3.] [Footnote 2: Matt.xiii.54, and following; John vii.

15.] It is not probable that Jesus knew Greek.

This language was very little spread in Judea beyond the classes who participated in the government, and the towns inhabited by pagans, like Caesarea.[1] The real mother tongue of Jesus was the Syrian dialect mixed with Hebrew, which was then spoken in Palestine.[2] Still less probably had he any knowledge of Greek culture.

This culture was proscribed by the doctors of Palestine, who included in the same malediction "he who rears swine, and he who teaches his son Greek science."[3] At all events it had not penetrated into little towns like Nazareth.

Notwithstanding the anathema of the doctors, some Jews, it is true, had already embraced the Hellenic culture.