Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 646

622 is

§97.

ORGANIC ARTICULATION

[Div. Ill

of little help in the reading of Calvin or Voetius.

the organic connection demands that the study

not limit

itself to

Hence

of Latin shall

the golden age of the classics, but that

it

shall follow the historical process in the language which, though nationally dead, is still alive in use. The importance of this does not appear to those to whom theology is a mere Science of Religion; but he who would study theology in

of the word, and thus continue the task begun by our older theologians, must begin by understand-

the real sense

ing them.

A

like

observation applies in part to

organically related to theology in three

Greek, which

ways

:

is

First, as the

language of old Hellas secondly, as the language of the LXX, of Flavins Josephus, etc., and New Testament; and thirdly, as the language of the Eastern Fathers, taken ;

their widest

in

sense.

As

a starting-point, therefore, the

knowledge of classic Greek is a necessity; then comes the knowledge of later Greek {kolv^)^ and more especially of the Syrian and Alexandrian, which come nearest to the language of the New Testament. Then follows the language of the New Testament itself, and finally that peculiar development attained by Greek in the Byzantine ChrisThey who pass on from Demosthenes to the tian world. Testament, as is the case with many in our times, without ever having a glimpse of one of the Eastern Fathers in the original, fall short in historic knowledge of Greek. Since

New

gymnasium is intended for young men of other faculties well, and is, therefore, not able to give a sufficiently broad

the as

introduction into this historical knowledge of the Greek language, academic propaedeutics ought to be directed to this

with an eye to theology, more than it has thus far been. Hebrew and Chaldee occupy a somewhat different position. As a language, the Arabic is linguistically rightly esteemed much more highly than Hebrew ; both because of its riches of forms and of the mighty world of thought to which it affords

an entrance.

Hebrew

lies

altogether outside the

circle of higher culture. If it is of great importance to every literator to be familiar with at least one language of the

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