, 1886, vol. iii. p.
141. For the opinion of Gregory of Nyssa, see Benfey, Geschichte der
Sprachwissenschaft in Deutschland, Munchen, 1869, p. 179; and for the
passage cited, see Gregory of Nyssa in his Contra Eunomium, xii, in
Migne's Patr. Graeca, vol. ii, p. 1043. For St. Jerome, see his Epistle
XVIII, in Migne's Patr. Lat., vol. xxii, p. 365. For citation from St.
Augustine, see the City of God, Dod's translation, Edinburgh, 1871,
vol. ii, p. 122. For citation from Origen, see his Homily XI, cited by
Guichard in preface to L'Harmonie Etymologique, Paris, 1631, lib. xvi,
chap. xi. For absolutely convincing proofs that the Jews derived the
Babel and other legends of their sacred books fro the Chaldeans, see
George Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, passim; but especially for a
most candid though somewhat reluctant summing up, see p. 291.

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 centuries; but in the mediaeval
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 as to the divine origin
of these rabbinical additions to the text. To hesitate in believing that
these points were dotted virtually by the very hand of God himself came
to be considered a fearful heresy.

The series of battles between theology and science in the field
of comparative philology opened just on this point, apparently
so insignificant: the direct divine inspiration of the rabbinical
punctuation. The first to impugn this 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 orthodox ocean, and apparently left no trace.
For nearly three hundred 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 scientific truth
alive.

The Reformation, with its renewal of the literal study of the
Scriptures, and its transfer of all infallibility from