PREFACE

TO

THE FIRST EDITION.

ABOUT seven years ago was published an Hebrew and English Lexicon, with a Grammar prefixed; and I must with gratitude acknowledge that the favourable reception given by the public to that work has been a considerable support to me in going through the following laborious performance; the general design of which is to facilitate an accurate and critical knowledge of the Greek Scriptures of the New Testament to all those who understand English.

If we consider how long the Reformation has been established among us, and reflect that the Church of England has always professed the highest regard for both the volumes of the inspired writings, it may appear justly surprising that the attainment of the languages, in which those sacred books were originally penned, has not been long ago made as easy as possible to English Protestants; and it is still more astonishing that the very first entrance on studies so delightful, and so important, has been kept in a great measure barred against common Christians, by requiring, as a postulatum for their admittance, that they be previously acquainted with Latin.

As a sincere friend to sound Protestantism, in contradistinction, I mean, from the abominable errors and superstitions of popery on the one hand, and from the unscriptural, absurd, and wicked reveries of the enthusiastic, self-illuminated sects on the other, I could wish it might be seriously weighed on the present occasion, whether the extraordinary respect still shown by Protestant nations to the Roman, in preference to the sacred Hebrew and Greek tongues, be not in truth a noxious relic of popery. Since the time and pains which youth commonly spend on a language of such real difficulty as the Latin, might, with the assistance of proper Grammars and Lexicons, be abundantly sufficient for their instruction in the Hebrew of the Old, and in the Greek of the New Testament, and might enable them to read, in their original purity, those divine writings, on which their profession as Protestants, and, what is of yet greater moment, their faith and hope as Christians,

That our country has, from the times of the Reformation down to this day, been blessed with many learned and pious men, will hardly be disputed by any who impartially reflect on the history of literature and religion among us; and yet it is equally certain that few, very few, have endeavoured to introduce their countrymen to a direct acquaintance with the languages in which the Sacred Oracles were at first delivered. What poor assistance has till of very late years been offered to the mere English Protestant for enabling him to understand the original of the Old Testament, it is not my present business particularly to declare: with regard to the New, indeed, somewhat more has been attempted. I have now before me a small octavo, entitled, "A Greek-English Lexicon, containing the Derivations and various Significations of all the Words in the New Testament, &c., by T. C., late of C. C. C., in Oxford: London, printed in 1658." Who was intended by the initials T. C. I know not; but in Calamy's Abridgement of Baxter's Life, p. 188, it is said, that Mr. Joseph Caryl, author of "An Exposition, with Practical Observations, on the Book of Job," had a hand in the work just mentioned. But it is the less wonderful that the editor, whoever he was, did not choose to put his name at length to the title-page of this Lexicon, since it is, in truth, only an abridged translation of Pasor's; which material circumstance, however, the translator has not been ingenuous enough to acknowledge, nor, so far as I can find, has ever once mentioned Pasor's name. At the end of the Lexicon, besides a Greek and English Index, and a grammatical explanation of the second chapter of Romans, are added an English Translation of Pasor on the Greek Dialects of the New Testament, and another of the common Greek Grammar. On the whole, as this Lexicon has most of the excellences of Pasor's, which is no doubt a valuable work, so it cannot be denied that it has likewise all its imperfections, and particularly that very considerable one which arises from ranging the Greek words, not alphabetically, but under their respective roots; a method which must to a beginner occasion a great deal of unnecessary trouble. But the most remarkable work of this kind furnished by the last century is Symson's Lexicon and Concordance, printed likewise in 1658, in a small folio, under the titles of "Lexicon Anglo-Græco-Latinum Novi Testamenti,” &c., and of “Η ΤΗΣ ΚΑΙΝΗΣ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗΣ ΣΥΜΦΩΝΙΑ, or An Alphabetical Concordance of all the Greek Words contained in the New Testament, by Andrew Symson;" a performance this, which, whilst it exhibits the prodigious labour of its author, can give one no very high opinion of his genius or skill in the art of instruction. If, indeed, the method and ingenuity of this writer had been proportionable to his industry, one might, I think, almost affirm, that he would have rendered all future Greek and English Lexicons to the New Testament in a great measure superfluous; but by injudiciously making the English translation the basis of his work, and by separating the etymological part of the Greek from the explanatory, he has rendered his book in a manner useless to the young scholar, and, in truth, hardly manageable by any but a person of uncommon application.

After the greater part of the following sheets had passed through the press, I got a sight of Dr. John Williams's "Concordance to the Greek Testament, with the English Version to each Word," printed in 1767; of which I shall only observe, that the Doctor's method is so concise, and his plan so very different from mine, that, had his Concordance been published sooner, I could have derived no great assistance from it.

The above-mentioned are all the English Lexicons to the Greek Testament that I can find to have been yet published; and as I have freely and impartially delivered my sentiments concerning them, it may be reasonably expected that I should now give some account of my own work.

Proper names then being excepted, (of which, however, I have inserted some of the principal,) the reader will here find all the words which occur in the New Testament, whether Greek, Oriental, or Latin, placed in alphabetical order, together with the gender and genitive cases of substantives, and the terminations of adjectives, which respectively denote the manner in which they are declined. As to the verbs, I had once some thoughts of adding the first futures, perfects, and other principal tenses, as Schrevelius has done, but, upon further consideration, judged it would be more for the benefit of the learner, whenever he was at a loss for the tenses of a verb, carefully to attend to its characteristic, and then to have immediate recourse to the Grammar, where, I hope, he will rarely fail of meeting with full information.

I have further endeavoured accurately to distinguish the primitive from the derived words, and that the learner may instantly, by a glance of his eye, discern the one from the other, the former are printed in capitals', the latter in small letters. By primitive words are meant such whose derivation can be fairly traced no farther in the Greek; and by derivatives, those that are plainly deducible from some other more simple word, or words, in that language. It must be confessed, that etymological writers have, by their forced and whimsical derivations, drawn upon themselves part of that contempt which has been so liberally poured upon them; and as to the Greek Lexicographers in particular, nothing has run them into such risible absurdities as their attempting to assign Greek derivations to primitive words of that tongue. It were no difficult matter to produce instances of this sort from most of the Lexicons hitherto published, but the learned reader will easily recollect enow; and, for my own part, I very willingly forbear to expose men who, with all their mistakes, have deserved well of learning and of religion, to the petulancy of ignorance and the contempt of fools. The truth of the case is plainly this, that whatever were the nature of that confusion at Babel, yet it is as evident as any matter of fact can be, that the traces of great numbers of Hebrew words are preserved not only in the Greek and Latin, but also in the various languages which are still spoken in the world, and particularly in the Northern' tongues, where one should least expect to find them and in relation to the Greek in particular, I will venture to add, after long attention to the subject, that almost all the Greek primitives, which virtually include the whole language, may be naturally and

1 N.B. The Oriental and Latin words which occur in the New Testament are likewise printed in capitals, since they also ought to be considered as primitives with respect to the Greek. 2 See Thomassin. Præfat. in Glossarium Hebraicum, pars iv. § v. pp. 96, 97.

3 That what I have above said may not be deemed a novel opinion, I think proper to remark, that the learned author of the Port-Royal Grammar, Preface, p. 8. edit. Nugent, speaking of the Hebrew, says, it "is the most ancient of all languages, from whence the Greek itself derives its origin." And the writers of the Universal History, vol. xvi. p. 53, 8vo edit., express themselves thus: "That the most ancient Greek tongue approached much nearer the Eastern languages than those dialects of it used by even the oldest Greek classics, appears from the obsolete radices of that tongue, which generally discover a near relation to the East. The proximity of the earliest Greek language to the Oriental tongues was well known to Isaac Casaubon and Erpenius, and may be so to any who examines the Greek roots with proper attention." See also the learned

easily deduced from the Hebrew. This, if I am not greatly mistaken, I have demonstrated in the ensuing Lexicon with respect to such primitives1 as are used in the New Testament; and these, it must be observed, comprehend a very large part of all the radicals in the Greek language. And though I am far from presuming that in such a number of derivations no oversights have escaped me, and have proposed some with a declared doubtfulness of their propriety, yet it is not a few mistakes,

quas aut incuria fudit,

Aut humana parum cavit natura,

that can, with any equitable judge, invalidate the general truth which I have endeavoured to establish on the evidence of many plain and indisputable particulars.

By the Greek primitives being thus throughout referred to their Hebrew roots, the relation between those two languages is clearly shown; and I cannot but hope this part of my work may both prove a recommendation of it to those who already understand Hebrew, and incite others to undertake the easy task of acquainting themselves with the rudiments of that original tongue.

When the primitive words in Greek are once settled, it is no difficult matter for a person, tolerably skilled in the language, to refer the derivatives and compounds to their respective radicals. Here, indeed, former Lexicon-writers have contributed ample assistance, and I have scarcely ever seen reason to differ from them all in this branch of our business.

Etymology, however, is but a small part of the Lexicographer's task. To assign the primary sense of every radical and derived word, and thence to arrange in a regular order the several consequential senses, and to support these by apposite citations or references, explaining likewise, in their proper places, the various phrases and idioms of the language-Hоc opus, HIC labor est; in the particulars just mentioned consists the main difficulty of writing a Lexicon, and by the manner in which they are executed must its merit or demerit be principally determined. All I can say for myself in these respects is, that I have honestly and conscientiously done my best; nor have I knowingly and wilfully misrepresented a single word or expression, nor paid a regard to the opinions of any man, or number of men, whatever, further than they appeared to me agreeable to the Sacred Oracles, and to the analogy of the Greek tongue.

Where more senses than one are assigned to a word, these are distinctly placed in several paragraphs, with the Roman, and in some cases, with the common, numeral figures prefixed; and every sense, which occurs in the New Testament, is authorized by citing or referring to the passage, or passages, where the word is so applied. This method, at the same time that it presents the more advanced scholar with the evidence on which each particular meaning is attributed to every word, will, I doubt not, be also found by experience to conduce greatly to the ease and advantage of the beginner. At least it seems to me far preferable to that followed

Gale's Court of the Gentiles, pt. i. book i. ch. 12. entitled "European Languages, especially the Greek and Latin, from the Hebrew." [Vitringa, Observ. Sacr. lib. i. cap. vii. and Dr. Greg. Sharpe's Seventh Letter on learning the Hebrew Language, and his Hebrew Lexicon and Index.] 1 Of these, however, I would be understood to except some few which are formed from the sound, that is, immediately from nature.

by Mintert and others, of huddling the various senses of a word together, and leaving the learner to assign the distinct meaning of it in a particular passage as he can. On the other hand, I have endeavoured to avoid a fault which, I think, Stockius's over-diligence has sometimes betrayed him into, namely, of multiplying the meanings of words too much by divisions and sub-divisions, which, I apprehand, tend rather to perplex than to instruct.

Among the various attacks that have been, of late years, made upon Divine Revelation by open or disguised infidels, it is not to be wondered that the style of the inspired penmen of the New Testament has not escaped their malignity, and it must be owned that some well-meaning Christian writers have undesignedly contributed to propagate and confirm the notion of its barbarousness, by calling many forms of expression Hebraisms, which do indeed agree with the Hebrew idiom, but which are also found in the purest of the Greek classics, who cannot be supposed to have had any direct acquaintance with the Hebrew tongue. Numerous instances of such phrases are given in the course of the following work: and to illustrate this subject a little further, I would beg the reader's attention to the three following observations. First, that in the apostolic age Greek' was the most universally spoken and understood of any language upon earth: but secondly, that in all the Eastern parts of the world it had undoubtedly received a strong tincture from the Hebrew and Oriental tongues: and lastly, that the books of the New Testament were written not only for the benefit of this or that particular Church, or people, but of the whole world, both Jews and Gentiles. Such being, in the time of the apostles, the real state of the Greek language, and of mankind in respect to it and to the Evangelical writings, we may defy the utmost wit and malice of the enemies of God's Revelation to point out a wiser method of communicating the Scriptures of the New Testament to the world, than that which the Holy Spirit has actually employed, namely, by causing those Divine Oracles to be penned in such a Greek style, as, at the same time that it might in general be understood by every man who was acquainted with the Greek language, was peculiarly conformable to the idiom of the Jews and of the Eastern nations; and the adorable propriety of this latter circumstance will appear still more evident, if we reflect that in the apostles' days the world, both Jewish and heathen', had been for nearly three hundred years in possession of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament [at least of the Pentateuch]; the Greek of which translation did likewise greatly abound in Hebrew and Oriental forms of expression, many of which are adopted by the Evangelical writers.

Let us suppose that a person whose native language was Greek, and who had read some of the best Greek authors, but was entirely ignorant of the Eastern tongues, had met with some or all of the sacred books of the New Testament soon after their publication: the principal difficulty, I apprehend, which one thus qualified would find in understanding their style, would have arisen, not from the

1 Thus, about sixty years before Christ, Cicero tells a Roman audience, that “Greek was read among almost all nations, whilst Latin was confined within its own narrow limits. Græca leguntur in omnibus ferè gentibus, Latina suis finibus exiguis sanè continentur." Pro Archiâ Poetâ, § 10. edit. Gruter.

2 [See Whitaker's Origin of Arianism, p. 213.]