A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

And the Syriac you tell us, was that which is now so peculiarly called, but what the Assyriack was you tell us not, but only that when the Princes persuade Rabshakeh to speak [Greek or Hebrew] Aramith, he intended an Assyrian language that was not Syrian. The boys that grind colours in our Grammar Schools, laugh at these Mormoes. (8.) Neither do you know well what you say when you affirm that the Language of Christ, and his Apostles was the same that was ever since called the Syriac: for the very instance you give, manifests it to have been a different dialect from it; the words as recorded by the Evangelists being absolutely the same neither with the Hebrew, nor Targum, nor Syriac Translation of the Old Testament: That wherein we have the Translation of the Scripture, and which prevailed in the Eastern Church, being a peculiar Antiochian dialect of the old Aramaean Tongue. And that whole language called the Syriac peculiarly now, and whereof there were various dialects of old, seems to have had its beginning after the Jews return from their captivity, being but a degenerate mixture of the Hebrew and Chaldee; whereunto also after the prevalency of the Macedonian Empire many Greek word were admitted, and some Latin ones also afterwards. (9.) You advantage not your self by affirming that Assyria and Syria were several Kingdoms. For as Strabo will inform you, they were both originally called Syrian, and indeed were one and the same, until the more Eastern Provinces about Babylon obtaining their peculiar denominations, that part of Asia, which contains Comogena, Phoenicia, Palestine and ⟨p. 551⟩Coelosyria, became to be especially called Syria. Originally they were all Aramites as every one knows that can but read the Scripture in its Original Language.

And the Syriack you tell us, was that which is now so peculiarly called, but what the Assyriack was you tell us not, but only that when the Princes perswade Rabshakeh to speak 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 Aramith, he intended an Assyrian language that was not Syrian. The boys that grind colours in our Grammer Schools, laugh at these Mormoes. (8.) Neither do you know well what you say when you affirm that the Language of Christ, and his Apostles was the same that was ever since called the Syriack: for the very instance you give, manifests it to have been a different dialect from it; the words as recorded by the Evangelists being absolutely the same neither with the Hebrew, nor Targum, nor Syriack Translation of the Old Testament: That wherein we have the Translation of the Scripture, and which prevailed in the Eastern Church, being a peculiar Antiochian dialect of the old Aramaean Tongue. And that whole language called the Syriack peculiarly now, and whereof there were various dialects of old, seems to have had its beginning after the Jews return from their captivity, being but a degenerate mixture of the Hebrew and Chaldee; whereunto also after the prevalency of the Macedonian Empire many Greek word were admitted, and some Latine ones also afterwards. (9.) You advantage not your self by affirming that Assyria and Syria were several Kingdoms. For as Strabo will inform you, they were both originally called Syrian, and indeed were one and the same, until the more Eastern Provinces about Babylon obtaining their peculiar denominations, that part of Asia, which contains Comogena, Phaenicia, Palestina and