Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/217

 HEBREW

179

HEBREW

maintained its position as a literary language. The post-Exilic writers strove doubtless to reproduce the style and diction of their pre-Exilic models, and some of their compositions (e. g. certain psalms), though belonging to the latter part of the Jewish period, possess a literary merit scarcely surpassed by that of the best productions of the age of Ezechias, which is generally reckoned as the golden age of Hebrew letters. Not all of the writings, however, of the post- Exilic period are up to this high literary standard. Marks of decadence are already discernible in the prolixity of certain passages of Jeremias, and in the frequent occurrence of Aramaisms in the prophecies of Ezechiel. The substitution of Aramaic for He- brew as a spoken language began with the Captivity and progressed steadily not only in Babylonia but also in Palestine. Certain parts of Daniel and of Esdras have come down to us in Aramaic (whether they were thus originally composed is a moot ques- tion), and other books of that period, though written in Hebrew, belong clearly to an epoch of literary de- cline. Such are Chronicles, Nehemias, Aggeus, and Malachias.

The period of transition from the spoken Heljrew to Aramaic coincided with that of the completion of the Old-Testament canon — a period of ever-increasing veneration for the Sacred Writings. From these circumstances arose in the minds of the rabbis a two- fold preoccupation. As the people no longer under- stood the classical Hebrew, and were unable to follow the official reading of the Old Testament in the syna- gogues, it became necessary to translate it into the vernacular and explain it to them. It was this need that determined the translation of the Sacred Books into Greek for the use of the hellenizing Jews of Alexandria. This is the version known as the Septua- gint (q. v.), and its beginnings go back to the third century b. c. The same need was met in Palestine and Babylonia by the free paraphrastic translations into Aramaic known as the Targums (q. v.). To these were added glosses and explanations by the rabbis, which, after having been for a time preserved by oral tradition, were later reduced to writing and incorporated in the Talmud (q. v.). Another urgent need growing out of the altered circumstances was a definite fLxation of the Hebrew text itself. Hitherto the work of transcribing the Sacred Books had not been performed with all the care and accuracy de- sirable, partly through negligence on the part of the scribes, and partly because of their tendency to elu- cidate obscure passages by introducing intentional simplifications. From these and other causes numer- ous variations had gradually crept into the codices in both public and private use, and though these differences of reading were generally confined to de- tails of minor consequence, it is nevertheless plain, from a comparison of the Septuagint version with the fixed Massoretic text of a later age, that in many cases they seriously afi'ected the sense. The natural course of things would be in the direction of still further divergencies, but the ever-growing veneration for the Sacred Books caused a reaction which began to be felt as early as the third century b. c. Great and ever-increasing care was henceforth taken in the copying of the Biblical manuscripts, especially those of the Torah or Pentateuch. Variant readings were gradually and systematically eliminated, and so successful were these efforts that from the second century a. d. onwards a practically complete and final unity of text was estabUshed for all the Jewish communities.

But the fixation of the consonantal text which was perfected during the Talmudic period extending from the second to the fourth century b. c, was not the only end to be attained. It was necessary also to determine and fix orthographically the traditional pronunciation of the vowels which hitherto had to be

supplied from the reader's knowledge of the language, or at best were only occasionally indicated by the use of one of the weak letters (x, n, 1, «). The use of these had been introduced as early as the third century B. c, as is proved from the Septuagint version, and they were doubtless of great utility in determining grammatical forms that would otherwise remain ambiguous, but their introduction had been neither official nor uniform, being rather left to the initiative and preference of the individual scribes, whence arose a considerable diversity in different manuscripts. But aside from inconsistencies of application, the system was at best quite inadequate, as it provided for the indication of only a small number of the more important vowel sounds. Nevertheless, no syste- matic attempt seems to have been made to supply this deficiency until the sLxth century a. d. This was the beginning of what is known as the Massoretic period in the history of the Hebrew language.

The Massoretes, so called from the Talmudic word massorah or massoreth, signifying tradition, were a body of Jewish scholars who succeeded the Talmud- ists, and who during the period from the sixth to the eleventh century worked out the great Massoretic system. Their object, like that of the Talmudists, was to provide means for the inviolate preservation of the traditional reading and understanding of the Old Testament text, but what was still left to oral trans- mission by their predecessors was now reduced to writing and incorporated into the text by means of a most elaborate and ingenious system of annotations and conventional signs. The Ma.ssoretes drew up rules for the guidance of copyists, made exhaustive statistics of verses, words, and letters contained in the Sacred Books, noted peculiar forms, etc., but the most important part of their great work was the elaboration of the vowel system whereby all ambigu- ity was henceforth practically removed, at least so far as the traditional reading was concerned. So great was the veneration entertained for the consonantal text that no modification of it could be tolerated, not even to correct palpable errors — such corrections being noted in the margin, and for the same reason the vowel signs were not allowed to disturb in any way the form or position of the consonants, but were added to the text in the form of dots and dashes to- gether with other minute arbitrary signs generally known as accents. Two parallel systems with differ- ent methods of notation were developed, one in the Western or Tiberian, the other in the Eastern or Babylonian School. The work of the former reached its culmination in the tenth century in the text of Ben Asher, and that of the Oriental School about the same time in the text of Ben NaphthaU. The former became the standard text upon which all subsequent manuscripts in the West and all printed editions of the Hebrew Bible have been based. Not only is the Massoretic system a marvel of ingenuity and minute painstaking labour, but it is moreover a work which has proved of inestimable value to all subsequent gener- ations of Biblical students. In the light of modern philological knowledge it has indeed its defects and limitations; grammarians and lexicographers have doubtless at times followed its lead with too great servility, often to the extent of accepting as normal cer- tain forms that are nothing more than scribal errors — a fact which accounts in part for the multitude of ex- ceptions which bewilder the student when trying to master the Hebrew grammar. But when all this is conceded, the fact remains that the Massoretic text is the only reliable foundation on which to base a serious study of the Old Testament. It is a well-recognized right of modern scholarship to question and emend many of its readings, but the text is, so to say, in pos- session, and it must be confessed that many of the cor- rections suggested by some of our modern critics are more arbitrary than scientific.