apologist, "montre clairement qu'ils ont appris la langue grecque et qu'ils ne la possedent pas de droit divin et par inspiration, car ils l'ecrivent sans correction, en la surchargeant de locutions hebraiques."(1) In fact, as most critics point out, there never was a period at which a gift of foreign tongues was less necessary for intercourse with the civilized world, Greek being almost everywhere current. As regards the fifteen nations who are supposed to have been represented on this great occasion, Neander says: "It is certain that amongst the inhabitants of towns in Cappadocia, in Pontus, in Asia Minor, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Cyrene, and in the parts of Libya and Egypt peopled by Greek and Jewish colonies, the Greek language was in great part more current than the old national tongue. There remain, out of the whole catalogue of languages, at most the Persian, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. The more rhetorical than historical stamp of the narrative is evident."(2) This rhetorical character, as contradistinguished from sober history, is indeed painfully apparent throughout. The presence in Jerusalem of Jews, devout men "from every nation under heaven" is dramatically opportune, and thus representatives of the fifteen nations are prepared to appear in the house and hear their own languages in which they were born spoken in so supernatural, though useless, a manner by the brethren. They are all said to have been "confounded" at the phenomenon, and the writer adds, ii. 7f: "And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own {375}