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And to me the pleasure is doubled by the reflection that it is extremely probable that we have the actual terms, the ipsissima verba,[114.1] used by Christ. It was always supposed that Christ talked in Aramaic. Even Renan thought so. But now we know that the Galilean peasants, like the Irish peasants of our own day, were bilingual, and that Greek was the ordinary language of intercourse all over Palestine, as indeed all over the Eastern world. I never liked the idea that we only knew of Christ’s own words through a translation of a translation. It is a delight to me to think that as far as his conversation was concerned, Charmides[114.2] might have listened to him, and Socrates reasoned with him, and Plato understood him: that he really said ?γ? ε?μι ? ποιμ?ν ? καλó?:[114.3] that when he thought of the lilies of the field, and how they neither toil nor spin, his absolute expression was καταμ?θετε τ? κρ?να το? ?γρο? π?? α?ξ?νει? ο? κοπι? ο?δ? ν?θει,[114.4] and that his last word when he cried out “My life has been completed, has reached its fulfillment, has been perfected,” was exactly as St John tells us it was τετ?λεσται:[114.5] no more.
对于我，这愉悦又是双份的，因为心想极有可能我们读到基督所用的原话，他的ipsissima verba。从来都以为基督说的是阿拉姆语，就连勒南也这样想。可现在我们知道，加利利的农民，就像我们现在的爱尔兰农民一样，是操双语的，而那希腊语又是整个巴勒斯坦的一般交际语言，的确就像在整个东部地区那样。我向来就不喜欢那个观念，认为只能通过翻译的翻译来知道基督自己的话语。令我高兴的是，就他的谈话而言，查密迪斯也许听过他的话，苏格拉底同他理论过，柏拉图明白了他的话；他也当真用希腊语说过“我是好牧人”；当他想到野地里的百合花，它们不劳苦也不纺线，千真万确地用希腊语说了“你想野地里的百合花，怎么长起来，他也不劳苦，也不纺线”；而当他最后一句话喊出“我的生命完成了，成就了，圆满了”，这时用的确实就是约翰告诉我们的：τετ?λεσται —— “成了”，没多话。
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