In some places in the south of Italy they still read the Gospels in Greek on certain festivals; and I once heard this reading, but cannot now remember where. I do not think the congregation understood a word of it, but they mostly put on the expression of connoisseurs when sampling a rare wine. In ancient times there was a ritual of that sort at Pæstum--Athenæos quotes an account of it (XIV. 31) from one of the lost works of Aristoxenos of Tarentum about 300 B.C. The descendants of the old Greek settlers had become ‘barbarians,’ that is to say, they had adopted the manners and customs and the language of their neighbours there; but once a year they had a day of lamentation on which they spoke Greek words in memory of the past. I have seen something like that in Jerusalem, at the Place of Wailing at the foot of the great wall. Jews go there to wail and pray; and I was told that many of them did not know the meaning of the Hebrew words they used.
Whether it is understandable or not, the English of the Bible is very fine indeed; but not, I think, so perfect as people generally say. It is difficult to judge, as it has now become a standard, like the English of Shakespeare’s plays. Ben Jonson thought that some of Shakespeare’s lines might be improved; and he was a good judge. People now think the weakest lines superb; and they admire the Bible also without discrimination.
There is no virtue in using a language that is ‘understanded of the people,’ if it is used for saying things that will be misinterpreted. In modern English ‘virgin’ means ‘virgo intacta,’ but that is not the meaning of ‘almah’ in the Hebrew of Isaiah, VII. 14. Every schoolboy knows (to his cost) that ‘deum’ is accusative, not vocative; and _Te Deum_ is mistranslated--the older part may be heretical or even pagan. There are hundreds and thousands of these mistranslations and misinterpretations and statements that are unintelligible without long explanation. Readers very often fail to see the meaning of it all, and sometimes will not face the meaning when it is quite clear.
No doubt, Scripture is taught in every school; but there are many ways of teaching it. Lustleigh has a County Council school, and the Scripture teaching is regulated by a County Council syllabus. The syllabus says what things the children are to read, and what they are to learn by heart; and when people grumble at the Education Rate, I remind them that every well-taught child in Devon can say the names of the Ten Plagues of Egypt as glibly as a parrot. And then, of course, they feel that they are getting value for their money.