Now, let any man judge whether, from this heap of uncertainties, any thing can arise with the face of a witness, to be admitted to give testimony in the cause in hand. He that will part with his posses- sion on such easy terms never found much benefit in it.
2. The constant practice of the Jews in preserving in their syna- gogues one book, which they almost adore, written without points, is alleged to the same purpose ; "for what do they else hereby but tacitly acknowledge the points to have a human original?" Ans. But it is certain they do not so acknowledge them, neither by that practice nor by any other way, it being the constant opinion and persuasion of them all (Elias only excepted) that they are of a divine extract; and if their authority be to be urged, it is to be submitted unto in one thing as well as in another. The Jews give a threefold ac- count of this practice: — (1.) The difficulty of transcribing copies without any faihng, the least rendering the whole book, as to its use in their synagogues, profane. (2.) The liberty they have thereby to draw out various senses, more eminent, as they say (indeed more vain and curious), than they have any advantage to do when the reading is restrained to one certain sense by the vowels and accents. (3.) To keep all harners'm. dependence on their teachers, seeing they cannot
S92 INTEGRITY AND PUIUTY OF THE HEBREW AND GREEK TEXT.
learn the mind of God but by their exposition, R Azarias, hb. Imre Binah. cap. lix. If these reasons satisfy not any as to the ground of that practice, they may be pleased to mquire of them for others who intend to be bound by their authority; — that the points were invented by some late Masoretes they will not inform them. For Jesuitical stories out of China, they are with me, for the most part, of the like credit with those of the Jews in their Talmud; he that can believe all the miracles that they work, where men are not warned of their juggling, may credit them in other things. How- ever, as I said, I do not understand this argument: "The Jews keep a book in their synagogues without points, therefore the points and accents were invented by the Tiberian Masoretes;" when they never read it, or rather sing it, but according to every point and accent in ordinary use. Indeed, the whole profound mystery of this busi- ness seems to be this, that none be admitted to read or sing the law in their synagogues until he be so perfect in it as to be able to observe exactly all points and accents in a book wherein there are none of them.
8. The testimony of Elias Levita, not only as to his own judg- ment, but also as to what he mentions from Aben Ezra and others, is insisted on. " They affirm," saitli he, " that we have received the whole punctuation from the Tiberian Masoretes." Ans. It is very true that Elias was of that judgment; and it may well be supposed, that if that opinion had not fallen into his mind, the world had been little acquainted with it at this day. That by " receiving of the punc- tuation from the Tiberians," the continuation of it in their school, not the invention of it, is intended by Aben Ezra, is beyond all excep- tion evinced by Buxtorfius, De Punct. Autiq. par. i. cap. iii. Nor can any thing be spoken more directly to the contrary of what is in- tended, than that which is urged in the Prolegomena from Aben Ezra, Comment, in Exod. xxv. 31, where he affirms that he saw some books examined in all the letters, and the whole punctuation by the wise men of Tiberias, namely, to try whether it were done exactly according to the patterns they had. Besides, all Elias' ar- guments are notably answered by E.. Azarias, whose answers are repeated by Joseph de Voysin in his most learned Observations on the Prooemium of the Pugio Fidei, p. 91, 92. And the same Azarias shows the consistency of the various opinions that were among the Jews about the vowels; ascribing them as to their virtue and force to Moses, or God on Mount Sinai; as to their figure and character to Ezra ; and as to the restoration of their use unto the Masoretes.
4. The silence of the Mishna Gemara, or whole Talmud, concern- ing the points is further urged. This argument is also at large dis- cussed by Buxtorfius, and the instances in it answered to the full;
ARGUMENTS FOU THE NOVELTY OF HEBREW POINTS REFUTED. 393
nor is it needful for any man to add any thing further until wliat he hath discoursed to this purpose be removed. See par. i. cap. vi. See also Glassius, lib. i. tract, i. De Textus Hebrgei Puritate, who gives instances to the contrary; yea. and the Talmud itself, in Nedarim, or " of vows," chap, iv., on Nehem. viii. 8, doth plainly mention them ; and treatises more ancient than the Talmud, cited by K. Azarias in Imre Binah, expressly speak of them. It is to me a sufficient evidence, able to overbear the conjectures to the contrary, that the Talmudists both knew, and in their readings were regulated by, the points now in use, in that, as many learned men have observed, there is not one text of Scripture to be found cited in the Talmud in any other sense, as to the literal reading and meaning of the words, than only that which it is restrained unto by the present punctuation; when it is known that the patrons of the opinion under consideration yield this constantly as one reason of the seventy translators reading words and sentences otherwise than we read them now in our Bibles, — namely, because the books they used were not pointed, whereby they were at liberty to conjectui'e at this or that sense of the word before them. This is one of the main pillars of Cappellus' whole fabric in his Critica Sacra. And how it can be fancied there should be no variety between our present reading and the Talmudists', upon supposition they knew not the use of points, I know not. Is it possible, on this supposition, there should be such a coincidence between their and our present punctuation, when, on the same principle, it seems there are so many variations by the LXX. and the Chaldee paraphrast?