CHAP. XXXIII. Of the New Testament Language, or the Greek. (Book 33)
THE Greek Tongue is the key which God used to unlock the Tents of Sem to the sons of Japhet. This glorious Tongue (as Tully calls it) is made most glori∣ous by the writing of the New Testament in this Language. God hath honoured all the* 1.1 letters by naming himself after the first and the last: as Homer shews the receit of all the Grecian ships, by shewing how many the greatest, and how few the least contained. Ja∣van is held both by Jews and Christians to have planted the Country. The Tongue is likely to be maternal from Babel: The Jews upon Genesis the forty ninth, think that Jacob curseth his sons Simeon and Levies fact, in one word of Greek Macerothehem, that is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 their swords: but all the Chaldees and other Translations render it better, their habitations, Gen. 49. 5. The ancientest Heathen Greek alive is Homer, though the Tongue was long before, and Homers subject of Ilias treated of in Greek verse by Evanders Wife of Arcadia, as some have related. Homer watered the Tongue, and in succeeding ages it flourished till it grew ripe in the New Testament. The Dialects of it familiarly known to be five. The Attick, the Jonick, &c. The Macedonian was some∣thing strange, as appears in Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. 5. Especially their devout Ma∣cedonian, or about their oraisons. How God scattered and divulged this Tongue of the Greeks over the World, against the coming of Christ, and writing of the New Testament, is remarkable. Alexander the great with his Macedonians, made the Eastern parts Grecian. The Old Testament at Ptolomaeus his request, translated into Greek, was as an Usher to bring in the New Testament, when Japhet should come to dwell in the Tents of Sem. The Jews used to keep a mournful fast for that Translation, but as Jews mourn, so have Gentiles cause to rejoyce. In like sort, for the preparation for the Gospel of late (which as far as Antichrist his power could reach, lay depressed, but not overwhelmed;) the Greek Tongue at the sacking of Constantinople by the Turks, was sent into these Western climates; that we might hear Christ speak in his own Language, without an Egyptian to interpret to us, as Joseph had to his brethren: What need we now to rely upon a Latine foundation, when we have the Greek purity? Never did the Turk any good to Christianity, but this, and this against his will, but God worketh all things for his own glory: And we may say of the poor inhabitants of Grecia, as of the Jews, by their impoverishing we are inriched.
As Athens in old time was called the Grecia of Grecia, so the New Testament for Language may be stiled the Greek of Greek. In it (as upon the cross of our Saviour, in the title) are three Tongues, Hebrew, Greek, and Latine. Greek the foundation, of the other two some few additions. In the Greek Master Broughton hath given learned rules and examples of the kinds of it, viz. Septuagint, Talmudick, Attick and Apostolick. The Hebrew or Syrian (for so that word Hebrew in the title of the cross must be un∣derstood) is easily found out even in Translations. Latine there is some in the Go∣spels, but not much. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Census for tribute. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a ward or watch, Matth. 28. 11. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 spiculator, Mark 6. 27. which word is used by Targum Jeruselamy in Gen. 37. of Potiphar, that he was Rabh Sapulachtaria: Princeps spiculatorum. And some other words of the Latine Tongue, which Language in our Saviours time the conquest of the Romans had scattered in Jerusalem: and in the parts adjoyning, and so may one find some Latine in the Syrian Testament: and abundance of Greek.