exceptions. This is specially the case with regard to those facts which are essential to the scheme of Christianity, and which all the Evangelists, so far as they were able, made a point of narrating. The testimony of John the Baptist for instance was much too important to be omitted by any of the four; and, above all, the facts relating to the Saviour's death and resurrection could not be left out. They all recognised that it was in order to die that Jesus came into the world, and each one accordingly gives a fuller account of the incidents which led up to and were connected with His crucifixion than of anything else in His career. And they all realised the importance of the Resurrection as the seal of God the Father's acceptance of His Son's Atoning Sacrifice, and as the convincing testimony to men of the truth of the Gospel. Therefore each Evangelist closes his narrative with a statement of facts which testify to the historical truth of that event.

Chapter VI

SUMMARY

HE evidence that most of the sayings of Christ recorded

THE evidence, Mark and Luke were spoken in Aramaic

may be summarised thus :

1. They are mostly addressed to popular audiences of unlearned people whose vernacular was almost certainly Aramaic. 2. They consist largely of parables or stories, for which Aramaic is a very suitable language.

3. They abound with Hebraistic or Aramaic idioms.

4. The diversities found in the reports in two or three Gospels of the same sayings can often be explained on the supposition that they are translations made by different persons of the same Aramaic original.

5. The preservation in one instance of the original Aramaic words, and our ascended Lord's use of that tongue in His call to Saul of Tarsus, prove that he sometimes spoke in Aramaic.

6. The ancient tradition that Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Aramaic can be best accounted for by supposing that although he actually wrote it in Greek, in doing so he made use of notes which he had previously written in Aramaic. The following is a summary of the arguments that our Lord's discourses in John were generally spoken in Greek:

1. They all appear to have been spoken either to educated men who must have understood Greek, or to His own disciples, some of whom certainly, and all of whom probably, also understood Greek.

2. A large proportion of them were spoken in the Temple to the Jewish authorities, whose ordinary language was Greek.

3. The difference between the Judean and Galilean dialects of Aramaic makes it likely that our Lord, who spoke Aramaic in the latter dialect, conversed in that language with the men of Jerusalem, who, when they used it at all, spoke in the former dialect.

4. The difference in their style from that of the sayings in the Synoptic Gospels, is best explained by the supposition that they were written in a different language.

5. Their clear logical character, and the absence of parables such as are found in the other Gospels is appropriate to the genius of the Greek language.

6. The purity of their diction and the absence of all traces of translation accords with this view.

7. The manifest accuracy of the reports forbids the supposition that they have been modified even by a translator's hand.

8. The question quoted John vii. 35: "Will He go unto the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?' implies the use by our Lord of the Greek language among those by whom the question was asked.

IF

Chapter VII

OUTCOME OF THE ARGUMENT

F the truth of that for which we have been contending be admitted, namely, that the sayings of our Lord reported in Matthew, Mark and Luke were as a rule spoken in Aramaic, whereas the discourses reported in John were spoken in Greek, it will no longer be possible to deny that the reports were written at the time the sayings and discourses were spoken, and that each of the Gospels consists mainly of notes taken at the time or immediately after the events happened. If this be not the case the problem is more puzzling than ever. No matter in what language the original reporters of Christ's sayings wrote, if they did not relate the facts until years or even months after they happened, there is no reason why they should have confined their narration mainly to events in which only one language was used. Persons who are in the habit of reading in more than one language will often remember what they have read and yet be unable to recollect in what language they read it. It is ideas that fix themselves in the memory; the words in which the ideas are conveyed soon fade away and are forgotten. The substance of Christ's sayings, whether spoken in Greek or Aramaic, would accordingly be stamped with equal clearness upon the disciples' minds, and when they repeated them orally, or committed them to writing, they would not discriminate between the languages in which they were spoken. If, however, the disciples were accustomed to report the sayings of Jesus as He spoke, or at the first leisure. moment thereafter, when the very words He used were fresh in their memory, all becomes plain.

It seems absolutely certain that all the disciples were able to speak and understand both Greek and Aramaic, and it is probable that several were able also to write in both languages. It is true that Dr. T. K. Abbott, in his work "On the Original Texts of the Old and New Testaments" maintains that "the Apostles were able to speak Greek fluently and to write it, and that it is not likely that they had equal command over any other language." But a high authority, Professor Marcus Dods, while admitting the correctness of this view so far as it affirms a general knowledge of Greek, considers that Dr. Abbott "underrates the likelihood of men in the circumstances of the Apostles being bi-lingual," and adds, "Had he been writing in Scotland instead of in Ireland, he would probably have come to a different conclusion and allowed them a knowledge of Aramaic as well." But whilst the evidence is strong that Professor Dods' opinion is the correct one, it is very unlikely that any one of the disciples could write so swiftly in both Aramaic and Greek as to be able to report at the moment the utterances of a speaker in either language indifferently.

For the two languages are as unlike to one another as possible. Aramaic abounds in aspirates and gutturals, whereas in Greek there are no gutturals, only the two breathings used in modern European speech. The pronunciation of the two was therefore entirely different. But to a reporter the pronunciation would be the least part of the difficulty. In Aramaic there are twenty-two letters, none of which are vowels. In Greek there are twenty-four letters, including five vowels. The shapes of the letters are different. And to complete the contrast, the writing runs in contrary ways across the page. Aramaic is written from right to left like the verses of Lars Porsena's prophets :

"Traced from the right on linen white,

By mighty seers of yore."

Greek, of course, is written from left to right.

A man might be well able to write in both these languages; but to write so rapidly as to be able to report in both would