concurring with several other causes, occasioned the dispersion of a great part of their nation throughout the provinces of Asia Minor, Assyria, Phenicia, Persia, Arabia, Libya, and Egypt; which dispersion was in process of time extended to Achaia, Macedonia, and Italy. The unavoidable consequence of this was, in a few ages, to all those who settled in distant lands, the total loss of that dialect which their fathers had brought out of Babylon into Palestine. But this is to be understood with the exception of the learned, who studied the oriental languages by book. At length a complete version of the Scriptures of the Old Testament was made into Greek; a language which was then, and continued for many ages afterwards, in far more general use than any other. This is what is called the Septuagint, or version of the Seventy, (probably because approved by the sanhedrim,) which was begun, as has been said, by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, for the use of the Alexandrian Library. At first no more than the Pentateuch was translated, which was soon followed by a version of the other books. This is doubtless the first translation that was attempted of the sacred writings.

It is

4. It will readily be imagined, that all the Jews who inhabited Grecian cities, where the oriental tongues were unknown, would be solicitous to obtain copies of this translation. To excite in them this solicitude, patriotism would concur with piety, and indeed almost every motive that can operate upon men. In one view, their Bible was more to them than ours is to us. religion alone, I may say, that influences our regard; whereas their sacred books contained not only their religious principles and holy ceremonies, but the whole body of their municipal laws.* They contained an account of their political constitution, and their civil history, that part especially which is most interesting the lives of their Patriarchs, and the gradual advancement of that family from which they gloried to be descended; the history of their establishment as a nation; the exploits, victories, and conquests of their ancestors; the lives and achievements of their kings and heroes, prophets and reformers. Nay, more, the Scriptures might also be justly considered as a collection of the writings, both prosaic and poetical, of all the most eminent authors their country had produced. A copy of such a version was therefore, in every view we can take of it, an inestimable treasure to every Jew who understood Greek, and could not read the original. And hence we may easily conceive, that the copies would soon be greatly multiplied, and widely scattered.

5. Let us attend to the consequences that would naturally follow. Wherever Greek was the mother-tongue, this version would come to be used not only in private in Jewish houses, but also in public in their schools and synagogues, in the explanation of the weekly lessons from the Law and the Prophets. The style * See Lowth, De Sacra Poesi Hebræorum, Præl. viii.

of it would consequently soon become the standard of language to them on religious subjects. Hence would arise a certain uniformity of phraseology and idiom among the Grecian Jews, whereever dispersed, in regard to their religion and sacred rites, whatever were the particular dialects which prevailed in the places of their residence, and were used by them in conversing on ordinary

matters.

6. That there was, in the time of the apostles, a distinction made between those Jews who used the Greek language and the Hebrews, or those who spoke the language of Palestine and of the territory of Babylon, which they affected to call Hebrew, is manifest from the Acts of the Apostles. There we are informed, that "there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration," Acts vi. 1, &c. That those Grecians were Jews is evident from the history; for this happened before Peter was specially called to preach the gospel to Cornelius and his family, who were the first fruits of the Gentiles to Christ. Besides, though the word Grecian made use of in our translation is synonymous with Greek, yet the term employed in the original is never applied in the New Testament to Pagan Greeks, but solely to those Jews who had resided always or mostly in Grecian cities, and consequently whose common tongue was Greek. The Gentile Greeks are invariably called in Scripture 'EXλnves; whereas the term used in the place quoted is 'EXλnvioral, a word which, even in classical authors, does not mean Greeks, but imitators of the Greeks, or those who write or speak Greek; being a derivation from the word λnvičev, to speak Greek, or imitate the Greeks. The term occurs only thrice in the New Testament; that is, in two other passages of the Acts beside that now quoted. One of these is where we are told that Saul, also called Paul after his conversion, being at Jerusalem, "disputed with the Grecians," TOOS TOUS EXAпvioras, who "went about to slay him," Acts ix. 29. This also happened before the conversion of Cornelius, and consequently before the gospel was preached to any Gentile; but as to their festivals there was a general concourse of people at Jerusalem, from all parts of the world into which they were dispersed, a considerable number of those Hellenists or Grecizers, as in our idiom we should be apt to term them, must have been present on that occasion. The only other passage is where we are told, that some of these being Cypriots and Cyrenians, who were scattered abroad on the persecution that arose about Stephen, "spake unto the Grecians" (TOOS TOUS 'Eλλnvioras) at Antioch, " preaching the Lord Jesus," Acts xi. 20. Whether this was before or after the baptism of Cornelius, recorded in the foregoing chapter, is not certain; but one thing is certain, that it was before those disciples could know of that memorable event. Concerning the others who were in that dispersion, who were probably

Hebrews, we are informed in the verse immediately preceding, that in all those places, Phenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, through which they went, they preached the word to none but Jews.

7. The learned Basnage makes a principal handle of this passage for supporting an opinion, which had been advanced before by Beza, that by the Hellenists is meant the proselytes to Judaism, they being contrasted here not with the Hebrews, but with the Jews. But let it be observed, that the word Jew was not always in those days, used in the same sense. Most commonly. indeed it referred to the nation, in which sense it was synonymous with Israelite. A man of Jewish extraction was not the less a Jew because he was neither a native nor an inhabitant of Judea, and understood not a syllable of its language. Sometimes, however, it referred to the country; in which acceptation it belonged particularly to the inhabitants of Judea or Palestine, including those neighbouring regions wherein the same tongue was spoken. That the Samaritans (though mortally hated as schismatics) were comprehended in this application of the term Jew, is evident from what we learn from the Acts (chap. viii. 5, &c.), where we are informed of their being converted by Philip, and receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit by the hands of Peter, some time before the conversion of Cornelius, the first fruits of the Gentiles. Nay, sometimes, in a still more limited signification, it regarded only the inhabitants of the district belonging to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which had anciently constituted the kingdom of Judah. In this sense we understand the word as used by the evangelist John, chap. vii. 1: "After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for he would not walk in Jewry (Lovdata, Judea) because the Jews sought to kill him." Yet Galilee was a part of Judea in the larger and even more common acceptation of the word, and the Galileans, of whom were the apostles, were, in every sense except this confined one, Jews as well as the others. The same distinction is made between Judea and Galilee, by Matthew, chap. ii. 22. It cannot be doubted, therefore, that the term Jews, in the passage under examination, ought to be understood in the second sense above-mentioned, as equivalent to Hebrews.

A little attention to the case puts this conclusion beyond a doubt. Why should they in preaching the gospel make a distinction between Jews and proselytes, persons who had received the seal of circumcision, and subjected themselves without reserve to the Mosaic yoke? The law itself made no distinction; nay, expressly prohibited the people from making any: "When a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it, and he shall be as one that is born in the land; for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. One law shall be to him that is home-born, and to the stranger that sojourneth

with you;" Exod. xii. 48, 49; see also Numb. xv. 14-16. 29. This last phrase (though sometimes used with greater latitude) became a common periphrasis for a proselyte. We find accordingly, that though a question arose early in the church, and was for a time hotly agitated, concerning the lawfulness of admitting the uncircumcised to baptism, (for such was Cornelius, though no idolater), there is no hint given that the smallest doubt was entertained concerning the admission of proselytes who had already embraced the Jewish ritual, and were circumcised. So far from it, that the keenest advocates for uniting Judaism with Christianity insisted only that the Gentile converts might be circumcised, and compelled to join the observance of the law of Moses to their faith in Christ: Where then could be the difficulty of receiving those who were already disciples of Moses, and had been circumcised?-It will perhaps be retorted, "If the Christians could have no scruple to preach to proselytes, still less could they have to preach to those native Jews who differed in nothing from their brethren in Palestine but in language." True, indeed, they could have no scruple; but those who came at that time to Antioch were not all qualified for preaching in Greek, for all had not the gift of tongues. And the historian has rendered it evident that the want of the language was the reason they did it not, having observed, that those who came thither and preached to the Hellenists were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, places where Greek was the prevailing tongue.

In regard to the murmuring mentioned in the sixth chapter, which gave rise to the appointment of deacons, nothing can be more improbable than Beza's hypothesis. The number of the proselytes of righteousness, as they are sometimes called, could not be great; for though several, like Cornelius, had been gained over from paganism to the worship of the true God, few comparatively were induced to adopt the Mosaic ceremonies. Now, converts of the first sort were still by the Jews accounted heathens, and had access to no part of the temple inaccessible to Gentiles. Of the Jewish proselytes, it was a part only that was converted to Christianity; and of that part, those who were both widows and indigent could not surely be a great proportion. Further, if by Hellenists be meant proselytes, where was the occasion for classing them separately from the Jews, or for so much as inquiring who was a Jew by birth and who a proselyte? It was not agreeable, as we have seen, either to the spirit or to the letter of the law, to make so invidious, not to say odious a distinction; and if not to the law, still less, if possible, to the gospel. Whereas the distinction, on the other hypothesis, being founded on their using different languages, was not barely convenient, but necessary. They were classes of people who could not be addressed in the same tongue; and, for this reason, it was probably found expedient to employ different agents in supplying them. Certain

it is, they were in the constant practice of assembling in different synagogues; for in Jerusalem there were Greek synagogues for the accommodation of Hellenists of different nations, who came thither either occasionally or to attend the great festivals, as well as Hebrew synagogues for the use of the natives. Such were most of those mentioned in the Acts, chap. vi. 9., the Cyrenian synagogue and the Alexandrian, the Cilician and the Asian.

That Nicholas, one of the deacons elected on that occasion, was a proselyte, is a circumstance of no moment in this question. If four, or even three of the seven had been of that denomination, it might have been pleaded with some plausibility, that there must have been in this a design of destroying in the proselytes all suspicion of partiality. As it was, had it been they who murmured, it would have rather increased than diminished their jealousy to find, that they had gotten only one of their own class chosen for six of the other. This therefore must be considered as a circumstance merely accidental. As to that singular conceit of Vossius, that the Hellenists were those who favoured the doctrine of submission to a foreign yoke, as it is destitute alike of internal credibility and external evidence, it requires no refutation.

8. So much for the distinction that obtained in those days between Hebrew Jews and Grecian Jews or Hellenists; among the latter of whom, the version of the LXX was in constant use. The Greek had been for ages a sort of universal language in the civilized world, at least among people of rank and men of letters. Cicero (Pro Archia Poeta) had with truth said of it, at the time. when Rome was in her glory, and Greece declining,—“ Græca leguntur in omnibus fere gentibus: Latina suis finibus, exiguis sane, continentur." This continued to be the case till the time of the publication of the gospel, and for some centuries afterward. As the Greek was then of all languages the best understood, and the most generally spoken throughout the empire, the far greater part of the New Testament, which contained a revelation for all mankind, was originally written in that tongue. I say the far greater part, because many critics are of opinion that the Gospel of Matthew (see the Preface to that Gospel) and the Epistle to the Hebrews, were originally written in that dialect of the Chaldee which was then the language of Jerusalem, and by Jewish writers called Hebrew. It must be remembered that all the penmen of the New Testament were Jews, the greater part Hebrews not Hellenists; but whether they be Hebrews or Hellenists, as they wrote in Greek, the version of the LXX would serve as a model in what concerned propriety of expression on religious subjects. It was, besides, the idiom which would be best understood by all the converts to Christianity from among their brethren the Jews, wheresoever scattered, and that whereby their writings would more perfectly harmonize with their own Scriptures, which the whole of that people had in so great and de