also observed, the collection of distinct particulars into distinct classes; and consequently upon the ground of some affinity with each other, and some disparity to every thing else. Among the grounds of any such affinity, the hypothesis excludes that of agreement in the order of time; for it assumes the irregularity of St. Luke's Gospel: and it would be contrary to that assumption that events should be any where considered as classified together out of regard to the order of time. The distribution of events upon such a principle would imply the composition of a regular history. The principle of the classification, then, must have been in every instance the agreement of the things classified between themselves, in some other respect, and not in this. But what agreement in some other respect, and not in this, could be made the ground of a common classification of distinct, individual events, except the possession of some common nature; that is, the material resemblance of the things themselves? Events of like kind, it is obvious, might be arranged together on the principle of a certain classification, independently of the order of time; but what else could? Now of this species of classification there is not a single instance to be met with in St. Luke's Gospel and so far from bringing things together on the ground of any abstract resemblance between them, it is his constant practice to separate and disjoin even those which had a natural predisposition to be united. Among the general events of our Saviour's ministry, he never relates any two in conjunction, because they were of like kind. On this principle, he ought to have given in conjunction the two sermons delivered on the same mount of Beatitudes-the two visits to Nazareth-the two miracles of feeding the four general circuits of Galilee-the two missions of the Twelve and the Seventy respect ively the two visits to the tomb, on the morning of the resurrection-the ten manifestations of our Lord, after that event-and the like; wherever there is reason to conclude that incidents, perfectly analogous in themselves, must have happened more than once in the course of the Gospel history. In all these cases so little disposition does St. Luke shew to bring things together, which belonged to distinct points of time, that it is a rule with him, of which we have seen many instances heretofore, to relate nothing, which was absolutely identical, twice. Besides this, a writer, who had deliberately conceived the design of digesting the materials of the Gospel history into distinct classes and divisions of things, could not fail to have fallen into such modes of arrangement, as the nature of the subject itself must spontaneously have suggested. For example, must not our Saviour's miracles, on this principle, have constituted one class-and his discourses another-and the general incidents of his life, a third? Among his miracles, would not those of one description have required to be distinctly arranged from those of another? and would not the same thing hold good of his discourses? Must not his ordinary discourses, by which I mean the substance and particulars of his daily teaching, have been discriminated from his extraordinary, by which I understand his discourses of every other kind; the most obvious division of which would be into the parabolic, the prophetical, and the controversial, respectively? It is impossible, I think, to deny that, in a Gospel history framed and constructed upon any such plan as that of this assumed principle of classification, we should have perceived distinct traces of some such divisions as these. Yet not a vestige of them is any where discoverable in the Gospel of St. Luke. The analysis of this Gospel, in fact, has shewn that it contains nothing which might not be perfectly regular where it stands; which could not, without a palpable absurdity, be taken out of the place already assigned to it, and transferred elsewhere: all which is clearly at variance with the supposition of any principle of composition but the simply historical one-regard to the order of time. It leads to the same conclusion, that as the duration of our Saviour's personal ministry was exactly three years in length, and consequently as the most natural and comprehensive division of the subject-matter of the Gospel history was according to the series and extent of the particulars embraced by each of those years respectively; so were these divisions marked out, with sufficient exactness, in the Gospel of St. Luke: for it was as easy to discover where the several years of our Lord's ministry, began and ended, in this Gospel, as in any except St. John's. In short its whole plan and economy are absolutely repugnant to the notion of such a principle of classification as Rosenmüller and others have supposed: nor is this principle more applicable to the structure of St. Luke's Gospel than to that of St. Matthew's or St. Mark's; to which, however, it has not been transferred. There is indeed a certain peculiarity by which its external constitution stands somewhat distinguished from their's; though that peculiarity is more or less common to them all. What this is, has been mentioned in its proper place elsewherea; and while it cannot be confounded with any such assortment or distribution of events, as would correspond to the classification in question, it is also found to be inconsistent neither with the supposition of the regularity of the individual Gospel itself, nor yet with that of its supplementary relation to the Gospels in being before it. a Vide Dissertation iii. Vol. i. page 237, 238. APPENDIX. DISSERTATION III. On the prevalence of the Greek Language in Palestine, or other parts of the East. Vide Dissertation ii. Vol.i. page 135. last line-141. line 24. THE reader will perceive that the discussion of this question is intimately connected with the further inquiry, in what language it is most probable that St. Matthew would write his Gospel, supposing it intended first and properly for the use of the inhabitants of Palestine, the Jews of Jerusalem, or the members of the Christian church established among his countrymen in that city. In addition to what was observed upon this question, when it was before under discussion, a variety of testimonies might have been produced, bearing more or less directly on the points at issue, and calculated to assist the judgment of the reader in forming his own opinion concerning them. These, therefore, I shall take the liberty of laying before him, without entering into any lengthened investigations, or proposing to do more than simply to methodize and arrange the several facts, which I have collected for his consideration. Among the followers of Xerxes in the invasion of Greece, B.C. 480, the poet Chorilus described a people, who must be understood to be the Jews, yet spoke the Punic or Phoenician language, as follows *: *For the age of Chœrilus, see Suidas, Xoipios. He designates him as νεανίσκος ἐπὶ τῶν Περσικῶν, Ολυμπιάδι ο'. Eusebius, Chronicon Armeno-Latinum, Pars iia. 207. dates his acme Olympiad lxxiv. 1. Jerome in Chronico, Olympiad lxxiv. 2. The poem from which the lines in question are taken was entitled, Αθηναίων νίκη κατὰ Ξέρξου : and the author was rewarded τῶνδ ̓ ὄπιθεν διέβαινε γένος θαυμαστὸν ἰδέσθαι, The book of Ecclesiasticus was written in Hebrew, that is, as we may justly presume, in the vernacular language of Palestine; and was translated by Jesus, the grandson of the author, into Greek. This appears from the preface: and independently of that, it might have been collected from such passages as this: "Wis"dom is according to her name b;" that is, her Hebrew name; denoting deep or solid. The author, at the lowest date, is supposed to have lived about B.C. 200; and the translator about B. C. 133. 66 There are allusions to the native language of the country, in the second book of Maccabees, in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, B. C. 168 or 167. "He answered in his own language-She exhorted every "one of them in her own language-She...spake in her "country language-With that he began in his own language d*" 66 Machabæorum primum librum, says Jerome, Hebraicum reperi. secundus Græcus est: quod ex ipsa quoque para probari potest e. In like manner: Fertur et Tavάperos Jesu filii Sirach liber, et alius, evdeπíypapos, qui Sapientia Salomonis inscribitur. quorum priorem Hebraicum reperi ... secundus apud Hebræos nusquam est f. for it with the gift of a stater of gold for every line. The same thing is recorded of the poems of Oppian. Cf. Suidas, 'Oпniavós: Sozomen, Oratio ad Imperatorem Theodosium, E. H. 394. B-D. Also, of the vith Book of Virgil's Æneid. See Servius, ad Eneid. vi. 862. * Nehemiah xiii. 24. mention occurs of the dialect of Ashdod; that is of one of the cities of the Philistines, (Azotus,) as distinct from that of the native Jews; and vice versa. Esther, viii. 9. also, the Jews' language is opposed to the other languages of the time being. a Eusebius, Præparatio Evangelica, ix. 9. 412. B. Cf. Josephus, Contra Apionem, i. 22. b vi. 22. Cf. xliii. 8. c vii. 8. 21. 27. d xii. 37. ei. 321, 322. Præfatio ad omnes Libros Vet. Test. f Ibid. 937, 938. Præfatio in Libros Salomonis. |