31

CHAPTER II

THE HISTORICAL METHOD

I. Language as History. The scientific grammar is at bottom a grammatical history, and not a linguistic law-book. The seat of authority in language is therefore not the books about language, but the people who use the language. The majority of well-educated people determine correct usage (the mos loquendi as Horace says). Even modern dictionaries merely record from time to time the changing phenomena of language. Wolff was right when he conceived of philology as the "biography of a nation." The life of a people is expressed in the speech which they use.¹ We can well agree with Benfey² that "speech is the truest picture of the soul of a people, the content of all that which has brought a people to self-consciousness." However, we must not think that we can necessarily argue race from language.³ The historical conception of grammar has had to win its way against the purely theoretical and speculative notion. Etymology was the work of the philosophers. The study of the forms, the syntax, the dialects came later. The work of the Alexandrians was originally philology, not scientific grammar.⁴

(a) COMBINING THE VARIOUS ELEMENTS. It is not indeed easy to combine properly the various elements in the study of language. Sayce considers Steinthal too psychological and Schleicher too physical.⁵ The historical element must be added to both. Paul⁶ objects to the phrase "philosophy of language" as suggesting "metaphysical speculations of which the historical investigation

32 A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

of language needs to take no count." He prefers the term "science of principles." The study of language is a true science, a real philosophy, with a psychical as well as a physical basis. It is properly related to the historical natural sciences which have been subject "to the misdirected attempt at excluding them from the circle of the sciences of culture."⁷ Language is capable of almost perfect scientific treatment. Kretschmer⁸ outlines as modern advances over ancient grammar the psychological treatment of language, the physiology of sound, the use of the comparative method, the historical development of the language, the recognition of speech as a product of human culture, and not to be separated from the history of culture, world-history and life of the peoples. He thinks that no language has yet received such treatment as this, for present-day handbooks are only "speechpictures," not "speech-histories."

(b) PRACTICAL GRAMMAR A COMPROMISE. Historical practical grammars have to make a compromise. They can give the whole view only in outline and show development and interrelation in part. It is not possible then to write the final grammar of Greek either ancient or modern. The modern is constantly changing and we are ever learning more of the old. What was true of Mistriotes⁹ and Jannaris¹⁰ will be true of the attempts of all. But none the less the way to study Greek is to look at it as a history of the speech-development of one of the greatest of peoples. But it is at least possible now to have the right attitude, thanks to the books already mentioned and others by Bernhardy,¹¹

THE HISTORICAL METHOD 33

Christ,¹² Wundt,¹³ Johannsen,¹⁴ Krumbacher,¹⁵ Schanz,¹⁶ G. Meyer,¹⁷ I. Miller,¹⁸ Hirt,¹⁹ Thumb,²⁰ Dieterich,²¹ Steinthal.²² The Latin syntax received historical treatment by Landgraf,²³ not to mention English and other modern languages.

II. Language as a Living Organism.

(a) THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. Speech is indeed a characteristic of man and may be considered a divine gift, however slowly the gift was won and developed by him.²⁴ Sayce is undoubtedly correct in saying that language is a social creation and the effort to communicate is the only true solution of the riddle of speech, whether there was ever a speechless man or not. "Grammar has grown out of gesture and gesticulation."²⁵ But speech has not created the capacities which mark the civilized man as higher than the savage.²⁶ Max Muller remarks that "language forms an impassable barrier between man and beast." Growls and signs do not constitute "intellectual symbolism."²⁷ Paul indeed, in opposition to Lazarus and Steinthal, urges that "every linguistic creation is always the work of a single individual only."²⁸ The psychological organisms are in fact the true media of linguistic

34 A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

development. Self-observation and analogy help one to strike a general average and so make grammar practical as well as scientific.

(b) EVOLUTION IN LANGUAGE. Growth, then, is to be expected in a living tongue. Change is inseparable from life. No language is dead so long as it is undergoing change, and this must be true in spoken and written usage. It is not the function of the grammarian to stop change in language, a thing impossible in itself. Such change is not usually cataclysmic, but gradual and varied. "A written language, to serve any practical purpose, must change with the times, just like a living dialect."²⁹ In general, change in usage may be compared to change in organic structure in "greater or lesser fitness."³⁰ The changes by analogy in the speech of children are very suggestive on this point. The vocabulary of the Greek tongue must therefore continually develop, for new ideas demand new words and new meanings come to old words. Likewise inflections vary in response to new movements. This change brings great wealth and variety. The idea of progress has seized the modern mind and has been applied to the study of language as to everything else.

(c) CHANGE CHIEFLY IN THE VERNACULAR. Linguistic change occurs chiefly in the vernacular. From the spoken language new words and new inflections work their way gradually into the written style, which is essentially conservative, sometimes even anachronistic and purposely archaic. Much slang is finally accepted in the literary style. The study of grammar was originally confined to the artificial book-style. Dionysius Thrax expressly defined grammar as evmpeiri,a tw/n para. poihtai/j te kai. suggrafeu/sin w`j evpi. to. polu. legome,nwn. It was with him a concern for the poets and writers, not "die Sprache des Lebens."³¹ Grammar ( grammatikh,Ã gra,fw), then, was first to write and to understand what was written; then the scientific interpretation of this literature; later the study of literary linguistic usage. It is only the moderns who have learned to investigate the living speech for its own historical value. Before the discovery of the Greek inscriptions the distinction between the vernacular and the literary style could not be so sharply drawn for the Greek of the classical

THE HISTORICAL METHOD 35

period, though Aristophanes should have taught us much. We have moved away from the position of Mure³² who said: "The distinction between the language of letters and the vulgar tongue, so characteristic of modern civilization, is imperceptible or but little defined in the flourishing age of Greece. Numerous peculiarities in her social condition tended to constitute classical expression in speaking or writing, not, as with us, the privilege of a few, but a public property in which every Hellene had an equal interest." The people as a whole were wonderfully well educated, but the educated classes themselves then, as now with us, used a spoken as well as a literary style. Jannaris³³ is clear on this point: "But, speaking of Attic Greek, we must not infer that all Athenians and Atticized Greeks wrote and spoke the classical Attic portrayed in the aforesaid literature, for this Attic is essentially what it still remains in modern Greek composition: a merely historical abstraction; that is, an artistic language which nobody spoke but still everybody understood." We must note therefore both the vernacular and the literary style and expect constant change in each, though not in the same degree. Zarncke indeed still sounds a note of warning against too much attention to the vernacular; though a needless one.³⁴ In the first century A.D. the vernacular Greek was in common use all over the world, the character of which we can now accurately set forth. But this nonliterary language was not necessarily the speech of the illiterate. Mahaffy³⁵ is very positive on this point. "I said just now that the Hellenistic world was more cultivated in argument than we are nowadays. And if you think this is a strange assertion, examine, I pray you, the intellectual aspects of the Epistles of St. Paul, the first Christian writer whom we know to have been thoroughly educated in this training. Remember that he was a practical teacher, not likely to commit the fault of speaking over the heads of his audience, as the phrase is." Hatzidakis³⁶ laments that the monuments of the Greek since the Alexandrian period are no longer in the pure actual living speech of the time, but in the ar-

36 A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

tificial Attic of a bygone age. The modern Greek vernacular is a living tongue, but the modern literary language so proudly called kaqareu,ousa is artificial and unreal.³⁷ This new conception of language as life makes it no longer possible to set up the Greek of any one period as the standard for all time. The English writer to-day who would use Hooker's style would be affected and anachronistic. Good English to-day is not what it was two hundred years ago, even with the help of printing and (part of the time) dictionaries. What we wish to know is not what was good Greek at Athens in the days of Pericles, but what was good Greek in Syria and Palestine in the first century A.D. The direct evidence for this must be sought among contemporaries, not from ancestors in a distant land. It is the living Greek that we desire, not the dead.

III. Greek not an Isolated Language.

(a) THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR. Julius Caesar, who wrote a work on grammar, had in mind Latin and Greek, for both were in constant use in the Roman world.³⁸ Formal Sanskrit grammar itself may have resulted from the comparison of Sanskrit with the native dialects of India.³⁹ Hence comparative grammar seems to lie at the very heart of the science. It cannot be said, however, that Painini, the great Sanskrit scholar and grammarian of the fourth century B.C., received any impulse. from the Greek civilization of Alexander the Great.⁴⁰ The work of Panini is one of the most remarkable in history for subtle originality, "une histoire naturelle de la langue sanscrite." The Roman and Greek grammarians attended to the use of words sentences, while the Sanskrit writers analyzed words into syllables⁴¹ and studied the relation of sounds to each other. It is not possible to state the period when linguistic comparison was first made. Max Muller in The Science of Language even says: "From an historical point of view it is not too much to say that the first Day of Pentecost marks the real beginning of the Science of language." One must not think that the comparative method is "more characteristic of the study of language than of other

THE HISTORICAL METHOD 37

Addenda 3rd ed.

branches of modern inquiry."⁴² The root idea of the new grammar is the kinship of languages. Chinese grammar is said to be one of the curiosities of the world, and some other grammatical works can be regarded in that light. But our fundamental obligation is to the Hindu and Greek grammarians.⁴³

(b) THE COMMON BOND IN LANGUAGE. Prof. Alfredo Trombetti, of Rome, has sought the connecting link in all human speech.⁴⁴ It is a gigantic task, but it is doubtless true that all speech is of ultimate common origin. The remote relationships are very difficult to trace. As a working hypothesis the comparative grammarians speak of isolating, agglutinative and inflectional languages. In the isolating tongues like the Chinese, Burmese, etc., the words have no inflection and the position in the sentence and the tone in pronunciation are relied on for clearness of meaning. Giles⁴⁵ points out that modern English and Persian have nearly returned to the position of Chinese as isolating languages. Hence it is inferred that the Chinese has already gone through a history similar to the English and is starting again on an inflectional career. Agglutinative tongues like the Turkish express the various grammatical relations by numerous separable prefixes, infixes and suffixes. Inflectional languages have made still further development, for while a distinction is made between the stem and the inflexional endings, the stems and the endings do not exist apart from each other. There are two great families in the inflexional group, the Semitic (the Assyrian, the Hebrew, the Syriac, the Arabic, etc.) and the Indo-Germanic or Indo-European (the Indo-Iranian or Aryan, the Armenian, the Greek, the Albanian, the Italic, the Celtic, the Germanic and the BaltoSlavic).⁴⁶ Indo-European also are Illyrian, Macedonian, Phrygian, Thracian and the newly-discovered Tocharian. Some of these groups, like the Italic, the Germanic, the Balto-Slavic, the IndoIranian, embrace a number of separate tongues which show an inner affinity, but all the groups have a general family likeness.⁴⁷

38 A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

(c) THE ORIGINAL INDO-GERMANIC SPEECH. It is not claimed that the original Indo-Germanic speech has been discovered, though Kretschmer does speak of "die indogermanische Ursprache," but he considers it only a necessary hypothesis and a useful definition for the early speech-unity before the Indo-Germanic stock separated.⁴⁸ Brugmann speaks also of the original and ground-speech (Ur- and Grundsprache) in the prehistoric background of every member of the Indo-Germanic family.⁴⁹ The science of language has as a historic discipline the task of investigating the collective speech-development of the Indo-Germanic peoples.⁵⁰ Since Bopp's day this task is no longer impossible. The existence of an original Indo-Germanic speech is the working hypothesis of all modern linguistic study. This demands indeed a study of the Indo-Germanic people. Horatio Hale⁵¹ insists that language is the only proper basis for the classification of mankind. But this test breaks down when Jews and Egyptians speak Greek after Alexander's conquests or when the Irish and the American Negro use English. The probable home and wanderings of the original Indo-Germanic peoples are well discussed by Kretschmer.⁵² It is undeniable that many of the same roots exist in slightly different forms in all or most of the Indo-Germanic tongues. They are usually words that refer to the common domestic relations, elementary agriculture, the ordinary articles of food, the elemental forces, the pronouns and the numerals. Inflexional languages have two kinds of roots, predicative (nouns and verbs) and pronominal. Panini found 1706 such roots in Sanskrit, but Edgren has reduced the number of necessary Sanskrit roots to 587.⁵³ But one must not suppose that these hypothetical roots ever constituted a real language, though there was an original Indo-Germanic tongue.⁵⁴

THE HISTORICAL METHOD 39

(d) GREEK AS A " DIALECT" OF THE INDO-GERMANIC SPEECH. Greek then can be regarded as one of the branches of this original Indo-Germanic speech, just as French is one of the descendants of the Latin,⁵⁵ like Spanish, Portuguese, Italian. Compare also the relation of English to the other Teutonic tongues.⁵⁶ To go further, the separation of this original Indo-Germanic speech into various tongues was much like the breaking-up of the original Greek into dialects and was due to natural causes. Dialectic variety itself implies previous speech-unity.⁵⁷ Greek has vital relations with all the branches of the Indo-Germanic tongues, though in varying degrees. The Greek shows decided affinity with the Sanskrit, the Latin and the Celtic⁵⁸ languages. Part of the early Greek stock was probably Celtic. The Greek and the Latin flourished side by side for centuries and had much common history. All the comparative grammars and the Greek grammars from this point of view constantly compare the Greek with the Latin. See especially the great work of Riemann and Goelzer, Grammaire comparee du Grec et du Latin.⁵⁹ On the whole subject of the relation of the Greek with the various Indo-Germanic languages see the excellent brief discussion of Kretschmer.⁶⁰ But the hypothesis of an original Graeco-Italic tongue cannot be considered as proved, though there are many points of contact between Greek and Latin.⁶¹ But Greek, as the next oldest branch known to us, shows more kinship with the Sanskrit. Constant use of the Sanskrit must be made by one who wishes to understand the historical development of the Greek tongue. Such a work as Whitney's Sanskrit Grammar is very useful for this purpose. See also J. Wackernagel, Altindische Grammatik. I, Lautlehre (1896). II, 1, Einleitung zur Wortlehre (1905). So Thumb's

40 A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

Handbuch des Sanskrit. I, Grammatik (1905). Max Muller⁶² playfully remarks: "It has often been said that no one can know anything of the science of language who does not know Sanskrit, and that is enough to frighten anybody away from its study." It is not quite so bad, however. Sanskrit is not the parent stock of the Greek, but the oldest member of the group. The age of the Sanskrit makes it invaluable for the study of the later speechdevelopments.

The Greek therefore is not an isolated tongue, but sustains vital relations with a great family of languages. So important does Kretschmer consider this aspect of the subject that he devotes his notable Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache to the setting forth of "the prehistoric beginnings of the Greek speech-development."⁶³ This effort is, of necessity, fragmentary and partly inferential, but most valuable for a scientific treatment of the Greek language. He has a luminous discussion of the effect of the Thracian and Phrygian stocks upon the Greek when the language spread over Asia Minor.⁶⁴

IV. Looking at the Greek Language as a Whole. We cannot indeed make an exhaustive study of the entire Greek language in a book that is professedly concerned only with one epoch of that history. As a matter of fact no such work exists. Jannaris⁶⁵ indeed said that "an 'historical' grammar, tracing in a connected manner the life of the Greek language from classical antiquity to the present time, has not been written nor even seriously attempted as yet." Jannaris himself felt his limitations when he faced so gigantic a task and found it necessary to rest his work upon the classical Attic as the only practical basis.⁶⁶ But so far

THE HISTORICAL METHOD 41

he departed from the pure historical method. But such a grammar will come some day.

(a) DESCRIPTIVE HISTORICAL GRAMMAR. Meanwhile descriptive historical grammar is possible and necessary. "Descriptive grammar has to register the grammatical forms and grammatical conditions in use at a given date within a certain community speaking a common language."⁶⁷ There is this justification for taking Attic as the standard for classical study; only the true historical perspective should be given and Attic should not be taught as the only real Greek. It is possible and essential then to correlate the N. T. Greek with all other Greek and to use all Greek to throw light on the stage of the language under review. If the Greek itself is not an isolated tongue, no one stage of the language can be so regarded. "Wolff⁶⁸ deprecates the restriction of grammar to a set of rules abstracted from the writings of a 'golden' period, while in reality it should comprise the whole history of a language and trace its development." H. C. Muller⁶⁹ indeed thought that the time had not arrived for a grammar of Greek on the historical plan, because it must rest on a greater amount of material than is now at hand. But since then a vast amount of new material has come to light in the form of papyri, inscriptions and research in the modern Greek. Miller's own book has added no little to our knowledge of the subject. Meanwhile we can use the historical material for the study of N. T. Greek.

(b) UNITY OE THE GREEK LANGUAGE. At the risk of slight repetition it is worth while to emphasize this point. Muller⁷⁰ is apologetic and eager to show that "the Greek language and literature is one organic, coherent whole." The dialectical variations, while confusing to a Certain extent, do not show that the Greek did not possess original and continuous unity. As early as 1000 B.C. these dialectical distinctions probably existed and the speech of Homer is a literary dialect, not the folk-speech.⁷¹ The original sources of

42 A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

the Greek speech go back to a far distant time when as one single language an Asiatic idiom had taken Europe in its circle of influence.⁷² The translator of Buttmann's Greek Grammar speaks of Homer "almost as the work of another language." This was once a common opinion for all Greek that was not classic Attic. But Thiersch entitled his great work Griechische Grammatik vorzuglich des homerischen Dialekts, not simply because of the worth of Homer, "but because, on the contrary, a thorough knowledge of the Homeric dialect is indispensably necessary for those who desire to comprehend, in their whole depth and compass, the Grecian tongue and literature."⁷³ But Homer is not the gauge by which to test Greek; his poems are invaluable testimony to the early history of one stage of the language. It is a pity that we know so little of the pre-Homeric history of Greek. "Homer presents not a starting-point, but a culmination, a complete achievement, an almost mechanical accomplishment, with scarcely a hint of origins."⁷⁴ But whenever Greek began it has persisted as a linguistic unit till now. It is one language whether we read the Epic Homer, the Doric Pindar, the Ionic Herodotus, the Attic Xenophon, the AEolic Sappho, the Atticistic Plutarch, Paul the exponent of Christ, an inscription in Pergamus, a papyrus letter in Egypt, Tricoupis or Vlachos in the modern time. None of these representatives can be regarded as excrescences or impertinences. There have always been uneducated persons, but the Greek tongue has had a continuous, though checkered, history all the way. The modern educated Greek has a keen appreciation of "die Schonheiten der klassischen Sprache."⁷⁵ Muller⁷⁶ complained that "almost no grammarians have treated the Greek language as a whole," but the works of Krumbacher, Thumb, Dieterich, Hatzidakis, Psichari, Jannaris, etc., have made it possible to obtain a general survey of the Greek language up to the present time. Like English,⁷⁷ Greek has emerged into a new sphere of unity and consistent growth.

43 THE HISTORICAL METHOD

(c) PERIODS OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE. It will be of service to present a brief outline of the history of the Greek tongue. And yet it is not easy to give. See the discussion by Sophocles in his Greek Lexicon (p. 11f.), inadequate in view of recent discoveries by Schliemann and Evans. The following is a tentative outline: The Mycenaean Age, 1500 B.C. to 1000 B.C.; the Age of the Dialects, 1000 B.C. to 300 B.C.; the Age of the Koinh,, 300 B.C. to 330 A.D.; the Byzantine Greek, 330 A.D. to 1453 A.D.; the modern Greek, 1453 A.D. to the present time. The early stage of the Byzantine Greek up to 600 A.D.) is really koinh, and the rest is modern Greek. See a different outline by Jannaris⁷⁸ and Hadley and Allen.⁷⁹ As a matter of fact any division is arbitrary, for the language has had an unbroken history, though there are these general epochs in that history. We can no longer call the pre-Homeric time mythical as Sophocles does.⁸⁰ In naming this the Mycenaean age we do not wish to state positively that the Mycenaeans were Greeks and spoke Greek. "Of their speech we have yet to read the first syllable."⁸¹ Tsountas⁸² and Manatt, however, venture to believe that they were either Greeks or of the same stock. They use the term "to designate all Greek peoples who share in the Mycenaean civilization, irrespective of their habitat."⁸³ Ohnefalsch-Richter (Cont. Rev., Dec., 1912, p. 862) claims Cyprus as the purveyor of culture to the CretoMycenan age. He claims that Hellenes lived in Cyprus 1200 to 1000 B.C. The Mycenaean influence was wide-spread and comes "down to the very dawn of historical Greece."⁸⁴ That Greek was known and used widely during the Mycenaean age the researches of Evans at Knossos, in Crete, make clear.⁸⁵ The early linear

44 A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

writing of the Cretans came from a still earlier pictograph. The Greek dialects emerge into light from about 1000 B.C. onward and culminate in the Attic which flourished till the work of Alexander is done. The Homeric poems prove that Greek was an old language by 1000 to 800 B.C. The dialects certainly have their roots deep in the Mycenaean age. Roughly, 300 B.C. is the time when the Greek has become the universal language of the world, a Weltsprache. 330 A.D. is the date when the seat of government was removed from Rome to Constantinople, while A.D. 1453 is the date when Constantinople was captured by the Turks. With all the changes in this long history the standards of classicity have not varied greatly from Homer till now in the written style, while the Greek vernacular to-day is remarkably like the earliest known inscriptions of the folk-speech in Greece.⁸⁶ We know something of this history for about 3000 years, and it is at least a thousand years longer. Mahaffy has too poor an idea of modern Greek, but even he can say: "Even in our miserable modern pigeonGreek, which represents no real pronunciation, either ancient or modern, the lyrics of Sophocles or Aristophanes are unmistakably lovely."⁸⁷

(d) MODERN GREEK IN PARTICULAR. It is important to single out the modern Greek vernacular⁸⁸ from the rest of the language for the obvious reason that it is the abiding witness to the perpetuity of the vernacular Greek as a living organism. It is a witness also that is at our service always. The modern Greek popular speech does not differ materially from the vernacular Byzantine, and thus connects directly with the vernacular koinh,. Alexandria was "the great culture-reservoir of the Greek-Oriental world . . . the repository of the ancient literary treasures."⁸⁹ With this

THE HISTORICAL METHOD 45

general position Thumb heartily agrees.⁹⁰ Hatzidakis⁹¹ even says: "The language generally spoken to-day in the towns differs less from the common language of Polybius than this last differs from the language Homer." Since this is true it at first seems odd that the students at the University of Athens should object so much to the translation of the N. T. into the modern vernacular. They forget that the N. T. is itself written in the vernacular koinh,. But that was so long ago that it is now classic to them. Certainly in the Gospels, as Wellhausen⁹² insists, the spoken Greek became literature. Knowledge of the modern Greek⁹³ helps the student to escape from "the Procrustean bed of the old Greek" which he learned as a fixed and dead thing.⁹⁴ It is probable that Roger Bacon had some Byzantine manual besides the old Greek grammars.⁹⁵ "In England, no less than in the rest of Western Europe, the knowledge of Greek had died away, and here also, it was only after the conquest of Constantinople that a change was possible."⁹⁶ Western Christians had been afraid of the corruptions of paganism if they knew Greek, and of Mohammedanism if they knew Hebrew (being kin to Arabic!). But at last a change has come in favour of the modern Greek. Boltz indeed has advocated modern Greek as the common language for the scholars of the World since Latin is so little spoken.⁹⁷ There is indeed need of a new world-speech, as Greek was in the N. T. times, but there is no language that can now justly make such a claim. English comes nearer to it than any other. This need has given rise to the artificial tongues like Volaptik and Espe-

46 A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

ranto,⁹⁸ the latter having some promise in it. But the modern Greek vernacular has more merit than was once conceded to it. The idioms and pronunciation of the present-day vernacular are often seen in the manuscripts of the N. T. and other Greek documents and much earlier in inscriptions representing one or another of the early dialects. The persistence of early English forms is easily observed in the vernacular in parts of America or England. In the same way the late Latin vernacular is to be compared with the early Latin vernacular, not with the Latin of elegant literature. "Speaking generally, we may say that the Greek of a well-written newspaper [the literary language] is now, as a rule, far more classical than the Hellenistic of the N. T., but decidedly less classical than the Greek of Plutarch."⁹⁹ What the relation between the N. T. Greek and the modern Greek is will be shown in the next chapter. It should be noted here that the N. T. Greek had a strong moulding influence on the Byzantine, and so on the modern Greek because of the use of the Greek New Testament all over the world, due to the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire.¹⁰⁰ The great Christian preachers did not indeed use a peculiar ecclesiastical Greek, but the N. T. did tend to emphasize the type of koinh, in which it was written. "The diction of the N. T. had a direct influence in moulding the Greek ordinarily used by Christians in the succeeding centuries."¹⁰¹ Compare the effect of the King James Version on the English language and of Luther's translation of the Bible on German.

V. The Greek Point of View. It sounds like a truism to insist that the Greek idiom must be explained from the Greek point of view. But none the less the caution is not superfluous. Trained linguists may forget it and so commit a grammatical vice. Even Winer¹⁰² will be found saying, for instance: "Appellatives which, as expressing definite objects, should naturally

THE HISTORICAL METHOD 47

have the article, are in certain cases used without it." That "should" has the wrong attitude toward Greek. The appellative in Greek does not need to have the article in order to be definite. So when Winer often admits that one tense is used "for" another, he is really thinking of German and how it would be expressed in German. Each tongue has its own history and genius. Parallel idioms may or may not exist in a group of languages. Sanskrit and Latin, for instance, have no article. It is not possible to parallel the Hebrew tenses, for example, with the Greek, nor, indeed, can it be done as between Greek and English. The English translation of a Greek aorist may have to be in the past perfect or the present perfect to suit the English usage, but that proves nothing as to how a Greek regarded the aorist tense. We must assume in a language that a good writer knew how to use his own tongue and said what he meant to say. Good Greek may be very poor English, as when Luke uses evn tw|/ eivsagagei/n tou.j gonei/j to. paidi,on vIhsou/n (Lu. 2:27). A literal translation of this neat Greek idiom makes barbarous English. The Greeks simply did not look at this clause as we do. "One of the commonest and gravest errors in studying the grammar of foreign languages is to make a half-conjectural translation, and then reason back from our own language to the meaning of the original; or to explain some idiom of the original by the formally different idiom which is our substantial equivalent."¹⁰³ Broadus was the greatest teacher of language that I have known and he has said nothing truer than this. After all, an educated Greek knew what he meant better than we do. It is indeed a great and difficult task that is demanded of the Greek grammarian who to-day undertakes to present a living picture of the orderly development of the Greek tongue "zu einem schonert and grorren Ganzen" and also show "in the most beautiful light the flower of the Greek spirit and life."¹⁰⁴ Deissmann¹⁰⁵ feels strongly on the subject of the neglect of the literary development of Primitive Christianity, "a

48 A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT

subject which has not yet been recognized by many persons in its full importance. Huge as is the library of books that have been written on the origin of the N. T. and of its separate parts, the N. T. has not often been studied by historians of literature; that is to say, as a branch of the history of ancient literature."

¹ See Oertel, Lect. on the Study of Lang., 1902, p. 9 f.

² Kleinere Schr., 1892, 2. Bd., 4. Abt., p. 51.

³ See Sayce, Prin. of Comp. Philol., 1875, p. 175

⁴ See Kretschmer, Einl. in die Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1896, pp. 2, 3.

⁵ Prin. of Comp. Philol., p. xvi.

⁶ Prin. of the Hist. of Lang., 1888, p. xxi. "The truth is that the science of which we are thinking is philosophy in the same way as physics or physiology is philosophy, neither more, nor less."

⁷ Prin. of the Hist. of Lang., 1888, p. xxvii. See Von Ulrich's Grundl. und Gesch. der Philol., 1892, p. 22: " Zu der wissenschaftlichen Grammatik gesellt sich die historische Betrachtung. Sie unterscheidet die Periodisierung der Satze von deren loser Verknupfung, die wechselnde Bedeutung der Partikeln, den Gebrauch der Modi und Tempora, die erfahrungsmassig festgestellten Regeln der Syntax, den Sprachgebrauch der Schriftsteller." On the scientific study of the Gk. language sketched historically see Wackernagel, Die Kult. der Gegenw., Tl. I, Abt. 8, pp. 314-316.

⁸ Einl. in die Gesch. der griech. Spr., pp. 3-5. He himself here merely outlines the historical background of the Gk. language.

⁹ " Kata. tau/ta loipo.n h` grammatologi,a de.n eivnai ouvte avmigh.j i`storikh,Ã ouvte avmigh.j aivsqhtikh. evpisth,mh avlla. mete,cei avmfote,rwn) `Ellhnikh. Grammatologi,a, 1894, p. 6.

¹⁰ "As a matter of course, I do not presume to have said the last word on all or most of these points, seeing that, even in the case of modern Gk., I cannot be expected to master, in all its details, the entire vocabulary and grammar of every single Neohellenic dialect." Hist. Gk. Gr., 1897, p. X.

¹¹ Wissensch. Synt. der griech. Spr., 1829.

¹² Gesch. der griech. Lit., 1893.

¹³ Volkerpsychol., 1900, 3. Aufl., 1911 f.

¹⁴ Beitr. zur griech. Sprachk., 1890.

¹⁵ Beitr. zu einer Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1885.

¹⁶ Beitr. zur hist. Synt. der griech. Spr., Bd. I-XVII.

¹⁷ Ess. und Stud. zur Sprachgesch. und Volksk., Bd. I, II, 1885, 1893.

¹⁸ Handb. der Altertumswiss. He edits the series (1890-).

¹⁹ Handb. deal griech. Laut- und Formenl. Eine Einfuhr. in das sprachwiss. Stud. des Griech., 1902, 2. Aufl., 1912.

²⁰ Die griech. Spr. im Zeitaltcr des Hellen., 1901.

²¹ Untersuch. zur Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1898.

²² Gesch. der Sprachwiss. bei den Griech. und Rom., Tl. I, II, 1891.

²³ Hist. Gr. der lat. Spr., 1903. Cf. Stolz und Schmalz, Lat. Gr., 4. Aufl., 1910; Draeger, Hist. Synt. der lat. Spr., Bd. I, II, 1878, 1881; Lindsay, The Lat. Lang., 1894. In Bd. III of Landgraf's Gr., Golling says (p. 2) that Latin Grammar as a study is due to the Stoics who did it "in der engsten Verbindung mit der Logik." Cf. origin of Gk. Gr.

²⁴ See Whitney, Lang. and the Study of Lang., 1868, p. 399.

²⁵ Sayce, Intr. to the Sci. of Lang., vol. II, p. 301.

²⁶ Whitney, Darwinism and Lang., Reprint from North Am. Rev., July, 1874.

²⁷ Three Lect. on the Sci. of Lang., 1891, p. 9. See also The Silesian Horseherd: "Language and thought go hand in hand; where there is as yet no word, there is as yet no idea." Many of the writers on animals do not accept this doctrine.

²⁸ Prin. of the Hist. of Lang., p. xliii.

²⁹ Paul, Prin. of the Hist. of Lang., p. 481.

³⁰ Ib., p. 13. Kuhner speaks of "das organische Leben der Sprache" and of "ein klares, anschauliches und lebensvolles Bild des grossen und kraftig bluhenden Sprachbaums." Ausfuhrl. Gr. der griech. Spr., 1. Bd., 1890, p.

³¹ Kretschmer, Einl. in die Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1896, pp. 3-5.

³² A Crit. Hist. of the Lang. and Lit. of Anc. Greece, 1850, vol. I, p. 117.

³³ Op. cit., 1897, p. 3 f.

³⁴ Die Entst. der griech. Literaturspr., 1890, p. 2: "Denn man liefe Gefahr, den Charakter der Literaturdenkmaler ganzlich zu zerstoren, indem man, ihre eigenartige Gestaltung verkennend, sie nach den Normen einer gesprochenen Mundart corrigirt." But see Lottich, De Serm. vulg. Att., 1881; and Apostolides, op. cit.

³⁵ Prog. of Hellen. in Alex. Emp., 1905, p. 137.

³⁶ Einleitung, p. 3.

³⁷ "Eine Literatursprache ist nie eine Art Normalsprache." Schwyzer, Weltspr. des Altert., 1902, p. 12.

³⁸ King, Intr. to Comp. Gr., p. 2.

³⁹ Sayce, Prin. of Comp. Philol., p. 261.

⁴⁰ Goblet d'Alviella, Ce que 1'Inde doit a la Grece, 1897, p. 129.

⁴¹ King, op. cit., p. 2 f. "The method of comparative grammar is merely auxiliary to historical grammar," Wheeler, Whence and Whither of the Mod. Sci. of Lang., p. 96.

⁴² Whitney, Life and Growth of Lang., 1875-, p. 315.

⁴³ F. Hoffmann, Uber die Entwickel. des Begriffs der Gr. bei den Alten, 1891, p. 1.

⁴⁴ See his book, The Unity of Origin of Lang. Dr. Allison Drake, Disc. in Heb., Gaelic, Gothic, Anglo-Sax., Lat., Basque and other Caucasic Lang., 1908, undertakes to show "fundamental kinship of the Aryan tongues and of Basque with the Semitic tongues."

⁴⁵ Man. of Comp. Philol., 1901, p. 36.

⁴⁶ Brugmann, Kurze vergl. Or. der indoger. Spr., 1. Lief., 1902, p. 4.

⁴⁷ See Misteli, Characteristik der hauptsachlichsten Typen des Sprachbaues, 1893. For further literature on comparative grammar see pp. 10 ff. of this book. There is an English translation of Brugmann's Bde. I and II called Elements of the Comp. Gr. of the Indo-Ger. Lang., 5 vols., 1886-97. But his Kurze vergl. Gr. (1902-4) is the handiest edition. Meillet (Intr. l'Etude Comp. etc., pp. 441-455) has a discriminating discussion of the literature.

⁴⁸ Einl. in die Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1896, pp. 7-9.

⁴⁹ Kurze vergl. Gr., 1. Lief., 1902, p. 3.

⁵⁰ Ib., p. 27.

⁵¹ Pop. Sci. Rev., Jan., 1888.

⁵² Einl. in die Gesch. etc., pp. 7-92.

⁵³ See Max Muller, Three Lect. on the Sci. of Lang., 1891, p. 29.

⁵⁴ Sayce, Prin. of Comp. 1875, p. vi.

⁵⁵ See Meyer-Ltibke, Gr. der rom. Spr., 3 Bde., 1890, 1894, 1899.

⁵⁶ See Hirt, Handb. der griech. Laut- and Formenl., 2d ed., 1912, p. 13. Cf. Donaldson, New Crat., p. 112 (Ethn. Affin. of the Anc. Greeks).

⁵⁷ Whitney, Lang. and the Study of Lang., 1868, p. 185. See Brugmann, Griech. Gr., p. 5: "Die griechische, lateinische, indische u.s.w. Grammatik sind die konstitutiven Teile der indogermanischen Grammatik in gleicher Weise, wie z. B. die dorische, die ionische u.s.w. Grammatik die griechische Grammatik ausmachen."

⁵⁸ See Holder, Altcelt. Sprachsch., 1891 ff.

⁵⁹ Synt., 1897. Phonet. et Et. des Formes Grq. et Lat., 1901.

⁶⁰ Einl. in die Cesch. der griech. Spr., pp. 153-170.

⁶¹ Prof. B. L. Gildersleeve, Johns Hopkins Univ., has always taught Greek, but his Latin Grammar shows his fondness for Latin. See also Henry, A Short Comp. Gr. of Gk. and Lat., 1890, and A Short Comp. Gr. of Eng. and Ger., 1893.

⁶² Three Lect. on the Sci. of Lang., 1891, p. 72.

⁶³ P. 5. Prof. Burrows (Disc. in Crete, 1907, pp. 145 ff.) raises the question whether the Greek race (a blend of northern and southern elements) made the Gk. language out of a pre-existing Indo-European tongue. Or did the northerners bring the Gk. with them? Or did they find it already in the AEgean? It is easier to ask than to answer these questions.

⁶⁴ See pp. 171-243.

⁶⁵ Hist. Gk. Gr., 1897, p. v.

⁶⁶ Ib., p. xi. Thumb says: "Wir sind noch sehr weit von einer Geschichte oder historischen Grammatik der griechischen Sprache entfernt; der Versuch von Jannaris, so dankenswert er ist, kann doch nur provisorische Geltung beanspruchen, wobei man mehr die gute Absicht and den Fleiss als das sprachgeschichtliche Verstandnis des Verfassers loben muss." Die griech. Spr., etc., 1901, p. 1. Cf. also Krumbacher, Beitr. zu einer Gesch. der griech. Spr. (1884, p. 4): "Eine zusammenhangende Darstellung des Entwickelungsganges der griechischen Sprache ist gegenwartig nicht moglich." But it is more possible now than in 1884.

⁶⁷ Paul, Prin. o the Hist. of Lang., 1888, p. 2.

⁶⁸ Oertel, Lect. bn the Study of Lang., 1902, p. 27. Thumb (Theol. Literaturzeit., 1903, p. 424) expresses the hope that in a future edition of his Gr. des N. T., Blass may do this for his book: "Die Sprache des N. T. auf dem grossen Hintergrund der hellenistischen Sprachentwicklung beschreiben zu konnen."

⁶⁹ Hist. Gr. der hell. Spr., 1891, p. 14 f.

⁷⁰ Ib., p. 16. Op "die griechische Sprache als Einheit" see Thumb's able discussion in Handb. d. griech. Dial. (pp. 1-12). With all the diversity of dialects there was essential unity in comparison with other tongues.

⁷¹ Brugmann, Vergl. Gr., 1902, p. 8.

⁷² Kretschmer, Einl. in die Gesch. der griech. Spr., 1896, p. 6. On the unmixed character of the Gk. tongue see Wackernagel, Die griech. Spr., p. 294, Tl. I, Abt. 8 (Die Kult. der Gegenw.). On the antiquity of Gk. see p. 292 f.

⁷³ Sandford, Pref. to Thiersch's Gk. Gr., 1830, p. viii.

⁷⁴ Miss Harrison, Prol. to the Study of Gk. Rel., 1903, p. vii.

⁷⁵ Hatzidakis, Einl. in die neugr. Gr., 1892, p. 4.

⁷⁶ Hist. Gr. der hell. Spr., 1891, p. 2.

⁷⁷ See John Koch, Eng. Gr., for an admirable bibliography of works on Eng. (in Ergeb. and Fortschr. der germanist. Wiss. im letzten Vierteljahrh., 1902, pp. 89-138, 325-437). The Germans have taught us how to study English!

⁷⁸ Hist. Gk. Gr., p. xxii. Cf. also Schuckburgh, Greece, 1906, p. 24 f. Moulton (Prol., p. 184) counts 32 centuries of the Gk. language from 1275 B.C., the date of the mention of the Achmans on an Egyptian monument.

⁷⁹ Gk. Gr., 1885, p. 1f. Deissmann indeed would have only three divisions, the Dialects up to 301 B.C., Middle Period up to 600 A.D., and Mod. Gk. up to the present time. Hauck's Realencyc., 1889, p. 630. Cf. Muller, Hist. Gr. der hell. Spr., 189 , pp. 42-62, for another outline.

⁸⁰ Gk. Lex., etc., p. 11.

⁸¹ Tsountas and Manatt, The Mycenaean Age, 1897, p. 316.

⁸² Ib., p. 335 ff.

⁸³ Ib., p. 235.

⁸⁴ Ib., p. 325. See also Beloch, Griech. Gesch., I., 85: "Auch sonst kann kein Zweif el sein, dass die mykendische Kultur in Griechenland bis in das VIII. Jahrhundert geherrscht." Flinders-Petrie (Jour. of Hell. Stud., xii, 204) speaks of 1100 to 800 B.C. as the "age of Mycenaean decadence."

⁸⁵ Cretan Pictographs and Pre-Phoenician Script, 1895, p. 362; cf. also Jour. of Hell. Stud., xiv, 270-372. See Jannaris, Hist. Gk. Gr., p. 22, for further proofs of the antiquity of Gk. as a written tongue. Mosso (Palaces of Crete, 1907, p. 73 f.) argues that the Mycenaean linear script was used 1900 B.C. Cf. Evans, Further Researches, 1898.

⁸⁶ Brugmann, Griech. Gr., p. 13. See also Hatzidakis, Einl. in die neugr. Gr., 1892, p. 3.

⁸⁷ Survey of Gk. Civiliz., 1896, p. 209. Cf. further Mosso, Dawn of Civiliz. in Crete, 1910; Baike, Kings of Crete, 1910; Firmen, Zeit und Dauer der kretisch- myken. Kult., 1909.

⁸⁸ The modern literary language ( kaqareu,ousa) is really more identical with the ancient classical Gk. But it is identity secured by mummifying the dead. It is identity of imitation, not identity of life. Cf. Thumb-Angus, Handb. of Mod. Gk. Vern., Foreword (p. xi f.).

⁸⁹ Dieterich, Gesch. der byz. und neugr. Lit., 1902, p. 2.

⁹⁰ "Die heutige griechische Volkssprache ist die nattirliche Fortsetzung der alten Koinh,." Die neugr. Spr., 1892, p. 8. See Heilmeier's book on the Romaic Gk. (1834), who first saw this connection between the mod. vern. and the vern. koinh,.

⁹¹ Transl. by J. H. Moulton in Gr. of N. T. Gk., 1906 and 1908, p. 30, from Rev. des Et. Grq., 1903, p. 220. Cf. Krumbacher, Das Prob. der neugr. Scluiftspr., 1902.

⁹² Einl. in die drei ersten Evang., 1905, p. 9.

⁹³ See Ruger, Prap. bei Joh. Antiochenus, 1896, p. 7.

⁹⁴ Thumb, Handb. der neugr. Volkspr., 1895, p. x.

⁹⁵ Roger Bacon's Gk. Gr., edited by Nolan and Hirsch, 1902, p. lx f.

⁹⁶ Ib., p. xlii.

⁹⁷ Hell. die internat. Gelehrtenspr. der Zukunft, 1888. Likewise A. Rose: "Die griechische Sprache . . . hat . . . eine glanzende Zukunft vor sich." Die Griechen and ihre Spr., 1890, p. 4. He pleads for it as a "Weltsprache," p. 271. But Schwyzer pointedly says: "Die Rolle einer Weltsprache wird das Griechische nicht wieder spielen." Weltspr. des Altert., 1902, p. 38. Cf. also A. Bolt; Die hell. Spr. der Gegenw., 1882, and Gk. the Gen. Lang. of the Future for Scholars.

⁹⁸ Cf. J. C. O'Connor, Esperanto Text-book, and Eng.-Esper. Dict.

⁹⁹ Jebb, On the Rela. of Mod. to Class. Gk., in Vincent ands Dickson's Handb. to Mod. Gk., 1887, p. 294. Blass actually says: "Der Sprachgebrauch des Neuen Testaments, der vielfaltig vom Neugriechischen her eine viel bessere Beleuchtung empfangt als aus der alten klassischen Literatur." Kuhner's Ausf. Gr. etc., 1890, p. 25. Blass also says (ib., p. 26) that "eine wissenschaftliche neugriechische Grammatik fehlt." But Hatzidakis and others have written since.

¹⁰⁰ See Reinhold, De Graecitate Patrum, 1898.

¹⁰¹ Jebb, ib., p. 290.

¹⁰² Gr. of the N. T. Gk., Moulton's transl., 1877, p. 147.

¹⁰³ Broadus, Comm. on Mt., 1886, p. 316. See also Gerber, Die Spr. als Kunst, 1. Bd., 18'1, p. 321: "Der ganze Charakter dieser oder jener Sprache ist der Abdruck der Natur des Landes, wo sie gesprochen wird. Die griechische Sprache ist der griechische Himmel selbst mit seiner tiefdunklen Blaue, die sick in dem sanft wogenden agaischen Meere spiegelt."

¹⁰⁴ Kuhner, Aus Gr. der griech. Spr., 1834, p. iv. How much more so now!

¹⁰⁵ Expos. Time , Dec., 1906, p. 103. Cf. also F. Overbeck, Hist. Zeitschr., neue Folge, 1882, p. 429 ff.