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PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
THE WORDS OF JESUS
CONSIDERED IN THE LIGHT OF POST-BIBLICAL JEWISH WRITINGS AND THE ARAMAIC LANGUAGE
BY
GUSTAF DALMAN
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN Mtr UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG
AUTHORISED ENGLISH VERSION
BY
2. mM KA, oe,
PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND ORIENTAL LANGUAGES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS
I. INTRODUCTION anp FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS
EDINBURGH T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 1902
foe 222% 1961 ae ‘ ¢ i <6 N eRsITY or TOR
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.
Tue work here introduced to English readers is the result of studies which have been pursued during a long series of years. The aim of these studies has been to ascertain the meaning of the words of our Lord as they must have pre- sented themselves to the ear and mind of His Jewish hearers. The author is well aware that the last word has not been said on not a few important and difficult questions treated in this volume; but his wishes will be fulfilled if his work serves to strengthen the conviction that labour in this direction is not fruitless, and must be done by many co- workers, if Christian Theology is to be brought into more precise relations with its historical basis.
As to the relation of the English translation to the German original, I have only to add that the English version practically forms a second edition of the work. A number of small errors have been corrected by the author throughout the whole book, and the introductory part has been partly rewritten and rendered more complete. The “ Messianic Texts,’ which form an Appendix to the German volume, have not been included in the English edition. As they may be had separately from the publisher of the German edition (J. C. Hinrichs, Leipzig), it seemed superfluous to reprint
them here. GUSTAF H. DALMAN. Lerpzic, lst April 1902.
NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.
Tue Translator has endeavoured to furnish a faithful version of the German original, but is not responsible for the various positions maintained by the author. If the Gospel was first announced in the Aramaic language, it is obvious that the Greek versions of the Synoptists cannot be finally interpreted without taking due account of the Aramaic prototype. This factor is introduced by Dr. Dalman’s line of research, and will be seen to contribute elements of great value in the minuter exegesis of the Gospels.
The Translator has to thank the Rev. Professor A. R. S. Kennedy, of Edinburgh, for the helpful interest he has taken in the process of translation, and for correcting the second proofs. In rendering into English the idea of the malkuth Yahveh (Gottesherrschaft, usually called “the Kingdom of God”), he hopes no inconvenience will be caused by the occasional use of “theocracy” as a shorter synonym for “Sovereignty of God.” In citing the Talmud, b. before the name of the Tractate stands for Babylonian, j. for Jerusalem ; a Baraitha is a tradition of the elders which did not happen to be incorporated in the authoritative collection of R.
Yehuda ha-Nasi. le Mo BA,
vii
CONTENTS.
Author’s Preface to the English Edition . Note by the Translator ;
INTRODUCTION.
I, Aramaic as the language of the Jews
Il. The literary use of Hebrew. ; III. The Semitisms of the Synoptic ee
IV. Some Hebraisms and Aramaisms
V. Alleged proofs of a primitive Hebrew Gospel
VI. Testimonies in favour of a primitive Aramaic Gospel :
VII. The Problem before us and the previous studies in the same field . VIII. The selection of the dialect ;
FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS. J, Toe SovEREIGNTY OF Gop (THEOCRACY).
A. Sovereignty of Heaven, sovereignty of God, sovereignty B. The Jewish use of the idea . C. The application of the idea of the eee Sovereignty in the words of Jesus . 1. The sovereignty of God is ‚the anbjeot we an announcement 2, 3. The sovereignty of God is regarded as an a dis- pensation
4. The theocracy is an order of things under which men are rd
5. The theocracy is an order of things to which men attain 6. The theocracy is a good Jewish statements concerning pre- -existence 7. The sovereignty of Messiah 8. Concluding discussion Appendix A.—Luke 1616, Matt. 11! Appendix B.—Luke 17% ,
II. Tae FUTURE AGE, THE Ace (on).
1. Its occurrence in the words of Jesus 2. Origin of the expression 3. The simple 6 ala
91 96
101 102
106 110 116 121 128 133 134 139 143
147 148 154
x CONTENTS
III. ETERNAL Lire, Lire.
PAGE 1. Its position in the discourses of Jesus . : . ‘ — 156 2. The Jewish usage : ‘ ‘ ‘ : . . 156 3. The verbs connected withit . N x : : .- 208 4. The simple 9 {won ; ; ; j ‘ : aes 5. The significance of the idea. . . . . . 281
IV. Tue Wor zp. 1. Books in which the term is still unknown i a : a 1 2. The idea of the “world” in the Synoptists . ‘ : - 166 3. Instances of the use of the idea ‘‘ world ” i : A ~ "389 4. The new world . : Ä ‘ ; ‘ 3 sy U9 V, “Tue LORD” AS A DESIGNATION FOR Gop.
1. Not a name for God to be found in common use : ‘ 58 2. Substitute for the Tetragrammaton (mm) i : . - 182 VI. Tue FATHER IN HEAVEN,
1. The Israelitish-J ewish usage . : R ; é oo 98e 2. The usage in the language of Jesus . j N R e389 VII. OTHER DIvINE NAMES.
1. God (6 es) . : ; ; : : . 194 2. The Highest (a R ; : : . 198 3. The Blessed One (6 VERBIN ‘ A : ; - 200 4. The Power (7 öVvauıs) . ‘ x = ; 4 . 08 5. The Holy One (6 &y:0s) R N k r u » 2208 6. The Merciful One (6 éXewr) j ‘ R > ‘ - 204 VIII. EvAsıvE OR PRECAUTIONARY MODES OF REFERRING TO Gop.
1. The Voice : £ ; : : ; ei Bi one 2. Swearing by Heaven . : . . ‘ . .. 206 3. Reward, treasures in Heaven . A ; h : s 206 4. Written in Heaven . A h fh . >» 209 5. Before the angels, before God x . . / . 209 6. Bound, loosed in Heaven : : hi : ; . , 28 7. Heaven ; i ; : ; ; : i ee 8. From Heaven . N R A R : — Qa 9. Hosanna in the hicka ‘ . . : ° + wa 10. From on high . . . . . . . . 223 11. Use of the Passive Voice ; x = i R 2 12. Amen . é s ö > << oe 13. The Shechinah, the Glory, the Word . ‘ . . 229 14. The Place ; ‘ 5 . . ‘ on: Sa
15. Concluding Rtstoment . . . . ‘ + 233
CONTENTS. xl
IX. Tue Son or MAN,
PAGE
1. The linguistie form of the expression . . - 284
2. ‘Son of Man” was not a current Jewish name ton the Messiah ss eel
3. “Son of Man” is no empty formula . . 249 4. ‘Son of Man” is a self-appellation of Jesus used exclusively by
Himself . : : . 250
5. The meaning attached e the title by the Syaentiets : ‘ . 258
6. The sense attached by Jesus to the term ‘‘Son of man” . . " 256
X. THE Son or Gop.
1. The second Psalm in Jewish literature ~ 268
2. The title ‘‘Son of God” as applied to Jesus by other Ban . 274
3. The divine voice at the Baptism and the Transfiguration ; = A276
4, Jesus’ own testimony . 7280
5. The sense attached by the Syuoptiste to the title “Son of God a . 288
XI, CHRIST.
1. The term in Jewish usage—
(a) Derivation and form . ; ‘ : . . 289 (b) Signification and content x ; x ; . 294 (c) The idea of pre-existence ; : : . 299 2. The application of the name ‘‘ Messiah ” to Jos esus . 8308
3. The acknowledgment of the name ‘‘ Messiah ” by Jesus Himself - 805
XII. Tur Son or Davin.
1. The Jewish idea of Messiah’s Davidie origin . : ; 816 2. The Davidic descent of Jesus . ; ; } ; ~* 319 XIII. ‘‘THr LoRD” AS A DESIGNATION OF JESUS.
1. The Jewish use of the term . . ; j : oes. 2. The usage in the Synoptists . . . ; : vr; XIV. “MASTER” AS A DESIGNATION OF JESUS.
1. The Jewish use of the term : : ; A ; eo eee 2. The Synoptic use of the term . : ‘ ‘ : . 886 INDEX FOR GREEK TERMS , ; ‘ ‘ : foes? |
CITATIONS OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS . ‘ : ; <7 AE
PASSAGES DISCUSSED IN DETAIL. . . . . 350
EDITIONS OF TEXTS USED.
A. APOCRYPHA.
H. B. Swete, The Old Testament in Greek, i.-iii., 1887-94. O. F. Fritzsche, Libri apocryphi Veteris Testamenti Grace, 1871, De Lagarde, Libri Veteris Testamenti apocryphi Syriace, 1861. Sirach: Hebrew Text, 39-49, 11; edition of A. E. Cowley and 4. Neubauer, 1897 ; ed. of R. Smend, 1897. 491950, 22, ed. of S. Schechter, Jew. Quart. Rev. x. (1898) 197-206, Tobit: Aram. Hebr. and Latin Texts, ed. of A. Neubauer, 1878. Hebrew Texts, ed. of M. Gaster, 1897. Supplements to Daniel: Aram. Text, ed. of M. Gaster, 1895.
B. PSEUDEPIGRAPHA.
Psalms of Solomon: ed. of H. E. Ryle and M. R. James, 1891; ed. of O. v. Gebhardt, 1895. Book of Jubilees: translation by R. H. Charles, Jew. Quart. Rev. vi. (1894) 184 ff., 710 ff. ; vii. (1895) 297 ff. Book of Enoch : translation by G. H. Schodde, 1882; by R. H. Charles, 1893. Greek text, A. Lods, 1892. Assumptio Mosis : ed. of R. H. Charles, 1897. Apocalypse of Baruch: Syriac text of A. M. Ceriani, 1871; translation by &. H. Charles, 1896. 2 Esdras: Syriac text of A. M. Ceriani, 1868. Latin text, ed. of R. L. Bensly and M. R. James, 1895. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Greek text of R. Sinker, 1868, 1879. Hebrew version (Naphtali), ed. of J. Gaster, 1894. Sibylline Oracles: ed. of A. Rzach, 1891. Testament of Abraham: ed. of M. R. James and W. E. Barnes, 1892. Slavonic Book of Enoch: ed. of W. R. Morfill and R. H. Charles, 1896.
C. TARGUMS.
Onkelos: Sabbioneta, 1557 (in the original).
Jerusalem Targums to the Pentateuch : Venice, 1591.
Targums to the Prophets and Hagiographa : Rabbinical Bible, Venice, 1517; Venice, 1525; Venice, 1548; Basle, 1618.
Targum sheni on Esther: ed. of L. Munk, 1876; ed. of M. Dawid, 1898.
Xl
xiv EDITIONS OF TEXTS USED
D. LITERATURE ON THE LAW.
Mishna: ed. Riva di Trento, 1559 ; Mantua, 1561 ; Cambridge( W. H. Lowe), 1883.
Tosephta : ed. Sabbioneta, 1555; Pasewalk (M. S. Zuckermandel), 1881.
Jerusalem Talmud: ed. Venice, 1524; Tractate Berachoth, ed. Mainz (M. Lehmann), 1875.
Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Taanith, ed. Pesaro (c. 1511); Sanhedrin, Sota, Nidda, Erubhin, Zebhachim, Menachoth, Bekhoroth, Meila, Kinnim, Middoth, Tamidh, Teharoth, ed. Venice, 1520-23.
Tractates Shebhuoth, Eduyyoth, Abhoth, Horayoth, Moed Katon, Yebha- moth, Erakhin, Temura, Kerithuth, Nedarim, Nazir, Teharoth, ed. Venice, 1526-29.
For the whole Talmud : ed. Vienna, 1840-47 ; Vari® Lectiones, R. Rabbinoviez- H. Ehrentreu, 1867-97.
Abhoth of Rabbi Nathan: ed. Vienna (S. Schechter), 1887.
E. COMMENTARIES (Midrashim).
Mechilta: ed. Constantinople, 1515; Vienna (J. Weiss), 1865; Vienna (M. Friedmann), 1870.
Siphra: ed. Venice, 1545; Vienna (J. Weiss), 1862.
Siphre: ed. Venice, 1545; Vienna (M. Friedmann), 1864.
Midrash Rabba on the Pentateuch: ed. Constantinople, 1512; Venice, 1545; Salonica, 1593.
Midrash Chamesh Megilloth : ed. Pesaro, 1519 ; Venice, 1545; Salonica, 1593.
Midrash on Canticles: ed. S. Schechter, Jew. Quart. Rev. vi. (1894) 672 ff. ; vii. (1895) 145 ff., 729 ff. ; viii. (1896) 289 ff.
Midrash Tanchuma: ed. Venice, 1545 ; Mantua, 1563 ; Wilna ($. Buber), 1885.
Midrash on Psalms: ed. Constantinople-Salonica, 1512-15; Venice, 1546; Wilna (S. Buber), 1891.
Midrash on Samuel: ed. Constantinople, 1517; Venice, 1546; Krakau ($. Buber), 1893.
Midrash on Proverbs: ed. Venice, 1546 ; Wilna (S. Buber), 1893.
Pesikta: ed. Lyck (S. Buber), 1868.
Pesikta Rabbati: ed. Vienna (M. Friedmann), 1880.
Pirke Rabbi Eliezer: ed. Venice, 1544.
Tanna de-be Eliyyahu: ed. Venice, 1598,
Yalkut Shimoni: ed. Salonica, 1521-26.
Yalkut Makiri: Yeshaya, ed. Berlin (J. Spira), 1894.
F. LITURGICAL WORKS.
Siddur: Seder Rab Amram, ed. Warsaw, 1865 ; Maimonides in Mishne Tora, ed. Venice, 1524 ; Siddur Hegyon Leb, by Z. Landshuth, Königsberg, 1845 ; Seder Abodath Yisrael, by S. Baer, Rödelheim, 1868.
Machzor, German rite: ed. Cremona, 1560; Venice, 1568; Venice, 1714-19.
Polish rite: ed. Sulzbach, 1699 ; Amsterdam, 1736.
French rite: Machzor Vitry, ed. Berlin, 1893-97.
Sephardic rite: ed. Livorno, 1845-46.
Roman rite: ed. Bologna, 1541.
Romanian rite: ed. Constantinople, 1520.
Yemen rite: two manuscripts in possession of Dr. Chamizer, Leipzig, No. 1 of the year 1659, No. 2, 16-17 century.
THE WORDS OF JESUS.
INTRODUCTION. I. ARAMAIC AS THE LANGUAGE OF THE JEWS.
As the proof has been offered with comparative frequency of late! showing that the “ Hebraists,’? that is, the “ Hebrew ”- speaking Jews of Palestine, who formed a class distinct from the “ Hellenists,” did not in reality speak Hebrew but Aramaic, it seems superfluous to raise a fresh discussion on all the details of this question. Yet, while reference is made to my “Grammatik des jüd.-pal. Aramäisch ” for information on all the Aramaic expressions that occur in the New Testament and Josephus, the most important sources of evi- dence now involved must here be shortly summarised.
1. The custom, represented in the second century after Christ as very ancient, of translating into Aramaic the teat of the Hebrew Pentateuch in the synagogues of the Hebraists of Palestine.
M. Friedmann, Onkelos und Akylas (1896), 58 ff, 81 f., still holds fast to the traditional opinion that even Ezra had an Aramaic version of the Tora. In this he is mistaken. Yet the high antiquity of the Targum custom of interpreting is incontestable. About the year 200 A.D. the practice is so
1 Most recently by @. Meyer, Jesu Muttersprache (1896), and 7h. Zahn, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, i. (1897) 1-24. 2 Acts 61 ‘EBpatcr. I
3 THE WORDS OF JESUS
firmly established that the Mishna does not make it a matter for prescription, but concerns itself only with the more precise determination of details (Meg. iv. 5, 7, 11). In the third century it was recommended—by Joshua ben Levi to his sons—that one should not even in private read the text of the Law without the traditional translation. It was not practical necessity that was the determining factor in this case, but the inviolable custom according to which Bible text and Targum were inseparable. There must, however, have been a time during which a pressing necessity created this custom, tending to depreciate the significance of the Bible text,— a time, that is, when the Hebrew text was not understood by those who frequented the synagogues. That even written Targums existed in the time of Christ may perhaps be concluded from the story? which represents Gamaliel 1. as having caused a Targum of Job to be built into the temple while it was building, provided this Targum were written in Aramaic and not in Greek. Gamaliel Ir. also would appear | to have seen a copy of the same Targum. Of course it does not follow that such Targums were widely distributed, least of all that every one should have had them at home; only it is clear that in public worship the Holy Scripture was not read without the translation into Aramaic. This rendering, according to Meg. iv. 4, was required to follow each single verse in the Pentateuch, and every three verses in the Prophets.
2. The Aramaic titles for classes of the people and for feasts attested by Josephus and the New Testament.
Of these there may be named—
Papicaio. *=NWNB (Hebrew would be Ov), “ Phari-
1 Ber. 8°; cf. W. Bacher, Agada der pälast. Amoräer, i. 141. That the Targum should therefore be also “read,” thus implying the possession of written Targums, is, however, not to be inferred from the expression.
2 Sabb. 115%; j. Sabb. 15°; Tos. Sabb. xiii. 2; Sophr. v. 15.
3 See same passages except j. Sabb. 15°.
* Zahn, Einl. ind. N. Test. i, 23, maintains that the plural s:¥75 lies at
INTRODUCTION 3
sees”; Xaavata (Jos. Ant. I. vii. 1)=N73 (Heb. DYN>), “Priests”; apaßapyns,' apaßayns (ibid.)=N27 0372 (Heb. ‘um man), “High Priest”; mdoya—=NnDB (Heb. MDS), “Passover”; doapda (Ant. I x. 6)=NMSY (Heb. NY), “Pentecost”; Ppovpaia? Bpovpai=N 2 (Heb. O85), “Purim”; caßßara = 8N2Y (Heb. Nav’), “ Sabbath.”
3. The use of the Aramare language in the Temple— In support of this is the old tradition that John Hyrcanus heard in the sanctuary a divine voice speaking in the Aramaic language, j. Sot. 24>; ef. Ant. xm. x. 33 In the temple, according to Shek. v. 3, vi. 5, the legends on the tokens for the drink-offerings and on the chests in which the con- tributions of the faithful were deposited were in Aramaic. As now given in the Mishna text, some, however, of the names are Hebrew. But the use of Aramaic in the other cases is so striking in matters of the temple service, that one must regard it as the sole language originally used in this connection.
4. Old official documents in the Aramaic language.— These are, first, the “ Roll concerning Fasts,” a catalogue of days on which fasting was forbidden, first compiled in the time of the rising against the Romans, 66-70 A.D.; secondly, the Epistles of Gamaliel ır. (about 110 A.D.) to the Jews of South Judea, Galilee, and Babylon. Both of these were destined for the Jewish people, and primarily, indeed, for those of Palestine. For the “Roll concerning Fasts,” see my the basis of the Greek form Papicato, because the ending aio. represents a Semitic final sound in i or ay; and that from xy" there would have been formed apicds. This is not convincing ; for Bapıras would have been unsuit- able as the name of a party, and the Greek language forms with equal ease Aapiccatos from Adpicoa, and "Adnvatos from ’AdAvaı. But, of course, it is probable that the formation of the Greek Papısatoı depended on the frequently heard plural definite s:Y'1>. Besides, the analogy of Zaödovrato: must have co- operated, and that goes back to ‘pry, definite axpry, plur. def. ‘xp.
1 Welthausen, Isr. und Jüd. Gesch. 161, holds that xavapdßns was the original reading ; but it is possible that we have here one of the intentional Grecisms of Josephus. dpaßdxns was meant to suggest dpaBdpyns.
? Ppovpal is due to a reminiscence of the Greek word &povpd, plur. ppovpat.
°Cf. Dérenbourg, Essai sur Vhistoire de la Palestine, 74; Büchler, Die Priester und der Cultus (1895), 62f.
4 THE WORDS OF JESUS
treatise “ Aramäische Dialektproben,” 1-3, 32-34; cf. Jüd. Monatschr. xli. 326, and Gramm. d. jüd.-pal. Aram. 7f. The Epistles of Gamaliel given in Aram. Dialektproben are attributed by the Palestinian Talmud Sanh. 18°, and there- after by Graetz, Dérenbourg, Neubauer,? and Biichler,* to the first Gamaliel; but this must be an error, as the four oroups of Jews alluded to (Upper and Lower Galilee, Darom (South-west Judea), and Babylon) point to a date after the destruction of Jerusalem.
5. The language of the public documents relating to purchase, lease-tenure, debt, conditional betrothal, refusal of marriage, marriage contract, divorce, renunciation of Levirate marriage. The Mishna gives the decisive formule of these documents, which were important for securing legal validity, for the most part in Aramaic, thus implying that this was the language commonly in use. References are given in Gramm. d. jüd.-pal. Aram. 12? As there is no rule prescribing the language in which such documents must be drawn up, it is not surprising that the Mishna should also sometimes mention formule in Hebrew, as for divorce, Gitt. ix. 3, 5; and for emancipation, Keth. iv. 12; ix. 1, 5 for the marriage contract. How unimportant the choice of language was, appears from Keth. iv. 12, where an Aramaic form is given for dwellers in Jerusalem and Galilee, while one in Hebrew is given for dwellers in Judea, with no intention, let us say, of emphasising the distinction of language, but by reason of the varying contents of the formule.—-The previously mentioned Epistles of the Patriarch Gamaliel 11. and the Roll concerning Fasts should properly be also reckoned among the public documents.
1 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, iii. 373.
2 Dérenbourg, Essai sur Vhistoire, 242.
3 Studia Biblica (Oxford, 1885), 49.
4 Büchler, Die Priester und der Cultus, 63.
5 Only the formula for ‘“conditional betrothals,” psmd (odudwvor), is not mentioned there ; see, however, j. Kidd. 634, 64°; j. Gitt. 49%; j. Er. 21°.
INTRODUCTION 5
The language used in a certain family register (DM? nam), found at one time in Jerusalem, is open to question. Ac- cording to the statement of Levi, one of the Palestinian Amoraim (about 300 A.n.t), it was written in Aramaic; and at any rate one sentence from it is reproduced in this language. The contents, now distorted by additions, would, however, refer it at the earliest to the end of the first century. But in Yeb. iv. 13 Simeon ben Azzai (about 110 A.D.) says that he too had found a family register in Jerusalem, in which there was used concerning some one this formula in Hebrew — Us nx WDD, “bastard of a wedded wife”? Whether this register was the one alluded to by Levi cannot indeed be affirmed with certainty ; but it is probably the same, and its language therefore doubtful.
6. The unquestioned adoption in the time of Jesus of the Aramaic characters in place of the old Hebrew in copies of the Bible Text.
The change of character has the change of language as its natural presupposition. The usual citation from Matt. 5'8, implying that ira was the smallest letter, is certainly inconclusive. Vav and yod were both represented at that period by a long perpendicular stroke. The yod was distin- guished by having a small hook at the top, and was thus really larger than the vav. The original spoke, as in Luke 16, only of a single hook (ia Kepaia), or perhaps of the hook of the yod, as in Shem. R. 9 (whereas Vay. R. 19, presupposing the later style of writing, mentions the yod itself). The mention of the éoTa in Matthew would be intended for Greek readers. For them iota was actually
1 See j. Taan. 68"; Ber. R. 98; ef. Büchler, Die Priester und der Cultus, 41f.
®H. Laible, in Dalman-Laible’s Jesus Christ in the Talmud, Midrash, Zohar, and the Liturgy of the Synagogue, 30f., incorrectly refers it to Jesus. The discussion treats merely of the definition of the term ‘‘ bastard.” In Yeb. 49” the discovered document is still further embellished with spurious additions,
6 THE WORDS OF JESUS
the smallest letter. Instead of on Matt. 5% stress must be laid much more on the fact that the Judaism of the second century possessed the Bible text only in “ Assyrian,” i.e. Aramaic handwriting,—a point of contrast with the Sam- aritans, and further on the fact that even the Alexandrian translation is already based upon Hebrew texts in this character.
7. The Syntax and the vocabulary of the Hebrew of the Mishna, which prove themselves to be the creation of Jews who thought in Aramaic. M. Friedmann is right in saying in his Onkelos und Akylas, p. 88, that “the chief part of the Rabbinic vocabulary is in its forms of speech and its idioms Hebraised Aramaic.”2 In regard to the first point, it is specially noteworthy that the Imperfect with the Vav Consecutive has vanished from use, and that a tendency occurs to use the participle as a present tense.®
8. The custom of calling the Aramaic “ Hebrew.”— Josephus, indeed, showed himself (Ant. x. i. 2, xIT. ii. 1) quite capable of distinguishing the language and written character of the “Syrians” from those of the “Hebrews.” And yet between Hebrew and Aramaic words he makes no difference. According to Ant. 1.1.1, 2, cdBBata and "Adam belong to the Hebrew tongue, but doap@a as well (Ant. Im. x. 6) is a term of the “Hebrews.” The “Hebrew” in which Josephus addresses the people of Jerusalem (Bell. Jud. VI. ii. 1) is even called by him (Bell. Jud. v. ix. 2) % watpuos yAocca, though in the circumstances nothing but Aramaic can be looked for. Again, in the Johannine Gospel the Aramaic terms Bybeodd, TaBBaba, Torxyo0a, ‘Paßßovvi are called “Hebrew,” 5? 191% 17 201, Aramaic, too, must be
meant by the “Hebrew tongue” in which Paul spoke
1 See for this, ¢g., S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel (1890), Ixv ff. {
2 See also A. Geiger, Lehr- und Lesebuch zur Sprache der Mischnah (1845), i.3; J. H. Weiss, Mischpat léschdn ha-Mischnä (1867), 2£.
3 A. Geiger, loc. cit. i. 40.
INTRODUCTION 7
to the people of Jerusalem (Acts 21% 227), and in which Jesus spoke to Paul (Acts 26%. ‘EAAmviorai and “EPßpaioı were the names, according to Acts 61, of the two parts of the Jewish people as divided by language, although Zvpiorai would have been the more precise counterpart of ‘EAAmviorai. But if it was possible to characterise Aramaic as “Hebrew,” it is clear that Aramaic was the everyday speech of the Jewish people at this period, in so far, at least, as it was not Greek.
All the facts adduced do not justify us in making a distinction between Judea and Galilee, as if Hebrew was at least partially a spoken language in the former. In an essay which much requires revision, “The dialects of Pales- tine in the time of Christ,’! A. Neubauer has advanced the following assertion: “In Jerusalem, and perhaps also in the greater part of Judea, the modernised Hebrew and a purer Aramaic dialect were in use among the majority of the Jews; the Galileans and the Jewish immigrants from the neighbouring districts understood their own dialect only (of course closely related to Aramaic), together with a few current Hebrew expressions such as proverbs and prayers.” Adequate proof for all three parts of this assertion is awanting. Neither the dialect of the Galileans, which was merely related to the Aramaic, nor the purer Aramaic of the Judeans, nor their modernised Hebrew, can really be demonstrated. That Aramaic had at least a distinct pre- dominance in Judwa may be inferred with certainty from the place-names in Jerusalem and its environs: ’AreAdauax (827 9PM); Bndeodd (SIDI 2); ByOfald, ByfeOd (St M3); Taßßada (SAN); Todo (87939); "Orda, Opras (NPEY) ; Sageiv (NPY); Xaevad (7722).
1 Studia Biblica, Oxford, 1885, 39-74. 2 The discussion of these words will be found in my Grammatik des jüd.-pal. Aram. It may here be added that T'affa0é (Gram. p. 108) is incorrectly ex-
plained. sn33, which properly means the baldness of the forepart of the head, was a fitting name for the open space in front of the Antonia Castle which
8 THE WORDS OF JESUS
In the same category comes also a Hebrew term, similar to the foregoing, which was applied to the piece of ground on the Mount of Olives where Jesus tarried on the night of the betrayal. Whether one adopts the reading Tredonpavel (= 22v n3 for O'DY Na), as I have done Gram. 152, or start- ing from the readings yeoonpavel, ynoapave’ concludes for “Bun (= DON NR, Isa. 28"), the term is all the same Hebrew and not Aramaic. But it does not therefore follow that Hebrew was a language in everyday use. The fact that Rabbinic literature beginning with the Mishna represents men of the pre-Christian and Christian periods as often speaking Hebrew and not Aramaic, proves nothing as to the language actually spoken by these men. One might as well by the same kind of “proofs” produce a demonstration that the colloquial language of the Jews in Galilee had always been Hebrew. From the strongly expressed antipathy to Aramaic ? on the part of Juda the first, the redactor of the Mishna, one must at once conclude that this language was extruded so far as possible from the old traditions. The more significant on that account are all the Aramaic testimonies from earlier times that remain despite this opposition. The Hebrew form of any tradition thus proves nothing at all in favour of the oral use of Hebrew at an earlier date. Biichler? may be quite right in holding that Aramaic was the language used in the temple and in’ the sacrificial service. But when he feels obliged to infer, because the priests speak Hebrew in the descriptions of the temple service given by the Mishna in the tractates Yoma, Sukka, Tamid, Middoth,
served as a place of execution. Xadevadd (1 Macc. 12°”) is not noticed in the Grammar. With this term may perhaps be compared the biblical o:ndnp pa (2 Kings 254) and Onkelos’ xpbap for nde2p (Gen. 231”) ; while the interchange of n and Z is illustrated by the name ‘PovßAXos in Josephus for the biblical 73:87, and Zevios (Ant. xi. v. 4) for the name of the month v0,
1 Sot. 49>: ‘‘ Wherefore should I use the Sursi in Palestine? Either the sacred tongue [Hebrew] or Greek !” On “Sursi” vid. Gram. d. jiid.-pal. Aram. 2.
2 A. Büchler, Die Priester und der Cultus, 64 ff
INTRODUCTION 9
that therefore the Aramaic had been expelled from the temple during the revolt, 63-70 A.n., there is no sufficient basis for his conclusion. At all events, there is no ground for the opinion expressed by A. Resch,! that Hebrew was the language of the mother of Jesus, inasmuch as she be- longed to South Palestine.
In regard to Galilee, however, Hebrew does not come seriously into question. During the rising of the Maccabees the Jewish population in Galilee was so inconsiderable, that 3000 men under Simon, about 163 B.c., had no other means of protecting them from their ill-disposed neighbours than by transporting them to Judx&a.” John Hyrcanus (135-105) appears later to have conquered Galilee and to have forced it into Judaism, so that Aristobulus I. was able to continue the same process in Iturea.? Jewish families must there- after have established themselves in these parts again in considerable numbers and intermingled freely with the Judaised inhabitants, so that by the time of Josephus the chief element of the population of Galilee as a whole appears as “Jewish.” Under these circumstances the Hebrew lan- guage was not to be looked for; and this applies also to the little Nazareth to which there is wrongly attributed an isolation from intercourse with the outer world. It had on the one side Sippori (Sepphoris), the then capital of Galilee, and on the other, in close proximity, the cities of Yapha and Kesaloth, and it lay on the important highway of commerce that led from Sepphoris to the plain of Megiddo and onward to Cesarea. The actual discourses of Jesus in no way give the impression that He had grown up in rural solitude and seclusion. It is true only that He, like the Galileans generally in that region, would have little contact with literary erudition. This implies, moreover, that from
14. Resch, Aussercanonische Paralleltexte, iv. 224, Das Kindheitsevan- gelium, 323. 21 Macc. 5°0-2, § Ant. XIII. xi. 3.
10 THE WORDS OF JESUS
this side He did not come into contact with the Hebrew tongue. The Aramaic was the mother tongue of the Gali- leans as of the people of Gaulonitis, and natives of Syria, according to Josephus (Bell. Jud. Iv. i. 5), were able to under- stand it.
The language of the prayers in private use and that of the benedictions which were woven into the routine of daily life, may possibly have been Hebrew. But the Kaddish prayer in Aramaic and the explicit avowal of the Mishna Sot. vil. 1, that, inter alia, the daily repetition of the Shema, the daily prayer, and the blessing (grace) at meals might be said in any language (iw? baa) are weighty evidence against determining the usage as it really existed among the people in accordance with the linguistic form of the Rabbinic tradi- tion. If, then, it was conceded that the Hebrew language was not to be insisted on even in reading the Shema, that is, in the symbolic fulfilment of the duty to occupy oneself with the Law which had to be performed daily by every Israelite, it is clear that a very pressing necessity must have existed for this concession. The Hellenists, who understood no Hebrew at all, may well have been the chief occasion for this. But as Hebrew could not be quite unintelligible to the “ Hebraists,’ there was no hindrance, in their case at least, to the use of their mother tongue in prayer. That even in the third century in Palestine Aramaic was still much used in prayer, may be gathered from the deterrent urged against it by Johanan (died 279 a.p.), one of the Palestinian Amoraim. He put forth the statement that the angels did not understand this language, and were therefore unable to bring Aramaic prayers before God.2 There is a discussion (Ber. 40”) concerning the Aramaic blessing which
1 This is the expression of the Mishna in the common text and in the Baby- lonian Talmud ; in the Palestinian Talmud and in the Mishna (ed. Lowe) the reading is ‘‘in their language,” nwa ; the sense, however, is the same.
2 Sabb. 12; cf. Bacher, Agada der pal. Amor. i. 243.
INTRODUCTION ri
the shepherd Benjamin, in Babylon, used to say over his bread ; not, however, owing to the language used, but because it did not contain the name of God. That synagogue dis- courses intended for the people should have been pronounced in Hebrew, is an impossible supposition for a period in which the Aramaic version of the Bible text was a necessity. Otherwise there must have been an interpreter side by side with the speaker. The more the scribes obtained unlimited control of the Jewish religious system, so much the more did divine worship adopt the form prescribed by the learned, and specially calculated only for themselves. During the progress of this transition the popular language was gradu- ally extruded from public worship. In this connection, also, Jewish popular life before the year 70 aD. must not be judged from the appearances created by the Rabbinic literature.
Not even in regard to the legal schools of the earlier times is it incontestably certain that their language through- out was Hebrew, and that, in particular, the legal decisions were always formulated in that language. We are told, at any rate (Eduyoth viii. 4), that a certain Yose, who indeed is incorrectly styled Yose ben Yoezer of Zereda,' pronounced his decisions as to clean and unclean in Aramaic. This Yose appears to have lived about 100 A.D. One might conclude that at least in his school Aramaic was the prevalent language.
From all these considerations must be drawn the con- clusion that Jesus grew up speaking the Aramaic tongue, and that He would be obliged to speak Aramaic to His disciples and to the people in order to be understood. Of Him, least of all, who desired to preach the gospel to the poor, who stood aloof from the pedagogic methods of the
1 The appellation is held to be genuine by H. Klueger, Genesis und Com- position der Halacha-Sammlung Edujot (1895), 84. See, however, A. Biichler, Die Priester und der Cultus, 63, 84; D. Hoffmann, Mischnajoth, Eduj. viii. 4.
12 THE WORDS OF JESUS
scribes, is it to be expected that He would have furnished His discourse with the superfluous, and to the hearers per- plexing, embellishment of the Hebrew form ?
II. THE Literary Use or HEprew.
The Jewish people has written in Hebrew in all periods. German, Spanish, Arabic may be the sole language of inter- course, while literary work is done as exclusively in Hebrew. So it may have been also in the period when Aramaic was dominant.
And we possess, in fact, some examples of Hebrew authorship from the centuries before and after the birth of Christ. A Hebrew original must be regarded as prob- able for the Assumption of Moses, the Apocalypse of Baruch} 2 Esdras? the Book of Jubilees? and for the Jewish ground- work of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs* The same language may be assumed for the whole series of writings composed under the names of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Baruch, and Ezra, and for the Psalms of Solomon, in so far at least as such works were written in any Semitic language’ Who could without
* That I have in some respects serious misgivings regarding the considerations urged by R. H. Charles as proving a Hebrew original, see my notice of his edition of the Apocalypse of Baruch, Theol. Litbl. xviii. (1897) No. 15. The same reservation applies to Charles’ conclusions as to the Assumption of Moses. Especially must his attempts at retranslation be pronounced almost throughout a failure. But in the affirmation of a Hebrew original he is right.
* See esp. Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, vi. (1899) 234 ff.
° See E. Littmann in Kautzsch’s Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen, ii. 35.
*M. Gaster, The Hebrew Text of one of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., Dec. 1893, Feb. 1894, believed he had discovered the original of the Testament of Naphtali; but the conjecture of A. Neubauer, Medieval Jewish Chronicles, vol. i. p. xxi, that Jerachme’el is the translator of the apocryphal writings contained in the Bodleian MS. used by Gaster, holds good also for the Testament of Naphtali. From Neubauer’s communications regarding Jerachme’el one does not expect from the latter Semitic originals that had disappeared, but selections from Western literature which was inaccessible to Jews. See also F. Schnapp, Apokryphen und Pseud- epigraphen, ii. 458 f,
INTRODUCTION 13
hesitation have represented Moses or Baruch as the writer of a book in Aramaic? To Hellenists such a book might be offered without scruple, because the Hebrew original could not have been read by them. Among “ Hebraists” it would be startling if, in place of the presumed Hebrew original, a mere Aramaic translation had come to light.
The Book of Daniel forms here no real exception. Its groundwork, comprising the contents of chaps. 1-6, has presumably been an Aramaic narrative of the experiences of Daniel and his comrades at the court of Babylon. A writing, in which the visions of the King of Babylon were interpreted, used aptly enough the language current in the whole East at the time. The second part of the book, chaps. 7-12, gave—not less appropriately in Hebrew— visions which Daniel himself had had, together with their interpretation through an angel. The redactor may first have ventured to translate chaps. 1'-2* into Hebrew, and chap. 7 into Aramaic, and by this means as well as by the corresponding contents of the prophecy he welded the separate halves into one whole. In chap. 2 the world- power is in decay when the Kingdom of God makes its appearance ; in chap. 7 ff. it is in reality full of the greatest menace against the people of God (cf. 2% with 72). In chap. 7 is also to be noted the peculiar use of the Hebrew they, occurring only in this chapter. That the Aramaic part did not begin originally with 2* is self-evident. Further additions to the Aramaic part would naturally be composed in Aramaic, so that in the Aramaic translation of the supple- ments to Daniel (Song of the Three Children, Daniel and the Dragon), which M. Gaster has published,! at least the choice of language is happily inspired; though it must not
1M. Gaster, The Unknown Aramaic Original of Theodotion’s Additions to the Book of Daniel, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xvi. 280ff., 312 ff., xvii. 75 ff. Gaster has extracted the pieces from the Chronicle of Jerachme’el, who
himself declares at the outset that he had translated them from the Greek Bible.
14 THE WORDS OF JESUS
be fancied that this really represents the original from which Theodotion translated. _
In regard to the Book of Enoch, the question as to its original language is complicated owing to the different origin of its parts. A Semitic original is beyond question for chaps. 1-36. In this section the terms dovra, 18°, Mavéo- Bapa, 281, Baßönpa, 291, speak in favour of Aramaic by reason of the ending in -a, though 735 is only known as a Hebrew word, and 15», “wilderness,” can be equally good Hebrew. In 10” ra oaßßara airév stands where “ their grey old age” was to be expected; but that is susceptible of explanation equally well through Heb. 002” as Aram. innay or Anna, In 10° paknpéous (cf. WP) may also be Hebrew or Aramaic. Expressions clearly Hebrew are— kal éyéveto, 61 (from Gen. 61); mp6 TovTwy THY Adyar, 121; dwvn Bowv (cf. ab dip), 92; as well as do mpoowmov, 91 227; é« Öde&iav (=southwards), 137; and eubpavdnoovraı evppawopevor (= ND Nin’), 25% An original in Hebrew must be assumed for chaps. 72-82 on account of the Hebrew names for the phases of the sun and moon, 781%, and for the points of the compass, 774 As for chaps. 37-71, I can merely point out the Hebraising phrases “ and it came to pass,” 57! 684 701 711; “and it will come to pass,” 391 527; “before his face,” 62% 2° 639 65° 66° 69% In chaps. 83-90 the repeated use (thirty times) of the redun- dant “begin” is striking, and is at least not old Hebrew (vid. IV. 8 below, pp. 26 ff). As for the remainder and the book as a whole, I do not venture to make a final pronouncement.
There can be no doubt that the First Book of Maccabees is derived from a Hebrew original. When Jerome in the Prologus galeatus speaks of having the book before him in Hebrew, one must indeed, in view of the prevailing ambiguity of his statements on such matters, be careful to see whether he has here, too, perhaps made no distinction between Hebrew and Aramaic. But the language of the book con-
INTRODUCTION 15
firms his testimony. Its phraseology is that of historical narrative in the Bible, which the author has obviously imitated of set purpose. It will suffice to adduce—eüpiareıv xapw Evavrıov Tıvos, 10% 11%; Siddvar Képas, 2%; boßeiv boßov ueyav, 108; maracasıv TAHYnY meyadny, 53, cf. 534 84; KomTelv Komeröv ueyav, 27° 9 13%; doyifew dpynv weyddnr, 16%; avnp mpos tov mAnciov adtod (= one ancther); 2m: eyevero Ste, 51 72 93 10% 88; the frequent use of eis avvavın- ow, eis imdvenow =; ‘odéSpa = 8D : Aéyouv AéyovTes = nnd; KATA TpOCWToV = nah, All this is specifically Hebrew and ant Aramaic.
The Aramaic Book of the Hasmoneans: which is modelled after the biblical Aramaic, is in no way connected with the First Book of Maccabees, and is, together with its Hebrew version,? of much later origin. Of the Book of Tobit we now possess four distinct Hebrew recensions and one Aramaic;* but though M. Gaster believes he has what is nearly the original in one of the Hebrew texts published by him, it still remains possible that all these Semitic texts are only translations from the Greek, and that the hypo- thetical Semitic original is lost to us. When Jerome says that he had completed the Book of Tobit with the help of a Hebrew translation, which latter he himself had got made from a Chaldaic text, it is possible that this text too may have been a translation from the Greek, and may itself have been in Syriac. The same possibility will hold of the Chaldaic text of the Book of Judith which Jerome used ;
1 See especially the edition of M. Gaster, ‘‘The Scroll of the Hasmoneans,” in Transactions of the Orient. Congress, Lond. 1891, ii; and, further, A. | Neubauer in Jew. Quart. Rev. vi. (1894) 570 ff., also Gram. d. jiid. -pal. Aram. 6.
2 See, e.g., Baer’s Seder Abodath Yisrael, 441 ff.
® Two Hebrew recensions were printed in Constantinople 1516 and 1519; M. Gaster edited in 1897 two more in “Two unknown Hebrew versions of Tobit” (also in Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch.) ; A. Neubauer published an Aramaic text (together with the Hebrew of 1516), ‘‘ The Book of Tobit, a Chaldee Text”
(1877), seealso Gram. 27 ff., and Schiirer, Geschichte d. Jüd. Volkes,? iii. (1898) p- 180f.
16 THE WORDS OF JESUS
although in this case a Hebrew original is the most probable. Whoever wrote after the model of the biblical books would naturally—as we have said above—if a “ Hebraist,” have used the “ Hebrew ” language, but if a Hellenist, the Greek language. In no case, however, has the abridged Hebrew reproduction of the story of Judith, which we possess in a twofold form,! an immediate connection with the original of the book.
If we turn now to the question of the language of a primitive Semitic gospel, it must be said that some of the incentives favourable to composition in Hebrew at that time do not in this case come into action. Jesus had taught in Aramaic; and in that language the “ Hebraists” must have been taught concerning Him in Christian public worship, if the address were to be intelligible to all. If, further, the substance of such an address were noted down for the Aramaic speaking “ Hebraists,” composition in Hebrew after the model of the biblical books was, of course, not incon- ceivable, especially as those Jews who could read were also able to understand Hebrew, yet the more probable course with material already formulated by oral delivery was to write it down in the language in which it was spoken, particularly if the record were designed to afford convenient and reliable material for further recital or public exposition. Even some centuries later, the gospel of the Jewish Christians, according to the express testimony of Jerome, was composed not in Hebrew but in Aramaic. Hence there is much to justify the view—unless decisive evidence to the contrary should be found in Church tradition or in the Gospels them- selves—that a collection of the sayings of our Lord designed for “ Hebraists,” in other words, a primitive gospel (Urevan- gelium), was written in Aramaic. |
1 Jellinek edited one recension in Beth ha-Midrasch, i. 130 f., Gaster another in Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xvi. 156 ff.
INTRODUCTION 17
III. THE SEMITISMS OF THE SYNOPTIC Gosrets.
Not a little has been written on the “ Hebraisms” of the New Testament since the first important investigation of them by Kaspar Wyss! and Johann Vorst? in the seven- teenth century. But from the outset it has not been grasped with sufficient clearness that the Greek of the Jewish Hellenists must have been affected by Semitic tongues in several distinct ways. In the first place, it must be assumed that the Greek spoken from Syria to Egypt was in many particulars influenced, in no small degree, by the Aramaic language of the country; and, further, it holds true for that portion of the Jewish people that adopted Greek in place of its Semitic mother-tongue, that this mother- tongue had been Aramaic, and that the world of thought peculiar to the Jews, which had then to be apprehended in a Greek mould, had already been fashioned in Aramaic and no longer in Hebrew. The spiritual intercourse also which Jewish Hellenists continuously had with Hebraists in Pales- tine implied a constant interchange between Greek and Aramaic (but not Hebrew) modes of expression. Hebrew influence was active only indirectly: first, in so far as a Hebrew past underlay the Aramaic present of the Jewish people; secondly and in particular, because the Greek trans- lation of the Old Testament had necessarily a powerful in- fluence on the religious dialect.
In the case of the Synoptic Gospels of the Christian Hellenists, there has further to be added to the previously specified relations with Jewish Aramaic, the highly important consideration that the groundwork of the material elaborated by them had been originally created in Aramaic. And this holds equally true whether their basis presented itself to the
1 Kaspar Wyss, Dialectologia sacra, Ziirich, 1650.
* Johann Vorst, Philologia sacra, ii., Leyden, 1658, i., Amsterdam, 1665, with general title: De Hebraismis Novi Testamenti Commentarius, Amster- dam, 1665.
2
18 THE WORDS OF JESUS
authors directly in its Aramaic form or already through the medium of Greek tradition, oral or written.
In these circumstances there can be no doubt that the Semitisms of the Gospels ought first to be looked for in the sphere of the Jewish Aramaic, and that only where this does not suffice for explanation, need it be asked how far Hebrew is to be held responsible for Semitisms. In the latter case a special examination is then required into the different possibilities involved. The material of the Synoptic Gospels might have partly or wholly been shaped in a Hebrew mould in which it became mixed with Hebraisms, and in this condition have reached the evangelists. A Hebraising influence, on the other hand, might also come into play after the material had already been moulded in Greek. During this phase such an influence is the less improbable, because in the oral presentation of the“ gospel” at gatherings of the Christian community, as well as in any literary treatment applied to it, the Greek Old Testament furnished the readiest model. ‘This version being the most important book read by the Christians in public and in private, the desire to give to the gospel a corresponding dress must naturally have existed; and the conception of the Canon among the Christian Hellenists was none so sharply defined as to cause scruples in assimilating the form of new devotional lection- aries to the older Scriptures.
It is a serious defect in previous studies of the Semitisms in the Gospels, that too little account is taken of these circumstances. P. W. Schmiedel complains in his new edition of “Winer’s Grammatik des Neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms,” § 2. 1c, that the Aramaic constituents of the New Testament diction have not been sufficiently re- garded. But he himself does not succeed in reaching any really tenable separation of Aramaisms and Hebraisms. Still less satisfactory is it with F. Blass, who calls special attention in his “Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch” (1896),
INTRODUCTION 19
p- 4, to the Hebrew-Aramaic influence on the idiom, but makes no attempt to distinguish Aramaisms from Hebraisms ; and in the Preface to his edition of the Gospel of Luke! he characterises as Aramaisms idioms which in some cases are equally good Hebraisms, and in others are pure Hebraisms and not Aramaisms at all. And how is it possible that J. Böhmer should still exclusively consult the Old Testament in his tractate, otherwise instructive in many respects, “ Das biblische ‘im Namen’” (1898), in which he aims at ex- plaining linguistically and historically the variations eis 76 ovoua, Emi TH ovonarı in the baptismal formula? In this very instance the key to the explanation of the expression is to be found in the usage of language among the Jews. Bohmer should at least have said why he looked for no information from that quarter.
A further deficiency in the current grammatical studies of New Testament Greek consists in the inadequate attention directed to the “ Gr&eisms” of the Gospels, zc. to the linguistic phenomena which have no immediate Semitic equivalent, and for which, therefore, the Hellenistic writers must perforce be held responsible. Previous translators of the Gospels into Hebrew have come to grief over these Grecisms, either because, like Delitzsch and, in a minor degree, Salkinson, they have refused to abandon the principle of a verbally faithful reproduction of the sacred Greek original,? or because they have not properly recognised the specific Grecisms, as appears to be the case with Resch, who was surely indifferent to any such consideration as that just mentioned.
Whosoever would know what was the Aramaic primary form of any of the Master’s sayings will have to separate these latter Greecisms not less distinctly than the former
1 F. Blass, Evangelium sec. Lucam (1897), xxif.
* This is not mentioned as a censure. In this principle, so far as it is applied to a translation for practical purposes, I fully agreed with Franz Delitzsch, and was therefore able to act as editor of the revised 11th edition of his Hebrew New Testament, which appeared in 1892.
20 THE WORDS OF JESUS
Hellenistic Hebraisms. Thus may be reached a verbal form which is at least not unthinkable in the utterance of Jesus, and which is most closely identified with the original Aramaic tradition of the apostles.
Even such Aramaic Hebraisms as the Targums present in great number, are not to be regarded as specially probable in the mouth of Jesus. Whoever compares the words of Jesus Himself with the hymns and discourses of other persons ‘in the Lucan writings, will find it a peculiar characteristic of the style of Jesus, that Holy Scripture is cited but rarely, and only when it has to be adduced owing to a definite call for it, and that references to the letter of Scripture are con- fined to a very limited compass. Moreover, it is all the less probable that He should have spoken the Hebraising Aramaic of the Targums, inasmuch as no such practical use of it is anywhere to be found among the Jews. Even to Aramaic transmitters of His words we cannot therefore impute any tendency to Hebraise them, unless we are to assume on their part a purposeless, yet intentional, imitation of a Targum. The words of Jesus, purged of special Hebraisms of every kind, will accordingly have the highest probability of being original.
IV. Some HEBRAISMS AND ARAMAISMS.
In order to inaugurate an investigation of the Synoptic Semitisms which will better satisfy the demands that must be made upon it, a number of these will now be discussed. Such phrases will be selected as either substantially define or are sufficient to define the general style of one or more Synoptists. The discussion of further details must be re- served till the examination of the special passages.
1. eAOwv, Epxowevos.
The participles éA@év or Epxopevos are redundantly coupled with a finite verb by the three Synoptists, but not by
INTRODUCTION 21
the Johannine Gospel! Jesus says, Matt. 5° &Adov mrpoadepe, “go, offer”; Matt. 1244 (Luke 11%) EA0ov eüpioxeı, “it goes and finds”; Matt. 25° (ef. Luke 19%) AOov Erouioayumv, “I should have gone and received”; Luke 15” epxöwevos Myyıcev, “ he came and drew nigh.” A kindred use is mopevdeis EkoAAnOn, “he went and joined himself to,’ Luke 15%. The narrative also makes use of such expressions: Matt. 2% éX@@v kar@knoev, “he went and dwelt”; Matt. 15% eAdoüca mpocervve, (Mark 7 eicerOodca mpocémecev), “she came and fell down.” This idiom corresponds to the redundant on and xia of the came”; Hos. 5% nes bs, “I will go (and) return”: 1 Sam. 201 728") N34, “he came and said.” In the Book of Enoch (Greek text) may be compared especially the con- junction of mopeveodaı with eiweiv, 124 131-3 152; see also mopevov Kal OmAwaov, 1011; opevdeis Eradıca, 137. In Jewish Aramaic this idiom is also common. Exx.: 729193 ON, “he goes and becomes,” Vay. R. 25; mM! >, “let him go and die,” j. Ter. 45°; Tw Sm «Jet him go and testify,” j. R. h. 8. 584; apes Os, «I go and rescue,” j. Ter. 46°; jD Tayo NNN, “he came so to do,” j. Khall. 60°; u NON, “he came and asked,” j. Shebi. 39°; 35" ‘nN, “let him come and marry, Ber. R. 65; naDınS) nae, “she went and married,” Ber. R. 17.
2. adeis, KaTaduTrov.
The juxtaposition of catadurév and ddels with a term signifying departure, where the idea of “leaving” can in no way be emphasised, occurs in the narrative of Matthew and Mark, but not in Luke and John. Examples: Matt. 133% ädels Tovs dyAous HAGev, “He left the people and went”; 22” abevres avtov ammAdav (this also in Mark 1212), “ they left Him and went away”; Mark 81 ddels abrovs—amnAdev (Matt. 164 karadımrwv aitods amiAdev), “He left them and
John 11'7 eX0w» is indispensable ; the reading, however, is doubtful.
22 THE WORDS OF JESUS
departed”; Matt. 217 xatadirov avtovs EENAdev; see also Mark 4°. In the Old Testament this is not a usual mode of diction. Salkinson renders ddıevaı by UY, Delitzsch some- times by 733. But the former signifies in the Old Testa- ment “to desert, leave in the lurch,” the latter “to leave or let alone,” and neither the one nor the other is employed in idioms like those above quoted. This is the case, however, in Jewish es j. Sabb. 8° mb ons mpav, “he left him and went on”; A Taan. 66° ji? ons mapa, “they left him and went away.” From these instances it may also be seen how in similar cases darnAdev standing 7 itself, which can-
use of the popular Datwus commodi of J poet Aramaic.!
3. kalicas.
In certain actions of a sedentary kind the evangelists usually make superfluous mention of the posture. Examples: kadioavres avvéde~av, “they sat down and collected to- gether,” Matt. 13%; xa@icas — édidakev, “He sat down and taught,” Luke 53; kadicas Wifes, “ he sits down and reckons,” Luke 14%; xaO’cas—Povrcvoerat, “he will sit down and consult,” Luke 14%!; ca@icas—ypawor, “ sit down and write,” Luke 16% Of the same nature is the instance where it is said of Levi that Jesus saw him “ sitting” (ka@pevov) at the receipt of custom, Matt. 9° (Mark 2%, Luke 5%’). In quite the same way it is said, Judg. 19° aN ww, “and they sat down and ate,” for to the narrator the “sitting” is an im- material concomitant. Again, the “sitting and judging” or “sitting and ruling,” as to which Joel 4!?, Zech. 6% are to be compared with Matt. 19% (Luke 22°°), falls into the same class. In the Jewish Aramaic we find ’ym®» 2m, “He sat and re- counted,” Est. R. 34 Powe pan fin, “they sat and studied,” Ber. R. 17; na» 2m mn, “He sat and taught,” j. Ber. 6°.
! See my Gramm. d, j.-pal. Ar. 178.
INTRODUCTION 33
4. éotws, otadeis.
Standing is the posture during prayer. Thus it is said, Matt. 6° &orwres mpocevyecOar, “to stand and pray”; Mark 11” örav ornKere mpocevyomevos, “ when ye stand and pray”; Luke 181 oradeis—mpooniyero, “he stood and prayed.” In the Old Testament, 1 Kings 8%, Neh. 94, it is also implied that standing was the usual attitude at prayer; it is not, however, a regular phrase to say, “he stood and prayed.” On the other hand, contrast yD D’N?, “he stood praying,” j. R. h. S. 58°; MNby? O'NP, Est. R. 3+,
In the same way fornus is quite without force in: EIOTNKELCaV Karmyopodvres, “they stood and accused,” Luke 23%; eiotiKes—Oewpdv, “the people stood beholding,” Luke 23°; cf. éotws kal Oeppawvopevos, “ standing and warm- ing himself,” John 18183, Further, we have from the Old Testament: 1 OM 372%, “and strangers shall stand and feed,” Isa. 61°; and from the rabbinical literature, 737) O'NP mn, “he stood and reaped,” Vay. R. 22; 1s) 1, “they stand and say,” Mechilt., ed. Friedm. 45°.
5. avaotas, Eyepbeis.
A redundant avaoras is found in the narrative of the Synoptists, but not in John. It is found with dxoAovdeiv, Matt. 9° (Mark 21%, Luke 5%); amépyeo@ar, Mark 7%; Epxeodaı, Mark 101 © (avamnöncas), Luke 152°; mopeveodaı, Luke 13; erBarAeıv, Luke 4”; eioepxeodaı, Luke 43; dıaroveiv, Luke 439: ayew, Luke 231; rpéyew, Luke 2412; Ömoorpebeıw, Luke 24%. Here also is to be reckoned dvéorn éxreipatwv, Luke 10%. The synonymous eyepdeis is seen in Matt. 21 (with TapadapPavew), and in Matt. 91% (with axoAovdeiv). In words spoken by Jesus it is found with mopevec@a, Luke 1518 20, 17%. A glance at the examples specified by Hebrew Concordances for the terms DP", OPM, 3p", shows that this is a well-established Old Testament idiom. See also 1 Macc.
24 THE WORDS OF JESUS
9%, Book of Enoch 543, 8947-48, In view of this fact, it is hard to see how Blass in the Preface to his “ Evangelium secundum Lucam” (1897), p. xxiii, can without more ado class it as an Aramaism. Still it is true that the same mode of speech is quite possible in Aramaic. Examples are: N DB, “they stood up to build,” Ezra 51; ‘byo mb op, “he stood up to pray,” j. R. h. 8. 58°; m 228) oP; “he stood up and devoured him,” Vay. R. 22; me am OP, “he stood up and gave him,” Ech. R. i. 4; MNI— PP, “they stood up and protested,” j. Keth. 30°; main —mp, “they stood up and beat him,” j. Yeb. 15%. The Imperative pip is common for the mere interjection “up!” eg. 212) DY, “up! ride,” Vay. R. 28; PS DY, “up! go,” j. Bikk, 654; mr May Tiay mp, “up! worship idols,” j. Ab. z. 39°.
6. amorpıdeis eimev.!
It is a well-known peculiarity of Hebrew narrative style that a speech is introduced not simply by 728%, “and he said,” or SIP", “ he called,” but by prefixing to these {Y", “and he answered.” The same mode of reporting prevails also in 1 Mace., Tobit, Book of Enoch, Apocalypse of Baruch, 2 Esdras, Assumptio Mosis; it is conspicuously rare, however, in the Book of Jubilees and in Judith, and occurs occasionally in the Second Book of Maccabees. The Synoptists have the same mode of expression, and John’s Gospel is here no ex- ception. In the words spoken by Jesus it is found in Matt. 212-380 2512 (cf, ver, 9) 26. 87. 40. 4445 Tuke 117 13% 15% In these instances drorpıdeis elev is the formula most used; in Mark 7% occurs also azrexpiOn kal Atyeı, the two finite verbs being set side by side, and this latter is the formula nearly always used in the Johannine Gospel. dmorpiveodaı may also be made the principal verb to which the participle
1 J. Vorstius, De Hebraismis Novi Testamenti, ii. (1658) 173-176; D, Schilling, De Hebraismis Nov. Test. (1886) 165. 2 See especially Enoch 1? 64 151 219 227.2 246 251-3 271,
INTRODUCTION 25
Aéyov is attached, see Matt. 25% 37. 4.45, Mark 3% 59 988 159, Luke 316 44 John 1% 10% 12% Moreover, the formula also occurs where no explieit question has preceded, see Matt. 11% 17%: (Mark 9°) 26% 28°, Mark‘ 105) 114 :128, Luke 1 1314 143, John 517.19,
The Hebrew idiom is naturally copied both by the LXX and by the Targums; but even in biblical Aramaic 728) 729, “he answered and said,’ is frequently employed. In the later Jewish Aramaic this formula is quite unknown. The Aramaic Scroll of the Hasmoneans, the style of which is modelled on the Book of Daniel, is singular in having it eleven times. Direct speech is introduced by the simple ns. Even in conversations which are considerably prolonged, no further introduction is added. The word for “answer” in Galilean Aramaic IS is rarely used. In Ech. R. i. 4; j. Erub. 18° it is conjoined with 78, but not so as to constitute a persistent formula. 28, the word for “answer ” used by Onkelos, appears to be as yet a learned term for “ making good an objection.” Probability supports the view that the formula in question was unknown in genuine Aramaic. In that case the evangelists can have borrowed it only from the Hebrew either directly or through the medium of the Greek Bible.
7. EAaAmoev (cirev)—Déyor.
The circumstantially precise Hebrew phrase '® ON am “bx, “and he spoke to . . . and said,” is likewise foreign both to the biblical Aramaic and to the later Jewish-Aramaic dialects. Aramaic, it is true, has the word 59% for “ speak ” alongside of V8; but the use of SP is essentially narrower than that of the Hebrew 123. It is applied, indeed, as the introduction to a direct discourse, Dan. 6” NDPD BY on NIS D>, “then spake Daniel to the king, saying.” But no parallel to this is found in the later literature Similarly
? Book of Enoch 215 seems, however, to presuppose it: dx 1271 dx px.
26 | THE WORDS OF JESUS
in the single instance Ezra 5" the Hebrew 789 is imitated by mans, whereas elsewhere for similar cases there is used only a finite verb coupled by 1, or a participle. When the Targums habitually render 137 by bb, and sind by as, this should be pronounced a Hebraism; nor can it be otherwise regarded when the evangelists sometimes have recourse to the corresponding Greek expression of the LXX.
éXadnoev—Aéyov is found Matt. 231. 2818, Luke 24°, Acts 8% ; eimev—Atywv (eimav—A£yovres), Mark 8% 12% (discourse of Jesus), Luke 14°. Other instances are susceptible of a different explanation, viz. Matt. 14?” (Mark 65°), because em- phasis may be laid on the fact that Jesus, hitherto silent as He moved over the lake, then addressed His disciples, and Matt. 13% 221 because AuXelv (Aéyewv) Ev mapaßoXats forms one composite expression. The expression accordingly is not a common one; further, it is never attested by more than one of the Synoptists in the same connection. Its occurrence also in Acts 26°! and John 8” is a warning against hasty inferences.
Nevertheless Aéyov must not in every case be referred without further examination to the Hebrew ")N>. The latter can be coupled with numerous verbs of calling, asking, re- minding, teaching, charging, murmuring, etc. But Aramaic, too, has similar conjunctions: ON) 7, “ he decided and said,” j. Ab. z. 44%; 708) 73, “he blessed and said,” j. Ber. 11°; TON) M3 min, “he announced and said,” j. Yeb. 12°; THDN ON), “ he testified and said,” Vay. R. 34.
8. npE&aro, np&avro.
The use of np£aro, np£avro with an infinitive following, when nothing at all is to be said of any further development of the action thus introduced, is one of the peculiarities that mark the narrative style of all three Synoptists, John having it only once (13°), where it is perhaps due to the influence of the kindred passage Luke 7%. In Matthew it
INTRODUCTION 27
occurs twelve times, in Mark twenty-six times, and in Luke twenty-six times. In words spoken by Jesus it is found Matt. 18% 92 4.49 (Luke 12*), Luke 13”- 26 149 18. 29 1 514. 24 9128 2330, Further, this phrase occurs outside narrative passages in the forms dp&n, üpEnode, üpkerde. The expression is obviously quite conventional. It is altogether foreign to the Oid Testa- ment, but in chaps. 85-90 of the Book of Enoch it is found with abnormal frequency. Salkinson has ignored it in Luke 38 1325 14929 15%, but elsewhere has used 97 as equivalent. Similarly Delitzsch substitutes other turns of expression in Luke 38 14% 29 while in the other cases he also has recourse to 207, Resch! entirely abandons the region of what is linguistically admissible by inserting NIT as equivalent even in the historical narrative, as if a volition or determination to do something were to be expressed. And the statement of the same writer, that this bein « belongs very specially to the epic style of narration in the Old Testament,’ is incom- prehensible. But all conjecture is rendered needless in this case by the fact that the Palestinian-Jewish literature uses the meaningless “he began” in the same fashion. The corresponding Aramaic term is the common word for “ to begin,” "WY, Pael of NW, “to loosen”; in Hebrew Onn, de- rived from monn, “a beginning,” is its substitute. For "X see, eg.,j. Ber. 2°, 14°; j. Shebi. 35°; and for nn, j. Ber. 74, 12%, 13°; j. Pes. 33°; Koh. R. v.10. No example is known to me which would correspond to the use of apyouas in direct speech. But if "WY coupled with a participle had become practically meaningless, it is not easy to see why we should not have: “ ye will begin to stand without,—to say” (Luke 13%. 26), and “begin not to say” (Luke 3°). This was, of course, very little different from the mere “ye will stand,—say,” “say not.” When we find in Matt. 3° un do&nre Néyew in place of un dp&node Néeyew in Luke 3°, this is only a constructio ad sensum variant in better Greek, which could also, however,
1 Aussercanon. Paralleltexte, iii. 9,
28 THE WORDS OF JESUS
have been expressed in Aramaic. Even in Luke 14°, where Cod. D has omitted dp&y, there is hardly any real difference in the feeling of the writer between dpEn—karexeıv, “ thou shalt begin to take,” and the simple “ thou shalt take.” Still it may here be recalled that strangely enough the Hebrew sin is in most cases rendered in the Targums by W,—as in the LXX by dpyouat,—so that "Y may thus express the idea of “ acquiescing in, consenting to.” See Onk. Deut. 1°; Trg. Josh. 77 17%, Judg. 127.8 19°, 2 Sam. 7%, 2 Kings 5% 6°. This sense is possible also in Luke 14°.
9. euhews evOvs, Tapayphya.
The adverb evéws, eudus—the latter being the undisputed reading in a few passages only—is used by Mark forty-five times, by Matthew eighteen times, by Luke! eight times, and by John seven times. The synonymous vapayphua is found twice in Matthew and ten times in Luke, Matthew and Luke thus having the adverb for “straightway” with about equal frequency though only half as often as Mark. In words spoken by Jesus, ed@éws (edOUs) is found Mark 4° (Matt. 13°) 415. 16. (Matt. 1320) 17. (Matt. 13%) 2? 11% (Matt. 212)3 (Matt. 213), Matt. 2479 25%, Luke 1254 145 177 21°. Salkinson has recourse here to terms for “suddenly, quickly,” such as 9373, nt y272, ONNB, MD FY, or to the verb 72. Delitzsch, too, has sought by various Hebrew expressions to do justice to the awkward e¢v@éws. Resch has frequently expelled it from the text, but has occasionally used O88. The Old Testa- ment has, in fact, nothing corresponding. It is true also that the rabbinic literature does not exhibit any such usage with the same frequency ; but there can be no doubt that its common use of 7%, 7! 9? represents the Aramaic prototype presupposed by the evangelists; see j. Ned. 41°; j. R. h. S. 58;
1 In Vogel, Zur Charakteristik des Lukas (23), it is incorrectly stated that Luke has ev@éws only once, elsewhere constantly rapayphua.
? This appears more appropriate than n3, which, especially in conjunction with “gs or 7, usually stands for ‘‘as soon as.’
INTRODUCTION 29
Vay.R. 22; Jerus. I. Gen. 13, Ex. 1917; Hebr. j. Pes. 33° (bis) ; Ab.z.iv.4. This 72 does not mean “suddenly,” but “ without delay, forthwith, immediately thereafter,” agreeably with the sense of evOvs and wapaypijua in the Gospels. It can gener- ally be substituted where these occur. That Matthew and Luke restricted its use is conceivable enough. Its excessive frequency in Mark must depend on the particular predilec- tion of the author, and is due probably to Greek rather than Jewish-Aramaic influence.
£0, TpocwToy,
Kata TpocwTov Tivos, “in presence of any one,” Luke 23, Acts 3%, cf. LXX 1 Chron. 28° (292). The phrase, however, is also proper to classical Greek, and is therefore no Hebraism. In Hebrew and might also be used, as in 1 Sam. 25%; in Aramaic, ‘BS °Y or ‘BND, Gram. d. j.-pal. Aram. 183.
po mpoowmov Tivos, “ before any one,” is found in an Old Testament citation Mark 1?, Matt. 111° (Luke 72”), in allusion to an Old Testament phrase Luke 1’°, in narrative Luke 95 10%. It corresponds to the Hebrew "259, Theodotion, how- ever, uses this phrase to reproduce Pape, Dan. 23! (LXX évaytiov), One must not therefore necessarily predicate a Hebrew derivation for po mpoowmov (which Luke also em- ploys in Acts 13%), although the idiom is a Hebraism. DIP would be the Aramaic equivalent in Luke 9°?, Acts 13%,
The same applies to amo mpoowmov, used by Luke, Acts 3 5% 7% It is an obvious Hebraism modelled on EDD, But Paul also employs it 2 Thess. 19 with no Hebrew prototype, and Theodotion has ard poowrov in Dan. 78, and the kindred €« mpoowmov in Dan. 2% 6°, as rendering for DIP 9, which would be the term to fill the place of Luke’s aTO TpoTwTov.
emi mpocwmov maons THs yhs occurs in an utterance of
* Perhaps with exception of Luke 19" where rapaxpfjua used by the narrator himself must mean ‘‘ suddenly, unexpectedly.”
30 THE WORDS OF JESUS
our Lord, reported by Luke (21%) for “ upon the whole earth ” ; cf. Acts 17% Emi mavros mpoo@mov tis ys. This corre- sponds to the Hebrew ‘35 Y; cf. Jer. 25% MDINT IB Re él Tpoowmov Ths yas. The Targums usually render the phrase literally by *58 by. But it may be questioned whether this was idiomatic Aramaic ; 8") ‘BS Sy does occur Vay. R. 24, but this is intended to mean “upon the surface of the water.” A mere “upon” would scarcely have been expressed in this way. Luke has therefore in this instance made use of a Hebraism.
On the other hand, it is no mere Hebraism when Luke (207) employs Aaußaveıv mpoowmov Tivos, for which Mark (1214) and Matthew (226) put Brérew eis mpdcwror Twos. The Hebrew equivalent is ‘2 35 N2, eg. Lev. 19% Onkelos has “BS 3D), and this occurs also j. Sanh. 29% PBS Hib 3D), Thus the expression is also Aramaic. Its complete absorption into the Hellenistic idiom appears from the formation of the substantives mpoowmodAnuyia, Rom. 2", mpoowmoAnumTns, Acts 10% A substantially different meaning belongs to PEN 13D, PBS IDS, which Levy in both his dictionaries puts alongside of mpocwrov AauBdvev. The former is not the term for “to be partial to,” but means “to regard favourably, to give heed to,” see Targ. Jerus. I. Gen. 32%; b. Taan. 23°; and for the expression PBS 72D, “a glance,” Vay. R. 5.
ornpiteıv TO mpoowov with Infinitive is used by Luke (95) for “to set one’s face towards.” This is the LXX expression for the Hebrew 0°28 Div, eg. Jer. 211%. Onkelos has rendered this phrase literally by PBS WW in Gen. 317, in which passage the LXX has varied the rendering; but this literal rendering is avoided by the Targum in Jer. 217°, Ezek. 6%, On the other hand, the synonymous 432 {MJ is literally translated in the LXX by duöovaı To Tpdcwror, 2 Chron. 20%, Dan. 10%. In view of 2 My 3M, “he turned his eyes upon,” b. Sabb. 34%, 2 ES 3AM cannot, of course, be quite impossible. But in the metaphorical sense repre-
INTRODUCTION 31
sented in Luke 9°! such an expression cannot be authenticated. Luke makes an inexact application of a Hebraism known to him through the Greek Old Testament.
Very exceptional is Luke 9% ro mpoowrov avtod N Topevopevoy eis "IepovoaAnu. The sense is, “he was minded to repair to Jerusalem.” Resch compares Ex. 33% and 2 Sam. 17", in which latter passage the LXX has the same phrase. But in that case the meaning of Don PIB is, “ (if) thou thyself goest (not),” a sense quite inapplicable in Luke. In 2 Sam. 17" the Targum has rendered 7°22 by AS, “ thou,” and therefore had no exact equivalent at hand. Hence this phrase of Luke is, like the preceding, a Hebraism incorrectly used, and incapable of imitation in Hebrew. Luke 95 refers back to ver. 51. The phrase there used, TO mpoowmov adtovd Eotnpioev Tod TopeverOat eis “Iepovoadnp, ought properly to have been repeated. The expression in ver. 53 is a faulty abridgment of the complete locution. It agrees with the habit of Luke, pointed out by Vogel,! to use some expression that slips from his pen a second time after a short interval, and then perhaps never again.
, 11. evorıov.?
evamıov, used by the Hellenists in imitation of such Hebrew expressions as "359, ‘Dye, is absent from Matthew and Mark, occurs once in John, and in Luke’s Gospel about twenty times. Its use in Luke, and likewise in Paul and in the Apocalypse, merely proves the predominant influence of the Greek dialect represented by the LXX, but is no testimony in favour of a Semitic primary gospel, still less in favour of a Hebrew or an Aramaic form of the latter. The inferences based on this point by Blass? are hasty. According to Deiss- mann, indeed, Neue Bibelstudien, 40f. (=Bible Studies
1 Th. Vogel, Zur Charakteristik des Lukas nach Sprache und Stil (1897), 27 f.
2 J. Vorstius, op. cit. ii. 214; D. Schilling, op. cit. 129.
3 F. Blass, Evangelium secundum Lukam, xxii.
»
32 THE WORDS OF JESUS
[T. & T. Clark], p. 213), the word belongs to “ profane” or non-ecclesiastical Greek.
12. Kai éyéveto, éyéveto Oé.'
The expression Kat éyévero or éyévero de is used to intro- duce an added definiteness to an action about to be reported. It is found six times in Matthew,—five of these being in the phrase xal éyéveto ÖrTe EreXeoev (cuverédrecev),—four times in Mark, forty-two times in Luke, but is entirely absent from John. The formula corresponds to the Hebrew ‘74? and occurs also in 1 Macc., Bel and the Dragon (LXX and Theod.), Judith (not in Tobit), Apocalypse of Baruch, 2 Esdras, and rarely in the Books of Enoch and Jubilees; but it has decidedly no Aramaic equivalent Even in biblical Aramaic it is already unfamiliar, and in the post-biblical Jewish Aramaic it has entirely disappeared. The rendering of 'nn by mm, which the Targums adopt, is clearly not endorsed by the spoken Aramaic. The Aramaic Scroll of the Hasmoneans in its present form begins, indeed, with the words ova mm DMDIN, “and it came to pass in the days of Antiochus.” But when it proceeds with MM pn 2) Fen, this cannot be trans- lated “ there was a great and mighty king,” because Antiochus himself is the king in question. On the contrary, the words ira mm, probably an imitation of Esth. 11, and not attested, moreover, by all the authorities for the text, must be deleted, so that this instance has also to be eliminated. Any one desiring to collect instances in favour of a Hebrew primitive gospel would have to name in the first rank this «at éryévero. Moreover, it must be observed that it is plainly Luke who makes so frequent use of the phrase, and that, too, through-
1 J. Vorstius, op. cit. ii. 168-172; D. Schilling, op. cit. 168f. ; Th. Vogel, Zur Charakteristik des Lukas, 46.
2 See F. E. König, Syntax der hebr. Sprache, $$ 341s, 370.
3 kal éyévero is found, indeed, Dan. 3” in Theod., but not in the Aramaic ; similarly 3°! LXX in the transition from the interpolated Song of the Three Children to the Canonical Text.
INTRODUCTION oo
out both his writings, not, as might be expected, exclusively or chiefly in his initial chapters, for which many postulate a Semitic original. Even the “ We-sections,” for which, hitherto at least, critics have not assumed a Semitic original, are not without it; see Acts 211-5 274 28827, It is further to be remarked that the discourses of Jesus, which might well have afforded occasion for the use of the phrase, hardly ever contain it. As these are reported in Matthew it is not found at all,—in Mark it occurs only in 4*, where, however, the parallel passages Matt. 13*, Luke 8° omit it; in Luke only in 16% and 19%, while Paul in an address uses it twice, Acts 22%, Facts like these forbid the assumption of a Hebrew original as the necessary source of the phrase.
13. ev T@ with the Infinitive.
The infinitive preceded by ev 7@ and followed by the subject of the clause is used by Matthew only once (13%), and likewise only once by Mark (4*) in the parallel passage. Luke, on the other hand, has it twenty-five times, sometimes with xal éyévero, sometimes independently, and not confined to any one section of the Gospel; John never has it. Examples: ev T® omeipeıv avtov, Matt. 13* (Luke 8°, Mark 4%); ev 7@ Übmoorpebeıv tov *Incodv, Luke 8%; &v To veveodaı nv dwvnv, Luke 9%, This construction, which Blass records as an Aramaism,? has been formed by the LXX, after the model of the Hebrew 2 with the infinitive; see, e.g., Gen. 38% ARN» ; LXX ev T@ Tiere aurmv. The Targums similarly copy it (Gen. 38% Onk. An), but in the spoken Aramaic it is wanting. Once, however, the biblical dialect (Dan. 6°) has the kindred construction of the infinitive with 2. The particle 13 (72) with finite verb or participle is the substitute employed on the whole most
1J. Vorstius, op. cit. ii. 163-166; D. Schilling, op. cit. 162; F. Blass, Gramm. d. neutestamentl. Griechisch, 232. * Evang. sec. Lucam, xxii.
3
34 THE WORDS OF JESUS
frequently ; see Dan. 6", and Gramm. d. j.-pal. Aram. 185. Onkelos puts this particle when the Hebrew text has the infinitive with 3; see Gen. 29% 12) YaY>;; Onk. 12) ype’ 73,
The construction ev T® occurs in the discourses of Jesus as given in Matthew, Mark, and Luke only in the instance ev TO omeipew, which is common to all three, and elsewhere only in Luke 10% 19% There is thus no ground for maintaining that it originally belonged to the language of Jesus Himself. Besides, where it does occur, it may easily be traced to the Aramaic construction with 72. Here, too, as a narrator, Luke shows himself partial to Hebraising formule.
14. The emphasising of the Verb by means of its cognate Substantive.
It is a mere repetition of the text of the LXX which is written in the citations, Matt. 13‘ (cf. Mark 412) axon arovoere, BXNemovres BAemere; Matt. 154 (Mark 719) Oavaro tekeuvtato; Acts 7% idov eidov. The only instance that occurs independently of the Old Testament text in the discourse of Jesus is Emidunia Emehüumea, Luke 22%; cf. Acts 41 E, amery amernow@ueda,; 53 mapayyekia mapny- veiranev;, 231* avabéuate avedeuarioanev; John 3” yapa yaipe. An allied usage is eboßndmoav poBov weyav, Mark 41, Luke 2°; Exapnoav xapav weyaınv, Matt. 2%.
The Hebrew mode of emphasising the finite verb by adding its infinitive or cognate substantive, though still frequent in 1 Maccabees (see above), is in the Palestinian Aramaic of the Jews—apart from the Targums—quite un- known. The solitary example of its use is the terminus technicus of the Rabbinic schools in the Palestinian Talmud, 72D WDD, “he gave it as his opinion,” j. Erub. 18°; j. Yom. 42°; j. Keth. 28% Apart from this, it is never used.?
1 Joh. Vorstius, op. cit. ii. 177-193 ; D. Schilling, op. cit. 165 ff. 2 See my Gramm. d. j.-pal. Aram. 226,
INTRODUCTION 35
Hence we must not assume that Jesus was in the habit of using it. In Luke 22” the allusion to the LXX rendering of MABD22 D2, “thou hast greatly longed for,” Gen. 31% will have originated with the narrator. As the Synoptists do not use it anywhere else, while John has it only ence, it is clear that an original in classical Hebrew need not be postulated as its source. Nor is it at all necessary to assume any such antecedent in the case of doßeiv B6ßov péyav and xalpeıv xapav peyddnv, since reference to the LXX ex- pressions for noiny ANY N), Jonah 11%, and ming nnd mal, Jonah 4°, fully suffices for elucidation.
15. eivas with the Participle.
It is an established principle in regard to the Hebrew of the Old Testament that the union of 7'7 with the participle is quite permissible, even where there is no question of the continuance of an action. In post-biblical Hebrew this became a very common construction when the reference is to the past.” This result was brought about by the influence of the Aramaic, as may be seen from the usage prevalent so early as the biblical dialect of Aramaic. One example 4 from j. Ber. 2° will demonstrate how extensively the Galilean dialect can make use of this form: MA 72 Om 73 ON 27 a TEP NT EL mm Noh app va lapn mm way mony ia BB’ mom TW MP INR mm yew MP mn PD DED wep mn3av’—“ When Rabbi Samuel bar Nachmani went down to settle the leap year, he found hospitality with Jacob the grain merchant; and Rabbi Ze‘éra hid himself among the hampers that he might hear how he read the Shema, and (he
observed that) he kept repeating it over till he fell asleep.”
1 König, Syntax der hebr. Sprache, § 2395, c.
2A. Geiger, Lehr- und Lesebuch zur Sprache Mischnah, i. 39f.; J. H. Weiss, Mischpat léschin ha-Mischnä, 88.
* E. Kautzsch, Gramm. des Bibl.-Aram. 141; XK. Marti, Kurzgef. Gramm. der bibl.-aram. Sprache, 104 f.
* Text according to Lehmann’s edition,
36 THE WORDS OF JESUS
The Synoptists make use of this idiom exclusively in the narrative coupled with #v and 4oav, but do not report it among the words of Jesus, which contain only once &oovraı with the participle, Luke 17%. The Gospel of John has 7v with the participle only once (3%). There is consequently no ground for attaching, as Blass! does, special significance to the fact that in the Acts (221920) the construction occurs twice in a discourse of Paul which was delivered in Aramaic, while in the second half of the Acts the construction is notably rarer than in the first half. But it must be remarked, as a very striking circumstance, that the construction is absent from the discourses of Jesus, although the parables might well have furnished occasion for the use of it.
The frequent use of the present tense in narrative in the Gospel of Mark is regarded by W. C. Allen, “The Original Language of the Gospel acc. to St. Mark” (Expos, 6th ser., vi. 436 ff.), as an Aramaism, on the ground that it goes back to the Aramaic use of the participle instead of the finite verb. But the secular Greek also allows the use of a present in historical narrative, and that not only in more extended passages for the sake of vivid presentation, but also in detached instances throughout the context of the narrative. Mark’s fondness for the present tense is an individual trait, like his constant use of eudews.
It appears, then, from the foregoing that we must class as distinct Aramaisms the redundant adeis (katadurov) and npEato, as well as the adverb evOvs (mapaxpijpa). The use of eivaı with the participle to represent a historic tense is Aramaic rather than Hebrew. The redundant use of éAdovr, kadicas, &orws, dvactas (eyepdeis) belongs equally to Aramaic and Hebrew. The genuine Hebraisms are the phrases con- nected with mpoowrov, the construction ev t@ with the infinitive, the emphasising of the verb by its cognate sub-
1 Blass, Evang. sec. Lucam, xxi.
INTRODUCTION 37
stantive, and the formule xal éyévero, EAUANTEV Eyor, amorpıdeis eier.
As regards the distribution of these, the distinct Arama- isms, except adeis, which Luke avoids, are represented in all three Synoptists. Further, the idioms with é\@év, cabicas, éoTws, avaotds (Eyepdeis), and eivaı with the participle are common to them all without exception, and these idioms are possible Aramaisms. The genuine Hebraisms are almost ex- clusively peculiarities of Luke’s Gospel. xal éyéveto also is used predominantly by Luke; it is only dsroxpiOels, which is of uncertain origin, that is to be found in all the Synoptists, and is even employed by John, who almost entirely avoids the other Hebraisms and Aramaisms. The Acts of the Apostles agrees in linguistic peculiarities with the Gospel of Luke.
The idioms discussed above are marks principally of the narrative style of the evangelists, and in the discourses of Jesus are to be looked for only in so far as these contain narrative, as in the parables. They show at once the in- correctness of Schmiedel’s contention,! that the narrative style of the Gospels and the Acts is the best witness of the Greek that was spoken among the Jews. The fact is that the narrative sections of the Synoptists have more Hebrew features than the discourses of Jesus communicated by them.
In the discourses of Jesus, then, it is the distinct Aramaisms, except dadeis—accidentally absent perhaps—that are found, and also the possible Aramaisms é\@év, kadicas, eotos, avactds. Only in Luke—and even there quite sporadie —are to be found eövaı with the participle, the specifically Hebrew emi mpoowrov, and the emphasising of the verb by its cognate substantive; and similarly, almost confined to Luke, ev ro with the infinitive. Luke, too, is the reporter of the Hebraism «at éyevero, which, apart from Mark 4*, occurs in the words of Jesus only in Luke 162 19%,
1 Winer’s Grammatik der neutestamentlichen Sprachidiome, $ 4. 1b,
38 THE WORDS OF JESUS
elmev—Aeywv stands only in Mark 12%, in a saying of our Lord.
As for daroxpıdeis, which should perhaps be regarded as a Hebraism, it is found in the parables of the Two Sons, Matt. 21%; the Ten Virgins, Matt. 251%; the Intrusted Talents, Matt. 251%; (but not in Luke 19"*-); the description of the Last Judgment, Matt. 25°; in the parable of the Importunate Friend, Luke 11°; in the answer after the door has been shut, Luke 137°; and in the parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 1511. Jt is wanting, however, where it might have been expected, in the parables of the Tares in the Field, Matt. 13%; the Unjust Steward, Luke 161"; the Rich Man, Luke 16%; and the Vineyard, Luke 20%.
Again in this connection it is seen that the Hebraisms proper are special characteristics of Luke. There is reason, therefore, for a closer scrutiny of the style of this evangelist with its wealth of Hebraisms. In the examples already adduced, the fact of their occurrence is not more remarkable than the fact that each individual Hebraism occurs so seldom. If Luke had worked in dependence upon a Hebrew original, then such idioms must have occurred much more frequently than they do, for he does not shrink from using those Hebraisms which are most foreign to the feeling of the Greek language. Can the few cases of the Hebraistic use of mpoowmov have slipped from his pen by mere inadvertence, while in general he studiously avoided this Hebraism ? Other data of a like import may be mentioned. Only once (9%) does he use the quite un-Aramaic phrase peta Tovs Aoyovs rovrovs, Hebr. max DIT MS; once, too, (1%) dua orouaros, Hebr. *®21—also peculiarly Hebrew. In addition there fall from his pen such pseudo - Hebraisms as To mpoowmov, 95°, mentioned above; émrecxépato Huds avarorn
! Luke’s peculiarity in using certain phrases only once or twice is pointed out also by Vogel, Zur Charakteristik des Lukas, 27; and by Blass, Philology of the Gospels (1898), 113 f., 118.
INTRODUCTION 39
eE tnvous, 178,1 formed entirely after the Greek Bible and quite impossible to reproduce in Hebrew; and the phrase, equally elusive of the translator’s art, ev T® ovvmAnpovodaı THY nuepav THS mevrnkoorns, Acts 21. The frequency of the Hebraisms used by Luke, especially in the first chapters of the Gospel, has led de Lagarde? to the very just conclusion that these chapters have throughout a colouring distinctly Hebrew, not Aramaic and not Greek. At the same time, this writer has made no further statement as to the origin of these Hebraisms. Resch is of opinion that they have arisen because the chapters were translated from a Hebrew original, although he himself perceives that the “ Hebraisms and Old Testament Parallels” to Matt. 1. 2, Luke 1. 2, col- lected by him in “ Kindheits-evangelium,” 30-56 (half of which by the way should be deleted), demonstrate primarily only the close relation that subsists between those chapters and the Greek Old Testament. While Resch holds Luke him- self to be the translator, Blass * is convinced that Luke was quite ignorant of Hebrew; he supposes that Luke had before him the alleged Hebrew source (which had originated with one of the priests) in a Greek translation done in the style of the LXX, and, further, that in those chapters he had given his own personal style greater scope as he proceeded. Vogel? also adopts a “special source” for the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, but. affirms that his investigation had not disclosed any sharp distinction in point of style be- tween the beginning and the rest of the book. Hence the assumption of a Hebrew document as the source for Luke 1. 2 must at any rate be held as still unproved; and it might even be maintained that the strongly marked Hebrew style of those chapters is on the whole due not to the use of
1 See Fundamental Ideas, VIII. 10. * Mitteilungen, iii. 345.
> The variations in the text of the Greek should remove the intrinsic proof for the Hebrew original.
4 Evangelium sec. Lucam, xxiii; cf. Philology of the Gospels, 195. 5 Zur Charakteristik des Lukas, 32f.
40 THE WORDS OF JESUS
any primary source, but to Luke himself. For here, as in the beginning of the Acts, in keeping with the marvellous contents of the narrative, Luke has written with greater consistency than usual in biblical style, intending so to do and further powerfully affected by the “liturgic frame of mind” of which Deissmann! speaks. The correctness of our view as to the Hebraisms of Luke is corroborated by the Gr&cisms which also flow from his pen. As a Grecism, ¢.g., must be characterised the form of address avdpwrre, Luke 52° 1214 2258.60, Delitzsch, Salkinson, and Resch avail them- selves here of DIN”}2, though such an address is rare and in the passages concerned quite unsuitable. The same holds good of the form of address avépes adeXdot which Luke likes to use in the Acts (2% 72 1315 157.18 221 231.6 2817), Any one familiar with Jewish literature knows that D’ns DWIN may, indeed, stand for “people, who are brothers,” Gen. 138, but cannot be used as a form of address. A Jew speaking to Jews regularly addresses them as PNS, “our brethren,” j. Yom. 43%; j. Taan. 65%; j. Kidd. 64°; Taan. ii. 1, wns ; while David, 1 Chron. 287, says to the people EN ‘Os, “my brethren and my people”; and this is made a precedent for every Israelitish king, Tos. Sanh. iv. 4.
And, finally, let the following points be noticed. The betrayer, according to Blass, was called SxapioO by Luke (616 223), agreeing with Cod. D 61%; Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westeott-Hort prefer ’Iokapı®0, 61%; ’Iokapıornv, 22°. In any case, Luke was ignorant of the form ninp MS (see under No. V.). The result of the investigations into the Hosanna cry detailed later? tends to show that Luke failed to understand this also. It is again probably a misinter- pretation when he assigns to Bapvaßas, Acts 4°°, the meaning vios mapak\naoews, — with the explanation of which I too have wrestled,2?— while we seem to have to do with the
1 Bibelstudien, 71 [Eng. tr., p. 76]. 2 Fundamental Ideas, VIII. 9. 3Gramm. d. jüd.-pal. Aram. 142.
INTRODUCTION 41
Palmyrenian name 3392, “son of Nebo” (cf. the Palmyrenian names 52333, 3223, mp1), as Deissmann! has correctly recog- nised. In regard to Luke’s tradition of the voice at the Baptism and at the Transfiguration, and for his use of mais, Acts 34, see Fundamental Ideas, IX. 3. If these observations be correct, it follows that an immediate use by Luke of Semitic sources must be pronounced highly improbable. If he were born a Greek, as must be admitted on other grounds,” such use, moreover, can hardly be imagined.
If, then, in the case of that Synoptist who is most guilty of Hebraisms, these are due, in most cases, at least, to the author himself? and should properly be called “ Septuagint - Grecisms,” the probability is that the same should apply to the other Synoptists as well. Let it suffice merely to recall the phrase xat Eyevero Ott étédNecev (ovv- etéXecev), used five times by Matthew, who, apart from this, has kai eyevero only once (91°), in agreement with Mark 2%. ‘The way in which this expression is used shows beyond question that it originated with the author of our first Gospel. This applies likewise to the circumstantial formula, iva (ömws, TOTE) TANPWOH TO pyOev Sia—Akyovros, peculiar to Matthew, and used ten times by him. It sounds very like Hebrew, and should be compared with the common formula in ancient Jewish exegesis: ON nD D*p?, “in order to establish what was said.”* And yet its formation must be
! Bibelstudien (1895), 177f.; Neue Bibelstudien (1897), 15 f. [Eng. tr., pp. 309 f.,187 f. ].
2 Th. Vogel, op. cit. 18.
3 Of course it is Luke in his character as Christian annalist that is here meant. His manner of speaking and writing on general topics appears in the preface to the Gospel—a passage which should not be regarded as evidence of exceptional literary elaboration.
4 §. Bacher, Die älteste Terminologie der Jüdischen Schriftauslegung (1899), 170. Similar also is the formula introductory to Targum exposition: 2x apa by anxı, Röm. Machzor (Bologna, 1540), Schebuoth, and the formula in the Kiddush after Seder Rab Amram, i. 10: my n van may TYE WONT 1372 apy, “according to the word which is spoken in the songs of Thy might by the mouth of David Thy righteous anointed.”
42 THE WORDS OF JESUS
ascribed to the Greek-writing author, a position which even | Resch, Kindheits-evangelium, 19 ff., does not venture to gain- say. Thus these Hebraisms of Matthew are also in reality due to the influence of the Greek Bible (Greek Biblieisms). And what is to be thought of the ’Iokapıwrns or Ioxapiod in Matthew and Mark? And of the viol Bpovrns, Mark 3", which may indeed be connected in a way with the strange term Boavnpyes,! but is in no sense an accurate translation of it? It seems quite a Hebrew trait when in Matt. 26” (Mark 141) the day on which the Passover lamb was slain is called “the first day of unleavened bread” (Luke 227 even has “the day of unleavened bread”); and yet no “ Hebraist ” would have specified that day in this manner, quite apart from the fact that the designation “ Feast of unleavened bread” was uniformly replaced among the Jews in later times, at least, by the name “ Passover.”
It will suffice here to have shown meanwhile that the Hebraisms of the Synoptists, though undeniably present,’ do not constitute the proof of a Hebrew original; that, on the contrary, the thesis is justified that the fewer the Hebraisms, the greater the originality ;* the more numerous the Hebra- isms in any passage, the greater the interference of Hellenistic redactors. It must be noted that the Jewish Aramaic current among the people was considerably freer from Hebrew influence than the Greek which the Synoptists write, and also that in the rabbinical sphere the special religious termin- ology—even in the case of recurring Hebrew formule— exhibits a striking independence of the Old Testament.*
1 See Gramm. d. jüd.-pal. Aram. 112, and p. 49 in this volume.
2 Franz Delitzsch’s verdict, ‘‘The Shemitic woof of the N.T. Hellenism is Hebrew, not Aramaic” (The Hebrew New Testament, 31), is not without founda- tion, but still is not the correct conclusion.
3 Cf. above, p. 19 f.
“Our Lord’s manner of speech, therefore, is not a final test of His literary knowledge. A. Meyer, Jesu Muttersprache, 56, discusses this point with too much hesitancy. If Jerome expressly testifies that all the Jews of his time knew the Hebrew Old Testament, could Jesus have been less familiar with it ?
INTRODUCTION 43
V. ALLEGED PROOFS OF A PRIMITIVE HEBREW GOSPEL (UREVANGELIUM).
As the most effectual means of ascertaining the limits, content, and language of alleged Semitic sources of the Gospel, Resch, especially, has recently indicated and sought to apply the method of tracing back to one Semitic term the several variants of a word in the Gospel text, as these may occur throughout the entire tradition within and without the Gospels. Wherever in the Synoptists he found such a retracing of the variants to a Semitic expression practicable throughout, he was led consistently enough to adopt a Semitic primary source containing the entire synoptic material, and even something in addition to it. This source, in his opinion, was written in Hebrew, and may be divided into the two documents er niin, “The Gospel of the Childhood,” and yaw? 27, “The Sayings of our Lord.” Recently this all- embracing source of the Gospels has been published by him tentatively in Hebrew and Greek under the title “ Die Logia Jesu” (1898)? The three Synoptists, according to this theory, have merely made a different selection and arrangement of the same Hebrew material to which all alike had access. They cannot rank as independent authors. This conclusion has nowhere met with approval, and rightly. Even the method by which it was reached was wrong.’
The fact that Greek synonyms may often be traced back
See 8. Krauss, The Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers, Jew. Quart. Rev. vi. (1894) 231f. If a Hellenistic-Jewish mother and grandmother - initiated Timothy from his childhood into the knowledge of the Holy Scripture (2 Tim. 315, ef. 15), despite the fact that his father was a heathen, it follows that at least as much should be expected in a ‘‘ Hebraist” family in Palestine.
1 A. Resch, Aussercanonische Paralleltexte zu den Evangelien, i.-v., Leipzig, 1893-97.
2 Besides the large edition, with notes in support of its readings, a smaller has also appeared, containing the Hebrew narrative without comment.
3 It seems almost superfluous to repeat the condemnation of this method, as it has already been often enough insisted on by Resch’s reviewers with gratify- ing unanimity ; see especially 4d. Jiilicher, Gott. Gel. Anz. 1896, i. 1-9.
44 THE WORDS OF JESUS
to one Hebrew word, though sometimes several Hebrew synonyms also may be discovered, in no way proves that a Hebrew word really lies behind the Greek synonyms. One might almost as well name an Aramaic or an Arabic word, and then in the same way proceed to argue an Aramaic or Arabic original. The numerous proofs offered by Resch in favour of a Hebrew original—in so far as they are purely of this character—are therefore quite devoid of cogency. Only in the case of striking deviations among the variants could a testimony in favour of a Semitic original be inferred with some degree of certitude, provided there was found a Semitic term which perchance so solved the problem of the divergent readings, that the one appears, with good reason, to be a misunderstanding easily possible, the other the correct interpretation of the Semitic expres- sion. Even then, however, it would remain questionable whether the divergent readings had not arisen through other causes, so that it is only by accident that a Semitic term appears to account for the deviation. This must indeed be always the most plausible supposition, when one reflects that the direct use of Semitic written sources, even by the authors of our Gospels, is doubtful, and at any rate not yet proved; further, that at a later date such writings could have been read by only a very few in the Church —even a Palestinian like Justin understood no Hebrew ; that in regard to a later circulation of Greek versions of a Semitic primitive gospel equal uncertainty prevails, for the statement of Papias in regard to Matthew’s translation of the Logia must not be referred to written works of this class; and that, finally, it is much more likely that extra- canonical gospels, gospel harmonies, translations, and popular expositions in common use influenced the form which the text assumed in the course of its transmission, than that such an influence was exerted by the after-effects of the alleged Semitic original document. A fundamental error
INTRODUCTION 45
in Resch, and also in other biblical critics of our time, appears to me to be a marked depreciation of the capacity of the authors of the historical books of the Bible, who are treated too much as mere redactors and mechanical copyists or translators of source documents, and a not less exaggerated estimate of the precision of subsequent copyists, translators, and quotations of such books, which has gone so far that sometimes the most extravagant excess of an un- scrupulous transcriber is, just because of its extravagance, pronounced to be the original reading, or the later correction of the author himself.
It is not possible to discuss here all that is advanced by Resch in favour of a Hebrew primitive gospel, and yet the inadequacy of his proofs must be demonstrated at. this point, so as to place it beyond doubt that we are well entitled in our investigations to leave the Hebrew out of consideration, even despite the fact that a written source in Hebrew might possibly have been the intermediary between the words of Jesus spoken in Aramaic and the Gospels written in Greek. I therefore adduce chiefly such instances as those of which Resch, in opposition to Arnold Meyer,! has asserted that “they supply evidence distinctly against Aramaic, and as distinctly in favour of Hebrew as the original language of the yw? 35.” It will then appear that the evidence of these passages, to say the least, is invariably susceptible of, and not infrequently demands, a very different interpretation.
In Luke 9% Resch commends Salkinson’s rendering of ti wmdereiras by Y¥2 2, on the ground that the variants ri Képdos, ri dpedos are thereby accounted for. Now, this phrase Y¥2 7, borrowed by Salkinson from Gen. 37%, is, in view of Ps. 30%, admissible in this passage. But the variants given above admit of explanation without the help of a Semitic original.
1 Aussercanon. Paralleltexte, iv. 224,
46 THE WORDS OF JESUS
In Luke 107 Resch finds it noteworthy that the labourer, according to Luke, is worthy of “his hire” (Tod wiodov avtrov); according to Matthew, however, of “his mainten- ance” (tis rpobijs avtov). The former, he holds, originates from Hebrew 1%), the latter from 71, which was read by mistake for VY, But MD cannot possibly be the basis. The day labourer’s “hire” is called in Hebrew invariably n2¥, Aramaic 738; “maintenance ” would indeed be, in biblical Hebrew, 2, while the later Hebrew, like the Aramaic, would use 75278, And thus any retracing of the two expres- sions to one term as their source is impossible. Besides, there is no occasion for such an attempt. The proverb made use of by Jesus spoke naturally enough of the “ hire,” because that properly pertains to the day labourer. In Matthew “main- tenance” is substituted for “hire,” because in the context it could not be a question of “hire” which the disciples of Jesus would think of claiming, but merely of their “ maintenance.”
In regard to Luke 10%” R. makes the remark that 6 moınoas TO éXEos wer avTOD, in view of 2 Sam. 2%, is an “emphatic and pure Hebraism.” His point is the use of werd in this phrase. But DV would in this connection be possible also in Aramaic. According to b. Tam. 32°, King Alexander gives the advice that he who desires to be loved among men “should show kindness to men” (OY 32°) Jay’ NvIN 2). Similarly, the Targum has unhesitatingly rendered 2 Sam. 2° by 13") firey Tay. The fact is that Luke may quite well have simply adapted the LXX expression in 2 Sam. 2°,
In Luke 11? R. calls attention to the fact that a “standard Semitic, more precisely Aramaic, original” of the Lord’s Prayer was not transmitted, and maintains that spn DN? is presumably the prototype of 6 dptos 6 &miovauos. If R. has discovered the true sense of émvovctos here, it may still be asked why Aramaic equivalents, such as NND» pnp or s2770n pnp, should not equally suffice. R. should rather have
INTRODUCTION 47
affırmed still more distinetly that both Luke and Matthew in this case clearly rely upon a @reek source.
In Luke 12" the rich man speaks “to his soul.” In this R. detects a Hebraism. But this is also an Aramaic idiom, see Gram. d. jüd.-pal. Aram. 84f.; and it might for that matter derive its origin equally well from the- Greek Bible! The same holds of tas yuyas tpov, Luke 211
In Luke 132 R. would alter the “ teaching in the streets” to a “showing of the streets,” because he regards the former as a misinterpretation of the original nin Bam, But these Hebrew words would have been correctly rendered by the meaning expressed in Luke 13%, namely, “ In our streets hast Thou taught.” “Our streets or lanes hast Thou shown us” would have had to be quite differently expressed, and is, moreover, a strange way of expressing what R. takes to be the true meaning, “ Thou Thyself hast charged us to come hither.” The entire situation, besides, is misunderstood by R.
In Luke 13” Ephrem’s reading, which treats @a\acca as one of the four points of the compass, is adequately accounted for by its concord with Ps. 107% and Isa. 49%. There is therefore no need to assume for it a special Hebrew source.” Besides, the text as altered by R., following Ephrem, would be no improvement, for no one could say what 0° should signify in the passage, since the West is previously specified. But even supposing it to have been uttered by Jesus through suggestion of Ps. 107°, in that case no is equally no designation of the West, and the Aramaic 8° would have been quite suitable.
For Biaferas, Luke 16°, R. gives as antecedent 22, “ to spread out”; and for Biacrai, Matt. 1112, O85, “those that break through.” In that case neither evangelist has properly understood the former expression. But setting aside this
1Cf. the passages cited by ©. A. Briggs, The use of v»3 in the Old Testa- ment, Journ. Bibl. Lit. xvi. 22 f.
2 Resch’s proof rests on the consideration that only in Hebrew can o7 stand for one of the directions, the Aramaic for West being 2199.
48 THE WORDS OF JESUS
assumption, the passage can be fully explained with the help of the Aramaic; see * Fundamental Ideas,” I. end.
In Luke 227 R. believes that the difference between the Synoptic and Johannine dating of the day of the Passion may be explained by tracing 77 porn (juépa) Tov abluwv in Matthew and Mark back to the Hebrew nisan an op. This, according to R., should mean “ before the Feast of un- leavened bread,” whereas it has been incorrectly understood of the first day of the feast. Hebrew would thus give an easier solution than Aramaic. But the mistake is conceivable only on the part of an “ Aramaist” who at the word np thought of ‘PP, “ first,” and besides 53? might mean “ before ” in Aramaic as well. So that the solution through Aramaic would be more complete. Nevertheless (1) it is in itself hazardous, and (2) it leads to no result, because the possibility advanced by Resch of an anticipatory celebration of the Passover by Jesus and His disciples is just as incredible as the more extravagant hypotheses of Chwolson and Lichtenstein.!
On Luke 22% R. remarks that the Lucan conception mapeveykaı and the mapeAderw of Matthew point back to the Hebrew "ayn (= 739A or 14yn), Aramaic, he holds, would not admit this twofold interpretation, because xp (read ND>), which would be the subject in the second case, is in that language masculine, not as in Hebrew feminine. But in the Mishna? also o1> is of the masculine gender, so that biblical Hebrew would be the only source of the ambiguity. The variants, however, need by no means be ascribed to a difference in translation. That the same thought may be expressed by different writers in different terms, is an ob- servation so common that it must always be the most natural supposition in any temperate treatment of textual questions,
In another place? Resch lays some stress on the con-
1 J, Lichtenstein, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament (Hebr.), Matt. 2638, 2 Pea: x, 2 4, 7. 3 Aussercanon. Paralleltexte, iii. 819.
INTRODUCTION 49
sideration that from the names of the disciples of Jesus it may be concluded that there were three languages in use in their circle. Now there is no doubt that much Greek was spoken in Palestine." But in a period when names of the most varied origin were in use among the Jews, no con- clusion can be drawn for any special case. In spite of the names of Philip and Andrew, it is highly improbable that there were any “ Hellenists” among the Twelve. And even though all the names of the apostles had been Hebrew names, there would still be no ground for thinking of special “Hebraists” as contrasted with “Aramaists.” For Jews in all ages have borne Hebrew names.
For Boavnpyés, Mark 3, I had pointed out? Bavnpoyés as possibly the original reading, without, however, suggesting a Hebrew source, as forms like WIP, {18 are possible in Jewish Aramaic. R. regards this reading as settled, and treats the term as Hebrew. The wholly inapt linguistic comments which he adds to the peculiar oa may here be passed over; it is enough to assert that all depends on a conjectural reading, which is equally capable of explanation through Aramaic. Further, Jesus could quite well have given a Hebrew surname to the sons of Zebedee, though He never spoke in the Hebrew language. Surnames such as PT in Talmudic times, and Mpi37 SD in the Middle Ages, prove nothing whatever as to the vernacular of those who made use of these appellations. From the Old Testament it is apparent that Zeßeöatos had been for a long period an established name among the Jews. And yet it is presumably either of Aramaic or of North-Palestinian origin. In
! On this point see Th. Zahn, Einleitung in d. N. Test. i. (1897) 24-51; S. Krauss, Griech. u. latein. Lehnwörter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum, i, (1898) xiii-xxii.
2 Gramm. d. jüd.-pal. Aram. 112. I should prefer now to assume that either 0 or a is a gloss, which subsequently found its way into the text. Bovy and Bavn are equally possible. If Mark desired to signify the Galilean indistinctness of the a, then o would quite suffice; oa remains meaningless. If Mark really wrote oa, his unfamiliarity with Aramaic was the cause.
4
50 THE WORDS OF JESUS
Palmyra the name occurred in the forms nr, "7, Sas, xduar, 10721, anyt2r; in Greek, Zaßdas, ZaBSiBnros, ZaBSedOns; the Jews had a1, mar, ar, bear, At, mar, in which the divine names 1n', 7, 5s correspond to the Palmyrene Os, 12), nny. Resch’s affirmation’ of a Hebrew origin of the name must therefore be seriously restricted.
In regard to Bap@oropaios, Resch makes the comment that 72 was “usual,” even in Hebrew. That is quite inaccurate. It occurs in the Old Testament only in Prov. 21? and Ps. 2", and in the latter instance it is doubtless a wrong reading. It is, on the other hand, significant that the New Testament names which have 72 in composition are not accompanied by one single example with 2.
Aeßßatos, for which R. twice puts 2) (!), should, in his opinion, be connected with the Hebrew 2. “ heart,” since the bearer of this name was also called Oaddaios, Mark 34%. The latter name R. would derive from the Aram. "N, “ breast- nipple,” ? which he thinks also denotes the male breast in Aramaic. The latter contention is incorrect, and proof of the currency of such names is wanting. In any case "m is to be taken with p1yn (Oevöäs) and pyn, and is therefore of Greek extraction, while AeßPßaios corresponds to the Nabatzan ‘x25. Any other derivation would require to be substantiated. The same individual was probably called in Semitic 10d, and in Greek Qevéas, from which "17 had been formed. To establish a more intimate connection between the two names is unnecessary. The surname Kavavatos also points, according to R., to a Hebrew origin. But his derivation from N2P7 is impossible, as j8JP is the necessary counterpart, and that would be an Aramaic nominal form. If, however, the text be altered to Kavvaios, as seems to me commendable, then the Aramaic ‘3?, “ Zealot,’ is reached at least as easily as the Hebrew NP.
1 Loc. cit. 822. 2 Holtzmann expresses a similar opinion in Commentary on the two names,
INTRODUCTION 51
As for Ma@@aios, the case is similar to that of the synonymous Zeßeöatos. It is the name nn», nny, min», which did not appear among the Jews till a late period, and may be compared with the Palmyrene ann (Ma6@aBon) and its abbreviation xn (Maééas).
The names PM, Apy, ABM (AW), yo (Greek form fim’D but not finv’—so Resch), "8 give no information as to the language spoken by those who were so called, so that ’Ioxapıw6, ’Iokapıwrns alone remains for consideration. There is every probability that ’Ioxapıw® without the article was the original reading, from which arose through mis- understanding 'Iokapıorns as well as YxapioO and Ikapım- Tys. With "Icxapio@ agrees 6 amo Kapvorov found in Cod. Sin. John 67; Cod. D John 124 13226 14%, inas- much as the former points back to the Hebrew iP vx and the latter to the equivalent Aramaic MP7 or MiP 197, Both may be verified as Jewish usages. There is mentioned, j. Sabb. 14°,a Christian ND 75D vs APY’, b. Sot. 43° a mm IBY TED EN, Ab. iii, 7 an SIM ei WN, j. Bez. 61° a DNA ‘oi DS, and further with Aramaic designation j. Ab. z 428 MN TDIONT ‘21, Ech. R. Peth. 397 wÄn2 The introduction of the name of the place by means of }57 is less common, as MD} fo) DIAS, Midr. Till. 31. 6; OP fT ‘dt, b. Sanh. 108°, or by means of 19, as HNINIT pp MAD, j. Orl. 604; MAA ND, b. Tam. 272,3 oben pot many, Corp. Inser. Sem. ii. 1, 320. But such being the usage, and Nip ws being a common enough form of surname, showing that one with this name was a “Kariothite,” it thus becomes very sur-
1G. A. Deissmann, Bibelstudien, 184 [Eng. tr. p. 315], draws attention to the fact that this is the genuinely Greek name Z{uwv. For Hellenists it was an easy step to substitute this name for Zuuewv ; in the form isp it then found its way into the language of the ‘‘ Hebraists” also.
* The construction with 7 appears to have been the one commonly used in Palestine.
® These periphrases are used by preference when a place-name does not readily lend itself to the formation of the corresponding Gentilic designation. Otherwise we should expect titles like Hebr. ’yrier, Aram. my ey.
52 THE WORDS OF JESUS
prising that it should have been left untranslated. One would have expected 0 ad Kapiw, like 0 amd Kapvwrov in Cod. D} and like John 21? Nadavanı 6 aro Kava, just as Josephus, Bell. Jud. Iv. vi. 2, speaks of a certain "Avavos 0 adappaods, supposing they did not venture to write 0 Kapıwdios or something similar. It is a very plausible conjecture that 'Ioxapi»0 was already unintelligible to the evangelist. Some late writer thought of a place ‘Ioxap or ’Ioxapıa, and therefore formed ’Ioxapıwrns, while the originator of the text of the Synoptists in Cod. D preferred Yxapio) and Ikapımrns, because he followed a Syrian exemplar.?
Mistakes of this kind are inconceivable on the part of one who had before him Mi"? Us in a Hebrew source and wished to translate it. They explain themselves, however, if we suppose that nimMP WS TM was encountered by a Hellenist in a Greek or Aramaic environment. Even the latter is quite possible, because such surnames, whether they were Hebrew or Aramaic in form, usually remained un- altered without regard to the language being used at the time; cf. eg. ‘eID Ov, j. Ab. z 414 in an Aramaic narrative. As the Hebrew formation with UNS occurs also in still later periods, it is clear that Hebrew was not neces- sarily the spoken language where such a surname originated.®
ı.E. Nestle, Philologica sacra, 14 f., Expository Times, ix. (1897-98), 140, 240, holds that Cod. D has preserved the original reading of the Johannine Gospel. The peculiar ending, however, is already initself an obstacle, as it suggests the Greek kapvwrös. The suspicion that the Greek reading ’Irkapıörns lies at the basis, is not improbable. See, further, 7, H. Chase, The Syro-Latin Text of the Gospels (1895), 102 ff., Expository Times, ix. (1897-98), 189, 285 f., who affirms a Syriac origin for the reading.
2 Syr. Sin. and Peshita have xw20, Evangel. Hieros, swy42t, Syr. Cur. NEIIIDN and NDMPOR. |
® The case is probably different with the later designation of the Jewish Christians as ’Eßıwvaloı. Undoubtedly the prevalent opinion is (see recently G. Uhlhorn, Prot. Real.-Ene.? under ‘‘ Ebioniten”) that the Christians were generally known as os"2x, “poor” among the Jews, or that they themselves
adopted this designation in Palestine. But since the Jews, any more than the Jewish Christians, did not speak Hebrew, and since this name for the Jewish
INTRODUCTION 53
Lastly must be mentioned the utterance of Jesus from the Cross, Mark 15° (Matt. 27“), to which Resch! attri- butes decisive finality in regard to the language in which the primary Gospel was written. He is convinced that the Hebrew form of the utterance represented in Cod. D by prel nrel Napa CapOavet, that is, IAI md N Yon, was the original. Not till a later date, when Hebrew was no longer . understood, did the Aramaic setting of our present texts come into being. Resch attaches importance to the fact that the Evangel. Hierosol. expressly explains Sy by 'nbs, This last consideration means very little. The translator followed his Greek exemplar and could render 6 @eds pov only by ‘nbs. At all events every Jew who spoke Aramaic was quite familiar with the word 8, which for that very reason is taken over into the Onkelos Targum without change from the Hebrew text. If Jesus uttered the words of the Psalm in the Aramaic language, then it was precisely Os that was most naturally to be expected. Thus the mistake of the people in supposing Elijah summoned, de- cides nothing as regards the original Hebrew form of the whole utterance. It is also impossible to see for what section of Greek - speaking Christians the Hebrew form should have been replaced by the Aramaic with a view to easier comprehension. Such Christians, indeed, understood equally little of both languages, and therefore required the immediate addition of the Greek equivalent. As the Gospel of Mark in other cases is peculiar in giving the words of Jesus as originally pronounced, it may be inferred that the saying in question was also from the first a constituent part of this Gospel; and since the sayings of our Lord communi- cated by Him in other cases (5* 7%) are given in Aramaic, then anything different should not be looked for in this
Christians is unfamiliar among the Jews, it is difficult to accept the opinion as correct. The old derivation from a proper name ’Efcdr is still the best, though we do not know any proper name of this form.
1 Aussercanon. Paralleltexte, ii. 356.
54 THE WORDS OF JESUS
case. Whether, then, Jesus uttered the Aramaic bs or the Hebraistic Oye, is in itself of minor consequence. The latter appears to me to have the greater probability in its favour, as being the less natural in the Aramaic context. Sup- posing that this were so, it is then conceivable that to secure greater uniformity of language, one copyist corrected nret into EAwei,! so that the whole clause should be Aramaic, while another changed Aeua coeBaxdavei into Aapa [a]fad- Oavei» so as to have the whole in Hebrew. From a statement of Epiphanius, cited by Resch, it is evident that the apparent bilingual character of the saying had, in fact, been remarked upon.
On principles similar to those of Resch, though with the aid of a very different linguistic equipment, EZ. Nestle has also collected evidence in favour of a Semitic source for our Gospels. He has, however, expressly declared * that he has not extended the theory of a Hebrew original to the whole extent of the Lucan writings, nor even decided as to whether the sources used by Luke were in Hebrew or in Aramaic. A few remarks may now be made on such of Nestle’s observations as fall within the domain of Hebrew (excepting, however, meantime his explanation of the reading ot Nowrrot, Luke 11? Cod. D).
In Luke 12! Blass has adopted into the text the reading
1 é\wei, for which Eusebius, Demonstr. Ev. x. 8, even puts ’EAwelu instead of eXaet, I have explained, Gram. d. j.-pal. Ar. 123, as an echo of the Hebrew oy. It is more probable, however, that the duller sound of the @ is repre- sented, although this cannot be supported by instances in Palestine during the earlier period.
2 yaaıy, transliterated into Greek required dfag@avel, for 0 changes a pre-
ceding 8 into ¢; cf. the x in veßaxdavel="jnp2Y, and Gram. d. j.-pal. Ar. 304. It is credible enough that those who understood Syriac only should have again transformed the Hebrew dfap@avel into Aramaic, read fag¢@avel = may, and then translated avelducds we with Cod. D Mark 15%, See Chase, The Syro-Latin Text of the Gospels, 107.
3 Of less consequence are the unmethodical investigations of H. P. Chajes, who, in his treatise ‘‘ Markus-Studien” (1899), aims at showing that several Hebrew editions of the (assumed) Aramaic Lega were used by the Synoptists.
4 Philologica sacra (1896), 55.
INTRODUCTION 55
of Cod. D, moAAav dt dyAw@v avvmepiexovr@av KUKAY WOTE ÄNAYAoUS ovvmviyeıv, Where the common text has, emiovvax- Oeicav Tov pupiddwov Tod ÖxAov Ware karamareiv AAANAovs. According to Blass, the latter was the older text of Luke, the former being the Roman edition as revised by him. Now, Nestle is of opinion that Luke first of all misread in his text man, “myriads,” but afterwards recognised that man was the right word. But the critic should then have said what he supposes to represent öxAos in the alleged source. Can 0°22 D’EY have been confused with Day ni22? The question, moreover, is concerned not merely with 7oAdwv and pupiddor, but with the complete change in the expression of the thought, which is to be explained in the context. It remains, after all, most reasonable to suppose an unde- signing alteration of the tenour of the whole sentence at the instance of a scribe who was not in the habit of slavishly binding himself to his exemplar in non-essentials. N. himself mentions the possible dependence of the manuscript on some gospel harmony, Philolog. sacra, 88.
A like conclusion will commend itself in the case of the readings Luke 221° mAnpwOn of the common text, and «acvov Bpw) found in D and accepted by Blass. In Nestle’s opinion, DDN, “to eat, and nba, “to complete,’ have come into collision; and he notes that the LXX, 2 Chron. 30%, has cuverérecav (sn) in place of the bax» of the Massoretic text! In that passage, however, m may be the true reading, unless 917, like 37 elsewhere, is to be understood of the offering at the feast. But what has this to do with Luke 2216, where the question is concerned not with “ eating” and “completing,” but with “eating anew” and “ fulfilling ” ? What we here find in Cod. D is merely a variant intended to explain the awkward mAnpw@n, and suggested by Matt. 2629, Mark 14”.
1 According to Philol. sacra, 38, N. no longer lays stress on the derivation of the reading from a Hebrew text, though still regarding it possible.
56 THE WORDS OF JESUS
We cannot accept N.’s observation on Matt. 2731, which makes karameraoua depend on a misreading and mistranslation, and finds the true reading in the Gospel of the Hebrews, which, by the testimony of Jerome, made mention, not of the rending of the veil of the temple, but of the splitting of the lintel. 7A5, “lintel,” he holds, has been read as 353, “curtain.” But ‘ABD is nowhere found as the name for the lintel; it cannot there- fore have stood for it in the Gospel of the Hebrews, especially as the latter was written in Aramaic. Perhaps its account was affected by the later ignorance of the fact that in the last temple the entrance to the sanctuary was closed by a curtain of extreme costliness, see Bell. Jud. v. v. 4. The New Testament expositors also usually neglect this consideration, so that the question has arisen how it was possible to observe the rending of the curtain, ie. the one in front of the Holy of Holies. To xarameraoyua Tob vaod is, however, the curtain at the entrance to the temple building, not that before the Holy of Holies, which would have to be otherwise designated.
The existence of a primary gospel in the Hebrew language had to be considered antecedently improbable, because no occasion was discovered for the use of this language. And if we have now succeeded in showing that the special Hebraisms of the Synoptic Gospels are to all appearance of Greek origin, that the attempts hitherto made to infer a Hebrew original from the variants in the Gospel texts are unsuccessful, and that signs are not wanting to show that the authors of our Gospels, in their present form at least, were not conversant with the Hebrew language, then it will no longer seem hasty if the title of this section spoke of “ alleged proofs of a primitive Hebrew gospel.”
INTRODUCTION 57
VI. TESTIMONIES IN FAVOUR OF A PRIMITIVE ARAMAIC (FOSPEL.
Apart from the well-known testimonies in Eusebius, we have no certain traces of the existence of a primitive gospel in a Semitic language. It may now be considered an ac- knowledged fact that Jerome was mistaken, and that he himself latterly perceived his error in believing that the original of Matthew in Hebrew still existed in his day. The various forms of the texts of the Gospels in the Aramaic language, which are now known to us, are derived from Greek originals. Even the Aramaic Gospel of the Hebrews used by Jerome was to all appearance the reproduction of a Greek gospel. We learn incidentally from Eusebius? that the first Palestinian martyr, Procopius, had exercised in the service of the Christian community of Scythopolis the threefold office of Scripture-reading, Aramaic interpretation (Epunveia ths Tov Zvpwv dwvns), and exorcism. If the Reader of a Palestinian congregation was also Aramaic Inter- preter, it follows that there could not have been in Palestine about 300 a.D. any Bible in the vernacular of the land. The reading of Holy Scripture in the Greek language was accompanied by an oral translation into Aramaic.
According to Eusebius, the Church in his time possessed a fourfold testimony in regard to a “ Hebrew” original of Matthew, first in the form of a tradition to the effect that Pantznus had found such a work in India (Hist. eccl. v. 10), and next in the form of statements made by Papias, by Irensus, and by Origen (Hist. eccl. üi. 39, v. 8, vi. 25). Eusebius believes that it is throughout the canonical Gospel of Matthew that is referred to, and could cite in his support the statements of Irensus and Origen, who were of the same opinion. The declaration of Papias, however, is open to question, and would have had greater weight with us had
1B. Violet, Die paläst. Märtyrer des Eusebius von Cesarea, 4, 7, 110.
58 THE WORDS OF JESUS
we known in what connection it stood in his work. When he says of Matthew, ra Aoyıa ovveypdaryaro (ovverafuro), one must naturally suppose he meant only a collection of “sayings.” Papias’ own work, from which Origen made this quotation, bore indeed the title Aoyiwv Kupiaxdv é&n- yyces, and contained accordingly expositions of those “sayings” of our Lord of which Matthew had made a “Hebrew” collection. Only from the unknown context might it possibly become clear that the work of Matthew contained anything besides dicta. The translator into Syriac, who straightway put down jinx for ra Aoya,! has certainly not given the exact sense of Papias within the limits ex- pressed by him. From the statement of Papias, Resch, it is true, has derived the assumed title of his comprehensive documentary source of our Gospels 33%* 127, on the supposi- tion that Papias meant by ra Aoyıa to represent precisely the above Hebrew title, and that the latter is in the last resort equivalent to “ History of Jesus,” just as in the Books of the Kings 'D 225 often refers to the acts and experiences of a king. But Papias gives no hint that ra Aöyıa was the title of the work of Matthew in question; and even if he so considered it, he would still in any case have understood it to refer only to the “sayings,” not to the “deeds” or “life history,” of Jesus? But if this work of Matthew were composed in Aramaic, then a title such as $3 ‘pans or MW by for a narrative gospel would be highly improbable.*
It is really an Aramaic, not a Hebrew original of
1 So Eusebius, Hist. eccl. syr., edited by P. Bedjan, Paris, 1897; by W. Wright and N. McLean, Cambridge, 1898, without giving variants.
2 Cf. the anonymous treatise, ‘‘The Oracles ascribed to Matthew by Papias of Hierapolis,” 1894, 48-91.
3 Post-biblical Jewish literature recognises ‘5 ’727 as a title of written works only in the sense that the contents are thereby referred to as the words of the person named in the superscription. A ‘‘ History of Jesus” would have been called in Hebrew vw AYyd, in Aramaic yw:7 n771y, as written by Shemtob Ibn Shaprut in the unprinted Eben Bokhan (MS. of the Jewish theol. Sem. in Breslau, f. 180°).
INTRODUCTION 59
Matthew that is attested by the ancient tradition. This holds incontestably so far as Eusebius! is concerned, for, according to him, the apostles had been reared “in the Syrian language.” Eusebius also alludes to the fifth word of Jesus on the Cross in its Aramaic form, speaking of it as “Hebrew.”2 In saying that Matthew, whom he elsewhere calls a “ Syrian,”3 first of all preached to the “ Hebrews,” and then on departing from them left behind with them his Gospel written rarpio YAorrn, Eusebius means that Matthew had written down his Gospel in the mother- tongue common to himself and his kinsfolk, that is to say, according to Eusebius’ own view of the linguistic situation of that period, in Aramaic. Eusebius, therefore, must have understood all the earlier statements communicated by him in regard to the language of the original Matthew as refer- ring to Aramaic, and in this he was certainly not mistaken. In the case of Irenzeus* we know for certain that he spoke of words which are Aramaic as being “ Hebrew.” But in all these notices the emphasis is not laid on the consideration that the work of Matthew had originally been written in Hebrew as opposed to “Syriac,” but only on the fact that Matthew had composed his work in the language peculiar to the “ Hebraists.” Any one who, like Eusebius, is convinced that the mother-tongue of the “ Hebraists” was Aramaic, can think of no other language in this connection? It must be conceded that even if that work had for any reason whatever actually been composed in Hebrew, still the testimonies about it would scarcely have been expressed otherwise. But in virtue of this mere possibility, the testimonies do not become actual witnesses in favour of a primitive gospel in Hebrew. <A treatise by Matthew in the Palestinian Jewish
1 Demonstr. ev. iii. 7. 10. * ibid. x. 8,
> Quest. ev. ad Steph. in Mai, p. 27.
4 Adv. her. i. 21. 3; cf. Epiph. Heres. xxxiv. 20.
5 An Aramaic original Matthew is postulated also by 7h. Zahn, Ein]. in das N, Test. ii. § 54.
60 THE WORDS OF JESUS
vernacular! is attested, but not a Hebrew Matthew. The conjecture that this treatise of Matthew was a collection of the sayings presupposed by the canonical Gospels of Matthew and Luke is an attractive one, but hitherto, at least, it has not been established by linguistic evidence. Indeed, it must be confessed that even if the sections common to Matthew and Luke did actually originate from that source, still it was at least not the Semitic original, but only a Greek translation, that lay before the evangelists.
The early Church testimonies in regard to the origin of Mark’s Gospel would have considerable importance for our aim, provided that Mark, in his capacity of interpreter of Peter, were the same individual who was wont to translate the Aramaic discourses of Peter into Greek. In that case his Gospel, too, would go back to an Aramaic original, even though it were only orally formulated. Irenzeus,? Clement and Eusebius * must, in fact, have so conceived the situation. But the oldest testimony on this point, that of the Presbyter in Papias,? is apparently intended to imply that Mark was only the author of a gospel which was founded on the spoken communications of Peter, Mark being thus in a sense his interpreter, even though he had never actually filled such an office in relation to Peter. In that case it would be most likely that Mark should proceed upon the Greek expositions of Peter, for Peter must have appeared (Acts 10°) from a very early date as a preacher of the gospel in the Greek language. And thus a primary form in Greek would have to be assumed for the Mark document.® F. Blass,’ who understands the statement of Papias to signify that Mark actually accompanied Peter as interpreter, holds indeed that
1 This case is quite similar to that of the original of the loropla ’Iovöaikod moX&uov mpös ‘Pwualovs of Josephus, which was composed according to the preface in 77 rarplw (understand yAwoo7).
2 Adv. her. iii, 1. 3, x. 6. 3 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. ii. 15, 16.
4 Hist. eccl. iii. 14. 5 Loc. cit. iii. 39.
6 See also above, p. 42, and p. 49, footnote 2.
7 F. Blass, Philology of the Gospels, 196, 210 ; cf. 194.
INTRODUCTION 61
there existed an Aramaie original of Mark which was un- known to Papias, and of which traces may be recognised in the various readings of our manuscripts. He holds that Mark was also the author of the Aramaic source which he postulates for Acts 1-12. But such conjectures entirely abandon the region of what has been or can be proved.
Just as J. A. Bolten, a century ago, had frequently endeavoured in the exposition of Matthew to recover the original Aramaic terms, so in recent times attempts have been made for particular passages of the Gospels to go back to an Aramaic original, in the first instance by J. T. Marshall? and subsequently by E. Nestle? J. Wellhausen,* A. Meyer? and M. Schultze® Wellhausen and A. Meyer aim chiefly at reaching the Aramaic word uttered by Jesus; Marshall and Nestle strive to demonstrate the existence of an Aramaic documentary source. Marshall has even believed himself in a position to furnish provisionally, as the result of his investigations, the content and limits of an Aramaic primary gospel.’ Th. Zahn who considers our entire Gospel of Matthew to be a translation from the Aramaic, seeks support for this position especially from the style in which Semitic words are communicated.
In regard to Marshall and Meyer, it is here sufficient
1 J. A. Bolten, Der Bericht des Matthäus von Jesu dem Messia, Altona, 1792; see A. Meyer, Jesu Muttersprache, 25, 105 ff.
2 Expositor, Ser. 4, ii. 69 ff. ; iii. 1 ff., 109 ff., 205 ff., 275 ff., 375 ff., 452 ff. ; iv. 208 ff., 373 ff., 435 ff. ; vi. 81ff. ; viii. 176 ff.
3 Philologica sacra, Berlin, 1896. A collection of observations published in Christl. Welt, 1895 and 1896; Expositor, Stud. u. Krit., and other periodicals. |
4 Nachr. Ges. Wiss. Gött., 1895; Phil. hist. Kl. 11f.; Gott. Gel. Anz. 1896, i. 265 ; Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, vi. 188-194.
5 Jesu Muttersprache, Leipzig, 1896.
6 Gram. der aram. Muttersprache Jesu (1899), 80-83, where Schultze aims at translating the words of the Lord into biblical Aramaic without discussing the question of the linguistic form of a primitive gospel.
7 Expositor, Ser. 4, vi. 81 ff. See also Resch, Aussercanon. Paralleltexte, i. 157f. Here may also be mentioned W. C. Allen’s Essay, ‘The Original Language of the Gospel acc. to St. Mark,” Expositor, Ser. 6, vi. 436-443,
8 Einl. in das N. Test. ii. § 56.
62 THE WORDS OF JESUS
to refer to the trenchant criticisms which their work has provoked." Some of their points will claim attention at a later stage. Of far greater consequence are the pertinent observations of Wellhausen and Nestle, though even in their case we feel the absence of a careful separation of Hebrew and Aramaic possibilities. Wellhausen, indeed, considers that the Aramaic form of the primitive gospel has been established by general considerations, and does not require to be vindicated by fresh evidence.2 He must, however, be reminded that the Jewish literature to this day is still mainly composed in Hebrew. For my own part I do not see more than a high probability for an Aramaic primary gospel, and dare not speak of a certainty resting on proofs. Further, the points urged by Zahn prove truly enough the existence of an Aramaic background to the Gospel accounts, but do not suffice to show convincingly the existence of a Gospel in the Aramaic language.
Genuine proofs of an Aramaic, as opposed to a Hebrew, written source of the Synoptists are the harder to produce, because the same idioms and the same construction of clauses as are found in Aramaic are possible even in biblical Hebrew, and still oftener in the style of the Mishna. A whole series of comments that could be made on the synoptic text would therefore apply equally to either language. But the previous attempts to adduce such proofs are defective on other grounds. To justify this view in detail, some observa- tions by Wellhausen will first be examined, and then the remarks of Nestle, which are pertinent to the question.
Wellhausen claims that the striking variations öore éXenpoovynv and xadapıcov, Luke 11 and Matt. 23%,
1 See in opposition to Marshall, W. ©. Allen, Expositor, Ser. 4, vii. 386-400, 454-470; S. R. Driver, ibid. viii. 388-400, 419-431; against Meyer, J. Wellhausen, Gott. Gel. Anz. 1896, i. 265-268; @. Dalman, Theol. Litzeitg. 1896, 477 ff., Lit. Centralbl. 1896, 1563 f.; A. Merz, Deutsche Litzeitg. xix. (1898) 985-991. |
2 Skizzen u. Vorarbeiten, vi. p. v.
INTRODUCTION 63
are derived from ‘>t, which means “to give alms” and “to cleanse.” This instance seems an attractive proof expressly in favour of a written Aramaic source, as the Hebrew for “cleanse” would be 130. W. in his discussion refers to my Gram. d. jüd.-pal. Aram., in which the meaning “to give alms” is authenticated for sr. He further pleads the con- sideration that in the Arabic he has found the substantive “zakat,” which contains the root-form, while the correspond- ing form in Aramaic 12! seems to be wanting in the Jewish literature. But 831, like its Hebrew equivalent NP, is quite common in this literature. It does not matter much that 8331 does not appear to occur in connection with alms, since even then it would not lose the sense of “ practice of virtue,’ “meritorious action”; cf. NMYD, “ practice of the com- mandments” for “alms” (Vay. R. 34). The verb ‘st can mean “to act meritoriously by giving alms,” but also “to procure [for another] that merit by asking alms” (see j. Pes. 31°). But why should Luke not have arrived at his expression by starting from the Greek xa@dpicov? The purifying of the cup filled with plunder could be brought about only by its being emptied, the contents being given away. It coincided with the intention of Jesus if His saying were applied to almsgiving. According to the reading To de Eowdev iudv in Luke 11%, the idea implied would indeed be that what was latent in the heart of the Pharisees should be distributed like alms. But as an idea - so absurd cannot be attributed to the evangelist, we should, like Blass, read vpiv.
In Luke 24° Wellhausen is quite justified in retracing, as Mrs. A. S. Lewis does, the readings xatouévn and Be- Bapnuévn back to Tr) and 1p. He has not, however, noted that the lucid Beßapnuevn adopted by Blass is disclosed to view solely through early versions. It would never have stood in the (primitive) Greek text. The interchange of Tp and ‘pr on the part of Syrians might very easily happen, because
64 THE WORDS OF JESUS
in Syriac 7 and n are distinguished solely by the position of a diacritic point. But this does not touch the question of a primitive Aramaic gospel.
It is in itself an attractive conjecture that is made by W. in suggesting that in Luke 4° the woman to whom Elias was sent should be characterised not as “a widow,” xnbmix, but as “a heathen,” sn corresponding to the mention in ver. 27 of Naaman as 6 Xvpos. Notwith- standing, I am unable to assent to it. To “the many widows in Israel” of ver. 25 there stands quite suitably of ver. 26. Besides, mpos yvvalka xnpav is just as much occasioned by
3)
in contrast “the widow of Sidonian Sarepta
yuvaıkı xıjpa, 1 Kings 17% LXX, as Nainav o Supos is by the like expression in 2 Kings 5% LXX. So that there is really no call for emendation of the text.
Another phrase, which W. regards as an Aramaism, is avactncovta, Ev TH Kpioeı peTa THS yeveds TavTys, Matt. 12% (Luke 11%). Its meaning must be, “they will measure themselves in the Judgment with this generation.” But this form of expression is found in the Old Testament in Isa. 541 Davi? JAS OPA, LXX dvactycetas Emil oe eis Kpiow, Targum Sin), may OP; also in Ps. 941° Dy oy > Dip, LXX tis dvaornoeral pot Emi mormpevouevovs. For the Jewish Aramaic compare also j. Kidd. 64° dy op vw) 2 ın xpwa Man, “some one began a litigation with [rose up against] his neighbour on the street.” Further, xataxpi- votow avtnv, “they will show it to be in the wrong, will overcome it,’ need not be an Aramaism. W. connects it rightly enough with the Aramaic 27, but we have a cor- responding expression also in Hebrew in PN; see Isa. 547 ywn, LXX jrrices, Targum MI,
Just as little is it necessary to detect with W. an Aramaism in avOpor@ PBaciret, Matt. 187, along with which may be mentioned Matt. 22?, where the same phrase is repeated, also Matt. 13%, 201; cf. 21% with avfporw
INTRODUCTION :65
oıkodeomorn, and Luke 24% with dvnp mpodyrms. The Old Testament says: M3 WN, Lev. 219 (LXX dv@pwmov iepews) ; N EN, Judge. 68 (LXX advdpa mpodyrnv); and in Jewish Aramaic literature the idiom is also found; see, eg., 2D 133, j. Sanh. 259 but I do not think it ever stands at the opening of a parable, as in Matthew. But avnp Bacireds is, of course, good Greek, and avdpwmos BacıXevs also is not impossible.
In Mark 14 Cod. D has the unmeaning öpyıodeis for omAayxvıodeis of the common text. Like J. D. Michaelis! a century ago, Nestle holds that in this case omnx, “he was moved with compassion,” has been interchanged with py nw, “he was angry.” That might well be correct, yet it would apply only to the Syriac of Edessa. In this instance we perceive the impression of Syriac influence on Cod. D, and that all the more surely because Ephrem knew this reading ; see Chase, The Syro-Latin Text of the Gospels, 88f. This author, however, supposes that the confusion is between amnx and nonne.
The readings &&w ths xwpas, Mark 51%, and eis tiv dBvacov, Luke 83%, are by Nestle traced back to smnnb and xoiind, the former meaning “to the frontier,” the latter “into the deep.” As “to the frontier” did not suit the context, Mark, it is thought, changed it to “across the frontier.” But without imputing an erroneous translation of this kind, the variation explains itself from the considera- tion that in Mark the idea was the removal of the demons to a distant land (cf. Tob. 8%), but in Luke their banishment to the place of chastisement for the reprobate. In Mark 51! (Luke 8%) a herd of swine is mentioned as being “beside” or “upon the mountain”; in Matt. 8°° as being “a good way off from them” (waxpav am adtdv). Nestle holds that 3b, “mountain,” and SVD, “distance,” are here in confusion. But this NND is foreign to the Jewish Aramaic;
? Einleitung in die Schriften des Neuen Bundes, i. (1788) 585. 5
66 THE WORDS OF JESUS
and the difference admits of another explanation. Mark and Luke represent the entire incident (Mark 5?, Luke 8°) as proceeding upon the seashore, the herd being in the immediate vicinity “upon the mountain.” Matthew does not locate the episode on the seashore, but regards Jesus as being “in the country of the Gadarenes” on the way to Gadara (Matt. 8%), which was situated some six miles inland. The herd of swine is supposed to be at some distance, be- cause, as represented in ver. 32, it was necessarily near the seacoast.
In Matt. 54 rédecos, TéXecos correspond to oikTipwoves, oikripuwv in Luke 6% From the Concordance N. finds that the LXX in certain circumstances puts both trews and diros for the Hebrew obw, and he notes that in de Lagarde’s “Onomastica Sacra” Soroudy is explained as e&Aeyuwv 7) eipyvıros. Therefore N. infers otxtipywy presupposes an original obw. But despite all this nbw does not mean “merciful,” and could be so rendered only by a very slip- shod translator. The expression in Luke is occasioned by the fact that the divine nature has just before been char- acterised as ypnotos. Matthew uses réAevos beeause the conduct of men in other relations is forthwith to be mentioned, and it was necessary to provide for the transition.
The peculiar phrase in Mark 81 eis ra pépn Aarya- vovda,! has been derived by J. Rendel Harris? from the Aramaic xnynd7 xnmond on the supposition that the second xmiod was an inadvertent repetition, while the real name of the place has disappeared. Nestle® has, independently of Harris, hit upon the same idea. To this, however, the serious objection has to be urged that ra wepn with the meaning of “district” is a pure Grecism, quite incapable of being literally reproduced in Aramaic, M3 in all the
1 See thereon Gram. d. jüd.-pal. Aram. 133. 2 Codex Beze, 178. 3 Philologica sacra, 17.
INTRODUCTION 67
Aramaic dialects means “portions” but not “ district.” The Syriac translators were therefore obliged to substitute other expressions: thus we find in place of it sons, “ region,” Mark 81% Pesh., Matt. 27? Cur. Sin. Pesh., Matt. 161% Cur. Pesh. Hier.; soinn, “district,” Matt. 15° Cur. Sin. Pesh. Hier., Matt. 1613 Sin.; syns, “land,” Matt. 272 Hier. Nor in Jewish Aramaic would expressions other than these be possible. Therefore Aaxyavovda cannot be explained by means of xn.
In Mark 10° Jesus speaks of a “hundredfold” recom- pense for His disciples, whereas Matt. 19% (Luke 18%) mention a “manifold” recompense. Now Cod. D has “hundredfold” in Matt. also, and in Luke “ sevenfold.” In Nestle’s opinion “sevenfold” was the original, and this has been received into the text of Blass. This may possibly be correct, but there is no necessity for deriving the expression from a Semitic original. Seven stands as a number suggesting completeness without mathematical precision, cf. the seven years of Anna’s wedded life, Luke 2°6; the seven evil spirits, Luke 8? 11?°; the seven brothers, Luke 20%; the sevenfold daily trespass, Luke 174. In this way “manifold” and even “hundredfold” can be used in place of “sevenfold.”
At the first glance there is something plausible in N.’s remark on Luke 191", that the mention of the “cities” as reward of the faithful servants in contrast with the “ talents ” of Matt. 251%. is to be explained by interchange of 1723, “ talents” and 273, “cities.” On closer inspection, however, it becomes evident that this is not correct. P2712 is not the common word for “cities” in a general sense, so that the confusion was not so natural as might appear. In Matt. 257” it is not “talents” that are given to the servants, but their Lord will set them over “many things.” When Luke defines the “many things” by “ cities,” the addition depends on the fact that in his representation the
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situation treats of a king who enters upon his dominion — an idea wholly absent from Matthew.
In Matt. 23% and Luke 11" eos and aydırn tod Oeod should in N.’s opinion be traced back to one form with om as its root. His supposition is that PM, “ compassion,” and NNN, “love,” were confounded, rod ®eod being ap- pended to the latter. But it is at least equally credible that the Greek synonyms éAeos and dyamn were inter- changed, and that a@ydain was afterwards explained as “the love of God.”
In Mark 11? él rod audodou is represented as being properly the translation of Bndduyn, Luke 19%, This latter, it is said, in accordance with the Syriac xysp m3, might in fact have been rendered “at the parting of the ways.” But Emi Tod dudodov means only “on the street”; syip is not the term for “a network of roads” or “ cross- roads,” ! either in the Syriac of Edessa or in the Palestinian Aramaic ; and 13 is not used for 2 in Palestinian Aramaic. Besides, ByOpayn has the indeclinable ending 2, and is, therefore, not of Greek origin. From the Talmud we learn that uN na was really the name of a place? not of a cross-roads merely. So that Mark, if he translated, would have translated wrongly. If one is not content to derive ‘inp from 4B, “ unripe figs,” as I have done,? then it is preferable to pronounce the origin of the word obscure 4 rather than to decide upon sy».
In Matt. 27° “vinegar mingled with gall” is put for the “wine mingled with myrrh” of Mark 15, through the confusion, as Nestle holds, of mn», “ gall,” with mv, “ myrrh.”
*The fact that the Syrians in one case attempt to assign the meaning ‘‘cross-roads ” to 835 n’2 would have significance only if xyip could be adduced with this meaning in other instances.
2 But not of two places, as Starck, Palästina und Syrien, 35, represents.
3 Gram. d. jüd.-pal. Aram. 152.
* Can mdyos, ‘‘ village,” perhaps be traced in the name? According to the Talmud, Bethphage was situated just beyond the city boundary of Jerusalem proper.
INTRODUCTION 69
But Matthew’s representation is satisfactorily accounted for through intentional allusion to the drinking of gall in Ps. 68% LXX, and does not call for the assumption of a Semitic source.
In Acts 2% Cod. D has mpös öXov tov koowov for m. 0. T. Adov of the Textus Receptus. N. traces these variants to the confusion of ody, “world,” and oy, “ people,” and adduces other instances where this mistake occurs. He does not expressly say, however, whether he means that Luke had subsequently recognised his original reading ny to be incorrect, and, accordingly, in the revised edition had substituted «xdopov for Adov, or whether a later writer was the first to bring Luke’s document into accord with the alleged source. In the text of the Palestinian Talmud, Ber. 4° and Bab. mez. 8°, we also find xnby 2 wrongly put for sony bs. For this, however, it is no mere misread- ing on the part of a copyist that is responsible, but the fact that both are quite equivalent periphrases for “every one,” the former being the dominant Babylonian usage, the latter the Palestinian usage. Admitting, however, that bs Noy, “all the people,” and ınby 59, “the whole world,” are merely different expressions for “every one,” in the same sense as in Acts 2*, the reading nevertheless allows of explanation without reversion to a Semitic original quite as satisfactorily through an interchange of the Greek terms, as is done by B. Weiss;! and there is no occasion to con- sider with Harris? a Latin, or with Chase® a Syriac text as responsible for the various reading.
The theory of a Semitic source is raised to “ perfect certainty” in N.’s judgment by the various reading eBapüvare, “ye oppressed,” supplied by Cod. D Acts 3.4, in place of npynoace, “ye denied,” of the common text. Blass 4 appeals
1 Der Codex D in der Apostelgeschichte (1897), 58.
* Codex Bezee, 103 f.
* The Old Syriac Element in the Text of Codex Beze (1893), 28. * Philology of the Gospels, 194,
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to this “discovery” of Nestle as the most important proof of the Aramaic source used by Luke for Acts 1-12. 55, “to deny,” and 729, “to molest,” are supposed to have been interchanged in this case. Both by Nestle and Blass, there- fore, eßapvvare will be reckoned a gross error. In the first edition of the Acts, Luke himself had fallen into this mistake: only in the second edition had he rectified it, after he had made a fresh study of his source. Now Blass, at least, according to whom Luke understood only a little Aramaic and no Hebrew at all, should hardly attribute to him any acquaintance with the Hebrew 225, which occurs only in Job, and, moreover, is never used for “molest.”? IE, however, Luke were well versed in Hebrew, this peculiar freak, impossible from the Aramaic side, would be un- pardonable. Long ago, however, Harvey? and after him Chase, had found a most satisfactory explanation of the reading of Cod. D, by referring it to the Edessene 123, “ to irritate,” which could be interchanged with 153, “to deny.” Nestle® finds this also to be plausible, and, as it seems, would therefore consider it possible that Luke was familiar with the Syriac of Edessa, and thence arrived at his false reading. But far more acceptable would still remain the theory of Harvey and Chase, that the reading of Cod. D originates not from Luke, but from a defectively written or falsely read Syriac gospel text. And since “to be angry with” is in Edessene not 723 but a3ns, Harris® will be right in saying that yT7caTe read as „rrnoare has been the source of the Latin reading aggravastis, which on its part again determined the Greek text of Cod. D.
1 B. Weiss, Der Codex D in der Apostelgeschichte, 25, holds that éBapivare may possibly have been an ancient reading, without giving any opinion on its genesis,
2 The same would hold of the Edessene "23x, ‘‘to make much ado.”
3 W. Wigan Harvey, Iren. adv. Her. ii. (1857) 55.
4 The Old Syriac Element in the Text of Codex Bez, 38.
5 Philologica sacra, 40f.
6 J, Rendel Harris, Codex Beze (1891), 162 ff,
INTRODUCTION (a)
If our criticism of the proofs hitherto adduced in sup- port of a primitive Aramaic gospel be sound, then clearly the account of the primitive Church in regard to an Aramaic original of Matthew must be pronounced as still lacking confirmation by convincing proofs.
Since, however, the proofs of a Hebrew written source proved equally inconclusive, one is obliged to resort to the considerations urged long ago by B. Weiss and others, to the effect that the occasional agreement of the Synoptists in Greek expressions implies that the documentary sources used by them were written in Greek. In this there is nothing improbable. The Christian Church, even while in Jerusalem, included in its numbers numerous Hellenists, 2.e. Greek-speaking Jews, Acts 6! 9% From the very begin- ning it thus used two languages, and in gatherings of the community the deeds and words of Jesus must have been recounted in Greek and in Aramaic. The “ Hebraists” would mostly all have understood some Greek, but the Hellenists very often no Aramaic or Hebrew. A gospel- source in Greek need not, by reason of its language, have been any later in origin than one written in a Semitic dialect. It is thus possible that the oldest Christian writing may have been composed in Greek; and its Semitisms, so far as they are not Biblicisms, are in that case due to the Aramaic oral archetype (Urgestalt) of the Christian tradition.
VII. Tue PROBLEM BEFORE US AND THE PREVIOUS STUDIES IN THE SAME FIELD.
If this work, as planned by the writer, is not to be reared from the outset on an unstable foundation, it cannot proceed, as the foregoing considerations show, upon the definite theory of a Semitic written source elaborated in our Synoptic Gospels. What is firmly established is only the fact that Jesus spoke in Aramaic to the Jews, and that the
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original apostolic band at the beginning preached concerning Him—though not exclusively—in that language. For the words of Jesus only is an Aramaic original form incontestably secure; for them alone does the earliest Church tradition assert a written Semitic source. Hence arises for literary science the right and the duty of investigating in what form the words of Jesus must have been uttered in their original language, and what meaning they had in this form for the Jewish hearers. Of course absolute certainty in regard to minutiz cannot possibly be expected concerning the precise form in which these words proceeded from the mouth of Jesus. But it will be recognised with greater certainty than heretofore how much there is in form and content that is specifically Greek, and what at least may be regarded as most nearly approaching to the original setting. The more one is convinced that the Gospels contain historically trust- worthy communications in regard to the teaching of Jesus, the more important must it appear to get even one step nearer to the original by a fresh apprehension of His message in the light of the primary language and the contemporary modes of thought.
As the words of our Lord must thus be the proper subject of our study, it has, of course, to be kept in view that they are presented to us in writings whose authors have so recounted them that their individual apprehension of them, their style and mode of expression, have not failed to exert a certain influence. It follows, therefore, that the investigation should not be limited entirely to the speeches reported by a Synoptist. Whatever their writings may afford towards elucidating the words of Jesus must be sought out and applied for the end in view. In regard to the Johannine Gospel, its exclusion from the scope of the inquiry seems to us justified, because the author’s individuality impressed itself so strongly on the Greek he wrote, that a reconstruction in Aramaic would here have too little prospect of success.
INTRODUCTION 73
But even those who may think differently will not gain- say that a separate treatment of the synoptic material, at least by way of introduction, is not only justifiable but requisite.
The remark which was made after the discovery of the Hebrew fragments of Ben Sira, that all the attempts to reconstruct the original had failed,! cannot be indiscriminately applied to every work of this kind. For the book of the son of Sirach was very obscure in the original language to begin with; and the extant early versions were defective in the highest degree. But in regard to the original of the words of Jesus and their rendering into Greek, no such assertion can be hazarded. Thought and expression in this case are clear and unmistakable, free from useless ornament and artificial elaboration. In this case, therefore, a retrans- lation will have better prospect of success. But even in the accounts of the evangelists themselves, emphasis must not be laid on the unessential details in the reported dicta, which each narrator in turn could represent with some variation, but only on the leading thoughts and pervading ideas. It were no small achievement to succeed in appre- hending these, in the light of the Aramaic language and the contemporary circle of ideas, with increased precision and closer approach to the original sense. And such an aim must be pronounced quite attainable, provided it be pursued with the proper means.
It is obvious enough that a mere Aramaic translation of the words of our Lord, as given in the Synoptists, would have little scientific value. For it is precisely the untrans- latable that has to be made intelligible. Where several renderings are possible, the reader must be made aware of this. When the choice falls upon a particular rendering, the reasons in its support must not be omitted. And the
1 See specimens in Cowley and Neubauer, The original Hebrew of a portion of Ecclesiasticus (1897), xviii.
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work would be but half completed, if at the same time an adequate insight were not given into the significance of the newly recovered text, and the form thence acquired by the problems of exegesis. Nothing but a running commentary, which takes account of the tentative translations, can there- fore appear adequate to the end in view.
No definite hypothesis in regard to the origin and mutual relations of the Synoptic Gospels can be assumed as the basis of our inquiry, without thereby anticipating conclusions which may appear as a possible result of the investigation. Only the various contingencies involved must not be left out of view. Naturally all questions of exegesis and gospel criticism are not intended to receive final solution; here the aim is rather to offer materials and indicate points of view which suggest themselves in considering the Aramaic arche- type, and in reviewing the contemporary ideas. To New Testament science remains the task of applying our results to the working out of its own problems, and of thus con- ducting the inquiry to its proper goal.
As a number of ideas of substantially the same import recur throughout the discourses of Jesus, it will be desirable to begin by submitting the most important of these to a special consideration. The discussion of the words of Jesus in relation to their collective import will subsequently afford an occasion in later volumes of this work to add, if necessary, more precise definitions, and also to treat other ideas accord- ing to the same method. Thus our researches will also be guarded against a false Judaising of the words of Jesus, such as easily arises and often has arisen, where isolated dicta, separated from their context, have been compared with rabbinic ideas and expressions. Further, the theory which has been advanced, e.g., by Schnedermann,! that Jesus at first began His work with Jewish ideas and then gradually charged these with a new content, cannot justify itself in presence of
1 Die Vorstellung vom Reiche Gottes, i. (1896), ii. 1 (1893), 2 (1895).
INTRODUCTION 75
the Gospel accounts: For there the teaching of Jesus, extending only over a short period of time, appears, in regard to the fundamental conceptions, uniform and unvarying. Each single idea must be apprehended in its coherence with the whole. What we deem of real significance and worthy of our investigation, is not the superficial notion of a casual hearer of Jesus, but the intimate understanding of a constant disciple and follower.
It is regrettable that there are so few previous studies from which material directly contributory to our aim can be derived. Even after the dictionaries of Levy, Kohut, Jastrow have been supplemented by my own works, “Grammatik des jüdisch-palästinischen Aramiaisch,’ and “ Aramäisch-neuheb- räisches Wörterbuch,” there still remain large blanks in regard to the syntax, phraseology, and vocabulary of the separate dialects. Compilations begun by me, and to be rendered more complete by continuous reading, must serve to supply the deficiency.
The absence of preliminary studies in the region of Jewish Theology is no less marked. Even an adequate treat- ment of the ideas of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha is not yet to be had. M. Vernes, Histoire des Idées Messian- iques (1874); J. Drummond, The Jewish Messiah (1877); V. H. Stanton, The Jewish and the Christian Messiah (1886); Ochler v. Orelli, art. “ Messias,’ Prot. Real-Encyklo- pädie,? ix. (1881), 641-672; E. Schürer, Geschichte des jüd. Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, ii. (1898), Section on the Messianic Hope, 496-556 ; M. Marti, Geschichte der israelit. Religion? (1897), 270-310; R. H. Charles, Eschatology of the Apocryphal and Apocalyptic Liturature, in Dictionary of the Bible, i. (1898), 741-749, and Critieal History of the doctrine of the Future Life (1899); &. Hühn, Die messian- ischen Weissagungen des israelitischjüdischen Volkes bis zu
1 Against Schnedermann, see especially EZ. Haupt, Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu in den synopt. Evangelien (1895), 63 ff.
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den Targumim, i. (1899)—-after all these a good deal remains to be done. The commentaries, however, of Ryle and James on the Psalms of Solomon (1891), of R. H. Charles on the Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1893), on the Apocalypse of Baruch (1896), on the Assumption of Moses (1897), and especially the translations and expositions of these books published in 1900 by E. Kautsch, “ Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments,” must be regarded as a gratifying advance on their predecessors. Yet nearly all even of the authors here mentioned are lacking in a first-hand ac- quaintance with the later Jewish literature—an indis- pensable requirement where the problem is to elucidate Jewish writings whose Hebrew original has first to be ascertained.
In regard to the special rabbinie literature, it would be particularly desirable to know what it has to say as to the religious ideas of the Jews at the beginning of the second century of our era—the earliest period for which it affords intimate and reliable information. #. Weber’s “ Jüdische Theologie,’ even in the second edition (1897),! freed as it has been by I. I. Kahan from not a few defects, here leaves one quite in the dark through failing to supply the necessary separation of the earlier from the more recent, of the Pales- tinian from the non-Palestinian, as well as through the lack of a more thorough treatment of details. The “ Real- Eneyelopädie für Bibel und Talmud,” with its supplements (1884-1900), by J. Hamburger, is altogether a mere accumu- lation of unsifted material, the several items of which require first to be verified. “Der Leidende und der sterbende Messias der Synagoge im ersten nachchristl. Jahrtausend ”— a treatise published by myself (1888)—endeavours to give reliable data on one important topic. Apart from the concise and excellent monograph of D. Castelli, Il Messia secondo gli Ebrei (1874), the only works that attain the level worthy
1 See my review in Theol. Litbl. 1897, col. 382f.
INTRODUCTION 77
of the theme are the treatises! of W. Bacher, which are far too sparingly used by theologians—“ Die Agada der Tann- aiten” i. (1884), ii. (1894); “ Die Agada der palästinens- ischen Amoräer” 1. (1892), ii. (1896), iii. (1899)2 After their completion by the anonymous Haggada of Palestine, these works will form a valuable thesaurus of the dicta of the Palestinian Rabbis, and furnish the means of attaining a real “theology of the early Palestinian synagogue.”
Specially useful help should have been obtainable from the collections of rabbinic parallels to New Testament pas- sages which have been prepared by Christians and Jews in early and in recent times. Among Christian works of this class may be named: Joh. Lightfoot, Hore hebraice et talmudice in quatuor LEvangelistas, published by J. B. Carpzov, Leipzig, 1684 ; Christ. Schöttgen, Hore hebraice et talmudice in universum Novum Testamentum, Dresden- Leipzig, 1733; Joh. Gerh. Meuschen, Novum Testamentum ex Talmude et antiquitatibus Hebreorum illustratum, Leipzig, 1736; J. Jak. Wettstein (Wetstenius), Novum Testamentum Grecum, Amsterdam, 1751, 1752; F. Nork, Rabbinische Quellen und Parallelen zu neutestamentlichen Schriftstellen, Leipzig, 1839; Franz Delitzsch, Hore hebraice et talmu- diee in Luth. Zeitschrift, 1876-8; Carl Siegfried, Analecta Rabbinica, 1875, Rabbinische Analekten, Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. 1876; A. Wünsche, Neue Beiträge zur Erläuterung der Evangelien aus Talmud und Midrasch, Göttingen, 1878.
Of Jewish productions, which, chiefly with an apologetic aim, institute comparisons between rabbinic and New Testa- ment sayings, there may be cited: M. Duschak, Die Moral der
In order to call increased attention to Bacher’s writings, as well as to set a better example in citing rabbinic sayings than that now prevalent in the commentaries, I shall make frequent reference to these writings, although for my own work they were not, properly speaking, a source.
2“Tempus loquendi. Uber die Agada der palästinischen Amoräer nach der neuesten Darstellung” (1897), by M. Aschkenaze, is intended to be a criticism of vol. ii. der Ag. d. pal. Am. The author, however, demonstrates only his own amazing ignorance,
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Evangelien und des Talmud, Brünn, 1877 ; E. Schreiber, Die Prineipien des Judentums verglichen mit denen des Christen- tums, Leipzig, 1877; E. Soloweyczyg, Die Bibel, der Talmud und das Evangelium, the German by M. Griinwald, Leipzig, 1877; E. Griinebaum, Die Sittenlehre des Judenthums audern Bekenntnissen gegenüber, 2nd ed., Strassburg, 1878; S. Blumenau, Gott und der Mensch, in Aussprüchen der Bibel alten und neuen Testaments, des Talmud und des Koran, Bielefeld, 1885.
Nearly all these works, however, are found to contribute only occasional observations. The relation of any particular case to the whole data in the domain of Rabbinism is not systematically set forth. Moreover, agreement and diverg- ence between New Testament and rabbinic statements are not determined with sufficient care. These comparisons have thus caused in many minds an impression, very unfavourable to scientific progress, that little of fundamental importance is to be learned from such parallels. Such a book as Wünsche’s “Neue Beiträge,” by reason of quite superficial and inaccurate assertions and faulty translations, must even be characterised as directly misleading and confusing. It is obvious enough, further, that Jewish handling of the material for polemic purposes is hardly calculated to demonstrate the real difference between the words of Jesus and the sayings of the Rabbis.
No other course is open but to supply the deficiency in this case also by independent work on the post-canonical literature of the Jews. Our discussion will consequently be encumbered by researches which might well have been conducted elsewhere; but I trust it will not appear a blemish if Jewish materials, which may ultimately render important service in various ways to Biblical Theology, should here be found collected and sifted.
INTRODUCTION 79
VIII. THE SELECTION OF THE DIALECT.
A serious diffieulty in the way of our investigations con- sists in deciding the dialect of Aramaic, which they shall presuppose. There is no justification indeed for Th. Zahn’s* misgiving that the distinction, adopted in my Grammar, of a “ Judean ” and a “ Galilean” dialect of Jewish Aramaic rests upon uncertain grounds. The two dialects so designated are so sharply defined in point of grammar and vocabulary, that their separation did not call for the exercise of exceptional penetration. But in applying these designations, nothing is fixed in regard to the time when these dialects flourished, and the extent over which they then prevailed. The “ Judean” dialect is known to us from literary remains of Judean origin in the period from the first to the third (Christian) century; the Galilean dialect from writings of Galilean origin in the period from the fourth to the seventh century. That the “Galilean” at the time of its domin- ance among the Jews of Galilee was accompanied in other parts of Palestine by sister-dialects closely akin, is proved by the Samaritan Aramaic, and the still more closely related Christian Palestinian Aramaic. This latter had even ex- tended its sway into Egypt, as is proved by the liturgy for the Blessing of the Nile, brought to light by G. Margoliouth.? Aramaic was not merely a Church language in that region, for in commenting on Isa. 1913, Jerome explicitly states that there were still, as was well known, five cities in Egypt in which “the language of Canaan, namely the Syriac,” was spoken. On the other hand, the Palmyrene and Nabatxan Aramaic about the time of Christ must be pronounced as standing closer to the “Judean” than to the “ Galilean ”
1 Einleitung in das Neue Testament, i. (1897) 19.
2G. Margoliouth, The Liturgy of the Nile (1896).
38. Krauss, Jew. Quart. Rev. vi. (1894), 249, strangely considers, despite the unmistakable statement of Jerome, that the Coptic language is meant. ‘‘Syriac” being the Semitic language of Canaan in his own day, Jerome finds
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dialect. It has, however, to be taken into account that our knowledge of the Aramaic of Palmyra and Nabatxa is derived exclusively from inscriptions, while the “ Galilean ” is a popular dialect elevated to a literary language.
One will best do justice to the ascertainable situation in saying, that in the time of Christ there was prevalent over all Palestine, from the extreme north to the south, a single literary language in Aramaic, varying but slightly in the different parts of the country. In this literary Aramaic are written the Aramaic sections in Daniel and in Ezra, the Targum of Onkelos, and the other documents assigned to the Judean dialect,! as well as the Palmyrene and Nabat&an inscriptions. Concurrently (with this literary dialect) there existed a whole series of popular dialects: a Middle Palestinian, which we can recognise in a later phase as Samaritan Aramaic, and a North Palestinian, which is known to us in a Jewish and a Christian form—both be- longing to a subsequent period. It is highly probable that after the final overthrow of the Judean centre of Jewish- Aramaic culture, which was the result of the Bar Kochba revolution, the North Palestinian popular dialect got the upper hand over nearly all Palestine.
According to Matt. 2673 (Mark 147, Luke 225°), Peter was recognised in Jerusalem as a Galilean on the strength of a few words, and was consequently termed a companion of Jesus. It must therefore be inferred that Jesus was like- wise recognisable by His language. We must not, through following the Galilean dialect as known to us, explain this incident from the consideration that the Galileans were accustomed at a later period to soften the gutturals. Peter’s denial contained the expression ov« oida, “I do not know,” Isaiah’s prophecy fulfilled in the ‘‘Syriac” speaking inhabitants of Egypt. His description of the ‘‘Canaanitic” as occupying a position between the Hebrew and the Egyptian, and as being closely akin to Hebrew, corresponds
only with what he calls ‘ Syriac,” but not with the Coptic language. 1 Enumerated in Gram. d. j.-pal. Aram. 5-12.
INTRODUCTION 81
or “I do not understand,” Matt. 267° (Mark 14%, Luke 22°”). In Galilean this would be Dan NIS N or Dan mb, but in Judean YR say m2. In their use of the Galilean dialect there was nothing in any way inviting disparagement towards Jesus or His disciples. The anecdotes told in Babylon cen- turies later, b. Erub. 53°7 about the speech of uneducated Galilean women, must be regarded as a caricature of the truth even in their own late period. The Galilean as it is known to us from written works bears as yet no trace of decay or of corruption from outside influence. It is true only that certain signs of more advanced development as compared with the Judean dialect may be detected in it. It cannot, however, be regarded as a later phase of the latter dialect. It is, of course, not unlikely that the language of Galilee underwent some changes between the time of Jesus and the fourth century. The pronunciation, the formation and scope of words, were in the earlier period indeed nearer by some degrees to the Judean. For our purposes the scope of terms is of principal importance; and in that respect there can be no doubt that the number of Greek loan-words had increased, while it is highly probable that new Aramaic words from the north-east had found their way in and obtained currency by extruding others. Moreover, the possibility must not be excluded that Jesus, when speaking publicly, sought to conform to the Judzan dialect. If the Galilean taxgatherer Matthew really re- corded the words of Jesus in Aramaic, it is most probable that he should avail himself of the literary language of Judea, and not of the Galilean popular dialect. To all appearance his book was least of all addressed to Galilean readers.
! Compare on this point Gram. d. j.-pal. Aram. 48f., where I have shown that the defective pronunciation of the gutturals cannot have been developed so markedly in the earlier period even in Galilee. Among the Babylonian
Jews the change had gone much further ; see C. Levias, A Grammar of the Babyl. Talmud, Am. Journ. Sem, Lang. xiii. 29 f,
6
82 THE WORDS OF JESUS
It might seem as if the linguistic basis presupposed in our work were indeed highly uncertain. To a certain extent this is true. Any investigator who will be con- scientious and sure of his steps, must take into considera- tion the whole field of linguistic possibilities lying between the biblical and the Galilean dialects of Aramaic! The Judean term must be considered side by side with the Galilean. And yet it will appear that the area of language coming into question is comprised within very narrow limits, and that most of the competing options that arise are of little or no weight in determining the exegesis. On the whole, the uncertainty as to language in this case is less considerable than that which confronts the translator of the Gospels into Hebrew, who, finding the biblical Hebrew impracticable, tries to steer a middle course between the language of the son of Sirach and that of the Mishna.
It is to be regretted that the most extensive literary monument of the Judean dialect is a Targum. Translations of sacred books attached themselves then even more closely than now to the verbal tenour of the original. The Greek translation of the LXX is already an illustration of this tendency, and it was afterwards surpassed in that direction by the translation of Aquila) The method of Aquila’s translation was further repeated in the probably contem- porary Targum of the Pentateuch, which, by a curious accident, was adorned in Babylon with the name of Aquila in the form of “Onkelos.” Only there resulted in that case, owing to the kinship of Aramaic and Hebrew, a linguistic product which was not quite so peculiar as in the Greek work of Aquila. By comparison with the other literary remains of Jewish Aramaic, it may, however, be
1M. Schulize, in his ‘‘Grammatik der aram. Muttersprache Jesu ” (1899), has dealt exclusively with the biblical Aramaic, but has furnished it with a vocalisation based upon the biblical transliteration of Semitic names, and repre- senting, as the author intends, the Galilean pronunciation.
INTRODUCTION 83
determined with sufficient certitude what should be re- garded as Hebraisms in the Targum. Genuine Aramaic is, of course, most clearly recognisable in cases where the Targum, despite its aim of precisely copying the original, finds itself constrained to adopt divergences in style.
The following may be specified as Hebraisms which essentially determine the style of the Targum: (1) the frequent use of the construct state, whereas an Aramaic original would have employed more commonly the circum- locution with 1; (2) the regular use of the separate N! as substitute for the Hebrew accusative particle, whereas Aramaic consistently dispenses with such a particle; (3) the reproduction peculiar to the Targum of the biblical 3, in all its meanings, by “28,1 which latter is known in the Hebrew of the Mishna in the form ")), restricted to the meaning “see,” and which in the remaining Aramaic literature is wholly wanting in this sense; (4) the emphasis- ing of the verb by apposition of the infinitive; (5) the use of the Aramaic MM for the Hebrew narrative formula ‘3, which is foreign to Aramaic; (6) the use of the verb br for the Hebrew 127 in all cases of its occurrence, and of on) for the Hebrew 7x); (7) the frequent employment of the Perfect as historie narrative tense where the Aramaic would have had recourse to the Participle, either by itself or preceded by MN; (8) the common use of the Infinitive with prepositions, where Aramaic would have formed a subordinate clause with 7.
In regard to Noldeke’s? assumed disfigurement of the Targum of Onkelos by the Babylonian dialect, I am still unable to cite a single case in point except the occasional use of infinitive forms in 0-2? One instance may show how careful we should be in putting forward any such assumption.
! See Gramm. d. j.-pal. Aram. 186 f., 190f.; Nöldeke, ZDMG xxii. (1868) 489,
2 Th. Nöldeke, Die semit. Sprachen, 32.
° Gram. d. j.-pal. Aram. 225 ff.
84 THE WORDS OF JESUS
The Palestinian Abbahu says, b. Sukk. 5°, that the name given to a “boy” (Pi) in Babylon was 821. Now the Onkelos Targum uses N’29 for “boy,” while the Galilean dialect does not employ this word. But since the Mishna attests the corresponding Hebr. 72 and the Samaritan like- wise knows *2), it is clear enough that 82) was not unknown in Palestine. Thus, when it occurs in Onkelos, the word should not be styled as a Babylonian intrusion.
The regrettable defect of the Judean Aramaic above referred to, is in some measure compensated by our having the Galilean dialect made known to us almost exclusively through the short stories interspersed in the Palestinian Talmud and Midrash; and these stories bear throughout the mark of their artless popular origin. In this case we are furnished with what is so much missed in regard to the Samaritan, the Christian-Palestinian, and the earlier Syriac of Edessa, namely the really living speech of the people. By comparing this vernacular with the biblical Aramaic and the idiom of the Judzean documents (apart from the Targums), we have the only possible means of learning what was the style and mode of expression of the Jewish Aramaic of Palestine.
If the view put forward by Noldeke, Buhl, Cornill, Ginsburger,' and others were correct, that the so-called Jerusalem Targums of the Pentateuch include sections from a very ancient and possibly pre-Christian period, then these, after deduction of the Hebraisms, would, of course, represent the best model for our work. Regard for this possibility caused me to give a prominent place in the Gram. des jiid.- pal. Aramäisch to the grammatical material in these Targums. But from that scrutiny I became convinced that the most primitive elements in regard to linguistic development to be found in these Targums are exactly the parts taken from the
1M. Ginsburger, Zum Fragmententargum, Jüd. Monatsschr. xli. (1897) 289-296, 340-349.
INTRODUCTION 85
Onkelos Targum.! The style of these Targums had not as yet been closely studied, and theories regarding their origin had been based chiefly on the nature of their contents. But even on that ground I could discover no sound proofs of a great antiquity. As one passage from the Jerusalem Targum I. has been relied upon as a decisive evidence of its pre- Christian elements, it requires to be mentioned. In Deut. 33" the words run thus: “ Bless, O Lord, the possession of the Levites, who give the tithe of the tithe, and graciously accept the offering of Elijah the priest, which he presents upon Mount Carmel; break asunder the loins of Ahab his enemy, and the necks of the false prophets who withstand him, and let there not be to the foes of Yokhanan the high priest a foot to stand upon.” Now as John Hyrcanus was less favourably remembered among the Jews at a later date, this statement, it is held, must have originated soon after his own time, and have been written by those who were among his partisans. By these, one would presume, are meant the Sadducees, a fact in itself suspicious. But one who is familiar with the nature of these Targums will think first of a Midrash which applied the words of Scripture to John [Yokhanan]. At the most, therefore, we should have before us traces of a very old Midrash. As to the age of the Targum passage, nothing could be concluded. But we are not unacquainted with the Haggada which is here alluded to. The Midrash on Ps. 67, in speaking of the verse in question, says the Greek domination was destined to fall by means of the tribe of Levi; and in the Midrash on Genesis (Bereshith Rabba 99) it is also said, with reference to this verse, that the Greek domination was destined to fall by means of the sons of Hasmonai, because they were of Levitic descent. Accordingly the enemies of Yokhanan in the Targum are the Greeks (Syrians), and any one who has read the Roll of the
1See Gram. d. j.-pal. Aram. 21-26; and J. Bassfreund, Das Fragmenten- Targum zum Pentateuch (1896), 65 ff., 98.
86 THE WORDS OF JESUS
Hasmoneans is aware that for the Jews the high priest Yokhanan, the son of Mattathias, was the most conspicuous champion against the Greek oppressors, and the proper “Maccabean.” None but he could be named if a personal representative of the Hasmonxan house in its struggle against Greece had to be cited.1 Since, however, the representations given in the very late Roll of the Hasmon&ans are wholly unhistorical, the passage in question becomes in reality an evidence for the late date of the Jerusalem Targum I. It is only in so far as they are evidence of an early form of the Onkelos Targum, and in so far as the Galilean dialect is traceable in them, that the Jerusalem Targums of the Pentateuch can yield us any assistance. The want of due precaution in the use made of them by J. T. Marshall is one of the things which were bound to render his efforts to reproduce the “Aramaic Gospel” a failure.
The Palestinian Lectionary of the Gospels, along with the other biblical lessons extant in the same language,? would, owing to the close relationship of its dialect with the Galilean, offer inestimable service towards the recovery of the Aramaic original of the words of Jesus, if it were not, like all the other ancient translations, merely a Targum, ie. an imitation of the Greek original in the Aramaic dialect of the Christians of
1 Rabbinic tradition, by the way, elsewhere distinguishes “the high priest Yokhanan” (Hyrcanus) from ‘King Yannai” (Alexander Janneus). To the former a series of praiseworthy acts are ascribed, the only complaint being that he finally became a Sadducee ; the latter ranked as really impious. Raba b. Ber. 29% declares explicitly: ‘‘Yannai was an ungodly man from the begin- ning, but Yokhanan was a pious man from the beginning.” It was Yokhanan -who was informed by a divine voice in the temple of the victory of the ‘‘ boys” in Antioch (j. Sot. 24).
2 The parts of the Scripture from the Old and the New Testaments, which had been published up to September 1897, are enumerated by E. Nestle in Studia Sinaitica vi., A Palestinian Syriac Lectionary, edited by Agnes Smith Lewis, xiv. ff. Since then has been added @. Margoliouwth, The Palestinian Syriac Version of the Holy Scriptures, four recently discovered portions, London, 1897, and the excellent new edition of the Evangeliarium Hiero- solymitanum by Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson, under the title ‘‘ The Palestinian Syriac Lectionary of the Gospels,” London, 1899.
INTRODUCTION 87
Palestine. The slavish nature of the imitation is illustrated, e.9., by the fact that the verb, with trifling exceptions, has no pronominal suffixes attached, because the Greek language only uses the personal pronouns independently.t For that very reason, however, this version, in parts where it does diverge from the tenour of the Greek, indicates all the more surely such Greek constructions as were repugnant to the Aramaic language. Besides, there is some suspicion that the Palestinian Gospel Lectionary has been influenced in its vocabulary by the Syriac version of Edessa. Un- fortunately the “Idioticon des christlich - palästinischen Aramäisch ” (1893), by F. Schwally, gives no light on this, as on other important points. Schwally has aimed at col- lecting the differences in the matter of vocabulary between the Christian Palestinian and the Edessene. But one does not learn what words are common to the two dialects, or which of such words in their turn are not found in the Palestinian Aramaic known from other sources? It is not the ecclesiastical Aramaic of Palestine that can give any assistance, but only the idiom thence ascertained which was actually spoken by the Palestinians. A service similar to that of the Palestinian Lectionary is rendered also by the Edessene version in its various recensions now known to us (Cureton., Sinait., Peshita). But no assistance derived from any of these Aramaic versions can be used towards the attainment of a genuine Aramaic diction, unless the same mode of expression can be attested in the Jewish Aramaic. If we were to make the Jerusalem Lectionary the basis of our investigation, as proposed by Wellhausen,? it would first be necessary to prove that in it, and not in the Jewish Aramaic, was the language of Jesus and the earliest apostles preserved. But this supposition cannot be seriously entertained. The
1 Nöldeke, ZDMG xxii. (1868) 505 f.
2 See the incomplete suggestions of Nöldeke, ZDMG xxii. (1868) 517,
522. > Gott. Gel. Anz. 1896, 265.
88 THE WORDS OF JESUS
Christian Palestinian literature is a clear proof that there was practically no spiritual intercourse between the primitive Aramaic-speaking Jewish-Christian Church and the Jewish people. The Church of the Greek and Edessene languages is the spiritual mother of the Palestinian-Aramaic com- munities. Their language contained, indeed, a number of Hebrew words which occur also in Jewish Aramaic. But the presence of the terms merely proves the influence of the language which had been spoken by the very numerous Jews in Palestine at a prior period. A Jewish derivation, such as Nöldeke! supposes, cannot be inferred from this circumstance. Even if it should have taken place, the Jewish elements would have been obliterated long before. If, further, any grave doubts may justly be entertained as to whether the Jewish Galilean of the year 400 was altogether similar to the language of Jesus, then by abandon- ing the field of the Jewish Aramaic every valid foundation would be wholly lost.
We shall therefore have every reason to guard against giving too much weight to the Syriac versions of the Gospels. The Targum of Onkelos and the Palestinian Talmud and Midrash remain our most important criteria. As the idiom of the first of these, whose vocabulary can also be tested by the Hebrew of the Mishna, represents in any case a stage of the language nearer to the time of Jesus, we shall attach ourselves principally to it, not failing, however, to note the divergences of the Galilean dialect. The vocalisation will be guided by the tradition as to the pronunciation repre- sented in the Targum manuscripts from Yemen, with the exceptions specified in my “ Aramäische Dialektproben,” iv. ff, especially as regards the Galilean. It should be explicitly affirmed, however, that in many an instance a different pronunciation prevailed in the time of Jesus; cf. Gramm. d. jiid.-pal. Aramaic, 46, 48, 50 f., 59 ff, 64 ff.
1 ZDMG xxii, 522 f., Die semitischen Sprachen (1887), 33.
FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS
89
er aoe a tee a
I. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD.
A. SOVEREIGNTY OF HEAVEN, SOVEREIGNTY OF Gop, SOVEREIGNTY,
THE expression 7 Baciela tév odpaver is altogether peculiar to the Gospel of Matthew, of which it is as characteristic as is the cognate appellation 6 matijp (wou, ipar, UUaV) 6 Ev ovpavois (6 ovpdvos). Mark and Luke have uniformly, Matthew has rarely, 7 Bacırela Tod Geod.
The Jewish expression 2 corresponding to 9 Bac. r. ovpavév is in Aramaic NY NMDDN, in Hebrew Dw mabn, In the latter it is worthy of notice that Dw is always without the article, from which it appears that the Aramaic NOV is in the definite form only because the indefinite form of this word does not occur in Jewish Aramaic. The Mishna says oY non, eg. Ber. ii. 2; and similarly without the article, DY Nip, “the fear of God,” Ab. i. 3; Dow py “the name of God,” Sanh. vi. 4; DY pa, « through, by God,” Sanh. ix. 6; on the other hand, invariably DieWn m, “from heaven,” Sanh. x. 1; Ned. x. 6* The difference is to be attributed to the fact that in the last-mentioned phrase the locative sense of DEV was still consciously
1 Fundamental Ideas, VI.
* According to Stave, “Über den Einfluss der Parsismus auf das J udenthum ” (1898), 180 ff., the Persian idea of the “Supreme Sovereignty” exerted some influence when the term originated. This is possible, but not necessary.
*See Franz Delitzsch, Neue Beobachtungen iiber hebr. Spracheigentiim- lichkeiten, v., Theol. Litbl. 1887, No. 48,
*See also Fund. Ideas, VIII.; Z. Schürer, Jahrb. f. prot. Theol. 1876, p- 171 ff. ; Ch. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers 2 (1897), 67.
91
92 THE WORDS OF JESUS
present, whereas, in the other cases, 22V is purely a sub- stitute for “God.” Compare, further, b. Mo. Kat. 15a, one nm», “one who is banished by God,” and Day om Dvn 2, “mercy is shown to them from heaven.”
Although Ne NMD2D is thus tantamount to the “sovereignty of God,” it does not thence follow that all trace of the thought, that in the phrase the dwelling-place of God was being named instead of Him who was there enthroned, must have been obliterated. Simeon ben Lakish, about 260 A.n., contrasted the “sovereignty of earth (man pas) with the “sovereignty of heaven” (BY M229) For him, therefore, “heaven” is in this case the dwelling-place of God. Similarly, the Babylonian saying? ?y2 NIN] NMI NY'PIT NTI, “the earthly government resembles the heavenly government,” has regard to the seat of human kings, and of God. Again, Yokhanan ben Zakkai, about 80 A.D., makes mention of “the yoke of the heavenly sovereignty ” iy pw m>5n) alongside of “the yoke of flesh and blood” iy pn 702), thereby bringing “God” into contrast with “men.” The difference in the point of view is, however, of small importance, because in every case the “ heavenly sovereignty,” in contradistinction to the “earthly,” is nothing else than the “sovereignty of God” as opposed to all human govern- ment. There is no ulterior idea present in regard to the derivation or the nature of the divine sovereignty. It can only be ascribed to unfamiliarity with Jewish phraseology, that it is still commonly the custom to see in 7 Bacuuela Tov ovpaveav a reference to the transcendental character of the object so designated. It is not the PaovAcia that
1 Ber. R. 9. 2b. Ber. 58%.
$j. Kidd. 594; see Bacher, Agada der Tannaiten, i. 30f. Cf. in the mouth of Chanina (about 80 A.p.) the antithesis of wın 13 wisn iy and o7 ya Dy, Ab. d. R. Nathan, 30.
4 See, ¢.g., V. H. Stanton, The Jewish and the Christian Messiah (1886), 209 ; W. Baldensperger, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu? (1892), 197f.; Z. Paul, Die Vorstellungen vom Messias und vom Gottesreich bei den Synoptikern (1895), 21f.; K. G. Grass, Das von Jesus geforderte Verhalten zum Reiche Gottes,
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD 93
is indicated as transcendent in this phrase, but