OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONTROVERSY AS TO THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Concluded from page 99.] Not at all entering into Dr. Maltby's fears of the dangers of " the overcurious and restless spirit of research," by which "points, long since admitted by the general consent of wise and good men," are probed and tried, and being well assured with him that in the result, "the grounds of our belief will have been more completely sifted and more accurately understood; that the substantial interests of truth will have been promoted, and the purity, as well as genuineness, of our sacred records, in the end established on a still more solid and durable foundation"—we proceed to notice the mode in which he has entered upon the controversy, the previous history of which we have somewhat developed. He takes up the hypothesis of the author of the Palæoromaica without any intimation of its previous history or existence. "The object," he tells us, "of that paradoxical production, is to shew that almost the whole Christian world, from the time in which the Scriptures of the New Testament were composed, up to the present day, has been involved in one common and monstrous error respecting the language in which they were originally written ;—and that the Latin was not only the more natural and proper language at that particular period for books designed for general instruction, but also the language in which they actually first appeared." The principal portion of Dr. Maltby's Sermon is directed to the denial and disproval of one of the leading propositions of the Palæoromaica-" that it was natural and proper, and therefore probable, that the various books of the New Testament should be written in Latin, not in Greek." After observing upon the objectionable nature of this species of argument founded on antecedent fitness against a supposed historical fact, Dr. M. proceeds to shew concisely, but by a most unanswerable chain of facts, the prevalence of the Greek language among the Jews, and the absence of all proof of the use by them of the Latin in any single instance. Passing by the general and undoubted use of the Greek tongue throughout a large portion of Asia, which may, indeed, be considered as the cradle of its literature, he observes that, after the Macedonian conquest, Syria became, as it were, naturalized to the language of the conqueror; and that all the country surrounding Palestine, every city to which the Jews were carried or which they inhabited, spoke a dialect of Greek more or less pure; that every probability is in favour of their adoption of the language of the country where they resided, and that we know for an undoubted fact that they certainly did so at Alexandria; that all history bears us out in asserting, that whatever knowledge was possessed by the Jews, besides the dialects of Hebrew, was decidedly Greek and Greek only; nay, that the writers in Greek were more numerous, as well as distinguished, than those in Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic. apocryphal books of the Old Testament, with few exceptions, were Greek, and a version of the Old Testament itself had been called into existence by its usefulness and, in fact, necessity. The same dialect became consecrated to the service of religion, and there is evidence that the law was read in it in the synagogues, and that the Jews studied it at home and were familiarized with it in their communications abroad. One thing is certain, that there is no proof of any one work written by a Jew in Latin. The Dr. Maltby then proceeds with a concise account of a series of Jewish writers using the Greek language. The names of Philo, Josephus, and Justin of Tiberias, satisfactorily close the list. The argument on this head is thus summed up: "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 among 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 Palæoromaica 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, Quirites, Græcam urbem; quamvis quota portio fæcis Achæi? Sat. iii. 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 ignorant of the Old Testament itself; for how but in Greek could they have read it? The case of the Epistle to the Corinthians stands on somewhat similar grounds, with this difference, that there is no reason to believe that Corinth, although restored and colonized by Cæsar after its devastation by Mummius, has any title to be considered as what can be properly called a city of Romans or Latins, or as inhabited by persons speaking exclusively the Latin language, still less as remaining at the distance of a century unacquainted with the Greek language, though in the very heart of Greece and Grecians. Reason and probability will assure us, that the main population of such a city must always have been or would soon become Greek; that the Roman settlers (if, indeed, they were properly Romans at all) would soon amalgamate with the population of the country; and that the persons likely to be the earliest Christian converts would be of the same description as in the other cities, particularly of the Eastern portion of the empire. One frequent cause of misunderstanding on the important question discussed in the works before us, appears to rest on a similar mistake to that to which we have before alluded, and which every one is apt to make, in not sufficiently distinguishing the state and uses of the books now composing the New-Testament Canon in the early periods of Christianity, from what we now see and feel. We are apt, unconsciously, to talk (as the author of the Palæoromaica justly observes, that the accusers of the ancient heretics for rejecting this or that canonical book always talk)" as if the New Testament in its proper form had been published at once by some Jerusalem bookseller at a cheap rate, had been advertised in newspapers and reviews," and, we may add, read in all churches and chapels as a combined and mutually dependent code. Our Saviour and his disciples lived in Judea, and taught and talked in the vernacular language of their country; their earliest converts used that same language for the ordinary purposes of life; why, then, it is said, do we find the earliest records of revealed truth, the sacred books written for their religious instruction and for the conviction of the unbelieving multitude, in what was to a certain extent a foreign tongue ? Now, what evidence is there that these sacred books were primarily intended even for such purposes as the books of the law were used for in religious exercises? As a collection it is out of the question; but even singly, are not their composition and subsequent use in the churches facts which would naturally arise only as time removed further back the period of actual oral relation from eye-witnesses of the transactions recorded, and out of a gradual analogy to the use of the ancient Scriptures in the Jewish synagogues? At the period, then, at which the necessity, the demand (if we may use the expression) for these writings would arise as evidence of the truth, what was the situation of the church? It was a rapidly increasing one among the Gentiles and Hellenized Jews scattered over the Eastern and Grecian provinces of the empire, all more or less using the Greek language, and already possessing their ancient Scriptures in that tongue; but it was a more confined and gradually declining church as identified and incumbered with the local customs, language and law of Judea. Then is not the received notion of the facts as to the Scriptures written for such a church, actually according in the strictest sense with this state of things? There was one Gospel originally written in Hebrew or Syro-Chaldee, the call for which in that form so speedily passed away, that all trace of the original was soon lost in a Greek version. There were four other historical books all written in Greek, as adapted to the then situation of the great majority of the church, and particularly of those portions of the Gentile converts for whose information, as more distant from the scene of actual evidence, they were peculiarly wanted. There were epistles in Greek addressed to the leading divisions of the church established in Heathen countries, between whom and the expatriated Jews Greek was, as far as we can see, the only adequate medium, particularly as being the language of the current version of the Old Testament. The very doubts which have always existed about the original language of such an Epistle as that to the Hebrews, is, in our view, characteristic of the position of the members of that nation, whom dispersion in foreign countries and a relaxation from their ancient law and institutions were every day tending to amalgamate with the Christian converts from other nations to such an extent as, in a short time, wholly to efface the distinction. To return to Dr. Maltby: we shall be happy to see the continuation of his promised series of Discourses on the Original Languages of Scripture. He intends, it appears, to give peculiar attention to the Hellenistic Greek, and no one can read the Palæoromaica without feeling convinced (whatever he may think of the hypothesis on which its author has chosen to hang his observations) that there is a great deal to be done in elucidating that subject, and that there are very many most important anomalies in the present text to discuss and illustrate. He will come best prepared to sift the comparative influences of foreign tongues upon this species of Greek, and to explain the process by which some of the very peculiar constructions and solecisms which the author has pointed out arose, who brings to the task the most extensive knowledge of the different languages prevalent at the time; and in this respect we have already observed that the author of the Palæoromaica is, with all his industry and ingenuity, in a great degree deficient. He has, however, collected a store of interesting materials into which we have not yet entered, but the details of which we shall be glad at some future period to follow Dr. Maltby in investigating. 8. TRANSYLVANIAN UNITARIANS. SIR, Hackney, March 6, 1827. SOME literary inquiries connected with Servia and Poland having lately led me to correspond with several Slavonian men of letters, I have gathered together the following facts respecting the Transylvanian Unitarians, which it may be desirable to record. In Transylvania and Hungary their present number (January, 1827) is between 40 and 50,000, or about one forty-fourth of the whole population, which amounted by the last census to 1,972,000. Literature is in rather an inactive state in Transylvania, and for some time no very distinguished author has appeared. The Unitarians enjoy liberty of faith and worship, and possess a College, (Collegium,) not a University, at Klausenburg, which is in a flourishing situation, with about three hundred students, under the care of three Curators, (who do not interfere with instruction,) one Rector, four Professors and seven Teachers. The Unitarians have also two Gymnasia, one at Thorenburg, the other at Szekely-Keresztur. The number of head-churches which they occupy is one hundred and ten, and there are fifty-four branch churches or chapels. The principal authority is that of a superintendent. The Unitarians who were formerly scattered over Bohemia and Poland are now extinct, their descendants having conformed to the Calvinistic creed. J. B. CANONICAL AUTHORITY OF THE BOOKS OF THE PROPHETS. THE object of the present communication will be to determine the authenticity and credibility of the prophetical writings contained in the Jewish Scriptures; and the importance of this object must appear evident to all who feel interested in the fate of Revelation: for, if these books were not the productions of the persons to whom they are attributed, or if they were written after the events of which they are said to contain predictions, not only would the Jew and the Christian lose all advantage which the argument from prophecy furnishes, but the Unbeliever would have just cause to triumph in its failure, and might reasonably enough contend that the system which stood in need of such artifice, to secure it a favourable reception in the world, must rest upon a tottering and precarious foundation. It must be confessed, indeed, that all the direct evidence of which the subject admits is derived from Jews and Christians, whom the ignorant and the prejudiced may regard as incompetent witnesses: nor can it be for a moment doubted that the evidence would have been more complete, and more likely to have carried conviction to the mind of the unbeliever, if a catalogue of Heathen testimonies could have been added to those which are furnished in such abundance by Jewish and Christian writers. But the absence of these, it may be presumed, is sufficiently accounted for by the peculiar circumstances of the case; by the character which the Jews maintained as the chosen people of God through a long series of ages; by their comparative indifference in making proselytes to their religion; by the language in which their sacred books were written being but little known among heathen nations; and by the destruction, in ages far remote, of those works which alone could have supplied the desired testimony. In cases of historical inquiry, however, we cannot expect all the exactness of mathematical demonstration. If the evidence adduced be unimpeachable as far as it goes, nothing further can in reason be expected. Nor is it very material, in an investigation like the present, whether the evidence be furnished by Heathen or by Jewish and Christian writers, since the sources from which it is derived, and the indirect manner in which it is supplied, afford the most effectual security against fraud or collusion. Had all the authors to whom reference will be made by and by, written with the intention of proving that which it is the object of the present communication to establish, it would have been but fair to receive their testimony with some degree of caution; but, so far were some of them from aiming to prove the authenticity and credibility of the prophetical writings, in the references which they made to them, that they uniformly took these points for granted, as matters about which no doubt ever had existed or ever could exist. Our sources of information on the subject are neither so clear nor so copious as theirs were ; but, if we can trace the writings in question backwards through a regular series of periods, and prove that they have always been received as the productions of those to whom they are now ascribed, the utmost demand of curiosity will be satisfied, and their authenticity will be confirmed by the most undeniable evidence. It will be admitted on all hands that the descendants of Abraham, notwithstanding their dispersion over every part of the globe, both civilized and uncivilized, have always kept themselves a distinct people, and entertained the deepest and most rooted abhorrence of the Christian name. The former of these facts is confirmed by our own daily observation, combined with the testimony of historians and travellers, whose veracity has |