Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/635

Rh by the influence of the synagogue where it is not guided by the Septuagint, and the homilies of Aphraates are a mine of Jewish tradition. In the Middle Ages some knowledge of Hebrew was preserved in the church by converted Jews and even by Christian scholars, of whom the most notable were the Dominican controversialist Raymundus Martini and the Franciscan Nicolaus de Lyra, through whose popular commentaries the exegesis of Rashi was conveyed to Luthsr ani largely influenced his interpretation of Scrip ture. 1 But there was no continuous tradition of Hebrew study apart from the Jews, and in the 15th century, when the revival of independent scholarship kindled the desire to aid a third learned tongue to Latin and Greek, only the most ardent zeal could conquer the obstacles that lay in the way. Orthodox Jews refused to teach those who were not of thsir faith, and on the other hand the bigotry of ignorant churchmen desired nothing better than the entire suppression of Jewish learning. Even books were to be had with the greatest difficulty, at least north of the Alps. In Italy things were somewhat better. Je&quot;ws expelled from Spain received favour from the popes. Study was facilitated by the use of the Hebrew printing press, which was at work at Reggio as early as 1475, while the whole Hebrew Bible appeared at Soncino in 1488. 2 The causa of learning found its champion among the northern humanists in John Reuchlin (1455-1 522), whose Rudimenta (Pforzheim, 1506) opened the door to students, while his victorious contest with Pfefferkorn and the Cologne obscu rantists established the claim of Hebrew studies on scholar ship and the church. The new learning spread fast. Sebastian Miinster in Heidelberg, and Paul Btichlein (Fagius) at Isny, Strasburg, and Cambridge, were worthy pupils of the famous and liberal Jewish scholar Levita. France drew teachers from Italy. Santes Pagninus of Lucca was at Lyons ; and the trilingual college of Francis I. at Paris, of which Vatablus and Le Mercier soon became the ornaments, attracted among other foreigners Giustiniani, bishop of Nebbio, the editor of the Genoa Psalter of 1516. In Rome the Jewish con vert Felix Pratensis taught by invitation of Leo X., whose name and that of the more famous convert J. b. Hayyim live mainly in connexion with the great Rabbinical Bibles that issued from the Bomberg press at Venice. In Spain, the old home of Jewish scholarship, Hebrew learning was promoted by Cardinal Ximenes, the patron of the Com- plutensian Polyglot. Printing presses were multiplied, and the great humanist printers, as Froben at Basel and Etienne at Paris, competed with Italy in the production of Hebrew books. In brief, before the middle of the 16th century the place of Hebrew studies was secure throughout learned Europe, while in Protestant countries opposition to the authority of the Vulgate combined with scholarly interest to make the study of the original text of Scripture appear indispensable. Thus in Scotland the establishment of a trilingual course in the universities is contemplated in the first Book of Discipline. 3 For a time the best Christian scholars leaned mainly on 1 See Siegfried s essay in Merx s Archiv, i. 428, ii. 38. A lively picture of the difficulties that lay in the way of Hebrew study is found in the Autobiography (ed. Riggenbach, 1877) of Conrad Pel- lican, who contributed to Reisch s Marcjaritha Philosophica the first imperfect Hebrew grammar composed by a Christian (Strasburg, 1504; reprinted in facsimile by Nestle, Tubingen, 1877). See also Geiger s Johann Reuchlin (Leipsic, 1871). Reference may also be made to the same author s Studium der Heb. Spr. in Deutschl. vom Ende des 5* bis zur Mitte des l&ten Jahrhunderts (Breslau, 1870), and Jour- dam s De I enseignement de Vhebreu dans Vunivcrsite de Paris (1863). 3 The first Hebrew grammar published in Scotland is that of John Row, moderator of the school of Perth, and afterwards minister at Aberdeen, (Glasgow, 1644). The preface bears date 1637. With the grammar appeared a Xiids Ilebraica. G01 the Rabbins. But in the larger air of humanism a more independent type of learning soon arose, of which Le Mercier in the 16th and Drusius in the beginning of the 17th century may be taken as representatives. The importance of the ancient versions was recognized, and their study was fostered by the publication of the Polyglots. In the 17th century the cognate dialects were cultivated with great vigour and success by men like Selden, Castell, and Pococke in England, De Dieu in Holland, Bochart in France, Ludolf and Hottinger in Germany ; and these studies bore fruit both for the Hebrew grammar and for the lexicon. Rabbinic learning was not forgotten, and found its chief ornament in the elder Buxtorf at Basel, who was also the author of grammars and a handy lexicon which long remained favourite manuals in England and on the Continent. 4 At the same time a critical spirit arose, which involved Hebrew philology in the meshes of theological controversy. The battle as to the age of the vowel points has already been referred to. It was part of a larger question as to the integrity of the received Hebrew text, and the legitimacy of text criticism, which received dogmatic importance from the prevalence of extreme theories of verbal inspiration in the Protestant Church. Thus the Protestant Cappellus found his main support in the Catholic Church (Morinus, R. Simon), while the authority of the Massoretic text and punctuation was elevated to a dogma in the Formula Consensus Helvetica (1675), not without protest from the wiser Protestantism of France. The critical school had also its extravagances, and an undue depreciation of tradi tion was one of several false principles that it would be tedious to enumerate, which came into vogue in the latter part of the 17th century, and long continued to impede the progress of scientific Hebrew philology. In the beginning of the 18th century Semitic studies had their chief seat in Holland, where Albert Schultens took up the comparative method with fresh energy, and applied it to Hebrew on a scale which gave a new shape to the study of the language. 5 Schultens laid emphasis on the limited extent of the Old Testament literature, which makes it an inadequate record of the phenomena of the Hebrew language, and proposed to supply these defects by a large use of the dialects, mainly of the Arabic, in which he had wide and accurate reading. His Institutiones ad fundament a Linguae Hebrace (1737) mark an advance on previous grammars, and in his com mentaries is accumulated an enormous mass of material of the highest value for the lexicographer. Schultens founded an influential school, of which Schroeder was the chief ornament; but his method was easily abused, and fell into discredit in the hands of arbitrary expositors like Venema. After Holland, Germany became the chief seat of Hebrew studies. In Halle, where the influence of Francke directed special attention to Biblical learning, there sprang up con temporaneously with the Dutch school a school of Hebraists, earnest, laborious, and thorough, but somewhat jejune and deficient in aesthetic sympathy, of which the Michaelis family were the chief representatives. J. D. Michaelis (1717-1791) exercised a sort of sovereignty in Hebrew letters, and the stamp of Flalle has left a permanent impress on the German schools, though a more sympathetic and emotional type of scholarship, beginning with Herder and Eichhorn, became dominant under the influence of Ewald. 4 To obtain an idea of the way in which Hebrew was taught in the 17th century one may read the Diatriba of Caspar Scioppius, in //. Grotii et aliorum dissertationcs dc stmliis instituendis (Amst., 1645). 5 On Schultens, his method and school, see C. Sepp, Johannes Stinstra en zijn Tijd (Amst, 1865). The Dutch schools of the 16th and 17th centuries are well described by the same author, Ilet godge- leerd Onderwijs in Nederland gedurcnde de 16 rf en 1 &quot;i de Eeuw (Leydeii. 1873-74). XT. 76
 * De Rossi, Annales Hebrceo- Typographies Sec. XV., Parma, 1795.