RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Hellenistic Greek
(Julicher, in GGA, 1899, p. 258), dear though they are to the grammarians, lexicographers, and exegetes of the Greek Bible. Historical ground for thus isolating this literature philologically 4. Unity of is not in existence. There are indeed Hellenistic linguistic peculiarities which were iso- Greek. lated or viewed apart, religious tendencies also, which were and remain authoritative for the doctrine of " Biblical " Greek. As long as the Septuagint and the New Testament were the only specimens known of Hellenistic Greek, no special linguistic sense was needed to differentiate them from classical Greek. Comparison of these with Polybius revealed a different world, replete as they were with Hebraisms and Semitisms. "Hellenistic " Greek became a catchword to express a certain blending of two wholly different languages, exactly as Yiddish is used in modern times. The fixing of this term or of the term " Biblical " Greek was helped by another fact, the dogma of inspiration; In consequence of this the unregenerate were not permitted to pass judgment upon the linguistic character of the Bible (Quenstedt, in Luthardt, Kompendium der Dogmatik, Leipsic, 1886, p. 312), and the inspiration assumed for the Old Testament and the New was tacitly carried over to the Septuagint. Thus not only the text, but the quality of the language as language was isolated, and a distinction grew up between a " profane " and a " sacred " Greek. One of the most influential promoters in modern times of this theory was Hermann Cremer, who, in the preface of his lexicon, expressly approves the position of Richard Rothe (in Zur Dogmatik, Gotha, 1863, p. 238), who says that one may with good right speak of a language of the Holy Ghost since it lies open in the Bible that the Divine Spirit, operating in the sphere of revelation, has built for itself a language of religious content out of the speech of the people of the regions where it operated, and formed this new language after a shape suited to the particular purpose. The proof of this position Cremer seeks to introduce in many parts of his lexicon. Until recent times, therefore, the linguistic and the theological modes of thought have agreed in setting Biblical Greek apart as something sui generis. The disproof of this theory, which has been a fetter upon linguistics, exegesis, and Christian faith, was attempted in the Bibelstudien and Neue Bibelstudien of the undersigned (Eng. transl., Bible Studies, 2d ed., Edinburgh, 1903), to which reference must be made for the general character of the Greek Bible as a monument of Hellenistic Greek. Further light is thrown by the same author's New Light on the New Testament (Edinburgh, 1907); The Philology of the Greek Bible (London, 1908); and Licht vom Osten, Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der hellenisch-romischen Welt (Tubingen, 1908).
The most significant marks of the living Hellenistic Greek were its treatment of sounds and inflections, and upon these the conception of a special Biblical Greek is wrecked. Every one of the minute peculiarities distinguishing the text of the Bible from that of Plato and Xenophon is found in the contemporary Greek of the lingua franca as evidenced in the inscriptions, ostraca, and par-
ticularly the papyri now in hand. That this
quality inheres especially in the papyri is not a
matter of accident, since they more
5. Pronun- nearly concern private and common ciation life. The inscriptions, which are pub-
and lie, are often, particularly when offi- Inflection. cial, consciously made to approach the norms of literary style; while the papyri are often unpolished and express the many needs and varying situations of the daily life of the mass of the population. And this general situation is borne out by the formulas and usage of legal procedure. Schmiedel's edition of Winer's grammar of New Testament Greek, appearing though it did before the mass of newly found material was accessible, pointed the way to the newer conception of the language, and was fortified by K. Dieterich's Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der griechischen Sprache . bis zum zehnten Jahrhundert (Leipsic, 1898). The works of Schmiedel, Blass, and Moulton on New Testament Greek, and the Neue Bibelstudien of the undersigned make it unnecessary to recount here the peculiarities of Hellenistic Greek. It is sufficient to say that the documents so often referred to, coming from the times of the Diadochoi and the emperors and often dated most precisely to the very day, afford rich material to illustrate Biblical Greek (cf. on this material U. Wilcken, Griechische Papyri, Berlin, 1897, and TLZ, xxi., 1896, pp. 609 sqq., xxiii., 1898, pp. 628 sqq.).
The vocabulary of the Greek Bible shows the
characteristic additions of Hellenistic Greek. While
the same evidence is not forthcoming
6. Lexicog- as for changes in sound and inflection, raphy. it is not needed. It is self-evident that
the vocabulary of this world-speech, which enriched itself from all the lands subjected to the Greeks, can not be fully known. From the newly discovered sources words are continually emerging which are vainly sought in the lexicons; it is not surprising therefore that many words in the texts already known occur only once. That these were newly coined by the authors on the spur of the moment no intelligent person will maintain; they are simply hapax heuremena (" words found only once "), not hapax eiremena (" words used only once "). These words " found " only once are numerous in the Greek Bible, and have been employed to strengthen the theory of a " Biblical " Greek— indeed Cremer designates such words as " Biblical " or as " belonging to the New Testament," in the latter case as due to the constructive strength of Christianity, in which he is followed by Grimm, who conveys the impression that they were unknown elsewhere, though Thayer's edition is, in this matter, more prudent. Of a great number of these hapax heuremena one may at once assert on internal grounds that their rare occurrence is mere accident. In other cases there turn up in hitherto unknown authors, in the inscriptions, ostraca, and papyri, words and combinations which have hitherto been assumed to be exclusively " Biblical " or of the New Testament. And the same fact is true of " Biblical " meanings of common words, which meanings have been regarded as peculiar to Biblical
Hellenistic Greek Helpers in Need