The Philogy of the Greek Bible, Its Present and Future, (1908) Deissmann, Adolf, 1866-1937

THE PHILOLOGY OF THE GREEK BIBLE

THE PHILOLOGY OF THE GREEK BIBLE ITS

PRESENT AND FUTURE By

ADOLF DEISSMANN D.Theol. (Marburg), D.D. (Aberdeen); Professor of

New

Testament

Exegesis in the University of Heidelberg; Professor Designate in the University of Berlin

TRANSLATED LIONEL

R.

LECTURER

IN

FROM THE AUTHOR'S MS. BY M.

STRACHAN,

M.A.,

ENGLISH

THE UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERO

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON MCMVIII

Butler and 1 anner,

T/te Scltuotd

Printing Wotk*,

l'roinf. t

ami London

TO

MY FRIEND DR.

J.

RENDEL HARRIS

255332

PREFACE WHEN Dr. a

Rendel Harris invited

series of lectures to the

mer School

me

to give

Cambridge Sum-

of the Free Churches (July

and

August, 1907) on the present state of the

study of the Greek Bible, I hesitated to accept the invitation because I

am

only

able to speak English very imperfectly.

But

considerations

three material

umphed over In the

tri-

the one formal objection.

first place,

the Greek Bible and

my

subject,

namely

its scientific,

particu-

larly its linguistic study, Vll

is

regarded with

PREFACE

viii

singularly

great interest by wide circles

in the countries it

Secondly,

where English in

is

British scholars who,

is

spoken.

no small measure

by the discovery and

publication of important linguistic material,

have made the most valuable contributions to Biblical philology.

Thirdly,

it is

to the industry

of British scholars that of great

works

of

and energy

we owe a number

fundamental importance

to the study of the Greek Bible.

were reasons enough for invitation to

honour but

me

These

to regard the

Cambridge not only as a great

also as a

welcome opportunity

to discharge a debt of gratitude to British Biblical scholarship.

There was added, moreover, the pleasant prospect of a few days spent in

company

PREFACE with

many prominent

ix

Christians

of

a

friendly country in the discussion of various

great problems of both scientific and pracI felt that I should

tical interest.

be able

to learn a great deal from the exchange

and

of ideas,

to

my weak

I should be helping, according ability, to forge

link in the chain of city

and

another small

Anglo-German

recipro-

friendship.

These considerations were stronger than

my

first hesitation.

and the

I accepted, therefore,

lectures were duly delivered at

Cambridge.

I look

back with great pleasure

to the time I spent there and the innumerable impressions, interesting

that I received. ing

my

This

and instructive,

little

book, contain-

lectures, goes forth

with a hearty

greeting to

all

my

friends

on the other

side

PREFACE

x of the Channel

the

my

old friends and also

new ones whose acquaintance

I

made

at Cambridge.

The

lectures were first published in

Expositor

(October, 1907-January, 1908),

and the present edition ables

me

The

to

make a few

in

book form en-

additions that re-

cent publications have rendered necessary.

ADOLF DEISSMANN. HEIDELBERG, 1908.

CONTENTS PAGE I

THE GREEK BIBLE THE NEW

AS A COMPACT

UNITY

LINGUISTIC RECORDS

.

.

3

II

THE PROBLEM OF

"

BIBLICAL

III

SEPTUAGINT PHILOLOGY

"

GREEK

.

.

....

39

69

IV

NEW

TESTAMENT PHILOLOGY

XI

.

10)

THE GEEEK BIBLE AS A COMPACT UNITY THE NEW LINGUISTIC RECORDS

P:O.B.

THE GREEK BIBLE AS A COMPACT UNITY THE NEW LINGUISTIC RECORDS "

THE Greek

Bible

!

"There,

in the bril-

liant sunshine of the south, stretched

before the student's eye, istic

world as

it

lies

out

the Hellen-

was at the great turning-

point of religious history.

Alexander, the

conqueror and moulder of the world, had

marched

with

his

Greek

race,

towards

with him the

rising sun, bearing

the

armies

the

spirit of

and round about the

Mediterranean basin the seeds of a world-

wide Greek civilization had been planted in the ancient soil.

In the State and in

GREEK BIBLE

TSffi

in

society,

and

science

ization

art,

in

language

Mediterranean world was

religion, the

in process of

and

more or

less

and consequent

vigorous Hellen-

levelling

towards

uniformity.

About

this time, say at the

second or beginning of the

end

first

of the

century

happened that two Jewish

B.C., it

girls,

named Heraclea and Marthina, were murdered in the island of Delos.

Their inno-

cent blood cried aloud for vengeance, but

murderers

the

Great

Day

relatives

of

their

of

made

were

unknown.

On

the

Atonement, therefore, the their petition to the

fathers.

God

With fervent prayers

they consigned the cruel murderers to the

vengeance of God and His angels, and their

imprecations were immortalized on

AS A COMPACT UNITY

5

marble tablets above the graves where the

murdered

girls

lay buried in the island of

Kheneia, which was the cemetery of Delos.

The

original text of these Jewish prayers

for vengeance,

found at Rheneia

1

and now

preserved at Athens and Bucharest shows

us the Jews of Delos, about the year 100 B.C., in

possession of the Greek Old Testa-

ment.

This single picture

is

The

typical.

Old Testament, as you know, had been translated

from Hebrew into Greek at

different times

and by

different persons in

Egypt, beginning in the third century

and the complete version Septuagint. 1

Cf.

my

We "

essay,

in Philologus, Ixi. 65 ; reprinted in

ingen, 1908.

see

is

known

then that

B.C.,

as the

by 100

Die Rachegebete von Rheneia," Series, xv. (1902), pp. 252-

New

my

book Licht vom

Osten,

Tub-

THE GREEK BIBLE

6

B.C.

the

found

its

Bible

Septuagint

way from

to the remoter

its

Jews

had already

home on

the Nile

of the Dispersion

a book from the Hellenistic world for the Hellenistic world. It

true that in spirit

is

it

was an Eastern

book, but as regards form and subject

matter

it

was adapted to the needs

of the

was a book both

of the

Western world

;

it

East and the West. 1

It

was not a book

according to the professional ideas of the artistic literature of that age, for it

was not

clad in the garb of the literary language.

But

it

was a book for the People

whole, though in

seem strange to

many

;

for

on the

passages that would

the Greeks

it

did not

1 sketch Die Hellenisierung little Cf. semitischen Monotfieismus, Leipzig, 1903.

my

des

AS A COMPACT UNITY

7

conceal the peculiarity of the original text it

spoke the colloquial language of the

middle and lower ally clearly

Here and

class, as is

by its vocabulary and

there, less in

some

books and more in others, ligible to

shown especi-

the

men

it

accidence.

of the single

was unintel-

of the Hellenistic world

but taken as a whole

it

must not be

missed with the hasty criticism that

an unintelligible book.

Such

it

;

dis-

was

criticism

is

the result of looking at the artistic Attic prose

instead

of

popular language.

at

the

Taken

contemporary as a whole the

Septuagint became emphatically a popular

book If

we may even say a

the historical importance of things

to be estimated

how

universal book.

by

is

their historical effects,

paltry must, for example, the History

THE GREEK BIBLE

8

of Polybius appear beside the Septuagint

Bible ture

Of

!

Homer

all

pre-Christian Greek litera-

alone

comparable with

is

this

Bible in historical influence, and Homer, in spite of his

never a Bible.

enormous popularity, was

Take the Septuagint

in

your hand, and you have before you the

book that was the Bible

of the

Jews

of the

Dispersion and of the proselytes from the

heathen

the Bible of

;

Philo the

philo-

and the

earliest

sopher, Paul the Apostle,

missions

Christian

the

;

Bible

whole Greek-speaking Christian world

mother of

is

really the

ment

?

that true

?

New

seems

a

the

Is

bold

;

Testament.

the Septuagint

mother of the Greek

It

;

daughter- versions

influential

the mother of the Greek

But

the

of

New

Testa-

statement

to

AS A COMPACT UNITY make, but I

it is

mean by

not

difficult to

9

show what

it.

The Septuagint was not necessary

for

The Semitic,

the coming of the Lord Jesus.

not the Greek, Old Testament was a constituent factor in His Gospel.

The historical

Jesus of Nazareth takes His stand firmly

on the non-Greek Old Testament. Paul, the preacher Gospel,

is

and propagator

But of the

not comprehensible without the

Septuagint.

He

not

is

only

the

great

Christ-Christian but also the great Septua-

And the whole of Primitive

gint-Christian. Christianity,

so

Christianity,

rests

Gospels as one

far

Epistles

and

all

it

is

missionary

on the Lord and the

pillar,

Bible as the other.

as

and on the Septuagint Through the Pauline

the other earliest Christian

THE GREEK BIBLE

10

writings the words of the Septuagint run like veins of silver.

We

shall

not,

Septuagint

as

Testament

in

however, speak of the

the

the sense that without

the separate parts of the

New

would not have been written.

reflex

of

His

it

Testament

They

as echoes of the prophecies of Jesus

the

New

mother of the

arose

and as

But

personality.

in

respect to their contents they are immensely

indebted to the Septuagint Bible, and this

is

for us the matter of

most importance

the parts would never have grown into the

New

Testament as a whole

but for the Septuagint.

Canon

of Scripture

New.

The

history

is

the Canon

The Old Greek

presupposed by the of

religion

displays

the marvellous spectacle of the Old Bible,

AS A COMPACT UNITY

by the apparently unscalable

encircled

the

walls

of

gates

and admitting a

sacred

Canon,

precinct

:

the

opening

New

Bible to the

by Moses and the

Testament and the Old was possible only because the

in

His

This cohesion between the

prophets.

its

wide her

Saviour and

disciples take their places

by

11

Hellenization

New

historically

Old Testament

had become assimilated

advance to the future New Testament.

The daughter belongs mother

of right to the

the Greek Old and

;

New

Testa-

ments form by their contents and by their fortunes an inseparable unity.

manuscript

Bibles

that

complete Bibles in Greek.

we

The

oldest

possess

are

But what

his-

tory has joined together, doctrine has put

asunder

;

the Greek Bible has been torn in

THE GREEK BIBLE

12

halves.

On

the table of our theological

students you will generally see the

Hebrew

Old Testament lying side by side with the

Greek

New

Testament.

most painful

It

is

one of the

deficiencies of Biblical

at the present

day that the reading

study of the

Septuagint has been pushed into the background, while

its

exegesis has been scarcely

even begun. All

honour to the Hebrew original

the proverbial

Novum

in Vetere

latet

!

But

cannot

be fully understood without a knowledge of the Septuagint.

A

single

hour lovingly

devoted to the text of the Septuagint

will

further our exegetical knowledge of the

Pauline Epistles more than a whole day spent over a commentary.

We

must read the Septuagint

as a Greek

AS A COMPACT UNITY

13

text and as a book of the people, just as the

Jew

of the Dispersion

would have done who

knew no Hebrew, and heathen of the

first

would have read Septuagint will after

it.

who knows

as the converted

and second century Every reader his

of the

Greek Testament

a few days' study come to see

with astonishment what hundreds of threads there are uniting the Old and the

By underlining

all

the parallels and recipro-

cally illustrative passages this impression concrete

Many

it is

easy to render

and permanent.

pages there are which

able to read without difficulty. true,

New.

we

shall

Then,

be

it is

we shall meet with obscurities here and

there, peculiarities

and rare words, where

our lexicons give us no real information.

For the present

let

us simply pass over

THE GREEK BIBLE

14

whatever

is

doubtful.

After

" Here impression will not be, unintelligible

the total

all

a book

is

to a Greek but containing

some things that he could understand," but,

" Here

is

a text

intelligible to

a whole but with some obscurities." obscurities did not

gint

prevent the

him

as

These Septua-

from influencing the Graeco-Jewish

and Graeco-Christian world, and even

day only pedants

will

to-

be deterred by them

from reading the Septuagint.

He who

does read,

amply rewarded. will

An empty

have acquired

reality

;

be

abstraction

a forgotten

Bible will have been re-discovered relic,

will

however,

;

a sacred

buried in sand and dust and unob-

served by hundreds of passers by, will have attracted the pious eye for which

it

waited.

AS A COMPACT UNITY

15

And that eye'perceives that the re-discovered Septuagint

Holy

is

the sanctuary leading to the

of Holies,

namely the

New Testament,

and that both together make up the one great temple, the Bible.

This connexion between the two Greek

Testaments

will

be recognized more and

more with the progress In the study of i.e.,

of scientific research.

Hellenistic

civilization,

the civilization of the Hellenistic world

of the Mediterranean in the post-Alexan-

drian and Imperial ages, a study which

has developed so enormously during the last

twenty or thirty years,

and more

clearly

it

recognized

will

be more

that

amid

the vast mass of witnesses to that civilization the Greek Bible (Old

ment)

is

the chief.

and

New

Testa-

THE GREEK BIBLE

16

It deserves to

be so regarded not only for

the special character of its form and contents,

betokening as they do

Eastern with the Western

a union of the spirit altogether

remarkable in the history of the world,

but also on account of the mighty influence it

To

exerted.

see things

historical perspective

Greek Bible nesses

world. to

its

to

in the

the

;

we must

their

true

place the

midst of the other wit-

contemporary

Hellenistic

This restoration of the Greek Bible

own epoch

feature of the

ship

in

and by

work

is

really the distinctive

of

modern Bible

utilizing the

scholar-

newly discovered

texts of the Hellenistic age fresh vigour has

been infused into Bible scholarship, reviving

and rejuvenating that somewhat torpid and inactive organism.

AS A COMPACT UNITY

What

17

are these newly discovered texts

Your thoughts

fly at first

?

perhaps to newly

found books or fragments of ancient authors.

But valuable though these

discoveries are,

the chief importance attaches to the nonliterary texts,

especially those

on stone,

papyrus, and fragments of pottery, which

have been brought to

light in their thou-

sands and ten thousands. papyri,

The

inscriptions,

and potsherds form a great

store-

house of exact information, from which Biblical

research has recently

rich supplies as

drawn

any other branch

as

of the

science of antiquities.

The

Inscriptions are found in astonishing

numbers on the civilization

site of

the ancient seats of

on the shores of the Mediter-

ranean, either in their original positions or P.O.B,

THE GREEK BIBLE

18

lying under ruins

and mounds

of rubbish.

In the latter case they have to be excavated,

them

and some

of

museums.

They

by publication

find

are

a

home

in our

rendered accessible

in great cyclopaedic works,

the two largest of which are the Corpus

Inscriptionum Latinarum and the Inscriptiones Graecae, the latter gradually replacing

the older and

now

obsolete Corpus Inscrip-

tionum Graecarum.

The period inscriptions

is

of

the

discovery

of

by no means ended.

new The

researches and excavations of the European

and American archaeological

institutes,

and

the archaeological expeditions sent out by various governments or

by private

indivi-

duals, bring to light innumerable inscribed

stones year

by

year.

To these

agencies

we

AS A COMPACT UNITY must add the engineering

19

enterprises for

opening up the old Mediterranean countries to

modern industry and commerce, which

are

not

cases

always harmful

helpful

to

the

but

in

of

study

many

antiqui-

ties.

A

particularly interesting

example

unexpected find came under the spring of 1906.

My

of

an

my

notice in

friend

Theodor

Wiegand showed me among the extensive ruins of ancient Miletus,

now

being exca-

vated by him, the remains of a temple of Apollo Delphinios, the paving stones of

which consisted chiefly of highly impor-

The

tant ancient documents in stone.

en-

croachments of the surface water had at

some period made level of the floor,

it

necessary to raise the

and to

effect this

a

number

THE GREEK BIBLE

20

of old inscribed slabs

downwards on the ment.

original

laid face

marble pave-

turning them up Wiegand had

By

discovered quite

new

had been

inscriptions

a collection of

entirely

the archives, one

may

almost say, of ancient Miletus.

The student

Greek Bible

of the

is

of

course most interested in the inscriptions

found

in

Egypt, the country that gave

birth to the Septuagint, of early Christianity,

and Greece.

i.e.,

and

in the centres

Syria, Asia Minor,

At the present moment exca-

vations are in progress that are certainly full of

at

promise in this direction, not only

Miletus

and at Didyma, where

oracle of Miletus

Ephesus,

was

Pergamos,

the

situated, but also at

and

Corinth.

The

total wealth of the epigraphical material

AS A COMPACT UNITY

21

from the oldest seats of Greek Christianity will

be appreciated when the great Corpus

of the Inscriptions of Asia

by the Austrian

Minor as planned

archaeologists

Some conception

of

it

is

completed.

can be formed even

now by

reading the books of Sir William

Ramsay

1

or

by studying the

inscriptions

of a single small town, such as those of

Magnesia on the Maeander, published by

i

Works by

Church in 1893

;

the

7th

Sir

William Mitchell

Roman Empire

ed.,

1903.

The

Phrygia, Oxford, 1895.

St.

Ramsay

:

The

before A.D. 170, London, Cities and Bishoprics of

Paul

the Traveller

and

Roman Citizen, London, 1895; 3rd ed., 1897. Was Christ born at Bethlehem ? A Study on the

the

London, 1898. A Historical on Paul's St. Epistle to the Galatians, Commentary London, 1899. The Education of Christ, London, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, 1902. London, 1904. Pauline and other Studies in Early Credibility of St. Luke,

Studies in the History, London, 1906. History and Art of the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire, London, 1906. The Cities of St. Paul : their

Christian

Influence on his Life

and

TJiought,

London, 1907.

THE GREEK BIBLE

22

Otto Kern, 1 or those of Priene by Hiller

von Gaertringen. 2 Neither in form nor in subject-matter

do the inscriptions make a uniform group.

When

they are of

official origin,

the work

of kings, emperors, high dignitaries, civic authorities, they are usually very carefully

expressed and written in literary Greek.

When

they are the work of private indivi-

duals they are not infrequently done rather carelessly

and are more or

of the colloquial language. larly the case

of the

Roman

less

specimens

This

is

particu-

with the private inscriptions Imperial period, which for

this reason are valuable for Biblical purposes,

Die Inschriften von Magnesia am Maeander, herausgegeben von Otto Kern, Berlin, 1900. 2 Inschriften von Priene, herausgegeben von F. 1

Frhr.

Hiller

von Gaertringen,

Berlin,

1906.

AS A COMPACT UNITY Greek Bible

since the

part a

monument

written

itself is for

23

the most

of the spoken, not of the

language.

The

are

inscriptions

from

fruitful to Biblical philology chiefly

the lexical point of view.

These epigraphical remains of antiquity

have

for centuries attracted the attention

of scholars,

them

to

and

Biblical exegesis has turned

account since the end of the

eighteenth century. ter of

During the

last quar-

the nineteenth century they were

new group

reinforced

by a

written on

what would seem

large

of texts

to be a

most

perishable material, viz., the Papyri.

Suppose that in the course of casual excavations in a

mound

of absolutely

dry

sand we were to find to-day whole bundles of original private letters, contracts, wills,

THE GREEK BIBLE

24

records of judicial proceedings, and govern-

ment documents, emanating from our ancestors of the tenth century A.D. of the learned world

would be interested

How

the discovery.

for example, written

the whole

few original

by humble

in

letters,

individuals

have come down to us from the olden time.

The record

of history has taken notice only

of the great.

common

The scanty memorials

of the

people are found scattered here

and there

on

a

weathered

maybe, or noted by chance

tombstone,

in the reports of

legal cases or in the account

books of towns

or shires.

So was antiquity.

it

formerly with our knowledge of

In so far as

it

was based on

literary tradition it was, roughly speaking,

the history of great things, the history of

AS A COMPACT UNITY

25

nations and their leaders in politics, learning,

and

art,

Records of humble

religion.

memorials of the

written

wanting.

masses,

life,

were

At best we caught glimpses

of

such insignificant persons in the comedies

and some other

but then

literary works,

they were seen in the light thrown on them

by

their social superiors.

And

so far as

the tradition was non-literary, the upper classes again

took the

lion's share, for

the

majority of the inscriptions come from the privileged powerful

The good

discoveries

of

this deficiency in

manner. of light in

and cultured

Though

class.

papyri have

made

a most unexpected

they, too, throw a flood

on the upper, cultivated

class,

yet

innumerable cases these scraps of papy-

rus are records of the middle

and lower

THE GREEK BIBLE

26 classes.

They

antiquity

possess

for

the

study of

same eminent degree

the

of

importance as that sandhill we imagined just

now

alas that it

would possess if it

for our

is

undiscoverable

own

!

earlier history

contained original letters of the tenth

century. It

is

owing to the Egyptian climate that

such mounds exist beside the Nile,

On

outskirts of ancient Egyptian towns

the

and

villages there were, as in our towns, places

where rubbish and refuse might be deposited.

expired

Whole bundles official

of

old

time-

documents, instead of being

burnt or otherwise destroyed, were cast out by the authorities on these rubbish heaps.

Private persons did the same

when

clearing out their accumulations of old

and

AS A COMPACT UNITY therefore worthless written

reverence of

mankind

ing of any kind rejecting the

destruction

27

The

matter.

in antiquity for writ-

may have been

a reason for

more convenient method

by

The

fire.

of

centuries have

covered these rubbish heaps with thick layers of dust

and sand, which,

in conjunc-

tion with the dryness of the climate,

have

preserved even papyrus most admirably.

Egyptian

mounds with, of

peasants,

for earth to

were the

ancient

discoveries

first

reached

eighteenth century

;

their fields

chance discoverers

The

papyri. first

manure

these

in

digging

news Europe

of

such

in the

the nineteenth wit-

nessed the gradual arrival here and there of a small

number

pean museums.

of papyri in the

Euro-

There they were looked

THE GREEK BIBLE

28

as curiosities until in the last quarter

upon

of the century the great

and astounding

discoveries began.

These discoveries

immediately

to

led

systematic searches, and even excavations

and here

it is

;

chiefly British investigators

who have done

the

greatest

service

in

enlarging and publishing our store of papyri. Flinders Petrie

l

has recovered magnificent

old specimens, particularly from

wrappings, which were

made by

sheets of papyrus together.

Hunt,

2

the

Dioscuri

of

mummysticking

Grenfell

research,

and have

Cf J. P. Mahaffy, On the Flinders Petrie Papyri. transcriptions, commentaries, and index. Royal Irish Academy, Cunningham Memoirs, 1891, vol. ii. 1

.

With

1893.

An Alexandrian Erotic By B. P. Grenfell Fragment, and other Greek Papyri, chiefly Ptolemaic, Oxford, 1896. By B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt New Classical Fragments, and other Greek and Latin 2

:

:

AS A COMPACT UNITY

29

carried out epoch-making excavations at

Oxyrhynchus and other

places,

and have

published their treasures with astonishing

promptitude and masterly accuracy.

Thus during the

last

science, Papyrology,

twenty years a new

has grown up and has

undergone division into numerous branches according

to

the

various

The

which the documents are written. oldest documents, going

2500

B.C.,

Egyptology.

fall

within

in

languages

back to more than the

province

of

There are also Aramaic papyri,

From 1897. Aoyia Papyri, Oxford, 'Irjaov an early Greek Papyrus, London, 1897. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, London, 1898-1907. Fayum Towns and their Papyri (with D. G. Hogarth), London, 1900. The Amherst Papyri, London, 1900-1. The Tebtunis Papyri, London, 1902-7. New Sayings of Jesus and Fragment of a lost Gospel from Oxyrhynchus, The Hibeh Papyri, London, 1906. London, 1904. Fragment of an Uncanonical Gospel from Oxyrhynchus, London, 1907. .

.

.

30

THE GREEK BIBLE

and great

interest has

been aroused by

those of the fifth century B.C., which were recently published

and supplemented

by Sayce and Cowley, still

1

more recently by

the texts deciphered by Sachau. 2

With the fourth century main body of the papyri. of the

B.C. begins the

Greek documents,

most various contents, they run

through the whole Ptolemaic period for us the period of the origin of the

Old Testament earliest

;

Greek

they run on through the

Imperial period

period of the origin of the 1

i.e.,

i.e.,

New

for us the

Testament

;

A. H. Sayce and A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri at Assuan. With appendices by W. Spiegelberg and Seymour de Ricci. London, 1906 27 plates). (pp. 79 2 Eduard Sachau, Drei aramaische Papyrusurkunden aus Elephantine ( Abhandlungen der Kgl. Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1907). Berlin, 1907 (pp. 46, 1 plate). discovered

;

AS A COMPACT UNITY

31

they continue from the second to the fourth century, A.D. persecutions

;

i.e.,

and

for us the age of the finally

they extend over

another five hundred years of Christian

Byzantine

are found also a

number

hi the later periods

in

Together with them

civilization.

Coptic, Arabic,

of Latin papyri

;

numerous fragments

Hebrew, Persian, and

other languages.

The great published

collections of these

treasures confront us like

some high moun-

tain that has just been discovered,

from whose summit we farther

shall

and

be able to see

than ever our ancestors could

;

but we have not yet climbed one tenth part of the ascent.

Papyrological students have

found a rallying-point in the Archiv fur Papyrusforschung, a journal founded

by the

THE GREEK BIBLE

32

German

greatest of

papyrologists, Ulrich

Wilcken. 1

Students of the Greek Bible are indebted principally to the Greek papyri for additions

There are of course

to their knowledge.

numerous fragments

of Biblical

and early

Christian manuscripts, but of these I

not intend to speak here.

am

I

do

concerned

with the non-Christian texts. They are not a

uniform group. Side by side with documents of the lower

and

and middle

we

find also

in the pre-Christian period find

commonly

official

style

and

legal

formularies.

in

time.

But

most

texts written in official

the unvarying language of

Even

deep insight into the

1

class

freshest

these afford us

civilization of their

and most

direct in their

Archiv fur Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete, von U. Wilcken, Leipzig, 1900, etc.

hrsg.

AS A COMPACT UNITY

33

appeal are those written in the colloquial language, often in the crudest of vulgar

Here truly are the great

Greek.

store-

rooms from which Biblical philology draws

new knowledge.

its

Still

" more " vulgar are the texts newly

discovered on the Ostraca.

The ostracon or

potsherd, obtainable from

any broken jug

or vessel, was the writing material of the poor, a favourite even with the authorities in then

1

dealings with the poorer classes,

and used

especially often for tax-receipts.

Formerly almost unnoticed and even despised

by

investigators,

the ostraca have

attained a place of honour ally to 1

und

now

thanks especi-

the labours of Wilcken

1

on the

U. Wilcken, Griechische Ostraka aus Aegypten

Ein Beitrag zur antiken Leipzig and Berlin, 1899 (2

Niibien.

geschichte, P.G.B.

Wirtschaftsvols.).

3

THE GREEK BIBLE

34

Greek, and of

and

Crum x on

the Coptic ostraca

large collections of

them have been

rapidly formed in the European museums.

In 1819 an architect named Gau,

who was

working at Dakkeh in Nubia, threw away nearly

all

worthless little

the ostraca he found there as rubbish,

but

nowadays these

texts are properly respected.

Only

the dealers in antiquities have not yet learnt to set a high value

on them.

A short

text written on an ostracon would cost

twenty times as much

if it

were on papyrus,

though there is no difference value of

its

contents.

The number 1

in the historical

of

Biblical fragments

on

Coptic Ostraca from the collections of the Egypt Exploration Fund, the Cairo Museum and others. The texts edited with translations and commentaries by W. E. Crum, London, 1902.

AS A COMPACT UNITY ostraca

is

35

The most

not large at present.

important find hitherto consists of twenty ostraca from

Upper Egypt, some

large

and

some small, with fragments from the Gospels.

But the a

ostraca, like the papyri, possess

greater

indirect

value.

As

linguistic

memorials of the lower classes these humble potsherd texts shed light on

many a detail of

the linguistic character of our sacred that

Book which was

men but by

written not

simple folk, by

selves confessed that they

Book

by learned

men who them-

had their treasure

in earthen vessels (2 Cor. iv. 7).

And

thus

the modest ostraca rank as of equal value

with the papyri and inscriptions. In the following lectures we shall have to

speak of the great changes which Biblical philology has undergone as a consequence

THE GREEK BIBLE

36

of the

may

employment

of these texts.

But

I

say here that the autograph evidence

of the world

contemporary with the Greek

Bible helps

us to understand that Bible

not only linguistically, but also in other

The

ways. all

perhaps

most

important

we become

that

is

thing

of

better

acquainted with the bright and dark side of the

men

propaganda ism

to

judge

more

were addressed the

of cosmopolitan

and the

Christianity,

whom

missions

of

Graeco-Judacosmopolitan

and that we thus learn to justly

and the contrast

in

of

both the contact

which Primitive Chris-

tianity stood with the surrounding world.

THE

PROBLEM OF "BIBLICAL" GREEK

II

THE PROBLEM OF " BIBLICAL " GREEK IN our

first

lecture

we

called attention to

the close connexion between the Greek Old

Testament, represented by the Septuagint translation,

and the Greek

New Testament

and we described the new sources philological investigation of the

To-day we are to discuss

;

for the

Greek Bible.

briefly the great

fundamental problem of Biblical philology, the problem of the language of the Greek Bible.

The

essence of the problem

at once

We

by our manner

is

indicated

of formulating

it.

are to inquire not about Biblical Greek

THE PROBLEM OF

40

but about the language of the Greek Bible. This distinction

words

;

it

is

not a mere playing with

points to a fundamental principle

of great importance.

Most

of the earlier books

on the subject

were devoted to the investigation not of the language of the Greek Bible but of Biblical Greek, or of a part of

it,

namely,

Let us glance at a few title pages.

Edwin

New

Testament Greek.

Hatch wrote Essays in

Biblical Greek, 1

and

H. A. A. Kennedy wrote on the Sources

New

Testament Greek.

2

of

Hermann Cremer's

work, even in the ninth edition, hi spite of the sharp criticism 1

Edwin Hatch, Essays

it

has undergone,

in Biblical Greek, Oxford,

1889. 2

H. A. A. Kennedy, Sources

Greek

:

bulary

of

New

Testament

or the Influence of the Septuagint on the Vocaof the New Testament, Edinburgh, 1895.

"BIBLICAL" GREEK remains what

it

was

Lexicon

Theological

before, a

of

New

The new German

41

" Biblico-

Testament

Greek."

1

Winer's

Grammar appeared under

title,

Grammar of

and the

New

1

the old

Testament Idiom, 2

Testament Greek. 3

even find this kind of

more recent scholars for

of

late Friedrich Blass presented us

with a Grammar of

We

New

the

revision

example H. Cremer,

but

title

used by

Dr. J. H. Moulton, 4

hi these cases

it is

merely

Biblisch-theologisches Worterbuch der

neutestamentlichen Grdcitdt, Gotha, vermehrte Auflage, Gotha, 1902.

1866-8

;

neunte

2

G. B. Winer, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms als siohere Grundlage der neutestamentlichen Exegese : achte Auflage, neubearbeitet von

W.

P. 3

Schmiedel, Gottingen, 1894, 1897, 1898.

des neutestamentlichen Grammatik Blass, Griechisch, Gottingen, 1896 zweite Auflage, Gottingen,

F.

;

1902. 4

J.

A Grammar of New Testament W. F. Moulton's edition of G. B.

H. Moulton,

Greek, based on

Winer's

Grammar. Vol. I. Prolegomena. Second edition, 1906.

burgh, 1906.

Edin-

THE PROBLEM OP

42

a formal concession to the older phraseology.

With the

older scholars, however, such a

form of the

title

indicated a distinct pecu-

liarity of scientific

method, as

proved by

is

such pointed sentences as the following.

Hatch

1

writes,

" Biblical Greek

language which stands by

is

thus a

Cremer

itself."

adopts the words of Richard Rothe

" :

2

We

can indeed with good right speak of a language of the Holy Ghost. Bible

it

is

For

manifest to our eyes

in the

how

the

Divine Spirit at work in revelation always takes the language of the particular people

chosen to be the recipient and makes of characteristic religious

variety

by

it

a

trans-

forming existing linguistic elements and 1

2

Op. cit., p. 11. In his Preface of 1883.

Rothe, Zur Dogmatik, Gotha,

The quotation 1863, p. 238.

is

from

"BIBLICAL" GREEK

43

existing conceptions into a shape peculiarly

appropriate to that Spirit.

shown most

is

the

New

statements

the

notwithstanding

by the Greek

clearly

Testament."

And

New

Blass,

though

Grammar show,

its title,

that he afterwards

remarked once

in

on

this ques-

a review

1

that

Testament Greek was "to be recog-

nized as something peculiar, obeying

own

of

his

in

altered his theoretical views tion,

This process

its

laws."

These quotations could be increased by

no small number other books.

of

similar

ones from

I believe that they are the

expression of an opinion,

still

widely pre-

valent even at the present day, which,

whether openly avowed or not, 1

is

far-

Theologisohe Literaturzeitung, 1894, xix., col. 338

44

THE PROBLEM OF

reaching in

its effects,

The Greek

gesis.

New

Testament,

the bulk of the

is

particularly on exe-

Bible, or at least the

thus separated

monuments

off

from

Greek

of the

language that have come down to us from antiquity, in just the

the

example, dialect

same way

inscriptions

in

as,

the

for

Doric

might be collected into a special

volume or section by some one who was editing all the Greek inscriptions extant.

The Bible supposed

is

to

thus isolated, because

be

Greek, and the is

"

in

"

New

written

New

hi

"

it

Biblical

Testament because

Testament "

is

Greek,

in

" it

a

" " Greek," that idiom," a language," an

must be sharply distinguished from the rest of

what people have been so fond "

calling

profane Greek."

of

They could only

:c

"

BIBLICAL

GREEK

45

commit one more blunder by speaking a Biblical or

New

Testament

have never met with

this

literature of the subject,

but I

in

am

it

many

" the " language of

what

the Bible or the

the

sure

represents the popular conception in

quarters as to

I

dialect.

term

of

New

Testament

is.

This Greek, so people go on to argue,

is

outwardly, in comparison with other Greek, of unmistakable individuality, it

is

and inwardly

uniform, subject to laws of

and possessing

its

own

own,

its

vocabulary.

Even

those words which are not to be reckoned

among the

" specifically

Biblical

Testament " words show

for the

a change of meaning that able

and not infrequently

influence of the

is

"

or "

New

most part

often consider-

is

owing to the

Hebrew or Semitic

genius.

THE PROBLEM OF

46

To sum up

:

the two fundamental notions

most commonly met with

the older

in

the subject concerning the

literature

of

linguistic

character

of

Greek Bible

the

are firstly the peculiarity,

and secondly

the uniformity of Biblical, or at least of

New

Testament Greek.

Those who support these two fundamental notions show more or less clearly by so

doing

their

stages

of

particular,

connexion

Biblical Greek, earliest

language

is

scientific

of

the

the

earlier

The second idea

research.

that

with

of

the

uniformity

of

as old as the

very old

speculation

Greek

in

about

the

In

the

Bible.

controversy of the Purists and Hebraists in the seventeenth century

for

it

one moment questioned

;

was never it

was a

"BIBLICAL" GREEK postulate

for

the

47

of both

theories

par-

ties.

And

it

understand the

of

is

;

not

historically it is

the simple consequence

conceived

mechanically

The extension

doctrine

New

of inspiration as applied to the

ment.

to

difficult

Testa-

of the idea to the

Greek Old Testament, which

is

no doubt

of recent date, probably originated in

an

equally simple backward inference from

the

New Testament.

lished,

The

idea,

once estab-

was supported by the concept,

quite logical in its way, of

what

is

in the literary sense, the concept of

also

Biblical

what

is

Canonical.

But how does this doctrine and

uniform

nature

square with the facts

of ?

of the peculiar

Biblical

Greek

One thing seems

THE PROBLEM OF

48

clear to

me from

the outset

make

the least, incautious to

it is,

:

to say

this doctrine

the starting-point of research.

And

if

we have given up

mechanical

a

inspiration,

the theory of glance at

the

history of the growth of the Greek Bible in

its

more

separate parts will

For

distrustful.

make

us

this history

still

shows

us the possibility and the probability of

temporal and local differentiation.

But the sacred most for

clearly of

division

all.

on

great groups

texts themselves speak

They

call

linguistic

original

emphatically

lines

two

Greek writings, and

translations of Semitic originals.

who does not

into

Any one

respect this boundary line

soon loses his bearings, especially in cizing the syntactical

phenomena

criti-

of the

"BIBLICAL" GREEK Greek Bible. true, does not

Septuagint of the

New

The boundary run

in

such a

49

line,

way

it

is

that the

on one side and the books

lies

Testament on the other.

On

the contrary, the sayings of Jesus in the synoptic Gospels, and perhaps more of the

New

Testament, must be counted with the

examples of translators' Greek, while several of the so-called apocryphal books of the

Old Testament, adopted by the Septuagint, go with the Greek originals.

These two groups

from each other character.

differ

very remarkably

in respect to their linguistic

We might compare, for example,

the Second Epistle to the Corinthians with

the Greek version of Job.

The

original

Greek writings are examples of Greek as it

was

P.Q.B.

really

spoken

;

the Greek of the

THE PROBLEM OF

50

translations

influenced

often shows traces of being

by the language

of the original,

and may sometime^ be described lutely artificial, for

it

as abso-

was not a spoken

language but invented by the translators for their

immediate purpose.

We

must

not say, therefore, that this translators'

Greek was so spoken by the Jews of Alexandria and Asiatics

we must not

call it

The real spoken language

"Jewish Greek." of the

;

Greek Jews

writings of Philo,

is

who

illustrated

in

the

inclined rather to

the use of the literary language, and in the Pauline Epistles, Jewish inscriptions

and papyri, where we

find

more the

collo-

quial language in its various grades.

Yet the non-Greek character translated books

of

the

must not be exaggerated.

"BIBLICAL" GREEK I myself in

have formerly been

expressing

my

many

book

if

of its parts

only

reserved

opinion on this point

than I should be now. in

less

51

we take

is

The Septuagint not a non-Greek

as our standard not

the classical Attic of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. but the popular cosmopolitan

Greek of the that

is

Much

last three centuries B.C.

non- Attic in the Septuagint

but

necessarily non-Greek,

contemporary

"

"

vulgar

is

is

not

proved by

texts to be popular

Greek.

We

find,

moreover, remarkable

differ-

ences within the two main groups themselves, as

The

was only to be expected.

translations were not

made by one and the

same hand, nor on a uniform method

;

for

example, the sayings of our Lord in the

THE PROBLEM OF

52

Gospels are in general better translated

than

many

characteristic

and Epistles say,

the

is

the language of the Gospel

of St.

Epistle

John to

the

simplest

Epistle to the

as

the

Johannine Epistles are of

How

parts of the Septuagint.

compared with,

The

Hebrews.

classical

examples

popular language

the

;

Hebrews exhibits a strong

leaning towards the literary language.

In the face of these facts, therefore,

we

cannot assume that under the Ptolemies a uniform

Greek for

purposes

religious

grew up among the Egyptian Jews, and that under Tiberius, Claudius,

etc.,

right into the second century, this

until

was

also

the language of Christians in Syria, Asia,

Achaia, are

now

and Rome.

These

seen to be fictitious.

assumptions

"BIBLICAL" GREEK

On

the contrary,

if

63

we examine

cally the language of the

histori-

Old and

New

Testaments, our decided impression can only be this linguistic

types

;

:

Here we have

side

by

side

elements of essentially dissimilar

and

in stating

and

in solving our

problem there can be no other point of view to be adopted except the

histori-

cal.

A good deal of

the uncertainty, however,

which does nevertheless undoubtedly exist

on

this matter, arises

fusing

the

religious

from people's conwith

the

linguistic

point of view in their historical examination.

From the point of view of the

history

of religion the sacred books, despite their

want

of

linguistic

uniformity,

must be

taken together as documents and memorials

THE PROBLEM OF

54

of

two phases

of revelation that are insepar-

That

able from one another.

doubt, and no

is

beyond that the

less certain is it

thoughts, the concepts, the spirit of the

Greek Old Testament and of the

New

and that they

differ

Testament are

related,

characteristically in their

main

lines

from

the average faith of Graeco-Roman religion.

But these

are considerations dictated

the history of religion

;

by

they can play no

part in the determination of a specifically Biblical or Christian Greek.

One

single

consideration

drawn from

the history of language speaks for a certain linguistic

peculiarity

the Biblical writings,

formal sense. as

monuments

and uniformity though only

They must

all

of late Greek,

be

in

of

a

criticized

and most

of

"BIBLICAL" GREEK them

monuments

as

55

of non-literary Greek,

and with the express reservation that " " late does not Greek defined,

sharply

always

mean something at

recognizable

once and with precision, but something fluctuating, often problematical,

something

which we do not fully know, a piece of

and therefore mysterious

living

linguistic

history.

There briefly

and as

no formula by which to describe

the characteristics of late Greek,

qualitative

judgments describing

it

" bad " Greek, and so on, are either

uttered or

is

by

echoed

doctrinaires regardless of history

from

the

fancied themselves able

grammarians

by

who

their authority

to prevent the changes and chances of things.

Greek

philologists, enslaved to the pre-

THE PROBLEM OF

56

that

judice

Greek

is

the

only

beautiful,

so-called

classical

have long treated the

texts of the later period with the greatest

contempt.

A

good deal

judgments about

late

their

of

Greek

is

false

the simple

consequence of their complete ignorance of

it.

in our

The renaissance

own

Epigraphy

amends

of

Greek philology

day, owing to the progress of

and

Papyrology,

for the neglect of late

has

made

Greek by the

At the present

older generation of scholars.

day there are plenty of accurate workers engaged

in investigating philologically the

newly discovered specimens

of cosmopolitan

Greek of the period from Alexander the Great to Constantino. the most important of

Gottingen

:

I will

mention only

Dr. Wilhelm Cronert

(Memoria Graeca Hercula-

"BIBLICAL" GREEK

Dr. Karl Dieterich, of Leipzig

x

nensis)

;

(Investigations

Language)

known

2 ;

on Dr.

the History of the

Greek

the

well-

Hatzidakis,

Professor at Athens

Modern Greek Grammar)

to

57

(Introduction 3

Dr.

;

van

Herwerden, the veteran Dutch philologist (Lexicon Graecum Suppletorium ticum)

4 ;

Dialec-

et

Dr. Jannaris, the St. Andrews

lecturer (Historical Greek

Grammar)

5 ;

Kretschmer, of Vienna (The Origin of

1

Memoria Graeca Herculanensis. Aegypti papyrorum codicum denique

Cum

Dr. the

titulorum

testimoniis corn-

par-atam proposuit Guilelmus Cronert.

Lipsiae, 1903.

2

Karl Dieterich, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der griechischen Sprache von der hellenistischen Zeit

zum

Jahrh. n. Chr., Leipzig, 1898. Georgios N. Hatzidakis (=Chatzidakes), Einleitung in die neugriechische GrammatiJc, Leipzig, 1892. 4 Henricus van Herwerden, Lexicon Graecum

bis

10.

3

suppletorium

et

dialecticum,

Lugduni Batavorum, 1902,

1904 (two parts). 5 Antonios N. Jannaris ( = Giannares), Greek Grammar, London, 1897.

An Historical

THE PROBLEM OF

58 i

Dr. Mayser, a Stuttgart school-

;

master (Grammar of 2

Ptolemaic Period) ;

the Greek

Papyri

of the

Dr. Meisterhans and Dr.

Schwyzer, two Swiss scholars (Grammar the Attic Inscriptions)

3 ;

Dr. Nachmanson, a

Swede (Phonology and Morphology Inscriptions of Magnesia)

the

Schmid,

5

Atticists)

;

of

4 ;

Tubingen

of the

Dr. Wilhelm

Professor

(The

Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt, a Prus-

1

Paul Kretschmer, Die Entstehung der Koine, Akademie der WissenSitzungsberichte der Kais. schaften in Wien, philos.-hist. Klasse, Band cxliii., Nr. 10. 2

Edwin Mayser, Grammatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolemderzeit, mil Einschluss der gleichzeitigen Ostraka und der in Agypten verfassten Laut- und Wortlehre. Leipzig, 1906. 3

K. Meisterhans,

schriften, Berlin,

dritte

1885

vermehrte und

Inschriften.

Grammatik der ;

attischen Inzweite Auflage, Berlin, 1888 verbesserte Auflage, besorgt

von E. Schwyzer, Berlin, 1900. 4 Ernst Nachmanson, Laute

;

und

Formen

magnetischen Inschriften, Upsala, 1903. 6 Wilhelm Schmid, Der Atticismus Hauptvertretern

in

der

seinen

von Dionysius von Halikarnass

bis

"BIBLICAL" GREEK

59

schoolmaster (De Flavii Josephi

sian

cutione)

member

Dr. Wilhelm Schulze, a

1 ;

of the Berlin

Academy

elo-

(Graeca Latino)

2 ;

Dr. Schweizer (Grammar of the Inscriptions

Pergamos), "

of

"

Schwyzer

who now

3

himself

calls

and has been already men-

tioned as the reviser of Meisterhans

Thumb (The

Greek

Period)

den

auf

of

4 ;

the

University

Language

in

of

the

;

Dr.

Marburg Hellenistic

Dr. Wackernagel, the Gottingen

zweiten

Philostratus,

Stuttgart,

1887-97

(5 vols.).

Guilelmus Schmidt, De Flavii losephi elocutione observations criticae, Lipsiae, 1893 (from Fleckeisen's Jahrbiicher, Suppl. xx., pp. 345-550. 2 Guilelmus Schulze, Graeca Latina (Einladung zur akademischen Preisverkiindigung), Gottingen, 1

;

1901. 3

Eduard Schweizer, Grammatik der pergamenischen

Inschriften, Berlin, 1898. 4

Albert

Thumb,

Die

griechische

Sprache

im

Beitrdge zur Geschichte und Beurtheilung der Koivr]> Strassburg, 1901.

Zeitalter

des

Hellenismus

:

THE PROBLEM OF

60

Professor of

Comparative Philology (Hel-

and other

1

lenistica),

scholars.

In this renaissance of Greek philology the Greek Bible has also been regarded

with

new

It

eyes.

may now

be described

as the central object of the investigations into

late

Whereas formerly the

Greek.

qualitative judgments,

the

prevented linguistic

clear

character,

"

"

good

or " bad,"

recognition

now,

owing

of

its

to

its

being brought into vital connexion with late Greek, floods of light are being

upon the

Bible.

Greek Bible

is

nature and in

monument 1

zur

We may

now its

shed

say that the

seen to be, in influence,

its

very

the noblest

of cosmopolitan late Greek.

Jacobus Wackernagel, Hellenistica (Einladung akademischen Preisverkiindigung), Gottingen,

1907.

"BIBLICAL" GREEK

61

This late Greek, including the original

Greek of the Bible,

is

neither good nor

bears the stamp of

it

its

own

distinctive

its

bad

;

age and asserts

a grand

in

position

process of development in the language,

which, beginning in the earliest times, has lasted

down

to

the

present

Greek has stripped

customary in the contains

off

much

earlier

Late

day.

that was

period,

and

it

future

developments

destined to be completed in

Modern Greek.

germs

We may liarity

of

then speak of a certain pecu-

and uniformity

in original

" Bible "

Greek, but solely as opposed to earlier or later phases of the history of the language,

not as opposed to " profane Greek."

The clearly

peculiarities of late

discernible in the

Greek are most accidence.

We

THE PROBLEM OF

62

now

are

so far advanced as to have estab-

lished almost completely the

and

the popular

of

Hellenistic Greek. is

morphology

colloquial

And we

forms of

find that there

remarkable agreement between these

forms and the forms that used to be considered

peculiar

to

New

Testament or

Septuagint Greek.

From also

the lexical point of view there

is

found to be great community between

the Biblical and non-Biblical Greek.

As

for

the

and

syntactical

peculiarities that formerly

were considered

the chief reason for isolating

Greek, they also appear light.

we had

We

stylistic

now

" Biblical "

in a different

have come to recognize that

greatly over-estimated

the

num-

ber of Hebraisms and Aramaisms in the

"BIBLICAL" GREEK Bible.

Many

63

features that are non-Attic

and bear some resemblance to the Semitic

and were therefore regarded

as Semiticisms,

belong really to the great class of international vulgarisms,

and are found

in vulgar

papyri and inscriptions as well as in the Bible.

The number

of real Semiticisms

fore smaller than

is

there-

was supposed, and smaller

than Julius Wellhausen, 1 for example, has recently declared

the

recent

it

But not one

to be.

has

investigators

dreamt of

denying the existence of Semiticisms are

more numerous

in

of

.

They

the

Septuagint

New

Testament

than in those parts of the

that were translated from the Aramaic 1

Julius Wellhausen, Einleitung in die drei

Evangelien, Berlin, 1905, p. 9

ff.

;

ersten

THE PROBLEM OF

64

but

in the original

Greek texts they are

very rare.

In pronouncing on them philologically a distinction

must be observed that was

formulated by

Hermann Paul

of the

same kind

what

is

:

*

in

a case

the distinction between

occasional

and what

usual.

is

Semiticisms are " occasional," for example, if

they are brought about in a translation

by the

accidental influence of the original

from which the translation " are " usual

if,

is

made

;

for example, they

become stereotyped

in

or other phrases.

A

"

they

have

sacred formulas

certain

number

" of

" these " usual Semiticisms were moreover

coined by the Septuagint, and

there-

Hermann Paul, Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte, Auflage, Halle, 1898, pp. 67, 145.

1

3.

may

"BIBLICAL" GREEK fore, as

Theodor Nageli

1

well

65

suggested,

be called Septuagintisms.

What we do deny

is

merely this

that

:

the Semiticisms, particularly those of the

New

Testament, are sufficient reason for

scholars

to

isolate

Our opinion

sacred texts. is

language

the language of our

reached

by

of the Biblical

considering

its

innumerable coincidences with the cosmopolitan language, not

ences from

it.

its

numerable

differ-

The Semiticisms do not

place the Bible outside the scope of Greek

philology

;

they are merely birthmarks.

They show us that in this great cosmopolitan

Book the Greek cosmopolitan language was spoken by

men whose home

lay in the

East. 1

Theodor Nageli, Der Wortschatz des

Paulus, Gottingen, 1905, T.G.B.

Apostels

p. 74.

5

SEPTUAGINT PHILOLOGY

Ill

SEPTTJAGINT PHILOLOGY

OUR

discussion in the second lecture on

methods of studying the language of the Greek Bible

may

be said to result in two

requirements, one for specialization of the study, the other for

its

incorporation as a

branch in the larger complex of studies dealing with late Greek.

For future

linguistic

work on the Greek

Bible, particularly the Septuagint, lines

we now

on these

possess an auxiliary of

more

than ordinary importance in a great three-

volume concordance that has recently been completed

:

the Concordance

to the

Septua-

SEPTUAGINT PHILOLOGY

70 gint

and

the other

Greek Translations of the

Old Testament, by Edwin Hatch and Henry A. Redpath. 1 to

some

to the

" Indices " Apart from the

classical authors

and concordances

more important English poets books

of this sort are really a speciality of the

tool-basket.

theological

doubt,

no

Originally,

they were designed to

practical exegesis, but they

assist

now form

in

part

of the indispensable apparatus of scientific

investigation.

They enable us

to

take

a rapid survey of the uses of words, forms,

and constructions, and though they may seem to be a

satire

on the saying that the

Scripture cannot be broken,

if

rightly used

they do indeed promote the more intimate

knowledge of the Bible. r

l

Oxford, 1892-1906, 3

SEPTUAGINT PHILOLOGY The

71

chief requisites indispensable in

any

concordance are trustworthiness and com-

The old Septua-

pleteness of statement. gint Concordance

1 by Tromm, to which

one was formerly obliged to have recourse, did not

fulfil

these requirements.

published in 1718, and

good deal

is

was

It

responsible for a

of original sin in the quotations

to be found hi commentaries.

The new Concordance was prepared and begun under the auspices

of Hatch,

who,

however, did not live to witness the publication of even the first instalment.

according to early,

much

too

I consider the preparation of

Abraham Tromm,

LXX.

reckoning,

died,

on the eleventh of November, 1889,

at Oxford. 1

human

He

Inter pretum,

Rhenum, 1718

Concordantiae Graecae versionis

Amstelodami

(2 vols., folio).

et

Trajecti

ad

SEPTUAGINT PHILOLOGY

72

the Septuagint Concordance to have been

That mon-

his greatest service to learning.

umental work

the abiding fulfilment of

is

the simple aspiration that Hatch himself

once expressed in verse For

me

.

.

:

.

To have been a

link in the chain of life

:

Shall be immortality.

Like errors,

human

all

but

it is

trustworthy.

on

its

work,

it is

not free from

on the whole thoroughly

One

predecessor

is

of

its

shown

chief

advances

in the attention

paid to those minute words, the particles,

which are of such great interest cally.

Schmiedel,

1

however,

is

philologi-

certainly

right in wishing that in the case of particles

the editors had not only noted the passages

but also printed them in 1

full.

Winer-Schmiedel, p. xv.

It

is

really,

SEPTUAGINT PHILOLOGY in

some

cases, of

73

more importance

to be

able to inform oneself rapidly concerning

the uses of the particle av than to be able to trace in long lists the occurrence of such

a word as It

is

ai>6pw7ros.

a defect, in

my

opinion, that the

principle of absolute completeness has not

been carried out.

Thus, for example, the

personal pronouns are not given, or rather

they are only recorded with the addition of the

word passim

of course

a remark which

mean very much

Not long ago

I

or very

had occasion

to

uses of the solemn formula

V, which occurs John and cult of Isis. ey,

in

in

the

may little.

examine the

" I am,"

eyw

of

St.

Gospel

inscriptions relating to the

Here the Concordance,

failed to assist

me, for the

article

ey>

SEPTUAGINT PHILOLOGY

74

which

records

it

is

In this case of course for

in the

ei/uu

to be done

or