gation, he cannot with confidence apply to the study of this sacred language.

Three opinions have been offered by learned men on this subject. By some, the origin of the Hebrew vowel points is maintained to be coeval with the Hebrew language itself: while others assert them to have been first introduced by Ezra after the Babylonian captivity. A third hypothesis is, that they were invented, about five hundred years after Christ, by the doctors of the school of Tiberias, for the purpose of marking and establishing the genuine pronunciation, for the convenience of those who were learning the Hebrew tongue.

This opinion, first announced by Rabbi Elias Levita in the beginning of the sixteenth century, has been adopted by Cappel, Casaubon, Scaliger, Masclef, Erpenius, Houbigant, L'Advocat, Walton, Hare, Lowth, Kennicott, Geddes, and other eminent critics, and is now generally received, although some few writers of respectability continue strenuously to advocate their antiquity. The Arcanum Punctationis Revelatum of Cappel was opposed by Buxtorf in a treatise De Punctorum Vocalium Antiquitate, by whom the controversy was almost exhausted.

That the vowel points are of modern date, and of human invention, rests upon the following considerations:

1.-" The kindred Semitic languages anciently had no written vowels. The most ancient Estrangelo and Kufish characters, that is, the ancient characters of the Syrians and Arabians, were destitute of vowels. The Palmyrene inscriptions, and nearly all the Phenician ones, are destitute of them. Some of the Maltese inscriptions, however, and a few of the Phenician have marks, which probably were intended as vowels. The Koran was confessedly destitute of them, at first. The punctuation of it occasioned great dispute among Mohammedans. In some of the older Syriac writings is found a single point, which, by being placed in different positions in regard to words, served as a diacritical sign. The present vowel system of the Syrians was introduced so late as the time of Theophilus and Jacob of Edessa. (VIII. Cent.) The Arabic vowels were adopted soon after the Koran was written; but their other diacritical marks did not come into use until they were introduced by Ibn Mokla (about A. D. 900), together with the Nishi character, now in common use."

2. The Samaritan letters, which (we have already seen) were the same with the Hebrew characters before the captivity, have no points; nor are there any vestiges whatever of vowel points to be traced, either in the shekels struck by the kings of Israel, or in the Samaritan Pentateuch. The words have always been read by the aid of the four letters, Aleph, He, Vau, and Jod, which are called matres lectionis, or mothers of reading.

3. The copies of the Scriptures used in the Jewish synagogues to the present time, and which are accounted particularly sacred, are constantly written without points, or any distinctions of verses whatever: a practice that could never have been introduced, nor would it have been so religiously followed, if vowel points had been coeval with the language, or of divine authority. To this fact we may add, that in many of the oldest and best manuscripts, collated and examined by Kennicott, either there are no points at all, or they are evidently a late addition; and that all the ancient various readings marked by the Jews, regard only the letters; not one of them relates to the vowel points, which could not have happened if these had been in use.

4. Rabbi Elias Levita ascribes the invention of vowel points to the doctors of Tiberias, and has confirmed the fact by the authority of the most learned rabbins.

5.-The ancient Cabbalists draw all their mysteries from the letters, but none from the vowel points, which they could not have neglected if they had been acquainted with them. And, hence it is concluded, that the points were not in existence when the Cabbalistic interpretations were made.

6. Although the Talmud contains the determinations of the Jewish doctors concerning many passages of the law, it is evident that the points were not affixed to the text when the Talmud was composed; because there are several disputes concerning the sense of passages of the law, which could not have been controverted if the points had then been in existence. Besides, the vowel points are never mentioned, though the fairest opportunity for noticing them offered itself, if they had really then been in use. The compilation of the Talmud was not finished until the sixth century.

7. The ancient various readings, called Keri and Ketib, or Khetibh (which were collected a short time before the completion of the Talmud), relate entirely to consonants, and not to vowel points; yet, if these had existed in manuscript at the time the Keri and Khetib were collected, it is obvious that

some reference would directly or indirectly have been made to them. The silence, therefore, of the collectors of these various readings is a clear proof of the non-existence of vowel points in their time.

8. The ancient versions-for instance, the Chaldee paraphrases of Jonathan and Onkelos, and the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, but especially the Septuagint version-all read the text, in many passages, in senses different from that which the points determine them to mean. Whence, it is evident, that if the points had then been known, pointed manuscripts would have been followed as the most correct; but as the authors of those versions did not use them, it is a plain proof that the points were not then in being.

9.-The ancient Jewish writers themselves are totally silent concerning the vowel points, which surely would not have been the case if they had been acquainted with them. Much stress, indeed, has been laid upon the books of Zohar and Bahir, but these have been proved not to have been known for a thousand years after the birth of Christ. Even Buxtorf himself admits, that the book Zohar could not have been written till after the tenth century; and the rabbis, Gedaliah and Zachet, confess that it was not mentioned before the year 1290, and that it presents internal evidence that it is of a much later date than is intended. It is no uncommon practice of the Jews to publish books of recent date under the names of old writers, in order to render their authority respectable, and even to alter and interpolate ancient writers in order to subserve their own views.

10. Equally silent are the ancient Fathers of the Christian Church, Origen and Jerome. In some fragments still extant, of Origen's vast biblical work, entitled the Hexapla (of which some account is given in a subsequent page), we have a specimen of the manner in which Hebrew was pronounced in the third century; and which, it appears, was widely different from that which results from adopting the Masoretic reading. Jerome, also, in various parts of his works, where he notices. the different pronunciations of Hebrew words, treats only of the letters, and nowhere mentions the points, which he surely would have done, had they been found in the copies consulted by him.

11. The letters X, 7, ), 7, (Aleph, He, Vau, and Yod,) upon the plan of the Masorites, are termed quiescent, because, according to them, they have no sound. At other times, these same letters indicate a variety of sounds, as the fancy of these

critics has been pleased to distinguish them by points. This single circumstance exhibits the whole doctrine of points as the baseless fabric of a vision. To suppress altogether, or to render insignificant, a radical letter of any word, in order to supply its place by an arbitrary dot or a fictitious mark, is an invention fraught with the grossest absurdity.

12. Lastly, as the first vestiges of the points that can be traced are to be found in the writings of Rabbi Ben Asher, president of the Western School, and of Rabbi Ben Naphthali, chief of the Eastern School, who flourished about the middle of the tenth century, we are justified in assigning that as the epoch when the system of vowel points was established.

Such are the evidences on which the majority of the learned rest their convictions of the modern date of the Hebrew points. Besides the vowel points, the antiquity of which has been considered in the preceding pages, we meet in pointed Hebrew Bibles with other marks or signs, termed ACCENTS; the system of which is inseparably connected with the present state of the vowel points, inasmuch as these points are often changed in consequence of the accents. The latter, therefore, must have originated contemporaneously with the written vowels, at least, with the completion of the vowel system. Respecting the design of the accents, there has been great dispute among Hebrew grammarians. Professor Stuart, who has discussed this subject most copiously in his valuable Hebrew Grammar, is of opinion that they were designed, not to mark the tonesyllable of a word or the interpunction, but to regulate the cantillation of the Scriptures. It is well known that the Jews, from time immemorial, in the public reading of the Scriptures, have cantillated them, that is, read in a kind of half singing or recitative way. In this manner, most probably, the Ethiopian eunuch was reading the prophecy of Isaiah, when he was overheard and interrogated by Philip. (Acts VIII. 30.) In this manner, also, Mussulmen read the Koran; and the people of the East generally deliver public discourses in this way. The mode of cantillating Hebrew in different countries is at present various, but guided in all by the accents; that is, the accents are used as musical notes, though various powers are assigned to them.

The Aramæan language derives its name from the very extensive region of Aram, in which it was anciently vernacular. As that region extended from the Mediterranean sea through Syria and Mesopotamia, beyond the river Tigris, the language there spoken necessarily diverged into various dialects; the two principal of which are the Chaldee and the Syriac.

The Chaldee, sometimes called by way of distinction the East-Aramaan dialect, was formerly spoken in the province of Babylonia, between the Euphrates and the Tigris, the original inhabitants of which cultivated this language as a distinct dialect, and communicated it to the Jews during the Babylonian captivity. By means of the Jews it was transplanted into Palestine, where it gradually became the vernacular tongue; though it did not completely displace the old Hebrew until the time of the Maccabees. Although the Aramæan, as spoken by Jews, partook somewhat of the Hebrew character, no entire or very important corruption of it took place; and to this circumstance alone the Babylonians are indebted for the survival, or at least the partial preservation, of their language, which, even in the mother-country, has, since the spread of Mohammedism, been totally extinct.

The principal remains of the Chaldee dialect now extant will be found:

(1.)—In the Canonical Books, Ezra IV. 8. to VI. 18. and VII, 12—16. Jer. X. 2., and Dan. II. 4. to the end of chapter VII.; and

(2.) In the Targums or Chaldee Paraphrases of the Books of the Old Testament.

The Syriac or West-Aramaean was spoken both in Syria and Mesopotamia; and, after the captivity, it became vernacular in Galilee. Hence, though several of the sacred writers of the New Testament expressed themselves in Greek, their ideas were Syriac; and they consequently used many Syraic idioms, and a few Syriac words. The chief difference between the Syriac and Chaldee consists in the vowel-points or mode of pronunciation; and, notwithstanding the forms of their respective letters are very dissimilar, yet the correspondence between the two dialects is so close, that if the Chaldee be written in Syriac characters without points, it becomes Syriac, with the exception of a single inflection in the formation of the verbs. The earliest document still extant in the Syriac dialect is the Peschito or old Syriac version of the Old and New Testament.

Though more remotely allied to the Hebrew than either of the preceding dialects, the Arabic language possesses sufficient analogy to explain and illustrate the former, and is not, perhaps, inferior in importance to the Chaldee or the Syriac ; particularly as it is a living language, in which almost every subject has been discussed, and which has received the minutest investigation from native writers and lexicographers. The