letters had practically «issumed their modem forms though not their modern aspect, the useless ornamental apices in our printed books (col. 8) being due to the schools of Heb. caligiaphy which arose in the 12th cent. The square Heb. of our printed Bibles is thus one of the most modern of existing A.s, and was not, as was formerly be- lieved, the most ancient of all. The forms of these letters are thus neither legible nor venerable. Their adoption was almost a matter of accident. Tliere were two styles, the Spanish and the German, and the latter was used in the Miinster printed Bible, the types being imitated from those in MSS. then in fashion. The result is that our eyes are fatigued with the fantastic and vicious caligraphy of the 14th cent., a period when the odious black letter was developed out of the beautiful Caroline minuscule, to which in our printed books we have now fortunately reverted. So in Heb. it would have been much better to have reverted to the far superior forms of earlier times, such, for instance, as those in use in the 8th cent. The earlier forms are better, because the letters are free from useless ornamental flourishes which are so trying to the eyes of students and compositors, and are more legible and more distinct. As in the case of our own vicious black letter, some characters are assimilated so as to be difficult to distinguish — in particular 3 beth, 3 kaph ; j nun, i giinel ; i daleth, -I resh ; T kaph final, ] nun final ; i vau, i zayin ; or of D samekh, and a mem final ; while n n and n stand for h, h, and t.
Six of the Heb. letters gradually acquired an alternative softer aspirated sound, and the harder primitive sounds are now denoted by an internal point (Dagesh lene) 3 3 i 3 s n, representing the sounds b, g, d, k, p, t, the same forms without the Dagesh, or with a superscript line called liaphe, standing for bh, gh, dh, kh, ph, th. The letter shin also split up into two sounds, distinguished by diacritical points, o approaching the sound of our a, and a that of our sh.
The vowel points are late and of little authority. The Greek transliterations of Heb. names in the Sept. and in Josephus suffice to prove that tliere were no vowel points in the copies of the Heb. Scrip- tures then in use, and as late as the time of St. Jerome the Heb. vocalisation was only kno\vn by oral teaching. The Heb. points were suggested by those which liad been introduced into Sj'riac in the 5th and 6th cent. A.D. They merely represent the traditional pronunciation used in the syna- gogues of Tiberias in the 7th cent. A.D. (See art. Language of OT.) Isaac Taylor.
ALPH^US, 'A\0oios (Westcott and Hort, Introd. % 408, assuming that tlie name is a transliteration of the Aramaic 'S^n, write it \vitli tlie rough breath- ing, 'AX<^aio!), occurs four times in the (iospels and once in Acts. As thus used it is the name of two dififerent men.
1. The father of the Apostle Matthew or Levi (Mk 2"), not elsewhere named or othenvise known.
2. All the other references are evidently to another man (Mt 10", Mk 3>*, Lk 6'», Ac 1"), whc is represented as father of James the apostle, second of that name in tlie list.
A considerable controversy has long been carried on as to whether this A. may be identified with the Clopas of Jn 19^ and the Cleopas of Lk 24i». This question has been of special interest as involved in the discussion regarding James and the Brethren of the Lord (wh. see;. Ewald b<ildly assumes that tlie Clopas of John and the Cleopas of Luke are one, but maintains that the identification with Alplueus is an unrea-souable confounding of a purely Greek with a purely Hebrew name {Hist, of Israel, vi 305, note 4). Meyer affirms the identity of the
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ALTAK
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Clopas of John with the Aramaic '5'—, the Alph.rus of tlie Synoptics. Ami Allord (on Mt lu") re^';inis the two Greek names as simply two dillerent ways of expressing the Hehrew name 'S^n. It seems better to distin^ish the Cleopas of Luke from the Clopas of John. It is quite e\-ident that Cleopas is simply a shortened form of Cleopater (KX(oirarpos), like Antipas for Antipater. Lightfoot, indeed, wliile admitting this, still favours tlie identification of the two names. On tlie other hand, Clopas may with the highest probability be regarded as a simple transliteration of the Aramaic ^lalphaL Clopas (as in tlie Greek text and KV, not Cleopas as in the AV) is represented in Jn Iff* as the husband of one of the Marys who stood beside the cross. If we assume that four women are there referred to, there is no indication of any relationship between the wife of Clopas and the mother of Jesus. The synoptic passages, however, all mention among the women at the cross this same Marj- as the mother of James. There is no reason for sui>posing that this James, son of Mary, is any other than James tlie son of Alpha>us. But the assumption that Clopas was husband of Mary and brotlier of Joseph, and the usual assumption that Mary was the sister of our Lord's mother, are equally groundless, and have no support whatever fix>m any statement in our Gospels. There seems no reason for supposing that James the little and James the brother of the Lord are one and the same person. Euscbius, indeed, mentions, on the autho- rity of He''esippus, that Sjniieon, who succeeded James in tiie lushopric of Jerusalem, was son of Clopas the brother of Joseph ; but Symeon is evidently re''arded, not as a brother, but only as a relative, probably a cousin, of his predecessor James.