Hellenistic Greek: Voice of the Empires, Sound of the Gospels

You never know what you'll find while reading through an article that a lettered Cambridge reverend wrote more than a hundred years ago.  I'm working on a final paper for my studies of Hellenistic Greek, the language disseminated by Alexander the Great, which the sages and the emperors and the peasants alike understood well for nearly a millennia--probably the most widely-known language ever (until the recent explosion of English).  Here's what James Hope Moulton said in 1909 about this language--the language of the New Testament--in a Cambridge publication, Essays on Some Biblical Questions of the Day: By Members of the University of Cambridge.

Literature that could inspire Shakespeare's creations, philosophy instinct with fervour and life, science and history that in faithful search for truth rivalled the masterpieces of antiquity, humour and satire that Aristophanes might be proud to own—all these we see in the books of the Hellenistic age. And then we find that this wonderful language, which we knew once as the refined dialect of a brilliant people inhabiting a mere corner of a small country, had become the world-speech of civilization. For one (and this one) period in history only, the curse of Babel seemed undone. Exhausted by generations of bloodshed, the world rested in peace under one firm government, and spoke one tongue, current even in Imperial Rome. And the Christian thinker looks on all this, and sees the finger of God. It was no blind chance that ordained the time of the Birth at Bethlehem. The ages had long been preparing for that royal visitation. The world was ready to understand those who came to speak in its own tongue the mighty works of God. So with the time came the message, and God's heralds went forth to their work, "having an eternal gospel, proclaim unto them that dwell on the earth, and unto every nation and tribe and tongue and people."