NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 295 



earth originated from it at the dispersion attending the destruc- 

 tion of the Tower of Babel.* 



This idea threw out roots and branches in every direction, 

 and so developed ever into new and strong forms. As all scholars 

 now know, the vowel points in the Hebrew language were not 

 adopted until at some period between the second and tenth cent- 

 uries ; but in the early Church they soon came to be considered 

 as part of the great miracle as the work of the right hand of 

 the Almighty ; and never until the eighteenth century was there 

 any doubt allowed about the divine origin of these rabbinical 

 additions to the text. To hesitate in believing that these points 

 were dotted by the very hand of God himself came to be con- 

 sidered a fearful heresy. 



The series of battles between Theology and Science in the field 

 of comparative philology opened just on this little point, appar- 

 ently so insignificant the direct divine inspiration of the rab- 

 binical punctuation. The first to impugn the divine origin of 

 these vocal points and accents appears to have been a Spanish 

 monk, Raymundus Martinus, in his Pugio Fidei, or Poniard of 

 the Faith, which he put forth in the thirteenth century. But 

 he and his doctrine disappeared beneath the waves of the ortho- 

 dox ocean, and apparently left no trace. For nearly three hun- 

 dred years longer the full sacred theory held its ground ; but 

 about the opening of the sixteenth century another glimpse of 

 the truth was given by a Jew, Elias Levita, and this seems to 

 have had some little effect, at least in keeping the germ of scien- 

 tific truth alive. 



The Reformation, with its renewal of the literal study of the 

 Scriptures, and its transfer of all infallibility from the Church 

 and the Papacy to the letter of the sacred books, did not abate 

 but rather intensified for a time the devotion of Christendom to 

 this sacred theory of language. Only on this one question the 

 origin of the Hebrew points was there any controversy, and this 

 waxed hot. It began to be especially noted that these vowel 

 points in the Hebrew Bible seemed unknown to St. Jerome and 

 his compeers ; and on this ground, supported by a few other au- 



* For Lucretius's statement, see the De Rerum Natura, lib. v, Monro's edition, with 

 translation, Cambridge, 1886, vol. iii, p. 141. For the opinion of Gregory of Nyssa, see 

 Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachwissensehaft in Deutschland, Miinchen, 1869; p. 179; and 

 for the passage cited, see Gregory of Nyssa in his Contra Eunomium, xii, Patr. Graeca, 

 Paris, 1858, vol. ii, p. 1043. For St. Jerome, see the Epistle, xviii, p. 365, Migne, tome 

 xxii, Paris, 1842. For citation from St. Augustine, see the City of God, Dod's translation, 

 Edinburgh, 1871, vol. ii, p. 122. For citation from Origen, see Ilomily xi, cited by Guichard 

 in preface to l'Harmonie etymologique, Paris, 1631, lib. xvi, c. xi. For absolutely con- 

 vincing proofs that the Jews derived the Babel and other legends of their sacred books 

 from the Chaldeans, see George Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, passim ; but espe- 

 cially for a most candid though evidently somewhat reluctant summing up, see page 291. 



