nation; the exploits, victories, and conquests of their ancestors; the lives and atchievements of their kings and heroes, prophets and reformers. Nay, more, the Scriptures might also be justly considered as a collection of the writings, both prosaic and poetical, of all the most eminent authors their country had produced. A copy of such a version was therefore, in every view we can take of it, an inestimable treasure to every Jew who understood Greek, and could not read the original. And hence we may easily conceive that the copies would soon be greatly multiplied, and widely scattered.

5. LET us attend to the consequences that would naturally follow. Wherever Greek was the mothertongue, this version would come to be used not only in private in Jewish houses, but also in public in their schools and synagogues, in the explanation of the weekly lessons from the Law and the Prophets. The style of it would consequently soon become the standard of language to them on religious subjects. Hence would arise a certain uniformity in phraseology and idiom among the Grecian Jews, wherever dispersed, in regard to their religion and sacred rites, whatever were the particular dialects which prevailed in the places of their residence, and were used by them in conversing on ordinary matters.

6. THAT there was, in the time of the Apostles, a distinction made between those Jews who used the Greek language, and the Hebrews, or those who spoke the language of Palestine and of the ter

3

ritory of Babylon, which they affected to call Hebrew; is manifest from the Acts of the Apostles. There 3 we are informed, that there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. That those Grecians were Jews, is evident from the history for this happened before Peter was specially called to preach the gospel to Cornelius and his family, who were the first fruits of the Gentiles to Christ. Besides, though the word Grecian made use of in our translation is synonymous with Greek, yet the term employed in the original is never applied in the New Testament to pagan Greeks, but solely to those Jews who had resided always or mostly in Grecian cities, and consequently whose common tongue was Greek. The Gentile Greeks are invariably called in Scripture E22nves, whereas the term used in the Έλληνες, place quoted is E22nviga, a word which even in classical authors does not mean Greeks, but imitators of the Greeks, or those who write or speak Greek; being a derivation from the word ελληνίζειν, to speak Greek, or imitate the Greeks. The term occurs only thrice in the New Testament, that is in two other passages of the Acts beside that now quoted. One of these is where we are told that Saul, also called Paul, after his conversion, being at Jerusalem, disputed with the Grecians, рos Tus E22nvisas, who went about to slay him. This also happened before the conversion of Cornelius, and

3 Acts, vi. 1, &c.

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consequently before the Gospel was preached to any Gentile but as at their festivals there was a general concourse of Jewish people at Jerusalem from all the parts of the world into which they were dispersed, a considerable number of those Hellenists or Grecizers, as in our idiom we should be apt to term them, must have been present on that occasion. It may be observed by the way, that the Syriac version, probably the oldest extant, which, in the two other passages, confounds 22niga with 22nves, here marks the distinction, rendering the former by periphrasis, agreeably to the sense above given, those Jews who knew Greek. The only other passage is where we are told, that some of those being Cypriots and Cyrenians, who were scattered abroad on the persecution that arose about Stephen, spake unto the Grecians (προς τις Ελληνιςας) at Antioch, preaching the Lord Jesus. Whether

this was before or after the baptism of Cornelius, recorded in the foregoing chapter, is not certain but one thing is certain, that it was before those disciples could know of that memorable event. Concerning the others who were in that dispersion, who were probably Hebrews, we are informed in the verse immediately preceding, that in all those places, Phenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, through which they went, they preached the word to none but Jews.

7. THE learned Basnage makes a principal handle of this passage for supporting an opinion, 5 Acts, xi. 20.

which had been advanced before by Beza, that by the Hellenists is meant the proselytes to Judaism, they being contrasted here not with the Hebrews, but with the Jews. Mr. Bowyer, on the contrary, thinks that, in the two former places referred to, the word Hellenists means proselytes; but in the last, where those so denominated are expressly distinguished from Jews, it can only mean Heathen Greeks. But, in answer to both, let it be observed that the word Jew was not always, in those days, used in the same sense. Most commonly indeed it referred to the nation, in which sense it was synonymous with Israelite. A man of Jewish extraction was not the less a Jew, because he was neither a native nor an inhabitant of Judea, and understood not a syllable of its language. Sometimes, however, it referred to the country, in which acceptation it be. longed particularly to the inhabitants of Judea or Palestine, including those neighbouring regions wherein the same tongue was spoken. That the Samaritans (though mortally hated as schismatics) were comprehended in this application of the term Jew, is evident from what we learn from the Acts, where we are informed of their being converted by Philip, and receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit by the hands of Peter, sometime before the conversion of Cornelius, the first fruits of the Gentiles to Christ. Nay sometimes, in a still more limited signification, it regarded only the inhabitants of the district be

Conjectures, Acts vi. 1.

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Acts, viii. 5, &c.

longing to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which had anciently constituted the kingdom of Judah. In this sense we understand the word as used by the Evangelist John, After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry (I8daia, Judea), because the Jews sought to kill him. Yet Galilee was a part of Judea in the larger and even more common acceptation of the word, and the Galileans, of whom were the Apostles, were, in every sense except this confined one, Jews as well as the others. The same distinction is made between Judea and Galilee by Matthew. It cannot be doubted therefore, that the term Jews in the passage under examination, ought to be understood in the second sense above mentioned, as equivalent to Hebrews.

A little attention to the case puts this conclusion beyond a doubt. Why should they, in preaching the Gospel, make a distinction between Jews and proselytes, persons who had received the seal of circumcision, and subjected themselves, without reserve, to the Mosaic yoke? The law itself made no distinction; nay, it expressly prohibited the people from making any. 1o When a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it, and he shall be as one that is born in the land; for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.

8

John, vii. 1.

9 Matth. ii. 22.

1o Exod. xii. 48, 49. See also Numb. xv. 14, 15, 16. 29.