4. Sources for the Koine. — The Koine was a
• Cf. J. H. Moulton, Einleitung, p. 9.
t ' Bas FortIet)en der VoIkssi)raohen in Kleinasien in nach- christlicher Zeit,' in Ilermes, xliii. [1908] 2'4nff.
; Thumb, Die griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellen- iamus, p. 139 ff.
_ § On the diffusion of Hellenistic Greek cf. Thumb, op. eit. 102 £f. ; Mahaffy, The Progress of Uellenism in Alexander's Empire, Chicago, 1905 ; on the language of Jesus see, most recently, Moulton, op. cit. p. 10 f .
natural outgrowth of classical Greek, yet in its written form, as has been said, it exhibits a com- promise between the traditional literary language and the vernacular of the time, and accordingly the extant texts of the Hellenistic period afibrd at most but indirect evidence as to the true character of the vulgar tongue. It is only what is new in these texts, i.e. what differs from Attic, that we can without hesitation claim for the living language, while, as regards the element in which the written Koine agrees with Attic, we are uncertain to what extent it is to be ascribed to tradition. Nor are the various texts and classes of texts all of the same value for our knowledge of the true forms of the vernacular.
(1) This holds good in a peculiar degree even of the literary productions of tlie Hellenistic period. The LXX, the NT, and the earliest Christian writings approximate very closely, in a linguistic respect, to the contemporary papyri and inscrip- tions, and may as a whole be regarded as the most faithful literary reflex of the spoken tongue, while the Atticism which prevailed about the same time took an entirely different direction, and sought to purge literature of all admixture with the ver- nacular. But even the Atticists, of whom Lucian of Samosata was the most brilliant representative, were unable, with regard to either vocabulary or syntax, to free themselves wholly from the influ- ence of the speech of their day.* But they suc- ceeded in arresting the movement that from the time of Xenophon and Aristotle had been tending to bring the literary language into line with the cosmopolitan development of Attic, that is to say, with the Koine, a development which had been followed even by the New Attic Comedy. The language of Polybius is closely akin to that of con- temporary inscriptions; he does justice to the demands which the spoken tongue in its develop- ment laid upon literary diction. The philosopher Epicurus,t and Teles the Cynic,! as also Philo of Byzantium, the engineer (if he was a contemporary of Archimedes), § may be regarded as the immediate forerunners of Polybius.
(2) Our best sources for the common tongue, however, are the papyri of Egypt and the inscrip- tions— more especially those of Asia Minor. A comparison of these two documentary groups shows that the Hellenistic Greek of Egypt differs in no essential respect from that of Asia Minor, and we may therefore safely use the copious discoveries of papyri as throwing light upon the general character of the Greek spoken in the age in which they were written (for details see below). Of papyri and in- scriptions alike it may be said that, the less educated the writers, the more faithfully do they reflect the current speech, and accordingly we find great dis- parity between, e.g., the documents of the Perga- menian State and the sepulchral inscriptions of the common people ; or, again, between the records of the Egyptian government-offices and the letters written by simple folk. These difl'erences have not yet been studied in detail.
An excellent survey of these sources, with copious references to the literature, is found in Jieissmann, Licht vom Osten-, p. Off. (Eng-. tr.-, 1911, p. 9 fl.)- Detailed investigation of their language has made remarkable progress in recent years, (a) Inscriptions : E. Schwyzer (Schvveizer), Grammatik der per- gamenischen Inschriften, Berlin, 1898 ; E. Nachmanson, Laute und Formen der magnetischen Inschriften, Upsala, 1903 ; Dienst- bach, De Titulorum Prienensiinn sonis, Slarburg, 1910. A special study of the numerous Christian inscriptions of Asia
• Cf. W. Sehmid, Der Atticismus in seinen Hauptvertretern, 5 vols., Stuttgart, 1887-97.
t Cf. P. Linde, De Epicuri vocahulis ab optima Atthid$ alienis, Breslau, 1906.
J 3rd cent. B.C. ; cf. Teletis religtiioe, ed. O. Hense, Tiibingen, 1909.
§ Cf. M. Arnim, De Philonis Byzantii dieendi genere, Greifswald, 1912.
HELLEmSTIC & BIBLICAL GEEEK HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GEEEK 553
Minor would be of great advantage in relation to the NT. (6) Papyri : E. Mayser, Grarnmatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolemderzeit, Leipzig, 1906 ; VV. Oronert, Memoria grceca Herculanensis, Leipzig, 1903. (c) From the mass of epigraphic material are to be distinguished, as a special class, the impreca- tory tablets, wliicli are composed in a very low tjpe of speech. They have been collected by R. Wiinsch in the Appendix to the CIA, and by Audollent, Defixionum tahelloe, Paris, 190i (cf. Thumb, in Indorierm. Forsch. Anzeiger, xviii. [1905-06] 41 fif.) ; as yet only the Attic tablets have been studied philologically : of. E. Schvvyzer, ' Die Vulgarsprache der attischen Fluchtafeln,' in Neue Jahrbilcher fur das klansische Altertum, v. [1900] 244 £f. ; Rabehl, De sermone defixionum attic, Berlin, 1906.
(3) Excellent witnesses to the nature of the ver- nacular are to he found also in the Grajco- Latin conversation - books or colloquial guides [ip^-qvev- nara) and glossaries used for the purpose of learning either language, as e.g. the Colloquium Pseudo- Dositheanum* and the Hermeneiimata Pseudo- Dositheana.f The abundant Greek material found in the Corpiis glossariorum latinorum still awaits expert investigation ; it yields much fresh infor- mation regarding the vocabulary of the colloquial language.