One law shall be to him that is home-born, and to the stranger that sojourneth among you. This last phrase (though sometimes used with greater latitude) became a common periphrasis for a proselyte. We find accordingly that though a question arose early in the church, and was for a time hotly agitated, concerning the lawfulness of admitting the uncircumcised to baptism (for such was Cornelius, though no idolater); there is no hint given that the smallest doubt was entertained concerning the admission of proselytes who had already embraced the Jewish ritual, and were circumcised. So far from it, that the keenest advocates for uniting Judaism with Christianity, insisted only that the Gentile converts might be circumcised, and compelled to join the observance of the law of Moses to their faith in Christ. Where, then, could be the difficulty of receiving those who were already disciples of Moses, and had been circumcised?-It will perhaps be retorted, "If the Christians could have no scruple to preach to proselytes, still less could they have to preach to those native Jews, who differed in nothing from their brethren in Palestine but in language." True, indeed, they could have no scruple; but those who came at that time to Antioch, were not all qualified for preaching in Greek, for all had not the gift of tongues. And the historian has rendered it evident that the want of the language was the reason they did it not, having observed that those who came thither and preached to the Hellenists, were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, places where Greek was the prevailing tongue.

In regard to the murmuring mentioned in the sixth chapter, which gave rise to the appointment of deacons, nothing can be more improbable than Beza's hypothesis. The number of the proselytes of righteousness, as they are sometimes called, could not be great; for though several, like Cornelius, had been gained over from Paganism to the worship of the true God, few, comparatively, were induced to adopt the Mosaic ceremonies. Now converts of the first sort were still by the Jews accounted heathens, and had access to no part of the temple inaccessible to Gentiles. Of the Jewish proselytes, it was a part only that was converted to Christianity; and of that part, those who were both widows and indigent could not surely be a great proportion. Further, if by Hellenists be meant proselytes, where was the occasion for classing them separately from the Jews, or for so much as inquiring who was a Jew by birth, and who a proselyte? It was not agreeable, as we have seen, either to the spirit or to the letter of the law, to make so invidious, not to say odious, a distinction; and if not to the law, still less, if possible, to the Gospel. Whereas the distinction, on the other hypothesis, being founded on their using different languages, was not barely convenient, but necessary. They were classes of people who could not be addressed in the same tongue; and, for this reason, it was probably found expedient to employ different agents in supplying them. Certain it is, they were in the constant practice of assembling in different synagogues; for in Jerusalem

there were Greek synagogues for the accommodation of the Hellenists of different nations, who came thither either occasionally or to attend the great festivals, as well as Hebrew synagogues for the use of the natives. Such were most of those mentioned in the Acts "; the Cyrenian synagogue and the Alexandrian,--the Cilician and the Asian.

That Nicolas, one of the deacons elected on that occasion, was a proselyte, is a circumstance of no moment in this question. If four, or even three of the seven, had been of that denomination, it might have been pleaded with some plausibility, that there must have been in this a design of destroying in the proselytes all suspicion of partiality. As it was, had it been they who murmured, it would have rather increased than diminished their jealousy, to find that they had gotten only one of their own class chosen for six of the other. This, therefore, must be considered as a circumstance merely accidental. As to that singular conceit of Vossius, that the Hellenists were those who favoured the doctrine of submission to a foreign yoke; as it is destitute alike of internal credibility and external evidence, it requires no refutation.

8. So much for the distinction that obtained in those days between Hebrew Jews and Grecian Jews, or Hellenists; among the latter of whom, the version of the Seventy was in constant use. The Greek had been for ages a sort of universal language in the

civilized world, at least among people of rank and men of letters. Cicero had with truth said of it", at the time when Rome was in her glory and Greece declining "Græca leguntur in omnibus fere genti"bus: Latina suis finibus, exiguis sane continen"tur." This continued to be the case till the time of the publication of the Gospel, and for some centuries afterwards. As the Greek was then of all languages the best understood, and the most generally spoken throughout the empire, the far greater part of the New Testament, which contained a revelation for all mankind, was originally written in that tongue. I say, the far greater part, because many critics are of opinion that the Gospel of Matthew 13 and the epistle to the Hebrews were originally written in that dialect of the Chaldee which was then the language of Jerusalem, and by Jewish writers called Hebrew. It must be remembered that all the penmen of the New Testament were Jews-the greater part Hebrews, not Hellenists: but whether they were Hebrews or Hellenists, as they wrote in Greek, the version of the Seventy would serve as a model in what concerned propriety of expression on religious subjects. It was, besides, the idiom which would be best understood by all the converts to Christianity from among their brethren the Jews, wheresoever scattered, and that whereby their writings would more perfectly harmonize with their own Scriptures, which the whole of that people had in so great and

12 Pro Archia Poeta. 13 See the Preface to that Gospel.

deserved veneration; for let it be observed that, though the Jews afterwards came to lose entirely their respect for the Septuagint, and even to depreciate it as an unfaithful, as well as inaccurate, translation; this change of their sentiments was the mere effect of their disputes with the Christians, who, in arguing from it, went to the opposite extreme-considered it as the immediate work of inspiration-and, in every instance wherein it differed from the original Hebrew, with which they were unacquainted, gave it the preference, treating the latter as a compilation, which had been corrupted by the Jews, in spite to Christianity. But of the high esteem which this pcople once entertained for that version, particularly about the time of the publication of the Gospel, their own writers, Philo and Josephus, are the most unexceptionable witnesses.

§ 9. FROM the conformity and peculiarity in language above taken notice of, some critics, in order to distinguish the idiom of the Septuagint and New Testament from that of common Greek, have termed it Hellenistic; not with exact propriety, I acknowledge, if we regard the etymology of the word, but with justness sufficient for the purpose of characterising the peculiar phraseology of those writings. The disputes raised on this subject by Salmasius and some others are scarcely worth naming, as they will, upon examination, all be found to terminate in mere disputes about words. I readily admit, that this speciality of diction is properly not a peculiar