[[176]]
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.
Pages:
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039