Samaritan Pentateuch, which was presented in 1G20 to the library of the Oratory at Paris, by Harlaeus dc Sancy. It excited considerable sensation among the learned, was reputed of great antiquity, and held to be derived from some copy antecedent to the Babylonish captivity. It contained no vowel points, and hence the analogical argument to which our author refers against the antiquity of the Hebrew points. — Ed.
390 INTEGRITY AND PUEITY OF THE HEBREW AND GREEK TEXT.
the burning of the one and the building of the other temple. That the men of one and the same generation should forget the use of their own letters, which they had been exercised in, is incredible. Besides, they had their Bibles with them always, and that in their own cha- racter only; whether they had any one other book or no, we know not. And whence, then, this forgetting of one character and learn- ing of another should arise doth not appear; nor shall I, in such an improbable fiction, lay much weight on testimonies the most ancient whereof is six hundred years later than the pretended matter of fact. The most weighty proof in this case is taken from the ancient Judaical coins, taken up with Samaritan characters upon them. We are now in the high road of forgeries and fables; in nothing hath the world been more cheated. But be it granted that the pretended coins are truly ancient, must it needs follow that because the letters were then known and in use, that they only were so, — that the Bible was written with them, and those now in use unknown? To salve the credit of the coins, I shall crave leave to answer this conjecture with another. The Samaritan letters are plainly preternatural (if I may so say), a studied invention, — in their frame and figure fit to adorn, when extended or greatened, by way of engraving or emboss- ing, any thing they shall be put upon or cut in. Why may we not think they were invented for that purpose, namely, to engrave on vessels and to stamp on coins, and so came to be of some use in writ- ing also? Their shape and frame promise some such thing. And this is rendered the more probable from the practice of the Egyptians, who, as Clemens Alexandrinus^ tells us, had three sorts of letters; one which he calls Icr/oroXo/pap/x^, with which they wrote things of common use; another termed by him 'upoypafiTiri, used by the priests in the sacred writings; and the other '/spoyXv^nx/i, which also was of two sorts, simple and symbolical. Seeing, then, it was no unusual thing to have sundry sorts of letters for sundry purposes, it is not improbable that it was so also among the Jews: not that they wrote the sacred writings in a peculiar character as it were to hide them, which is declaimed against, but only that the other character might be in use for some purposes ; which is not unusual. I cannot think the Greeks of old used only the uncial letters, which yet we know some did ; though he did not who wrote Homer's Iliad in no greater a volume than would go into a nutshell.
* AuTixa ?£ «( "rap' AiyuTr'iois ^aiSivo/Aivoi, vrpurov fiiv iravraiv t^v Aiyvn'Tiav ypafi/xcc'ruv ftiiohov \xfj,av6a,vi!vffi, tjjv I'^irToXoypa^ixhv KaXovf/^ivtiv ost/Ts^asv di, Ispccrixiiv >) ^puvrai o'l itpoypafi/ianTi' uffrdrnv Ss Koi TiXivraiay, Tnv hpoyXv^ixriv fis h ft.iv Iitti S/a rav -rptiTcov ffroi^tietiv xvpioXayixn, h Ss trufiSoXix^' Trts Vi trvftSoXixti; *i filv xupioXoyiiTai xa.ra (/.ifinffiv il St Idtx-xip 'rpo'jttxui ypeiipiTai, n S's avrixpv; dXXrtyopurai xttra tiiio,; aiviy/^ov;' riXiov yap euv ypcc^f/ai (iovXof^ivot, xuxXov ■rotoviri' ffiXrivm Sf, ir^nf^a, fmvciiTis, xara To KvpioXttyovfiivo* iiooi.
■ — Clemens. Alex., Stromat. lib. v.
ARGUMENTS FOR THE NOVELTY OF HEBREW POINTS REFUTED. 391
But if that should be granted that cannot be proved, — namely, that such a change was made, — yet this prejudices not them in the least who affirm Ezra and the men of the great congregation to have been the authors of the points, seeing the authors of this rumour affixed that as the time wherein the old Hebrew letters were excommuni- cated out of the church, together with the Samaritans. Nay, it casts a probability on the other'hand, namely, that Ezra, laying aside the old letters because of their difficulty, together with the new in- troduced the points, to facilitate their use. Nor can it be made to appear that the Samaritan letters had never any vowels affixed to them. Postellus affirms that the Samaritans had points in the days of Jerome, and that their loss of them is the cause of their present corrupt reading: "Punctis hodie quse habebant Hieronymi tempori- bus carent: leguntque, sine punctis admodum depravate," Postell. Alphab. 12 lingua. There were always some copies written without vowels, which might be preserved, and the others lost. That people (if we have any thiug from them) being wicked, ignorant, sottish, superstitious, idolatrous, rejecters of the greatest part of the Scrip- ture, corrupters of what they had received, might neglect the task of transcribing copies with points, because a matter of so great care and diligence, to be performed aright. Nor is it improbable, whatever is pretended to the contrary, that, continuing in their separation from the people of God, they might get the law written in a character of their own choosing, out of hatred to the Jews.