But how then, you will say, shall we gain a clear and perfect intelligence of such particulars? Why in the way, which common sense suggests; by inquiring, if we are able, what the precise meaning is of those terms of the original language, to which the translated terms are thus imperfectly correspondent. And if this be an inconvenience, ’tis an inconvenience necessarily attending every translation in the world, in which a writer would express the mixed modes denoted by the words of any other. For supposing the Greek tongue, infused by divine inspiration into the sacred writers, to have been that of Plato or Demosthenes himself, you will hardly pretend that it could have furnished them with Greek terms perfectly expressive of such compound ideas as certain Syriac or Hebrew terms expressed, and of which their subject obliged them to give, as far as the nature of the case would permit, clear intelligence. So that I cannot for my life comprehend the drift of that short question, Shall we always find correspondent terms in a foreign language? or, the pertinence of your learned comment on the text of Cicero’s letter to Servius.
I am sensible indeed, that, if the terms only of the new language were divinely infused, these, whether perfectly correspondent or not, would be insufficient of themselves to give clear intelligence. But the Bishop supposes more than this to be infused; for, what was inspired, he tells us, was the terms, TOGETHER with that grammatic congruity which is dependent thereon. Now this knowledge of the grammatic congruity of any tongue, superadded to a knowledge of its terms, would methinks enable a writer to express himself in it, for the most part, intelligibly.
I confess, the Bishop speaks—of fixing the terms or single words ONLY, and their signification, in the memory—But then he does not mean to exclude the grammatic congruity in the use of them, which, as we have seen, he expressly requires in the very same paragraph, but merely to expose the notion of the phrases and idioms being required, too. His Lordship speaks of the terms, or single words ONLY, in opposition to phrases and idioms: you seem to speak of terms, or single words ONLY, in opposition to systematic congruity.
I say, you seem so to speak: for, otherwise, I know not what to make of all you say concerning the insufficiency of the terms only of any language to give intelligence. And yet, in what follows, you seem to do justice to the Bishop, and to admit that, besides the terms, a grammatic congruity in the use of them was divinely inspired. For you go on to observe, “That the real purport of almost every sentence, in every language, is not to be learned from the signification of detached words, and their grammatical congruity, even where their signification may be expressed by correspondent words in another language[137].”
And here, Sir, your learning expatiates through several pages: the purpose of all which is to shew, that, if the terms of one language, though congruously used, be strictly adapted to the idiom of another, still they would give no intelligence, or at least a very obscure one; as you endeavour to prove by a decent instance taken from your countryman, Swift, in his dotages; and another, given by yourself in a literal version of a long passage of a sacred writer. It is true, in this last instance, you do not confine yourself to the strict observance of grammatic congruity. If you had done this, it would have appeared, from your own instance, that intelligence might have been given, and with tolerable clearness too, even in a literal version.
But be it allowed, that, if the terms of one language, even though a congruous construction be observed, be constantly and strictly adapted to the idioms of another, the expression will still, many times, be very dark and obscure: how is this obscurity to be prevented? Take what language you will for the conveyance instruction, it will be necessary for the reader or hearer to gain a competent knowledge of its idioms and phraseology, before he can receive the full benefit of it. So that, unless there had been a language in the world, native to all nations, and in the strictest sense of the word universal, I see not how inspiration itself could remedy this inconvenience. Suppose, as I said before, that the inspired language in which the Apostles wrote had been the purest Greek, still its idiomatic phraseology had been as strange and obscure to all such to whom that language was not native, as the Syriac or Hebrew idioms, by which the Apostolic Greek is now supposed to be so much darkened.
I conclude upon the whole, that nothing you have said overturns, or so much as affects, the learned Prelate’s notion of divine inspiration, as conveying only the terms and single words of one language, corresponding to those of another, together with that grammatic congruity in the use of them which is dependant thereon. This first and grand principle, as you call it, of the Bishop’s new theory, is such, you say, as no critic or grammarian can admit[138]. On the contrary, I must presume to think, because I have now shewn, that no critic or grammarian, who deserves the name, can reasonably object to this principle, as it allows all that is necessary to be supposed of an inspired language, its sufficiency to give clear intelligence: so clear, that, had the idioms of the new language been inspired too, it could not, in the general view of Providence, who intended this intelligence for the use of all people and languages, have been clearer.
But your unfavourable sentiment of the Bishop’s principle arises from your misconception of the circumstances, abilities, and qualifications of the Apostles, when they addressed themselves to the work of their ministry, and especially to the work of composing books for the instruction of the faithful in this originally inspired language.
When the Greek language was first infused, it would, no doubt, be full of their native phrases, or rather it would be wholly and entirely adapted to the Hebrew or Syriac idioms. This would render their expression somewhat dark and obscure to their Grecian hearers. But then it would be intelligible enough to those to whom they first and principally addressed themselves, the Hellenistic Jews, who, though they understood Greek best, were generally no strangers to the Hebrew idiom.
Further still, though this Hebrew-Greek language was all that was originally infused into the Apostles, nothing hinders but that they might, in the ordinary way, improve themselves in the Greek tongue, and superadd to their inspired knowledge whatever they could acquire, besides, by their conversation with the native Greeks, and the study of their language. For, though it can hardly be imagined, as the Bishop says, that the inspired writers had cultivated their knowledge of the language on the principles of the Grecian eloquence[139], that is, had formed and perfected their style by an anxious and critical attention to the rules and practice of the Greek rhetors, yet we need not conclude that they wholly neglected to improve themselves in the knowledge and use of this new language. So that, by the time they turned themselves to the Gentiles, and still more by the time they applied themselves to pen the books of the N. T. they might be tolerable masters even of the peculiar phraseology of the Greek tongue, and might be able to adapt it, in good measure, to the Greek idioms.