ificant that this section disappeared from the Margarita in the
following editions; but this disappearence is easily understood when we
recall the fact that Gregory Reysch, its author, having become one
of the Papal Commission to judge Reuchlin in his quarrel with the
Dominicans, thought it prudent to side with the latter, and therefore,
doubtless, considered it wise to suppress all evidence of Reuchlin's
influence upon his beliefs. All the other editions of the Margarita in
my possession are content with teaching, under the head of the Alphabet,
that the Hebrew letters were invented by Adam. On Luther's view of
the words "God said," see Farrar, Language and Languages. For a most
valuable statement regarding the clashing opinions at the Reformation,
see Max Muller, as above, lecture iv, p. 132. For the prevailing view
among the Reformers, see Calovius, vol. i, p. 484, and Thulock, The
Doctrine of Inspiration, in Theolog. Essays, Boston, 1867. Both Muller
and Benfey note, as especially important, the difference between the
Church view and the ancient heathen view regarding "barbarians." See
Muller, as above, lecture iv, p. 127, and Benfey, as above, pp. 170 et
seq. For a very remarkable list of Bibles printed at an early period,
see Benfey, p. 569. On the attempts to trace all words back to Hebrew
roots, see Sayce, Introduction to the Science of Language, chap. vi. For
Gesner, see his Mithridates (de differentiis linguarum), Zurich, 1555.
For a similar attempt to prove that Italian was also derived from
Hebrew, see Giambullari, cited in Garlanda, p. 174. For Fulke, see
the Parker Society's Publications, 1848, p. 224. For Whitaker, see his
Disputation on Holy Scripture in the same series, pp. 112-114.

This sacred theory entered the seventeenth century in full force, and
for a time swept everything before it. Eminent commentators, Catholic
and Protestant, accepted and developed it.

Great prelates, Catholic and Protestant, stood guard over it, favouring
those who supported it, doing their best to destroy those who would
modify it.

In 1606 Stephen Guichard built new buttresses for it in Catholic France.
He explains in his preface that his intention is "to make the reader see
in the Hebrew word not only the Greek and Latin, but also the Italian,
the Spanish, the French, the German, the Flemish, the English, and many
others from all languages." As the merest tyro in philology can now see,
the great difficulty that Guich