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It, indeed, could not have had them, as the Jewish Hellenistic Greek
could not be without them. How useful a word is 'theocracy'; what good
service it has rendered in presenting a certain idea clearly and
distinctly to the mind; yet where, except in the bosom of the same
Jewish Greek, could it have been born? [Footnote: We preside at its
birth in a passage of Josephus, _Con. Apion._ ii. 16.]
These difficulties, which were felt the most strongly when the thought
and feeling that had been at home in the Hebrew, the original language
of inspiration, needed to be transferred into Greek, reappeared, though
not in quite so aggravated a form, when that which had gradually woven
for itself in the Greek an adequate clothing, again demanded to find a
suitable garment in the Latin. An example of the difficulty, and of the
way in which the difficulty was ultimately overcome, will illustrate
this far better than long disquisitions. The classical language of
Greece had a word for 'saviour' which, though often degraded to
unworthy uses, bestowed as a title of honour not merely on the false
gods of heathendom, but sometimes on men, such as better deserved to be
styled 'destroyers' than 'saviours' of their fellows, was yet in itself
not unequal to the setting forth the central office and dignity of Him,
who came into the world to _save_ it. The word might be likened to some
profaned temple, which needed a new consecration, but not to be
abolished, and another built in its room.
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