Page 149 - New English Book L

148

important among all the contents of the third Gospel is the
angelic hymn, which forms the topic of our present study
and contemplation.

This hymn, like all the contents of the New Testament,
is presented to us not in the original language in which it
was sung, but only in its Greek version; and God alone
knows the source from which our Evangelist copied,
translated, or simply narrated it from hearsay.

Is it possible that Jesus (pbuh) or his Apostles did not
leave a real and authentic Gospel in the language in which
it was revealed? If there were such a true Gospel, what
became of it? Who lost it? Was it destroyed? And by whom
and when? Was it ever translated into Greek of into another
foreign language? Why has not the Church preserved to us
the original text of the real Gospel, or its translation? If the
answer to these questions is in the negative, then we venture
to ask another series of questions of equal importance;
namely, Why did these Jewish Apostles and Evangelists
write not in their own language but all of them in the
Greek language? Where did the fisherman Shimon Kipha
(Simon Peter), Yohannan (John), Yá’qub (James) , and the
publican Mattai (Matthew) learn the Greek language in
order to write a series of “holy Scriptures”? If you say the
“Holy Ghost taught them,” you simply make yourselves
ridiculous. The Holy Ghost is not a teacher of grammar
and languages. It would require another Revelation to
expound the reason or wisdom why the Holy Ghost should
make a revelation in the Jewish language to an Israelite in
Nazareth, then cause it to be destroyed, and finally teach
half a dozen Jews the Greek tongue and inspire each one
to write in his own style and way a portion of the same
Revelation!

If it be argued that the Gospels and the Epistles were
written for the benefit of the Jews of Dispersion , who
knew the Greek language, we venture to inquire: What