While the LXX and the NT belong to the same linguistic milieu, yet, as has been more than once noteii in the foregoing grammatical sketch, they exhibit features indicative of their respective stages of development. In general, we may regard the contemporary papyri as providing the nearest parallels to each, though the LXX is occasionally more archaic than the papyri of its age ; thus, while we tind in it the forms -iJKa.uev, TJKare, r]Ka<n, we do not find as yet TjKivai, ijK&rwj'. No comparison has yet been made between the LXX and the NT as ito the relative frequency of the linguistic changes in each — an undertaking for which the MS tradi- tion would have to provide the basis ; such a comparison would be the most reliable means of measuring the interval between the two groups of texts.
10. Post-Biblical Greek. — In certain productions of early Christian literature outside the NT canon (the JsT Apocrypha, the Apostolic Fathers) the neologisms of the Koine bulk more largely than in the biblical writings, so that these non-canonical works must be regarded as belonging to a later linguistic stratum ; with regard to particular books, however, it is more difficult than in the case of the LXX and NT to determine what is to be set down to the MS tradition, i.e. to decide whether forms like \iyovv ( = \4yovai) in the Acts of Pilate, or rjydirow ( = 4ydir(j}v) in the Acts of Thomas, were not originallj' due to later copyists. Apart from this, the linguistic differences found in the several writings of this group themselves, and the linguistic differences between this group and the NT canon, are marked only by larger or smaller concessions to the literary language of the educated. It is no doubt true that, even in the NT, Luke is distinguished from the other Gospels by a certain inclination to Atticism, and that other early Christian productions likewise reflect the literarj' tendencies of the age. Nevertheless, there was at the outset a sharply marked contrast between Biblical Greek and the literary language of the period ; the Atticism (see above) then coming into vogue aimed at the revival of the classical (Attic) diction, and the cultured heathen looked down scornfully upon the ' barbarous sailor-speech' of primitive Christianity {jSap^api^ovaa /card Kparos Kal adXoLKLi'ovaa and dt^opLaroirodaiv ^ivats avvTeray- u.ivri).X But just as in the succeeding centuries the youthful and revolutionary spirit of Christianity allied itself more and more with Greek philosophy and culture, and came at length to be quite hel- lenized, so too the languao;e of Christianity soon lost that charm of originality and naive freshness
* Moulton, Einleitung, p. 352 S.
t Examples from the papyri are given by Witkowski, Glotta, vi. [1914] 22 f. t See E. Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, Leipzig, 1898, ii. 516 ff.
which is characteristic of Biblical Greek. It is, in fact, only in the Lives of the Saints and similar productions that we still hear the speech of the simple people to whom the earliest preachers of the gospel appealed.* The great teachers of the Church turned aside from the unschooled language of the Gospels, and adopted the style of cultured heathenism ; in other words, they followed the literary fashion of Atticism. Even the early apologist Tatian aspired to be an Atticist, though his success in that direction was but meagre ; t while Chrysostom actually gave an Atticistic form to his quotations from Scripture. J The develop- ment in the language of Greek Christianity from the NT to the close of antiquity is a faithful re- flexion of the process through which the Christian religion itself passed. In the course of a few cen- turies the faith of humble fisher-folk became the dominant religion of the Grpeco-Roman world, and, passing from its native lowliness to tlie high- est places, it paid its tribute to the culture of its new sphere.
LiTERATcrRE. — Books and articles already fully cited in the course of this art. are not further mentioned here.
I. Bibliographical inf-crhatios. — Earlier lit. in G. Meyer, Griechische Grammatik'^, Leipzig, 1896; more recent in A. Thumij, ' Die Forschungen iiber die hellenistische Sprache in den Jahren 1896-1901," in Archiv/iir Papyrus/orschung,h. [1902] 8!t6ff., '. . . in den Jahren 1902-1904,' ib. iii. [1903] 443 flf. (also Indogerm. Forsch. Anzeiger, i. [1892] 48, vi. [1896] 224 ff.); Witkowski, 'Bericht iiber die Literatur zur Koine aus den Jahren 1898-1902,' in C. Bursian's Jahresbericht iiber die Fort- schritte der klass. Altertumnmssenschaft, cxx. [1904] 153 ff., ' ... aus den Jahren 1903-1906,' ib. clix. [1912] 1 ff. ; J. H. Moulton, ' Hellenistic Greek,' in The Year's Work in Classical Studies, ed. for the Classical Association, latest art. in 1913, p. 187 ff. ; A. Deissmann, 'Die Sprache der griechischen Bibel,' in Theologische Rxmdschait,, i. [1S9S] 463 ff., ix. [1906] 210 ff., xv. [1912] 339ff. ; further, the section 'Das Neue Testament' (in recent vears by R. KnopO in the 3rd division of the Theolog. Jahresbericht, ed. G. Kruger and M. Schian, Leipzig, 1909 ff., deals very fullv with the linguistic side.
IL Gr.^mmar of thk Koixe.— K. Dieterich, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der griechischen Sprache, Leipzig, 1898; G. Meyer (as aliove), Thumb-Brugmann, Griechische Gramniatik*, Munich, 1913 ; A. N. Jannaris, An Historical Greek Grammar, London, 1S97 (not in the modern method); alio the various works mentioned above and below.