The whole effort in
all this sacred scholarship was, not to find what the truth
is--not to see how the various languages are to be classified, or
from what source they are really derived--but to demonstrate what
was supposed necessary to maintain what was then held to be the
truth of Scripture; namely, that all languages are derived from
the Hebrew.
This stumbling and blundering, under the sway of orthodox
necessity, was seen among the foremost scholars throughout
Europe. About the middle of the sixteenth century the great Swiss
scholar, Conrad Gesner, beginning his _Mithridates_, says, "While
of all languages Hebrew is the first and oldest, of all is 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.
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