obtaining the kingdom. When the city was taken on this occasion, Herod repressed the license of the soldiery, and forbade them not only to enter the temple, but even to plunder the private dwellings in accordance with the usages of war. Wherefore Sosius, after he had dedicated a golden crown to Jehovah, left Jerusalem and the neighboring region unpillaged in the hands of the new king.' But we do not read of either Pompey or Sosius leaving Roman colonies in Judea, or changing the religious rites of the country, or introducing any new observances whatsoever. On the contrary, we have many Roman decrees in which great respect is paid to the Jews, and they are allowed to retain the religion of their country, and profess it without molestation in every quarter of the world, as may be fully seen in Josephus. 2 Besides, the soldiers led by Pompey and Sosius into the country were not Romans, but in the greater part Syrians. We know, indeed, that in the 9th year of Christ the land of Judea was reduced to the condition of a Roman province. Yet, not even then did any thing occur to change the language of the natives, for the Roman troops left to garrison the country would be always few in number, as the soldiers were perpetually drafted off from Judea to the eastern wars. Even the Roman army at the downfall of Jerusalem, if you except a few legions, was raised entirely from Syria, Arabia, Ascalon and Cæsarea. Such was the tenure by which the Ro mans held Judea. Who then can believe that two short in vasions of Palestine by the Romans, before Christ, and the tenure of the country by so few troops after his birth, could introduce, to any considerable extent, the Latin tongue? Idem, lib. 1 de Bel. cap. 18, p. 98, 99. 2 Idem in Antiquit. lib. 14, cap. 10. 3 Idem de Bello, lib. 1, cap. 7, § 5, p. 66. Idem in Antiq. lib. 14, cap. 15, § 10, p. 734. * Idem de Bello, lib. 5, cap. 1, § 5, et alibi. Tacitus, libro 5 Historiarum, cap. 1. Nor does history alone oppose Hardouin, but the very coins of that period which have been handed down to us, and are copied by our author himself in his work, De Numis Herodiadum. These coins are found to bear not Latin, but Greek inscriptions. Besides, the cities which were newly built in Palestine and named in honor of distinguished Romans, received Greek appellations; for instance Zeßaorý in honor of Augustus, Λιβίας in honor of Livia, Δροσος of Drusus, and Tißepiás of Tiberius. I cannot then conceive why Hardouin should say that the Latin language was, at that period, as common in Judea as French at Avignon, Italian at Rome, and German in Germany, for there is unquestionable evidence to prove that, at that period, Greek was the more widely prevailing language. We appeal no further than to the testimony of Cicero, who in his speech for Archias says: Graca leguntur omnibus fere gentibus; Latina suis finibus exiguis sane continentur. This hypothesis, therefore, may be regarded as exploded, and may be numbered among the paradoxes of Hardouin. § 3. Neither the Chaldee nor Syriac was vernacular to Christ and to the Jews of his day. We now come to consider the opinions of those, who represent Christ as speaking Chaldee or Syriac. John Albert Widmanstadt, Jurisconsult and Senator, who first edited the New Testament in Europe in the Syriac language, in his dedication of that work to the Emperor Ferdinand, contends that the Chaldee or Syriac idiom, which the Hebrews learned during the Babylonian captivity, continued in use in Judea down to the time of Christ: consequently that our Lord, the blessed Virgin, the Apostles, and all the Jews besides, spoke Chaldee. George Amira Edeniensis2 of Lebanon adopts the same strain, in the preface to his Syriac Grammar. Arias 1 Cicero orat. pro Archia, cap. 10, n. 23. 2 Amira in Præl. Gram. Syr. de Ling. Syr. Dignit. 3 Montanus,' Maldonati, Walton, Saumaise, Grotius,5 Huet, Richard Simon,' Breeword, Calmet,' and very many others subscribe, in general terms, to this opinion, although they differ among themselves as to the particular dialect. Widmanstadt and Amira, for instance, will have it that Christ used the dialect in which the Syrian New Testament is written, the dialect we call the Syriac. Others, on the contrary, contend for the Chaldee, in which the paraphrases of Onkelos and Jonathan are composed. Both these opinions come to the same thing: for either dialect ranges itself under the general name of the Chaldee. But I wonder that men acquainted with antiquity have not paid more regard to the frequent changes that passed over Judea during the dominion of the Greeks, of which we have spoken with such fulness in the earlier portion of this essay. Thus, though it be true, that the Hebrews when they returned from Babylon brought the Chaldee tongue with them, yet it is equally true that this did not continue in use till the time of Christ, but only during the four generations that immediately succeeded their return, so that in the age of the Maccabees it was extant no longer, having given place to Hellenism. And the very arguments upon which my opponents rely, when they maintain that the Hebrews in captivity adopted the Chaldee and gave up the Hebrew, I myself rely upon to show that the Jews under the dominion of the Greeks rejected the Chaldee and embraced the Greek. If my opponents triumphantly allege that the Jews were seventy years under the yoke of the Chaldeans, I aver that the same nation 1 Montanus Adm. ad. Lect. de Syriac. N. T. libris. 2 Maldonatus ad Matth. cap. 27, v. 46, 3 Waltonus in Prolegom. 13, § 5. 4 Salmasius in Fun. Ling. Hellen. p. 42 et alibi. 5 Grotius, Com. in Matth. 27, 46, Marc. 15, 34. was one hundred and ninety years and upwards under the sway of the Greeks. If, when the Hebrews were carried away eastward, Judea was justly said to be made a widow by the Gentiles,' under the Greek empire not only were multitudes of the Jews transported into Greek cities, and restored to their own land only after a very long period when they spoke Greek, but the entire country was so covered with Grecian colonies, that it might be truly called a habitation of strangers, as it is in First Maccabees: "And it was made a habitation of strangers." Moreover, if in Babylon the Jews were compelled to speak Chaldee and disused their own tongue, in like manner, whatever Jew would not receive Hellenism at the bidding of the Greeks, and renounce his country's institutes and language, was exposed to the heaviest penalties, not excepting death itself. 3 But both in the shape of fact and argument I can allege much more than my opponents in dealing with the argument in hand. For the Jews of their own accord were prone to Hellenism. The proof is obvious. They willingly gave themselves up to the dictation of the Greeks, and purchased at a high rate the privilege of establishing the Grecian games at Jerusalem. But that I may not repeat what I have advanced in detail under the second chapter of the first part, hear the testimony of the author of Second Maccabees: "And deeming their country's honors of no account, they regarded the Grecian glories as those of chief esteem.' If, then, according to the representation of my opponents, the Chaldean bondage imbued their speech with a Chaldean. tinge and effaced the Hebrew, much more did their Grecian bondage obliterate their Chaldean idiom and place the Greek in its stead. We must, however, give ourselves a little more closely to the proof of our position, that in the time of Christ the Jews no longer spoke Chaldee. 1 Vide Jerem. Thren. cap. 1, v. 1. Lib. 1 Mach. cap. 1, v. 12 et seq. While Christ was hanging upon the cross he called upon Eli אלי אלי למא שבקתני :his Father in the words of Psalm xxii Eli lamma sabactani; "My God, My God, to what hast thou left me?" These words are pure Chaldee, as is known to the merest tyro in the oriental tongues; the more evidently so as they agree with the Chaldee paraphrase of Onkelos and Jonathan. And our opponents Vatablus, Grotius, Drusius, Munsterus, Zegerus,' Scaliger, Walton and others, inform us that Christ uttered this complaint in the tongue that was then vulgarly known and used among the Jews. Well: how will this tally with the fact that the Jews who stood by the Cross, so far from understanding the Chaldee words, misled by the similarity of sound, conceived the sufferer to have called upon Elias? "Wherefore they wondered among themselves and said, He calls upon Elias; but others said, Hold, let us see if Elias will come to release him.”4 So much for the Jews understanding Chaldee! Who can believe that they used that language commonly, when of this dying plaint in Chaldee they comprehended not a word? But my antagonists, fully feeling the force of this consideration, how it smites their opinions to the ground with a stroke, seek to evade its force by a thousand devices. Let us note their evasions that we may refute them one by one. And in the first place, John Maldonatus, Cornelius a Lapide, Augustin Calmet, and others, inform us that they were Roman soldiers, who supposed Christ to have invoked Elias, from their ignorance of Chaldee. They support this opinion by alleging that he who, in Matthew and Mark, conceived Christ to have called upon Elias and gave him to drink, is proved by the records of John and Luke' to have been 1 Omnes in Comm. ad Matth. cap. 27, v. 47. 2 Joseph Scaliger, Epist. 449, lib. 4. 3 Walton. Proleg. 13, §5. 4 Matth. cap. 27, v. 47 ad 49. 5 In Com. ad Matth. cap. 27, v. 47. Matth. ib. Marc. cap. 15, v. 35, 36. 7 Luc. cap. 23, v. 36; Joan Ev. cap. 19, v. 23, 29. |