Happily, though the Ptolemaic astronomy, and witchcraft, and the
Genesis creation myths, and the Adam, Noah, Lot, and Jonah legends,
and the divine origin of the Hebrew punctuation, and the prophecies
regarding Antichrist, and the early date of the book of Daniel have
now been relegated to the limbo of ontworn beliefs, Christianity
has but come forth the stronger.
Nothing seemed less likely than that such a vast intrenched camp as
that of which Oxford was the centre could be carried by an effort
proceeding from a few isolated German and Dutch scholars. Yet it
was the unexpected which occurred; and it is instructive to note
that, even at the period when the champions of the older thought
were to all appearance impregnably intrenched in England, a way had
been opened into their citadel, and that the most effective agents
in preparing it were really the very men in the universities and
cathedral chapters who had most distinguished themselves by
uncompromising and intolerant orthodoxy.
A rapid survey of the history of general literary criticism at that
epoch will reveal this fact fully.
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