132 A GLOSSARY OF LATER 



of the Greek Fathers. But, although a work of great research, it is far from being a 

 copious glossary of Patristic Greek. 



A complete lexicon of later and Byzantine Greek should contain all the words 

 (proper names not excepted), meanings, phrases, and idioms, which exclusively belong 

 to the language of the Roman, and, to the first two epochs of the Byzantine period. 

 With regard to the authors of the Alexandrian period, it may be remarked that, not- 

 withstanding their inferiority to the great masters of antiquity, they are, in a lexico- 

 graphical point of view, to be classed with them ; for it was not till Greece had lost its 

 national independence that corruptions of all kinds began to accumulate round its lan- 

 guage. And it may not be unimportant to add, that the scholars of the Roman period 

 were disposed to regard as forming part of the Canon of classical Greek authors, not 

 only Apollonius and Euphorion, but also Nicander, although the latter died eight 

 years after the subjugation of Greece.* 



As to the language of the Sejytuagint, it is the Macedonian-Attic of Alexandria, as 

 modified, or rather corrupted, by the Jewish inhabitants of that city.f Consequently 

 it cannot with any degree of propriety be regarded as a regularly developed Greek dia- 

 lect. It is very true that the Septuagint exerted an influence upon the Greek language 

 during the Roman and Byzantine periods ; but it is equally true that that influence 

 was not felt till after the Septuagint had become a sacred book with the Greeks. It is 

 obvious, therefore, that, although parts of it made their appearance as early as the third 

 century before Christ, its barbarisms, solecisms, and Hebraisms are not entitled to a 

 place in a lexicon for Homer, Pindar, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and the other early 

 writers of Greece. They can be tolerated only in a later and Byzantine Greek lexicon. 



The period of modern Greek begius with the first Crusade.J This being the case, it 

 is easy to see that words, meanings, phrases, and idioms, occurring for the first time in 

 authors of the last epoch of the Byzantine period, belong to a modern Greek diction- 

 ary.§ If it be said that many of these words were formed by scholars agreeably to the 



* QcTNTiL. 10, 1, 54 ApoUonius in ordinem a grammaticis datum non venit, quia Aristarchus atque Ari- 

 stophanes, poetarum judicium, neminem sui temporis in numerum redegerunt : non tamen contemnendum reddit 



opus aequali quadam mediocritate iWcajirfntm frustra sccuti Macer atque Virgilius ? Quid? Euphorio- 



nem transibimus? 



t Introduction, § 24. 



X Ibid. § 19. 



§ The reader should always bear in mind that the authors of the third epoch of the Byzantine period, as 

 also those of the Turkish period, are, with very few exceptions, entirely destitute of literary merit. They are 

 valuable chiefly on account of the historical information they contain. 



