A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. II.

GRAMMATICAL FORM OF THE DIALECT OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT.

1. It will not be expected of us to enter in this place upon the wide subject of the origin, genius, and peculiarities, whether in respect to grammar or orthography, of that dialect of the Greek in which the N. T. was written, except so far as it bears directly upon the criticism of the sacred volume. Questions, however, are perpetually arising, when we come to examine the oldest manuscripts of Scripture, which cannot be resolved unless we bear in mind the leading particulars wherein the diction of the Evangelists and Apostles differs not only from that of pure classical models, but also of their own contemporaries who composed in the Greek language, or used it as their ordinary tongue.

2. The Greek style of the N. T., then, is the result of blending two independent elements, the debased vernacular speech of the age, and that strange modification of the Alexandrian dialect which first appeared in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, and which, from their habitual use of that version, had become familiar to the Jews in all nations under heaven; and was the more readily adopted by those whose native language was Aramaean, from its profuse employment of Hebrew idioms and forms of expression. It is to this latter, the Greek of the Septuagint, of the Apocalypse, and of the foreign Jews, that the name of Hellenistic (Acts vi. 1) strictly applies. St. Paul, who was born in a pure Greek city (Juvenal, iii. 114-118); perhaps even St. Luke, whose original writings(322) savour strongly of Demosthenes and Polybius, cannot be said to have affected the Hellenic, which they must have heard and spoken from their cradles. Without denying that the Septuagint translation and (by reason of their long sojourning in Palestine) even Syriac phraseology would powerfully influence the style of these inspired penmen, it is not chiefly from these sources that their writings must be illustrated, but rather from the kind of Greek current during their lifetime in Hellenic cities and colonies.

3. Hence may be seen the exceeding practical difficulty of fixing the orthography, or even the grammatical forms, prevailing in the Greek Testament, a difficulty arising not only from the fluctuation of manuscript authorities, but even more from the varying circumstances of the respective authors. To St. John, for example, Greek must have been an alien tongue; the very construction of his sentences and the subtil current of his thoughts amidst all his simplicity of mere diction, render it evident (even could we forget the style of his Apocalypse) that he thought in Aramaean: divergences from the common Greek type might be looked for in him and in those Apostles whose situation resembled his, which it is very unlikely would be adopted by Paul of Tarsus. Bearing these facts always in mind (for the style of the New Testament is too apt to be treated as an uniform whole), we will proceed to discuss briefly, yet as distinctly as may be, a few out of the many perplexities of this description to which the study of the original codices at once introduces us(323).