ways express purpose? What is the difference between εἴγε and εἴπερ Is διότι ever equivalent to the simple for? Is é ever tantamount to the interrogative why (Mk 9}}- *), or does εἰ introduce a direct question? Does Paul use the Ist pers. plur. of himself alone ? ete. ete.
Turning to points more strictly grammatical, we may mention—the use and force of the article: how far (if at all) does it deviate from the classic standard ?—with πᾶς (e.g. Eph 27 38, Ac 2°, 1 Ti 116); with νόμος ; with πνεῦμα (ἅγιον) ; in such pas- sages as Ro 57 3”, 1 Ti 91 Is the classic law requiring an article before an attributive participle which follows a definite antecedent rigorously observed (cf. 1 P 3% *°)? Is there any difference in meaning between ὁ ὄχλος πολύς and ὁ πολὺς ὄχλος (cf. Jn 12% 15 and Mk 12°7)? What is the difference between αὐτός and ἐκεῖνος in 2 Ti 2°? Are αὐτοῦ, ete., used reflexively? Is ὅστις ever a pron. of simple reference (i.g. ὅς, οἵ. Mt 227 18%)? What is the force of the genitive in the phrases δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ (cf. Ro 117), πίστις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (Ro 3”)? Does ἀκούειν φωνῆς differ in sense from φωνὴν ἀκούειν (ef. Ac 9%7 227-9 964, and see Buttmann, NT Grammar, §§ 132, 17; 144, 16)?
The matters above specified are called ‘ problems,’ because difference of opinion about them still exists in reputable commentaries ; although it may be questioned whether several of them have not been already disposed of in the judgment of scholars. To them may be added the stock exe- getical problems, such as Mt 6%, Lk 12® 187, Ac 26%", Ja 4°, 2 P 1”; together with more general questions, such as, What effect, if any, had amanu- enses on the style of the NT writings? What indications, if any, of the locality of their origin do the NT writings disclose? What influence, if any, had the Heb. parallelism in obliterating for the Jewish-Greek mind the delicate shades of difference between Gr. synonyms? What in- fluence, if any, had the use of Jewish manuals in producing agreement in the form or the employ- ment of OT passages? (Note the agreement in combined quotations, deviating in the same par- ticulars from the LXX, which occur in Ro 99" 88 and 1 P 258; cf. Ro 12 with He 10).
The uncertainties still cleaving to the NT language it is by no means over-sanguine to hope may be gradually, and in the end greatly, reduced. Not a little help towards this result is yet to be drawn from the literary relics of the centuries immediately preceding and following the Christian era, The more accurate uditing and careful study of these relics, which is alreudy engaging the efforts of scholars, is yielding results which both justify and augment expectation. Particulars, individu- ally slight, amount to a considerable gain in the aggregate. Meantime, noteworthy accessions to our knowledge of the language of the Alexand. and Gr.-Roman yea have already come from the inscriptions, and especially the papyri (some of them going back to the days of the Ptolemies), which the last few decades have unearthed, and which it may reasonably be hoped are but the tirst- fruits of a rich harvest of discovery. Resemblances in phraseology are instructive even where the intellectual and religious quality of the concev-
θεοῦ, κύριος, σωτήρ, as used of the Roman emperors, and in the vocabulary of the Stoics). Moreover, the unalterableness, and in many cases the definite date of many of these sources, lift their testimony above the suspicion of possible clerical modification from which the text of even our best extant NT MSS is not always quite free.
VII. The Lirerature of our subject requires little space here. Suffice it to refer the reader to Schmiedel’s 8th ed. of Winer’s Grammatik, of which the first part (Hinleit. und Formenlehre, pp. 194) appeared in 1894, the second in 1897, and where almost no publication of moment is left unmentioned. A careful review of Pt. i. by W. Schmid in the GGA, 1895, No. 1, pp. 26-47, deserves also to be consulted. The comparison of the NT language with the later Gr. has been greatly facilitated by the last-named scholar’s elaborate work, Der Atticismus in seinen Hauptvertretern von Dionysius von Halikarnass bis auf den Zweiten Philostratus (vol. i. 1887, vol. ii. 1889, vol. iii. 1893, vol. iv. 1896, Index 1897), by the treatise of William Schmidt, de Flavit Josephi elocutrone, etc., in Fleckeisen’s ‘ Jahrbiicher fiir classische Philologie,’ 20ter Supplementband (1894, pp. 345- 550), by the Subsidia ad cognoscendum Gracorum sermonem vulgarem e Pentateuchi versione Alexandrina repetita of H. Anz in ‘Dissertationes Philolog. Halenses,’ vol. xii. (1894) pp. 261-387, and by G. A. Deissmann’s Bibelstudien (Marburg, 1895), which contains, pp. 57-168, an instructive study of the Gr. of the LXX in the light of the results furnished by papyri and recently-discovered inscriptions; supplemented in 1897 by Neue Bibelstudien ; new ed. in Eng. tr. by Grieve, 1900.
Other noteworthy recent works dealing directly with the language of the NT are: Joseph Viteau, Kiude sur le Grec du Nouveau Testament: Le Verbe; Syntaxe des Propositions (pp. 240, 8°, Paris, 1893), especially convenient owing to the summary of NT peculiarities given at the close of every chapter; particular attention is paid also to the usage of the LXX, which is made still more prominent in his Etude, ete. : Sujet, Complément et Attribut (pp. 248, Paris, 1896); Εἰ. Blass, Grammatik ἃ. Neutest. Griechisch (pp. 329, 8°, Gottingen, 1896 ; Eng. tr. by Thackeray, 1898), which has the exceptional merit of recognizing the characteristics of the several writers, and of frequently noting variant readings from the MSS., and citing parallels from the Apostolic Fathers; E. W. Burton, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in NT Greek, 2nd ed. pp. 215, 1893; H. A. A. Kennedy, Sources of NT’ Greek, pp. 172, 1895 ; Dalman, Worte Jesu, 1898.