were really or pretendedly composed in Palestine, the more ancient Gospels of the Nazarenes and Hebrews, the later Gospels of Barnabas, Bartholomew, and de Nativitate Mariae, the Epistle of Christ to Abgar, the Epistle of Mary to the females of Messina, the Acts of the Apostles of Abdias, etc. all of which actually existed in the Aramaean or Hebrew language, or at least, according to the accounts of those who put them in circulation, were translated from such originals. Besides, the Palestine Jews had in the fourth century translations of several of the books of the New Testament, e. g. the Gospel of John and the Acts of the Apostles,* in their own national language; and this unquestionably, because they did not understand them in the Greek. All this shews sufficiently, I think, that the Palestine Jews, in the first centuries after Christ, still clung to the national language, which they had so long retained.

7. If now, finally, we reflect on the unexampled firmness with which the Palestine Jews, after their return from the Babylonish exile, remained faithful to their ancient manners and customs, by which they exposed themselves to the contempt of foreign nations as a rude and singular people; on the extraordinary constancy with which Palestine Jews at a remote distance from their native country, after the lapse of centuries from the time of their removal, have retained their language even to our days; on the total difference between the Greek and Roman languages and the Aramaean; on the difficulties which must have been connected with the learning of an occidental language by the inhabitants of Palestine, in which every word was strange to them; and on the long continued prevalence of the Aramaean language in Palestine and the adjacent countries, where it has been supplanted only in a very late age by the kindred Arabic dialect, and where in some regions of country it has

Epiphanii Opp. ed. Petav. T. II. p. 127.

†The Jews who reside in the Mogul empire, and have ostensibly adopted heathenism, are said still to speak the Hebrew fluently; see Eichhorn's Bibliothek, II. 581. I conjecture, however, that the person who communicated this intelligence, mistook, through ignorance of the language, the Babylonish-Aramaean dialect which these Jews may have spoken, for pure Hebrew. [For a full account of the Jews in Hindostan and on the coast of Malabar, see Buchanan's Christian Researches in India. ED.]

maintained itself even to our day* as a living language ;—if, I say, we reflect on all these points, we can have no scruple to assign to the position, that the Palestine Jews in the age of Christ and his apostles maintained their national language, (even if it could be proved by no express historical testimony,) a degree of probability, amounting almost to historical certainty.

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The direct or immediate proofs of this position, cannot be very numerous. To these we may reckon the express declarations of those ancient writers, who were sufficiently acquainted with the situation of Palestine in the first hundred and fifty years of the Roman dominion, and single facts which necessarily presuppose a general diffusion of the Aramaean language among the Palestine Jews of that age. In the writings of the Greeks and Romans we can look for no trace of a familiar acquaintance with the history and language of Palestine; since they did not regard the language and national writings even of the cultivated nations of antiquity, the Carthaginians, Phenicians, etc. as worthy of their attention; and Strabo, from whom we have already quoted the passages that belong here (p. 318 above), is perhaps the only one, who gives the general information respecting the Syrians, (under whom also the inhabitants of Palestine were reckoned,) that they and their neighbours spoke a kindred language; but in regard to their differences of dialect, he explains himself no further. The few native writers might indeed have left us more definite accounts respecting the history of their language; but they occupied themselves with historical or religious subjects, which afforded them no occasion to express themselves minutely on this point; and it would have been, in fact, no wonder, had they not touched upon it with a single syllable. Still, there are in their writings, as it were casually, several hints thrown out unintentionally, which are valuable for their antiquity, and place the continuance of the Aramaean language in Palestine in the age of Christ and the apostles beyond all doubt. We will produce them here according to the chronological order of the writings in which they are contained.

I. In the writings of the New Testament to which the first place in the order of time must be assigned, there are a few

J. D. Michaelis, Abhandlung von d. Syrischen Sprache, Gött. 1786. p. 9.

passages to our purpose, which are so clear as to leave no doubt remaining.

1. In Acts 1: 19 a peculiar Jerusalem dialect is spoken of, totally distinct from the Greek and Roman languages, which also, as the language of the capital, must have been current in the adjacent region. No definite name is assigned to it here; but the word ἀκελδαμά which is attributed to it, and which belongs to the Babylonish-Aramaean language (N2 bpn), shows clearly enough, that no other dialect can here be meant.

2. Paul addressed the common people at Jerusalem, whom the Jews of Asia Minor had excited against him, in the new Hebrew dialect (τῇ Εβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ, Acts 21: 40. 22: 2) or the Aramaean dialect then current in Palestine, the identity of which will appear from the next section. The attentive silence with which the people listened to Paul, whose attachment to Judaism had been suspected, and the immediate favourable impression which Paul's acquaintance with the Aramaean language made upon them, sufficiently prove that this was the prevailing language of the people at Jerusalem, and that they regarded no man as an orthodox Jew, who was not capable of expressing himself readily in this language.

II. Flavius Josephus, a Jew of Palestine, who was an eyewitness of the wars carried on by the Romans in that country, and of the destruction of the national metropolis and sanctuary, and whose testimony therefore has greater authority than the later talmudic writings, harmonizes completely with the declarations of the New Testament.

*

1. According to his express assurance, there was in his times

* Antiq. Jud. XX. 11. 2. Λέγω δὲ θαρσήσας—ὅτι μηδεὶς ἂν ἕτερος ηδυνήθη θελήσας, μήτε Ιουδαῖος, μήτε αλλόφυλος, τὴν πραγματείαν ταύτην οὕτως ἀκριβῶς εἰς Ελληνας ἐξενεγκεῖν· ἐγὼ γὰρ ὡμολογούμην παρὰ τῶν ὁμοεθνῶν πλεῖστον αὐτῶν κατὰ τὴν ἐπιχώριον παιδείαν διαφέρειν· καὶ τῶν ̔Ελληνικῶν δὲ γραμ μάτων ἐσπούδασα μετασχεῖν, τὴν γραμματικὴν ἐμπειρίαν αναλα βῶν, τὴν δὲ περὶ τὴν προφορὰν ἀκρίβειαν πάτριος ἐκώλυσε συνήθεια: παρ' ἡμῖν γὰρ οὐκ ἐκείνους ἀποδέχονται τοὺς πολλῶν ἐθνῶν διάλεκτον ἐκμαθόντας, καὶ γλαφυρότητι λέξεων τὸν λόγον ἐπικομψεύοντας. διὰ τὸ κοινὸν εἶναι νομίζειν τὸ ἐπιτήδευ μα τοῦτο οὐκ ἐλευθέρων μόνον τοῖς τυχοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν οἰ κετῶν τοῖς θέλουσιν· μόνοις δὲ σοφίαν μαρτυροῦσι τοῖς τὰ νόμι μα σαφῶς ἐπισταμένοις, καὶ τὴν τῶν ἱερῶν γραμμάτων δύναμιν ἑρμηνεῦσαι δυναμένοις.

no other Jew capable of undertaking in Greek such a work as his Jewish Antiquities. As the ground of this, he assigns chiefly ignorance of the Greek language. He himself indeed had studied this foreign language grammatically, and made himself acquainted with the Greek literature, a fact which he cites as something unusual; but, in accordance with the prevailing custom of his country, he had not troubled himself to acquire the power of speaking Greek with fluency.* "For with us," he continues, "we do not esteem those at all who have learned foreign languages, because this is considered as an employment common to the lower class of freemen and to slaves. They alone are regarded as wise, who are accurately acquainted with the precepts of the law, and know how to explain the holy Scriptures," i. e. according to the original Hebrew text, with the help of the oral traditions and the Targums extant in the language of the country, as the whole connexion shews; and not according to the Alexandrine version, of which a despiser of foreign languages could make no use.

2. This same writer composed a History of the Jewish War, in his native language,† for the use of his countrymen in Babylon, Persia, Arabia, and beyond the Euphrates, (who consequently had laid aside the Aramaean language as little as the Palestine Jews,) and designed the Greek translation of this History, which he made at Rome with the aid of several Greeks,‡ as well as his Antiquities (Praef. 2), not for the Jews, but solely for the Greeks and numerous Romans who were acquainted with the Greek tongue.

3. He expressly calls the Greek a foreign language, and

* The word used by Josephus is axoißstav, accuracy; which changes the character of the passage, and destroys in a great measure the force of the argument here drawn from it. ED.

+ Bell. Jud. prooem. 1. Προθέμην ἐγὼ τοῖς κατὰ τὴν ̔Ρω μαίων ἡγεμονίαν, ̔Ελλάδι γλώσση μεταβαλων, ἃ τοῖς ἄνω βαρβάροις (comp. § 2) τῇ πατρίῳ συντάξας ἀνέπεμψα πρότερον, αφηγήσασθαι. I purpose to narrate in the Greek language, to those under the Roman dominion, the things which I formerly composed for the barbarians of the interior, in my native tongue.'

j Contra Apion. I. 9. Χρησάμενος τισὶ πρὸς τὴν ̔Ελληνίδα pavηv ovvεgrois, 'employing certain assistants for the Greek language.'

§ Antiq. Jud. prooem. 2. Οκνος μοι καὶ μέλλησις ἐγίνετο τηλι No. II.

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speaks of the Babylonish-Aramaean* in such terms as he could use only of a living language.

4. The Jewish deserters, who during the siege of Jerusalem went over to the Romans, understood neither Greek nor Latin, and could not therefore make themselves intelligible to the Romans. Josephus, who was then with the Roman besieging army, was the only person who could understand them.†

5. The armed national troops who defended Jerusalem against Titus, were mostly, if not wholly, composed of Jews who spoke only Aramaean. The watchmen on the towers, who observed the movements of the enemy, raised a loud cry in the national language‡ when they saw the catapultae put in motion, and the huge masses of rock fly along, which were thus hurled against the walls. The emperor Titus, in the interview which he

καύτην μετενεγκεῖν ὑπόθεσιν εἰς ἀλλοδαπὴν ἡμῖν καὶ ξένης δια λέκτου συνήθειαν. * Indolence and tardiness came upon me in translating such a mass of materials into another and foreign language.' He is here speaking of his History.

* Ant. III. 7. 2. Μωϋσῆς μὲν οὖν ἀβανὴθ (529) αὐτὴν ἐκάλεσεν. ἡμεῖς δὲ, παρὰ Βαβυλωνίων μεμαθηκότες, ἐμίαν (177) αὐτὴν καλοῦμεν· οὕτως γὰρ προσαγορεύεται παρ' αὐτοῖς. Μο ses called it Abaneth; but we, instructed by the Babylonians, call it Emian; for so it is named by them.' This is the word which the Targums have for N Ex. 28: 8 and elsewhere. This passage clearly shews, that in 'the time of Josephus the ancient Hebrew was a dead language, and that instead of it the Babylonish-Aramaean, commonly called the Chaldee, was prevalent.

† Contra Apion. I. 9. Τὰ παρὰ τῶν αὐτομόλων ἀπαγγελλόμενα μóvos avròs ovviny. [But this passage, if it proves any thing, proves too much. For speaking of the army of Titus (Bell. Jud. V. 1. 6.) Josephus says there were six Roman legions, besides other troops, καὶ συχνοὶ τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς Συρίας ἐπίκουροι συνῆλθον, 'and many also of the Syrian auxiliaries accompanied him.' Comp. p. 334 note above. The passage cited in the text then, would just as much prove that the Jewish deserters could not speak the Aramaean language, as that they could not speak Greek. Josephus therefore is probably speaking only in reference to the Roman troops, or common soldiers, who were unacquainted with the Greek language.-ED.]

† Bell. Jud. V. 6. 3. Σκοποὶ ἐπὶ τῶν πύργων καθεζόμενοι προεμήνυον, οπόταν σχασθείη τὸ ὄργανον, καὶ ἡ πέτρα φέροιτο, τῇ πατρίῳ γλώσσῃ βοῶντες· ὁ ἱὸς ἔρχεται.