Those who find it surprising, most reverend Father in God, that Paul the Apostle, who was a good linguist, should have written to the Romans in Greek rather than Latin, will wonder no more if they remember, first, that at that date the use of the Greek language was almost as widespread as the Roman rule, and secondly that the Romans themselves at one time had such a passion for Greek literature that it was held up to ridicule by the satirists. Scaevola in Lucilius,³ mocking Albutius as unusually pro-Greek, greets him with'Chaerepraetor at Athens,' and in Juvenal⁴...

After I had set my hand to a paraphrase on Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, I was looking round from time to time for some person to whom I could dedicate my work, since this practice has lasted from early times down to our own day. At that moment your devoted admirer Paschasius Berselius² brought me a letter from your Highness, which gave me a clear picture of an upright and lofty spirit, full worthy of your distinguished lineage, and of a fiery nature born for the study of that sublime philosophy which summons us to the contemplation of heavenly...