Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/70

 48 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. also a very sad aspect. The introduction of the Erasmian absurdity was the death-blow to the knowledge of living Greek in Western Europe. Greek was only read, but no longer spoken since the Hellenists of the different countries Eras- mized each in his own manner; the fearful ca- cophony of Erasmus took away the charms except those which were left for the deaf and dumb. But even though the Greek existed only for the eye, for the deaf and dumb, it was still beautiful; even the Erasmian pronunciation did not prevent its being studied and its literature read. Still, it is remarkable that the perfectly arbitrary, senseless invention of a cranky pedant should have remained in force these three cen- turies. The attempts to justify it, composing a bulky literature, dating back to 1528, are all based on sophistry. While Englishmen and Frenchmen confessed that this pronunciation of Greek was really in- correct, and that they kept it up for convenience' sake, there .were until recently Germans who mounted the high horse and persuaded them- selves and their pupils that the Erasmian pro- nunciation was really the correct one. They took pains to invent scientific proofs of the cor- rectness of the Erasmian method.