EXERCITATION IV.
THE LANGUAGE WHEREIN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN.
1. Of the language wherein this Epistle was originally written—Supposed to be the Hebrew. 2. Grounds of that supposition disproved. 3. Not translated by Clemens. 4. Written in Greek—Arguments for the proof thereof. 5. Of
3 citations out of the LXX.
1. BEcAUSE this Epistle was written to the Hebrews, most of the ancients granted that it was written in Hebrew. Clemens Alexan- drinus was the first who asserted it; after whom, Origen gave it countenance ; from whom Eusebius received it; and from him Jerome: which is the most ordinary progression of old reports. The main reason which induced them to embrace this persuasion, was a desire to free the Epistle from an exception against its being written by Paul, taken from the dissimilitude of the style used in it unto that of his other epistles. This being once admitted, though causelessly, they could think of no better answer, than that this supposed differ- ence of style arose from the translation of this Epistle, which by the apostle himself was first. written in Hebrew. Clemens Romanus is the person generally fixed on as the author of this translation; though some do faintly intimate that Luke the evangelist might possibly be the man that did it. But this objection from the diversity of style, which alone begat this persuasion, hath been already removed out of the way, so that it cannot be allowed to be a foundation unto any other supposition.
2, That which alone is added, to give countenance unto this opi- nion, is that which we mentioned at the entrance of this discourse,— namely, that the apostle writing unto the Hebrews, he did it in their own native language; which being also his own, it is no wonder if he were more copious and elegant in it than he was in the Greek,
SECT. 1,2.| EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS WAS WRITTEN. 103
whereunto originally he was a stranger, learning it, as Jerome sup- poseth, upon his conversion. But a man may modestly say unto all this, Odd:y byié¢. Lvery thing in this. pretended reason of that which indeed never was, is so far from certainty that indeed it is beneath all probability.
For,—(.) If this Epistle was written originally in Hebrew, whence comes it to pass that no copy of it in that language was ever read, seen, or heard of, by the most diligent collectors of all fragments of antiquity in the primitive times? Had ever any such thing been extant, whence came it, in particular, that Origen,—that prodigy of industry and learning,—should be able to attain no know- ledge or report of it? (2.) If it were incumbent on Paul, writing unto the Hebrews, to write in their own language, why did he not also write in Latin unto the Romans? That he did so, indeed, Gratian affirms; but without pretence of proof or witness, contrary to the testimony of all antiquity, the evidence of the thing itself, and con- stant confession of the Roman church. And Erasmus says well on Rom. i. 7, “ Coarguendus vel ridendus magis error eorum, qui putant Paulum Romanis lingua Romana scripsisse ;’—“ The error of them is to be reproved (or rather, laughed at), who suppose Paul to have written unto the Romans in the Latin tongue.” (3.) It is most un- duly supposed that the Hebrew tongue was then the vulgar, com- mon language of the Jews, when it was known only to the learned amongst them, and a corrupt Syriac was the common dialect of the people even at Jerusalem. (4.) It is as unduly averred that the Hebrew was the mother tongue of Paul himself, or that he was ignorant of the Greek; seeing he was born at Tarsus, in Cilicia, where that was the language that he was brought up in, and unto. (5.) The Epistle was written for the use of all the Hebrews in their several dispersions, especially that in the east, as Peter witnesseth, they beine all alike concerned in the matter of it, though not so immediately as those in Judea and Jerusalem. Now, unto those the Greek lan- guage, from the days of the Macedonian empire, had been in vulgar use, and continued so to be. (6.) The Greek tongue was so well known and so much used in Judea itself, that, as a learned man hath proved by sundry testimonies out of their most ancient writ- ings, it was called the vulgar amongst them.
I know, among the rabbins there is mention of a prohibition of learning the Greek tongue; and in the Jerusalem Talmud itself, Tit. Peah. cap. i, they add a reason of it, nDNA ‘35D; it was because of traitors, lest they should betray their brethren, and none under- stand them. But as this is contrary unto what themselves teach about the knowledge of tongues required in those who were to be chosen into the sanhedrim, so it is sufficiently disproved by the in- stances of the translators.of the Bible, Jesus Syrachides, Philo, Jo-
104 LANGUAGE WHEREIN, ETC. [EXERC. Iv.
sephus, and others among themselves. And though Josephus affirms, Antiq., lib. xx. cap. x1, that the study of the elegance of tongues was of no great reckoning amongst them, yet he grants that they were studied by all sorts of men. Nor doth this pretended decree of pro- hibition concern our times, it being made, as they say, Mishn. Tit. Sota., in the last wars of Titus: ots 705 xby wn pion Sw powhea my 123 ns ;—“ In the wars of Titus, they decreed that no man should teach his son the Greek language:” for it must be distinguished from the decree of the Asmoneans long before, prohibiting the study of the Grecian philosophy. So that this pretence is destitute of all colour, being made up of many vain, and evidently false, suppositions.