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Untitled Article
" I have now brought down a regular series of Jew-Greek writers , bearing no inconsiderable proportion in point of numbers to the more celebrated Greek authors of the same time whose works are extant ; that is , from the time of Alexander to the reign of Vespasian . Surely it is a decisive proof of the prevalence of a language amon £ those to whom it was not strictly native , if you can mention so many writers of Jewish origin among those to
whom Greek was a native language . But I must extend the argument further , and say if there were , as might be expected , a far greater number of native Greeks known to have written during the same period , is there any instance whatever upon record of any writer of Jewish origin , either prior to the time of Augustus or for some centuries after , composing and publishing any one work in the Latin language ? The Greek tongue was that to which those Jews who lived in Greek cities must have been habituated . It
was the language to which all Jews whatever , whether living in Palestine or elsewhere , became habituated in consequence of the translation of their ancient Scriptures into that tongue . Can any man then , knowing the actual circumstances of the dispersed Jews , contend with any shadow of probability , that Latin was the language in which it was most natural , and therefore probable , that any Jewish writers should express themselves ?" The remainder of the Discourse is directed to a brief consideration of the
reasons , or rather of some of the reasons , by which the hypothesis of a Latin original of the New Testament is supported , in contradiction to the established fact that Jewish writers in and after the time of our Saviour , if they did not write Syro-Chaldaic , could have written , and did in reality write , in no language but Greek . In this branch of his argument Dr . Maltby very properly relieves himself at once from the onus of maintaining the universality of the Greek tongue , against which so much of the Palaeoromaica is directed , but which really has scarcely any thing to do with the
question , except in a very modified way . History certainly proves the Greeks to have been possessed of an extensive indigenous literature , which they cultivated to the exclusion of all others ; and it also proves the Latins to have been a servile race of imitators and translators , and this surely is enough to throw presumption on the side of what has hitherto been considered admitted fact . To come still nearer , to Syria and the neighbourhood of Palestine , we shall find Juvenal expressly enumerating the strangers from those parts as bringing to Rome itself the manners and language of Greece :
Non possum ferre , Quintes , Graecam urbem ; quamvis quota portio faecis Achaei ? Jam pridem Syrus iuTiberim defluxit Orontes , Et Unguam et mores , et cum tibicini chordafc Obliquas , nee uon gentilia tympana secum Vexit . Sat . in . 60 .
Dr . Maltby next proceeds to deal with the grand position of his opponent , that it was proper , and therefore probable , that St . Paul should address his Epistles to the Romans in Latin . Repeating his protest against any priori reasoning in contradiction to fact resting on the concurrent testimony and assent of ages , Dr . Maltby asks , first , what ground there is for assuming that St . Paul could write Latin at all ? And next , why , if he could , it was so
proper or necessary that he should write his Epistles to the Romans in Latin and not in Greek ? To whom did he address himself , to Jews or Gentiles ? To Hellenizing Jews resident there , it is conceived ; both as being the first converts at Rome , and as being a ready medium of communication with others ; bearing in mind also that , those who contend that these residents at Rome could not read a Greek Epistle , must also contend that they were
Untitled Article
Original Language of the New Testament . 241
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1827, page 241, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1795/page/9/
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