In Ac 2* we read that on the day of Pentecost there were present in Jerus. Jews not merely from Parthia, Media, Elam, and Mesopotamia, but from Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, I'ain[jliylia, Egypt, Libya about Cvrene ; also sojourners from Home, Cretans, and Arabians. Not all of these would speak Gr., but many the vernaculars of tlieir districts. But the enumeration shows how poly- glot a multitude was to be met with in Jerus. on any Feast day. There is no reason to doubt the tradi- tion that the bilingual Jewish doctors who, per- haps, by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, translated the Law and the Prophets some time early in the 3rd cent. B.C., were sent from Jerus. itself by the high priest Eleasar. For the Jews of Jerus. made, as early as B.C. 300, alliance with Sparta, which was renewed a century and a half later (1 Mac 1.2T.8.i3-a „f. I4i8«r.). They al.-io made treaties with Gr. cities in Asia ; and under the Seleucids, prior to the Maccab. revolt, rapid strides had been made towards their Hellenization. Nor was this revolt directed against the Gr. language, philoso- phy, and architecture ; but was rather excited by the despotic attempt of Antiochus to enforce idol- atrj-. Still it is probable that tlie success of the levolt was a checK to Hellenizin" influences, and stimulated the use, not, indeed, of Hebrew, wliich was already a dead language, and unintelligible to the masses, but of the local Aramaic. If the re- turned Jews of an earlier generation had not been so gratuitously intolerant of their old Samaritan co- religionists, there would have been a more compact mass of Sem. -speaking people to oppose the inroads of Gr. language and habits. As it was, the very metropolis of Galilee was a Gr. city.
Whatever reaction against Hellenism the Maccab. uprising may have called into being, it is yet cer- tain that Judijea contained during the 1st cent. B.C. a powerful minority of Gr. Jews. The rulers, even of the patriotic Hasmonaean house, bore Gr. names, and the entire influence of the Iduma'an usurpers, Herod and Archelaus, who succeeded, was cast on the side of Hellenism. The temple of Herod was a Gr. building ; so were all the other monuments and tombs of that epoch. There was a Gr. circus and hippodrome in Jerus., and Herod was surrounded by Gr. philosophers and wTiters.
The NT itself bears witness to the strength of the Gr. element in the very cradle of the new religion. Of the apostolic writings there is not a single one — with the dubious exception of the Heb. Matthew — which was not from the first written in Gr.; and the Gr. style of Paul, of Peter, of Jude, of James, and of the authors of the two Gospels which claim apost. authorship, is not the style of WTiters who were tyros or late learners, but of men who had read and spoken Greek from childhood. They were certainly bilingual Jews; and if it is probable that Jesus habitually taught in Aram., it is not less probable that He, like most of His disciples, knew Greek. Philip, who certainly spoke Gr. (Jn 12-', Ac 8''), besides having a Gr. name, came from Bethsaida Julias, a grecized to'wn ; whence also came another apostle with a Gr. name, Andrew, and Peter himself (Jn l"). We hear of believing Greeks (not Gr. Jews) in the entourage of Jesus ( Jn 12'') ; and the cry of anguish.
Eli, Eli, lama snbachtfuini, could only have been misunderstood bv a Gr. -speaking crowd. How strong was the llellenistic party in the Church from the first, is clear from the fact that it waa their grievances which led to the appoinlnient of the seven, all of whom bore Gr. names, while one, at least, was a proselyte of Antioeh (Ac 0°). The mention of the willows of the Hellenist-s proves that this party in the earliest Church was com- posed of settled residents in Jerus., and not of mere birds of passage, like the Libyan, Cyrenian, Alexandrine, Cilician, and Asiatic Jews mentioned in the same context. Stephen, who argued with all tliese, and waa also one of the new deacons, must have talked Greek to them ; and his speech, which is full of LXX citations, was no doubt delivered in Greek. Later on, in Ac 21*", St. Paul, indeed, addresses the mob in Jerus. in the Heb. dinlect, that is, in Aramaic. But that is far from warranting Schurer's inference (IIJP U. i. 48), that this mob knew no Greek. For the context (Ac 22-) proves that St. Paul did so only to con- ciliate them, and therefore as an exception. It is clear that they did not expect it, and were surprised to hear him whom they had just accused of introducing a Gr. into the temple, address them freely in Aramaic. They expected him to speak to them in the same Gr. tongue in which he had been conversing with the chief captain. And it is noticeable that on this occasion, as at Stephen's martyrdom, it was Gr. -speaking Jews (of Asia, Ac 21-") who had stirred up ill-feeling against the followers of the new Messian.
Many other facts point to the diffusion of a knowledge of Greek in Judrea. The coins of the Hasmomean epoch bore Greek as well as Aram, legends ; those of the Herode.-m dynaaty and of the Romans, Greek alone. The Mishna, which repre- sents the JudiEa of that age, is full of Gr. loan- words, even for the commonest objects of life.* In the temple the notices warning Gentiles of! from the inner precincts were in Gr. and Latin. It is probable even that the poorand despised in the cities of Juda'a were more familiar witli Gr. than were the rich Sadducees or the legalistic Pharisees. Thus Jos. at the end of his work (Ant. XX. xi. 2) wTites as follows : ' With Gr. letters I was care- ful to acquire an adequate grammatical acquaint- ance ; though my country's custom was an obstacle to my talking Gr. accurately. For with us they do not approve of those who learn tliorourjhhj the language of many races, because they esteem this accomplisliment as one common, not only to the inferior class of free men, but to such servants as care to learn. They allow real wisdom to belong only to those who clearly understand the law and can interpret the meaning of the Holy Scripture.' From the above it is clear that though the .Jewish aristocracy disdained to talk Gr., they did not equally disdain to read and write it ; and that a command of the spoken idiom looked at askance by Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees, was yet diffused among the humbler classes. It wa,s just of these humbler people, the 'am-hddre?, who knew not the law (.Jn T'"'), but who could often talk Gr., that the teaching of Jesus took hold. They composed the earliest Church, and were the lost sheep of the House of Israel.