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Age / Antiquity / Dating of Peshitta Aramaic
#5
6) Statements concerning the language of the NT writings from the Church Fathers:
Please note that these people mostly know "Hebrew" and the Hebrews from their Christian faith. Like the NT, many of them make no distinction between Aramaic and Hebrew in name.

Concerning the language of Paul's letters:
"He [Paul] being a Hebrew wrote in Hebrew, that is, his own tongue and most fluently while things which were eloquently written in Hebrew were more eloquently turned into Greek."
Jerome (380CE), Lives of Illustrious Men, Book V

Concerning the language (and authorship) of "Hebrews":
"The epistle to the Hebrews he asserts was written by Paul, to the Hebrews, in the Hebrew tongue; but that it was carefully translated by Luke, and published among the Greeks."
Clement of Alexandria, Hypotyposes (198-203CE), referred to by Eusebius in Eccl. Hist.6:14:2

"For as Paul had addressed the Hebrews in the language of his country; some say that the evangelist Luke, others that Clement, translated the epistle."
Eusebius, 315CE, Eccl. Hist. 3:38:2-3

Concerning the language of Matthew:
"Matthew composed the words in the Hebrew dialect, and each translated as he was able."
Papias, 150-170 CE, quoted by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 3:39

"Matthew also issued a written gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect."
Ireneus, 170 CE, Against Heresies 3:1

"The first is written according to Matthew, the same that was once a tax collector, but afterwards an emissary of Yeshua the Messiah, who having published it for the Jewish believers, wrote it in Hebrew."
Origen, 210 CE, quoted by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 6:25

"Matthew also, having first proclaimed the Gospel in Hebrew, when on the point of going also to the other nations, committed it to writing in his native tongue, and thus supplied the want of his presence to them by his writings."
Eusebius, 315 CE, Eccl. Hist. 3:24

"Pantaenus (...) penetrated as far as India, where it is reported that he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had been delivered before his arrival to some who had the knowledge of Messiah, to whom Bartholomew, one of the emissaries, as it is said, had proclaimed, and left them the writing of Matthew in Hebrew letters."
Eusebius, 315 CE, Eccl. Hist. 5:10

"They [the Nazarenes] have the Gospel according to Matthew quite complete in Hebrew, for this Gospel is certainly still preserved among them as it was first written, in Hebrew letters."
Epiphanius, 370CE, Panarion 29:9:4

"Matthew, who is also Levi, and from a tax collector came to be an emissary first of all evangelists composed a Gospel of Messiah in Judea in the Hebrew language and letters, for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed, who translated it into Greek is not sufficiently ascertained.
Furthermore, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea, which the martyr Pamphilus so diligently collected. I also was allowed by the Nazarenes who use this volume in the Syrian city of Borea to copy it. In which is to be remarked that, wherever the evangelist (...) makes use of the testimonies of the Old Scripture, he does not follow the authority of the seventy translators [The LXX], but that of the Hebrew."
Jerome, 380 C.E., Of Illustrious Men 3

"Pantaenus found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve emissaries, had there [India] preached the advent of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah according to the Gospel of Matthew, which was written in Hebrew letters, and which, on returning to Alexandria, he brought with him."
Jerome, 380 C.E., De Vir. 3:36

7) There is also the "Jerusalem Colophon", a statement found in a number of Greek Manuscripts (39, 20, 164, 215, 262, 300, 376, 428, 565, 686, 78, and 1071) that they were copied and corrected "from ancient manuscripts at Jerusalem". Though there is no language mentioned, it is possible that "ancient manuscripts at Jerusalem" was supposed to imply Hebrew / Aramaic texts.
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Re: Age / Antiquity / Dating of Peshitta Aramaic - by Andrej - 12-18-2014, 05:22 PM

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