From the agreement of the lection of the gospel with the LXX, it is clear that Christ used the Greek version. Christ also used this in his quotations from the Old Testament, for from it are those passages of Deuteronomy taken wherein he defeated the Devil in the wilderness:

A little after, he again quotes Deuteronomy in these terms:

$4. Christ used Greek proverbs.

Matthew furnishes us with our fourth argument, in the place where he introduces Christ saying, "One iota or one apex shall not pass away from the law until all be fulfilled." clause is superfluous, and is not found in Isaiah in the Hebrew Text, Greek Version, or Chaldee Paraphrase. With justice, therefore, do Erasmus, Beza, Lucas Brugensis, Calmet, and others conceive these words to have crept in from the margin, where they were written as a gloss upon Isaiah. They do not appear in the Greek MSS., nor do Ambrosius nor Eusebius seem to have read them.

1 Matth. cap, 5, v. 18.

* In Comment. ad Luc. cap. 4, v. 19.

We may here, by the way, observe, that the Greek iota, the Hebrew yod, the Chaldee hik, and the Syriac yud, are all the smallest letters in their respective alphabets, so that the proverb would hold good in any of these languages. But as the speaker used none of these, but only the Greek characters, it is quite certain that it sprang from his speaking Greek. This is further confirmed by the fact that a Greek proverb was commonly current at that day, whereby any thing exceedingly minute was compared to an iota.

$5. Christ used the Greek alphabet also.

Our last argument in regard to Christ is drawn from the title given to Christ in the Apocalypse, where, declaring himself to be the beginning and end of all things, he says, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." Again, in the beginning of the same book: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord." For as the Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and the Omega the last, so is HE alone the beginning from whom all, and the end for whom all things were created, and whom no end can follow, the Everlasting."

Here Grotius, anticipating the force of our argument, has commented upon the words in John in the following terms: This mode of expression, namely, Alpha and Omega, is borrowed from the Rabbins, who say

from Aleph

to Thau, from the beginning to the end: thus Jalkuth on 2 Sam., Isaac Benarima on Lev. 26. And in the contracted form the beginning and the end, in the Book Zohar, the gate of light, the gates of justice, Bahir and others, John adapted the phrase to the Greek alphabet, because he was writing in Greek.

But with all respect for the illustrious dead, the argument was unworthy of so great a man. For if Christ really said these words in Chaldee, as Grotius thinks, and not in Greek, John would likewise have expressed them in Chaldee, thus: "I am Olaph and Tau, saith the Lord." Nor does it help his cause to say that John expressed these letters in Greek, because he was writing in Greek, for John himself on other occasions acts otherwise. Thus in chap. 9, v. 11, of the same book, he writes: "The king, the angel of the abyss, whose name is in Hebrew Abaddon, and in Greek Apollyon." So also chap. 16, v. 16, "In the place which is called in Hebrew Armageddon." In the first chapter of the Gospel he

$6. Hellenism was vernacular to the apostles.

The apostles and evangelists also used the Greek as their native tongue, the proof of which we find in the dialect they used in their writings. This dialect, as has been often observed, consists of Greek words and Hebrew and Chaldee combinations, together with an occasional intermixture of Macedonian, Syrian, and Egyptian idiotisms. So peculiar was this at that period to the sacred writers and the inhabitants of Palestine, that you will not find either any people or author elsewhere employing it. If we look closely into this question, we shall perceive that there are only three causes which can furnish an adequate solution of it: either that the apostles acquired this dialect from the Greeks; or that God taught it them by miracle; or, finally, that it was their native dialect.

As to the first supposition, then, no one can say that the apostles learned this dialect from the Greeks, because, I. Josephus tells us that the Jews abhorred the reading of foreign authors, much more the learning of their language, which they regarded as impiety in a Jew to know too well. II. Be

pursues the same method, for putting the word 'Paßßì in the mouth of the two disciples of the Baptist, who accosted Jesus, he straightway subjoins ó Aéyera topvevóμevov dičáskads. Now, if John did so, although he wrote in Greek, in recording matters of minor moment, how much more would he have done so in regard to the divine words of Christ? But if we examine the words of Grotius, we shall find the expression ambiguous. "Est locutio Alpha et Omega a Rabbinis desumpta, &c. &c." This may either mean that the phrase was borrowed by the Rabbins from John, or by John from the Rabbins. If it be understood in the former sense, that the Rabbins took it from John, that may be correct, because they lived long after that sacred writer. But if Grotius means that John borrowed the expression from the Rabbins, he is utterly mistaken, since the very Rabbins named by him, even if we concede the highest antiquity claimed for them by their friends, are all more modern than John. The book Zohar, for instance, was composed by Rabbi Simeon Ben Jochai; and Bahir, by Rabbi Nehemiah Ben Achan, who both lived in the second century; Jalkuth on 2 Sam. was compiled after this period; as also considerably later the Porta Lucis, whose author was R. Joseph Gecatilia, who flourished in the eleventh century after Christ; and the Porta Justitia, written by R. Karnitol, who lived about A. D. 1500, and R. Benarima. The objection of Grotius, therefore, goes for nothing.

1 Joseph. in fine lib. Antiq.

cause the apostles were almost totally ignorant of polite learning. There was no object, then, to impel them to the perusal of the Greek writers, which had they done they would certainly have formed a more cultivated style than they now exhibit. Nor must it be said, as some unthinkingly urge, that the sacred writers of the New Testament picked up their Greek from the constant study of the version of the Seventy. For, in the first place, this assertion is made without any authority whatever; and in the next, there is too great a difference between the Hellenistic of the Septuagint and that of the apostles for us to believe it. The apostles, for instance, strew their Greek with Latinisms, which are entirely wanting in the other; ample proof that theirs was the vulgar tongue, and daily enlarging by accessions from foreign sources. And, III. Because the apostles, plain and humble men, knew no language but their own. If, then, this Hellenism were really a foreign thing to them, not only were they incapable of forming their style from it, but could not even read or understand it without an interpreter.

Nor, in the second place, can it be said that the apostles were miraculously endowed with a knowledge of Hellenism. For, to omit any other argument, if this language was common, besides the apostles, to other Jewish writers, as we have already shown, to whom no gift of tongues was imparted, there was no need for the special interference of God to bestow it upon them.

It remains, therefore, in the third place, that we confess the apostles to have used this language, because their own vernacular tongue; which alone can account for their employment of a dialect so remote from pure Greek usage.

$7. From the weighty reasons just adduced, it must be evident to all that Hellenism was not only the language of the Jews from the Maccabean age, but also that of Christ and the apostles at a later day, as the vulgar one of the country and times. We may, then, fairly rest in the conclusion that Christ imbibed it with his mother's milk, that he swallowed it

by daily use in conversation and teaching, and that he wrote in it when he stooped toward the ground, and pardoned the adulterous woman. His mother spoke Hellenistic, and the angel Gabriel Hellenistic, when he came to her and announced the incarnation of the divine Word. This same dialect did the apostles use as their native one when they went forth to publish the law of the gospel. Hence, too, came it that the ancient church so long employed the same language in its liturgy and ritual.

ARTICLE VIII.

ON THE CHANGE OF THE SABBATH FROM THE SEVENTH TO THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK BY APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE.

By Rev. R. WEISER, Pastor of the Ev. Lutheran Church of Bedford, Penn.

1. An Address to the Baptists of the United States, from the General Conference of the Seventh-Day Baptists. New-York: 1843.

2. Sabbath Tracts, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, published by the Seventh-Day Baptist Tract Society. New-York: 1843. 3. The Sabbath Vindicator, Nos. 1 and 2. New-York:

1844.

4. Seventh-Day Baptist Anniversaries, or an Account of their Religious Conference for 1843. New-York: 1844. 5. Plain Questions. A Christian Caveat to the Old and New Sabbatarians (by E. Fisher, Esq., first published in London, 1653), republished by the Sabbath Tract Society. New-York: 1844.

We have placed at the head of our article quite a formidable array of pamphlets. We have done this, in order to show those whose views we may feel it our duty to oppose,