alone pure and unmixed, all the rest are much mixed, for there is none which has not some words derived and corrupted from Hebrew."
Typical, as we approach the end of the sixteenth century, are the utterances of two of the most noted English divines: First of these may be mentioned Dr. William Fulke, Master of Pembroke Hall, in the University of Cambridge. In his Discovery of the Dangerous Rock of the Romish Church, published in 1580, he speaks of "the Hebrew tongue, . . . the first tongue of the world, and for the excellency thereof called 'the holy tongue.'"
Yet more strong, eight years later, was another eminent divine, Dr. William Whitaker, Regius Professor of Divinity and Master of St. John's College at Cambridge. In his Disputation on Holy Scripture, first printed in 1588, he says: "The Hebrew is the most ancient of all languages, and was that which alone prevailed in the world before the Deluge and the erection of the Tower of Babel. For it was this which Adam used and all men before the Flood, as is manifest from the Scriptures, as the Fathers testify." He then proceeds to quote passages on this subject from St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and others. He cites St. Chrysostom in support of the statement that "God himself showed the model and method of writing when he delivered the Law written by his own finger to Moses."[1]
- ↑ For the whole scriptural argument, embracing the various text's on which the Sacred Science of Philology was founded, with the use made of such texts, see Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft in Deutschland, München, 1869, pp. 22-26. As to the origin of the vowel-points, see Benfey, as above: he holds that they began to be inserted in the second, and that the process lasted until about the tenth century a. d. For Raymundus and his Pugio Fidei, see G. L. Bauer, Prolegomena to his Revision of Glassius's Philologia Sacra, Leipsic, 1795; see especially pp. 8-14, in tome ii of the work. For Zwingli, see Traef. in Apol. comp. Jesaiæ (Opera iii): Cf. e. g. Morinus, De Lingua primæva, p. 447. For Marini, see his Area Noe: Thesaurus, Linguæ Sanctæ, Venet., 1593, and especially the preface. For general account of Capellus, see G. L. Bauer, in his Prolegomena, as above, Leipsic, 1795, vol. ii, pp. 8-14. His Arcanum Premetationis Revelatum was brought out at Leyden in 1624; his Critica Sacra ten years later. See on Capellus and Swiss theologucs, Wolfius, Bibliotheca Nebr., tome ii, p. 27. For the struggle, see Schnedermann, Die Controverse des Ludovicus Capellus mit dem Buxtofen, Leipsic, 1879: cited in article Hebrew, in Encyclopædia Britannica. For Wasmuth, see his Vindiciæ Sanctæ Hebraicæ Scripturæ, Rostock, 1664. For Reuchlin, see the dedicatory preface to his Rudimenta Hebraica, Pforzheim, 1506, folio, in which he speaks of the,l in divina scriptura dicendi genus, quale os Dei locutum est." The statement in the Margarita Philosophica as to Hebrew is doubtless based on Reuchlin's Rudimenta Hebraica, which it quotes, and which first appeared in 1506. It is significant that this section disappeared from the Margarita in the following editions; but this disappearance 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
