 
 strangers : and the preservation of the Greek 
 language, though not in the same degree of pu- 
 rity and duration with the two other, is wholly 
 owing to the same cause : for, till the time of 
 Alexander, the wars and the business of the 
 Greeks were, for the most part, among one ano- 
 ther, and not with foreign nations ; so that, 
 though the particular dialects were perpetually 
 changed and diversified, by their mutual con- 
 quests and commerce, yet the same language 
 for the main continued still. But when the Ro- 
 man government was established among them, 
 immediately the Latin names of offices, and terms of 
 law, &c. over-ran the old Greek language, so 
 that we have dictionaries of barbarous words of 
 Greece almost as voluminous as those of the 
 true ones a ." It is indeed impossible, and for- 
 bidden by the laws of nature itself, that any two 
 
 i 
 
 * Dissert, on Phalar, p, 405.— 292. 
 
99 
 
 dialects should be in a state of perpetual colli- 
 sion without each acquiring some of the other's 
 peculiar terms. The extent, to which this ope- 
 ration of the Latin tongue on the genius of the 
 Greek was ultimately carried, is manifested by 
 the circumstance which Dr. Bentley mentions, 
 that " the lexicons of barbarous Greek words 
 became almost as voluminous as those of the true 
 ones." Is it not reasonable then to conclude 
 that, as far as the decay of the Greek purity 
 was owing to the civil and military preponder- 
 ance of the Romans, the effect began to be visi- 
 ble as soon as the cause began to operate ? and 
 when that cause had been exerting itself in Ju- 
 dea during an entire century, traces of the ad- 
 mixture of Latinisms, both with the Greek and 
 Hebrew, could not but be growing very manifest. 
 To refer again to the great authority of which 
 so much use has been made, " when the Roman 
 government," observes Dr. Bentley, " was esta- 
 blished among them, immediately the Latin names 
 of offices and terms of law, $c. over-ran the 
 Greek language." But what does this fyc. mean ? 
 There were, we know, in the reign of Charles the 
 First, certain persons who very reasonably ob- 
 jected to subscribe to an oath in which this ab- 
 breviation was employed ; because it was impos- 
 sible for them to tell what was meant to be 
 comprehended under it. But Dr. Bentley 's #c. 
 is hardly open to any such objection. I trust to 
 
 h 2 
 
100 
 
 have even the author of Paleeoromaica so far on 
 my side as to admit, that among the et cceteras 
 here alluded to, must be reckoned the Roman 
 names of money, weights and measures, clothing, 
 public buildings, and, in general, of all military, 
 judicial and financial offices and employments. If 
 this evolution of the Master's abbreviation be 
 admitted as correct, and the above specification 
 of Latin terms, which probably would prevail in 
 Greek, be compared with the class (No. I.) of 
 " Latin words in Greek characters," (p. 218.) 
 which actually are employed in the Vulgate 
 Greek Text, it will go far to account for the 
 frequent use of them in the New Testament ; and, 
 I hope to allay any unpleasant apprehensions 
 which may have been excited, in the minds of 
 unlearned readers," by the too confident asser- 
 tions of the paradoxical writer to whom I am 
 replying. 
 
 The phenomena noticed in the Gospels are 
 neither peculiar to the Greek of the Evangelists, 
 nor to the Greek language in general. Every 
 language, even in its purest state, is gradually 
 interweaving a thread of foreign idioms b ; and 
 
 b " Nulla unquam dialectus fuit quae suis solis ac nativis vo- 
 cabulis res omnes expresserit, nisi si forte in ea gente ac populo 
 qui intra insulam aliquam conclusus cum nemine commercium 
 agitavit. Alioquin omnes florentissimae linguae et gentium 
 praepotentium, quae latissimas tenuere ditiones, multis que im- 
 peraruQt populis iTtpoyXuxraoigt et cum multis rem habuere com- 
 
101 
 
 of the manner in which particular terms are sug- 
 gested, as well as of the process which leads to 
 their adoption, a very clear illustration is pre- 
 sented in the instance of the factitious Latin 
 word cataplus. 
 
 This word, it is well known, was used as the 
 name of that Alexandrian fleet which annually 
 imported provisions and other merchandize of 
 Egypt into Italy . But according to Casaubon, 
 " KarairXovg proprie non est classis ipsa sed classis 
 appulsus ad portum, ac prsesertim mercatorum. 
 — Sed cum Puteolis et Neapoli, ubi maximus lin- 
 guae Grsecae fuit usus, plurimum in ore hominum 
 esset ea vox, velut cum dicerent Expectari Karair- 
 Xow classis Alexandrinae, et Tardare KarairXow, 
 alia que id genus, tandem csepit cataplus pro 
 ipsa classe accipi. Simile postea accidit in voce 
 €^i€oXt?, quse, cum significet <j>oprov navis et quic- 
 quid mercium illi imponitur, postea de hac ipsa 
 classe usurpata est a LatinisV If then from 
 the constant habit of hearing KarairXovg and c/i- 
 €oX?j spoken of, the Romans adopted these 
 words into their language, writing them only in 
 Latin characters, can it be deemed surprising if 
 
 merciorum gratia, plurimum de alieno mutuatae sunt. Victores 
 quinetiam, victi que, ssepe in unum coalescentes, miscuere lin- 
 guas, aut altera alteram perdidit et cum sua confudit." Salm. de 
 Hellenist, p. 91. 
 
 c " Cum tibi Niliacus portet crystalla cataplus 
 Accipe de circo pocula flaminio." Martial. 
 
 d Causaub. Sueton, Aug, p. 97. ed. 1611. 
 
10? 
 
 vice versa the same thing were done by the 
 Greeks, in many instances, and from a similar 
 cause ? Were not the inhabitants of Jerusalem 
 in as constant habit of hearing Assarium and De- 
 narius, and Centurio, and Census used, with Fo- 
 rum, and Sudarium, and most of the other words 
 enumerated, (pp. 218 — 20.) as the people of 
 Naples and Puteoli were of hearing of the Karatr- 
 Xovg and the t^oXn of the Alexandrian fleet ? 
 Can it be supposed that those words, necessarily 
 of daily occurrence in Judea, had not become 
 familiar there when the Roman government had 
 been above a hundred years established e ? 
 Athenseus, who lived at a comparatively early 
 period after the publication of the evangelical 
 writings, bears testimony, in many passages, 
 to the extent which flie depravation of Greek, 
 by the admixture of foreign words in Greek 
 characters, had reached in his time, and to the 
 systematic manner in which it was carried on. 
 Cynulcus, being reproved for the barbarism of 
 calling for a glass of Si/co/cra, (which is the Latin 
 decocta, in Greek characters,) replies in defence 
 
 • «« 
 
 Ex quo Graecismus in Syria per Macedones propagatus 
 est, Judaei, qui a teneris utramque linguam addiscebant, verna- 
 culam Syriacam, et Graecam, alteram altera corrumpebant, et 
 phrases Syriacas verbis Graecis in loquendo enuntiabant, et 
 verba Grasca ad formam Hebraicorum plerumque fingebant. 
 Quod et hodie facere Judaeos Germanos compertum est. — Sub 
 Romania caepere esse rptyXwrroi, et Romanam duabus illis prae- 
 dictis adjunxere linguam ; sic nullam puram usurpabant." Sal- 
 ma$* 1* c. 
 
103 
 
 of himself, " Ev Po^it? ry fiaatXtvov&rj Siarpi€<a>v 
 ra vvv, (u X^c, eiriy^wpK^ /a^pij/iai Mara rr\v avvr\- 
 Seiav (j>u)VQ' km yap irapa roig apyaioiq iroir]TaiQ, Kai 
 ovyypatytvai toiq acjtoSpa eXXrjvi^ovffiv, es'iv tvpeiv Kai 
 
 Uepauca ovopara KUiitva, wg tovq irapaaayyaq, 
 
 f » 
 Kai tovq ayyapovQ 9 Kai ti\v oyoivov rj tov ayoivov . 
 
 We see from this on what trivial occasions, and 
 with how much caprice, the license of clothing 
 Latin words in a Greek dress was resorted to. 
 Decocta might certainly have been expressed in 
 legitimate Greek, as well as spiculator, custodia, 
 and the rest ; but the defence set up by Cynul- 
 cus shews how forcible is the effect of habit in 
 leading to the adoption of foreign terms of fre- 
 quent occurrence, even when equivalent terms 
 are supplied by the language into which the 
 factitious words are introduced. If we examine 
 the list of Roman words in the New Testament, 
 we shall find that the employment of all, or of 
 nearly all, must have been dictated by conveni- 
 ence if not by necessity, under the existing cir- 
 cumstances of the two nations which at this 
 time occupied Judea. To take the first exam- 
 ple in the list, that of money ; admitting that the 
 accurate proportion of value was adjusted be- 
 tween the assarium and denarius, and the corres- 
 ponding Jewish or Grecian coins, was the ba- 
 lance of exchange to be computed and settled 
 
 [ Lib. iu.pl 121. 
 
104 
 
 in every instance of the daily and hourly bar- 
 gaining, the petty payments and receipts, by 
 which the intercourse of cities is carried on? 
 In the great operations of commerce between 
 nations, each of which adheres to its own de- 
 nomination of currency, this process may be 
 submitted to ; since none but traders and mer- 
 chants, inured to habits of calculation, are re- 
 quired to engage in these complicated adjust- 
 ments of value. But is it credible that, during 
 an entire century, after the time when Judea be- 
 came a Roman province, its inhabitants should 
 have submitted to this perplexing process every 
 time that a Roman soldier desired to spend his 
 daily pay, or a Jew was called to pay the tri- 
 bute-money to the collectors ? Is it not rather 
 certain that, for the mutual accommodation of 
 either party, the names of the Roman coins 
 would speedily be naturalised in the Greek lan- 
 guage, and be continually mentioned in ordinary 
 discourse ? And if, as appearances intimate, the 
 Apostles wrote Greek just as they heard it 
 spoken around them, can it be deemed marvel- 
 lous that St. Matthew should term the tribute- 
 money Arjvapiog, and St. Luke affirm that five 
 sparrows are sold for two kaaapia ? Considera- 
 tions of the same kind will explain the introduc- 
 tion of many other terms. As the Roman in- 
 habitants of Puteoli, hearing the KaraitXovq of the 
 Alexandrian fleet incessantly alluded to, adopted 
 
105 
 
 that word into their language, so the dwellers in 
 Jerusalem could scarcely fail of enriching their 
 vocabulary with those terms which were daily 
 and hourly uttered familiarly in their streets. 
 Such are the names of centurio, census, colonia, 
 forum, legio, macellum, prcetorium, sudarium, fia- 
 gellum, and the like. 
 
 But it is said, that most of these words might 
 have been expressed by equivalent terms purely 
 Greek. I answer, by philosophers and gram- 
 marians, if they had the direction of such 
 matters, they might have been ; so might tea- 
 TaTrXovc have been expressed by a good Latin 
 word, and decocta by an unobjectionable Greek: 
 but we know that they were not. It is be- 
 sides not altogether true that, in all cases, a 
 translation, even into words synonymous with 
 the original, conveys the designed idea as de- 
 finitely and precisely as the original itself does. 
 For instance, although it be perfectly certain 
 that fias-iS is a correct translation of fiagellum, 
 and a writer studious of purity wouid have used 
 the former word, the Evangelists, by retaining 
 the original name of the instrument of torture 
 by which our Saviour suffered, took the most 
 certain method of representing his sufferings in 
 the most lively manner, to those among whom, 
 the " horribile fiagellum" was regarded as an 
 instrument notoriously productive of the ex- 
 tremity of corporal suffering. Names are so 
 
106 
 
 closely connected with things, that unless in 
 many cases the identical letters and syllables be 
 retained, the corresponding image is very faintly, 
 or not at all, excited in the mind. Indepen- 
 dently of this, although a few may be found, in 
 every community, anxious to maintain the purity 
 of their native language, and to consult propriety 
 of translation, the indolence of the multitude is 
 little disposed to submit to the pains which such 
 a discrimination requires. They are rather willing 
 to sacrifice purity to convenience, and to adopt, 
 with the least practicable variation, the foreign 
 terms with which use has made them familiar. 
 
 At the period under consideration, there had 
 not been wanting many previous symptoms of 
 the great departure from purity, which had been 
 for some time extending itself over the Grecian 
 language; and which, as far as it consisted in 
 the adoption of Latin terms, was of course prin- 
 cipally attributable to the extending influence of 
 Rome. Accordingly it displays itself chiefly in 
 the writings of authors who made that city their 
 residence, or had a strong connexion with it. 
 Polybius, the friend and associate of Scipio, 
 although he wrote in Greek, displays an idiom g 
 
 * I cannot but express my regret that the author of Palaeoro- 
 maica, from whom, as a professed believer in the personality of 
 the Holy Spirit, a greater degree of reverence might have been 
 expected, should have noticed the style of Polybius only to 
 quote a most unbecoming observation of the German commen- 
 tator Ammon, 
 
107 
 
 full of Latinisms; incomparably more so than 
 that of any one among the Apostolical writers, 
 with, perhaps, the exception of St. Luke. In 
 the same manner, Dionysius Halicarnassensis, a 
 writer of the Augustan age, scruples not in 
 Greek to use the terms irXtfiziot, irarpiKioi, SiKTarvp, 
 and others similar, when he might clearly have 
 avoided it, because he explains that wXr&uoi are 
 the same with S^on/coi in Greek, and irarpiKwi 
 with wirarpiSai. Wherefore then is it at all more 
 unaccountable that St. Matthew should retain 
 the original word KovwSia, and St. Mark kevtvjhwv 
 
 and <TirEKs\aT(i)p ? 
 
 It is admitted that the authors, who exhibit 
 systematically instances of this nature, are few 
 in number ; and that most profane authors of this 
 era, if we except Polybius, have a less admix- 
 ture of Latinisms with their Greek than the 
 writers of the New Testament display. But it 
 deserves to be considered that, in the case of 
 profane authors, there was a restraining cause 
 which did not operate upon the Apostles. No 
 one of the former class ever wrote under exactly 
 the same feelings with those which animated the 
 writers of the New Testament ; that is, with a 
 perfect and absolute disregard of their own re- 
 putation. At a time when a contest for and 
 against the purity of the Greek language was 
 carried on between the literati and the body of 
 the people, it is not surprising that profane au- 
 
108 
 
 thors in general, siding with the learned class, 
 were more on their guard against innovations 
 which it was known that class would not ap- 
 prove ; while the Apostles, greatly intent on the 
 edification of the least considerable of men, and 
 not at all on the advancement of their own re- 
 putations, employed without reserve those forms 
 of expression which common use had sanctioned 
 and made familiar among the many. 
 
 It is unavailing also to appeal to the example 
 of Josephus, in proof of the possibility of a He- 
 brew writer avoiding the Hellenistic style. The 
 possibility of effecting this, if it were made an 
 object of exertion, need not be disputed ; but 
 the conduct of Josephus, as a writer, affords a 
 contrast rather than a parallel to that of the 
 Apostles. He accounts for the slowness with 
 which his history was composed in Greek by 
 saying, "it is a difficult thing to translate our 
 history into a foreign tongue." Now, as his 
 history had been already drawn up and pub- 
 lished in Chaldaic, the facts and the arrange- 
 ment of them were ready to his hand. The 
 painful attention which he represents as neces- 
 sary, must therefore have been exclusively be- 
 stowed upon his style, and his difficulty could 
 arise only from his earnest care to weed out all 
 Hebraisms and foreign idioms, and to present a 
 finished model of pure Greek composition. It 
 is not surprising that he should, upon the whole, 
 
109 
 
 have succeeded very w^ll in his attempt ; for 
 Josephus appears to have been a man of perse- 
 vering industry, and of sound judgment. But 
 the practice of the Apostles displays little or no 
 correspondency with his. The writings of the 
 Evangelists have all the air of an extemporaneous 
 narrative ; those of St. Paul were collected by 
 others from his dictation, and probably not even 
 revised. In short the point to which the atten- 
 tion of Josephus was particularly and exclu- 
 sively directed, appears to be the only one on 
 which the Apostles never bestowed a thought ; 
 and if the character of their writings be in most 
 respects the very reverse of his, there is in this 
 nothing more than their known difference of 
 practice easily accounts for, and even gives us a 
 previous right to expect to find. The same re- 
 mark may be extended to Philo ; whose style 
 differs, even more widely than that of Josephus, 
 from the Hellenistic model. Philo prided him- 
 self, and was universally complimented, on the 
 purity and elegance of his phrases ; and wrote, 
 as ambassadors in general do, to be read by 
 statesmen and princes. Is it then reasonable to 
 expect coincidence between a writer, whose am- 
 bitious imitation of Plato has passed even into a 
 proverb, and the simple-minded fishermen of the 
 lake of Gennesareth, and the humble tent-maker 
 of Tarsus h ? 
 
 h " In Graecis innumera possunt observari quae ab antiquis 
 criticis, dum purum ab impuro et doctum ab indocto et idiotico 
 
110 
 
 But, previously to quitting this class of Ro- 
 man words in Greek characters, it may be pro- 
 per to notice more particularly two expressions 
 which are ranged in it, but which do not appear 
 in all particulars to resemble those words in the 
 company of which they stand. These are wpo- 
 
 k\v$WV Or evpaKv\(OV , tUld KpVKTt) . 
 
 In the passage from the Acts it is not my de- 
 sign to compare opposing authorities, or to de- 
 termine by their aid whether evpo/cXvoW or evpa- 
 kv\(ov be the true reading. Whichsoever of these 
 may be preferred, the employment of the word 
 by St. Luke may be explained without having 
 recourse to any such hypothesis as that he wrote 
 in Latin, and that his translator retained the ori- 
 ginal word, only expressed in Greek characters. 
 
 sermone segregant, annotata sunt. A Phrynico et Thoma Ma- 
 gistro talia plurima recensita sunt et nota censorid compuncta, 
 quae non excerpam cum legentibus obvia sint. Horum voca- 
 bulorum frequens usus xvdaioXoytav facit ; in quod vitium ple- 
 rique inciderunt qui ad scribendum accessere parum doctrina 
 instructi, nee in legendis veterum scriptis, a quibus purior lo- 
 quendi forma hauriretur, subacti. Tales omnino fuere omnes 
 N. T. auctores, in Grseco sermone rudes et imperiti, atque, 
 
 ut ipsi de se dicunt, ifauraw Nee mirum idiotis annumerari 
 
 opifices, nautas, piscatores, portitores, quales fuere quorum opera 
 usus est Christus ad verbum suum praedicandum. Non etiam 
 porro mirandum si, Grseci sermonis adeo rudes, in idiotismum 
 et xvdaioXoyiav saepe lapsi sunt, tarn verbis quam tota elocu- 
 tion©." Salmas. 1. e. pp. 97, 8. 
 
 1 Acts xxvii. 14. k Luke xi. 3S. 
 
Ill 
 
 If, with the received text, we reacUv/oofcXuSwv, there 
 can be no pretence for this opinion; for the word, 
 though irregularly formed, is a Greek compound. 
 The objection of Bentley to its being the genuine 
 reading is that very irregularity. " The wind 
 Euroclydon" he says, " was never heard of but 
 here; it's compounded of evpog and kXvSwv the 
 wind and the waves" With submission, however, 
 to such authority, it is scarcely justifiable to say 
 it " never was heard of but here." That it occurs 
 not in any other writing now extant is admitted ; 
 but this affords no proof that such an appellative 
 was never heard of, or that it was not in common 
 use among the Mediterranean seamen in the days 
 of St. Luke. We meet with exceedingly few 
 among the ancients who treat expressly of mari- 
 time affairs; and with respect to the winds in 
 particular, Aulus Gellius 1 remarks, that their 
 names were of very unfrequent occurrence. Is 
 then the irregular composition of the word to be 
 admitted in proof that it is a spurious reading ? 
 " It's compounded" undoubtedly " of evpog and 
 k\v$(x>v the wind and the waves ;" an unlikely com- 
 bination to occur if philologists and grammarians 
 had been consulted. But if the word, as is most 
 probable, were of far different parentage ; if ig- 
 norant sailors, wanting a name for a wind which 
 had none specifically attached to it, but of which, 
 
 1 Noc, Att, II. 22. 
 
112 
 
 as being often exposed to its fury, they were 
 often obliged to speak, if men of this class were 
 the inventors of the appellation, nothing can be 
 more characteristic than cv/jokXvoW ; for what 
 circumstances would be more likely to attract 
 the attention of mariners than the quarter from 
 which the wind blew (evpog the East) and its 
 effect upon the ocean (kAvoW a deep swell.) ? But 
 the author of Palseoromaica strenuously contends, 
 that evpaKvXtDv is the true reading ra ; and that this 
 word is the Latin Euro-Aquilo in Greek charac- 
 ters. The first of these questions must be settled 
 by the critics ; but, supposing their decision to 
 be in favour of evpaicvXvv, it is our business to 
 shew that there is no inconsistency in the belief 
 that this word, of Latin origin, was used by St. 
 Luke writing in Greek. 
 
 Some stress has been laid, by all who have ex- 
 amined this question, on the country to which 
 the sailors must be supposed to belong, who 
 manned the ship of Alexandria in which St. Paul 
 embarked ; and different views have been taken 
 of the probability of the case. This it is certain 
 
 m In conformity with the opinion of " Grotius, Bentley, and 
 some others." (p. 499) The Alex, and Vat. MSS. certainly read 
 evpaKvXwvt though with another reading interlined (See Griesbach 
 in loc.) and they are supported by the Vulgate ; and perhaps by 
 the Ethiopic and Armenian translations. The latter has cvpa/euK- 
 W : most probably through an error of the transcriber or 
 translator. 
 
113 
 
 can never be more than matter of conjecture ; 
 but, from the nature of the voyage and the cir- 
 cumstances of the ship, there is much more rea- 
 son to conclude that these mariners were a 
 mixture of two or perhaps of many nations ; than 
 with Dr. Bentley to suppose that they were 
 entirely Roman, or, with Mr. Bryant and the 
 author of Palaeoromaica, that they were exclu- 
 sively Greeks. " Let us suppose," the latter 
 says, " that the mariners were Greeks, a thing 
 exceedingly probable; this would only render 
 the present Greek text more inexplicable, unless 
 we suppose it a translation from the Latin. It 
 seems impossible otherwise to account for the 
 use of Corns and Euro-Aquilo, for the name of 
 Adriatic given to the Ionian sea, which was 
 much more likely to be done by a Latin than a 
 Greek author in the age of the Apostles, and for 
 several Greek words which seem to be corrup- 
 tions of Latin ones n ," (p- 502.) 
 
 In this passage every reader must remark that 
 the author falls into the very error of which he 
 accuses Mr. Bryant, and " begs the question 
 that the Sacred Writer had used" Euro-Aquilo 
 (p. 500,) and he appears to be somewhat too con- 
 fident in assuming that it is impossible to account 
 for the introduction of zvpaKvXwv, " unless we 
 suppose the Greek text of the Acts to be a trans- 
 
 11 Apj>* Note D. 
 I 
 
114 
 
 lation from the Latin." If it be absolutely ne- 
 cessary to consider the language of St. Luke as 
 influenced by the language of those with whom 
 he sailed, can it be overlooked that, of whatever 
 nation the crew in general' might consist, there 
 were, beyond contradiction, many fellow-pas- 
 sengers with the Apostles who used the Latin 
 language ? namely, the centurion Julius and his 
 band. That officer had treated the Apostles 
 with great kindness; through which circumstance, 
 as well as because both these parties, as passen- 
 gers unengaged in the labours of the ship, had 
 leisure for each other's conversation, it is probable 
 that the Apostles would be thrown during the 
 voyage much into company with these Romans. 
 If therefore it be necessary to point out a source 
 from which St. Luke might acquire the term 
 zvpaKvXiDv, here is one very ready and probable. 
 But this seems to be the proper place for a re- 
 mark not only upon this word in particular, but 
 upon the style of writing Greek universally, pre- 
 valent in the compositions attributed to St. Luke. 
 The birth place of this Evangelist is generally 
 allowed to have been Antioch; but the Greek 
 text of the Gospel and of the Acts (which all the 
 world excepting the author of Palseoromaica at- 
 tributes to his hand) is so full of Latin phrases 
 literally translated, as to shew that the Latin 
 language was very familiar to the writer; and 
 
 t 
 
115 
 
 that he was much accustomed to mix with 
 those who spoke it. It does not appear that this 
 peculiarity can be more naturally accounted for 
 than by supposing (which no part of his known 
 history forbids, and many parts of his writings 
 seem to authorize) that his voyage to Rome in 
 company with St. Paul was not his first visit to 
 that city ; but that he might have been previously 
 to this even a temporary inhabitant of Rome. His 
 account of their making the coast of Italy and of 
 their progress to Rome °, compared with his de- 
 scriptions of other countries, has the appearance, 
 as the author of Palaeoromaica justly observes, of 
 being addressed to one who was familiar with those 
 regions ; and this aifords a very strong confirma- 
 tion of the correctness of Eutychius' opinion that 
 Theophilus was " a notable and wise man of 
 the Romans." That the Apostle's acquaintance 
 with the latter may have commenced in Rome, 
 and that he had been even a fixed resident there, 
 is rendered still more probable by the profession 
 of St. Luke ; supposing him to be the same with 
 " Luke the beloved physician" mentioned by 
 St. Paul. The practitioners of that art were 
 about this time allured, by peculiar advantages, 
 to fix their residence in Rome. We are told by 
 Suetonius, that Julius Csesar, " omnes medicinam 
 
 Acts xxviii. 13. 
 
 J 2 
 
116 
 
 Romae professos, et liberalium artium doctores, 
 quo libentius et ipsi urbem incolerent et ceeteri 
 appeterent, civitate donavit p ." 
 
 That St. Luke, from this or some other cause, 
 should have been in his earlier days an inhabitant 
 of Rome, is by no means improbable. This is 
 not mentioned here however with a view to 
 shew that he would probably write in Latin, 
 but to account for the appearance of so many 
 Latinised terms and phrases among his Greek. 
 Among these we may reckon his " defining the 
 position of the port of Phenice by Corns, a Latin 
 word q ;" and " the name of Adriatic given to the 
 Ionian sea." But that the latter " was more 
 likely to be done by a Latin than a Greek writer 
 in the age of the Apostles," is an assertion which 
 proves only its author's great unacquaintance 
 with the literature of that period : for that very 
 name by which St. Luke describes the Ionian sea 
 is also bestowed upon it by Dionysius r , a writer 
 of the Augustan age, whose authority sufficiently 
 evinces that the same word may have been used 
 by St. Luke, and by St. Luke writing Greek. 
 '" But in the very verse," it is observed, " in 
 
 p SueU Jul C. p. 65. 
 * Pal p. 501. 
 
 r Kai a-n-oireiMipaQ tig rov AAPIAN oXxaSa Svoiv toXclvtoivj ore 
 fiiv airereiXev fXeyc npog rr\v \ir\Ttpa avrwv, on Ttav waidojp b kivSvvoq 
 £i»j." Dion. Hal De, Lysia* Judic. C, xxvii, 
 
117 
 
 which Euroclydon occurs, we read EBAAE (/car' 
 
 aurrjc) avEfiog tvQojvikoc;, k. r. X. I SUSpect that 
 
 FLO has given occasion to this strange use of 
 |3aXXw, as B and V or F were often confounded," 
 (p. 502.) Here he ought to have known that 
 c&zXe Kar awTjc is equivalent to E7T£€aXe. k. a. and 
 the latter verb is used intransitively, by St. 
 Mark, in a very similar phrase 8 . With respect 
 to the propriety of the word itself, we have |3oXn 
 avfjuou for a gust of wind in Oppian, K. 4. 72. ; and 
 the literal translation of the words cCaXe kut avTt\q 
 avtfxoq the wind darted against her 1 , forcibly expres- 
 ses the sudden violence of the storm. It deserves 
 to be remarked that, in cases of this nature, we 
 use in English the like form of a transitive verb 
 in an intransitive sense ; as the wind dashed, the 
 wind drove, the wind beat, against her ; which 
 last is the marginal reading of our authorized 
 public version. The same form of construction 
 with that employed by the Evangelist occurs in 
 Homer. 
 
 " Tlpoist doXixoaictov tyx°G 
 Kai fiaXtv Arptt^ao Kar' atnriSa iravrore i(Tt]v u * 
 
 On which H. Steph. remarks, " Videtur autem 
 
 s Mark iv. 37. For examples of fi a \\u> for £7ri/3a\Xw, See 
 Jacob's AnthM. 59. and xi. 288. and Animadv. 312. 
 
 " Ego ita, (3a\\oj Jacio, Jaculor quod posterius existimo pri- 
 mae et primariae verbi signification! respondere." H. Stepk. 
 Ep. de Typogr. statu. 
 
 u II, r. 34:7. , 
 
118 
 
 ilia constructio cum Kara similis esse nostrati, 
 cum dicimus, II afrapp6 contre le bouclier." 
 
 The remaining instance is, if possible, still less 
 conclusive. " I had conjectured," he says, 
 " that as arifxeia had by metathesis occasioned 
 hiemes in the Vercelli MS\, so v^uav was a 
 metathesis for autumnus" (p. 502.) Against this 
 conjecture I shall oppose only the certain fact, 
 that irapepxonai, applied to time, signifies always 
 time past. But, though it might well be said 
 that the fast of the Jews was past, as it really 
 was, the writer could not mean to make any 
 such assertion respecting the autumn ; since the 
 autumn, though far advanced, was not past ; other- 
 wise the mariners could not have hoped, as they 
 did y , to carry the ship from " the Fair Havens' 
 to Phenice " to winter there"'' The fast of the 
 Jews, it is urged, has no relation to the subject. 
 But it has a very near and natural relation to it ; 
 for this fast took place on the 25th of Septem- 
 ber ; and its being past shewed the lateness of 
 the season, which was the point the Evangelist 
 meant to describe, and the danger shortly to be 
 apprehended from the flows peculiar to the Medi- 
 terranean sea at that time of the year. If an Eng- 
 lish writer were to tell us, in a similar case, that 
 sailing was become dangerous because the har- 
 vest was now passed, we should understand his 
 
 * Actsxxvii. 9. * Ibid. vei\ 12. . 
 
119 
 
 meaning, and the force of his expression, per- 
 fectly well, although that season has no more 
 direct connexion with maritime affairs, than the 
 great fast of the Jews had. 
 
 The only other expression in this class which 
 requires to be separately noticed is /cpwrr?? z . 
 This word by the author of Palseoromaica is 
 assumed, and by many other writers is admitted, 
 to be nothing more than the Latin crypt a con- 
 verted into Greek. But, though St. Luke has 
 Latinisms without number, this is not one of 
 them. Schleusner, who is unwilling to admit 
 that this is a Latinism, meets us with an ob- 
 jection, and proposes to read tw k^vitt^v : not 
 only without the sanction of any MS., but I 
 must think without necessity. The only reason 
 which he assigns for this innovation, is " recepta 
 lectio (ac/ov7tttjv without the article prefixed) nul- 
 lum ellipsin admittit *." But upon what ground 
 does this opinion rest, when so many instances 
 can be adduced of adjectives occurring without 
 the prepositive article, where yet an ellipsis or 
 quasi ellipsis is manifest ? 
 
 In other genders than the feminine this is too 
 obvious to require proof. Thus, in Aristophanes, 
 Mnesilochus exclaims, 
 
 <f Us 7T8 KaQtZoifi i.v icaXy, riuv pt)Top<i)v 
 
 z Luke xi, 33. 
 
 a Lex. A 7 . T> sub, v, rpttarr?. b Thesmoph. 299. 
 
120 
 
 and in the New Testament, ev kovttt^ c , without 
 the article, is clearly elliptical ; as is the ex- 
 pression ug <j>avepov z\Qy d employed by St. Luke. 
 In such a case as that of ug Kpyirrriv, the remark 
 of Musgrave c is deserving of consideration : 
 " Ego nullam hie ellipsin esse arbitror, sed tan- 
 tum enallagen generis ; posito sc. &' optim pro &' 
 opOov : nisi verius sit antiquos utroque genere, in 
 hujusmodi phrasibus, sine ullo discrimine usos 
 esse." If this opinion be well-founded, then 
 uq KpvwTriv is equivalent to tig kpvtttov, which is 
 the common reading: as 6 t$ tvavnag* is con- 
 sidered by SchsefFer to be identical with 6 «£ 
 tvavTicv. But, although grammarians have re- 
 presented many phrases as elliptical which were 
 not so, there are instances of a feminine adjective 
 without the article, following a preposition, 
 where the subject of the predicate is evidently 
 wanting. " Probe," says Hermann, " ab hoc 
 genere secernenda sunt ea quae vere ellipsin ha- 
 bent. Quae sunt ejusmodi, ut verba quae posita 
 sunt, ipsa natura sua, aperte vel certi vocabuli, 
 vel saltern certce notionis, omissionem arguant. Ut 
 &' opBug, t% lOtiag, quoniam sunt fceminino genere, 
 non possunt nisi ad nomen fcemininum referri g ." 
 Now, if this be true with respect to the expres- 
 
 c John viii. 4. 10. d Luke viii. 17. 
 
 € Sophocl. Antig. 1006. 
 
 f Tit. ii. 8. 
 
 » De Ellip. In Viger. De Idiot, p. 874. Lips, 1813. 
 
121 
 
 sions he mentions, «c KpvnTm' may, I feel assured, 
 be admitted into the same class. There is evi- 
 dently a part of the idea (notlonis certcs) not ex- 
 pressed : for the similar passage in the same 
 Evangelist h , and the parallel in St. Mark \ shew 
 that the meaning of icpvirrr) is not " a vault" in 
 particular, but " a secret, or concealed place " as, 
 for instance, " under a bed" In the same man- 
 ner St. Luke uses /car' iliav k , which Schleusner 
 admits to be elliptical though redundant ; also 
 vzai ra aKo\ia eig zvQuav \ where, though the arti- 
 cle be away, oSov must be supplied ; and ug paK- 
 pav m , where yjtopav, as in ug Kpvirrriv, is deficient, 
 and uq is used for ev. The most convincing 
 proof, however, that Kpvirrr\v was not designed by 
 St. Luke to be taken as a substantive is supplied 
 by the very omission of the article to which 
 Schleusner objects, The words of the passage 
 
 are, OvSzig $e, Xv^vov aipag, tig Kpvn-Trjv riOrjaiv, ov$£ 
 
 vwo tov jioStov. Now, as the last word is con- 
 fessedly the Latin modium in Greek letters, and 
 has the article prefixed, it is certainly fair to argue 
 that the article would, in like manner, have been 
 prefixed to Kpvirrriv also, if the writer had de- 
 signed to use that word as the representative of 
 the Latin cryptam. 
 
 » Lukeviii. 16. *Markiv. 21. 
 
 k Luke ix. 10, ] Luke iii. 5, 
 
 ra Acts ii. 39. 
 
122 
 
 To proceed now to a different class of expres- 
 sions. There occur, it is well known, in the New 
 Testament, many phrases and single words which 
 have not been discovered elsewhere, excepting 
 in the Alexandrian Version of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures. That Version, by the general acquiescence 
 of those who have written on the subject, has 
 hitherto been regarded as the source from which 
 the Apostles derived those peculiar expressions 
 of which we now proceed to treat. It is impos- 
 sible to state the grounds of this unanimous 
 persuasion more sensibly or more correctly than 
 has been done by Michaelis D . M Whenever a book 
 is the subject of our daily lecture, it is natural 
 that its phrases should occur to us in writing, 
 sometimes with a perfect recollection of the 
 places from which they are taken, at other times 
 when the places themselves have totally escaped 
 our memory. Thus the lawyer quotes the max- 
 ims of his Corpus Juris, the schoolman the verses 
 of his classics, and the preacher the precepts of 
 his Gospel. It is no wonder therefore if the same 
 has happened to the Writers of the New Testa- 
 ment, who, being daily occupied in the study of 
 the Old Testament, unavoidably adopted its 
 modes of expression, or, to speak more properly, 
 that of the Greek Translation, which they have 
 
 n Vol. I. c. v, § 20. p. 200. 
 
123 
 
 done in numberless instances where it is not 
 perceived by the generality of readers, because 
 they are too little acquainted with the Septua- 
 gint.' 5 " But this/' says the author of Palseoro- 
 maica " is begging the question ;" because " we 
 are totally ignorant who were the Greek trans- 
 lators of the Old Testament, and at what period 
 the versions of the different books were made," 
 (p. 299.) Concerning the names, the number, 
 and the exact quality of those who are commonly 
 called the Seventy, and whence the name itself 
 originated, it must be candidly acknowledged 
 that the world has no certain information. But 
 I can scarcely believe that it is intended to found 
 any serious argument upon this circumstance, 
 since few points are established on less equivocal 
 evidence than that a translation of the Pentateuch 
 was executed at Alexandria during the joint 
 reign of the Ptolemies Lagus and Philadelphus °. 
 
 Philo Jud. Lib. II. de Fit. Mos. Euseb. Prcep. Ev. L. viii. 
 Joseph. Ant, Jud. Si quid hie valeat vetustissimorum testium 
 numerus, ea reliquas suffragiorum copia vincit sententia quae 
 compositam versionem illo tempore perhibet, quo una cum patre 
 suo, Ptolemaeo Lagi, regnavit Philadelphus ; quod biennio circi- 
 ter absolvitor, et juxta Usserium (Annal. p. 1169) in Olympiadis 
 CXXIV tiee primum, juxta Hodium p. 91. in Olymp. CXXIII e 
 tise annos 3m. et 4m. hoc est ante aeram Christianam vulga- 
 rem 286 et 285 incidit. — Carpzov. de Ver. Gr. LXX. Virali 
 $ 2.— Ad librorum numerum quod attinet, eruditi solos libros 
 quinque Mosis a Septuaginta Interpretatos probant. ut in lib. 
 
124 
 
 The persons employed in this work were proba- 
 bly Egyptian Jews : whether seventy two, or 
 only five in number is a point concerning which 
 we have uncertain and contradictory accounts, 
 which it is unnecessary here to attempt to re- 
 concile. But if this Alexandrian Version be the 
 same with that which we now possess, and with 
 that which existed in the days of the Apostles, 
 it appears to be an inevitable conclusion that the 
 Writers of the New Testament borrowed from 
 this Version of the Old many words and phrases 
 which they use in common with it ; and which 
 they therein found already consecrated to the 
 service of religion. To what resource then is 
 the author of Paleeoromaica reduced in order to 
 evade an inference so natural ; which, as it ac- 
 counts for the prevalence of the Hellenistic style 
 in the New Testament scatters to the four winds 
 the hypothesis which attributes its origin to the 
 mistranslation of a Latin text ? Aware of the 
 danger which threatens him from this quarter he 
 endeavours to escape under cover of two suppo- 
 tions in the highest degree extraordinary and 
 
 iv. Comment in Ezech. c. 16. affirmat Hieronymus ; id que ab 
 Aristea, et Josepho, et omni schola Judaeorum asseri in lib. ii. 
 Comm. ad ejusdem prophetae c. 5. idem pater adjicit. — Usserii 
 Syntagm. deLXX. Interpp.ip.4t. — ede yap iraoav tKfivoQ t<p9ri Xafluv 
 rr\v avaypa<pi)v, aXV avra fiova ra ra "Sofia 7rapeSo<rav ol Trefi<j>9evrtg em 
 tk)v iZt)yr)<jiv irpog rrjv A\e%av8puav. Josep. Antiq. Jud. in Prooemio. 
 
125 
 
 improbable, if not preposterous. First, that the 
 Alexandrian Greek version has totally perished ; 
 for " it has been much doubted whether even the 
 present Greek Pentateuch be older than the 
 reign of Herod. As to the other books of the 
 Greek version we know not when they were 
 translated; but probably those in our present 
 copies, or the greater proportion of thein were 
 not translated before the second century ."(p. 300.) 
 Secondly, " there is nothing to prevent our sup- 
 posing that several of the books of what we term 
 the Septuagint, were really a version from the 
 Latin/' (p. 305.) Although it is my desire and 
 endeavour to avoid, as far as possible, the acer- 
 bities of controversy, I cannot entirely suppress 
 my indignation at the cold-blooded indifference 
 with which this writer seeks to unsettle all opi- 
 nions, and to introduce uncertainty and scepti- 
 cism into every department of sacred criticism 
 upon no better grounds than that such and such 
 things may have happened ; although every kind 
 of direct evidence be wanting, and that which is 
 furnished internally by the documents themselves 
 be totally adverse to his hypothesis. Of this we 
 shall presently have proof in considering his 
 hypothesis that the books which compose what 
 we term the Septuagint, may be a version from 
 the Latin. But in adverting to his first assertion 
 that doubts have been entertained whether even 
 
126 
 
 our present Pentateuch be older than the reign 
 of Herod, it is impossible not to censure the 
 unfair manner in which the author of Palaeoro- 
 maica seeks to entrap the unwary by quoting the 
 authority of great names as corroborative of his 
 opinions, while in reality their testimony, if fairly 
 stated, is directly adverse to his hypothesis. A 
 memorable instance of this occurs (p. 299,) where, 
 speaking of the version of the Pentateuch " made 
 in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus," he says, 
 " this version has, by Usher, and by some other 
 persons of the most profound learning, been 
 supposed to be lost." If any opinion, advanced 
 in Palseoromaica, have indeed the countenance 
 of such authority, I shall begin to regard it with 
 more attention ; for Usher was a great and a good 
 man ; distinguished by scholarship in an age 
 abounding with scholars ; and who, to repeat the 
 eulogium of his friend and fellow-labourer Brian 
 Walton, in questions of biblical criticism, " merito 
 primas tenet p ." But on the testimony thus 
 adduced three observations require to be made : 
 first, that the opinion of Usher is not correctly 
 stated ; secondly, that this, almost alone of all 
 the recorded opinions of this eminent critic, has 
 failed to recommend itself to general adoption ; 
 thirdly, that if the truth of that opinion were 
 
 » Prcef. in Bib. Pol. 
 
127 
 
 even demonstratively established, it would con- 
 tribute no support whatever to the opinions of 
 the writer by whom it is now quoted. Instead 
 of attributing the version, which he supposes to 
 have superseded the original Septuagint, to so 
 late a date as the reign of Herod, Usher distinctly 
 calls it the production of a Jew who lived about 
 the era of Ptolemy Philometor q . Previously 
 indeed to being placed in the Serapeum this 
 version was revised by order of Herod, and freed 
 from faults and corruptions which, through fre- 
 quent transcription, had crept into the copies in 
 common use. But the opinion of Usher respect- 
 ing the loss of the original Septuagint and the 
 existence of any such substituted version, has 
 
 q Quum Ptolemaei Bibliotheca, tempore Alexandrini Belli a 
 Julio Caesare gesti, conflagrasset, Hebraicum illud Legis exem- 
 plar, simul cum Graeca illius Versione aLXX facta periit. Hujus 
 loco, paullo post, Cleopatra regina novam in Serapeo constituit 
 Bibliothecam ; quae prions film est dicta : Ut in libro de Mens. 
 et Ponder, docet Epiphamus. Ad earn ornandam Herodes Ju- 
 daeorum turn rex, libros sacros Instrumenti Veteris Hebraica 
 lingua conscriptos misit ; ac Grsecam eorundem, quae Helle- 
 nists in Syria et Palaestina turn in usu erat, interpretationem 
 ab aliquibus Hebraice linguae peritis (ut videtur) recognitam 
 et pluribus in locis emendatam. Syniagm. p. 31. — Hanc vero 
 totius Vet. Instrumenti traductionem, ut ante ilium Euergetae 
 38, ita post Philometoris fratris ipsius 4m annum (in Per. Ju- 
 lianae ann. 4537 ante aeram Christ. 177 incidentem) in lucem 
 esse editam ex historica ilia nota ad calcem libri Estherae in edi- 
 tione vulgata Graeca apposita colligimus, p. 22. 
 
128 
 
 been combated by arguments r , which have ap- 
 proved themselves satisfactory to critics in ge- 
 neral, but which need not be here repeated. 
 Admitting even that the original copy of the 
 Greek Pentateuch, which was placed in the 
 Alexandrian library by Philadelphus, perished, 
 as Usher supposes, during the siege of that city 
 by Julius Caesar, still the destruction of the ori- 
 ginal copy could not entail the total loss of the 
 version itself. Can it be imagined, that no more 
 than this single copy 9 existed of a version de- 
 signed for general use and circulation ; without 
 the assistance of which few individuals, and cer- 
 tainly no entire congregation, could understand 
 the contents of their sacred books ? It is 
 unnecessary to protract this discussion ; since 
 Usher's hypothesis, admitted in its utmost lati- 
 tude, can lend no aid to that of Palaeoromaica. 
 He maintains, it is true, that the Greek version 
 of Philadelphus no longer exists ; but he carries 
 back, as we have seen, the date of the transla- 
 
 r Walton Proleg. ix. §. 18. and Valesii Ep. ad Usser, in 
 Euseb. H. E. p. 306. " Non refutabo Usserii Armachani opinio- 
 nem, verius paradoxon dixeris," says Father Simon with unneces- 
 sary rudeness, and which the Priest of the Oratory would not 
 have displayed towards any but a Protestant Prelate. 
 
 8 Usher himself indeed admits the probability of the contrary 
 opinion, saying, " Licet in privatorum manibus (post incensam 
 priori bello Alexandrino Philadelphi Bibliothecam) veteris illius 
 Seniorum Versionis adhuc exempla extarent." Synt, p. 25, 
 
129 
 
 lion which does exist, and has succeeded to the 
 name and place of the former, as far as the reign 
 of Ptolemy Philometor; that is, to more than 
 170 years before Christ, or to within little more 
 than a hundred of the date assigned to the pri- 
 mary version which perished in the conflagration 
 of the Alexandrian library. Even this date, 
 therefore, ascends far enough beyond the begin- 
 ning of the Christian era to admit of the version, 
 to which it is affixed, having been in the hands 
 of the Apostles; and the appeal to Usher to 
 prove that, if his opinion be correct, they could 
 not have borrowed from our Septuagint the 
 peculiar words and phrases which they employ 
 in common with it, is not only very unfair, but 
 is perfectly nugatory and delusive. The cause 
 of Palaeoromaica, I repeat, cannot be assisted by 
 any one of the suppositions in which the author 
 of it indulges. Let him assume, if he will, that 
 " the present Greek Pentateuch is not more an- 
 cient than the age of Herod," what would this 
 prove but that before the age of Christ, and 
 among the countrymen of the Apostles, a dialect 
 was in use precisely conformable to that which 
 prevails in the New Testament, and which was 
 therefore the most natural for the Apostles them- 
 selves to employ ? 
 
 But though for the sake of argument, and to 
 give our opponent every possible advantage 
 which he can claim, such an opinion may, for a 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 moment, be contemplated as well founded, the 
 admission on my part is nothing more than hy- 
 pothetical. So far from conceding, that there is 
 any truth in the comparatively recent date as- 
 signed to the existing Greek Pentateuch, I am 
 of opinion that the appearances therein discover- 
 able are reconcileable with the supposition of its 
 being the original Egyptian version, and with no 
 other : and by this internal evidence I am led to 
 conclude, that the Pentateuch now in our pos- 
 session is virtually the same with that which 
 owed its birth to the age of Philadelphus. That 
 it is of Egyptian origin is manifest from the fre- 
 quent occurrence of words either wholly Egyp- 
 tian, or used at least in senses peculiar to Alex- 
 andria % It may be objected that such a pecu- 
 liarity might be expected to prevail in every ver- 
 sion executed in the same country ; and that, 
 therefore, the use of Egyptian terms, although 
 it may prove that our Pentateuch is of Egyptian 
 origin, does not prove that it cannot be the same 
 with the version, which Usher supposes to have 
 been executed in Egypt in the reign of Philome- 
 tor, and to have usurped the name of the pri- 
 mary Greek translation. But there is still ano- 
 
 1 See Sturz. de Dial. Alex. Maced. v. a \r}Qsia, p. 96. (clxxv. 
 ed. Valpy) ; and Schleumer's Lex. Vet. Test, sub eadem v. 
 also on the word ^ov9ofi $avnx* likewise the list of Egyptian 
 words collected by Sturzius, p. 86—100. (clxxiii. clxxv.) 
 
131 
 
 ther peculiarity observable in our Greek version 
 of the Old Testament ; that is the marked and 
 constant distinction of style existing between 
 the books of Moses and the other parts of the 
 volume ; a distinction, I need scarcely observe, 
 uniformly advantageous to the former u . If then 
 we have before us the version which is dated 
 only from the age of Philometor, whence did 
 this distinction arise, and how can its existence 
 be accounted for ? That version Usher sup- 
 poses to have been the work of a single indi- 
 vidual, of a learned Jew x : and the production of 
 one man could scarcely exhibit that diversity 
 which evidently and confessedly exists in our 
 Greek Bible ; especially between the Penta- 
 teuch and the other parts of the volume. But 
 if we possess in all its main points, though not 
 in perfect and absolute integrity, that version 
 which from the beginning has been called the 
 Septuagint, the distinction of style, here noticed, 
 is perfectly natural ; and to account for it we 
 need only briefly retrace the circumstances un- 
 
 Q rt Josephus qui 70 Interpp. proponit historiam, quinque 
 tantum ab eis libros Mosis translatos refert ; quos nos confite- 
 mur plus quam caeteros cum Hebraicis consonare, inquit Hie- 
 ronymus in Quaest. Hebraic. Geneseos prooemio." Usser. p. 1 0. 
 
 * " Post quartum igitur Philometoris Ptolemsei annum, ut 
 Gentium curiositati, Judaica sacra penitus intelligere desideran- 
 tium, aliquo modo satisfaceret, a Judceo altqv.0 opus hoc perac- 
 tum fuisse videtur." P. 23* 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 der which the parts of that version were succes- 
 sively completed. 
 
 It is, as we have seen, the generally received 
 opinion, that in the reign of Philadelphus the 
 Pentateuch alone was translated into Greek: 
 and that this undertaking originated not in any 
 interposition of the authority of Ptolemy, as the 
 blundering fabulist Aristeas would persuade 
 us, but in the general wants of the Egyptian 
 Jews themselves, is most probable under the 
 known circumstances of their situation. They 
 were, as we learn from Josephus, strict and scru- 
 pulous copyists of the religious observances which 
 prevailed among their brethren in Palestine ; and 
 if there were any ordinance peculiarly calculated 
 by its utility to recommend itself to their imita- 
 tion, it must have been the practice of reading, 
 in conjunction with the original law, a translation 
 or paraphrase, for the instruction of the common 
 people who were no longer acquainted with the 
 language of their fathers y . 
 
 y " Exoleto inter Judaeos, post reditum ex Babylone, linguae 
 Hebraicae usu, vulgari turn lingua ipsorum doctores scripturas 
 interpretabantur. In scholis ubi Lex docebatur, id Judaicis 
 versionibus seu paraphrasibus, de quibus egimus, occasionem 
 dedit.— — Vero simillimum ergo et apud Hellenistarum Syna- 
 gogas, quemadmodum et alias, Legem Hebraice quoque legi 
 solitam fuisse, sed cum hoc ab reliquis discrimine, quod textui 
 Hebraeo Graecam interpretationem addiderint." Simon. His. 
 Crit. V. T. Lib. II. c. 2. p. 91. 
 
133 
 
 In this respect the Jews of Egypt were simi- 
 larly circumstanced with those of Judea ; and as 
 a Chaldee version became necessary at Jerusalem, 
 to enable the congregation to derive instruction 
 from the public reading of the Law, so, to the 
 same end, a Greek version must have been 
 equally necessary to the jews of Alexandria z , to 
 whom the Greek language was at that time most 
 familiar. If therefore the due administration of 
 public worship suggested the advantage and 
 necessity of a Greek translation, it is reasonable 
 to conclude that such a translation would in the 
 first instance embrace the Pentateuch alone; 
 since no other portion of the Old Testament was, 
 in this age, read in public before the congrega- 
 tion*. Let it be granted then that we possess 
 the Books of Moses which were thus translated 
 
 r " Ipse Philo, Lib. in Flaccum, confirmat, suo tempore, non 
 minus quam decies centena millia Judaeorum in iEgypto habi- 
 tasse. His itaque avita et Hebraea lingua cum sensim paulatim 
 que obsolesceret, et in desuetudinem abiret, Graeco tantum 
 sermone in quotidiano commercio usis, viri pii et prudentes 
 prospectum iverunt, Legem que Mosaicam, cujus prae reliquo 
 Codice Sacro usus erat et religio, in Graecum, omnibus que 
 cognitum, transtulerunt sermonem." Carpzov, de Vers, 70. §. 
 II. 6. 
 
 a " Veterum pro hac sententia auctoritates Pseudo-Aristeae, 
 Josephi, Philonis, Aristobuli, Rabbinorum antiquorum, et Hie- 
 ronymi, doctissimus Hodius (Lib. II. c. 7. p. 159 seq.) eum 
 cura congessitj vindicavit, nobis que, hac parte, otium fecit. Et 
 res ipsa sic ferebat ut potior Legis cura translatoribus esset* 
 
134 
 
 separately, and with the sanction, if not under 
 the inspection, of the Sanhedrim, and the dif- 
 ference of their style from that of the other 
 Books, which were translated at different sub- 
 sequent periods, is naturally accounted for : on 
 any other supposition the manifest inferiority of 
 the latter cannot be reasonably explained. 
 
 The translation of the prophetical books may 
 with great probability be assigned to the reign 
 of Ptolemy Philometor, when the temple at 
 Heliopolis was founded by Onias, as a rival 
 to that of Jerusalem 5 . The Jews of Egypt, 
 while they professed a total independence on 
 their brethren in Judea, were never able to divest 
 themselves of a strong disposition to imitate the 
 religious practices established in that land, to 
 which their tribes, wheresoever dispersed, have 
 continually looked as to their native country. 
 In that country a great and important revolution, 
 as to the affairs of religion in particular, had 
 
 Ptolemaeorum quippe horum temporibus non nisi Lex Mosaica 
 publice praelegebatur in Synagogis ; reliquis librorum sacrorum 
 ordinibus, Prophetis atque Hagiographis, neglectis et intactis." 
 lb. $. III. 2. See also Simon H. Cr. Vet. T. Lib. II. c. 2. and 
 Sturz. de Dial. Alex. Mac. §. I. 
 
 b " Oniam Sacerdotem, post egregiam Philometori et Cleopatras 
 navatam in bellis operam, eorum permissu, in agro Heliopolitano, 
 Templum Hierosolymitani semulum extruxisse in lib. xiii. Antiq. 
 c. 6. idem Josephus narrat : hoc etiam ibidem addito : kvpe Se Oviag 
 KailaScusg rivag ojjLotag avTy «at Upug kcli \ivirag tsq ckci Sprjaictvovrag, 
 Usser. 1. c. 
 
135 
 
 recently been effected by Antiochus Epiphanes. 
 The conduct of that conqueror, his rending in 
 pieces the books of the Law, and forbidding 
 them to be read in the public worship of the 
 Jews, are related 1 Mace. i. 56. and the resource, 
 of which the Jews were hereupon obliged to avail 
 themselves, was that of reading portions of the 
 Prophets instead of the Law c . Now although 
 Antiochus in his several expeditions, previously to 
 the interposition of the Romans, had over-run 
 nearly the whole of Egypt, yet, as he never ob- 
 tained possession of Alexandria, it is not to be sup- 
 posed that he had power to prohibit the use of 
 the Pentateuch to the Egyptian as he had done to 
 the Syrian Jews. But the studious imitation by 
 the latter of every religious observance intro- 
 duced among their brethren is so well established 
 as to render it exceedingly improbable that the 
 introduction of the prophetical books into the pub- 
 lic worship at Jerusalem, which was occasioned by 
 the edict of Antiochus, should not be followed by 
 a corresponding change in the conduct of the ser- 
 
 c This order of persecution extending only to the five books 
 of Moses and not to the writings of the Prophets, those who 
 persisted in the Jewish worship, instead of the lessons which had 
 hitherto been, from the time of Ezra, read out of the Law, on 
 every Sabbath did read like portions out of the Prophets ; and 
 upon this occasion the public reading of the Prophets was first 
 introduced into their Synagogues ; and, it being thus introduced, 
 it continued there ever after. Prideaux Connect. Part II. B. 3. 
 p. 259* Vol. 3. 
 
136 
 
 vice of the tabernacle in Egypt. In fact the 
 design of Onias was to detach the Egyptian 
 Jews from their custom of annually celebrating 
 the Passover at Jerusalem, and this he could 
 hope to effect only by rendering Heliopolis so 
 like Jerusalem in its entire religious establish- 
 ment, as to leave no room for a pretext that, by 
 visiting the latter city, they enjoyed opportu- 
 nities of instruction of which they were unable 
 to avail themselves at home d . This opinion will 
 
 d Onias, having this power and interest with the king, made 
 use of it at this time to obtain from him licence to build a Temple 
 for the Jews in Egypt, like that at Jerusalem, with a grant for 
 him and his descendants to be always High Priests in it. For 
 the obtaining of the King's consent hereto, he set forth to him 
 that the building of such a temple, for the Jews in Egypt, would 
 be for the interest of his crown ; that Jerusalem, being within 
 the territories of the King of Syria, the going of the Egyptian 
 Jews thither annually to worship might give occasion for the 
 seducing of them to the Syrian interest. But his greatest diffi- 
 culty was to reconcile the Jews to this new invention ; their 
 constant notion having been that Jerusalem only was the place 
 which God had chosen for his worship, and that it was sin to 
 sacrifice to him upon any altar elsewhere. To satisfy them as 
 to this he produced to them the prophecy of Isaiah ; where it is 
 said " In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the 
 language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of Hosts : One of 
 them shall be called The City of Destruction. In that day shall 
 there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, 
 and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord," xix. 18, 19. 
 And having interpreted this place of the Holy Scripture, which 
 was truly meant only of the future state of the Gospel in that 
 
137 
 
 appear to be still more probable when it is re^ 
 collected that the mode adopted by Onias to 
 reconcile the Jews to this substitution of a new 
 place of worship, was to put a false gloss on a 
 passage in one of the Prophetical Books ;. and it 
 is probable that this very opportune mis-transla- 
 tion was introduced by him who had so great a 
 purpose to serve by means of it. To Onias 
 therefore, and to his agency, we may with a 
 very high degree of probability attribute the 
 translation of the Prophetical Books into Greek; 
 because, without such a step as this, it does not 
 appear that he could have assimilated, so com- 
 pletely as his proceedings prove him to have 
 wished, the worship at Heliopolis to that which 
 prevailed at Jerusalem ; nor could he, in any 
 other way, have reconciled his countrymen to 
 the desertion of that temple, which, from the 
 earliest ages, had been regarded as " the place 
 where men ought to worship." 
 
 The great inequality and inferiority of style 
 observable in these books compared with thoset* 
 of the Law, agree very well with the supposition 
 
 country, as if it respected the present times, he prevailed with 
 all of his nation to understand it so too, and thus served his 
 purpose by it. Prideaux, 1. c. p. 873. The device of Onias 
 was, as the same writer tells us, by the change of a single letter, 
 to convert the Hebrew word which signifies The City of Destruc- 
 tion, into one which signifies The City of the Sun, or Heliopolis ; 
 and there his temple was founded. Fid, Marg. Read, in Author, 
 Vers, 
 
138 
 
 that the translation of them was executed by a 
 variety of hands, and to supply a sudden emer- 
 gency, such as must necessarily have arisen on 
 the proscription of the Law by Epiphanes. But 
 if we must suppose that under the name of the 
 Septuagint we possess any oth^r translation than 
 that which is known to have been executed by 
 different persons and at sundry periods, the dif- 
 ference of style in the several books, and the 
 marked superiority of the Pentateuch above the 
 rest, are perfectly inexplicable. If the version 
 of Aquila, of Symmachus, of Theodotion, or of 
 the Jew who according to Usher was the author 
 of the second Egyptian version, were now in our 
 hands, having usurped the place and title of the 
 primitive Septuagint, such a diversity would 
 hardly be perceptible in the work of an indivi- 
 dual. If it be pretended that our Greek Version 
 may be compounded of fragments taken from all 
 of the above, it may be asked on what evidence 
 does this assertion rest ? how is the fact known ? 
 11 dr, if not known, upon what ground is it con- 
 jectured ? We should still require an explanation 
 whence it arises that the Pentateuch is by its ex- 
 cellence uniformly distinguishable from the rest ; 
 and at all events, the supposition that our Greek 
 version is a compilation from an indefinite number 
 of other versions, would be to explain effects by 
 recurring to a cause of uncertain existence, while 
 an adequate solution, grounded on historical evi- 
 
 
139 
 
 dence and well-established facts, is within our 
 reach ; a mode of proceeding than which none 
 can be more uncritical or unphilosophical. The 
 Book of Daniel, it is true, as it exists in our 
 Septuagint is admitted to be the work not of the 
 original translators but of Theodotion. Instead 
 however of arguing from this that other parts of 
 the version may be, unknown to us, the work of 
 later translators, I must maintain that this fact, 
 under the circumstances of our acquiring a 
 knowledge of it, leads to a directly contrary 
 conclusion. "We believe that the Book of Daniel 
 has been borrowed from the Greek version of 
 Theodotion because we are on competent autho- 
 rity assured of the fact ; and because, since the 
 publication of Daniel according to the LXX., the 
 attestations of our informants have been abun- 
 dantly confirmed. Surely then we are justified 
 in concluding that, if any other book or books 
 had been extracted from other translations, the 
 same informants would have given us similar 
 notice of it ; and from their total silence as to 
 any farther substitution we are at liberty to rest 
 quietly in the persuasion that none other has 
 taken place. 
 
 The only argument of any validity, which has 
 ever been urged against the identity of our Greek 
 Vulgate with the Philadelphian Version of the 
 Pentateuch, is the slighter accordance with the 
 Hebrew exhibited by the former, in comparison 
 
 5 
 
140 
 
 with that excessive perfection which the Jewish 
 writers declare distinguished the performance of 
 the LXX translators 6 . But even this objec- 
 tion will appear to be rather specious than solid 
 when we recollect the sources from which our 
 accounts of this marvellous conformity are drawn : 
 namely, the writings of the Hellenistic Jews. 
 By these, it is certain, many fabulous relations, 
 now universally exploded, were invented solely 
 
 e " Nos summo studio, cura et diligentia LXX Interpp. cum 
 Hebraeo contulimus, et tot invenimus addita, dempta, depravata, 
 immutata, et ab Hebraico prorsus aliena, ut mihi persuadere 
 nequeam illam esse LXX Interpretum." Sant. Pagnin. in Isagog. 
 c. ix. 
 
 " LXX. Interpretes dicuntur omnia transtulisse ad verbum, ita 
 
 proprie ut quicunque sciret utramque linguam statim judicaret 
 
 fidelissimam esse translationem. Sic enim scribit Philo, lib. 2. 
 
 de Vita Mosis. Reddita sunt propria propriis nominibus, 
 
 Graecis ad Chaldaica exacte respondentibus. Id experimentis 
 
 quotidianiscreditur; sive Chaldseus Graecam linguam, siveGrae- 
 
 cus Chaldaeam didicerit, in utraque Scriptura, turn Chaldaica 
 
 turn ejus interpretatione, miratur germanitatem, imo rerum ver- 
 
 borum que consonantiam adorat. Neque solus Philo, sed 
 
 etiam Aristeas ante Philonem testatus est admirabilem fuisse 
 * ... 
 
 rerum et verborum consonatiam &c. At ista Graeca versio quam 
 
 nunc habemus in plurimis locis dissentit ab Hebraeo, multa non 
 
 habet quae sunt in Hebraeo, multa habet quae non sunt in Hebraeo ; 
 
 ut omnes noverunt qui in ea versati sunt. Et qui de hac re ob 
 
 linguarum imperitiam judicare non possunt, legant Hieronymi 
 
 praefationem in Pentateuchum, Epistolam ad Sunium et Fretel- 
 
 lam, Questiones Hebraicas Commentar. in Prophetas, et Librum 
 
 de optimo genere interpretandi," Cardinal Bellarmin quoted by 
 
 Usher, p. 6, 7. 
 
141 
 
 to procure a factitious credit for this translation. 
 The commendations bestowed on its adherence 
 to the original are of the most loose and general 
 description, and therefore probably exaggerated ; 
 particularly as it was natural for the Egyptian 
 Jews to extol to the utmost the only document 
 from which they derived any acquaintance with 
 the Law and the Prophets ; and in their commen- 
 dation of which it was impossible that any one 
 who was not a Jew should contradict them. The 
 principal witnesses in the case are obviously 
 incompetent ; Aristeas as having been in other 
 instances convicted of the most deliberate false- 
 hood ; and Philo, from his ignorance of Hebrew f , 
 being necessarily obliged to speak from the re- 
 port of others in the decision he pronounces 
 concerning the fidelity of the LXX translators, 
 could be but a very imperfect judge of the accu- 
 racy of his own statements. The truth appears 
 to be that the Philadelphian translators executed 
 their task with sufficient correctness, which Aris- 
 teas magnified into an undeviating conformity with 
 the original ; and his hyperbolical statements, 
 being adopted, without examination, by Philo, 
 contributed to propagate this persuasion among 
 
 f Quod Philonem et Josephum asseris in lingua Hebraica in- 
 fantes plane fuisse, si modo quid omnino Hebraice scivisse dicendi 
 sunt, ut de Philone, Hellenista Alexandrino, libenter id dem, de 
 Josepho Sacerdote Hierosolymitano concedere non possum. 
 Jac. Usserii adLudov. CappelL Epist. 
 
142. 
 
 the succeeding Jews, who, in questions of this 
 nature, were sufficiently willing to be deceived. 
 In fact, with respect to this version the Jews 
 have exhibited a very Protean disposition. So 
 long as the supposed credit of their religion re- 
 quired them to magnify the merits of the Septu- 
 agint Version, they carried their commendation 
 of it to even an absurd excess ; when, after the 
 coming of our Lord, they were called to reply to 
 arguments derived from those Greek Scriptures, 
 it then suited their purpose to discover its de- 
 fects ; and their depreciation of it now became as 
 excessive as their commendations had previously 
 been extravagant g . To be prepared against such 
 objections, Sophronius, as is stated in Palseoro- 
 maica (p. 305) desired Jerome to make an accu- 
 rate version from the Hebrew into Latin which he 
 
 * Origen relates in his Commentary on St. Matthew, that in 
 the manuscripts of the Septuagint, which was become the Bible 
 of the Greek Christians, such alterations had been made, either 
 by design or through the carelessness of transcribers, as to make 
 the MSS. materially differ from each other, and of course, even 
 if no other cause prevailed, from the Hebrew Bible. Of this 
 difference the Jews availed themselves in their controversies 
 with the Christians ; as it frequently happened that the passages 
 quoted by the Christians against the Jews, were either not con- 
 tained at all in the Hebrew or contained there in a different 
 shape, the arguments, which were founded on such quotations, 
 fell immediately to the ground ; it was sufficient to reply " the 
 words which you quote are not in the original." Bp. Marsh's 
 Lectures, Part. I. p. 55, <5, 
 
143 
 
 afterwards translated into Greek. This retrans- 
 lation by Sophronius, be it remembered, was 
 specially executed to be employed in questions 
 of controversy against the Jews. When therefore 
 it is asked (p. 306,) " what is to hinder us from 
 supposing that our present Septuagint version of 
 the Psalter, and of several of the Prophets may 
 be that of Sophronius from the Latin of Jerome ?" 
 the reply is easy ; that our present Septuagint 
 version exhibits not that entire accordance with 
 the original which it was the object of the joint 
 labours of Jerome and Sophronius to produce ; 
 and that they did succeed in producing it, so far 
 as to satisfy their own intentions and to answer 
 the end which they had in view, is evident from 
 the terms in which Jerome speaks of the perform- 
 ance. If therefore our present version, or any 
 part of it, were the work of Sophronius it would 
 necessarily exhibit the particular character which 
 he not only designed to prevail, but certainly 
 succeeded in communicating to it ; namely, an 
 accordance with the Hebrew against which the 
 Jews could object nothing. It is indeed a sin- 
 gular circumstance that the proposer of such an 
 opinion should fail to discover the inconsistency 
 of railing on the one hand at the inaccuracy of 
 the Septuagint, and on the other requiring us to 
 believe that it may be the work of Sophronius ; 
 which, from all that we know of it, was distin- 
 guished from the Septuagint only by its rigid 
 
144 
 
 adherence to the Hebrew. Surely he ought 
 rather, on his own principles, to infer that our 
 Septuagint is the same version with that to which, 
 previously to his executing a new one for himself, 
 Sophronius was accustomed to refer ; namely, 
 the work of the Alexandrian translators : for our 
 version displays exactly that degree and kind of 
 inaccuracy of which the Jews might avail them- 
 selves to evade an argument resting upon its 
 authority. It is somewhat singular, and cannot 
 be flattering to the author of Palseoromaica, that 
 we are thus indebted to the Jews, the bitterest 
 enemies of our religion, for a defence against the 
 danger to be apprehended from one who pro- 
 fesses himself its friend. 
 
 Passing onward, with the same view, to the 
 translation of Aquila, he observes, this " learned 
 man published two versions of the Hebrew 
 Scriptures ; and I have a strong suspicion that the 
 first of these was a Latin one," (p. 301.) From 
 the accounts of the two distinct versions, or 
 editions of the same version, by Aquila, to be 
 collected from the writings of Jerome, it is evi- 
 dent that in the first his attention was chiefly 
 directed to express the sense of the Sacred 
 Oracles, but not " verbum verbo ;" in the second 
 his design was to give an exact verbal represen- 
 tation of the original, so that the most minute 
 particle in the Hebrew should not be without its 
 corresponding expression in the Greek. By this 
 
* 145 
 
 servile adherence to verbal precision, sense and 
 grammar were oft-times totally subverted. Never- 
 theless the translation thus executed was, from 
 its literal fidelity, called kut aicp&eiav by the 
 Jews h ; and by them, as well as the Christians \ 
 was appealed to as affording a perfect exemplar 
 of the original, and even as superseding its ne- 
 cessity and use. But the use to which the au- 
 thor of Paloeoromaica seeks to apply these facts 
 is such, as a blind devotion to his own hypo- 
 thesis could alone have suggested. " Jerome 
 tells us that he (Aquila) interprets as it were 
 syllables and letters ; saying, for example, aw 
 rov ovpavov, Kai aw rr\v yw. This which is part 
 of the first verse of Genesis, must indeed, in this 
 version, be acknowledged to be nonsense ; but 
 / strongly suspect " (a very forcible reason why 
 others should also think !) " that Aquila wrote 
 In principio creavit Deus CUM et caelum TUM et 
 terrain, and that cum and turn, both translated 
 aw, gave rise to the Greek barbarous text." 
 (p. 301.) If any one shall choose, in opposition, 
 strongly to suspect that the translator did no such 
 thing as is here imputed to him, I am fully per- 
 
 h Hieron. Coram, in Ezech. c. iv. 
 
 1 " Justinus aliquando Aquilse versionem, celeberrimam apud 
 Judaeos consulit, et, in disputatione contra Tryphonem, Hebrceum 
 (hoc est illam ipsam versionem quam Hebrseam Patres ideo 
 vocabant, quia verbo verbum Hebrseo respondebat) aliquoties 
 producit." Sim. H. C. V, T. Lib. ii. c. 3. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 suaded that the writer of the above sentence has 
 no argument to offer in support of a conjecture 
 which he somewhat ostentatiously claims as his 
 own k . If Aquila, or whoever translated his 
 Latin, had been so ignorant of Greek as to con- 
 ceive that CUM, in the above passage, was 
 equivalent to aw, he could hardly have failed of 
 translating TUM also literally ; and his version 
 would in all probability have been aw rov ov- 
 pavov TOTE km tw yw. But in reality the jus- 
 tice of Jerome's criticism, and the source of 
 Aquila' s mistake, are self-evident to any one 
 acquainted with even the rudiments of He- 
 brew. In that language, it is well known, 
 the same monosyllable (riN) is used as the pre- 
 positive article, and in the sense of the prepo- 
 sition with : and aw tov ovpavov Kai aw rr\v yw is 
 
 a literal translation, by one who confounded 
 these two senses, of ywn r\m own ntf. But 
 other arguments are yet in store. Aquila was 
 a native of Sinope ; and it is not to be conceived 
 that " a Latin, born in a Latin colony, should 
 publish two Greek versions of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures, while he utterly overlooked the wants 
 of his countrymen." (p. 301.) This is indeed 
 " begging the question," if it be intended to as- 
 sume that the countrymen of Aquila, the citizens 
 
 k " I have no where seen such a conjecture." P. 301. It 
 would be strange if he had. 
 
14T 
 
 of Sinope, required a Latin version. Sinope 
 was, it is true, a Roman colony, (as were many 
 other cities in Asia and Greece) but the intro- 
 duction of a few foreigners could not occasion 
 an entire change in the language of a city, the 
 inhabitants of which had spoken Greek for ages. 
 It is much more probable that the colonists, or 
 at least their descendants, would be merged in 
 the native population, forgetting their Latin ori- 
 gin, and adopting the language of the place* 
 But, it is farther argued, " if Aquila had not 
 been a Latin, his name would have been Asroc iJf 
 Upon what principle ? we may ask. Most emi- 
 grants, even if they give up the rest of their na- 
 tive language, retain their own name, and trans- 
 mit it to their posterity. The utmost that can 
 be inferred from the name of Aquila is, that he 
 was of Roman descent ; not that he was by 
 birth a Latin, or that he spoke the Latin lan- 
 guage. To shew the futility of such an argu- 
 ment, let the author of Palseoromaica consider 
 how many foreign names he can recal to his re- 
 collection, the possessors of which have been na- 
 turalized during many generations, and would 
 deem it no slight offence if their right to the 
 name of Englishman were for a moment ques- 
 tioned. In this indeed, as in many other in- 
 stances, our author may be made to refute him- 
 
 1 Note 222, p. 301. 
 l2 
 
148 
 
 self; for since he maintains (p. 111.) that Theo- 
 philus, with a Greek name, was a Roman, why 
 may not Aquila, with a Latin name, have been a 
 Greek? If the former at Rome did not change 
 his name to Deodilectus, what should lead us to 
 conclude that Aquila would be called Acroc in 
 Sinope ? 
 
 In the case of Symmachus not the semblance 
 of an argument is offered to prove, that of his 
 two editions (were it even certain, which I think 
 it is not, that he published two), one was in 
 Latin. The words of Jerome m certainly imply no 
 such thing. Symmachus, he says, translated 
 a certain Hebrew word by the Greek zZaiptrov 
 " pro quo verbo in alio volumine, Latino sermone 
 utens, peculiarem interpretatus est." The words 
 in alio volumine, I should translate in another work 
 or volume n ; and all which Jerome affirms is that, 
 in some one of his Latin writings, Symmachus, 
 
 m Comment in Tit. ii. 
 
 n Hody (p. 587,) shews, that Symmachus was the author of 
 an Exposition of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and 
 probably of other books of the New Testament. He was 
 reckoned among the wise men of the Samaritans, as we learn 
 from Epiphanius, and was of such authority among the Ebio- 
 nites that they were called Symmachians from him. Such an 
 eminence he could scarcely have attained without exhibiting 
 himself as a voluminous writer ; and as the author of Palaeoro* 
 maica quotes Lambecius, to prove that he was counted among 
 the Latin fathers, his theological works were most probably 
 chiefly composed in that language. 
 
149 
 
 quoting the text in question, rendered that word 
 by peculiarem, which, in his version, he had 
 translated ^aiperov. As to the probability of our 
 Vulgate Septuagint having been of his compo- 
 sition, it is negatived at once by internal evi- 
 dence. The character bestowed upon the trans- 
 lation of Symmachus, by the concurrent testi- 
 mony of the ancients, is that in it he studied 
 perspicuity ; which, according to the testimonies of 
 Jerome and Eusebius, he succeeded in attaining 
 in a very high degree : he avoided Hebraisms : 
 his object was to admit no expression which 
 could occasion doubt or difficulty to any one 
 who understood Greek but not Hebrew °. Now 
 I will leave it to any impartial judge, or to the 
 author of Palaeoromaica himself, if he have ever 
 read the Septuagint, to determine whether there 
 appear in it any one of the characteristics by 
 which the version of Symmachus is said to have 
 been distinguished ; whether, on the contrary, 
 it do not exhibit the very opposite qualities; 
 being often obscure in its meaning ; filled with 
 the harshest Hebraisms ; and in many places 
 even unintelligible to those who are unacquainted 
 
 p " Perspicuitati operam adeo dedisse memoratur Montfau- 
 cono ut, vel in difficillimis locis, sensum ita legenti exhibeat, u* 
 statim intelligatur. Hebraismos raro sectatur. Summopere 
 curasse videtur ne quidpiam in Graeca serie poneret quod Grae- 
 cum lectorem, Hebraice ignarum, offendere posset." Carpzov. 
 1. c. §. iv. 
 
150 
 
 with the original. Can any man in his senses 
 then maintain, that our Septuagint translation 
 and that of Symmachus are one and the same ? 
 
 There remains however another resource ; that 
 of attempting to shew that the Septuagint ver- 
 sion, as it has existed for many ages, is so muti- 
 lated and depraved, that its identity with the 
 original can no longer be maintained ; and in 
 support of this assertion an appeal is made to 
 the testimony of Jerome. " Jerome, whose ge- 
 nius and learning gave him great authority in 
 the church, was never weary of declaiming 
 against the corruptions of the Septuagint," (p. 
 305.) This father, I admit, was accustomed to 
 speak slightingly of the Septuagint Version, after 
 he became acquainted with the Hebrew tongue, 
 and was no longer obliged to trust to the au- 
 thority of others as to its true character. But 
 the question now to be considered is not whether 
 the Alexandrian be a faithful or an incorrect 
 translation, or whether Jerome gave it a just 
 character when he spoke ill of it ; but we are 
 concerned to know whether Jerome thought that 
 the version in his possession, with all its corrup- 
 tions, was the same with that which was made 
 in the age of Ptolemy, and which was quoted 
 and sanctioned by Christ and his Apostles. Now 
 it is undeniable that, however Jerome . may de- 
 preciate the version, and accuse it of being in 
 many places interpolated and corrupt, he no- 
 
 6 
 
 
151 
 
 4 
 
 where expresses a doubt of its being virtually 
 the identical work of the Alexandrian transla- 
 tors. When he was vehemently accused of be- 
 ing misled by his fondness for Jewish learning, 
 and of deserting the ancient translation which 
 the Apostles had handed down to the church, 
 he never thought of clearing himself by shewing 
 that the world was mistaken in attributing so 
 venerable a character to the Septuagint transla- 
 tion. A step which, under the odium which 
 pursued him, he must assuredly have taken, if he 
 had believed it to be only a version of recent 
 date, or made up of fragments strung together 
 from other translations. But he admits this 
 translation to be the same with that which the 
 Apostles used, and only urges the expediency 
 of recurring to the Hebrew fountains with a 
 view to the removal of those blemishes which time 
 and inadvertence had introduced into the 
 Greek p . He professes in fact to have nothing 
 farther in view than to effect for the Latin Church 
 that which Origen had attempted to perform for 
 the Greek q . 
 
 p " Declaravit ergo et professus est palam, se novam tantum 
 ideo vereionem concinasse, ut non amplius Judaei Christianis 
 insultarent ; neque se versioni Septuaginta, ab universa Ecclesia 
 receptee, praejudicatum ire ; contendere se tantum quo Judaeis, 
 Versionem LXX calumniose traducentibus os obstrueret ; et idem 
 Latinis, quod Graecis olim praestiterat Origenes, praestaret." 
 Simon, I. c. Lib. II. c. 3. 
 
 q Jerome indeed expressly affirms that he considered the 
 
152 
 
 But, it is objected, " this great writer (Origen) 
 by the publication of his Hexapla, and by his 
 intermixture of different versions with diacritical 
 points, contributed probably to increase that 
 confusion, which it was one of his great purpo- 
 ses to remedy. These diacritical marks were 
 neglected or misunderstood, and thus a medley 
 of different versions was produced,'' (p. 303.) 
 The absolute degree of utility which has resulted 
 from the well -intended labours of Origen it is 
 utterly impossible for us to determine : but the 
 mere fact of his proposing to correct and amend 
 the version of the Seventy, involves, as a neces- 
 sary consequence, that he supposed he had, 
 however corrupted, the Septuagint itself before 
 him. It is very evident indeed that his attention 
 was directed to the emaculation of the more 
 antient, or Philadelphian version; and not of 
 that translation, of later date, which Usher sup- 
 poses to have been communicated by Herod to 
 Cleopatra. If the purity of the latter had been 
 the final object of his labours, there is much 
 
 text of the Greek translation, preserved in the Hexapla, as the 
 genuine production of the LXX ; and as distinguished from the 
 editions in common use, by its freedom from those errors which, 
 to a greater or less degree, prevailed in all those copies. " 'xoivn 
 autem ista, hoe est Communis Editio, ipsa est quae et Septua- 
 ginta. Sed hoc interest inter utramque, quod koivtj pro locis et 
 temporibus, et pro voluntate scriptorum veterum corrupta editio 
 est ; ea autem quae habitur in 'MairXoig, et quam nos vertimus, 
 ipsa est quae in eruditorum libris incorrupta et immaculata Sept* 
 
153 
 
 reason in the question of Baronius r . Why he 
 should have bestowed such pains on the restora- 
 tion of a text, the original copy of which was 
 still in existence ; and which it was in his power 
 at any time to inspect by merely taking a walk 
 to the library of the Serapeum ? In deducing the 
 genealogy of our present Greek Version we are 
 able most satisfactorily to shew that the original 
 Philadelphian Septuagint was the subject of 
 Origen's labours ; and, although the subsequent 
 neglect of his diacritical marks may have added 
 to the confusion of the text, there is still reason 
 to hope that the mischief is not quite irremedi- 
 able. According to Jerome's account of the for- 
 mation of the Hexapla, whenever a passage was 
 found in the Greek version, having nothing cor- 
 responding with it in the Hebrew, it was the 
 custom of Origen to place before it a virgula or 
 obelus to signify that it ought to be retrenched ; 
 where, on the other hand, a passage existed in 
 the Hebrew which was omitted in the Greek, 
 
 Interpretum translatio reservatur. Quicquid ergo ab hac dis- 
 crepat, nulli dubium est quin ita et ab eorum auctoritate discor- 
 det." Hieron. Epis. 135. ad Suniam et Fretelh 
 
 r " Cur enim (inquit Baronius) adeo laboratum ab Origene 
 primum, deinde a Luciano, postea ab Hesychio Alexandrino, 
 in ea cognoscenda, emendanda, ac in candorem pristinum resti- 
 tuenda, si ipsum originale suppetebat exemplar ; ex quo potuis- 
 sent omnia, quam, verissime, atque purissime, summa facilitate, 
 corrigi et emendari ?" Usher, L c. 
 
154 
 
 the deficiency was supplied by him from the 
 version of Theodotion ; an asterisk being placed 
 before the words thus introduced. Since then 
 the whole * of that column of the Hexapla, which 
 contained the Version called by Origen the 
 Septuagint, has escaped the ravages of time, and 
 yet survives in the work of Montfaucon, ex- 
 cepting only that the virgulae and asterisks no 
 longer appear in their proper places, what fol- 
 lows but that we possess the whole of what Origen 
 believed to be the genuine Septuagint version, 
 together with certain additional passages, from the 
 version of Theodotion, here and there incorpo- 
 rated with it? In a critical point of view, and in 
 many other points of view, it is greatly to be 
 lamented that these additions from Theodotion 
 cannot be now discriminated*; but, as far as 
 
 8 See Bishop Marsh's Theological Lectures, Part II. p. 123. 
 
 1 The possibility of restoring the pre-Origenian text, to a 
 
 considerable extent, is thus stated by Usher. " Ad commu- 
 
 nem vero illam editionem quod attinet, in qua quae a LXX 
 aberant ex Theodotione ab Origene suppleta fuisse diximus, earn 
 cum suis asteriscis et obelis prorsus perisse non recte sensit 
 Martinus. Psalterii editio vulgata Latina, obelis et asteriscis 
 distincta, cum Brunonis Herbipolensis Episcopi commentariis, 
 anno 1531 a Johanne Cochlseo in lucem est emissa. Liber 
 Josuse. Graece et Latine ejusmodi notis signatus, Andrea? Masii 
 opera prodiit : penes quern et reliquos V, T, libros historicos in 
 versione Syriaca, similiter notatos, extitisse" diximus. Librum 
 Jobi ex Graeco ab Hieronymo Latine, et libros Mosis aba lio 
 aliquo Arabice versos, eodem modo inter stinctos, in publica Oxo- 
 
155 
 
 the truth or untruth of the Palaeoromaican hypo- 
 thesis is connected with the antiquity of our 
 present Septuagint, the circumstance is of no 
 importance whatever. For estimate the addi- 
 tions from Theodotion at the highest possible 
 amount ; suppose them to compose a hundredth 
 of even a fiftieth part of the entire version, as it 
 appears in our editions, can it be pretended that 
 this is sufficient to destroy the identity of the 
 composition? or that, in consequence, we no 
 longer possess the Greek version as it came to 
 the hands of Origen, and as he believed it to have 
 existed in the age of the Apostles ? Can it with 
 reason be suspected that all the marked expres- 
 
 niensis Academiae bibliotheca vidimus. Geneseos quoque, Levi' 
 tici, Numerorum, Deuteronomii, Josuce ac Judicum fragmenta 
 quaedam Graeca vetustissima, obelis et asteriscis signata, Clau- 
 dius Sarravius, in Parliaments Parisiensi Consiliarius Regius ; 
 integram vero Esaiez et Jer emice prophetiam, asteriscis insignitatn, 
 communicavit nobis Patricius Junius, Regius nuper apud nos 
 Bibliothecarius ; quorum alterum per literas tantum nobis 
 notum, alterum amicum intimum et integerrimum morte 
 nobis ereptum, luctu serio prosecuti sumus. Neque est quod 
 diffidamus in aliis Europae bibliothecis libros quoque caeteros 
 reperiri posse asteriscis saltern ita illustrates, ut per eos 
 ex Theodotione adjecta supplementa a reliquo Vulgatae edi- 
 tiorris textu discerni valeant. Obeli enim, ut in codice Rupe- 
 fucaldiano, ita in aliis, fere, Graecis MSS. ut honori ru>v 6 eonsu- 
 leretur, videntur praetermissi : quod ea, quae in his superflua 
 erant, tanquam veru jugulare putarentur et confodere. Sed 
 istos restituendi, Graeci textus cum Hebraico collatione facta, 
 facilis est ratio : asterisci vero absque librorum subsidio recupe- 
 rari omnino non possunt." Syntagm. I, c. p. 104, 5." 
 
156 
 
 sions, which are common to the Greek Bible and 
 the Greek text of the New Testament, are derived 
 exclusively from those parts of the former which 
 have been borrowed from Theodotion ; and are 
 therefore more recent than the Apostolic age ? 
 Can it be safe on such a foundation to build an 
 hypothesis no less at variance with history and 
 probability, than it is affronting to the reputa- 
 tion of the Sacred Writings, and destructive of 
 the evidences of religion ? 
 
 Previously to quitting this part of the subject 
 it may be proper to add one remark concerning 
 those " other editors, less fitted" for the task 
 than Origen, who published Greek editions of 
 the Scriptures/' (p. 303.) The history and the 
 performances of Lucian and Hesychius are very 
 imperfectly known ; but the Alexandrian and 
 Vatican MSS. of the Septuagint, as they mani- 
 festly contain different recensions, have been, 
 not without reason, supposed to present the texts 
 
 u In what the peculiar unfitness of these editors consisted I 
 cannot determine ; nor do I believe that the author of Palaeo- 
 romaica can tell. It appears to me, I candidly confess, a very, 
 suspicious peculiarity that he is never sparing of his insinuations 
 against those who have laboured, in whatever manner, to pre- 
 serve the integrity of the Scriptures, and to maintain their ge- 
 nuineness and authenticity : while his commendations are reserved 
 for those whose torpid industry is chiefly exerted in endeavour- 
 ing to raise difficulties and to discover blemishes, which their 
 efforts, after all, cannot exalt into importance. 
 
157 
 
 revised by these two editors. Now, whatever 
 may be the differences subsisting between these 
 two recensions, and they are neither few nor 
 unimportant, it is somewhat curious that the 
 various readings do not extend to even a single 
 word of those on which this part of the Palaeoro- 
 maican theory rests. Having taken the pains to 
 collate the various readings of the Alexandrian 
 MS. with the text of the Roman edition, re- 
 printed at the Clarendon Press, I find that, among 
 the words common to the Septuagint and the 
 New Testament, which have been fixed on in 
 Palaeoromaica as probably derived from the 
 Latin, there is not one which does not exist, 
 without the slightest variation, in both recensions. 
 It is therefore plain that, whatever the text may 
 have suffered in other respects, these words at 
 least, and upon these the question turns, were 
 not of the invention or interpolation of either 
 Hesychius or Lucianus. The unison of the MSS. 
 in these instances, while so many variations 
 exist elsewhere, seems rather to lead to the in- 
 ference that the words noticed as of Latin, and 
 comparatively reeent extraction, formed^ a part 
 of the original Septuagint, and have been left 
 in it undisturbed by every subsequent editor. 
 Upon any other principle than that they formed 
 a part of the Greek Bible in the age of our Sa- 
 viour, and were copied from it by the Apostles, 
 their appearance in the manner in which they da 
 
158 
 
 appear in the New 1 Testament, cannot be ac- 
 counted for without the grossest violation of the 
 ordinary rules of probability* For suppose the 
 New Testament existing in the Latin language, 
 and to be rendered into Greek by translators 
 proceeding on the principle of selecting the 
 Greek word from its similarity in sound to the 
 Latin one. That they should be able in such a 
 number of instances to discover, in the Septuagint, 
 words affording this " chime or echo" is almost 
 too marvellous for belief; but, that the words, 
 thus found, should not only agree in sound, but 
 in very many instances should communicate a 
 peculiar emphasis and propriety which the original 
 did not and could not convey x ; and that all this 
 
 * An instance of this is afforded by the word tyKofttuoaaQe. 
 1 Pet. v. 5. which in Palaeoromaica is supposed to be " no 
 other than the Latin word incumbite," (p. 195.) I cannot help 
 remarking that if this were the fact, and if " chime and echo " 
 were the sole considerations by which this supposed translator 
 was guided in his choice of words, he would unquestionably 
 have preferred eyjco/iSovrt, as bearing a much closer resemblance 
 than eyKOfiSuxraoQe does to the word incumbite. But let this pass* 
 It is impossible however not to notice the singular good fortune 
 of a translator, who, proceeding upon no more definite principle 
 than that which is in this work attributed to him, has yet 
 fixed on a word which Parkhurst calls " beautiful and expres- 
 sive ;" and which (see his explanation of it) comprises a variety 
 of allusions, not one of which can have been suggested by the 
 supposed prototype incumbite. The same remark an attentive 
 reader cannot fail to extend to an entire class of words common 
 to the Jewish and the Christian covenant, by which indeed the 
 
159 
 
 should be the work of men translating at hap* 
 hazard, and under the guidance of their ears 
 and eyes rather than of their understandings, is 
 altogether such a concatenation of improbabili- 
 ties as must surely awaken the suspicions of 
 credulity itself. If this be a true representation 
 of what occurred, and of the manner in which 
 the Greek text of the New Testament was com- 
 posed, I can only remark that it annihilates, at 
 one stroke, the system of a writer, for whom 
 in Palaeoromaica great admiration and respect 
 are professed — the ambiguous Conyers Middle- 
 ton ; by shewing that an actual miracle (for no- 
 thing less can it be esteemed) was performed 
 after the close of the second century. 
 
 The reliance of the author of Palaeoromaica is, 
 however, not so much on any general principle, 
 
 connexion and harmony between the two is surprisingly kept up 
 and secured. " In the New Testament he will find all the 
 terms relating to propitiatory sacrifices, made use of by the Sep- 
 tuagint translators, so applied to the death of Christ upon the 
 cross, as to give no room for a suspicion that they are not there 
 applied in their strict and proper sense." Philip Skeltoris Ser- 
 mons — Christ the true and proper Sacrifice for Sin. Vol. I. 
 p. 257. So thought and so reasoned no mean proficient in 
 theology; but we are now required to think that he was de- 
 ceived ; and to admit that this continued application of the 
 sacrificial terms of the Old Testament to the death of Christ in 
 the New is purely accidental ; the appearance of a designed and 
 divinely appointed connexion between them, as between the 
 shadow and the substance, having its origin solely in the mis- 
 conceptions of an ignorant translator. 
 
160 
 
 as on the collection he has formed of separate 
 words and phrases. Some of these, as we have 
 seen, are certainly Latin in Greek characters ; 
 others he conceives to be formed from the Latin, 
 with such slight variation that the resemblance 
 in sound still leads us directly to the original ; 
 a third class has been formed by transposition of 
 letters and syllables in the Latin ; another has 
 been introduced through erroneous etymologies, 
 abbreviations, and lacunae of MSS., through a 
 confusion of terms nearly synonymous, and by 
 other similar causes. In all these instances, it 
 is assumed, the sense is so cleared, and so many 
 difficulties are solved, by supposing the present 
 Greek text to be only a very bad translation of 
 a previous Latin text, that this hypothesis carries 
 evident marks of being the true one ; or is, at 
 least, much more probable than any other which 
 can be suggested. According to the laws of 
 strict reasoning I am not aware that we could 
 be bound, in any case, or in solution of any* 
 difficulties whatever, to adopt an hypothesis of 
 this description ; an hypothesis growing out of 
 no previously established facts, but arbitrarily 
 founded on conjecture and assumption. In the 
 instance of the Apostolical writings I am at all 
 events certain that we are reduced to no such 
 necessity, because no difficulties have been 
 proved to exist in them which do not admit of 
 a less violent solution ; and I am sincerely of 
 
161 
 
 opinion that, in spite of the Classes and Disquisi- 
 tions of Palaeoromaica, most readers, of plain un- 
 derstanding and of common sense, will still pre- 
 fer the hypothesis that St. Mark and St. Paul 
 were the authors of their own writings. A ques- 
 tion may undoubtedly be raised how a certain 
 style came to prevail in those writings ; but 
 there is no difficulty unless there be no reply, or 
 only an unsatisfactory reply. That style, it is 
 alleged, is not the very best that can be ima- 
 gined. Admitted : and if it were, we then in- 
 deed might have a real difficulty in shewing that 
 it could be the production of those men, un- 
 learned and of a humble rank in life, to whom 
 the writings are attributed. But our Greek 
 text contains many very strange words, and 
 words employed in unusual senses ; it exhibits 
 solecisms, barbarisms, and it is hard to say what 
 other improprieties of diction y : and we cannot 
 suppose that these proceeded from the Apostles 
 themselves. We reply, Wherefore not ? The 
 Apostles wrote not in their native language, nor 
 in one which they had been grammatically 
 taught ; but in one which they acquired by 
 hearing it spoken as a provincial dialect. The 
 phrases current in Palestine, however remote 
 from Attic purity, were therefore unavoidably 
 incorporated in their style ; while an additional 
 
 y Palceor. passim. 
 M 
 
u 
 
 source of unauthorized idioms was open to them 
 in the Alexandrian translation of the Scriptures, 
 and in the daily increasing prevalence of Latin 
 terms and expri I, arising from the subjec- 
 
 tion of their country to the Roman The 
 
 1 With respect to phi -.vhich arc obviously nothing more 
 
 than Latin, translated literally into Creek, the most simple hv- 
 hesis is surely that which supposes the Evangelifltl and 
 Apostles themselves to have been the translators. It is mani- 
 fcet that a speech or laying, no left tlian a writing, may be thus 
 rendered into a language different from that in which it was 
 uttered. As an instance, the words \kuvop *roo/<rai ry oxXy are 
 a literal translation of satisfaccre nopulo ; which last were pro- 
 bably the words actually -employed and communicated to the 
 writer. But this, and other instances of the kind, can evidently 
 furnish no proof, nor even presumption, that the entire Gospel 
 was written in Latin, unless it be first shewn to be impossible, 
 or exceedingly improbable, that St. Mark himself should lite- 
 rally translate into Greek two Latin words, which had been 
 communicated to him, as having been employed by Pilate, or 
 by those who were acquainted with the motives upon which he 
 acted in this affair. Greek words, occurring in the Sacred 
 Writings, but not discovered in profane authors, stand in a dif- 
 ferent predicament, and are to be defended on other principles. 
 We do not possess, it is to be remembered, an hundredth or 
 even a thousandth part of the works which have been composed 
 in Greek. If all of these survived, it is most probable that 
 every word in the Apostolic writings might be defended by the 
 example and authority of one or more ancient writers. " Prae- 
 cipue," as observes Salmasius, " si illi extarent qui plebeio 
 stylo et idiotico res ac vitas privatorum scripserunt. Ex his est 
 apud profanos Laertius Diogenes, qui vitas philosophorum literis- 
 mandavit ; et refertus est idiotismis tarn in singulis vocibus quam 
 in tota phrasi." De Hellen. p. 107. 
 
163 
 
 taste of the Apostles had never been so culti- 
 vated as to teach them the great evil of sole- 
 cisms ; and, being desirous only of recording 
 faithfully the facts which they knew to be true, 
 and of stating those arguments with which they 
 were furnished by inspiration, without any view 
 to derive personal reputation from their writings, 
 they were even less attentive in their selection 
 of words than nun of their own rank, and their 
 [Hals in education, writing from human mo- 
 tives, would have been. To this I must add, 
 that the difficulties which do exist in the inter- 
 pretation of the New Testament, are invidiously 
 magnified in the work before me ; and that many 
 of the obscurities arise only from the mistaken 
 conceptions of the writer by whom they are 
 pointed out. Upon the subject of alleged obscu- 
 rity I would recall to his recollection the sen- 
 sible question of Casaubon. — u Quid? solus hie 
 obscurus ? non etiam optimus quisque attentissi- 
 mum et 7roXi^ia&(rrarov requirit lectorem ? Non 
 
 COmmemorabo Thucydldis a rag irzpivor)<jHq t rag 
 
 " TXuxTfftjfiaTiKa, \iiv ovv, kcii aTrr]pxai(x)fitva, Kai ovoiiKaara toiq 
 TroXXotf iotiv, to, Tt * Aicpai<pvt£' <ai 6 l JlfQiXoyia^iog' Kai r) ' Jlepi(jJ7rT) ' 
 <ai t) ' Avcuewxi ' <at ra bpoia tovtoiq. Hoiii-iKa ct i) re ' KwXv/i)j ' Kai 
 i] ' YIpeaGtvffia.' Kai i) ' KaraSoX?; ' Kai i) ' Ax^owj/,' /cat jJ l AiKaio)criQ t ' 
 xai ra irapaTrXtiaia' y) b' tv roig (Tx r ll iaTl<r f i0l G KaivoTTjg n Kai ttoXv- 
 rociria, Kai rj tZaXXayt) rrig avvtiOovg xP £<ri<jJ Q> *v y fiaXiffra oia<f>fpeiv 
 avrov rjyovjxtQa ru>v aXXwv, nzi tovtojv yiyverai rwv tpyutv <pavepa." 
 Dionys. Hal. Ep. 2. ad Ammceum de Us quce Thucyd, propria 
 sunt. The same critic objects to the great Athenian historian, 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 tfTTrepi&oXac, ra "yAu>ar<TrtyiaTi/ca /ecu £,eva, ra avaKoXovQa, 
 
 et similia multa, quibus obducta caligo ingens 
 ejus Historiee. Silebo Platonis tclq aKparovg /cat 
 awriveiQ fitTCKpopag de quibus Longinus. Hoc so- 
 lum dieam ; maximarum difficultatum ea potissi- 
 mum scripta esse plena, quae omnium seculorum 
 docti homines maxime sunt admirati. Quis Pin- 
 darum intelligent aut Aristophanem, absque 
 eorum interpretibus ? quis, Grsecis Uteris doc- 
 tus, choros tragicorum inoffenso pede percurrit ? 
 
 that ™ he converts verbs into nouns " (ovonaortKwq <rxw aTL ^ u ) 
 "nouns into verbs" (ra ovofiara Voiei gn para) " uses passive 
 verbs for active and the converse (aXXarrce ra «&/ ra»v iraQriri- 
 kuv Ken fvspyrjriKojv) singular for plural, masculine for feminine, 
 and vice versa," with many other peculiarities. After this we 
 may well ask, Nos offendent Paullince difficultates 'i There is 
 nothing new under the sun, except the inference which the au- 
 thor of Palseoromaica seeks to deduce from the phenomena 
 which he notices in the New Testament. A child might tell 
 him that, if it be more probable " to suppose that the genius of 
 Paul may have had injustice done to it by an imperfect transla- 
 tion," because obsolete and obscure expressions occur in his 
 writings, and the figures are novel and unprecedented, while 
 solecisms of gender, voice, number and the like, are occasionally 
 apparent, if this be a just inference in the case of St. Paul, then 
 the appearance of precisely the same blemishes of style in the 
 writings of Thucydides would seem to prove, that the writings of 
 Thucydides also have come down to us only in an imperfect 
 translation. So common a book as the Port-Royal Greek 
 Grammar may shew that such phrases, as f/ iraiQ eyeipov, and xaipe 
 o fiaciksvg, are no evidences of translation ; otherwise there is 
 scarcely a classical Greek author whose text will not be exposed 
 to the like imputation. 
 
16i 
 
 Theocriti ra atcXripa notant veteres critici ; neque 
 indignantur. Nos offendent Paullince difficul- 
 tates b r 
 
 Men of humble and candid minds can admit 
 but one hypothesis, that the Books of the Chris- 
 tian Religion are such as their Almighty Author 
 designed they should be : evidently the pro- 
 duction of persons incapable of inventing either 
 the facts or the doctrines which they promul- 
 gate; and, by those very defects which their 
 untutored manner of writing exhibits, proving 
 that a Greater Power was in operation to ac- 
 complish the eternal purposes, which these, his 
 humble instruments, were commissioned to re- 
 veal. 
 
 I shall now proceed to select for examination, 
 a competent number of the instances which are 
 classified in this fourth Disquisition, (p. 229 — 
 263) as so many proofs of a Latin original ; di- 
 recting my attention principally to those wfyich 
 it is attempted to support by some shew of rea- 
 soning ; or by the allegation of some difficulty, 
 arising from the mode of expression in the Greek, 
 which would be removed by a recurrence to the 
 Latin. If, in all these cases, it should be made 
 to appear that the reasoning is founded on false 
 principles, that the alleged difficulty arises only 
 
 b Proleg, in Persium, 
 
166 
 
 from the objector's misconception of the author's 
 design, or from his own imperfect acquaintance 
 with the Greek language, I trust the reader will 
 do me the justice to believe that the same con- 
 clusion might be established in every other in- 
 stance, had it been thought necessary to go 
 through them all. I have forborne to notice any 
 greater number, not because it would be diffi- 
 cult to answer them, but because the specimen, 
 here given, may suffice to shew the general cha- 
 racter of the work, and the credit due to this 
 kind of cumulative argument ; and farther I must 
 add that the remarks, by which the remaining 
 instances are accompanied, betray in general 
 such a spirit of hasty and puerile criticism, that 
 to expose their inconclusiveness, at any greater 
 length, would be a wearisome as well as a need- 
 less undertaking. The reader will please to ob- 
 serve that in the first instance is set down, from 
 the Vulgate text, the Greek word concerning 
 which the debate is raised ; after that the Latin 
 word from which the Greek is supposed to have 
 been derived ; with a reference to the page of 
 Palseoromaica from which the quotation is taken ; 
 and last of all are added such remarks as seemed 
 necessary to clear the sense of the sacred writer 
 from misrepresentation, to support by due au- 
 thorities the expression objected against, and to 
 shew that the solution proposed in Palseoromaica 
 
167 
 
 is always unnecessary, and, in a great number of 
 instances may be proved to be demonstratively 
 false. 
 
 At' vfiepwv. Demorari*. (p. 229.) The Latin 
 text is supposed to have been nearly as follows ; 
 " Et rursus intravit in Capernaum DEMORARX." 
 And again he entered into Capernaum to tarry, or 
 abide. This supposed Latin text then, judging 
 from this specimen, was not, more than our 
 present Greek, distinguished by classical purity. 
 But this is unimportant. The only pretext, by 
 which the existence of any Latin text whatever, 
 and this imputed mistranslation of it, could be 
 rendered plausible, would be that the phrase, 
 &' ijjuspwv, is so singular, so void of meaning, and 
 so contrary to all precedent, as to render the 
 supposition, of its having proceeded from the 
 Evangelist, a manifest absurdity. But how is 
 any such case of difficulty established? The 
 expression objected to is a manifest Hebraism, 
 and, even by the Greeks, would hardly be con- 
 sidered as unauthorized. In the Pentateuch the 
 word 0*0* is used in like manner to signify an 
 indefinite number of days ; as Gen. iv. 3. d^ YpD 
 which is translated fxeO' yfiepag ; and Gen. xxiv. 
 55. o*D* Wl Itftn " Let the damsel abide a few 
 days." Neither is the use of &a, to denote an 
 indeterminate interval, unprecedented in the 
 
 c Mark ii. 1. 
 
168 
 classic writers : as " Hv & evSov kcu 6 warvp 6 tov 
 
 YloXefiapyov KetyaXog* Kai /uaXa irpea^vrrig /not £o\)£«v 
 tivaC A1A XPONOY yap Kai twpaicsiv avrov '. i. C 
 
 interjecto aliquot tempore: and Beza so renders 
 §i r\fizpb)v interjectis aliquot dieibus. 
 
 EKrpwjULaTi. Extremitate* . (p. 229.) " It is evi- 
 dent that an abortive child is one that is born 
 not after, but before the time ; and that, in this 
 view of the matter, the Apostle Paul would have 
 seen the Lord sooner than any other person." 
 Upon the slightest consideration, I think it will 
 be evident, that the writer of the above sen- 
 tence had no right conception of the meaning 
 of the words on which he undertakes to com- 
 ment. The reason why St. Paul bestows 
 this epithet upon himself is, that he had been 
 constituted a preacher of the Gospel without 
 undergoing that previous probation by which 
 the other Apostles had been gradually formed 
 to their office ; and he therefore compares him- 
 self to a child which had not gone through the 
 regular period of gestation. It is plain that such 
 an abortive child cannot be entitled to equal 
 consideration with those who have come regu- 
 larly to the birth ; and, pursuing this notion, St. 
 Paul, in the excess of his self-humiliation, repre- 
 sents his having seen the Lord last of all, and 
 after that privilege had been vouchsafed to all 
 
 d Plat, de Rep. prope init. e 1 Cor. xv. 8. 
 
169 
 
 the other Apostles, as a suitable mark of his 
 own inferiority to his brethren. With respect 
 to any difficulty arising out of the use of the 
 prepositive article in this case, (or from his call- 
 ing himself not acrpw/iart but T(i> eKTpwpaTi,) it has 
 been occasioned by not considering that St. 
 Paul here speaks of himself, not individually or 
 unconnectedly, but as a member of a particular 
 family, or of what might be termed the house- 
 hold of Christ. Having mentioned our Lord's 
 previous appearances to those other members of 
 that household, who might be considered as hav- 
 ing obtained their stations through the regular 
 course, contrasting the mode of his own appoint- 
 ment with theirs, he adds, " and last of all he 
 appeared to me, as being the one (out of all these 
 brethren) who was born out of due time." 
 
 For the following illustration of the employ- 
 ment of the word eKrpw/ua itself, I am indebted 
 to the same kindness to which I have before al- 
 luded. " Extat hoc vocabulum in Alexandrina 
 Versione f . Grammatici antiqui statuunt non 
 adhiberi ab iis qui purse dictionis et Atticae ele- 
 gantise laudem sequantur ; neque tamen ejus 
 usum refugit Philo 1. Leg. Alleg. p. 54. C. — 
 
 Ov 7rt(pviC£ yovi^iov ovScv tcAeo (jtopeiv t} tov ^avXov 
 ^vyji* av £c Kai Soku npoacjtepeiv, ap&XwSpiSia evpiatceTai 
 
 Kai EKTPQMATA. Non est aptus ad gignendum 
 
 1 Jobiii. 16. 
 
170 
 
 quidquam perfectum ignavi animus : quod siquando 
 viietur foetus gignere, abort ivi reperiuntur. Conf. 
 Trilkrus. ad Thorn Mag, p. 319." — L'oesner. Ob- 
 servat. ut supra, p. 295. 
 
 Ett^wct/cw. Offusco s . (p. 220.) After atten- 
 tively considering the remarks of Michaelis and 
 his very learned translator, on the difficulty of 
 the above passage, I must avow my persuasion 
 that the solution is to be sought nearer the sur- 
 face. The Jews, it is well known, began to 
 reckon their natural day from the evening ; the 
 Romans theirs from an hour which, taking the 
 medium, might be considered as that of morning 
 twilight. St. Luke therefore, wishing to express 
 that a particular day was beginning to the Jews, 
 uses a word which he would naturally have em- 
 ployed to denote the beginning of a Roman day. 
 In the latter case it would have been strictly and 
 physically correct to use the word emfaaicio : be- 
 cause the dawning and the beginning of day were 
 simultaneous ; but, in the case of the Jewish 
 Sabbath, which began at eventide, the expres- 
 sion can be used only in what may be called its 
 derived and adventitious sense ; and abstractedly 
 from its original meaning. This employment of 
 the word, it will be said, is improper ; and it is 
 admitted, in strictness, so to be. But in every 
 
 s Luke xxiii. 54. 
 
171 
 
 language, as it is ordinarily spoken, how many 
 words, particularly those relating to artificial 
 divisions of time, are used in an acquired and 
 unnatural sense, which constant custom alone 
 could occasion to pass unnoticed ? Suppose St. 
 Luke to have said to (m&arov E^cuo-zce, when it was 
 growing dark, I cannot think that he has been 
 guilty of a greater impropriety than one which 
 all critics have overlooked and pardoned in Cae- 
 sar; who, speaking of the length of the nights in 
 a polar winter, uses the words, " Complures prce- 
 terea minores objects insula existimantur ', de quibus 
 insults nonnulU scripserunt, DIES continuos triginta 
 esse NOCTEM V 
 
 TlapEKTOQ. Peractus' 1 . (p. 231.) " What is more 
 certain is that, more than once, in the New Tes- 
 tament, the Greek iraptKrog seems to be a mere 
 corruption of the Latin peractus. Thus Matt. v. 
 32. TraotKTQQ Xoys 7ropvauc, which in its usual in- 
 terpretation, saving for the cause of adultery, is 
 (besides the redundancy of Xoyoc) in opposition 
 to our Lord's precept in the parallel passages k , 
 where putting away one's wife is absolutely for- 
 bidden. It appears to me, then, that the Latin 
 had been peracto crimine adulterii ; and that our 
 Saviour's sentiment is, ' Whosoever shall put 
 away his wife, having instituted a suit of adultery 
 
 h Bell. Gal. v. IS. J 2 Cor. xi. 28. 
 
 k Mark x. 11. Luke xvi. 18. 
 
172 
 
 against her, causeth her to commit adultery/ 
 The phrase peragere reum means to implead one 
 and prove him guilty," (p. 161.) Thus cavils, and 
 thus comments the author of Palseoromaica. I 
 am sensible that to enter into a laboured refuta- 
 tion of one, who is so very indifferent a scholar 
 as to think that to institute a suit is crimen pera- 
 gere, is, in reality, actum agere ; to do a very 
 unnecessary thing. But, not to deny him any 
 satisfaction, let Juvenal set him right upon this 
 point. 
 
 " Quum scelus admittunt, superest constantia. Quid fas 
 Atque nefas tandem incipiunt sentire PERACTIS 
 CRIMINIBUS V 
 
 Does the Satirist mean, by the employment 
 of this identical phrase, to imply that the perpe- 
 trator of a crime becomes internally sensible of 
 the difference between right and wrong, only 
 when a suit is instituted, and he is impleaded and 
 proved guilty ? No : he maintains the very reverse; 
 that, antecedently to all discovery, and inde- 
 pendently of any danger of it, the guilty con- 
 science is tormented with remorse from the very 
 instant that the crime is committed. The criticism 
 on 2 Cor. xi. 28, is, in like manner, founded on 
 an entire unacquaintance with the principles of 
 Greek construction, and with the meaning of the 
 
 1 Sat. xiii. 237. 
 
173 
 
 Apostle. The words of St. Paul, if it be not 
 assuming too much to quote them as his, are 
 
 XtojOic rtov irapzKTOQ, rj gTricrucrracric fis, r\ /ca3 riptpav, rj 
 
 jmepifiva iraaiiiv tu)v £KK\r)GL(i)v. " Besides those 
 things which are from without," i. e. besides the 
 persecution and ill usage which are heaped upon 
 me by those who belong not to the flock of 
 Christ "there is that crowd of care, which cometh 
 daily upon me, my anxiety for all the Churches." 
 What room is there then for the tasteless imagi- 
 nation that irapsKrog is merely a bad translation 
 
 of peractllS, and iis.pip.va iraadiv rwv £K/cXt?o-iwv of 
 
 CUR AM omnium ecclesiarumf 7ra<rwv fK/cXwiwv is 
 elliptically put for vn-sp ir. c. and the Latin version 
 of the words should be, as Beza makes it, Solli- 
 citudo DE omnibus ecclesiis. The author of 
 such criticisms as these betrays indeed so sin- 
 gular an unacquaintance with the Greek and 
 Latin languages, that, when he again affects to 
 take the lead in questions of this sort, a modest 
 enquirer may be emboldened to ask him what 
 are his pretensions ? 
 
 Tlrepvyiov. Porticum™. (p. 231.) " There is no 
 word," it is true, " on the meaning of which 
 commentators are more at variance than Trrs^vytov." 
 But this circumstance does not prove that this is 
 not the genuine* expression of the Evangelist ; 
 because it was to be expected that in these, as in 
 
 m 
 
 Matt. iv. 5. Luke iv. 9. 
 
174 
 
 all other writings of equal antiquity,' some words 
 should occur which all the resources of learning 
 would be incompetent so to explain as to pro- 
 duce unanimous acquiescence. Let it be granted, 
 if it must be so, that the question must be given 
 up in despair ; that we know nothing with cer- 
 tainty respecting it. I do not say that we are 
 reduced, even in the case before us, to such an 
 extremity ; quite the contrary : but even if it 
 were so, we should be neither constrained nor 
 inclined to take refuge in the proposed hypothe- 
 sis. The author ofthat hypothesis must know 
 that there is no Greek writing whatever in which 
 single words do not occur, on the meaning of 
 which as wide a division of opinions has pre- 
 vailed as even wrepvyiov has excited : and would 
 he persuade us that, in every such instance, we 
 must extricate ourselves from an admitted diffi- 
 culty by the intervention of such a scheme as 
 that which is proposed in the case of the Evan- 
 gelists ? Suppose that we were so uncertain as 
 to the true meaning of this word, and so unable 
 to express it by an equivalent English term, that 
 we were to translate the passage in which it 
 occurs, " Then the devil taketh him into the 
 holy city and setteth him upon the Pterugium of 
 the Temple." This would be quite sufficient to 
 ensure our understanding the material facts of 
 the narration; because the context would clearly 
 shew that some elevated external point of the 
 
175 
 
 Temple was designed ; but whether a wing, a 
 portico, or a battlement were meant, would be a 
 mere question of curiosity, the solution of which 
 could not be a matter of great importance. At 
 the same time this ought not to discourage our 
 attempting to determine what is meant by the 
 pterugium ; and, if I may venture to add to the 
 numerous opinions already recorded, the most 
 satisfactory explanation seems to me to be de- 
 rivable from the Septuagint. The word irrzpvyiov 
 is used by the LXX as corresponding with the 
 Hebrew spa : the signification of which is shewn, 
 I think, from many passages, to be the extreme 
 edge or border of any thing, specially of a garment. 
 The command of God to the people of Israel n 
 
 Was 7roir]ffaTU)(Tav tavroig KpaoiTzda titi to. 7rT?pvyia twv 
 ifiaTKov avTO)v, ug Tag yeveag aurwv. Kai €7rwi;(T£r£ £7ri ra 
 Kpa(T7rz$a tiov irrepvyiajv /cXaxr^ua vclkivzlvov. /cat taraivjunv 
 
 £v toiq Kpa<nr£$oig. Bid them make them fringes on 
 the borders of their garments, throughout their 
 generations, and that they put upon the fringes of the 
 borders a ribband of blue ; and it shall be unto you 
 for a fringe, or rather upon the fringe: " added to 
 it*' as Patrick (in loc.) remarks, " to make it the 
 more noted ; being of a distinct colour from, the 
 fringe, which was of the same colour with the 
 garment." The fringe indeed, as the same com- 
 mentator observes, " seems to have been only 
 
 u Num. xv. 88. 
 11 
 
176 
 
 threads left at the end of the web unwoven/' 
 
 The edge of the garment was therefore traced out 
 
 by a border of a different colour extending along 
 
 it ; and is here called to wrepvyiov. This is the 
 
 view which our translators have taken of the 
 
 passage, and I cannot but think that their version, 
 
 given above, is more correct than the Vulgate 
 
 " Faciant sibi fimbrias per angulos pattiorum" 
 
 This interpretation is certainly supported by the 
 
 high authority of Salmasius, who says " ywviag, 
 
 id est angulos vestium, iidem Grceci etiam impvyag 
 
 appellabant et impa ° ;" and again, " Angulos autem 
 
 pallii ywviaq et 7rTipvyag appellari Greece in super io- 
 
 ribus observavimus. Sic quatuor angulos reaaapa 
 
 irrepvyia pallio scribarum tribuit Epiphanius Hceres 
 
 XV. </>rj<ri yap on 7rXaruv£T£ ra (j>v\aKTt)pia, Kai ra 
 KpaaTTtSa TU)v [fxartu)v vfiuyv ^icyaXvvfre. poiGKsq yap 
 rivaq £tti ra Tfffaraoa 7rrepvyia rov rp&wvog skcujtoq 
 
 £lV£Vj *£ aVT8 T8 aTYIjJLQVOQ KaTa$Z$£fJL£V8Q ev to yjpovu 
 £V£KpaT£V£TO, 1} TTap^ZViaV IJffJCEEV. — Ttaaapa TTTtpvyia 
 
 rp&b)voQ, sunt quatuor anguli, ex quibus pende- 
 bant poiffKoi, id est globuli Punicorum malorum 
 specie*." Such is the decision of this con- 
 summate scholar ; buWt is to be lamented that 
 he offers no reasons in support of his very 
 positive conclusion" 1 . There are, I cannot help 
 
 ° Ad. Tertull. de Pallio. p. 111. 
 p Ibid. p. 472. 
 
 q He says indeed in another part of this volume, " 7rrepvyag 
 proprie vocabant Grseci angulos illos, qui circa imum vestis, ab 
 
177 
 
 thinking, grounds for questioning whether irt&» 
 pvyiaj in the passage of Epiphanius, do not 
 rather mean the borders of the garment, as the 
 equivalent Hebrew word is rendered in our 
 public version. The scribes, not content with a 
 simple fringe, augmented the width of that part 
 of their dress by appending to it little balls, or 
 knobs, attached to the warp of the stuff whereof 
 the garment was made. It would therefore seem 
 that the irrzpvyia, upon which these balls were 
 placed, could not be the angles of the garment : 
 because the fringe, along the whole course of 
 which this account, compared with Patrick's, 
 proves that they extended, was not confined to 
 the angles, but ran along the entire hem or border* 
 Hesychius plainly intimates that the impv^q and 
 the KpavinSa were co- extensive ; and the former 
 word could therefore not be designed to denote 
 only the angular points of a four-sided cloak. 
 His words, quoted by Salmasius, are irrepvyeg, 
 
 evSwrypiQ, ra TnjSaAia* /ecu /mtpog yvrwvoq, ra wept ra 
 
 KpatrweSa. We find accordingly that the LXX 
 translate cpD, sometimes by KpaweSov, at others 
 
 alarum similitudine. Aperti siquidem et divisi in medio vesti- 
 menti partes, ab utroque latere fluitantes, avium alas plane 
 referunt." DePall. p. 112. So Patrick on Num. xv. 88. "as 
 it is in the Hebrew, in the wings of their garments." It is how- 
 ever an obvious remark that the fluttering of the fringes which 
 surrounded the borders renders the name of wings no less appro- 
 priate to those parts of the garment than to the angles or corners, 
 
 1ST 
 
178 
 
 by TTTspvyiov : as if they considered them nearly 
 equivalent terms r . Admitting therefore the cor- 
 rectness of Fischer's decision that in the passage 
 Ruth iii. 9. and in some others, the meaning of 
 iTTtpvyiov is " non orce, extremitates vestis, sed 
 ipsum pallium* " This synechdochical applica- 
 tion of the word in particular instances furnishes 
 no proof that in other cases, and in a more 
 proper sense, it does not bear the meaning I 
 attribute to it ; namely, the border, as marked out 
 upon, and distinguished from the garment itself. 
 That this is its proper signification is farther 
 confirmed by the circumstance that cpD, in other 
 parts of the Septuagint, is translated aicpov : as 
 Hagg. ii. 13. according to some MSS. the reading 
 of 1 Sam. xxiv. 5. 6. 12. is to aicpov tt\q $nr\6i§oqi 
 according to others to irTzpvyiov tvq $nr\oi$og : and 
 in all these passages our English version, with 
 apparent correctness, has " the skirt of his gar- 
 ment" or " robe." According to Hesychius 
 
 wrtpvyia and aKpa are the same : Trrspvyia, tcl aicpa 
 
 Ttov t/xanwv. upon which Salmasius, adhering to 
 his own interpretation, observes, " ra aKpa sunt 
 yuviai," (p. 112.) But this is confuted by Hesy- 
 chius himself, who says, " KpatnnSa, tu £v tw aKpy T8 
 
 IpaTis KiK\h><TjjL£va pafifiaTa :" from which it evidently 
 appears that he did not consider to aKpov to mean 
 
 r Conf. Deut. xxii. 12. Zech. viii, 23. Num. xv< 38. 1 Sam. 
 xv. 27. 
 
 * Profas. p. 108. 
 
179- 
 
 the angle or corner of a garment, but the hem or 
 border to which the fringe was attached. It 
 tends to establish the same conclusion that the 
 same Hebrew word J")?spO, signifying the extremi- 
 ties of the earth, or the boundary of the visible 
 horizon * is rendered Trrepvyuyv. 
 
 We are therefore, I think, justified in con- 
 cluding that the word irrepvytov means a border or 
 boundary marked out and defined : as the hem of 
 the Jewish garment was by the differently- 
 coloured ribband which ran along it. Now, that 
 relation which such a border has to the garment, 
 the outer wall, which ran as a boundary round the 
 whole mount of the house, may be supposed to 
 bear to the area or plot of ground which it en- 
 closed, and on which the Temple stood". On 
 
 1 Job xxxvii. 3. xxxviii. 13. 
 
 " This resemblance will be rendered more evident by the 
 inspection of a plan of the Temple and its surrounding courts, 
 in piano. See such a ground plan in D'Oylys andMant's Bible : 
 1 Kings vi. Michaelis says, " even Strabo thought it ne- 
 cessary to explain what was signified by irrepa when applied to 
 the Egyptian temples. Lib. xvii. p. 1159." (Almeloveen's edition.) 
 Upon this his very learned commentator remarks, " It appears 
 from Strabo's description of the izrtpa of the Egyptian temples 
 that they were nothing more than two high walls, which formed 
 a kind of inclosure or court before the temple itself. The dif- 
 ficulty consists not in nrepov but in irrspvywv, for Wetstein, in 
 his note to Matthew iv. 5. has produced a very sufficient num- 
 ber of examples, where nrtpov and irrtpvl are applied to a build- 
 ing ; but if we except the example from Eusebius which had 
 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 account of this resemblance the word impvyiov 
 may have been used to designate that boundary; 
 and the words of St. Matthew may be thus ren- 
 dered. " Then the devil taketh him up into the 
 holy city, and setteth him on the outer wall of the 
 holy place \" The eastern side of this boundary 
 wall may be considered as the scene of this 
 temptation of our Lord ; and the description of 
 it in Josephus y affords a very satisfactory com- 
 ment on the words of Satan, " cast thyself down;" 
 for he assures us that the descent from thence 
 into the valley beneath, was so sudden and pre- 
 cipitous as to occasion giddiness in those who 
 looked down. This particular spot has indeed 
 been suggested by previous writers ; but they in 
 general suppose that some pinnacle or battlement 
 raised above the wall, or some wing projecting 
 
 been borrowed from the Greek Testament, no instance has been 
 found where the diminutive irrepvyiov is applied to a building." 
 Marsh' s Michaelis, Vol. I. pp. 144- — 420. It must however be 
 noted that the Egyptian temples had only one court surrounding 
 them ; and that we must therefore not expect to find both terms, 
 irrepov and Trrepvytov, used in heathen authors to describe the 
 single boundary within which those temples stood. But the 
 Temple at Jerusalem was distinguished from all others by 
 having two enclosures around it. If therefore the inner wall 
 (surrounding the court of the Israelites) were called, after the 
 Egyptian fashion, to 7mpov, the outer wall (surrounding the en- 
 tire area) might be called by way of distinction, to irnpvyio v » 
 
 x Matt. iv. 5. 
 
 * Ant. Jud. xv. 14. 
 
181 
 
 from it, is meant z ; nor do I find any one sug- 
 gesting that our Lord was placed on the ivall itself, 
 or mentioning the reason which I have assigned 
 why that might be called to Trrepvyiov. 
 
 AvaroXr/. Natale*. (p. 233.) " / suspect that 
 
 what the Magi say, aSo/uv avrov rov aoTzpa £v ry 
 
 avaroXy, may have been Natale astrum in the 
 Latin text." But let me ask what reason has he 
 for suspecting this ? or where is the difficulty of 
 the passage as it stands ? Did not the wise men 
 come from the east? Could not they in the 
 east have beheld the star of Christ hanging over 
 Judea? or does not avaroXri " in various other 
 passages of the New Testament mean the east ?" 
 If these questions cannot but be affirmatively 
 answered, what difficulty, I repeat, does the 
 original present ? and if no difficulty, what room 
 for conjecture ? In the case of the least con- 
 siderable of profane authors such a liberty would 
 not be tolerated ; and wherefore is the Sacred 
 Text to be held unworthy of that safeguard 
 against rash innovation which is extended over 
 the text of every other writer ? 
 
 z u 
 
 Till an instance can be produced from a Greek writer in 
 which -KTigvyiov is applied to a building, and its sense determined, 
 it must remain mere conjecture whether the Evangelists in- 
 tended to express a wing of the Temple j or only a point or pro- 
 minence." Marsh's Michaelis, Vol. I. p. 421. 
 * Matt. ii. 2. 
 
182 
 
 Tzewa. Igne b . (p. 234.) " It seems to me to 
 be no other than a corruption of the Latin word 
 Igne; quam totum corpus tuum eat in yccwav (ig- 
 nem)." The resemblance between the Greek 
 and Latin words is so very slight as to be scarcely 
 perceptible, even when pointed out. But has 
 the author considered what will be the effect 
 of applying his conjecture in other passages 
 in which yeewa occurs ? What kind of sense, 
 for instance, does the substitution of ignis 
 introduce into our Lord's rebuke of the Phari- 
 sees? "Ye compass sea and land to make 
 one proselyte, and, when he is made, ye make 
 him tenfold more the child of fire than your- 
 selves ." Can any one seriously maintain that 
 this is more satisfactory than those F innumera- 
 ble dissertations about the valley of Hinnom ?" 
 or that the hypothesis, when applied to the 
 words of our Lord, does not so miserably fail as 
 to prove that it cannot be true ? 
 
 ManfjHDvaq. Nummos d . (p. 234.) " The origi- 
 nal seems to have been nummos caducos, and, this 
 phrase not being familiar to the translator, he 
 converted it, by a kind of chime, into fiafifxajvag 
 rns adiKiag" (p. 223.) Concerning the proba- 
 bility of this conversion let others judge. To 
 me, the passage, as it stands in the Greek, seems 
 
 b Matt. v. 22. c Matt, xxiii. 15. 
 
 d Luke xvi. 9. 
 
183 
 
 to furnish an unexceptionable meaning ; and the 
 derivation of the principal word in it is reason- 
 able and easy. " Vox pDD, ambage remota, 
 Ebrseae linguae filiabus in usu est. Certe Chal- 
 daice est Lucrum; Gen. xxvi. 36. et alibi. Ita et 
 Punice, uti Augustinus, Lib. II. de sermone Dom : 
 in monte; et Serm. xxx. De verbis Dom: ait 
 Mammona apud Ebreeos Divitice appellantur. 
 Congruit et Punicum nomen: nam Lucrum Punice 
 Mamon dicitur 6 ." With respect to the other 
 part of the conversion, namely of caducus into 
 aSiKOQ, I will only ask how it came to pass that a 
 translator, capable of such a blunder, should in 
 the eighth verse of this chapter have used aSucta, 
 and, in the tenth, aSi/coc twice, in such a manner 
 that the supposition of their having been, in these 
 instances, derived from caducus cannot be ad- 
 mitted without converting the entire passage into 
 unmeaning absurdity. 
 
 Xpovog. Hornus f . (p. 236.) "'On y^povog ovk 
 sarai en, that before the end of a year the con- 
 summation would take place." How the author 
 deduces this sense from the words which he 
 quotes, I do not stay to enquire. I notice this 
 conjecture only to have an opportunity of ob- 
 serving, that the translation of this passage, even 
 
 c Pfelffer Dubia Vexata Ss, recognita, p, 894. 
 f Rev. x. 6. 
 
 8 
 
184 
 
 in our authorized version, appears to be suscep- 
 tible of improvement. " The angel, which I 
 saw stand upon the sea, and upon the earth, 
 lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him 
 that liveth for ever and ever — that there should 
 be time no longer ; but in the days of the voice 
 of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to 
 sound, the mystery of God should be finished." 
 This passage I would translate in a different 
 manner, and will give a reason why it should 
 stand thus: l f The angel, which I saw stand 
 upon the sea, and upon the land, lifted up his 
 hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth 
 for ever and ever — that the time shall not be yet, 
 but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel; 
 when he shall begin to sound, and (when) the mys- 
 tery of God shall be accomplished." This is not 
 only more literal, as a comparison of the Greek 
 will shew ; but, by translating y^povoq g ovk co-rac en, 
 the time shall not be yet, the reference is more 
 clearly made to the words of our Lord, out™ 
 wren to tsXoq, the end shall not be yet h ." Indeed, 
 if this were the place for such a discussion, it 
 might, I think, be satisfactorily shewn, that the 
 predictions of our Lord, recorded by the first 
 
 g Xpovog, without the article prefixed, denoting a fixed and de- 
 finite time, is used in like manner. " It is not for you to know 
 the times" &c. Acts i. 7. 
 
 h Matt. xxiv. 6. and Markxiii. 7. 
 
185 
 
 three Evangelists, primarily relating to, and pri* 
 marily accomplished in, the overthrow of Jeru- 
 salem, have a farther and prospective view to the 
 overthrow of that antichristian power which 
 shall arise in the last days : in other words that, 
 of Matt. xxiv. Mark xiii. Luke xxi. 2 Thess. ii. 
 of some of the prophecies of Daniel, and the 
 greater part of the book of Revelation, the sub- 
 ject is one and the same. 
 
 'Ayialay. Sanctifico. Qu. for Sancio \ (p. 254.) 
 This is one of the instances in which through 
 " mistakes from abbreviations, faded letters, 
 &c." one word, in the supposed Latin text, has 
 been mistaken for another, and the Greek tran- 
 slation which we possess has suffered accord- 
 ingly. The passage in question then is sup- 
 posed to have correctly stood thus, " Infidelis 
 enim maritus sancitur uxori; et uxor infidelis 
 sancitur marito, &c." " The unbelieving hus- 
 band is legally •plighted to the wife ; and the un- 
 believing wife is legally plighted to the husband ; 
 else were your children bastards, but now are 
 they legitimate''' The translator hereof, it is 
 imagined, mistaking sancitur for sanctificatur, 
 made use of the word yyiaaTai, to the detriment 
 of the sense of the passage. Upon the interpre- 
 tation of the concluding passage in the above 
 quotation, it may be remarked k , that the words 
 
 1 1 Cor. vii. 14. k See Whitby in loc. 
 
186 
 
 by which bastards, and legitimate children would 
 be properly expressed in Greek, are vo0oi and 
 •yvtjffioi. The designation 'A-ytoi is applied by St. 
 Paul to those who are actually, or potentially, 
 within the terms of the Christian covenant ; and 
 who are thereby distinguished from others, (aica- 
 Saproig) who enjoyed not that privilege. The re- 
 mainder of "this difficult text" must be ex- 
 plained by reference to the particular state of 
 things to which the passage relates. In the 
 early ages of Christianity it frequently happened 
 that a believer and an unbeliever were united in 
 marriage ; and, scruples being entertained as to 
 the lawfulness of such marriage ab initio, and 
 of continued cohabitation, the direction of the 
 Apostle is applied for as to the proper mode of 
 proceeding. His reply is in substance, " The 
 children of this marriage are not unholy, or with- 
 out the covenant, like those who are the fruit of 
 marriages where both parties are unbelievers, but 
 are admissible to the right of baptism 1 . Now 
 this could not be unless the unbelieving parent, 
 as far as the purposes of matrimony, and those 
 alone, were concerned, were sanctified, or ad- 
 mitted to a participation in Christian privileges, 
 by the believing." In the words of Chrysostom, 
 
 1 " Sancti sunt, et dicuntur liberi quod, ex communi infan- 
 tum sorte exempti, in statu gratice versentur." Venema. Dissert. 
 Sacr, Lib. III. c. ix. 
 
187 
 
 " viko. ?J /caSaporrjc. rijc. yvvaiKOQ tt\v aKa$ap<nav tov 
 avdpOQ* Kai viko. rj tcaSapOTriq tov ttigtov avSpog 7raXiv 
 to aicaSaQTOv Tr\q cltcigtov yvvaiKog I through the 
 
 mercy of God the designation of the offspring is 
 taken from the better parent; in consideration 
 of whose belief, the unbelief of the other is not 
 suffered unfavourably to influence the condition 
 of the offspring 1 ". "Wherefore," he proceeds, 
 " so long as each is willing to continue, let 
 him not put her away, — let her not leave 
 him n ." 
 
 AX^tta. Veritas . Qu. for Virtus, (p. 250.) In 
 an immediate sense, and with reference to the 
 mutual intercourse of men, truth, or the con- 
 formity of words to the existing state of things, 
 is opposed to falsehood, which is the absence of 
 such conformity. In the economy of revelation, 
 therefore, the Gospel itself is called truth on 
 account of its conformity with the existing state 
 of things in the spiritual world ; inasmuch as it 
 
 m " Liberi ex conjugio cum infideli non sunt impuri ; infidelis 
 non sequuntur sortem, sed sunt sancti, secundum meliorem pa- 
 rentem judicandi, quemadmodum bonitas Dei, qua in meliorem 
 inclinatur partem, evinciVet ex fidelis relatione ad Christum, 
 qui parentem cum semine sibi asserit, manifeste colligitur." 
 Ibid. cxiv. 
 
 n See on this whole subject, C homier. Panstratia Cathol. 
 Vol. IV. Lib. 5. cap. x. sect. 46, et seq. 1 Cor. vii. 15, &c. 
 
 ° 1 Cor. xiii. 6. 
 
188 
 
 declares to us the true God, the duties which 
 we owe to him, and the mode of worshipping 
 him acceptably in spirit and in truth. The Gos- 
 pel is, upon all these points, directly opposed to 
 every other system which bears the name of re- 
 ligion ; because all these give us false views of 
 God and of our duty to him. When, therefore, 
 it is said in Palseoromaica (p. 251.) that, in the 
 " eulogy on charity p , Rejoiceth not in INIQUITY, 
 but rejoiceth in the TRUTH, a\r$ua TRUTH is 
 opposed to aSi/eea INIQUITY,'' and it is inferred 
 that, to preserve the force of the contrast, the 
 original must have been not VERITATE but 
 VIRTUTE, " rejoiceth not in INIQUITY, but 
 rejoiceth in VIRTUE," the error is this ; the 
 word truth is understood, if not in a false, in too 
 circumscribed a sense : aXrfitia is supposed here, 
 and in similar passages, to intend only that 
 quality which among men is opposed to the neg- 
 lect of veracity ; whereas the truth in which 
 charity rejoices is collective truth ; as it forms the 
 entire subject of revelation, and is opposed not 
 to falsehood singly, but to all those qualities 
 which are comprehended under the generic name 
 of aSi/aa or unrighteousness. The correction pro- 
 posed in Palseoromaica in fact amounts to no- 
 thing ; for in the scriptural sense truth and virtue 
 
 p 1 Cor. xiii. 6. 
 
189 
 
 are one q ; and therefore truth stands naturally 
 and properly opposed to ever]) deviation from 
 virtue ; or, in the Apostle's language, to " evil ' 
 and " iniquity" 
 
 Avaarpocpri. Conversio. Qu. for Conversation 
 This word is used in the sense of conversation by 
 Polybius 5 ; also 2 Mace. v. 8. Schleusner 1 ob- 
 serves, " Cseterum etiam grsecos scriptores hanc 
 vocem ita usurpasse ut omnem vitce instituendce, et 
 cum aliis hominibus vivendi rationem, familiaritatem 
 adeo et conversationem significaret, multis docuit." 
 Wesseling. in Diatribe de Judceorum Archontibus, 
 c. ii. p. 14. To this work I have no means of re- 
 ferring ; but it was at least incumbent on the 
 author of Palaeoromaica to shew, that the au- 
 thorities cited by Wesseling do not prove his 
 assertion, as Schleusner appears to think they 
 do. The mere inspection of the Epistles of St. 
 Peter is sufficient to prove the utter impossibility 
 of the assumption, that conversatio has been mis- 
 taken for conversio. If, in the Latin exemplar, a 
 
 q Such is the opinion of the ethic poet : 
 
 " Truth and good are one ; 
 And beauty dwells in them, and they in her :" 
 
 So therefore does virtue, which is the beauty of the moral uni- 
 verse ; and perhaps the only form acceptable to Him who 
 " seeth not as man seeth, but looketh on the heart." 
 
 r 1 Pet. iii. 1. s Vid. Wetstein in loc. 
 
 * Lex. A r . T. s. v. 
 
190 
 
 mark of abbreviation unnoticed, or the oblite- 
 ration of certain letters in the copy, can be sup- 
 posed in one instance to have given rise to such 
 an error, this would be carrying conjecture to 
 the very limits of probability. But when we are 
 required to admit that, if this source of error 
 prevailed in one instance, it must have prevailed 
 six times in the first Epistle of St. Peter, and 
 twice in the second ; once in the Epistle of St. 
 James, and four times in those of St. Paul, when 
 we find that at least three separate translators 
 must have fallen thirteen times, in all, into the 
 same error of mistaking conversatio for conversio, 
 while the words converto and conversio, when 
 they do occur, are rendered by other Greek 
 words, and not by ava<rrpE$a> and avaarpofai, we 
 have a glimpse of the difficulties in which the 
 New Testament will be involved by the admis- 
 sion of this very simple and unperplexed hypo- 
 thesis. 
 
 <bu)vriv. Vocem. Qu. for Vocantem*. (p. 257.) 
 The objection here is, that a voice cannot be 
 seen. But pXeww, and words of similar import, 
 do not necessarily signify seeing in a corporeal 
 sense. They are applied, by writers, sacred 
 and profane, to objects which cannot be, any 
 more than a voice, the objects of vision. Thus 
 Matt. xiv. 30. " j3Xf7ro>v & rov ux^ov ANE- 
 
 H Rev. i. 12. 
 
191 
 MON." Similarly Appian x " o>c & km nNEYMA 
 
 zSeaaavTO. 
 
 TivuffKU). Nosco. Qu. for Agnosco y . The true 
 sense of this passage is that which our Esta- 
 blished Version gives, " that which 1 do I allcnv 
 not;" and the use of -yivwtr/cw, with this signification, 
 has been so often and so satisfactorily defended, 
 that it is unnecessary here to repeat the autho- 
 rities for it. In the passage, John i. 10. " o kog- 
 fxoq avrov ovk £yva>," I must still doubt, notwith- 
 standing the authority of Valckenaer, whether 
 ipsum non agnovit would correctly represent the 
 Apostle's meaning. There is a wide and ob- 
 vious distinction between acknowledging a per- 
 son in a particular character, and knowing in 
 what the attributes of that character consist, and 
 in what the person's claim to it is founded. 
 With respect to our Lord the unbelieving world 
 was deficient in both these respects. Not only 
 did it not acknowledge him in the character of 
 Messiah ; but (and this is the point to which St. 
 John refers) they were disabled by prejudice 
 from correctly apprehending what characteristics 
 the Messiah should be expected to display ; and 
 from discerning how far those characteristics 
 were exhibited in Jesus of Nazareth. To make 
 their acknowledgment of him worth any thing, 
 there was a previous qualification necessary; 
 
 * Bell. Alex. Annib. p, 574. 
 y Rom. vii, 15. 
 
»> 
 
 ?? 
 
 192 
 
 that they should know him, or correctly appre- 
 ciate his character and claims. This distinction 
 is clearly traced by our Lord himself. " It is 
 my Father that glorifieth me, of whom ye say, 
 or acknowledge, " that he is your God. Yet, 
 he continues, this acknowledgment of him in 
 that character is unavailing, because " ye have 
 not known him 2 ;" or had any right perception of 
 his nature and attributes. So, " If ye had 
 known me, ye would have known my Father 
 also*;" where the introduction of agnosco for 
 nosco, or of " if ye had acknowledged me, ye would 
 have acknowledged my Father also ;" would make 
 their acknowledgment of the Father, as their 
 God, dependent on their acknowledgment of 
 the Son as their Messiah : plainly contrary to 
 the fact. 
 
 Epyov. Factum. Qu. for Facinus b . (p. 164.) 
 Whether or no " committing incest can properly be 
 termed a work ;" whether " facinus is quite ap- 
 propriate to the occasion," and whether " the 
 etymological translator confounded this with 
 factum" are questions which the author of Palseo- 
 romaica may be left to decide in his own way. 
 It is more to our purpose to shew, that in this 
 application of cp-yov there is nothing but may be 
 justified by adequate authority. One quotation 
 
 * John viii. 54. a John xiv. 7, 
 
 b 1 Cor. v. 2. 
 
1&3 
 
 may suffice. " '&c 8e Pwjuaioi Kai qvtoi Kapyji$ovioi 
 vofiiCovai, AtSw yvvri Tvpia, tjg tov av§pa Kare/ccwve 
 TlvyiuaXi(i)v k<u to EPrON anzKpvips.v e . 
 
 This application of the word cpyov, to denote 
 murder, might alone suffice to vindicate the Apos- 
 tle's use of it ; but it may be farther observed that, 
 in a very marked instance, it is employed by 
 Euripides to express that very crime which St. 
 Paul has in view : mte TYNAIKA nva ts IIATPOS 
 «X«v. Alluding to her own incestuous passion 
 for Hippolytus, Phaedra says, 
 
 " to & EPrON ydy ti\v voaov te $v<tK\ta 4 " 
 
 There cannot indeed be a finer commentary 
 on the words of the Apostle, Toiavrn nopyua frig 
 sh £v toiq tSveaiv ONOMAZETAI, than is furnished 
 by the management of the entire plot, as well as 
 of particular scenes, in this tragedy. The wri- 
 tings of antiquity contain not a more striking 
 representation than that which is here presented 
 of Phaedra's struggle against so odious a passion, 
 and of the shame and confusion with which she 
 shrinks back from any approach towards an 
 avowal of it. Amidst the general horror, which 
 the discovery of it excites, one thing is very 
 strongly marked ; namely, that it was, in the 
 general estimation, too detestable to be spoken of, 
 
 c Appian. Lib. Carth. p. 13. ed. Car, Steph* 
 * Eurip. Hippol. Coronif. 410. 
 
194 
 
 Thus Phsedra obstinately refuses to name the 
 cause of her misery, and when at length her 
 insidious confidant is led to mention Hippolytus, 
 she exclaims 
 
 a 
 
 as rad\ bk eps, k\veiq." 
 
 as if it were some relief of her wretchedness, and 
 some extenuation of her guilt, that she had not 
 been reduced to name the malady which con- 
 sumed her, or the unconscious author of her 
 sufferings, avm^ra nabta they are termed by the 
 chorus ; " sufferings which ought not to be heard 
 of:" as the scholiast well explains it ra pyre aKor\q 
 a%ia, ra apprira. From the same feeling, when 
 the attendant even hints to the queen the grati- 
 fication of her passion as a means of preserving 
 her life, the utterance of such a sentiment sus- 
 pends in her every other feeling but that of hor- 
 ror ; and her reply is 
 
 il (i) deiva \t%ao>' «^i ovytcXyoeig ffTO/xa, 
 Kai [irj fieOijffuQ avSrig aiffx^rsg Xoyag ;" 
 
 and Hippolytus, after having listened to the re- 
 lation of the Nurse, exclaims 
 
 " o>g km av y r\\niv IIATPOS, o> kclkov Kapa, 
 AEKTPQN aOiKTiov qXStg eig avvaXXayag. 
 'a 'ya> pvroig vaafioiaiv eZoixopZofjiai, 
 ug QTA kXvZ,(ov nag av av ur\v icaicog, 
 bg ad', AKOYSAS ToiaS', ayvtvuv doKb) f 
 
 I put it now to the author of Palaeoromaica 
 whether St. Paul has not given a most accurate 
 
195 
 
 description of the feelings of the Gentile world 
 upon this subject; and whether in his remarks 
 about f acinus and nefandum he himself does not 
 display an ignorance which in another he would 
 regard as no less than shameful ? 
 
 QaXaaaa. Mare. Qu.for Thessalia 9 . (p. 254.) That 
 any person should translate Thessalia by OaXaaaa 
 is utterly inconceivable. That a copyist may 
 have written Qa\a<j<sa for QeaaaXia is by many de- 
 grees nearer to the regions of probability ; and 
 such an error once introduced might naturally 
 and easily be propagated through an entire class 
 of MSS. If then it were even necessary, in order 
 to maintain the congruity of the narrative, to read 
 Qe<r<ra\ia and not BaXasaa, this mode of accounting 
 for the disappearance of the former word would 
 be preferable to that which supposes it to have 
 arisen from mistranslation. I must however 
 confess my inability to discern the validity of the 
 reasons assigned by Markland, in support of the 
 reading 8e<r<raAia. The passage as it stands in the 
 
 received text, 7ropevea9ai wc €7rt tyjv 9a\aaaav to 
 
 go towards the sea, is in perfect congruity with 
 the context ; " They that conducted Paul brought 
 him unto Athens" Now although, if he went to 
 Athens by land, he would pass through Thessaly, 
 yet, as the object of the brethren was to place 
 the Apostle as soon as possible, beyond the reach 
 
 * Acts xvii. 14. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 of the Jews, whose persevering enmity was 
 shewn by their pursuit of him to Beroea, it seems 
 more reasonable to suppose that they would 
 conduct him to the nearest seaport ; in order that 
 he might be conveyed to Athens, or at least part 
 of the way thither, as he had come from Troas, 
 (xvi. 11.) on ship-board f . 
 
 KcSpwv. Cedrorum Qu. for Cedron*. That a 
 careless copyist should commit such an error as 
 that of writing rwv K&pwv for rov /ccopwv can sur- 
 prise no one ; and the same error might, like 
 that noticed in the preceding instance, creep into a 
 great number of copies. That we possess so many 
 as three MSS. which preserve the genuine reading 
 
 * The following is Hoogeven's explanation of the passage. 
 
 " Tov Havkov e%a7TtiTTti\av bt. adeXtpoi iroptveaOai a>£ «7rt Sakaooav. 
 Paulum miserunt f retires, ut prqficisceretur versus mare; sive, 
 quasi ad mare, Nempe Judaei Thessalonicenses, odio evangelii 
 concitati, Berhoeam tendentes Paullum persequebantur ; quare 
 fideles eum comitabantur, simulantes iter per mare: ideo que, 
 urbe egressi, tendebant non ad, sed versus mare, hoc est ad or- 
 tum, versus sinum Thermaicum, ut insidiantes hostes eluderent, 
 ita ut, longius ab urbe remoti, flecterent iter versus Thessaliam." 
 Doctrin. Parti. C. LYII. Sect. 8. P. 1210. There does not 
 appear however to be any necessity for this supposition that the 
 brethren went towards the sea, as a feint to cover their real de- 
 sign of making thejourneybyland. q s ««, in the examples from 
 Arrian immediately preceding the above extract, evidently de- 
 notes not only a progress towards, but an actual arrival at the 
 positions indicated. In either view of the subject the objection 
 of Markland revived in Palaeoromaica falls to the ground. 
 9 John xviii. 1. 
 
197 
 
 is an exemplification of the manner in which the 
 authentic sacred text has been preserved and 
 may be recovered; the aberrations of some of 
 the witnesses being in every case counterbalanced 
 by the greater correctness of a sufficient number 
 of others. 
 
 OefitXiov. Fundamentum Qu. for Fundum\ (p. 91.) 
 The objection here is the incongruity of the 
 metaphor. " What is the meaning of treasuring 
 up a foundation!" " The word in that Latin 
 copy from which our Elzevir Greek appears to 
 have been derived, seems to have been Fundum" 
 and " the passage in our version therefore ought 
 not to be ' laying up in store for themselves a good 
 foundation ;' but ' laying up in store for themselves 
 a good fund.' " The meaning of the Apostle is 
 plain enough : " charge them who are rich in this 
 world," to give, by their readiness to distribute, 
 so clear a proof of their faith in Christ, that on 
 Him, as on an immoveable foundation, they may 
 build their hope of eternal life. But wherefore 
 speak of laying up a foundation ? Because their 
 title to build on such a basis was to be acquired, 
 not instantaneously or by any single act, but by 
 the daily, hourly, persevering exhibition of cha- 
 ritable affections ; as, among the children of this 
 world, treasure is amassed by laying up conti- 
 
 h 1 Tim. vi. 19. 
 
. 198 
 
 nually and separately one piece of money after 
 another. St. Paul's intention was to shew what 
 a Christian ought to do, and how it was to be 
 done ; and when in his rapid style he unites 
 these two points of instruction in a single sen- 
 tence, he unites also the metaphors by which 
 each, separately, was well and forcibly expressed ; 
 and thus produces " an incoherent figure." And 
 is this so uncommon a case ? "Multi," says Quinti- 
 lian " cum initium a tempestate sumpserunt, incen- 
 dio aut ruina finiunt 1 ," This is a fault to which the 
 fervid and energetic character of St. Paul peculiarly 
 exposed him in writing; and another instance of it, 
 an instance which I do not see how any supposi- 
 tion of a Latin original can remove, is exhibited k 
 
 in the words o juevtoi ffrepeog Of fiikiog T8 0*8 iar tike eywv 
 
 rriv a^payiBa tuvtyiv. Now it may be said in correct 
 language concerning a foundation that it stands 
 firm or sure; yet to speak of the seal of a founda- 
 tion, and to intimate that its firmness or stability 
 arises from its bearing such a seal, although the 
 meaning be perfectly evident, does not appear to 
 be a more correct style of figurative expression 
 than that which exists in the phrase objected to, 
 " laying up a good foundation'' If then St. Paul 
 in this latter instance have employed an incohe- 
 rent figure, upon what grounds can a similar 
 
 * InstituL Or, Lib. VIII. c. 6. § 2. 
 k % Tim. ii. 19. 
 
199 
 
 blemish in the former case be adduced in proof 
 that the phrase is not his \ 
 
 'Yiog rj j3sc. Films autBos Qu. for OvisautBos m . 
 (p. 376.) " It appears to me that the original 
 had been OVIS, and this, by a common meta- 
 thesis, had been read YI02 by the translator." 
 The reading of the received text is well known 
 to be ovoq 7? j3sc, but on what authority this rests I 
 cannot find. The ancient MSS. are all against 
 it ; and it seems to have been, as Mill remarks n , 
 a conjectural reading introduced to obviate the 
 harshness of the combination " whose Son, or 
 whose CXr." It seems desirable however to ob- 
 viate this harshness, if it be possible, without 
 such a deviation from MS. authority as the 
 reading ovog entails. Although the present read- 
 ing of the most ancient MSS. be vloq r\ (5og (or in 
 more modern orthography viog n j3sc,) it may be 
 worth while again to collate the passage to dis- 
 cover whether this were the original reading ; 
 
 1 Attempts have been made to remove the incongruity in both 
 instances. Hammond (on 1 Tim. vi. 19.) attempts to shew that 
 Qsfiikiov may signify a note, bond, or obligation, which may be 
 laid up, and bear a seal; and M c 'Knight that a^payig may de- 
 note an inscription such as may be graven on a foundation. 
 Their arguments however are not convincing ; nor can I think 
 such explanations necessary. It is however plain that if Ham- 
 mond's opinion be correct, the inconsistent figure and the objec- 
 tion derived from it, will vanish together. 
 
 m Luke xiv. 5. n Proleg. xliv. 
 
200 
 
 whether, in any MS. written without intervals 
 between the words, there appear any lacuna 
 between the <r at the end of viog and the following 
 letter y : in which space the syllable av may have 
 once stood, although by age or accident it be 
 now expunged . In other words I conceive it 
 
 In profane authors, I will take this opportunity of observing, 
 very corrupt and apparently hopeless passages may often be 
 amended by considering the existing MSS. of those authors' 
 writings as having been copied without due care from other 
 more ancient MSS. in which certain letters had disappeared 
 through age or accident. To exemplify this, let a well known 
 passage in the Persce of JEschylus be taken. In Archdeacon 
 Blomfield's excellent edition of this play the passage alluded to 
 stands thus : 
 
 ti rade, Svvara, Svvara 
 Trtpi ra aa Stcvjia 
 tiiayouv afiapna 
 iraaq ya aa rade 
 t%ctp$iv&' at rpurxaXpoi 
 vatQ t avatQ r avaig" 
 
 The learned editor's observation hereupon is " Totum locum 
 repraesentavi qualis in editione Glasguana exhibetur, quem si 
 explicare coner risum doctioribus movebo. Infelices criticorum 
 conjecturas memorare supersede©, meam que, et ipsam forte in- 
 felicem, in medium proferam." Persce, p. 62. 2nd, Edit. The 
 passage may perhaps originally have stood thus : 
 
 " riMIGrare tfwraSra, dvvaZra 
 irepSAi ra aa did AXa 
 diay'Nouv afiaYpa. 
 iraaal ya aa rade 
 e£t<}>$ivTai rpic»caX/ioe 
 vatg, avaeg avaeg," 
 
 and the letters written in capitals having been obliterated in the 
 
201 
 
 to be not improbable that the passage in ques- 
 tion originally stood thus, nvog viiuv mog ANntog 
 
 €(C <j>pzap sfnrzvuTai, Kai sk ivQswQ avaairacfu avrov ev ry 
 
 'vpepa T8 aa^tars ; Which of you having his infant 
 son fallen into a well, will not straightway pull him 
 out on the Sabbath day ? av^og is explained by 
 the Lexicographers, and by the Scholiast on 
 Theocritus, to mean one under twelve years of age ; 
 
 MS. from which our existing copies were taken, the scribe 
 formed the remaining letters into Greek words as well as he was 
 able ; and thus spread over the passage such obscurity that any 
 attempt to explain it in its present form, would, it is justly ob- 
 served, only provoke a smile. With the emendation here pro- 
 posed the sense becomes clear and suitable. The chorus, by 
 desire of Atossa, evoke the shade of Darius, who was called 
 GeofirjffTOip or equal to the Gods in counsel, that they might enjoy 
 the benefit of his often approved wisdom and experience to in- 
 form them of the causes of their late calamities. Concluding 
 their adjuration with this Epodos they thus solemnly address 
 him; 
 
 " O thou who diedst most lamented by thy friends 
 O monarch, most honoured monarch, 
 May the Persians, by thy instruction, 
 Discern what is obscure, fyc" 
 
 namely, the cause of their late defeat, and the conduct which 
 thereupon they ought to pursue, 
 
 " 1TG)£ aV tK TST(s)V ETt 
 
 irpaffffoifitv wg apiara TrtpaucoQ Xewg." 
 It is scarcely necessary to observe that the verse 
 " Tifiiajrare Svvaara dwaara" 
 becomes Asynartetus precisely similar to v. 1083. of the Hecuba, 
 
202 
 
 which perfectly suits the scope of our Lord's 
 question. Dr. Campbell thinks that viog cannot 
 be the reading, because " a man possessed of 
 even the Pharisaical notions concerning the 
 Sabbath might think it in the case supposed 
 excusable from natural affection, or even justifi- 
 able from paternal duty, to give the necessary 
 aid to a child in danger of perishing, and at the 
 same time think it inexcusable to transgress the 
 commandment for one to whom he is under no 
 such obligation." Certainly if it were lawful to 
 extricate a dumb animal much more would it be 
 so to deliver a human creature on the Sabbath 
 day. But though our Lord might have used this 
 argument a fortiori, it is not certain that he must 
 have done so ; since it was sufficient for him to 
 shew that what he had done was equally justifiable 
 with that which the Jews themselves did not 
 scruple to do. If one of you, he reasons, would 
 think it lawful on the Sabbath to deliver a child, 
 too young to help itself, from a state in which it 
 must otherwise perish, will you not acknowledge 
 that it is equally justifiable in me to deliver this 
 child of God, who is unable to relieve himself, 
 from a state in which, without my assistance, he 
 must equally perish ? 
 
 H<j>i£. Sivit ? . (p. 230.) For the following quo- 
 tation and remarks, concerning this word, I am 
 
 * Mark i. 34. xi. 16. 
 
203 
 
 indebted to the same liberal scholar who has 
 obliged me with the extracts from Loesner's 
 valuable work q . In availing myself for the last 
 time of his assistance, I should be inexcusable 
 not to mention the name of the Rev. H.J. Todd ; 
 whose great stores of learning are never em- 
 ployed with so much satisfaction to himself, as 
 when they are directed to the support of the 
 authority of the Scriptures, and to the main- 
 tenance of true religion. — " H</>ie. The author of 
 Palseoromaica, in disparagement of this word, 
 has given a note from Grotius, with no other re- 
 mark appended to it ; thus implying that it was 
 not to be impugned, or, at least, that he thought 
 so. The passage cited in Palaeoromaica, is in 
 p. 230. ' Ovk ?)</>(£. Vox sane povripriQ, 9 says Gro- 
 tius, * quam nemo observavit extra Marcum, qui 
 infra iterum sic loquitur. Sed neque avaXoyov 
 flexionem facile experies r .' 
 
 " Now then observe how completely Grotius 
 is answered, which the author of Palaeoromaica 
 (I do insist) ought to have known; or else he 
 ought not to have so triumphantly introduced the 
 mistaken criticism. 
 
 " ' De voce ri$u, quae Marc xi. 16. quoque oc- 
 currit, Grotius ad h. 1. dicit, Vox sane, &c. &c. (as 
 
 * Vide supra, for the Remarks from Chr. Fr, Loesneri, Ob* 
 serv. on the words /igrfwpi^ojuai and tierpupa. 
 T Grotius Annot. in Marc. i. 34. 
 
204 
 
 before) Paulo post, Si qui Codices haberent r\$iu, 
 dubitandum non esset, quin ea lectio esset prcefe- 
 renda. — Ne igitur in poster um vocis hujus lectio, 
 universali fulta Codicum consensu, solicitetur, 
 addo locum, Philonis Legat. ad Caium. p. 1021. 
 
 o jluvovv EAt/cojv (TKopTTLwdeg avSpawodov rov Ai*yv7r- 
 
 rtaicov iov £ic lovSaiovq H4>IEN, Helicon mancipium 
 scorpioni simile venerium JEgyptium in Judceos emit- 
 tebat. Est verd aoristus sec. ab a^uw, cujus im- 
 perfectum i?<f>eu frequentius occurrit 8 / Such is 
 Kypke's illustration of ??^ce, and of his own 
 position, ' lectio hujus vocis immeritd suspecta 
 videtur' " 
 
 Many other instances might be similarly 
 treated, but my limits will not permit it. In 
 most of the preceding cases, it is impossible, as 
 was before observed, to prove a direct negative ; 
 but, since it is our antagonist's business to shew 
 that the Apostles did not write in Greek, not 
 ours to shew that they did not write in Latin, 
 as much as the case requires or admits has been 
 performed, if it have been proved in all these 
 instances that the exceptions taken are un- 
 founded; that the peculiarities noticed may be 
 explained without resorting to the hypothesis 
 that our Greek is a translation or retranslation 
 from some antecedent text ; and that conse- 
 quently the design of attacking its originality on 
 
 ■ Philonis Legat. ad Caium. p. 1021* 
 
205 
 
 any such ground must be abandoned. There 
 are however instances to be met with in Palseo- 
 romaica, in which the falsehood of the hypo- 
 thesis is reduced to a certainty ; because the 
 Latin text which it restores proves to be un- 
 meaning and absurd. For instance, airapri\ is 
 said to be only the Latin aperte. Be it so : but can 
 any man suppose, as this correction would oblige 
 us to think, that such a sentence was ever writ- 
 ten as " aperte videbitis ccelos apertosT" Can we 
 be persuaded that the original text was " divites 
 fieri in bonis opibus^V (p. 91.) which would be 
 to make the Apostle write as follows, " Charge 
 them who are rich in this world — to be rich in 
 good riches" Another instance is, where our 
 Lord being interrogated by the disciples as to 
 the meaning of the parable of the sower, asks 
 them, " Ak/hw kcu v/j.uq aaweroi £<tte x ;" The sense 
 of this, according to Palseoromaica, is " Our 
 Lord asks them, whether they also were deficient 
 in acumen ?" (p. 229.) that is, the ignorant transla- 
 tor took aKpyv as the representative of acumen, 
 merely from its resemblance in sound. Now the 
 Latin text from which the Greek was derived, 
 supposing its existence for a moment, must have 
 been nearly as follows, " Annon vos etiam acu- 
 mine destituti estis ?" The translator then, com- 
 
 * John i. 51. u 1 Tim. vi. 18. 
 
 x Matt. xv. 16. 
 
206 
 
 ing to this passage, either understood the mean- 
 ing of acumine or he did not. If he did under- 
 stand it, he could not possibly suppose that it 
 was adequately translated by aK^v, with which 
 he must have been sensible it had no correspon- 
 dency, except that which arises from their being 
 partially composed of letters of corresponding 
 powers. It is plain, therefore, and indeed the 
 whole argument of Palseoromaica proceeds upon 
 the assumption, that he did not comprehend the 
 meaning of acumen ; that he could have no more 
 suspicion that it meant understanding, than that 
 it meant any thing else, however remote from 
 that idea. He therefore renders acumen by uk^v, 
 (the word most nearly resembling it in sound, 
 which his vocabulary could furnish) and then the 
 words remaining to be translated, are M Vos des- 
 tituti estis ?" or some of equivalent import. Now 
 here is the difficulty. Having disposed of acu- 
 men, in a mode which he would not and could 
 not have adopted unless he had been ignorant 
 that it meant understanding , how comes our trans- 
 lator to suspect that the sentence contained any 
 thing about understanding or discernment ? How 
 could he elicit any such meaning from the word 
 destituti ? or how came he to translate Vos destituti 
 estis, by vfxug aoweroi sorrs ; which is in fact equi- 
 valent to Vos acumine destituti estis ? Surely we 
 cannot but think it a piece of uncommon good 
 fortune that this word, with the idea which it 
 
207 
 
 conveys, having been so wrongfully ejected, 
 should so speedily be reinstated ; and, as it 
 appears, by the merest accident in the world. 
 Our author requires us to believe the same thing 
 to have happened to his translator, as good 
 Bishop Berkeley conceives to have occurred on 
 another occasion ; or that, having committed one 
 oversight in his original supposition, he was for- 
 tunately guilty of a second error which exactly 
 countervailed the first, and brought all right 
 again y . For myself I could however wish to 
 have it explained how the translator, if he did 
 not know the true meaning of acumine, was put 
 in mind of using a word so proper as aavvtroi; 
 if he did know it, can we believe that any one, a 
 single step removed from imbecility, would have 
 thought of translating it by aK/a^v ? 
 
 We will quit however the writings of St. 
 Matthew for those of St. Mark. From these an 
 instance is taken on which great stress is laid, 
 and great pains have evidently been bestowed ; 
 but in which, if I am not mistaken, the writer's 
 failure is complete. " This (koivoq) is a Greek 
 word signifying common ; but Hellenistically, de- 
 
 y " Therefore the two errors, being equal and contrary, de- 
 stroy each other ; the first error of defect being corrected by a 
 second of excess. If you had committed only one error, you 
 would not have come at a true solution of the problem. But, 
 by virtue of a twofold mistake, you arrive, though not at 
 science, yet at truth." The Analyst, p. 34. 
 
208 
 
 filed or impure : in which latter sense it is used 
 by no classical Greek writer." (p. 89.) Here 
 then is the difficulty ; next comes the solution. 
 " Here I think it exceedingly probable that (St.) 
 Mark, if he himself wrote in Latin, or one of 
 his Latin interpreters, had written ccenosis mani- 
 bus, or abbreviated csenis manibus ; and that the 
 translator, like William de Moerbeka's above, 
 gave both the original and the translation." (p. 
 89—90.) I reply that, if St. Mark had designed 
 to tell us that the Jews objected to Christ's 
 disciples eating with hands literally defiled, or 
 covered with mud, he might have used such a 
 phrase as ccenosis manibus : we might have 
 thought that the Jews were interfering in a mat- 
 ter which did not concern them, but should 
 hardly have considered their scrupulosity as, in 
 itself, absolutely unreasonable. But no such 
 idea was ever in the contemplation of St. Mark, 
 or of any Jew in all the tribes of Israel. There 
 was among them no scruple or question as to the 
 absolute cleanness or uncleanness of the hands 
 in a literal or physical sense ; it was a ceremo- 
 nial defilement which their objection contem- 
 plated; and therefore, even when their hands 
 were as free from stain as all the waters of Jor- 
 dan could make them, they still refused to eat 
 without a previous ceremonial ablution ; and, 
 after such ablution, for form's sake, they no 
 longer hesitated to eat though their hands con- 
 
209 
 
 tinued in a state far from that of actual cleanli- 
 ness. It would, therefore, have been giving a 
 false representation, and must have been ob- 
 viously contrary to the design of St. Mark, to 
 employ a word (ccenosus) which, by every inha- 
 bitant of Rome, must have been understood to 
 mean, that the Jews objected to lying down 
 at their meals with hands literally dirty and 
 defiled with mire. In this use of kowoq, on the 
 other hand, implying legal impurity, there is 
 nothing strange or unprecedented ; since from 
 the passages quoted by Parkhurst and Schleus- 
 ner, (y. kowoq) it plainly appears that it was cur- 
 rent among the Jews in that sense ; and, when 
 we call to mind the comparative estimation in 
 which in all cases they held themselves and 
 other people, we cannot be at a loss to account 
 for its acquiring such a sense among them. In 
 this sense koivoq was not current among the Gen- 
 tiles ; for whose instruction therefore the Evan- 
 gelist very naturally adds, tov/ zgtiv avnrroig. 
 The case of such an addition here bears no re- 
 semblance whatever to that of the circumlocu- 
 tory interpretations, annexed to certain words 
 in the ancient translation of the Bible, referred 
 to in the Diversions of Purley, and from which 
 some quotations are given in Palaeoromaica, (p. 
 87, 8.) Let us take for instance the passage 2 
 
 ■ 2 Cor. ix, 15. 
 P 
 
210 
 
 as it is given in this translation, " thankingis to 
 God upon the unenarrable or that may not be told 
 gifte of hym." Admitting, what I believe few 
 will dispute, that these words, and similar words 
 in the other instances, betray a translation from 
 the Vulgate " Gratias Deo super inenarrabili 
 dono ejus," &c. yet is it most incorrect to affirm, 
 that " the case is precisely analogous in the fol- 
 lowing phrase of St. Mark, Koivmg x*?* 1 T0VT> 
 tanv avnrToiz" That the cases are not analogous 
 is plain from the very explanation of those pecu- 
 liarities in the early Bible, which is quoted (p. 
 86,) from the Diversions of Purley. " These 
 words (inenarrabili, amabilia, &c.) and such as 
 these, our early authors could not possibly trans- 
 late in English but by a periphrasis ;" and for 
 the plainest of reasons ; because there were no 
 synonymous words in the English language. 
 The English translator was therefore obliged 
 either to adopt the expedient to which he had 
 recourse ; or else he must have suffered such 
 words as unenarrable, insolible, amiable, &c. to 
 stand without explanation in the text, which 
 would then have been no more intelligible to 
 most readers of that age, than the original itself 
 was. But, if the Latin Gospel of St. Mark had 
 come into the hands of a Greek translator, he 
 would have been under no such difficulty ; the 
 phrase ccenosis manibus might have been literally 
 rendered into Greek, because in Greek there is 
 
211 
 
 an adjective (j3op€opw&/c) of common and approved 
 use, which exactly corresponds in signification 
 with the Latin ccenosus. Another consideration 
 also will shew us the futility of the conjecture, 
 that Koivaig is ctenis in disguise. In the passage 
 from St. Mark here considered, and in that from 
 Heb. x. 29. the substitution of ccenum for koivov, 
 preserves something like sense and meaning, 
 though not of the clearest description. But be- 
 fore the author of Palaeoromaica can be entitled 
 to consider his triumph as complete, his hypo- 
 thesis must bear the test of application in every 
 other passage where the same word occurs. In 
 all these instances he must assume, that ccenum or 
 ccenosus, of the original Latin, has been convert- 
 ed into kowov, or else he must admit that koivov 
 itself is there used, and therefore may have been 
 used by St. Mark, in the sense of legally impure. 
 The next passage then in which koivoq occurs, is 
 Acts x. 14 ; and restoring the original Latin of 
 St. Luke, or of his translator, it stood thus, 
 " Petrus vero dixit Minime Domine ; nunquam 
 enim cornedi quidquam ccenosumr So (v. 28,) 
 according to this hypothesis St. Peter must have 
 said, " Mihi ostendit Deus ne quenquam cceno- 
 sum appellem hominem :" and St. Paul*, " Scio 
 et persuadeor in Domino Jesu quod nihil cceno- 
 sum in seipso." Can any one be so enamoured of 
 
 * Rom. xiv. 14. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 
 
 a theory as to maintain, that in these instances 
 what is obscure in Greek is plain in Latin ? I 
 will not believe that it was the author's design 
 to hold up the Apostolical writings to ridicule 
 and contempt; but would rather persuade my- 
 self that, in the transport of a supposed new 
 discovery, he overlooked these and other pas- 
 sages ; and forgot that, to use the words of a 
 very competent judge, " an hypothesis should 
 be able to solve every one of those phenomena, or 
 appearances, for the solution of which it was 
 proposed ; otherwise it cannot be true b ." 
 
 The interpretatory additions of this nature, 
 which, though not peculiar to St. Mark, are more 
 common in his writings than in those of the other 
 Evangelists, form throughout great part of the 
 second disquisition, and in many other parts of 
 the work an object of peculiar attention ; as sup- 
 posed indications of a Latin original. By the 
 aid of these it is even attempted to trace still 
 higher the origin of St. Mark's Gospel. " This 
 Evangelist," it is said, " who appears to have 
 derived his Gospel from a Hebrew document, or 
 narrative by a Hebrew, seems to have been fond 
 of quoting the original for the sake of accuracy.'* 
 (p. 87.) As the examination of these quotations 
 seems calculated to throw some light on the 
 
 b Bishop Marsh's Defence of the Illustrations of the Origin of 
 the Gospels, p. 24. 
 
213 
 
 origin of St. Mark's Gospel, a question which 
 has excited much attention and discussion, and 
 is besides connected with the truth or falsehood 
 of the Palaeoromaican hypothesis, I shall enter 
 into it at some length. 
 
 The promise of our Lord to his disciples, and 
 more particularly, we may suppose, to such 
 among them as were to write the history of his 
 ministry, was, " when he, the Spirit of Truth is 
 come, he shall guide you into all truth ;" that is 
 into all substantial truth : so as that all the cir- 
 cumstances related by every one of them should 
 be essentially founded in truth. Their situation 
 enabled the Evangelists fully to ascertain what 
 really happened, and the influence of the Holy 
 Spirit, while it aided them by bringing all things 
 to their remembrance, disposed them to observe 
 the strictest and most undeviating veracity in all 
 which they related. But, this important object 
 being secured, it is plain that in the choice of 
 expression, and in such subordinate particulars 
 as could not affect their accuracy of narration, 
 they were left to consult their own judgment, and 
 their own notions of expediency. This inde- 
 pendency I think we must also extend to the 
 form and scope of their narratives, no less than 
 to the style ; so that in the original scheme or 
 draught which each formed in his own mind, in 
 the plan upon which they proceeded in the con- 
 struction of their work, in determining, in a word, 
 
214 
 
 how they would relate the occurrences of our 
 Saviour's ministry, they were left to the influence 
 of their previously acquired habits of thought. 
 Now experience shews that among many spec- 
 tators of one event, different circumstances take 
 a stronger or weaker hold upon, and excite a 
 more or less forcible interest in, different minds ; 
 and scarcely any four men can be found who 
 shall agree exactly how the story of a transaction, 
 in which all were concerned, ought to be related, 
 even while they have no disagreement as to any 
 one fact whatever. One may think it advisable 
 to relate every fact concerning the truth of which 
 he considers himself to possess sufficient evi- 
 dence ; another, while he agrees with the first 
 in a perfect belief of the same facts, may think 
 it preferable to relate none but such as he or his 
 informant personally witnessed. Let us apply 
 this remark to the case of the two Evangelists, 
 St. Matthew and St. Mark. The former seems 
 to have arranged his plan of narration with a view 
 of giving a connected history of our Lord from 
 his birth to his final ascension. In conformity 
 with this design, he details the circumstances of 
 his nativity ; he enters into a very full detail of 
 his actions and discourses ; he describes his 
 death and burial ; his resurrection, and subse- 
 quent intercourse with the disciples, until his 
 removal from them into heaven. Having formed 
 his plan on so extended a scale, this Evangelist 
 
215 
 
 is under a necessity of relating many facts which, 
 though he had undeniable evidence of them, he 
 could not personally have witnessed ; such as the 
 birth of our Lord ; the adoration of the Magi ; 
 and most of the events recorded in his first two 
 chapters. The same may be said of the temp- 
 tation in the wilderness ; and of the transfigura- 
 tion. But, though the Evangelist was not per- 
 sonally concerned in these transactions, he had 
 access to such sources of information as could 
 supply him undeniable evidence of their occur- 
 rence, and he appears to have faithfully availed 
 himself of these opportunities. Thus concerning 
 the birth and infancy of Christ, it is evident that 
 his intelligence was derived from Joseph him- 
 self; for we are told (i. 19.) what were the feel- 
 ings and intentions of Joseph on discovering the 
 pregnancy of his espoused wife ; (ii. 13.) we have 
 the very words which the angel spoke to Joseph 
 in a dream ; and (22.) are informed what were the 
 secret reasons which weighed with him not to 
 return into Judea, but to turn aside and dwell 
 at Nazareth*. The history of the temptation 
 St. Matthew might receive from the lips of our 
 
 c The evident derivation of this part of the history from the 
 reputed father of our Lord seems an additional reason for con- 
 cluding that the word foxdioq, i. 19. is not designed to be applied 
 in a commendatory sense to Joseph as a just man ; but to imply 
 that he was a strict observer of the laws of Moses ; as many o£ 
 the best commentators explain it. 
 
216 
 
 Lord himself; and that of the transfiguration from 
 one of the three Apostles who were, on that oc- 
 casion, present with Jesus on the mount. The 
 plan of St. Mark appears to have been differently 
 formed from the beginning ; and I believe it will 
 appear on examination, that no single circum- 
 stance is introduced into his relation which may 
 not have fallen under the personal observation of 
 him, from whom the materials of his narrative 
 were derived, and under whose inspection he 
 wrote ; that is, as all history and tradition con- 
 cur in assuring us, of St. Peter d . This scheme 
 
 d The only facts to which I have entertained a doubt whe- 
 ther this observation could be justly extended, are the baptism 
 and ministry of John the Baptist. From John i. 40. it appears 
 however that " Andrew, Simon Peter's brother," and therefore 
 probably St. Peter, witnessed the appearance of John. As Jesus 
 came to him from Gajilee, we have every reason to conclude 
 that many of his countrymen did the same ; and as the Baptist 
 was sent to prepare the way for Christ in the minds of the peo- 
 ple, it is reasonable to think that his first followers and disciples 
 would be selected from among those who had partaken of this 
 preparatory baptism to repentance. In saying that St. Mark 
 wrote from the experience of St. Peter, I do not of course mean to 
 affirm that he relates all which St. Peter witnessed ; but only 
 that he relates nothing which St. Peter did not witness. In 
 the business of our Lord's resurrection it certainly cannot be 
 affirmed that he was an eye witness of all the events recorded 
 Mark xvi. 1 — 8 ; as he did not on their first visit accompany 
 the woman to the sepulchre. But as on their report (See Luke 
 xxiv. 12. and John xx. 3 — 6.) he hastened thither immediately, 
 and found all things to agree with what they related themselves 
 
217 
 
 of writing necessarily caused St. Mark to omit 
 many particulars related by St. Matthew ; but 
 that he did not intend to abridge the Gospel of 
 St. Matthew is very evident; for, though St. 
 Mark's be the shorter of the two, yet it notices 
 some events which St. Matthew does not record, 
 and where they have matter in common is gene- 
 rally the most full in details. The testimonies 
 of ancient writers, affirming that St. Mark's 
 Gospel was written by him when at Rome in 
 company with St. Peter, have been collected by 
 Lardner and Jones, and are considered satisfac- 
 tory by almost all subsequent writers upon the 
 subject : and an examination of the narrative 
 itself confirms their testimony upon this point. 
 The peculiar manner in which St. Peter is, as it 
 were, passed over, and all particular mention of 
 him studiously avoided in the narrative of St. 
 Mark, is one instance of this kind ; and many 
 others may be traced in the form of the narrative 
 itself, and in the mode of expression adopted in 
 numerous passages. Thus in the account of the 
 transfiguration, while St. Mark follows St. Mat- 
 thew in the circumstances, and generally in the 
 very words of the narration, he adds, after the 
 
 to have witnessed a few moments before, it can hardly be alleged 
 that this Apostle, the informant of St. Mark, had not personal 
 knowledge even of those few particulars which he did not actu- 
 ally witness. 
 
218 
 ejaculatory speech of St. Peter 6 , « yap y&i n XaX- 
 
 ijor^' 7?<rav yap ck<£o£oi. So again f , kcu 8K ySuaav re 
 
 uvrw a7ro/cpiSa;(Ti. Both of which seem rather to be 
 additions by St. Mark than omissions by St. Mat- 
 thew ; and additions made by St. Peter ; inas- 
 much as they look like transcripts of his own 
 feelings supplied by one who reviews the account 
 of a scene in which he was engaged, and ex- 
 plains not only what he said, but what he thought 
 and felt. In the account again which St. Mark 
 gives of our Lord's arraignment before Pilate and 
 of the attendant circumstances, many particulars 
 are introduced which seem to shew that while 
 the narrative of St. Matthew, as being substan- 
 tially true, was generally adhered to, it was 
 amplified by many slight touches which could 
 be supplied only by one who was himself an 
 actor in that scene. Thus giving an account of 
 St. Peter's conduct after the scene in the garden, 
 
 St. Matthew says, " o Se HzTpoq r^KoXsOu avTip mro 
 fnaicpoSiv zioq Tt}Q avXrjq rs apyj.£ptu)Q' Kai, eiasXOwv taw, 
 (Ka^TO fuera rwv inniptTtov. The account of St. 
 Mark is " /cat o Utrpog airo /ua/cpoSev riKoXaOrjaev avrit) 
 «i>£ eau) ttjc avXrjq ts apyjitpewg' Kai r\v <xv*y/ca$tyjuevoc 
 
 fitra rwv virtipertav." The expressions of St. Mat- 
 thew evidently served St. Mark as the groundwork 
 of his relation, although the phrase of the latter has 
 been rendered more compact. What however I 
 
 e Matt. xvii. 4. compared with Mark ix. 6. 
 f Matt, xxvi. 43. compared with Mark xiv. 40. 
 
219 
 
 would more particularly notice, is that the conclu- 
 ding clause of St. Matthew has been altered in its 
 construction by the other writer, obviously with 
 no other view than to annex an additional cir- 
 cumstance, r)v (T/n-y/ca^T/juevoc /uera ra>v vTrrjpZTiDV — 
 
 kcu Scp^uaivo/iEvoe npog to jnog, and this last cir- 
 cumstance, his warming himself by the fire, so 
 slight that no one except the person to whom it 
 happened, and on whose mind the minutest oc- 
 currences of that memorable night were inde- 
 libly impressed, would probably have thought 
 it worthy of being added to a former account g . 
 Of the same description are those instances of 
 greater minuteness in St. Mark's account of the 
 trial. St. Matthew simply tells us that the 
 rulers of the Jews could find no witnesses who 
 could obtain belief 11 . St. Mark adds the reason 
 
 g St. Luke (xxii. 54.) and St. John (xviii. 18.) also notice, it 
 is true, the circumstances of the fire being kindled, and of St. 
 Peter warming himself ; but the difference is this: their relations 
 of this night's occurrences are original ; they do not make the 
 words of another writer the groundwork of their own, up to a 
 certain point, and then single out one unimportant circumstance 
 to be added to the former narration. This is what St. Mark 
 does ; and such a peculiarity cannot be attributed to any cause 
 so probably as to the agency of St. Peter. In assuming that 
 St. Mark wrote after St. Matthew, and, to a certain extent, 
 copied his words, I am aware that I am opposing very great 
 authorities. But as this question does not interfere with that 
 concerning Palaeoromaica, this is not the place to assign my 
 reasons for entertaining this view of the subject. 
 
 b Matt. xxvi. 59, 60. 
 
220 
 
 of their being considered incompetent, iaai yap 
 hk; tiaav al papTvpiai. His informant had heard 
 their testimony delivered, and was therefore 
 able to testify that it was contradictory and in- 
 consistent. The several indignities offered to 
 Christ, the spitting on him, the smiting him, the 
 buffeting, are related by St. Matthew xxv. 67. 
 and in addition to these by St. Mark the covering 
 of his face and other particulars. In the account 
 of the damsel who accosted Peter, the respective 
 attitudes and demeanour of the parties are more 
 minutely and graphically described than by St. 
 Matthew : she (^Xexpaaa avTu)) looking full at him ; 
 he (Stppaivofizvoq) warming himself the while, as if 
 willing to escape her scrutinizing regard. These 
 are it is true almost imperceptible traits ; but 
 having reference to such a scene, I can hardly 
 consider them as uninteresting, or as quite unim- 
 portant ; for as they harmonize with the situations 
 and characters of the different Evangelists, and 
 are too minute to have been designedly intro- 
 duced, they add force to the presumption that 
 the writings which bear their names are of their 
 genuine production. 
 
 Let us then consider whether we are not in a 
 situation to offer a more direct and probable 
 explanation of the introduction by St. Mark of 
 those Hebrew or Syriac words which the author 
 of Palaeoromaica supposed him to have quoted, 
 for the sake of accuracy, from some original 
 
/ 
 
 221 
 
 " Hebrew document." The first word, fioavepyte, 
 iii. 17. affords no presumption of having been 
 copied from a Hebrew document; because, from 
 whatever source St. Mark might derive his in- 
 formation, if he wished to inform his readers that 
 a certain name was bestowed by our Lord upon 
 two of his disciples, he would naturally retain 
 the name itself. To have given merely the ex- 
 planation of the word, without the word itself, 
 would have been useless, as well as contrary to 
 the practice of all other writers in similar cases. 
 Koptav, vii. 1 1 . may also be accounted for without 
 the intervention of a document written in Hebrew; 
 because it was a conventional term among the 
 Jews ; it had a peculiar reference to a prevailing 
 custom ; and therefore by the insertion of this 
 appropriated term, the intended allusion to such 
 custom is rendered much more manifest and 
 direct than by the simple use of the equivalent 
 Greek work. Indeed I am not sure whether any 
 one unacquainted with Jewish customs might 
 not read the passage in St. Matthew without 
 being sensible that any reference to them was 
 designed ; but, by the introduction of Kop^av, the 
 attention is at once directed to consider the 
 phrase as having some peculiar allusion. The 
 utility of such an insertion is therefore evident ; 
 but it by no means follows that St. Mark could 
 not derive this information from the oral instruc- 
 tion of St. Peter, and not from any written docu- 
 
222 
 
 ment. Two other instances occur vii. 34 ; when 
 to the deaf and dumb restored to hearing and 
 speech our Lord is represented as saying e(jxpa% : 
 and v. 41. to Jairus' daughter raX&a kb/uh : and in 
 both cases an explanation is added. Now in the 
 latter instance the cure was performed in the 
 presence of only Peter, James, and John ; the 
 multitude, excepting the father and mother, being 
 put out ; and in the former case, previously to 
 healing the deaf and dumb, Christ took him apart 
 from the multitude into a private place (afro r» 
 o^X» tear ihav) from which I infer that, although 
 it be not specifically noticed, our Lord was 
 here also attended by Peter and the other usual 
 companions of his retirement. Indeed it does 
 not appear to have been his practice on any oc- 
 casion to perform his miracles absolutely in 
 private ; and the very nature and intention of a 
 miracle seem to require that it should have some 
 witnesses. I therefore conclude that St. Peter, 
 who is all along considered as the informant of 
 St. Mark, was present on both these occasions ; 
 and that to his recollection of what passed, we 
 are indebted for the preservation of the words 
 actually spoken by our Lord. This cure of the 
 deaf and dumb, vii. 31 . is one of the facts added 
 by St. Mark to the Gospel of his predecessor ; 
 and it deserves to be noticed, that the only other 
 circumstance which he adds, is related to have 
 been attended with a very similar peculiarity. 
 
 n 
 
223 
 
 On our Lord's return to Bethsaida, viii. 22. he 
 heals a blind man ; and here also it is remarkable, 
 that previously to effecting the cure, " he led him 
 out of the town." But, for the reasons above 
 stated, I conclude that he would choose to be 
 attended by some witnesses, and that these would 
 be Peter and the other two who so often attended 
 him on such occasions. That St. Mark's infor- 
 mation was derived from some one of these three, 
 and therefore most probably from Peter, with 
 whom we know him to have been most connected, 
 will be rendered probable by referring once 
 more to the cure of Jairus' daughter, and by 
 comparing the respective accounts of that event 
 by the two Evangelists \ On this occasion " he 
 suffered no man to follow him save Peter and 
 James and John;" and accordingly the account 
 in St. Mark, of what occurred after the people 
 were put out, is so much more particular, that it 
 can be regarded only as an enlargement of St. 
 Matthew's narrative by an eye-witness of the 
 scene ; and I must consider the mention of the 
 very words (talitha cumi) which were uttered, as 
 very much in character with the narrative of a 
 person who was himself one of the few who were 
 present and heard them. 
 
 Thus far then the peculiarity which is noticed 
 in the style of St. Mark may be accounted for by 
 
 ! Matt. ix. 23. and Mark iv. 38. 
 
224 
 
 supposing him to write, under the superintend 
 dance of St. Peter, a narrative of events which 
 the latter Apostle had personally witnessed. 
 This supposition is, as we have seen, confirmed 
 by certain internal evidences ; and it is strictly 
 conformable with the accounts which historians 
 have left us of the connexion subsisting between 
 these two disciples, and of the undertakings in 
 which they were jointly engaged. St. Peter 
 having preached with great success at Rome, 
 was prevailed on by his converts to leave them 
 an account authenticated by himself of the words 
 and actions of Jesus Christ. If Peter had been 
 desired, or had designed, to leave them an au- 
 thentic record of what he himself believed upon 
 this subject, he would undoubtedly have con- 
 tented himself with recommending to them the 
 Gospel of St. Matthew ; but if his wish were, as 
 I conjecture, to attest nothing but what he him- 
 self had witnessed, and from personal experience 
 knew to be true, this course could not be taken. 
 The elucidation and establishment of this hypo- 
 thesis are undoubtedly important ; as it accounts 
 for a circumstance which has hitherto much em- 
 barrassed the critics ; namely, the apparently 
 arbitrary manner in which certain facts are added 
 by St. Mark to the Gospel of St. Matthew ; while 
 others which the latter details, though apparently 
 of equal importance, are passed over without 
 notice. 
 
225 
 
 But the explanation by St. Mark of the He- 
 brew or Syriac words which he introduces, as 
 it cannot assist the hypothesis of a Latin origi- 
 nal, is a circumstance slightly dwelt upon in 
 comparison with that of his sometimes annexing 
 a Latin word in explanation of a Greek. As for 
 instance, xii. 42, \ztttcl Bvo 6 zgti Kofyavrric; xv. 
 
 16. £<rw Ttjg auXrjc v eoti wpaiTto)piov. " What is 
 
 singular," says the objector, " upon the hypo- 
 thesis that St. Mark wrote in Greek, is that he 
 should have thought it necessary to explain 
 Greek by Latin words," (p. 86.) But why sin- 
 gular? if the Romans, for whose use and in- 
 struction this Gospel was primarily written, 
 were not likely to understand the Greek terms 
 in question without such an explanation ; or, at 
 all events, not to understand them so clearly 
 as they would the equivalent Latin words an- 
 nexed. The same practice is common in every 
 language, and with almost all writers when the 
 necessity for it occurs. Stephanus Byzantius, 
 for example, relates that Euphorbus sacrificed 
 to the infernal gods, " Ouavot/v 6 wnv aX&>7nj$, kcu 
 E&v 6 tcTTiv cx iv °c (in v. A£avoi)." He explains a 
 Phrygian or Egyptian, by a Greek word, because 
 he was writing for Greeks ; and St. Mark ex- 
 plains a Greek by a Latin word, because he 
 ' knew that his readers would be Romans. An 
 equivalent mode of explaining the signification 
 of a foreign term, is adopted by Dionysius Hali- 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 carnassensis, where, describing the polity of 
 
 Romulus, he says, " EicaXei Se roue fizv tv ty Kara- 
 Sseareoa rvyjQ nXrj€aouc> W£ S' ctv EAXtjvcc tnrouv Srj- 
 
 tioriKovQ k " Here the phrase, <Jc ? av 'EXXrjvrrc 
 et7rotev, is precisely equivalent with the o £(mv of 
 St. Mark, and is introduced with a precisely 
 similar view. A Greek, reading the history of 
 Dionysius, would be at a loss to understand who 
 the ir\ri%uoi were, until he was informed that 
 they corresponded in rank with those whom his 
 countrymen called SripariKovQ : so a Roman, though 
 he could not but suppose that Xbtttov was a coin, 
 would have a very imperfect conception of the 
 value of the widow's offering oW Xc7rra : but 
 when it was added, that they were equal to a 
 quadrans, he would know the amount as well as 
 an English peasant does on being told, that 
 " she threw in two mites, which make a farthing" 
 This explanation of St. Mark's views assumes, 
 undoubtedly, that he wrote for the use and in- 
 struction primarily of Roman readers, and pro- 
 bably at Rome ; which, by Baronius \ is al- 
 leged as a convincing proof that it could not be 
 written " in any other than the language of the 
 place." But, before we admit the inference, 
 that a Gospel written under these circumstances 
 must have been written in Latin, will it not be 
 advisable to enquire whether all others, who 
 
 * Antiqu, Rom, II, 8. | See Pah p. 76. 
 
227 
 
 wrote at Rome for the use of Romans, thought 
 it necessary to pursue that course ? That Jose- 
 phus wrote at Rome cannot indeed be affirmed ; 
 but we know, on his own authority, that, having 
 written his history in Chaldaic, he made a trans- 
 lation of the original for the information of those 
 Romans who were not in the wars ; yet that 
 translation was in Greek. And does not literary 
 history supply us with very many analogous 
 instances ? What are we to think of the cases 
 of Plutarch, of Strabo, of Dionysius Halicarnas- 
 sensis, Diodorus and Appian ? These all wrote 
 at Rome, some previously, others subsequently, 
 to St. Mark, and for the use of Romans ; yet 
 they all wrote in Greek. The instance of iElian 
 is perhaps still more in point. He was a Latin 
 by birth ; and his biographer, Philostratus, in- 
 forms us, never was out of Italy. If he then 
 composed his histories in Greek, what conceiv- 
 able difficulty is there in supposing that St. 
 Mark may have done the same? Philostratus 
 too makes, concerning iElian, another remark ; 
 that, considering his having written in a foreign 
 language, he wrote surprisingly well ; and I be- 
 lieve that a fair comparison, between his style 
 and that of St. Mark, will prove that the obser- 
 vation may, with at least equal justice, be ex- 
 tended to the latter. 
 
 Having thus completed an examination of as 
 many of the arguments and examples, adduced 
 
 a 2 
 
228 
 
 in proof of a Latin original, as the limits of this 
 work will allow, I must add that, if my design 
 has been successfully executed, it will appear 
 by this time how unsubstantial is the hypothesis 
 of Palseoromaica, and how vague are the criti- 
 cal principles, if principles they may indeed be 
 called, upon which it is founded. My endeavour 
 has been to shew, that the employment of Roman 
 terms and phrases is natural, and was to be ex- 
 pected in writers situated as the Apostles were : 
 that the Septuagint Version of the Old Testa- 
 ment is a source to which many of the pecu- 
 liarities of their style must be referred ; that the 
 hypothesis of a Latin original is therefore gra- 
 tuitous and unnecessary ; that many instances, 
 adduced in confirmation of it, are nugatory ; and 
 that others, so far from proving the point, of 
 which the establishment is desired, demonstra- 
 tively shew that, as far as these instances extend, 
 no such Latin text as is contemplated can ever 
 have existed. Let me repeat, that I have not 
 written for the learned, who are able without 
 any such aid to detect the fallacies of this very 
 paradoxical work : but these pages are for the 
 use of that very numerous class of readers who 
 may be in danger of adopting an opinion, urged 
 with plausibility and a shew of learning; not 
 being able, through want of leisure or other 
 causes, to examine for themselves its true claims 
 to acceptance. To readers of this description 
 
229 
 
 I have, I trust, said enough to shew them the 
 incapacity of their guide ; to make them receive 
 his statements with caution ; and estimate his 
 critical opinions at just what they are worth. 
 There still however remain a few other points to 
 which I feel myself called to extend my obser- 
 vations. 
 
 The principal excellence on which the author 
 appears to pique himself, is his supposition, that 
 the text from which our Greek was derived, 
 whether that were the Apostolical original or 
 not, has utterly perished. This he repeatedly 
 tells us is the key-stone of his system ; the cha- 
 racteristic by which it is most advantageously 
 distinguished from the system of Hardouin m . 
 As enabling a disputant to play fast and loose 
 with his subject, to assume whatever is conve- 
 nient, and to decline whatever seems to threaten 
 danger, the want of a fixed and definite text* as 
 a standard of ultimate appeal, has its advan- 
 tages ; tempting advantages to a visionary mind, 
 as they enable it to indulge in the very wanton- 
 
 m " Hardouin's fundamental mistake was the hypothesis, that 
 the Latin Vulgate was the primitive exemplar. How much he 
 was hampered by this foolish notion may appear from a few 
 examples, &c." p. 191. " Hardouin in fact was so ham- 
 pered by his notion of the originality of the Latin Vulgate, that 
 the absurdities to which it led him, threw ridicule upon his 
 whole argument, and prevented the most ingenious and solid of 
 his remarks from meeting with attention," p. 209. 
 
230 
 
 ness of rash conjecture. But, in every other 
 point of view, I must unhesitatingly assign the 
 preference to the hypothesis of Hardouin. I 
 speak, of course, only by way of comparison ; 
 not meaning to recommend the system of Har- 
 douin, but agreeing most entirely in all the cen- 
 sures which it has incurred from sober-minded 
 judges. Still, if it were necessary to choose be- 
 tween that and the hypothesis of Palseoromaica, 
 I must give my suffrage for the former, as being 
 less injurious to the credit of religion, less con- 
 tradictory of all reasonable probabilities, and 
 less complicated in its conception and details. 
 If the opinion of Hardouin admitted of proof, if 
 it could be well established that the Latin Vul- 
 gate proceeded from the hands of the Apostles, 
 and had therefore a claim to a more venerable 
 antiquity, and a more attentive regard than the 
 Greek, which would then be the derived text, 
 we should still be left in possession of the in- 
 spired original, and be able to trace the deriva- 
 tion of the translation from it. Nothing would 
 then remain but to reverse the degrees of credit 
 with which the Greek and Latin texts have 
 hitherto been regarded : no age of Christianity 
 will have been without the genuine written word 
 of God, and we still have it in our possession. 
 But the hypothesis of Palaeoromaica places us in 
 a very different situation ; the writings of inspi- 
 ration are lost, and we have no means whatever 
 
 5 
 
 
231 
 
 of connecting with them the writings which we 
 possess ; the evidences of religion, as far as they 
 are referable to the credit due to the Apostles, 
 will depend on the conformity of the writings 
 which bear their names, with other writings, the 
 very existence of which is a subject only of 
 assumption and conjecture. It would be dog- 
 matising, unworthily of such a cause, to assume 
 that Christianity is true, and that therefore every 
 opinion which contradicts it must be false. But 
 the truth of Christianity is admitted by the au- 
 thor of Palaeoromaica ; and I must beg him to 
 consider how such an admission can be consis- 
 tent with his philological opinions ; or whether 
 those opinions may not be appealed to as an 
 argumentum ad hominem, to prove that his re- 
 ligious persuasions cannot be well-founded. It is 
 part of his assumption, that our present Greek text 
 does not correctly represent the Latin from which 
 it is derived ; and which, as far as the present ar- 
 gument is concerned, may be regarded as iden- 
 tical with the Apostolic original. He conceives, 
 that the original becomes known to us, in de- 
 tached portions, only by its deviation from the 
 original, the sense of which was ignorantly mis- 
 taken by the translator. Can it then be denied 
 that, if the original were a revelation from God, 
 which it were impious to doubt, our present 
 text, so far as it deviates from that original, is not 
 & revelation? And as we are supposed to know 
 
232 
 
 only the fact that such a deviation has taken 
 place, and to have no possible means of ascer- 
 taining to what extent, we cannot tell how far 
 we are required to place faith, not in the Word 
 of God, but in the dictates of fallible men, w of 
 like passions with ourselves." 
 
 With respect to the comparative freedom from 
 complication, exhibited by the hypothesis of 
 Hardouin and that of Palseoromaica, the advan- 
 tage is, evidently and entirely, on the side of the 
 former. Hardouin only requires us to believe 
 that the genuine Apostolical writings have, 
 through some unaccountable mistake, hitherto 
 been regarded as translations, while the text 
 really translated has usurped the name and cre- 
 dit of the original. But he makes no such de- 
 mand on our credulity, as to claim our assent to 
 the postulatum laid down as the groundwork of 
 Palaeoromaica ; that our present New Testament 
 is not only not the original, but may not be even 
 immediately derived from the original ; that in 
 many books not only the primary text, but at 
 least one version intervening between it and our 
 Vulgate Greek, has been suffered entirely to 
 disappear. This supposition of the loss of a 
 two-fold text, the on& Greek, the other Latin, is 
 not openly maintained ; but it may be detected 
 running tacitly through most of the arguments 
 of Palaeoromaica. In the case of the Epistle to 
 Philemon it is admitted : " There is one Epistle 
 
233 
 
 in the New Testament, which even Hardouin 
 himself admits to have been originally composed 
 in Greek ; but (from two philological phenomena 
 which occur in it n ) he contends that our present 
 Greek Vulgate is not the original but a transla- 
 tion," (p. 204.) This inference the author of 
 Palaeoromaica admits, with the addition that our 
 Greek text of this Epistle is a version from the 
 Latin; jhat is, a Greek translation of a Latin 
 translation of the original Greek. In like man- 
 ner, if there be any force in his arguments, (p. 
 166 — 199,) that St. Paul would deem it proper 
 
 11 These are, ver. 1, $Ckr\\iovi ry aya^ry, and ver. 10, II. 
 Ovrjcifiov rov irore a%pjj(rrov, vvvi tie trot <at tfioi evxptjorovt where 
 the philologist contends it is evident, that to support his allu- 
 sions to the names, St. Paul in his Greek must have written 
 4>i\»;/*oi>t Ttp <j>ikrjT<f>, and Ovrjcifiov rov wore avovtjvifiov vvvi ds Ovijaivov. 
 The best mode of determining the probability, whether St. 
 Paul would here employ such a style, will be to examine 
 whether, in other cases where the Greek proper names which 
 he introduces have a meaning attached to them, he is accus- 
 tomed to descend to any such laborious trifling, or to indulge 
 in a mere clench and jingle of sounds. I think not ; for Rom. 
 xvi. 7. we find him terming Avfyovncog his awaixfiaXorriQ ; and 
 v. 5. iSjraivtTog is saluted as being ayanriTos. Coloss. iv. 17. he 
 charges Apx^irog that he should take heed to his Siaicovia. ; 
 and calls E7ra0po£iro£ his avvepyog Kat ffvaTpartiorriQ ; and 2 Tim. i. 
 16. speaking of the assistance he had received from Ovrjaupopog, 
 he expresses it by the word avt^vlt. In all which, and other 
 instances, it would baffle the ingenuity of Hardouin to excogi- 
 tate a Greek text in which, the same sense remaining, the verbal 
 allusions shall be preserved. 
 
234 
 
 to write to the Romans, Corinthians, and Phi- 
 lippians in Latin, he would, upon the same prin- 
 ciples, deem it proper to write to the Galatians, 
 Ephesians, Colossians, and others in Greek. But 
 our Vulgate Greek text of the last named Epis- 
 tles exhibits, no less than that of the former, 
 internal proofs of being a translation from the 
 Latin. The 'primitive Greek, therefore, which 
 our Vulgate cannot be, must have ceased to 
 exist ; and not only the 'primitive Greek, but also 
 that Latin translation from it, through which our 
 present Greek was derived. To account for the 
 neglect and disappearance of the Latin text it is 
 urged, that " the Greek (language) from the age 
 of Hadrian began to gain the ascendancy over 
 the Latin," (p. 332.) Now it is obvious, that if 
 this afford any presumption that the Latin Scrip- 
 tures would, from this time, fall into disuse, it 
 argues with at least equal force that the Greek 
 would be more generally sought after. Whence 
 then could it arise that, for the use of the in- 
 creasing Greek church, recourse was not had to 
 the original Greek Epistles of St. Paul to Phile- 
 mon, to the Galatians, the Ephesians, and other 
 churches ? (which by the admission, or in con- 
 formity with the principles, of Paleeoromaica, 
 must have been in Greek, and at so early a pe- 
 riod as 140 years after Christ could not be anni- 
 hilated and forgotten;) why was not recourse 
 had to these, instead of endeavouring to supply 
 
235 
 
 • 
 
 the general and increasing want of a Greek text, 
 by so imperfect a retranslation as is represented 
 to be contained in our Vulgate ? and if, before 
 the age of Hadrian, the Latin had the ascen- 
 dancy, how came it that the original Latin Epis- 
 tles to the Romans, Corinthians, and Philip- 
 pians, fell into such neglect, that translations in- 
 numerable, from the Greek into Latin, were 
 adopted into common use from the earliest ages ? 
 In endeavouring to account for this the author 
 expends some needless learning, with a design 
 to shew how it may come to pass that in many 
 cases a translation shall be preferred to the ori- 
 ginal. But here is what good Bishop Berkeley, 
 and the logicians, call &fallacia suppositionis, or a 
 shifting of the hypothesis. The original suppo- 
 sition was not, it is evident, that a translation has 
 been preferred to the original, but that the ori- 
 ginal and the translation have had so little store 
 set by them, that both of them have been al- 
 lowed to perish. This loss of a two-fold text is 
 brought as little as possible into notice, but it 
 must not be lost sight of by those who wish to 
 form a true judgment of this novel hypothesis ; 
 and I am greatly mistaken if, keeping this in 
 view, we do not find the " absurdity" so libe^ 
 rally imputed to Hardouin's hypothesis, gather- 
 ing thick around this new and improved edition 
 of it. 
 
 The author's own opinion of his system is ? 
 
236 
 
 however, that the admission of it would not be 
 more prejudicial to the character of the Scrip- 
 tures, than that of some other opinions which 
 are entertained without scruple by the most or- 
 thodox writers. In the conclusion of the work, (p. 
 470,) it is even hinted, that " the establishment 
 of the hypothesis, which is developed in the pre- 
 ceding Disquisitions would, perhaps, be produc- 
 tive ofconsiderable theological advantages. Upon 
 the first of these points," he says, speaking of the 
 Epistle which is alluded to, 1 Cor. xv. 9. and 
 which many critics have supposed to be no longer 
 extant, " it is surely bolder to say with Calvin 
 and Beza that, Epistles of Paul are wholly lost, 
 than that some, or even all of them, exist only in 
 translations ." Two questions are here, I think, 
 more than doubtful : first, whether in this pas- 
 sage St. Paul alluded to any other Epistle than 
 that on which he was actually employed, and 
 which is still extant : secondly, if he intended to 
 speak of another Epistle, and that Epistle have 
 perished, whether it were one of those written 
 by him under the influence of inspiration. At 
 all events it is manifest that, if any single Epistle 
 of his have been totally lost, although it cannot 
 instruct, it cannot mislead us ; its effect at most 
 is neutral. Not so the effect of writings which 
 " exist only in translation," if that translation be 
 
 * Note 19, p. t>2. 
 
237 
 
 incorrect, and we have no means of connecting 
 it with the original. If we have only a garbled 
 representation of the Apostle's words, so far then 
 our faith is not " built on the foundation of 
 the Apostles :" if " all Scripture/' or every writ- 
 ing, " given by inspiration of God is profitable 
 for instruction in righteousness," then our Vul- 
 gate Greek text, inasmuch as it deviates from 
 the original, is so far not given by inspiration, 
 and therefore so far not profitable for instruction 
 in righteousness. 
 
 Another sophism still requires to be noticed. 
 From the days of Wetstein, if from no earlier 
 date, a suspicion has been entertained by critics 
 that certain MSS. of the New Testament latinize, 
 or that their Greek text has been in many in- 
 stances corrected from the Vulgate or some 
 other Latin version. That the allegations of 
 Wetstein were too general, and in a great degree 
 unfounded, has been shewn so convincingly by 
 later critics, that it is needless to recapitulate 
 their arguments p . All which in the present 
 state of criticism can be considered as well- 
 established, is, that the charge, with respect to 
 
 p See in Pal. p. 370-72, the remarks of Michaelis, Bishop 
 Marsh, and Mr. Hug. These, singularly enough, are intro- 
 duced into the text of a work, the conclusions of which they 
 tend directly to overthrow, without an attempt to remove the 
 effect which they cannot fail of producing. They certainly de- 
 served a reply ; but perhaps did not admit of one. 
 
238 
 
 Some MSS. is true to a certain extent. " I would 
 not be understood/' says Michaelis, " to assert 
 that the Greek text (of certain MSS) has in no 
 case been altered from the Latin ;" and as this 
 charge has been most extensively imputed to the 
 Codex Bezae, upon which MS. also copious ob- 
 servations are made in Palseoromaica, that shall 
 stand with us as representative of the entire 
 implicated class. " If," argues the author, " it be 
 no crime to charge this MS. to say nothing of its 
 venerable compeers, with being either a version, 
 or throughout interpolated from the Latin, where 
 can be the offence of enquiring whether this may 
 not be the case with the Vulgate Text, or, in 
 other words with the confessedly modern MSS. 
 of Basil and Alcala ?" Here I am again compelled 
 to remark " a shifting of the hypothesis." The 
 text of those MSS. which are most vehemently 
 accused of latinizing was never, that I am aware, 
 charged with being a version from the Latin ; nor 
 was this the meaning of the critics by whom the 
 term latinizing was invented and applied. On 
 the other hand the Greek text, as exhibited in the 
 Elzevir edition, is not charged, in Palseoromaica, 
 simply with being interpolated from the Latin, 
 but broadly and expressly, from the title page to 
 the conclusion of the book, it is spoken of as a 
 version from the Latin, absolutely and in all its 
 parts. Admitting even the justice of the former 
 charge against the Codex Bezse, it requires 
 
239 
 
 much more ingenuity than has yet been displayed 
 to shew how it can with justice be extended to the 
 text which is contained in the MSS. and in the 
 writings of the Fathers collectively. The Greek 
 text of the Cambridge MS. has been so reformed, 
 if that term may be used here, that particular 
 words and phrases have been changed, to bring 
 it, as nearly as may be, to a correspondency 
 with the Latin. And how is this discovered, 
 except through the agency of other MSS. which 
 do not exhibit that suspicious correspondency ; 
 and which therefore cannot with justice be in- 
 volved in the same charge with a MS. the falsifi- 
 cation of which they are the very instruments of 
 exposing ? " If," as the late Bishop of Calcutta 
 justly argued, " we had no other Greek MS. of the 
 Evangelists and Acts than the Codex Bezae — 
 Hardouin's hypothesis of a Latin original of the 
 Gospel and Acts would not be altogether chi- 
 merical' 1 ." And this is unquestionably true. If 
 all our acquaintance with the Greek text of the 
 Gospels and Acts were derived from this single 
 MS., then, since the conformity between the 
 Greek and Latin texts of this copy is very evi- 
 dent, and it is plain that the Greek in many in- 
 stances, has been made to coincide with the Latin, 
 and not the Latin with the Greek, there might be 
 some plausibility in the opinion that the Latin 
 was the original, and the Greek the secondary 
 
 * Gr> Article. 695. 
 
240 
 
 text. But in no other case would this conclusion 
 be justifiable, and we are at liberty, to think 
 "■ that Hardouin's hypothesis is altogether chi- 
 merical," because we have other Greek MSS. 
 which enable us to detect the interpolations of 
 the Codex Bezae. There is, it may be said, a 
 contest between two opposing texts ; the one 
 agreeing with the Latin, and arguing a transla- 
 tion from it, the other not exhibiting such an 
 agreement ; and who shall determine that the 
 former is not genuine ; especially supported as 
 it is by the Codex Bezee, perhaps the most 
 antient of existing MSS. and by others of a very 
 high character ? In many instances unquestion- 
 ably the text of the Codex Bezse, and of its 
 its kindred MSS. agreeing with the Latin, is to 
 be preferred to the readings in others which have 
 no such agreement. But does it follow that in 
 all these instances the Greek has been altered 
 from the Latin ? So Wetstein thought, but the 
 opposers of his opinion have successfully disputed 
 the correctness of his conclusion upon grounds 
 similar to those which I have taken against the 
 hypothesis of Palseoromaica ; or by shewing that 
 the appearances in question might be satisfac- 
 torily accounted for in a more probable manner. 
 The prevailing and more reasonable persuasion 
 is, that most of the words and phrases which 
 were once regarded as marks of latinizing in a 
 Greek MS. instead of having been made to cor- 
 
241 
 
 respond with the Latin, are the genuine readings 
 of those early exemplars from which our existing 
 copies, and the Latin translation itself were alike, 
 in the first instance, derived. Surely therefore, 
 when it is demanded " where can be the offence 
 of enquiring whether the Vulgate Greek text be 
 not a version from the Latin," seeing that the 
 Codex Bezae is admitted to have been in a very 
 few instances interpolated from the Latin, it may 
 be sufficient to reply that the cases are in no 
 respect parallel. The corruption of the Codex 
 Bezae, of the Alexandrian, the Laudian, or of any 
 single MS. must have been the work of a single 
 individual ; and argues nothing more than an 
 individual's erroneous conception of the manner 
 in which the Greek text might be restored to 
 purity ; but the loss of the original Apostolic 
 writings, and the substitution of imperfect trans- 
 lations in their place, argues the existence of the 
 grossest and most unaccountable negligence on 
 the part of the whole Eastern and Western 
 Churches ; and casts a slur on the entire Chris- 
 tian world. In the next place the interpolations 
 of any single MS. are discoverable by the appli- 
 cation of those just and certain principles which 
 constitute the science of sacred criticism; but 
 the unqualified substitution of a translated text 
 for the original leaves us without any means 
 whatever of discovering how perfectly or imper- 
 fectly that original has been adhered to ; it not 
 
 E 
 
242 
 
 only plunges us in darkness, but it cuts us off 
 from the possibility of ever arriving at the con- 
 fines of light. 
 
 It does not yet appear, then, that we have any 
 right to congratulate ourselves on the attainment 
 of those theological advantages, which " should 
 seem to accrue to our faith by the establishment 
 of the hypothesis'' of Palseoromaica. These ad- 
 vantages are in fact nothing more than a partial 
 and uncandid statement of the disadvantages 
 attending the present state of biblical criticism. 
 Witness what is said (p. 470,) respecting the 
 existence of various readings in the Sacred Text 
 and their influence in rendering that text fluc- 
 tuating and uncertain. If the author of those re- 
 marks understand but one fourth part of what 
 he has read, he must be sensible that, after the 
 extensive and indefatigable researches, which 
 have been conducted with equal ingenuity and 
 judgment, by scholars, silently wearing out their 
 lives in these unostentatious pursuits, and applying 
 the result of their labours not as partisans but 
 with the utmost impartiality and candour, the 
 text of the New Testament is any thing but 
 fluctuating and uncertain. As however this 
 subject of various readings is generally regarded 
 as one of an abstruse and complicated nature 
 and as a persuasion that he is incompetent to 
 examine the question for himself may expose the 
 mind of the general reader to many distressing 
 
243 
 
 doubts, which the insinuations of Palaeoromaica 
 are, unhappily, too well calculated to excite, a 
 few pages may not be unserviceably employed 
 in endeavouring to make the merits of the case 
 popularly intelligible. 
 
 It cannot have escaped the notice of any one who 
 has made the trial, that, in transcribing a writing 
 of any length, notwithstanding the most earnest 
 desire and the most constant attention to copy it 
 with accuracy, the original will not be invariably 
 followed throughout. The eye will be misled, the 
 attention will sometimes slumber, the hand will 
 occasionally falter in its mechanical process : and 
 from these and other causes, which it is needless 
 to mention, partial differences will be found 
 always to exist between the original and the 
 copy. Differences, be it observed, which be- 
 token not the slightest dishonesty of intention, 
 but are the unavoidable effects of human infir- 
 mity r . In this manner therefore it could not 
 but happen that the copies of the Apostolic 
 writings which were made immediately from the 
 very originals, should vary in certain respects 
 
 r I have designedly alluded here only to the most common 
 cause of variation between the original and the copy. Instances 
 undoubtedly occur of alterations designedly made in the text of 
 particular MSS. by persons acting under false critical views : 
 but these are few in number, and must be regarded only as ex? 
 ceptions to the general rule laid down in the text. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 
 
 from those originals, or, in other words, exhibit 
 various readings. These, by the operation of 
 similar causes at each successive transcription, 
 would be continually augmented in number ; and 
 it is plain that, under such a state of things, we 
 cannot expect to find any two MSS. entirely 
 conforming to each other, or any one MS. pre- 
 senting a faultless transcript of the words of the 
 Apostles. Such is the origin of the greater num- 
 ber of the various readings which have been 
 discovered in the documents, from which, col- 
 lectively, the text of the New Testament is to 
 be extracted : and it is plain that this state of 
 things could have been prevented only by the 
 exertion of a constant supernatural superinten- 
 dance over every individual transcriber ; that is 
 by a series of miracles, and a perpetual infrac- 
 tion of the laws of nature, which no reasonable 
 person can expect to witness. In a less instructed 
 age the exertion of such a superintendance was 
 inferred, because it was thought that, without it, 
 the integrity of the Sacred Writings could not 
 be preserved. But fuller enquiry has shewn 
 that it was not exerted (otherwise there had been 
 no various readings) and a juster comprehension 
 of the subject teaches us to believe that neither 
 was it necessary. " Should we grant the asser- 
 tion/' says the author of Palaeromaica " that 
 every word of the Greek Testament was originally 
 
245 
 
 inspired by the Holy Spirit 8 , yet amidst a hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand various readings, which 
 is the word used by the Holy Spirit" (p. 469.) 
 And again, "I would exclaim with Erasmus, let 
 me be shewn the word dictated by the Holy 
 Spirit and I will embrace it with the utmost 
 reverence." We know who they were who 
 cried " shew us a sign from heaven;" give us 
 demonstrative assurance and then " we will 
 believe ;" but God rejected their "unreasonable 
 demand because a moral and not a demonstrative 
 
 8 Where, when, or by whom, such an assertion was made I can- 
 not tell ; but, if it ever were made, it is at all events incorrect. 
 A very slight inspection of the Apostolic writings will shew that 
 there was no suggestion of the words which the authors of them 
 should employ. Amidst the various readings we seek " which 
 is the word used" by the Apostles ; in order that we may be 
 convinced that we possess a correct exposition of the sentiments 
 which were the suggestions of the Spirit. 
 
 " Objections drawn from any supposed defects in the style 
 of the Sacred Writings are almost too futile to deserve attention. 
 The matter contained in these writings rather than the manner 
 is that which proves them to be divine. To imagine the Al- 
 mighty interposing to enable men to become proficients in the 
 art of literary composition is frivolous and below the dignity of 
 the subject. Were we obliged to contend even for a strictly 
 verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, such arguments as these 
 might easily be repelled. But against an inspiration plenary as 
 to substance only, and not as to the words of Holy Writ, they 
 weigh but as dust in the balance." Sermons preached for the 
 Lecture founded by the Hon. Robert Boyle : By the Right Rev. 
 William Van Mildert, D.D. Lord Bishop of Landaff. Vol. ii. 
 p. 406. 
 
246 
 
 assurance was all the evidence which He saw 
 could reasonably be required. And if, in the 
 case of the Sacred Text, he also withhold a mi- 
 racle because he has, placed within our reach the 
 means of attaining moral certainty, shall they 
 escape the condemnation of the scribes and 
 pharisees who clamour that infinite wisdom 
 should enlarge the bounds which itself has set, 
 and refuse to be convinced without clearer evi- 
 dence than that which is given ? As to the ques- 
 tion, which is the word used by those who wrote 
 under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it is suffi- 
 ciently evident that the number, a hundred and 
 fifty thousand various readings is blazoned forth 
 with a design of impressing upon the unin- 
 structed, that such a number cannot exist with- 
 out rendering the text in which they occur 
 fluctuating and uncertain. Now, out of these 
 hundred and fifty thousand, though I believe that 
 even half that number have never yet been 
 reckoned up, three fourths at least are evidently 
 the effect of error in the copyist, and therefore, in 
 seeking to establish a genuine text, they may be 
 left wholly out of the account ; a great many 
 rest on such incompetent anthority, and are coun- 
 terbalanced by such a weight of opposing evi- 
 dence, that they may be at once rejected ; many 
 more are transpositions which affect only the order 
 of the words and not the sense of the passage ; 
 while, respecting a very numerous class, it may 
 
247 
 
 be incontrovertibly shewn how they originated 
 from the genuine reading, which, through them, 
 may be clearly recognised. 
 
 After making these deductions, if the number 
 remaining be still considerable, whence does it 
 arise but from the multiplicity of copies ? and the 
 multiplicity of copies, while it thus increases the 
 number of various readings, enables us more 
 clearly to discern which among them all is the 
 genuine. These copies act as mutual correctives 
 where they disagree, and satisfy us as to the 
 genuineness of those readings in favour of which 
 the greatest weight of testimony is exhibited. 
 Which indeed, in the case of profane authors, are 
 the most corrupted texts, or the texts of whose 
 genuineness we have the least assurance ? Those, 
 it is admitted, of which the smallest number of 
 copies survive, or which present the fewest va- 
 rious readings V This alone may remove the 
 
 1 ie The ingenious Phileleutherus Lipsiensis (Dr. Bentley) 
 hath shewn to demonstration, that the great abundance of manu- 
 scripts brought from Egypt, Asia, and the Western Churches 
 hath enabled us to settle the Sacred Text by collating the one 
 with the other, and following that reading which is agreeable to 
 the sense," (rather, that which is supported by the greater 
 number of approved testimonies) " upon the clearest and most 
 incontestible footing ; which could never be done if we had but 
 one or two manuscripts to print from : so this, instead of being 
 an objection against the genuineness of the New Testament, as 
 it stands at present, is the strongest argument in its favour that 
 the nature of the thing admits of. * It is for this reason/ he ob- 
 
248 
 
 anxiety which might be occasioned by the exist- 
 ence of so many various readings, by proving to 
 us that, so far from rendering the Sacred Text 
 fluctuating and uncertain, they afford assurance 
 that we possess so much better materials, for 
 establishing a text which shall not sensibly dif- 
 fer from the original. This is a fixed and in- 
 variable rule, that the smaller the number of 
 copies which we possess, or the fewer various 
 readings we can detect, the less assurance we 
 have of our possessing the unvitiated text of any 
 ancient writer. 
 
 Previously to examination this may appear a 
 paradoxical assertion ; but the rule is founded 
 
 serves, * that we can never have a tolerable edition of either 
 Velleius Pater cuius, or Hesychius, because there happens to be 
 but one manuscript of each preserved ; and that Terence is now 
 in a better condition than any of the classic writers, merely on 
 account of the great variety of manuscripts by which the editors 
 of that author adjusted their editions. He says he saw at least 
 twenty thousand various readings in the manuscripts of this 
 little book, and is sure that, had the same scrupulous care been 
 taken to collate all the manuscripts of Terence which was em- 
 ployed about those of the New Testament, the number of va- 
 rious readings must have amounted to fifty thousand. After 
 all the noise made by libertines, about various readings, they 
 were little more than literal and involuntary errors of the tran- 
 scribers, incapable of serving any party, or influencing any de- 
 bate ; and ten times the number might be gathered out of half 
 the printed Bibles in Europe, which, all put together, are of no 
 consequence to any one doctrine controverted or agreed on." 
 Ophiomaches, or Deism Revealed, Vol. II. p. 46. 
 
249 
 
 on principles nearly self-evident, as may be 
 easily made to appear. If any number of men, 
 separately and independently, make copies of 
 the same writing, it is certain that each of their 
 copies will contain errors ; and therefore the 
 greater the number of copies, the greater will be 
 the number of errors or of various readings. 
 But, on the other hand, the greater the number 
 of copyists, the smaller will be the chance of 
 their all falling into the same error. As I write 
 to be comprehended by those to whom such sub- 
 jects are not familiar, I shall not blush to use a 
 very homely illustration. If a man were to put 
 on only three coats at once, it would be mar- 
 vellous indeed if he should find a hole through 
 them all in exactly the same place. Such a 
 thing might happen; but, according to the estab- 
 lished laws of probability, it is not likely to hap- 
 pen : .and when, as in the case of the writings of 
 the New Testament, we have the power of re- 
 ferring not to three, but, directly or indirectly, 
 to more than three hundred witnessess, the 
 chances in our favour are so incalculable as to 
 justify us in affirming, with a confidence which 
 is next to certainty, that no single error runs 
 through them all ; and if not, then, though no 
 single MS. may contain a perfect copy of the 
 Sacred Text, yet between them all they must 
 contain it, and from them collectively it may be 
 deduced. Upon these two principles, that the 
 
250 
 
 Sacred Text is floating in the world, and that, 
 with the means providentially in our power, the 
 faculties of men are capable of recovering and 
 identifying it, rests the entire fabric of sacred 
 criticism. Every moral enquiry, it must be 
 granted, in which men do or can engage, pro- 
 ceeds upon the supposition that there is such 
 a thing as truth existing, and that, however con- 
 cealed and disguised by the short-sightedness 
 and prejudices of men, there is still a possibility 
 that the efforts made for its discovery may be 
 attended with success. Take away this possi- 
 bility, in other words suppose that truth has no 
 existence, and wherefore should men persevere in 
 the prosecution of enquiries which would no 
 longer have any possible object or definite end ? 
 Just so, in the science of sacred criticism, so 
 long as we are allowed to think that the original 
 expressions of the Apostles, however partially 
 hidden by interpolations and transpositions, are 
 yet contained, if not in any individual MS. in 
 the collective mass of existing documents, the 
 discovery of the genuine text forms a reasonable 
 object of exertion. We may, by employing our 
 faculties and industry aright, continually ap- 
 proach nearer to the identification of the actual 
 words employed by the Apostles ; we shall be 
 encouraged to proceed by the consciousness that 
 complete success is of possible attainment ; and 
 by the moral certainty that we cannot be far re- 
 
251 
 
 moved from it. - But all this is upon the suppo- 
 sition, a reasonable supposition, I think it has 
 been shewn to be, that the original text is yet 
 preserved, and that means exist of gathering and 
 identifying its genuine parts. Once admit the 
 hypothesis of Palaeoromaica, once suppose the 
 extinction of the genuine text, and you render all 
 enquiry respecting the actual language of the 
 Apostles useless and therefore unreasonable. 
 But i( let me be shewn the word dictated by the 
 Holy Spirit ,, is the cry ; out of many readings 
 which is genuine ? That, we reply, in favour of 
 which reason and judgment, exercised according 
 to certain approved rules, shall pronounce the 
 balance of evidence to incline. Because reason 
 and judgment are not infallible, the criterion here 
 proposed, I am ready to admit, is not infallible ; 
 but this is a question of evidence ; and the assu- 
 rance which is thus obtained, after impartially 
 weighing what may be said on either side, is as 
 satisfactory as that upon which men do not hesi- 
 tate to act in the most important affairs of life u : 
 
 u " This way of balancing evidences and subtracting the less 
 from the greater, in order to proportion the assent to the over- 
 plus, ought not to be passed over without examination. As 
 propositions in themselves are either true or false, so they must 
 appear to be either true or false to the mind, before it fixes its 
 assent. As soon as the judgment hath weighed the evidences 
 for and against any proposition, and fully rests in the belief of 
 that proposition, although the evidences against it were allowed 
 
252 
 
 and in the case before us the balance of evidence 
 is sufficient to beget a moral conviction, which, 
 in matters of religion, is faith. The author of 
 Palaeoromaica shuns the imputation of unbelief, 
 nor would I wantonly attach the charge of scep- 
 ticism to one who professes himself a Christian ; 
 not only a Christian but a Protestant ; and not 
 only a Protestant but a believer in the personality 
 of the Holy Spirit : but it would be an unworthy 
 compromise of my own principles not to declare 
 my persuasion that his principles, in certain 
 instances, approach nearly to those of Deism. 
 You believe, says the infidel, that miracles were 
 performed in confirmation of Christ's divine mis- 
 sion ; but there are difficulties opposed to such a 
 belief; you may be deceived. You believe, says 
 the author of Palseoromaica, that this is the 
 
 all their weight in the scrutiny, yet they are now regarded as 
 false, and thrown entirely out of the scales. Were not this the 
 case, how could a jury, on oath, find their neighbour guilty of 
 murder, after a trial in which he had produced considerable 
 evidence for his innocence against superior evidence for his 
 guilt? — It is true that when the evidences on both sides of any 
 point appear equal there can be no assent. It is likewise certain 
 that opposite arguments, not equal but nearly equivalent, leave 
 a faint and feeble assent on the side where the superiority seems 
 to lie ; but if the superiority appears to be very great on one 
 side, the assent of a rational mind closes entirely with it, believes 
 without reserve, and, having regarded the arguments against its 
 assent as nothing, ceases to attend to them, or entirely forgets 
 them." Opkiomaches, p. £6. 
 
253 
 
 genuine sacred text ; but you have no demon- 
 strative assurance that it is so ; you may be de- 
 ceived. To both we reply, that we accept, as 
 true, the account of miracles recorded in the 
 New Testament, and we accept, as genuine, that 
 text which critical research has extracted from 
 the mass of documents, not because we can, in 
 either case, prove to demonstration that our per- 
 suasion is well founded, but because it appears 
 to us that no impartial enquirer can regard the 
 evidences on both sides as equal or nearly equi- 
 valent. We therefore bestow our assent where 
 the superiority lies, because it would be acting 
 inconsistently with the laws of reason and evi- 
 dence to withhold it until absolute certainty is 
 attained, in a case wherein we know that nothing 
 beyond moral certainty is to be looked for. In 
 two or three instances the evidence in favour of 
 two opposing readings, may appear to be so 
 equally balanced, as to prevent impartial critics 
 from pronouncing a decided opinion on either 
 side ; but rare exceptions of this kind do not 
 vitiate the general rule. As far as these partial 
 instances extend, the text may be called fluc- 
 tuating and uncertain ; farther than this, and 
 speaking generally, it is neither one nor the 
 other. After the lengthened examination which 
 the subject has undergone, arid after numberless 
 authorities consulted and collated., no man, who 
 takes a fair view of the question in its present 
 
254 
 
 state, need hesitate to avow his conviction that 
 the text, which is extracted from those authori- 
 ties collectively, is virtually identical with the 
 text from which our existing copies, and the 
 copies employed by the Greek Fathers in their 
 quotations, were all originally derived : that is, 
 with the text contained in the autographs of the 
 Apostles. 
 
 To return once more, and for the last time, to 
 the proofs by which it is attempted to support 
 the hypothesis of a Latin original, a very fa- 
 vourite class with the author is that which is 
 founded on the occurrence in the text of Latin 
 idioms literally translated into Greek. I do not 
 mean to deny that a bad and servile translation 
 generally affords marks of its origin, by too close 
 an adherence to the idiomatic peculiarities of the 
 original : but, I ask, are servile translations the 
 only writings in which such marks appear ? If 
 not, if the occurrence of such idioms may be 
 consistent with originality in the composition, 
 then it is plain that the argument proceeds upon 
 a false supposition, and is consequently nothing 
 worth. Let us scrutinize now the speech of St. 
 Evremond, which is quoted from the jest books, 
 and duly referred to in the index, as affording a 
 case of language analogous to that of the Apos- 
 tles, and as illustrating and confirming the hypo- 
 thesis, that our Greek text has been derived 
 from the Latin. " First, he said, he loved the 
 
 3 
 
255 
 
 war, and after the war, he loved the religion and 
 the philosophy ;" the commentary on which non- 
 sense is as follows : " This use of the article is 
 little less decisive that the author thought in 
 French (or at least a foreign tongue), and gave a 
 version of it, than if he had written the sentence 
 in that language," (p. 210.) I say nothing of 
 the taste and proper feeling which are displayed 
 in the introduction of this " fool-born jest" into 
 a serious enquiry on a sacred subject ; but I can- 
 not help remarking that both the text and the 
 comment, if they had been chosen purposely 
 with that intention, could not have been better 
 adapted to negative the author's reasoning, and 
 to expose the futility of his laboured hypothesis. 
 Words cannot shew more plainly that the exist- 
 ence of foreign idioms, literally translated, is no 
 proof that the writing in which they appear is 
 not original ; or that it must have been originally 
 composed in the language to which the idioms 
 belong, and afterwards translated from it. " The 
 author thought in French ; and " himself " gave 
 a version of it;" and what can we desire to 
 establish in the case of the Apostles, more than 
 they thought in Hebrew, or thought in Latin, and 
 themselves ■ ' gave a version," or expressed their 
 thoughts in Greek ? This is all for which I have 
 ever thought it necessary to contend ; that, any 
 idiomatic peculiarities belonging to other lan- 
 guages notwithstanding, our Vulgate Greek text 
 
256 
 
 may have been the composition of the Apostles 
 themselves. They wrote in Greek, a foreign 
 language to them, and Latinisms and Hebraisms 
 may prove a mental translation, a clothing of the 
 ideas of one language in the words of another, 
 effected by the writer himself as he proceeds ; 
 but a translation, in the proper acceptation of the 
 word, they do not prove, neither argue anything 
 against the originality of the writings in which 
 they are detected. Besides this, if we must con- 
 sider the existence of Latin idioms as an infal- 
 lible criterion of a text ignorantly and servilely 
 translated from the Latin, what are we to con- 
 clude from the Grecisms ? If the origin of our 
 text were such as this hypothesis would make 
 it, there would prevail in it a uniform character ; 
 it would be found uniformly betraying marks of 
 being a servile copy of the Latin. But this is 
 not the case ; the utmost that can be objected to 
 the Apostolic style is that it is a mixed style ; oc- 
 casionally exhibiting idioms not purely Greek ; 
 but still abounding in phrases, and turns of ex- 
 pression, noble, elegant, and classical ; and ex- 
 hibiting, in many passages of every book in the 
 New Testament, a character to which, wen phi- 
 lologically, no objection can be made. This in- 
 termixture of barbarisms is easily to be ac- 
 counted for, if we consider them as proceeding 
 from the Apostles themselves. They wrote the 
 Greek language as it was spoken around them ; 
 
257 
 
 in a state of declension from its original purity, 
 occasioned by the contagion of other languages 
 then very prevalent in Judea. Such a state of 
 things exposed them, as writers, to many dis* 
 advantages ; especially to the danger, or rather 
 certainty, of occasionally intermingling expres- 
 sions offensive to the taste of those who had cul- 
 tivated, with greater attention to purity, the lan- 
 guage which they employed. But in these cir- 
 cumstances there was still room for the native 
 genius to appear, and for the intellect to display 
 its bent through all the disadvantages of expres- 
 sion; and it is often found that a writer thus 
 situated, whose mind is not unfurnished, will, 
 occasionally, and when strongly excited, express 
 himself with a freedom and correctness which 
 shall afterwards surprise even himself. But the 
 case of a person translating the thoughts of ano- 
 ther from their original language, into a language 
 with which he is imperfectly acquainted, is to- 
 tally different. Experience proves that such a 
 person will have no occasional flights of sub- 
 limity or eloquence ; correctness will be his 
 highest boast, and a level uniformity his prevail- 
 ing characteristic. It is therefore inconceivable 
 that the beautiful passages which, by the confes- 
 sion of all, are scattered throughout the New 
 Testament should be the work of men so igno- 
 rant at other times, as to make e/c£<£aAaiw<rav out 
 of expulerunt, and to suppose that destituti was 
 
 s 
 
258 
 
 properly translated by aavvcroc. My difficulty 
 still increases when, in reading this volume, I 
 trace, in every page, the introduction of many 
 of the most exquisite peculiarities of the Greek 
 language, which, from the very nature of things, 
 can have had nothing corresponding with them 
 in a Latin text. " Every language," says Leigh, 
 " hath indeed its several idioms ; and there is 
 still in the original a certain genuina vetustas, a 
 peculiar and native elegancy, which cannot be 
 well expressed in the translation : so that trans- 
 lations are not unfitly compared to the wrong 
 side of arras-hangings. This is true likewise in 
 the New Testament, where there are many paro- 
 nomasias, sweet allusions and cadences of words, 
 rich and lofty expressions in the original, which 
 the most exquisite translation cannot attain fully 
 unto\" By the original, Leigh, as it afterwards 
 appears, and was of course to be concluded, 
 meant the Greek ; and though, in our present ar- 
 gument, I may not assume this point, as he and 
 all others have done, I must maintain that the 
 originality of the Greek is proved by the pecu- 
 liarities which he points out ; the paronomasias, 
 cadences and forms of expression peculiarly 
 Greek, which cannot have had any thing analo- 
 gous to them in a Latin text. To take a few of 
 the instances quoted by him ; we have Rom. i. 
 
 x Epis. Ded. to Cr, Sac. 
 
259 
 
 29. iTopvua Trpvr/oia, ^Sovov <^ovou. Lat. scortatio7ie 9 
 improbitate, invidia, cade. Again, v. 31. aawerovq, 
 uGvvSeTovg. Lat. Desipientes, fcedifragos. Tit. i. 8. 
 ^iXoSevov, (pi\aya%v, Lat. Hospitalem, bonorum aman- 
 tem. ii. 4. fyiXavSpovg, QiXotzkvovq. Lat. Maritorum 
 ac liberorum amantes. 2 Tim. iii. 4. Qik^ovoi pa\- 
 Xov r] (piXoSeoi. Lat. Voluptatum amantes, potius 
 quam Dei. And Rom. xi. 3. jin v-n-epfypovuv nap* 
 
 o Ssi typovuv' aWa (jypoveiv ug to duxppoveiv. Lat. 
 
 Ne supra modum saplat ultra quam oportet sapere : 
 sed saplat ad sobrietatem. Who will be persuaded 
 that these marked alliterations proceeded from 
 an ignorant and incompetent translator, whereas 
 there was nothing in the original to suggest 
 them ? The concise and elegant expressiveness 
 of these forms in Greek vanishes in every Latin 
 translation which I have seen ; and, were we 
 even in possession of a Latin text as happily 
 paronomastical as the Greek, we should still be 
 exposed to this dilemma : if the translators of 
 the Latin into Greek were as ignorant as the 
 Palaeoromaican hypothesis necessarily supposes 
 them to have been, they could not have pos- 
 sessed the skill so happily to retain the spirit of 
 the Latin original ; if they had the skill to effect 
 this, then they could not be so ignorant of Greek 
 as to be guilty of the absurdities into which 
 they are charged with having fallen in other pas- 
 sages of these very same Epistles. Beza, it is 
 true, has most admirably expressed eyKpwai n 
 
 s 2 
 
260 
 
 Gvyicpivai, 2 Cor. x. 12. by adjungere vel conjun- 
 gere; and Stephens nearly as well, atropov}xzvoi 
 a\X ovk eZaTTopovfxevoi. 2 Cor. iv. 8. by premimur 
 non opprimimur. Such Greek might naturally 
 suggest such Latin to Stephens and Beza, scho- 
 lars and men of genius ; but the reverse opera- 
 tion of forming such Greek from such Latin 
 would not have been equally easy to the dunces 
 whom the author of Palaeoromaica, uncritically 
 I must think, if not profanely, supposes to have 
 been the authors of our Vulgate Greek text. 
 Take another instance, the repetition of the ne- 
 gative in Greek : as Matt. xxiv. 21. ovSe ov ^ yer 
 vr\Tai. Lat. Neque unquamfiet. Which of these 
 two has the greatest appearance of being the 
 original ? assuredly that which is beyond com- 
 parison the most emphatic : for the loss of em- 
 phasis is the natural and inevitable consequence 
 of translation. Heb. xiii. 5. ov ^ ere avw, ovS' 
 ov [xri <re £y/caraXi7rw. In this are no less than five 
 negatives ; as it were to give the stronger assu- 
 rance that God will never forsake his people ; 
 but what could suggest so many to a translator 
 of the Latin sentence Nequaquam te omittam ; ne- 
 que unquam te deseram, (or one of similar con- 
 struction) in which they do not and cannot ap- 
 pear ? especially to a translator, who in other 
 parts of this Epistle is supposed to exhibit so 
 little acquaintance with Greek as to call ccenum 
 Kowov, to express mutatio by txzravoia, participo by 
 
26! 
 
 nzpiwuTeio, and colluceo by TpayjiXiZw ? If ever in- 
 consistency were the ruin of an hypothesis, it 
 must surely cast down the one we are examin- 
 ing, never to rise again. 
 
 The mention of Greek peculiarities which have 
 no correspondence in the Latin, reminds me, 
 before 1 conclude, to notice what is said re- 
 specting the want of the dual number in the New 
 Testament. " There is another feature in the 
 Hellenistic style" it is observed (p. 296,) "which 
 to me seems to be scarcely explicable except on 
 the hypothesis of a version from the Latin. This 
 is the want of the dual number.' 1 " It appears to 
 me much more probable that the neglect of the 
 dual number in the New Testament was owing 
 to its being a version from the Latin ; and that 
 the inflections, which did not exist in the old 
 text, were not thought necessary in the new." 
 (p. 297.) In reply to this I must observe, that 
 the contrivance of a dual number is a refinement 
 of language, which, though it may contribute to 
 precision and elegance, is not practically neces- 
 sary for purposes of general intercourse. We 
 have therefore every reason to believe that the 
 employment of it in ordinary life would not be 
 adhered to, except in Attica and other places 
 where the Greek tongue was spoken with perfect 
 purity and correctness. But this was certainly 
 not the case in Judea in general ; least of all 
 among men of the rank of the Apostles ; who, as 
 
262 
 
 Salmasius, already quoted, justly remarks, were 
 " in Graeco sermone rudes et imperiti," and 
 " quales ipsi fuere, tale et loquendi genus habu- 
 erunt." This may account for their neglect of 
 the dual number, which is a refinement, and 
 nothing more than a refinement of language ; 
 such as was neither necessary to their wants nor 
 likely to prevail in their station. But if " in- 
 flections which did not exist in the old (or Latin) 
 text were not thought necessary in the new," 
 (that is the Greek,) let me beg the author of 
 Palaeoromaica to consider how he will account 
 for the employment of the middle voice in the 
 Greek New Testament. He cannot surely dis- 
 pute that the same thing which in Greek is ex- 
 pressed by a verb of the middle voice must have 
 been expressed by a periphrasis in the old text, 
 and by an ignorant translator would undoubtedly 
 have been expressed by the same artifice in the 
 new. But the fact is that the middle voice not 
 only occurs generally in the Greek Testament ; 
 but is used in many instances, as they who have 
 made this subject their peculiar study have re- 
 marked, with a propriety and a significancy 
 which no circumlocution in Latin could have 
 adequately attained, and which therefore fur- 
 nishes a pregnant proof that the text in which 
 this occurs cannot be of Latin origin. 
 
 But why, it is argued, may not this be very 
 safely conceded, seeing that according to Papias 
 
263 
 
 St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew ; con- 
 sequently his Gospel now existing, being in 
 Greek, can be no more than a translation ; and 
 since this circumstance detracts not from the 
 authority of St. Matthew why should the hypo- 
 thesis that the entire New Testament exists only 
 as a translation detract from its title to acceptance 
 and veneration ? (p. 468.) " Let the loss of 
 the original Gospel of Matthew y guard us against 
 
 y Here I have omitted the words " let the resurrection (if I 
 may so speak) of the writings of Epicurus from Herculaneum," 
 because I would not incumber the main question by uniting 
 with it another subject of discussion. The destruction of Her- 
 culaneum occurred, I think, within fifty years of our Lord's 
 ascension ; at which period the Gospel had made so little pro- 
 gress among the heathen as to render it not very probable that 
 copies of the iVpostolic writings were then existing in that city. 
 I do not dwell, however, upon this mistake, if it be one ; be- 
 cause it is evident that Herculaneum is used only as a general 
 name for a place in which ancient writings have been preserved 
 for centuries ; and have afterwards been restored to light. The 
 intention of the writer in making such a remark is of more im- 
 portance ; and that is, plainly, to insinuate that since, under 
 circumstances similar to those of Herculaneum, writings of little 
 value have been preserved, while copies of the Gospels or Epis- 
 tles were not preserved, it is hence reasonably to be argued that 
 the original Gospels and Epistles may not have been at all pre- 
 served. But here, from true premises, a false conclusion is 
 attempted to be derived. The fallacy may be easily exposed. 
 God Almighty appears to have provided for the conservation of 
 the Scripture, not by exercising a peculiar providence over the 
 fate of each individual copy, but by stamping the writings 
 themselves with such a character as to render them objects of 
 
264 
 
 forming hasty conclusions with respect to the 
 mysterious conduct of Providence," (p. 63.) 
 " Let it be remembered," says Dr. Campbell, 
 " that Papias, in the words quoted from him, 
 asserted two things ; that Matthew wrote the 
 Gospel ascribed to him, and that he wrote it in 
 Hebrew" — " Now," says the author of Palaeoro- 
 maica, " I would ask any person of common 
 candour how it happens that Papias, who in the 
 first of these articles is an authentic testimony 
 to the genuineness of St. Matthew's Gospel, 
 dwindles, in the second, into a person not to be 
 trusted ?" (p. 483.) There is this important 
 difference to be remarked between the two parts 
 of the testimony of Papias. His first assertion 
 that Matthew wrote a Gospel, is confirmed by 
 the existence of a writing bearing his name, and 
 proved by most satisfactory evidence to be the 
 same with that to which Papias alluded. His 
 
 veneration and regard among men ; and, through the agency of 
 these feelings, or by the operation of natural causes, to ensure 
 such a multiplication of copies, as that, in the ordinary course of 
 things, all of them could not perish. It is reasonable to con- 
 clude that the Sacred Writings were placed under no stricter 
 safeguard than this, because the unlimited prescience of God 
 enabled him to foresee that this would effect his purposes. It 
 is therefore a gross fallacy to argue that the original writings 
 may have perished, because we do not trace any especial agency 
 employed to preserve individual copies from ordinary dangers ; 
 and because copies of Holy Writ may have perished in cases 
 where other less valuable productions have escaped destruction. 
 
265 
 
 second assertion, that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, 
 is not confirmed by the appearance of any such 
 document, nor by the direct testimony of any 
 witness stating that he had actually seen it. The 
 two parts of the testimony therefore do not rest 
 upon equal authority ; though I am far from im- 
 plying that even in the second article Papias is 
 " a person not to be trusted." Admitting that 
 article to be true, and that St. Matthew wrote in 
 Hebrew, there is a reason which may be assigned 
 for its disappearance, namely, that the Hebrew 
 language speedily fell into total disuse ; and the 
 Gospel would therefore have so few readers as 
 not to require a multiplication of copies sufficient 
 to preserve it in existence. But this reason will 
 obviously not apply to Gospels and Epistles 
 written in either Greek or Latin. In the next 
 place Papias may be a faithful witness, and yet 
 there would be no inconsistency in the supposi- 
 tion that St. Matthew, having composed his 
 work originally in Hebrew, might afterwards 
 translate it, as Josephus did, into a more polite 
 and accessible language. It is needless to ob- 
 serve how different a degree of credit is due to a 
 translation executed by the author himself, and 
 a translation which is the work of a nameless and 
 ignorant person ; such as the Palseoromaican 
 theory supposes to have been employed in the 
 composition of our Vulgate Text. Lastly, were 
 there even no probability that St. Matthew either 
 
266 
 
 wrote his Gospel originally in Greek, or himself 
 translated it into that language, still, if the re- 
 maining books of the New Testament be the 
 original writings of the Apostles, we have an 
 assurance of the fidelity of St. Matthew's trans- 
 lator, whoever he were, from the perfect accord- 
 ance in every point of importance between his 
 version and the remaining books which are not 
 translations : an assurance which we obviously 
 cannot possess, if the originals of all the books 
 have perished, and only translations survive. 
 Should an unbeliever object that, if Papias speak 
 the truth, we cannot tell of whose composition 
 the existing Gospel according to St. Matthew 
 may be, we might forbear from deriving any of 
 our arguments, for his conviction, from this 
 Evangelist, and take our stand in the writings of 
 the other Apostles ; which, if original, are per- 
 fectly sufficient to uphold the evidences of 
 Christianity. But if none of these be original 
 what other appeal do we possess ? It is therefore 
 very evident that there is the widest possible 
 difference between the supposition that one or 
 two books exist only as translations, and the 
 hypothesis that all the originals have been lost. 
 
 Such an absolute and universal disappearance 
 of the originals as is here contemplated must be 
 considered as sufficiently guarded against by the 
 known reverence of the early Christians for the 
 Sacred Books of their religion. Men of humble 
 
267 
 
 pretensions and of simple minds, as they were, 
 might not be able, very possibly, to assign the 
 best critical reasons why the original should not 
 be superseded by a translation. Nevertheless 
 natural feeling would have operated where ar- 
 gument failed. The reluctance which individuals 
 and communities feel, at parting from that to 
 which they have been accustomed, would secure 
 the first believers from neglecting that original 
 out of which they had, from the beginning, been 
 instructed in the principles of their faith. Con- 
 tinual use and lengthened recollection naturally 
 attach men to particular objects, and make them 
 anxious for their preservation, even when those 
 objects have little use or value in themselves. 
 Would the influence of this feeling, then, be less 
 operative in the instance of a possession so 
 valuable and important as the original Christian 
 Scriptures ? This cause, if there had been no 
 other, would have sufficiently guarded those 
 writings against the neglect with which the 
 author of Palaeoromaica conceives them to have 
 been treated ; and it affords a proof of the justice 
 of the observation, that no strictly natural feeling 
 has been given to us in vain. 
 
 I have called the Apostolical originals valuable 
 and important, because to the early Christians 
 they were pre-eminently so. Believers, in that 
 age, were too much exposed to suffering, on 
 account of their faith, to embrace or to adhere 
 
268 
 
 to it on light and unsatisfactory grounds. But 
 their only assurance that they had not done so 
 must ultimately rest on the credit due to* the 
 Apostles ; and the degree of credit, to which 
 they were entitled, could be ascertained only by 
 a reference to their own writings. In whatever 
 language those writings were drawn up, we must 
 suppose it to have been, at the time, and during 
 some centuries after to have continued, a living 
 language ; and consequently, during that whole 
 period, there must have been vast multitudes of 
 Christians who could read no other than the 
 original. They at least must necessarily have 
 adhered to, and thus have preserved it ; because 
 to give up the original would be, with all such 
 persons, the same thing with giving up the 
 Scriptures themselves. Yet, if we suppose the 
 Apostolical writings to have disappeared at any ■ 
 period within the first century after they were 
 promulgated, this must have been submitted to 
 not by individuals only, but by entire commu- 
 nities ; the members of which were daily hazard- 
 ing, nay, often were actually sacrificing, their 
 lives and all which was most dear to them, in 
 defence of a faith respecting the groundwork of 
 which they are represented to have been so neg- 
 ligent and indifferent. If we could even suppose 
 the Christian Churches to have acted thus in 
 opposition to the ordinary principles of human 
 conduct, in permitting the Apostolical writings, 
 
269 
 
 entrusted to their keeping, to perish, some of the 
 opposers of Christianity could not have failed to 
 make use of an argument which we know that 
 none of them ever did employ. ' You Chris- 
 tians,' they might have said, ' have taken up a 
 religion which cuts you off from honour and emo- 
 lument, from country, family, and friends ; which 
 exposes you to contempt, reproach, suffering 
 and death, on the faith of what ? on the faith of 
 what the Apostles of Christ delivered ! And yet, 
 having suffered their writings to perish you can- 
 not tell, with certainty, what they said. Where 
 is the reasonableness of such a faith, and of the 
 deportment which you say is founded on it V 
 Thus, I think, a heathen might have argued, and 
 thus some of them would have argued if it had 
 at any time come to their knowledge that the 
 original Gospels and Epistles were either lost, or 
 could no longer be identified. I may therefore, 
 with confidence, appeal to every reader of that 
 part of Dr. Lardner's great work, in which he 
 relates the substance of the objections raised by 
 Celsus against the Christian religion, and of the 
 answers to them by Origen z , whether it be pos- 
 sible that this early unbeliever, who exhausts his 
 scanty resources both of ridicule and argument 
 to prove that the grounds of the Christian faith 
 are insufficient, should never have made even a 
 
 r Jewish and Heathen Testimon. Vol. II. p. 261 — 354. 
 
270 
 
 distant allusion to such a fact as the disappear- 
 ance of the original text ? a fact by which, if 
 it could have been established, the credit of 
 Christianity would have been more seriously 
 affected than by the vague allegations of Celsus 
 and all the other infidels in the universe ten 
 times repeated. He attacks the credibility of 
 the Evangelists on other grounds ; saying, " I 
 could relate many things concerning the affairs 
 of Jesus, and those true too, different from those 
 written by his disciples a :" and afterwards he 
 affirms, " that some of the believers take a 
 liberty to alter the Gospel, from the first writing, 
 three or four ways, or oftener ; that, when they 
 are pressed hard, and one reading has been con- 
 futed, they may disown that and flee to ano- 
 ther b ." Celsus then confines himself to charg- 
 ing the Apostles with delivering an untrue report 
 of the actions of Jesus c ; and succeeding be- 
 lievers with falsifying the accounts which the 
 Apostles had delivered. But he evidently ad- 
 mits, that the histories to which he objected 
 were " written by the disciples of Jesus;" and 
 that " the first writing' (rr?c. ttq^t^q ypa^g, he 
 
 * Ibid. p. 274. . b Ibid. p. 275. 
 
 c It is plain that he had no grounds for this ; because, as Dr. 
 Lardner justly remarks, " if he could have contradicted the 
 disciples upon good evidence, in any material point, it is not 
 easy to believe he would have omitted to do so." 
 
271 
 
 calls it) was extant in his time. How could he 
 otherwise pretend to know that it had been 
 altered ? Now this objector is placed by Lard- 
 ner, and the Benedictine Editors of Origen, in 
 the reign of Marcus Antoninus d ; and it is plain 
 that the writings, which he, at this early period, 
 speaks of as proceeding from the disciples, were 
 either the same, and in the same language, with 
 those which we possess under the title of the 
 originals, or they were not. If they were the 
 same with ours, and Celsus and his contempora- 
 ries were deceived in taking these for the origi- 
 nals, then we must have recourse to the extra- 
 ordinary supposition, that within seventy years 
 of the death of St. John, while Polycarp, his 
 hearer and disciple was yet alive, all traces of 
 the genuine writings of the Apostles were so 
 completely obliterated, as to escape the obser- 
 vation of this inquisitive collector of whatever 
 could tend injuriously to atfect the credit of the 
 religion which they preached. If the text of the 
 Gospels, which Celsus regarded as the original, 
 were not the same with our present Greek, it is 
 incumbent on the proposers of such an opinion 
 to shew at what period, since the age of Celsus, 
 it is possible for the original writings to have 
 perished, and for those now existing to have as- 
 sumed their name and place. We may with 
 
 d A. D. 161 to 180. 
 
272 
 
 perfect certainty affirm, that no such substitu- 
 tion has happened since the middle of the second 
 century ; because, from this period, the evidence 
 is taken up by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, 
 Tertullian, and a host of witnesses, combining to 
 assure us, that the Greek text of their age was 
 virtually the same with our own, and that, as 
 will be hereafter shewn, it was considered by 
 them as the undoubted original of the New Tes- 
 tament. Whichever alternative we adopt, (and, 
 if the Palaeoromaican hypothesis be true, one or 
 the other must be admitted) we shall find our- 
 selves beset with insuperable difficulties, and 
 under the necessity of making the most impro- 
 bable and unauthorised assumptions. In the 
 words of one of the closest reasoners, as well as 
 best of men, " it would indeed be a sufficient 
 answer to the whole to repeat the several suppo- 
 sitions which have been made, and to call for the. 
 evidence on which they stand : this would plainly 
 discover every part of the story to be mere fiction e ." 
 But we may advance even beyond this. Were 
 it even to be conceded, that the great mass of 
 the Christian community, in different countries, 
 would give up all care of these records, and be 
 contented to possess the Evangelical writings 
 only at second hand, and that their adversaries 
 
 e Bishop Sherlock's Trial of the Witnesses, p. 15. Society's 
 Ed. 1820. 
 
273 
 
 would not have objected this against them, can 
 ifoi^-feslieved that the same passive acquiescence 
 would be displayed by that body of ecclesias- 
 tical writers, who, from the second century, 
 have made the Sacred Books the objects of 
 critical examination ? The early Fathers might 
 not be, according to our improved notions, the 
 very best of critics ; still it is impossible to be- 
 lieve that they could pursue their endeavours to 
 elucidate the true sense of the Apostolical Writ- 
 ings, upon an infinity of controverted points, and 
 yet not one of them ever think of having re* 
 course to any other than a translated text, as, 
 according to this hypothesis, the Greek is to be 
 considered. That they do not appeal to an ori- 
 ginal anterior to the Greek, is a proof that no 
 such original was, in their age, known to exist ; 
 that they do not lament their inability to appeal 
 to any such, is a proof that they had never heard 
 of its existing in the age before their own ; and 
 that they, at this early period, should not have 
 heard of it, is, when combined with other argu- 
 ments, a sufficient proof that no other original 
 than the Greek ever did exist. For state as you 
 will " the circumstances which may have con- 
 tributed to give the Greek a superiority over the 
 Latin text ;" suppose that, in certain situations, 
 and for some individuals, a translation might be 
 more useful than the original itself, still this will 
 not explain how the original could absolutely 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 disappear. The world may have been pretty 
 equally divided between Greeks and Rea&^ e „ 
 or persons using those languages : still, if the 
 wants of the one party were accommodated by a 
 translation, there was the remaining equally nu- 
 merous community, which, by a parity of rea- 
 soning, must have preferred and preserved the 
 original. I do not feel myself at all concerned 
 either to admit or to deny the possibility of 
 the supposition made in Palaeoromaica f , that 
 " As the Epistles (to the Corinthians) were, 
 in some measure, addressed not merely to the 
 Corinthians, but to the saints of Achaia, some 
 Latin, at the period may have translated them 
 into Latin- Greek." Admitting that it were so, 
 although we have no evidence of the fact, still 
 we are left without any account of what became 
 of the original. If the citizens of Corinth, in 
 the days of St. Paul, stood in need of a Latin 
 Epistle, neither in the days of their children, 
 nor even 'of their grandchildren, could the lan- 
 guage of the place be so suddenly and so en- 
 tirely changed as to render them totally indif- 
 ferent as to the preservation of any other than 
 this supposed Greek text. The Latin original, 
 therefore, could not have fallen into total ob- 
 livion, even if every copy of it, which was ever 
 taken, had been confined within the walls of 
 
 f P. 331. 
 
275 
 
 Corinth. But common sense may teach us that 
 this could not be the case, and that the preser- 
 vation of such a writing could not be dependent 
 on the decline, in any one city, nor even in the 
 world, of the language in which it was written. 
 I will go even farther than the author of Palseo- 
 romaica, in admitting that the Epistles to the 
 Corinthians were designed for the use and edifi- 
 cation not of the inhabitants of that city alone, 
 nor even of the saints of Achaia, but of the whole 
 Christian world in that and every succeeding 
 age. St. Paul himself knew this ; all his disci- 
 ples knew it as well as we know it now ; the pe- 
 rusal of the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle 
 to the Corinthians was alone sufficient to con- 
 vince them; and, as far as they were able, 
 though their ability might be trifling compared 
 with ours, they would seek to extend the know- 
 ledge of these universally interesting truths. 
 The declaration of St. Peter shews at how early 
 a period " the Epistles of his brother Paul ' 
 were generally known and read ; and, if we exa- 
 mine only those to Rome and Corinth, we shall 
 find how active was the intercourse, and the con- 
 sequent circulation of intelligence, between the 
 churches established in those cities. The ori- 
 ginal of the Epistles to the Corinthians, in what- 
 ever language written, could not fail of being 
 conveyed to Rome by some of the Achaian 
 brethren who were continually resorting thither ; 
 
 t2 
 
276 
 
 and, if written in Latin, there they must have 
 been preserved. I must be allowed to acknow- 
 ledge myself one who can not " conceive how a 
 Latin Epistle of Paul to the Romans (if he wrote 
 to them in Latin) may have been much sup- 
 planted by, or interpolated from, a Latin version 
 from the Greek z .' r This opinion and the reasons 
 assigned in support of it are truly worthy of 
 each other. " It is well known," (we are told on 
 the authority of " a German critic,") " that the 
 sentiments of Paul have a striking affinity to those 
 of Seneca ; and the style of the Apostolical origi- 
 nal seems, from what can be now collected, to 
 have had a strong resemblance to that of the 
 philosopher. Such a style would, to uneducated 
 persons, as the Christians generally were, seem 
 (especially when its fashion was over) less easy 
 and agreeable than one more simple and barba- 
 rous 11 ." The most difficult arguments to con- 
 tend with are, beyond all doubt, those which 
 have nothing in them ; as beating the air is the 
 most laborious and, at the same time, the least 
 satisfactory of all exercises. But I would beg 
 to enquire, if the Apostolical originals be not ex- 
 tant, how we can receive any information, or 
 pretend to form any judgment, as to the style 
 which prevailed in them ? No one, it might 
 have been supposed, above the rank and ac- 
 
 £ P. 340. «« Ibid. 
 
277 
 
 quirements of a school-boy, would have thought 
 of instituting a comparison between the style of 
 St. Paul, of one, according to his own avowal, 
 " rude in speech," and continually hurried by 
 the impulse of strong feeling beyond the bounds 
 of correct writing, and the style which prevails 
 in the highly ornamented, yet strictly regular 
 and correct, productions of the cool, the philo- 
 sophic, the fastidious preceptor of the son of 
 Agrippina. Neither is it true, that the taste for 
 Seneca's fashion of writing did so very quickly 
 decay. Quintilian informs us of the admiration 
 in which his works continued to be held by the 
 youth of a later age ; and of the exertions which 
 he himself employed to inculcate a taste for 
 purer models 1 . Still, therefore, if St. Paul 
 
 i " Solus hie fere in manibus adolescentium fuit. Quern non 
 equidem omnino conabar excutere sed potioribus praeferri non 
 sinebam, quos ille non destiterat incessere, cum, diversi sibi 
 conscius generis, placere se in dicendo posse quibus illi place- 
 rent diffideret. — Cujus et multae alioqui et magnae virtutes fue- 
 runt, ingenium facile et copiosum, plurimum studii et multarum 
 
 rerum cognitio multae in eo claraeque sententiae, multa etiam 
 
 morum causa legenda : sed in eloquendo corrupta pleraque, at- 
 que eo perniciosissima quod abundant dulcibus vitiis." De In- 
 stil. Orat. Lib. X. ch. 1. § vi. 4. Quintilian, if he had ever 
 read the writings of the Apostles, might think their style cor- 
 rupt, as he did that of Seneca. But this discerning critic would 
 never have thought of comparing the style of St. Paul, with that 
 of a writer whose characteristics were facility, copiousness, an<$ 
 laboured arrangement. He would not have laid to the charge 
 
278 
 
 wrote to the Romans an Epistle in Latin, and to 
 the Corinthians two Epistles in the same lan- 
 guage, which must have been known in Rome, 
 we are left unsatisfied as to any reason which 
 could render necessary a translation into Greek, 
 for the sole purpose, as it would appear, of being 
 retranslated into Latin. Above all, we have no 
 answer yet given to the most important of all 
 questions, What became of the original ? If not 
 preserved at Rome, which is in itself incredible, 
 still it must have been in many other places. 
 ■ ( Greek, from the age of Hadrian," very possibly 
 " began to gain the ascendancy over Latin k ;" 
 but Latin was not instantly extirpated as a liv- 
 ing language. The speech of Rome, though 
 gradually declining, continued still to be very 
 extensively employed ; as the writings of Sueto- 
 nius, Apuleius, Justin, and many others testify ; 
 and shot forth occasional gleams of great bril- 
 liancy into that night which threatened, for seve- 
 ral centuries before it was able to accomplish, 
 its final extinction. The churches of Africa, in 
 which, from the age of Tertullian to that of Au- 
 gustin, the Latin language was used, would 
 
 of any one of the Apostles, that his writings abounded with 
 charming defects ; or have insinuated, as he does a little lower 
 down respecting those of Seneca, that they were calculated to 
 win the admiration of boys rather than to satisfy men of inform 
 mation and judgment. 
 
 k P. 332, 
 
279 
 
 alone have sufficed for the preservation of a Latin 
 original, if there had ever been any such original 
 in existence 1 . Tertullian was much connected 
 
 " In Africa, auctores habemus nobilissimos, Tertullianum 
 Cyprianum, Augustinum ; qui omnes in Africa nati, in Africa 
 vixerunt, Afris vel scripserunt vel concionati sunt. Tertullianus 
 suum de Pallio librum, nonne in Africanorum gratiam edidit, 
 apud quos id vestimenti in scomma abierat ut Christianos appel- 
 larent ypdiKovg emOsrag Graecos impbstores ? Et quos ex eo- 
 dem libello constat a Romanis togam esse mutuatos, neget ali- 
 quis linguam ? Quid quod ad uxorem scripsit, non Africe sed 
 Latine ? ad mulieres de habitu, ad faeminas de cultu, ad virgines 
 de velo ? Et quidem, ut notes, non quemadmodum docti solent 
 de quibusvis rebus in musaeo commentari, quae postea non nisi 
 docti legant pauci que ; sed ad eas ipsas directo sermone, ut in 
 
 earum gratiam scripta scias Cyprianus quoties scripsit ad 
 
 Clerum, quoties ad Martyras, quoties ad plebem ? Scripsit au- 
 tem non Latine tantum, sed eleganter. Haec Carthagine, Africae 
 Metropoli, ubi orabat etiam Apuleius Latine, quam poterat elo» 
 quentissime. Et Quis vestrum (clamabat 1. Floridorum) unum 
 miki solcecismum ignoveritl Quis vel unam syllaham barbare 
 pronunciatam donaverit ? Quis incondita et vitiosa verba temere, 
 quasi delirantibus oborientia, permiserit blaterare ? — Augustinus 
 suos Hipponenses non docebat nisi Latine. Extant infiniti ejus 
 tractatus et sermones, quos ad et infimorum hominum captum 
 accommodabat. Quo fructu si Latine loquentem aut nemo, aut 
 soli docti essent assecuti? — Sed non est necesse conjecturas 
 sectari, cum habeamus locupletissimum ejusdem testimonium : 
 Lib. I. Retractat. c. 20. Volens, inquit, causam Donatistarum 
 ad ipsius humillimi vulgi, et omnino imperitorum atque idiotarum 
 notitiam pervenire t et eorum t quantum Jieri posset per nos, inha- 
 rere memories t Psalmum qui eis caneretur per Latinas liter as feci. 
 Et paulo post, Ideo autem non aliquo carminis genere id Jieri 
 volui, ne me necessitas metrica ad aliqua verba quce sunt minus 
 
280 
 
 with Rome, and well versed in the history of its 
 church m ; from which he affirms that his own de- 
 duced its authority for the Scriptures which it 
 possessed n . These Scriptures, as his quotations 
 from them shew, were in Latin ; yet, as we shall 
 hereafter see, he repeatedly and explicitly speaks 
 of them as having been translated from the 
 Greek. It may be very true, that the church 
 established in Africa " furnished many members 
 of the Greek church, " after the destruction of 
 copies during the persecution of Dioclesian, 
 " with versions made from their Latin Scrip- 
 tures ." But if those Latin Scriptures were dif- 
 ferent from the Latin translation made use of by 
 Tertullian, if they were wholly or in part the 
 originals, what has become of them ? The fur- 
 nishing of twenty versions to twenty different 
 churches, in as many different languages, would 
 not make the original itself less necessary to the 
 Africans, much less would it occasion, and there- 
 fore much less does it account for, its total dis- 
 
 nsltata compelleret. Hie mihi tria nota. Primum Augustino 
 Psalmum esse compositum in gratiam quorumcunque imperito- 
 rura : secundum compositum esse vocibus usitatissimis, vitatis 
 minus usitatis : tertium Latinis literis. Hinc verd quis non 
 concludat ipsis etiam imperitis hominibus in Africa voces literas 
 que, id est sermonem Latinum, fuisse usitatum, fuisse itaque cog-, 
 nitum ?" Chamier. Panstr. Cath. Vol, I. p, 201. 
 
 m Euseb. E.H. II. 2. 
 
 f De Praescr. Haer* c. 3§, 
 
 ! P. 330. 
 
281 
 
 appearance. Our Greek Vulgate survives in 
 company with the innumerable translations which 
 are confessedly derived from it; and the origi- 
 nal Latin Scriptures, if any such there had been, 
 must have been still less likely to disappear from 
 the ritual of a church, which, to the age of 
 Augustin and even beyond it, continued to em- 
 ploy the Latin language. Above all, when or 
 how could they escape from the custody of the 
 Church of Rome, which has been constant in 
 two acknowledgments, First, that the New 
 Testament shall be read only in Latin ; secondly, 
 that the Latin which is authentically sanctioned 
 by her, is a translation from the Greek ? The 
 same vice, in fact, runs through all the reason- 
 ings of Palseoromaica ; the loss of the original 
 is not accounted for; and to hide this defect, 
 cases are brought forward as similar, which fail 
 in the very point where the resemblance ought 
 especially to hold. Thus, for instance, it is re- 
 marked, U we have an instance completely in 
 point in the Septuagint. The early Fathers of the 
 church, with the exception of Origen, consi- 
 dered the Hebrew as perfectly superseded by 
 the Greek version; and doubtless, but for the 
 Jews, the former would be no longer extant p ." 
 This is surely a bold assumption ! but admit it ; 
 $yhat then ? We should still have abundance of 
 
 I P. 133. 
 
282 
 
 evidence, as much in fact as we have now, to 
 assure us that a Hebrew original, though lost, 
 had once existed ; and that the Greek was only a 
 translation from it. But, in the case to which 
 this is put forth as parallel, we are required to 
 believe not only that the original has perished, 
 but that no single writer has made the slightest 
 mention of its existence either before or since q . 
 The true question, I repeat, is not, as in Palaeoro- 
 maica it is assiduously represented to be, whether 
 any original writing could perish, and a trans- 
 lation, or retranslation, be unsuspectedly received 
 in its place. The original Simplicius lay hid during 
 many years, and might almost, even now, perish 
 a second time without being missed ; but this 
 instance, though much insisted on, is not in point. 
 We have to consider, whether it be possible 
 that writings of such a character, so extensively 
 known and so profoundly venerated, as the 
 Apostolical originals must have been, could, by 
 any combination of possible events, totally dis- 
 
 q The same defect of parallelism in the important point, is 
 visible in the instance of " the correspondence of the Duke of 
 Shrewsbury." Mr. Coxe has published King William's Letters 
 in an English translation, keeping the original out of sight ; but 
 then he tells us, that such an original was in being, or " that the 
 king's letters were written in French." (Pal, p. 333.) So if the 
 New Testament had been written in any other language than 
 Greek, though the original were withdrawn, we must, from 
 some quarter or other, still have heard of it. 
 
283 
 
 appear ; much more whether they could so dis- 
 appear as to escape absolutely from the notice and 
 recollection of the world; so as that not only no 
 single fragment of them should survive, but that 
 no mention of them, nor the remotest, allusion to the 
 fact of their having ever existed, should be found 
 in any of the writers, heretical or orthodox, who, 
 from the beginnings of Christianity, have made 
 the Sacred Text and its history the subject of 
 their voluminous commentaries. 
 
 But neither, it is objected, do any of these 
 early writers express a distinct belief, that the 
 Apostles wrote in Greek. " As to the language 
 in which the books of the New Testament were 
 originally written, we have, I believe, no histo- 
 rical evidence till towards the conclusion of the 
 fourth century r ." This, as I shall presently 
 shew, is not a correct representation. But, even 
 if it were, would there be any difficulty in ex- 
 plaining it ? The absence of all historical evi- 
 dence can be fairly taken as a ground for disput- 
 ing a particular fact, only where there is a suf- 
 ficient reason for thinking that, if the fact were 
 as is alleged, all evidence would not be wanting. 
 But here the very notoriety of the fact, that the 
 Gospels and Epistles were originally written in 
 Greek, may be, and probably is, the reason of 
 our possessing no distinct attestation of it. It 
 
 ¥ P. 63, 
 
284 
 
 might never enter into the mind of a writer in 
 the second or third centuries, that it could be 
 necessary to bear testimony to a fact which 
 never had been, and, he might reasonably think, 
 never would be, disputed ; and consequently 
 the silence of the early Fathers and Heretics 
 leads to no inference whatever against our po- 
 sition, that the Apostles wrote in Greek. I will 
 not go so far as to affirm, that their silence, on 
 the other hand, as to the existence of any ante- 
 rior text, directly proves that there never was 
 any earlier than the Greek ; but it at least shews 
 that, in their opinion, there never was, and it 
 will be difficult to persuade reflecting men that, 
 upon such a point, they could be deceived. 
 
 I do not, as will hereafter be seen, either want 
 or intend to appeal to the testimony of the 
 Fathers of the first century, to establish the main 
 position here contended for. Still, though it be 
 an interruption of the direct enquiry, it is neces- 
 sary to correct a misrepresentation, occurring in 
 Palseoromaica s , of what" that testimony really is. 
 *' The hypothesis of «, Latin original," we are 
 informed, " appears to account for a circum- 
 stance, which has been urged as an objection 
 against our Canonical Books — the neglect of 
 them by Greek writers till towards the close of 
 the second century." With what propriety, or 
 
 • P. ail. 
 
285 
 
 fairness, it can be said that the Canonical Books 
 are neglected by the Apostolical Fathers, it is not 
 in my power to discover. If the existing writ- 
 ings, which claim to be those of the first cen- 
 tury, and bear the names of Barnabas, Clement, 
 Hermas, and Polycarp, be genuine, then it is not 
 true 'that the Canonical Books were neglected ; 
 because, as the labours of Dr. Lardner shew, 
 these writings abound with allusions to, or direct 
 quotations from, every Book in the New Testa- 
 ment. If the genuine works of the immediate 
 followers of the Apostles have perished, as the 
 author of Palaeoromaica supposes, and those 
 which now bear their names are forgeries of a 
 later date, then he is assuming what he cannot 
 prove, when he says, that they neglected the 
 Canonical Books ; because it is plain, that nei- 
 ther he, nor any other person, can tell what they 
 said. But, he proceeds, appearing to think his 
 own assertion to be a sufficient evidence of the 
 fact. " I say it has been a subject of no little 
 surprise, that our Canonical Gospels and Epis- 
 tles are not taken notice of by any Greek writer 
 till towards the close of the second century ; and 
 this has furnished objections to their genuine- 
 ness and authenticity *." Now, as I have before 
 observed, if we possess the genuine works of 
 those writers who lived in the first century, and 
 
 ; p. 324. 
 
286 
 
 the early part of the second, it is not true that 
 they take no notice of the Canonical Books ; if 
 we possess them not, it must always remain 
 doubtful what their testimony amounted to, and 
 what was the nature of it. But there is a writer 
 of the middle of the second century, a Greek 
 writer, whose works are undoubtedly genuine, 
 whose highly important testimony must not be 
 thus lightly set aside. I mean Justin Martyr. 
 " It is to be observed," continues the objector, 
 " that, with the exception of the Memoirs of the 
 Apostles, and the Apocalypse, Justin cites or refers 
 to no other books of the New Testament u ." 
 " These Memoirs of the Apostles," it is afterwards 
 added, " were not our present Gospels ;" and 
 the authority of " a German critic" is again 
 adduced in support of the opinion, that Justin 
 took his quotations from the Gospel according to 
 the Hebrews, The words of Justin himself seem, 
 utterly irreconcileable with both these opinions ; 
 for he distinctly affirms, that the aTrofxvYjfJLovevfxara, 
 or Memoirs, which he possessed and quoted, were 
 written by the Apostles, and that they were called 
 Gospels x ; using the plural in both instances, as 
 if he spoke not of a single document, like the 
 Gospel according to the Hebrews, but of several, 
 
 u P. 312. 
 
 * <! Oi A7ro<JToX.oi, iv toiq yevo/ievoig vk aVTW aTto\ivr\\kQVtv\i<iGiv a 
 KaXeiTcii jvayyeXia, ovrwc iraptdwKctv" 
 
287 
 
 written by different authors. It need not be 
 disputed that he used, in addition to our pre- 
 sent Gospels, some of the unauthorised histories 
 of our Lord, which existed, we know, in the first 
 ages, and gradually fell into disuse after the 
 Canon was settled, and that from these may 
 have been derived those quotations which are 
 not found in the writings of the Evangelists. 
 But no one, I think, who reviews the extracts 
 from Justin, given by Lardner and Paley, can 
 hesitate to acquiesce in the conclusion of Dr. 
 Jortin, at least to this extent, that " his cita- 
 tions from the four Gospels — and from the Re- 
 velation, shew to a demonstration, that he had 
 them as we now have them in the main y ." 
 
 There is another testimony, which, though of 
 
 1 Rem, on Eccl. Hist, Vol. I. p. 214. ed. 1805. As an ex- 
 ample of Justin's mode of quotation, let the following be taken : 
 sv yap tolq a7roixvT]fjt,ov6viia<nv a (prjfu vtto tiov cnrocFToXojv kcli tojv 
 zkuvoiq 7rapaKoXov0ij<ravTiov ovvTirayQai, Xeyerat otl i( idpcog w(7£i 
 ^pofitoi /eare%£iro, avrov tvxopsvov" kcli Xeyovrog " TrapeXOerto, ft 
 dvvarov, to noTTipiov tovto." Dial, cum Trypho Jud. From this 
 it appears evidently that Justin had read the accounts of the 
 Agony in the Garden by St. Matthew (xxvi. 39.) and St. Luke 
 (xxii. 44.) He appears also to affirm, that the Memoirs or 
 Gospels, which he quoted, were written by the Apostles, and by 
 those (ticuvoig 7rapaKoXov9t](ravTcov) who attended on them ; mean- 
 ing thereby to designate St. Luke in particular, by this obvious 
 allusion to his employment of the same word (TrapcucoXovOeio) in 
 his description of himself, and of the sources from which he de- 
 rived his acquaintance with the actions of Christ. 
 
288 
 
 later absolute date than that of Justin, yet af- 
 fords convincing proof how long before his time 
 the principal Books in the Canon were known, 
 and referred to ; and above all, how incorrect 
 and unguarded is the assertion of Palaeoromaica, 
 that " Irenceus is the very earliest writer, now 
 extant, by whom they are expressly cited," (p. 
 313.) The document here alluded to, is the 
 Epistle from the churches of Lyons and Vienne to 
 those of Lydia and Phrygia, giving an account of 
 the martyrdom of their aged Bishop, Pothinus, 
 and of many other members of their commu- 
 nion 2 . (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. Lib. V. c. 1 — 2.) 
 " In this Epistle," says Dr. Paley % " are exact 
 references to the Gospels of Luke and John," (to 
 
 * This most interesting account of the almost incredible re- 
 solution, which these early martyrs opposed to the diabolical 
 cruelty of their persecutors, was written, I think, in Greek ; be- 
 cause Eusebius merely observes, in introducing it, " we will 
 subjoin their words :" whereas, when he gives a translation, he 
 is in the habit of mentioning it. For instance, he does so in 
 citing a passage from Tertullian (Eccl. H. II. 2.) and more dis- 
 tinctly where, quoting from Justin s the Rescript of Adrian^ in 
 favour of the Christians, he says, " we have translated it, as 
 we could, into Greek." (lb. IV. 8.) I mention this to shew 
 how vain is the notion, that in all the Roman colonies Latin was 
 spoken ; and that Irenseus, who succeeded Pothinus, " must 
 have instructed his flock in Latin, or perhaps Celtic." (Palceor. 
 p. 314.) The name of Pothinus is Greek ; and, among his com- 
 panions in martyrdom, we find mention made of Attalus of Per- 
 gamusy and of Alexander a Phrygian. 
 
 % Evidences, Part I. ch, ix, Sec, i. § ix. 
 
289 
 
 the latter twice) " and to the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles." To which I may add, there are also pre- 
 cise quotations from the Epistles — to the Ro- 
 mans viii. 18. — First to Timothy vi. 13. — to the 
 Philippians ii. 6. — to the Colossians i. 18. — and 
 from the Revelation xxii. 1 1 . This testimony is 
 not only valuable in itself, but, in consequence 
 of the great age of Pothinus, (as the narrative 
 informs us upwards of ninety years,) it is equiva- 
 lent to an attestation of much earlier date. Po- 
 thinus, by his dignified submission to martyr- 
 dom in the cause of Christianity, placed the sin- 
 cerity of his belief above all suspicion ; and that 
 belief could be founded only on his conviction, 
 that the Christian Scriptures received by his 
 church, and received by them, it appears, in 
 Greek, were the genuine productions of the 
 Apostles, and had been received as such from 
 the earliest period of his remembrance. This, it 
 is unnecessary to state, carries us back to the 
 age of those who had conversed with the Apos- 
 tles, and had been placed by them in the govern- 
 ment of the Church of Christ. 
 
 But to return from this digression, to the en- 
 quiry concerning the original language of the 
 Apostles. My reference is purposely made to 
 the writers of the second and third centuries, com- 
 mencing with Irenseus ; not so much because an 
 attempt to vindicate the authenticity of the writ- 
 ings, attributed to the Apostolical Fathers and 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 their immediate successors, would involve us irs- 
 a long and somewhat difficult enquiry, as be- 
 cause I see that such an enquiry would be use- 
 less with any view of applying their testimony 
 to the refutation of Palaeoromaica. I may my- 
 self be convinced that the First Epistle of Clemens, 
 for instance, is authentic, because Dionysius, 
 Bishop of Corinth within less than a century of 
 the age of Clemens, testifies that an Epistle, 
 bearing his name, had been wont to be read in 
 that church from ancient times ; and because, if 
 the Epistle which we possess were not the 
 genuine, but were a forgery of a later age, it 
 would unquestionably have contained more nu- 
 merous and more direct quotations from the 
 writings of the New Testament b . But suppose 
 this Epistle admitted to be genuine. If we at- 
 tempted from this to prove, that St. Paul's first 
 Epistle to the Corinthians was written in Greek, 
 because a quotation from it in that language oc- 
 curs in the Epistle of Clemens, the reply of my 
 adversary might be, But how can you prove that 
 the Epistle of Clemens itself was not originally 
 
 b " De Friore Epistola si quaeratur au sit Authentica ; ei sane 
 omnia Authentic indicia adsunt. In ilia enim non violatur 
 temporis ratio. Nihil contra Ecclesiae Disciplinam instituitur. 
 Nihil contra Doctrinam Christianam praecipitur. Stylus ac di- 
 cendi methodus proxime accedunt ad Nov. Test, neque aliquid, 
 quod non est maxime viro Apostolica dignum in ea reperitur," 
 Henr, Wotton. in Epiet* Clement, Prcefat, p, ccvi, 
 
291 
 
 written in Latin, and, at some unascertained 
 period, translated into Greek ? To negative this 
 possibility, which must however be done before 
 the writings of the first century can be applied 
 to establish our conclusion, would be more trou- 
 blesome and less satisfactory, than to vindicate 
 at once the originality of the Greek New Testa- 
 ment. But the ecclesiastical writers, who flou- 
 rished between the middle of the second and the 
 close of the fourth century, are differently cir- 
 cumstanced. No design can be entertained, I 
 presume, in any quarter, of maintaining that 
 such of their works as now exist in Greek were 
 all originally composed in Latin ; nor indeed 
 would this affect the argument which I design to 
 found upon them : that is, an argument to prove 
 the general and uninterrupted persuasion, enter- 
 tained by the Church at large, respecting the 
 original language employed by the Apostles. 
 
 To begin then with Gregory of Nyssa ; it is 
 evident that when he criticises the style of St. 
 Paul*, and enters into an examination of his 
 phraseology, he must be fully persuaded that St. 
 Paul's own wirings, and not translations of them, 
 are the subjects of his animadversions. When 
 he asked, for example, " Whence did he borrow 
 his peculiar sense of f-Kzvwctv ? who shall condemn 
 him for his use of o^Etpo^cvoi v^wv ? How are 
 
 e See Pal&or-om. p. 156. 
 
 u2 
 
292 
 
 7T£p7r(pevo^ai and epiOeia taken by him to signify 
 such and such things ?" When he asked these 
 questions, he must have felt assured, that ekevio- 
 <tev, and the rest, were terms employed by St. 
 Paul himself: in other words, that this Apostle 
 composed in Greek the writings in which those 
 terms appear. But it is objected, " accurate 
 critical ideas, with respect to the comparative 
 values of originals and translations, are the re- 
 sult of a state of literature considerably advanced. 
 In fact they scarcely exist at any period except 
 among critics by profession d ." Now Gregory of 
 Nyssa was a critic by profession ; and what is 
 still more to the purpose, a verbal critic. As a 
 man even of common understanding and probity, 
 he would surely not have proceeded to animad- 
 vert on the style of St. Paul's compositions, un- 
 less he had been satisfied that they were the 
 actual writings of the Apostle, in his own lan- 
 guage, on which he was commenting. That he 
 considered the Greek text as entitled to this 
 character, is therefore a conclusion indisputably 
 to be drawn from the manner in which he speaks 
 of it ; and the same as evidently appears from 
 the general character of his critical observations. 
 It will be sufficient to adduce a single instance. 
 As early as the age of Gregory, and perhaps be- 
 fore, doubts had been entertained respecting the 
 
 d P. 332. 
 
293 
 
 authenticity of the last twelve verses in the con- 
 cluding chapter of St. Mark's Gospel. The 
 ground of the objection to this clause was that, 
 by retaining it, an apparent inconsistency with 
 the accounts of the other Evangelists was occa- 
 sioned. Now it is worthy of remark that, to set 
 the sense of the passage in its true light, Gregory 
 has recourse to the Greek text alone, and shews 
 how, by a different punctuation of that, the dis- 
 sonance complained of might be removed e . It 
 is to the Greek text alone he refers, as if this 
 were competent definitively to decide whether 
 
 e " E Codicibus istius aevi, memorat primus jam (quod sciam) 
 Gregorius Nyssenus nonnullos, in quibus Evangelium Marci 
 finitum erat ad Capitis 16 li v. 8 vi verba ista, e<po%owro yap. Hos 
 aKpitearepovc vocat, seu notae praestantioris : unde palam quid 
 senserit de seqq. duodecim versiculis qui concludunt Evange- 
 lium. Et tamen ex istis citat alicubi nonnulla Nyssenus, modum 
 que insuper tradit solvendse difficultatis istius, cujus causa (par- 
 tim) facta videtur haec ipsa mutilatio. Verba sc. Avclgtclq fc 
 vpuil irpcoTy <ra££arov ifavr}, &c. ita Ol'dinata vult, ut ad avaorcLQ 
 h ponatur hypostigme ; sequentia vero, Trpui 7rpwry aa£€arov, 
 referantur ad Kpavn ; sic enim Christus resurrexerit ante primam 
 Sabbati, sive nocte earn praecedente (quomodo o^t <ra€6arwi/, 
 Matt, xxviii. 1. recte omnino interpretatur Nyssenus) ac primo 
 mane diei proxime sequentis, seu irpurrig aatiarov, apparuerit 
 Marias Magdalenae. De hac verborum istorum distinctione 
 cum nihil cogitassent temerarii quidam censores, et vero magnis 
 circa tempus resurrectionis Christi, atque alia aliqua, difficult^.- 
 tibus sese implicatos vidissent — eo processere ut ista, tanquam 
 repugnantia caeteris Evangeliis, et D. Marco indigna, Codicibus 
 eradenda arbitrarentur." Millii. Proleg, p. 77. 
 
294 
 
 the passage were written by St. Mark or not. 
 Now it is plain that, unless the Greek had been 
 universally acknowledged as the original, he 
 would not have done so ; for, if it had been 
 known or suspected that there was, or ever had 
 been, any antecedent text from which the Greek 
 was translated, the question must at least have 
 been raised as to what the reading of that origi- 
 nal was. An appeal to this might have shewn 
 the emendation of the learned Father, to be 
 either unnecessary or unsatisfactory ; the ambi- 
 guity, which he sought to remove by a different 
 punctuation, might either not exist in the origi- 
 nal, or, if it did exist, might not have admitted of 
 removal by the simple process which he adopted 
 with respect to the Greek. Neither, in esti- 
 mating the importance to be attached to the per- 
 suasions of Gregory of Nyssa, respecting the 
 language employed by St. Paul, must it be for- 
 gotten that he had the advantage of living in the 
 neighbourhood of many of the churches to which 
 that Apostle had directed his Epistles. He must, 
 unavoidably, have had many opportunities of 
 communicating with Ephesus, Colossse, and Ga- 
 latia ; where the Christians, though often perse- 
 cuted, had never been extirpated, nor even so 
 totally scattered as to interrupt the course of 
 tradition with respect to the language in which 
 St. Paul had addressed them. The remarks of 
 Gregory are therefore highly valuable, as they 
 
295 
 
 farnish us with presumptive evidence that, in his 
 age, the general persuasion of the churches in 
 Asia was, that St. Paul wrote to them in Greek. 
 The date of his evidence is, I admit, not much 
 earlier than that of Jerome and Augustin ; con- 
 cerning which it is questioned, whether " asser- 
 tions so late can be entitled to the name of evi- 
 dence' ;' : and again, " the assertions of Jerome 
 and Augustin (writers of the fourth and fifth 
 centuries), are matters not of evidence, but of 
 opinion *." As evidences o/'an opinion, that is 
 of one uniform persuasion, existing in the ages 
 preceding their own, that the Sacred Writings 
 had been preserved in the original language, the 
 testimonies of Jerome and Augustin are entitled 
 to the highest respect. Jerome was, no less than 
 Gregory of Nyssa, a critic by profession h ; a man 
 of bold, penetrating genius, and of indefatigable 
 industry ; who had travelled principally with a 
 view of perfecting his acquaintance with the 
 
 • P. 63. * P. 356. 
 
 b " Jerome has many excellent things, and is the only Father 
 who can be called a critic on the Sacred Writings." Letters 
 from a late eminent Prelate. Let. 25. Bishop Warburton should 
 have been satisfied with calling Jerome the best t or the most 
 learned, without setting him up as the only critic among the 
 Fathers : remembering, that Quamvis est omnis hyperbole ultra 
 jidem, non tamen esse debet ultra modum »• nee alia magis vid in 
 
 KdKoZrjKiav itur. 
 
296 
 
 genuine text of the Scriptures ; and the nature of 
 whose researches necessarily brought under his 
 inspection the most ancient manuscripts in which 
 that text was preserved. Were it even possible 
 to suppose that all the copies of the Apostolical 
 autographs had perished in the comparatively 
 short period of three centuries and a half, it is 
 still inconceivable that, in some of the churches 
 which he visited, Jerome should not have met 
 with some traditionary accounts that such manu- 
 scripts, containing such a text, had formerly 
 existed. For the purpose of tracing such ac- 
 counts, indeed, it could scarcely be necessary to 
 visit any church in particular ; because, if such 
 a persuasion had any where prevailed, it must 
 have been universally known. Believers then, 
 as now, formed, in a certain sense, one commu- 
 nity, among the members of which, if uniformity 
 of sentiment on all theological points did not 
 prevail, there was still such a circulation of in- 
 telligence upon points connected with the tra- 
 ditional history of their faith, that no question of 
 importance could be agitated in any one quarter, 
 without gradually exciting attention in all the 
 rest. The testimonies of Clemens Alexandri- 
 nus, of Tertullian, of Gregory, of Jerome, and of 
 Augustine are, I repeat, valuable as evidences of 
 a widely- diffused, uniform, and unbroken per- 
 suasion, existing among Christians from the be- 
 
297 
 
 ginning ; they assure us of their own sentiments, 
 and lead us, by a kind of induction, to those of a 
 much earlier period. 
 
 The testimonies of the two first mentioned 
 Fathers it will be proper to examine somewhat 
 more minutely, and it will be found that they 
 coincide strictly with the rest, and thus carry 
 back the persuasion, in favour of the originality 
 of the Greek, to an era much less distant from 
 that of the Apostles. The experience of Cle- 
 ment of Alexandria was not acquired solely in 
 his own province ; he had travelled, and had 
 been every where a careful observer of eccle- 
 siastical antiquity, as handed down by tradition. 
 From Eusebius we learn, that Clement had had 
 an opportunity of hearing many illustrious men, 
 " who handed down a true traditionary report 
 of that blessed doctrine which they had before 
 received from the holy Apostles, Peter, James, 
 John, and Paul, as a son from his father i ." It is 
 a necessary conclusion, that these predecessors 
 of Clemens must have known, and that from 
 them he also must have learned, in what lan- 
 guage the Apostles wrote. But on the same 
 authority we are informed, that Clemens affirmed 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews to have been written 
 originally by St. Paul in Hebrew, for the use of 
 the circumcision ; and carefully translated by 
 
 i Eccl. HisL V. 11. 
 
298 
 
 St. Luke into Greek for dispersion among the 
 Gentiles. From which cause it arose, that the 
 style of this Epistle bore a strong resemblance 
 to that of the Acts of the Apostles. This decla- 
 ration of Clemens is important in many points 
 of view. First, as it contradicts the bold asser- 
 tion, that we have no evidence, concerning the 
 language in which the Books of the New Tes- 
 tament were written, till towards the close of 
 the fourth century. Here is a witness, of two 
 hundred years' earlier date, who professes to 
 have heard from an elder of the age preceding 
 his own, that the Acts of the Apostles, supposed 
 with great probability to have been written at 
 Rome, were composed in Greek ; and that another 
 of the Canonical Books was translated, under 
 the sanction of the author, into the same language, 
 to facilitate its circulation among the Gentiles. 
 Clemens, it is farther observable, does not think 
 it necessary formally to assert, much less does he 
 attempt to prove, as, if there had ever been any 
 question concerning it, he probably would have 
 done, that the Acts of the Apostles were written 
 by St. Luke in Greek ; but he alludes to it as to 
 a fact so universally known and admitted, in his 
 age, that it might be taken for granted. It may 
 be objected, that unless we here admit that the 
 original Epistle to the Hebrews was written in 
 Hebrew, and has therefore perished, Clemens in 
 this instance furnishes us with a false tradition, 
 
299 
 
 and may therefore do the same in the other case 
 of the original language of the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles. But this objection, which strives to make 
 it appear that, if one tradition be false, the same 
 inference may be drawn with respect to any 
 other tradition preserved by the same communi- 
 cant, assumes that all traditions, or all parts of 
 the same tradition, are equally credible. This is 
 not true ; but the separate evidence for each 
 must be carefully weighed. If there be visible 
 traces of an uninterrupted tradition in one direc- 
 tion, without any traces of a contradictory tradi- 
 tion in the opposite, the opinion which is thus sup- 
 ported has the highest possible degree of moral 
 evidence in its favour. This is the case with 
 respect to the opinion, that the original language 
 of the New Testament in general was Greek. But 
 where there are two opposing traditions, each 
 supported by its distinct evidence, the argu- 
 ments on both sides must have their due weight 
 assigned to them, and the decision must be 
 formed according as the balance, in fair and 
 equitable hands, shall appear to incline. This 
 is the case with respect to the tradition, asserted 
 by Clemens, but contradicted by others, that the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews was written first in 
 Hebrew, and afterwards translated into Greek. 
 It is therefore very possible that one of the par- 
 ticulars recorded by Clemens may be false, and 
 yet the certainty of the other be in no respect 
 
300 
 
 impaired. It is of more importance to remark 
 that, by adopting and repeating this tradition 
 respecting the last-mentioned Epistle, and by 
 what he says respecting the Acts, Clemens 
 proves, that in his own age and in that of Maca- 
 rius who preceded him, the prevalent persuasion 
 was that Greek was the language generally em- 
 ployed by the original writers of the New Tes- 
 tament. Ha# it been otherwise, he would hardly 
 have passed over so natural an occasion for 
 noticing it, and for explaining why, in adopting 
 this language, St. Luke and St> Paul deviated 
 from the general usage of their brethren. 
 
 This same persuasion, the general prevalence 
 of which is thus implied in the works of Clemens 
 Alexandrinus, is even more distinctly marked in 
 those of his contemporary, Tertullian. In the 
 celebrated passage wherein he uses the phrase 
 " authenticcB liter ce k ," I will not affirm that he 
 means by these words to describe the Aposto- 
 lical autographs ; although, in the passage quoted 
 by Mr. Nolan from Cyprian, the disciple of 
 Tertullian, the words " epistolam authenticam" 
 
 k Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas, apud quas]ipsae adhuc ca- 
 thedrae Apostolorum suis locis president, apud quas, ipsae au- 
 thenticae literae eorum recitantur, sonantes vocem, et repraesen- 
 tantes faciem uniuscujusque, &c." De Prcescr. adv. Hceret. c. 
 xxxvi. p. 215. See the passage also in Palceoromaica, p. 58. 
 Note 12 ; and in Mr. Nolan's Inquiry into the Integrity of the 
 Greek Vulgate, p. 115. Note 14. 
 
301 
 
 unquestionably mean that identical epistle which 
 came from the hand of the writer. The words 
 of Tertullian must, however, be at least allowed 
 to mean " letters in the original language;" copies 
 not translations. How indeed can any other 
 words than those which the writer himself actu- 
 ally employed, be said to " sound forth his 
 voice" as if he were actually speaking, or to 
 " represent his image" as if he were personally 
 present ? Above all, why should Tertullian direct 
 his enquirer to Philippi, to Ephesus, to Corinth, 
 and to Rome, to satisfy himself of the authen- 
 ticity of the Epistles addressed to those churches, 
 if the writings, which he was there to hear 
 recited, were translations only ? The same satis- 
 faction might have been, with more ease, ob- 
 tained nearer home. But he directs him to 
 t( the Apostolical churches," because there he 
 might hear the very words of the Apostles re- 
 cited, if not from the actual autographs, at least 
 from copies, the correctness of which could be 
 no where so satisfactorily attested as in the bo- 
 som of those churches which, at no very distant 
 period, had received the original Epistles from 
 the Apostles by whom they were written. The 
 lowest supposition, therefore, makes these " au- 
 thentic letters" to be letters couched in the origi- 
 nal language ; as I have said before, copies not 
 translations; from which last the words seem 
 designed indeed emphatically to distinguish 
 
302 
 
 them; and that this original language, in Ter- 
 tullian's opinion, was Greek, is manifestly shewn 
 by his practice, when the original is named, of 
 calling it uniformly " authenticum GRiECUM 
 
 i » 
 
 1 " Hanc (Ratlonem) Greed, authentico Evangelio usi, Xoyov 
 dicunt ; quo vocabulo etiam Sermonem appellamus." Adv. Prax. 
 c. v. — " Sciamus plane non sic esse in Grceco authentico, quo- 
 modo in usum exivit." De Monogam. c. xi. This latter pas- 
 sage must not pass without observation, as Sender {Append, 
 Observatt. in Wetsten. Prolegom. p. 588.) strives to shew, that 
 authenticum here means only a less corrupt Latin copy, and that 
 grcecum is a marginal gloss, erroneously admitted into the text. 
 The author of Palseoromaica also, from an undue reliance on 
 Sender's authority, does Tertullian the injustice of imputing to 
 him that, in pretending to correct the Latin by the Greek, he 
 had recourse to " a mere subterfuge for a controversial pur- 
 pose." If Semler had even established his opinion, that' Tertul- 
 lian had never seen a Greek MS., the testimony of this early 
 Father would become so much the more valuable to us, inas- 
 much as it would then be more manifest, even than it now is, 
 that in applying the title of original to the Greek New Testa- 
 ment, he relied not on his own judgment, but spoke, merely in 
 the character of a witness, the general persuasion of his age. 
 Semler, however, has not sustained his opinion by convincing 
 arguments ; and, when the words of Tertullian are correctly 
 given, it will appear that his appeal to the Greek was very per- 
 tinent and judicious. The passage of Scripture to which he al- 
 ludes, is 1 Cor. vii. 39. " Mulier vincta est in quantum vivit vir 
 ejus ; si autem mortuus fuerit, libera est ; cut vult nubat ; tantum 
 in Domino." On this passage Tertullian, according to the 
 printed copies of his works, thus comments. " Sciamus plane 
 non sic esse in grceco authentico quomodo in usum exivit, per 
 duarum syllabarum aut callidam aut simplicem eversionem, ' Si 
 autem dormierit vir ejus' — quasi de futuro sonet ; ac, per hoc, 
 
 11 
 
303 
 
 On the most cursory inspection, therefore, of 
 the works of the early Christian writers, we find 
 
 videatur ad earn pertinere quse jam in fide virum amiserit. Hoc 
 quidem si ita esset, in infinitum emissa licentia toties virum de- 
 disset quoties amissus esset. Sed, etsi ita esset quasi de futuro, 
 tantundem et ad earn pertineret cujus ante fidem morietur ma- 
 ritus. Quse vis accipe, dum caetera non evertas." Semler 
 professes his inability to understand what is here meant by 
 * duarum syllabarum — eversionem ;' he proposes to read emer- 
 sionem instead, supposing Tertullian to mean that dormierit was 
 a corruption of dormit. In short he perplexes himself and his 
 reader, and expends much labour to no purpose, in consequence 
 of not perceiving that neither dormierit, nor any other part of 
 the verb dormio had any right to appear at all in the passage. 
 The true reading is ' Si autem morietur vir ejus.' Making this 
 alteration we shall find the sense and reasonableness of the 
 comment to be evident enough. " The woman is bound to her 
 husband as long as he liveth ; but if he shall have died (si mor- 
 tuus fuerit) she is free to marry whom she will : only in the 
 Lord." On this, Tertullian proceeds to remark, " we should 
 clearly understand that in the GREEK ORIGINAL it is not, 
 as, by the fraudulent or undesigned erasure of two syllables, it 
 stands in our Latin version * Si autem morietur vir ejus' (if her 
 husband shall die) as though it were to be understood relatively 
 to the future ; and it should thereby seem to extend to the case 
 of a woman who shall lose her husband after her conversion to 
 the faith. Were this indeed so, a perpetually renewable dispen- 
 sation would be granted to such a one to take a fresh husband 
 as often as the former should be removed. But, although it 
 were to be thus understood, as relative to the future, still that 
 future must be equally confined to her whose husband shall die 
 (morietur) before she becomes a Christian. Adopt whichever 
 reading you please (mortuus fuerit, or morietur,) provided only 
 that you do not subvert the true sense of the remaining words" 
 
304 
 
 in them a prevailing persuasion that a Greek 
 text, which by their citations from it is proved 
 to have been, in all material respects, the same 
 with our own, was the original composition of 
 the Apostles. We never find those who used it 
 complaining, as the Latin Fathers did of their 
 versions, and as all men who use a translation 
 
 (dum caetera non evertas, with an evident allusion to the prece- 
 ding eversionem.) The Greek original, tav Koi\irfir\, he describes 
 as accurately translated by the words si mortuus fuerit ; if her 
 husband shall have died ; i. e. before she became a Christian. 
 But, " in consequence of the fraudulent or accidental erasure of 
 the two syllables" tu-us, the remaining letters mor. fuerit were 
 formed, by a slight metathesis, into morietur ; and thus, in the 
 Latin translation then in use, the reading of the passage came 
 to be ' si autem morietur vir ejus.' This, as the zealous mono- 
 gamist remarked, being interpreted ' if her husband shall die' 
 might be construed as giving permission to Christian females 
 (jam in fide) to marry another husband as often as the preceding 
 should be removed by death; whereas, in his opinion, the 
 passage, according to the original and correct translation, ex- 
 tended this privilege to those alone whose husbands shall have 
 died (ante fidem) while the wives themselves were in a state of 
 heathenism. This was all very plain ; but some careless copyist 
 of the works of Tertullian, instead of morietur vir ejus, wrote 
 dormierit vir ejus, (the component letters of the two words 
 being very much alike) and thus occasioned that obscurity, in 
 the passage, which so many useless efforts have been made to 
 remove. I will conclude this long note by observing, that the best 
 commentary on the words " authenticum Gr cecum" is furnished 
 by Tertullian himself in the following passage " Graeco sermoni, 
 quo liter as fecit Apostolus, usui est et Mulieres vocare et F&mi- 
 nas ; id est tarn yvvaimg quam fyXziag" De OraU 
 
305 
 
 knowing or suspecting it to be so, must occa- 
 sionally do, that the sense of the original is not 
 given with perfect accuracy or with sufficient 
 force: but they, with a general concurrence, 
 take it for granted, that the Greek is the original 
 text. Such a persuasion must have been founded 
 on ecclesiastical tradition ; and therefore, having 
 traced the existence of it among the Fathers of 
 a very early period, we are entitled, I must 
 insist, to ascend by means of it to the opinions 
 of a still earlier age. It may be laid down as 
 an axiom that, where a persuasion respecting 
 any FACT can be shewn to have prevailed uni- 
 versally, and without the smallest contrariety or 
 opposition, among the writers of a particular 
 sect or community at a given period, the same 
 persuasion was also held by the writers belonging 
 to the same class in the age immediately prece- 
 ding. Because it is impossible that any age 
 should at once repudiate the opinions of its pre- 
 decessors, and adopt those of a directly opposite 
 complexion, without giving rise to controversy, 
 without some notice being preserved of the 
 causes which led to such a change of sentiment, 
 and of the manner in which it was effected. 
 Such a change cannot but be gradual ; and we 
 have, I think, a perfect right to conclude that 
 the writers of the second century would never 
 have taken for granted, as we have seen they do, 
 an opinion of this nature unless it had descended 
 
306 
 
 to them, by inheritance as it may be termed, 
 from the writers of the first ; from those who 
 knew and conversed with the Apostolical Fa- 
 thers, and even with some of the Apostles and 
 original disciples of our Lord. The notices from 
 which their opinion is collected are, it is admitted, 
 few, and derived from a restricted number of 
 writers ; but this only proves that the point was 
 never contested. A negative argument is, in a 
 case of this sort, the strongest of all arguments. 
 Opinions undisturbed and unquestioned make the 
 least considerable figure in history, but disputes 
 are sure to be recorded. This conclusion, the 
 author of Palseoromaica opposes only by repre- 
 senting the whole of this early period of Chris- 
 tianity as involved in such obscurity, and so beset 
 with contradictions, that all attempts to deduce 
 any regular and well-authenticated history from 
 the memorials which we possess, must be aban- 
 doned in despair. His creed appears to be that 
 because some things are dubious there is nothing 
 certain. But, though little is recorded with 
 respect to the proceedings of the Christian 
 Church at large during the eighty years which 
 followed the destruction of Jerusalem, that little 
 is sufficient to shew how the members of it were 
 employed. We have the most distinct evidence, 
 as well as the admission of our opponent, to 
 assure us, that during this interval the Canon of 
 the New Testament was settled; and settled 
 
307 
 
 upon principles so just, that succeeding ages 
 have been able neither to contradict nor to 
 improve them. This plainly shews at how early 
 a period the means of general consultation were 
 possessed by the Church, and how they were 
 employed. Where such a spirit of enquiry and 
 comparison prevailed, as this classification of 
 writings implies, the question, in what language 
 were those writings originally drawn up, could 
 not have been so totally neglected, as we have 
 assurance that it was, unless there had been a 
 sense as universally prevailing that it could be 
 decided in only one way. To convince us then 
 of the opinion entertained, upon this subject, by 
 the Church at large, from the beginning, we have 
 all the evidence which the case admits, or can re- 
 quire ; and, having shewn what that opinion was, 
 I must leave it to be determined, by those who 
 have revolved the history of that period, and the 
 ordinary modes in which knowledge is commu- 
 nicated and preserved, whether it be possible 
 that such a persuasion should have been thus 
 general at so early a date, unless it had been also 
 true. 
 
 But although few points seem to be more con- 
 clusively established, than that the New Testa- 
 ment was written in Greek, this, singular as it 
 must appear, is not deemed by the author of 
 Palaeoromaica a sufficient reply to the question 
 which he has raised. " That Greek was the 
 
308 
 
 original language of the New Testament," he 
 says, " as I would again and again repeat, I 
 neither affirm nor deny." The sole conclusion 
 to which he clings is, that if the original were 
 Greek, still it was not our Greek. " Our pre- 
 sent Greek Vulgate seems to be a version from 
 the Latin ; and there is scarcely a page from 
 which more than one apparent proof might not 
 be brought to justify this hypothesis," (p. 356.) 
 The nature of these apparent proofs, and the credit 
 due to them, may be pretty well estimated from 
 the specimens which have been given in the 
 preceding pages ; and I have no hesitation in 
 declaring my conviction, that all the other ex- 
 amples in the several classes, together with the 
 objections founded upon them, might be easily 
 shewn to be as futile as those which have been 
 subjected to examination. Against these must 
 be also set the internal proofs of originality, 
 which the best critics have discovered in the 
 Greek text ; together with the consideration, 
 that the hypothesis of a Greek or Latin text, 
 or of both, having existed antecedently to the 
 present, involves the supposition that these 
 texts have disappeared without the slightest 
 record being preserved, either by history or tra- 
 dition, of any such compositions having ever had 
 a being. An assumption, it may be boldly said, 
 revolting to common sense ; a case, if not im- 
 possible, at least incredible, as being without a 
 
309 
 
 parallel in the history of the world. Upon this 
 issue we may be well contented that the deci- 
 sion of the controversy should rest ; and the re- 
 sult of the enquiry, it seems to me, will be to 
 confirm the sensible remark of Dr. Lardner, that 
 " As the Christian Religion is built upon FACTS, 
 the study of Ecclesiastical History will be always 
 needful, and may be of use to defeat various at- 
 tempts of ingenious, but mistaken and preju- 
 diced men m ." 
 
 m History of the Apostles, &c. Vol. I. c. ii. $2. ; or Wat- 
 son's Theological Tracts, Vol. II. p. 11. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON: 
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WORKS IN DIVINITY, 
 
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