was required to forfeit somewhat of its elegance and refinement in its collision with so many barbarous tongues, but it lost none of its essential characteristics when it was adopted by the Egyptian, the Syrian, and the Jew. The Jews were scattered widely in the earth, engaged in commercial pursuits that required them, above all others, to master the common speech of the nations. Hence those of Europe, Asia Minor, and Africa, easily adopted the Greek as their vernacular, and it gradually became more and more the language of Syria and Palestine. This was furthered by the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek at Alexandria, the centre of the Greek culture of the times. This translation shows upon its face the difficulties of rendering for the first time foreign conceptions into a strange tongue,' but nevertheless it became of incalculable importance in preparing the way for the New Testament writers. The original productions of the Jews of Alexandria and Palestine, some of which are preserved in the apocryphal books of the Old Testament and the Pseudepigrapha combined to produce the same result.2 Gradually the Jewish mind was modified by the Greek thought and culture, and the Greek language was, on the other hand, adapted to the expression of Hebrew and Aramaic conceptions. The apostles of our Lord, if they were to carry on a work and exert an influence, world-wide and enduring, were required, from the very circumstances of the times, to use the Greek; for the Aramaic would have had but a narrow and ever-diminishing influence, even if their labours had been confined to the synagogues of the dispersed Jews in Palestine and Syria. Hence we are not surprised that, without an exception, so far as we know, our New Testament writers composed their works in Greek, yes, even gave us the Aramaic discourses of our Saviour in the Greek tongue. Nor was this without its providential purpose; for though our Saviour delivered His discourses in Aramaic, yet they were not taken down by the apostles as they

1 Reuss, Hellenistisches Idiom, in Herzog, Real Encyklopädie, I. Aufl. p. 709, II. Aufl. p. 745; Hatch, Essays in Biblical Greek, Oxford, 1889, pp. seq.

2 See Briggs, Messiah of the Gospels, pp. 4 seq.; and Messiah of the Apostles, pp. 13 seq.

heard them in that tongue, but were subsequently recalled to their minds by the Holy Spirit, who, in accordance with the promise of our Lord, brought all things to their remembrance.1

These then transmitted them to their disciples either in Aramaic, Hebrew, or Greek, as they found it most convenient in their teaching and preaching in different lands and among many different nations. The original Logia of St. Matthew and the sources of the Gospel of the Infancy, and possibly the original Gospel of St. John, were written in Hebrew. But in whatever way the disciples of the apostles received the teaching of Jesus, they gave it to the world in Greek, and it remains for the world in the Greek language alone. It is evident therefore that we have the teaching of Jesus as it passed from the Aramaic, in part, at least, through the Hebraic conceptions of those who gave the primary oral and written sources, and the whole of it through the Hellenistic conceptions of the writers of our present Gospels. The words of Jesus have been coloured and paraphrased by the minds and characters of those who were guided by the Divine Spirit to report them.

This process of change may easily be traced in the use of the original Logia by the Gospels; e.g. there can be little doubt that this is an original logion of Jesus:

Whoso findeth his life shall lose it;
But whoso loseth his life shall find it.

This is a simple antithetic couplet of the tetrameter movement, complete and perfect in itself. This was cited Mk. 835 as follows:

Whosoever would save his life shall lose it;

And whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's shall save it. It is evident that Mark interprets in the use of "would save and "shall save" for "find" in the two clauses; and that it inserts "for my sake and the gospel's" in order to show that this loss of life must have a Christian motive. Furthermore, this addition destroys the measure of the line and transforms the couplet from poetry to prose.

Matthew 1625 cites from Mark, the primary gospel, as usual; but it omits "and the gospel's" and restores the original "shall find it" in the second clause instead of Mark's "shall save it."

2

Luke 924 also cites from Mark, leaving out "and the gospel's," but inserting the demonstrative "the same shall save it."

But Matthew and Luke in other passages cite the logion directly from the Logia, and not mediately through Mark. Thus Mt. 1039 cites it exactly from the Logia, and makes no change except by inserting "for my sake" in the second clause. Luke 17, however, paraphrases here so that the most of the language is new: Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it;

But whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

It is noteworthy, however, that no additions are made to it. But the greatest change is found in the Gospel of John 125:

He that loveth his life shall lose it;

And he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

The first line is simply a paraphrase, but the second line makes a long insertion as well as a paraphrase, so that nothing of the original is left but the substance of the thought. Furthermore, the antitheses of love and hate, and of this world and the life eternal, are characteristic of the author of John's gospel, and show clearly how his mind has coloured and reconstructed the logion of Jesus.

It was evidently the design of God that the Saviour's words, as well as acts and His glorious person, should be presented to the world through those four typical evangelists, who appropriately represent the four chief phases of human character and experience, and that they should be stereotyped in the Greek language.1

The New Testament writers used the common Greek of their time, yet as men who had been trained in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the Rabbinical methods of exposition, but above all as holy men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Hence, as the Greek language had now to perform a work for which it had providentially been preparing, and yet one which it had never yet attempted, namely, to convey the divine revelation to mankind, so it must be remoulded and shaped by the mind of the Spirit to express ideas that were new both to the Greek and the Jew, but which had been developing in the languages and literatures of both nations, for each in its way pre1 Winer, New Test. Gram., Thayer's edit., Andover, 1872, p. 27; Bleek, Einleit. in d. N. T., II. Aufl., Berlin, 1866, p. 76; Edin., 1869, pp. 72 seq.

pared for the Gospel of Christ. Hence we are not surprised that the biblical Greek should be distinguished not only from the classic models, but also from the literary Greek of the time. When compared with the Greek of the Septuagint and the Apocrypha, it approximates more to the literary Greek, being "not the slavish idiom of a translation, but a free, languagecreating idiom, without, however, denying its cradle."2 It is true that much of its elegance and artistic finish has been lost, and the nicely rounded sentences and elaborate periods, with their delicately shaded conceptions, have disappeared, yet its distinguishing characteristics, especially its strength and beauty, its perspicuity, and its logical and rhetorical power, have been preserved; while to these have been added the simplicity and richness, the ardour and glow of the Shemitic style; but over and above all these, the language has been employed by the Spirit of God, and transformed and transfigured, yes, glorified, with a light and sacredness that the classic literature never possessed.

It is true that the writings of the New Testament are not all on the same level of style and language. The gospels of Matthew and Mark, and the Epistle of James, together with the Apocalypse, have stronger Hebraic or Aramaic colouring,5 which disturbs the Greek lines of beauty, the Greek form being overpowered by the life and glow of the Shemitic emotion. In the writings of Luke and John, and especially of Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews, the strength and excellence of the Greek unite with the peculiarities of the Aramaic and the Hebrew in striving, under the potent influence of the Holy Spirit, to convey the new religion in the most adequate and appropriate language and style.

1 Schaff, Apostolic Church, p. 146; also Schaff, History of the Christian Church, I. pp. 76 seq.

2 Reuss, Hellenistisches Idiom, in Herzog, I. Aufl., V. p. 710; II. Aufl., V. p. 747; Winer, New Test. Gram., p. 39.

3 Hatch, Essays in Biblical Greek, Oxford, 1889; Kennedy, Sources of New Testament Greek, Edin., 1895; Vincent, Student's New Testament Handbook, 1893, pp. 4-10.

Immer, Hermeneutik des Neuen Testaments, Wittemberg, 1873, pp. 106 seq., Amer. ed., Andover, 1877, p. 132; Reuss, in l.c., p. 747.

5 This is due in large measure to their Hebraic and Aramaic sources.

Here the humanizing and idealistic tendencies of the Greek combine with the theological and realistic tendencies of the Hebrew and the Aramaic; for to these New Testament writers the person of Christ assumes the central and determining position and influence, as Yahweh the one God did to the Old Testament writers. Christ is Lord in the New Testament as Yahweh is Lord in the Old Testament. Christ became the emperor of the Scriptures, to use Luther's expression, and His person irradiated its language and literature with His own light and glory. Thus when the mind now no longer strove to conceive the simple idea of the one God Yahweh, but the complex idea of the person of Christ as Messiah and Lord, and eventually as God, the Hebrew and Aramaic languages were entirely inadequate; and the Greek, as the most capable, must be strained and tried to the utmost to convey the idea of the logos, who was in the beginning, was with God, and was God, and yet became the incarnate Word, the God-man, the interpreter in complete humanity of the fulness of the Deity.1 Notwithstanding the historical preparation for this conception in the theophanies of the Hebrews, the nous of Plato, the logos of Philo, and the wisdom of Solomon and Sirach, it was yet a new conception, which the world could not appropriate without the transforming and enlightening influence of the Spirit of God. So in anthropology the apostle Paul combines the Hebrew and Greek conceptions in order to produce a new and perfect conception. Taking the psychology of the Greek as a system, he gave the central place to the Hebrew ruach or spirit, finding, to use the words of Zezschwitz, its "undisturbed centralization in living union with the Spirit of God." 3 He uses the psychological conceptions of the Old Testament, but transforms them for the higher purpose of setting forth the strife of the flesh with the spirit, and the false position of the psychical nature over against the spirit. So also for the first he gives to the world the true conception of the conscience as "the remnant of the spirit in

1 John 11-14; see Briggs, Messiah of the Apostles, pp. 495 seq.

2 Dorner, Entwicklungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi, Stuttgart, 1845, I. p. 64; Edin., T. & T. Clark, 1861, pp. 44, 45; Schaff, in Lange, Com. on John, N. Y., p. 55.

8 Zezschwitz, Profangräcität, etc., pp. 36 seq