The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1897-06-16
THE LANGUAGE OF CHRIST.
Tcnding to Show That 1t Wao

| tlI -FttN W
Arguments TcndIng to Show That 1t Was
Syriac or Ar"u:air.
Mrs. Agnes Sini!!,,i Lewis, the oTl-
entail scholar WHO not long ago dis
covered an ancient Gyriac text OF
the four gospels in a monastery at
Mount Sinai and translated il, on
tributes an article to - Century
in which she discusses tie qlicS-
ton, "What Language Did Christ
Speak?" While many scholars be-
lieve he spoke Greek, bcca"sH three
of the four gospels arc srl'..n to
have been written in tlirt lan%":Ge,
others believe he spoke aS:ritic
tongue, probably Arar,aic, which
was at that time the v~arnac':lu' of
Palestine, aid with this belief ks.
Lewis sympathize:j.
In the course Of this discussion
Mrs. Lewis brings out many points
of interest. Syriac, or Christian NJ
amaic, was the first language into
which tho New Testament was
translated, Aramaic not being Il cor
rupt form of Hebrew, a. many sup
pose, but a distinct language. Again,
Hebrew had ceased to be the Ian
guage of the common people before
Christ's advent. The rabbis spoke
to the common people il Aram"jc,
all the documents pertaining to law
| and business we're written in that
language, and even some of the
prayers of tho synagogue were
translated into it. The weight Of
evidence fayors the theory that
Paul used the language in writing
to the Romans, or at least thought
in it, and that the most interesting
| of our Lords discourses were deliy-
cred in it. One of the most impor-
tant of Mrs. Lewis arguments is
contained in the following illustra-
ton of her subject:
1--WE have, first of all, the various
Aramaic phrases actually embodied
in the Greek text as having been ut
tered by Il Lord, such as ephpha-
tina Che opened), talitha, cumi (maid-
en-, arise), where the word cumi
might be Hebrew or Syriac or Ara
bic. And the last despairing cry of
: III Lord on the cross, "Eloi, Eloi,
lama sabachthani2" is not translated
in the Sinaitic palimpsest, for the
good reason that it is a natural part
of the Syriac text.
"Take next the names of persons
and places in the New Testament.
The syriac word for son is bar, and
SO we have Bartholomew, Barabbas,
Bar Jesus, Bar-Jona, Barnabas, Bar
Timeus. Had Hebrew been the
spoken tongue these names would
have run Bartholomew, Ben-Jesus,
etc. We have also cepha "a stone,
feminine gender), Boanerges-that
is, B%eni-rogaz (sons Of thunder),
Sapphire (the beautifully, Thoma
(the twin), Martha (the 1nistress),
Tabitha (the gazellc>, Bethsaida
(house of fshing),N Nazareth (watch),
Gethsemane Gan oil press), Col
gotha (place of a skull), Aceldama
(the field of blood). 1t may as we'll
be explained that the final syllable
of most of these names, a, is a dis
tinctive syriac termination. The
words Mammon (Matthew vi, 24)
and raca (Matthew v, 22) and abba
are Syriac Also"
Mrs. Lewis cites many other con-
vincing indications that Christ spoke
in Syriac or Aramaic, the most of
which are too technical for use in
this connection. She has poured a
food of light upon a most abstruse
subject with the aid of her recent
important discoveries - abstruse,
first, for tho mysterious reason,
which probably no n will ever ex-
plain, that Christ did not set down
a single line in writing of his doc
trines or teachings, and, second, be-
cause no one took down those teach
ings, they having been written in
their present form from memory
years after his ascension. The dis
cussion of this question will engage
the attention of scholars, and many
interesting contributions to the lit
erature of the subject may be ex-
pected, especially from the new
point of view introduced by Mrs.
Lewis.