tain other facts which necessarily suppose the universal propagation of the Aramaic tongue, among the Palestinian Jews of this age, cannot be very numerous. In the writings of the Greeks and Romans, we need not look for indications of a very familiar acquaintance with the history and language of the Palestinian Jews, since they did not even vouchsafe their attention to the language and national writings of the more civilized nations of antiquity, such as the Carthaginians, Phoenicians, &c.; and Strabo, from whom we have quoted above the passages bearing upon our subject, is perhaps the only one who imparts this general information of the Syrians, (to whom the Palestinians also belonged,) that they and their neighbours spoke a cognate language, but he enters on no farther explanation as to the difference between their dialects. The few native authors might indeed have left for us more definite accounts relative to the history of their language; but these occupied themselves with historical and religious subjects, the treatment of which offered no opportunity to a satisfactory elucidation of this point; and it would not be by any means surprising if they did not contain even a syllable on the subject. In their writ• Page 3.

ings, however, as by mere chance, some unintentional, yet, on account of their age, valuable evidences have been preserved, which place beyond a doubt the subsistence of the Aramaic language at the time of Christ and the Apostles. We shall here rehearse these, following the chronological order of the writings in which they have been preserved.

I. IN THE WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, to which, from their antiquity, the first place must be assigned, we find two pas sages relative to our subject:

1. In Acts i. 19, mention is made of a Hierosolymitan tongue quite different from the Greek and Roman, which being the language of the capital, must have been prevalent in the surrounding neighbourhood. No name indeed is given to this language, but the word Hakeldama (Aceldama) ascribed to it, as it belongs to the Babylonian Aramaic, shews clearly enough that here no other language is meant.

2. Paul addressed the people of Jerusalem, who were excited against him, by Jews of Asia Minor, in a speech in the modern Hebrew, that is to say, in the Aramaic dialect at that time current in Palestine, for its identity with the modern Hebrew will appear from

d Tn 'Ebgaïdı diaλéxrw. Acts xxi. 40; xxii. 2.

what will be said hereafter. The attentive silence with which the people listened to Paul's speech in his own defence, his devotion to Judaism having become suspected, and the instantaneous favourable impression which his acquaintance with the Aramaic language made 'on the people, sufficiently prove that this language was predominant at Jerusalem, and that no man was considered an orthodox Jew who was unable to express himself with ease and fluency in that language.

II. FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, a Palestinian Jew, himself an eye-witness to the wars carried on in Palestine by the Romans, and to the destruction of the capital of his country, as well as of the national sanctuary, whose testimony, accordingly, is of more weight than that of Talmudical writings collected in modern times, completely agrees with the statement of the New Testament.

e

1. According to his express averment, no other

* Ant. xx. 10. 2. Λέγω δὲ θαρσήσας—ὅτι μηδεὶς ἂν ἕτερος ηδυνήθη θελήσας, μήτε Ἰουδαῖος, μήτε ἀλλόφυλος, τὴν πραγματείαν ταύτην οὕτως ἀκριβῶς εἰς Ἕλληνας ἐξενεγκεῖν. ἐγὼ γὰρ ὡμολογούμην παρὰ τῶν ὁμοεθνῶν πλεῖστον αὐτῶν κατὰ τὴν ἐπισ χώριον παιδείαν διαφέρειν· καὶ τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν δὲ γραμμάτων ἐσπούδασα μετασχεῖν, τὴν γραμματικὴν ἐμπειρίαν ἀναλαβὼν, τὴν δὲ περὶ τὴν προφορὰν ἀκρίβειαν πάτριος ἐκώλυσε συνήθεια. Παρ' ἡμῖν γὰρ οὐκ ἐκείνους ἀποδέχονταὶ τοὺς πολλῶν ἐθνῶν διαλέκτων

Jew among his contemporaries was capable of composing such a work as his Jewish Archaologia in the Greek language. The chief reason of this he states to be ignorance of the Greek language. He himself had indeeda circumstance which he mentions as extraordinary and unusual-learned this foreign tongue, and made himself acquainted with Greek literature; but, following the prevailing custom of his own country, the acquirement of speaking it with ease and readiness was one he had little cared for. "For with us," he thus continues, "those who have learned foreign tongues are not at all esteemed; for it is considered as a discipline common to the refuse of freemen and slaves. Those only are considered as men of learning who are well acquainted with the laws, and possess an ability in interpreting the sacred writings," (according to the original text of the Hebrew, with the assistance of the verbal tradition and the Targums extant in the language of the country; (for this is clear from the whole context, and not according to the

ἐκμαθόντας, διὰ τὸ κοὶνὸν εἶναί νομίζειν τὸ ἐπίτηδευμα τοῦτο οὐκ ἐλευθέρων μόνον τοῖς τυχοῦσιν, αλλὰ καὶ τῶν οἰκετῶν τοῖς θέλουσιν. μόνοις δὲ σοφίαν μαρτυροῦσι τοῖς τὰ νόμιμα σαφῶς ἐπισταμένοις, καὶ τὴν τῶν ἱερῶν γραμμάτων δύναμιν ἑρμηνεῦσαι δυναμένοις.

Alexandrian version,) of which a despiser of outlandish languages could make no use.)

2. This same author wrote an history of the Jewish war in the language of his country, for the use of his brethren in Babylon, in Persia, in Arabia, and on the other side of the Euphrates, who, accordingly, as well as the Palestinians, preserved the Babylonian Aramaic language; and the Greek version of this work which he prepared in Rome with the assistance of some Greeks, he intended, as well as the Archæologia, (Praef. 2.) not for Jews, but for Greeks, and for that vast multitude of Romans who were acquainted with the Greek language.

h

3. He calls the Greek language expressly a foreign tongue, and speaks of the Babylonian Aramaic in a manner which shews that he meant a living language.j

f[This parenthesis is the author's paraphrasis on Joseph's word ἑρμηνεῦσαι.]

• B. J. pr. § 1. Προθέμην ἐγὼ τοῖς κατὰ τὴν Ῥωμαίων ήγε μονίαν Ἑλλάδι γλώσση μεταβαλὼν, ὰ τοῖς ἄνω βαρβάροιςτῇ πατρίῳ συντάξας ἀνέπεμψα πρότερον ἀφηγήσασθαι.

1 C. Ap. 1. 9. Χρησάμενός τισι πρὸς τὴν Ἑλληνίδα φωνὴν συν εργοῖς.

i Ant. pro 2. xvos μοι καὶ μέλλησις ἐγίνετο τηλικαύτην μετ τενεγκεῖν ὑπόθεσιν (here he speaks of his Jewish History,) εἰς ἀλλοδαπὴν ἡμῖν καὶ ξένης διαλέκτου συνήθειαν.

j Ant. III. 7. 2. Μωϋσὴς μὲν οὖν ̓Αβανὴθ (1998) αὐτὴν ἐκά