his philosophical works he wrote on mathematics and astronomy, translated various foreign books into Greek (Ps.-Augustine: Soliloquia, &c.), did the Æneid into Homeric Hexameters; wrote a Compendium of Theology, and of course added to his many-sided collection of writings a treatise "On the Procession of the Holy Ghost" and a "Little Book against the Latins."
Bulgaris was an ardent Philhellene, and may be looked upon as the father of the modern Orthodox school. Nearly all the writers of the 19th century learned directly or indirectly from him. He was also the father of the much-discussed fashion of writing as near an imitation of old Attic Greek as possible, forming an artificial literary language to take the place of the common speech of his time.[1] Other Greek theologians of the 18th century were Elias Meniates († 1714), who wrote a work called "The Stumbling-block" (Πέτρα σκανδάλου = Rock of scandal, a delicate allusion to the name Peter), which is, one need hardly say, the Roman See, also Athanasios Komnenos Hypsilantes († c. 1789), Alexander Helladios, Meletios of Janina († 1714), who all cooked up again the everlasting arguments against the Filioque and our habits generally. We shall come to some writers of the 19th century later (p. 315). Meanwhile these few names will serve to show that Greek letters were not altogether dead during these ages, although their life lingered almost exclusively in anti-Catholic polemics.
- ↑ Modern Greek has gradually lost very many of the old inflections (future, optative, all duals, &c.); has made many forms regular (μεγάλος, μεγάλη, μεγάλου, εἶμαι, εἶσαι, εἶναι, κ.τ.λ.); has adopted any number of Turkish and Italian words (τουρέκι, a gun, λουλουδάκι, flower, σοφᾶς, sofa, κατσαρύλα, saucepan, &c.); and has recklessly simplified the grammar (nearly all prepositions with accusatives, &c.). The question still hugely agitated all over the Greek world is what to do with this tongue. There are three schools: (1) To restore Attic Greek and make classical compound words for new things (σιδηρόδρομος, railway, ἀτμόπλοιον, steamer); (2) to cast out the foreign words and leave the rest alone; (3) to leave it all alone, and use this modern dialect as a literary language. The Phanar has a tradition of very respectable Byzantine Greek, which may be compared to our Church Latin. So in Greece the porter talks to you in a language you must learn anew just as much as Turkish, the bishop talks like St. John Chrysostom, and the schoolmaster like Demosthenes. The parish priest wavers, but greatly tends to gravitate towards the porter. The classical work on new Greek philology is Hatzidakis: Einleitung in die neugriech. Gramm. Leipzig, 1892. For Bulgaris, see Kyriakos, iii. p. 143, seq.
