the question which confronts us when we come to make the Bible a historical study. It is evident that the great reformers would have answered the question in the negative, and they would have declared that whether this list were correct or not made no difference as to the main question. The following generation of theologians, however, did not so answer the question. From the inspiration of the Bible they deduced its historical accuracy on every point. The reasons for this are not far to seek. After the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic polemic became sharper. It became the endeavor of the Roman Catholic party to show the necessity of tradition and the untrustworthiness of Scripture alone. This led the Protestants to defend the Bible more tenaciously than before. In addition, the scholastic philosophy, though almost contemptuously rejected by Luther, still influenced the minds of men.

The thick quartos of Gerhard, as has been recently said, would lose a good part of their dimensions were they deprived of what was borrowed from Thomas Aquinas. We are here concerned simply with the effect of this movement upon the doctrine of Holy Scripture. This doctrine was of course more sharply formulated. It was extended to the style of the writers. It affirmed that each book of the Canon must have been formally approved and joined to the others as soon as written. It went great lengths in affirming the perspicuity of Scripture, or if it admitted the difficulty of some passages, it explained them as God's method of stimulating study by curiosity, or even as the divine arrangement for impressing upon the laity due respect for the learning of the ministry. Finally the errorless transmission was made equally a matter of logical deduction. That I may not be suspected of exaggeration, let me give you a few details. It was denied by Voetius "that any examination or reflection was necessary on the part of the inspired writer in regard to that which was written, since it was given him immediately

and in an extraordinary manner,' contradicting Luke i: 1-4. Even the language and style of the Bible must be wholly faultless. Diversity of style was denied or explained as a matter of divine choice simply. "The Holy Spirit had a preference [singularem gustum] for the style of Polybius; therefore he chose this among all then existing Greek styles.": Quotations already made show how much more correct was Calvin's view. "Whatever is related by the Holy Scriptures is absolutely true [verissima], whether it pertains to doctrine, morals, history, chronology, topography, or nomenclature; and there can be, there must be, no ignorance, carelessness or forgetfulness attributed to the amanuenses of the Holy Spirit in writing the sacred books." The consequence is drawn with rigor-there can be error in the transmission no more than in the original. For where would be the certainty or truth of Scripture, were there any errors of transmission? So far we have been describing the Lutheran view. The same tendency is visible in the Reformed Church. But it is worth noting that this period of stringent devotion to the infallibility of Scripture is the period of the bitterest polemic among the Protestant Churches. Calovius, the most consistent upholder of this doctrine of inspiration, was one of the bitterest enemies of the Calvinists, hated them worse than he did the Roman Catholics, used his influence to put them down by the civil power, and attacked with all the virulence of a strong and uncompromising nature Calixtus, who tried to find a modus vivendi with the other churches. Nor should we forget here that this was the century in which the Copernican system triumphed in astronomy, and that among its opponents were found these theologians who opposed to it

1 Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, I, 171.

2 Calovius quoted by Klaiber, Zeitsch. Luther. Theol., 1864, 23. Quenstedt quoted by Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, p.

3

294.

indubitable proofs from Scripture. In the Reformed churches there was the same tendency to emphasize the divine factor in inspiration. The influence of the two Buxtorfs in the Swiss churches led to an especial emphasis on the Jewish theories of the Old Testament Canon. It was held that the Canon was settled by the Great Synagogue, and that the points were a part of the revelation to Ezra, from whom also the Massora was derived.

The ascription of the points to Adam even was revived by some zealous theologians. The younger Buxtorf found it difficult to decide between Adam, Moses, and Ezra as the original punctuator. The discussion of this point led to the adoption of the Swiss Formula Consensus, in 1675, which declared the vowel points to be inspired. This is the only Protestant creed, however, which took such a stand, and it was of only local importance, and even in Switzerland it had but temporary validity. It is evident then that these high and stringent theories were never the theories of the church. In fact, there never were lacking men in the Evangelical churches who protested against them or who refused to accept them. The history of the doctrine of the Hebrew vowel points is instructive in this regard, and for this reason I venture to call attention to it somewhat more at length.

As there may be some laymen interested in this matter, let me explain that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are, in their original force, all consonants. The vowels are supplied by smaller signs, called points, placed in, over or beneath the letters. The three letters ktl may represent, therefore, a number of different forms, as katal, kittel, kotel, kuttal. In practice however the context is nearly always sufficient to decide what word is intended in a particular place, and no difficulty is felt by the practiced scholar in reading unpointed texts, and these are in use in all Hebrew books except the Bible. For the sake of

1 So Calovius and Voetius, cf. Gass, pp. 342, 461.

accuracy, however, the Bible is generally written (and printed) with the points. As we have seen, the later Jewish theory ascribes these points to Ezra, if not to Moses or Adam, and this opinion was embraced by the Buxtorfs and others, who felt that God could not have committed his Word to an uncertain script. The attack on this view was made about the same time by two men. One of them, Morinus, was a Roman Catholic, and he was (at least, partially) moved by a desire to overthrow the security of the Protestants, and to prove the necessity of the tradition of the Church, in order to a correct interpretation of the Bible. But he called attention to facts overlooked by the Protestants, and so far forth aided to a correct solution of the problem-eventually that is, for his polemic tone hindered at first a correct estimate of his arguments. The other champion of the late origin of the points was Ludovicus Cappellus, professor in the French Protestant College, at Saumur. He was at first, as he avows, of the opinion of Buxtorf. Against his will, he was forced by facts to the opposite conclusion. His observations were embodied in a treatise,1 the MS. of which was sent to Buxtorf the elder for his opinion. As this distinguished scholar advised against the publication, Cappellus sent the manuscript to Erpenius, a distinguished Dutch orientalist, and Erpenius published it at once, with a preface of his own, but without the author's name. The history of the younger Buxtorf's attack and Cappellus's rejoinder need not be given in detail. But we may learn something from the method of argument pursued. It is, on Cappellus's side, partly a careful examination of the reasons adduced by the advocates of antiquity, partly the marshaling of facts by them overlooked or not allowed due weight. For example, it had been alleged that the points are necessary to the correct understanding of the text. But this

1 Arcanum Punctationis Revelatum. Republished in one volume, folio, with the Notae Criticae and the Vindiciae Arcani, 1689.

is by no means so. Modern Hebrew, as well as Syriac and Arabic, are constantly read and printed without points, and no difficulty is felt in reading and understanding them by those familiar with the languages. Again, the opinion of the Jews had been alleged. But this is by no means unanimous, and in fact the weight of authority is rather against the antiquity than for it. Elias Levita, himself no mean scholar, was sustained by Kimchi and other distinguished authorities. And among the authorities cited by Buxtorf some were certainly of very recent date. So far the reply to allegations. Now positive arguments are the following; first, the argument from silence. The points are not mentioned by Jerome or by the Talmud. Buxtorf might reply indeed: "They may have existed, nevertheless." And indeed the silence of an author concerning a fact may not prove the non-existence of the fact. But in some circumstances the argument from silence is very weighty indeed. Jerome had frequent occasion to discuss points of Hebrew grammar. He mentions the letters and their occasional ambiguity. Had the points existed, he would surely have mentioned them; and so of the Talmud, which often discusses the different possible meanings of Bible verses. Again, the fact that the Jews use an unpointed roll of the Law in the synagogue, shows that the points are not ancient. Ecclesiastical customs, as we know, are conservative-tenacious of old forms. Had the points been introduced by Ezra, they would have been introduced everywhere. The unpointed synagogue rolls are survivals of ancient custom. Another argument is the complication of the system itself. It is entirely too elaborate to be the invention of a single age; it bears all the marks of having grown up through several generations. To all these arguments Buxtorf can only reply by hypotheses designed to admit what he was compelled to admit, but at the same time to show how his theory might be held nevertheless. His main