But, long before this form of "possession" had begun to disappear, there

had arisen new manifestations, apparently more inexplicable. As the

first great epidemics of dancing and jumping had their main origin in a

religious ceremony, so various new forms had their principal source in

what were supposed to be centres of religious life--in the convents, and

more especially in those for women.

Out of many examples we may take a few as typical.

In the fifteenth century the chroniclers assure us that, an inmate of

a German nunnery having been seized with a passion for biting her

companions, her mania spread until most, if not all, of her fellow-nuns

began to bite each other; and that this passion for biting passed from

convent to convent into other parts of Germany, into Holland, and even

across the Alps into Italy.

So, too, in a French convent, when a nun began to mew like a cat,

others began mewing; the disease spread, and was only checked by severe

measures.(390)

(390) See citation from Zimmermann's Solitude, in Carpenter, pp. 34,

314.

In the sixteenth century the Protestant Reformation gave new force to

witchcraft persecutions in Germany, the new Church endeavouring to show

that in zeal and power she exceeded the old. But in France influential

opinion seemed not so favourable to these forms of diabolical influence,

especially after the publication of Montaigne's Essays, in 1580, had

spread a sceptical atmosphere over many leading minds.

In 1588 occurred in France a case which indicates the growth of this

sceptical tendency even in the higher regions of the french Church,

In that year Martha Brossier, a country girl, was, it was claimed,

possessed of the devil. The young woman was to all appearance under

direct Satanic influence. She roamed about, begging that the demon

might be cast out of her, and her imprecations and blasphemies brought

consternation wherever she went. Myth-making began on a large scale;

stories grew and sped. The Capuchin monks thundered from the pulpit

throughout France regarding these proofs of the power of Satan: the

alarm spread, until at last even jovial, sceptical King Henry IV was

disquieted, and the reigning Pope was asked to take measures to ward off

the evil.

Fortunately, there then sat in the episcopal chair of Angers a prelate

who had apparently imbibed something of Montaigne's scepticism--Miron;

and, when the case was brought before him, he submitted it to the most

time-honoured of sacred tests. He first brought into the girl's presence

two bowls, one containing holy water, the other ordinary spring water,

but allowed her to draw a false inference regarding the contents of

each: the result was that at the presentation of the holy water the

devils were perfectly calm, but when tried with the ordinary water they

threw Martha into convulsions.

The next experiment made by the shrewd bishop was to similar purpose.

He commanded loudly that a book of exorcisms be brought, and under a

previous arrangement, his attendants brought him a copy of Virgil. No

sooner had the bishop begun to read the first line of the Aeneid than

the devils threw Martha into convulsions. On another occasion a Latin

dictionary, which she had reason to believe was a book of exorcisms,

produced a similar effect.

Although the bishop was thereby led to pronounce the whole matter a

mixture of insanity and imposture, the Capuchin monks denounced this

view as godless. They insisted that these tests really proved the

presence of Satan--showing his cunning in covering up the proofs of his

existence. The people at large sided with their preachers, and Martha

was taken to Paris, where various exorcisms were tried, and the Parisian

mob became as devoted to her as they had been twenty years before to

the murderers of the Huguenots, as they became two centuries later to

Robespierre, and as they more recently were to General Boulanger.

But Bishop Miron was not the only sceptic. The Cardinal de Gondi,

Archbishop of Paris, charged the most eminent physicians of the city,

and among them Riolan, to report upon the case. Various examinations

were made, and the verdict was that Martha was simply a hysterical

impostor. Thanks, then, to medical science, and to these two enlightened

ecclesiastics who summoned its aid, what fifty or a hundred years

earlier would have been the centre of a widespread epidemic of

possession was isolated, and hindered from producing a national

calamity.

In the following year this healthful growth of scepticism continued.

Fourteen persons had been condemned to death for sorcery, but public

opinion was strong enough to secure a new examination by a special

commission, which reported that "the prisoners stood more in need of

medicine than of punishment," and they were released.(391)

(391) For the Brossier case, see Clameil, La Folie, tome i, livre 3,

c. 2. For the cases at Tours, see Madden, Phantasmata, vol. i, pp. 309,

310.

But during the seventeenth century, the clergy generally having exerted

themselves heroically to remove this "evil heart of unbelief" so largely

due to Montaigne, a theological reaction was brought on not only in

France but in all parts of the Christian world, and the belief in

diabolic possession, though certainly dying, flickered up hectic, hot,

and malignant through the whole century. In 1611 we have a typical case

at Aix. An epidemic of possession having occurred there, Gauffridi,

a man of note, was burned at the stake as the cause of the trouble.

Michaelis, one of the priestly exorcists, declared that he had driven

out sixty-five hundred devils from one of the possessed. Similar

epidemics occurred in various parts of the world.(392)

(392) See Dagron, chap. ii.

Twenty years later a far more striking case occurred at Loudun, in

western France, where a convent of Ursuline nuns was "afflicted by

demons."

The convent was filled mainly with ladies of noble birth, who, not

having sufficient dower to secure husbands, had, according to the common

method of the time, been made nuns.

It is not difficult to understand that such an imprisonment of a

multitude of women of different ages would produce some woeful effects.

Any reader of Manzoni's Promessi Sposi, with its wonderful portrayal of

the feelings and doings of a noble lady kept in a convent against

her will, may have some idea of the rage and despair which must have

inspired such assemblages in which pride, pauperism, and the attempted

suppression of the instincts of humanity wrought a fearful work.

What this work was may be seen throughout the Middle Ages; but it is

especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that we find it

frequently taking shape in outbursts of diabolic possession.(393)

(393) On monasteries as centres of "possession" and hysterical

epidemics, see Figuier, Le Merveilleux, p. 40 and following; also

Calmeil, Langin, Kirchhoff, Maudsley, and others. On similar results

from excitement at Protestant meetings in Scotland and camp meetings in

England and America, see Hecker's Essay, concluding chapters.

In this case at Loudun, the usual evidences of Satanic influence

appeared. One after another of the inmates fell into convulsions: some

showed physical strength apparently supernatural; some a keenness

of perception quite as surprising; many howled forth blasphemies and

obscenities.

Near the convent dwelt a priest--Urbain Grandier--noted for his

brilliancy as a writer and preacher, but careless in his way of living.

Several of the nuns had evidently conceived a passion for him, and in

their wild rage and despair dwelt upon his name. In the same city, too,

were sundry ecclesiastics and laymen with whom Grandier had fallen

into petty neighbourhood quarrels, and some of these men held the main

control of the convent.

Out of this mixture of "possession" within the convent and malignity

without it came a charge that Grandier had bewitched the young women.

The Bishop of Poictiers took up the matter. A trial was held, and it

was noted that, whenever Grandier appeared, the "possessed" screamed,

shrieked, and showed every sign of diabolic influence. Grandier fought

desperately, and appealed to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, De Sourdis. The

archbishop ordered a more careful examination, and, on separating

the nuns from each other and from certain monks who had been bitterly

hostile to Grandier, such glaring discrepancies were found in their

testimony that the whole accusation was brought to naught.

But the enemies of Satan and of Grandier did not rest. Through their

efforts Cardinal Richelieu, who appears to have had an old grudge

against Grandier, sent a representative, Laubardemont, to make another

investigation. Most frightful scenes were now enacted: the whole convent

resounded more loudly than ever with shrieks, groans, howling, and

cursing, until finally Grandier, though even in the agony of torture he

refused to confess the crimes that his enemies suggested, was hanged and

burned.

From this centre the epidemic spread: multitudes of women and men were

affected by it in various convents; several of the great cities of the

south and west of France came under the same influence; the "possession"

went on for several years longer and then gradually died out, though

scattered cases have occurred from that day to this.(394)

(394) Among the many statements of Grandier's case, one of the best in

English may be found in Trollope's Sketches from French History, London,

1878. See also Bazin, Louis XIII.

A few years later we have an even more striking example among the French

Protestants. The Huguenots, who had taken refuge in the mountains of

the Cevennes to escape persecution, being pressed more and more by

the cruelties of Louis XIV, began to show signs of a high degree of

religious exaltation. Assembled as they were for worship in wild and

desert places, an epidemic broke out among them, ascribed by them to

the Almighty, but by their opponents to Satan. Men, women, and children

preached and prophesied. Large assemblies were seized with trembling.

Some underwent the most terrible tortures without showing any signs of

suffering. Marshal de Villiers, who was sent against them, declared that

he saw a town in which all the women and girls, without exception,

were possessed of the devil, and ran leaping and screaming through the

streets. Cases like this, inexplicable to the science of the time, gave

renewed strength to the theological view.(395)

(395) See Bersot, Mesmer et la Magnetisme animal, third edition, Paris,

1864, pp. 95 et seq.

Toward the end of the same century similar manifestations began to

appear on a large scale in America.

The life of the early colonists in New England was such as to give

rapid growth to the germs of the doctrine of possession brought from

the mother country. Surrounded by the dark pine forests; having as their

neighbours Indians, who were more than suspected of being children of

Satan; harassed by wild beasts apparently sent by the powers of evil

to torment the elect; with no varied literature to while away the

long winter evenings; with few amusements save neighbourhood quarrels;

dwelling intently on every text of Scripture which supported their

gloomy theology, and adopting its most literal interpretation, it is not

strange that they rapidly developed ideas regarding the darker side of

nature.(396)

(396) For the idea that America before the Pilgims had been especially

given over to Satan, see the literature of the early Puritan period,

and especially the poetry of Wigglesworth, treated in Tylor's History of

American Literature, vol. ii, p. 25 et seq.

This fear of witchcraft received a powerful stimulus from the treatises

of learned men. Such works, coming from Europe, which was at that

time filled with the superstition, acted powerfully upon conscientious

preachers, and were brought by them to bear upon the people at large.

Naturally, then, throughout the latter half of the seventeenth century

we find scattered cases of diabolic possession. At Boston, Springfield,

Hartford, Groton, and other towns, cases occurred, and here and there we

hear of death-sentences.

In the last quarter of the seventeenth century the fruit of these ideas

began to ripen. In the year 1684 Increase Mather published his book,

Remarkable Providences, laying stress upon diabolic possession and

witchcraft. This book, having been sent over to England, exercised an

influence there, and came back with the approval of no less a man than

Richard Baxter: by this its power at home was increased.

In 1688 a poor family in Boston was afflicted by demons: four children,

the eldest thirteen years of age, began leaping and barking like dogs or

purring like cats, and complaining of being pricked, pinched, and cut;

and, to help the matter, an old Irishwoman was tried and executed.

All this belief might have passed away like a troubled dream had it not

become incarnate in a strong man. This man was Cotton Mather, the son of

Increase Mather. Deeply religious, possessed of excellent abilities, a

great scholar, anxious to promote the welfare of his flock in this world

and in the next, he was far in advance of ecclesiastics generally on

nearly all the main questions between science and theology. He came out

of his earlier superstition regarding the divine origin of the Hebrew

punctuation; he opposed the old theologic idea regarding the taking of

interest for money; he favoured inoculation as a preventive of smallpox

when a multitude of clergymen and laymen opposed it; he accepted

the Newtonian astronomy despite the outcries against its "atheistic

tendency"; he took ground against the time-honoured dogma that comets

are "signs and wonders." He had, indeed, some of the defects of his

qualities, and among them pedantic vanity, pride of opinion, and love

of power; but he was for his time remarkably liberal and undoubtedly

sincere. He had thrown off a large part of his father's theology, but

one part of it he could not throw off: he was one of the best biblical

scholars of his time, and he could not break away from the fact that

the sacred Scriptures explicitly recognise witchcraft and demoniacal

possession as realities, and enjoin against witchcraft the penalty

of death. Therefore it was that in 1689 he published his Memorable

Providences relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions. The book, according

to its title-page, was "recommended by the Ministers of Boston and

Charleston," and its stories soon became the familiar reading of men,

women, and children throughout New England.

Out of all these causes thus brought to bear upon public opinion

began in 1692 a new outbreak of possession, which is one of the most

instructive in history. The Rev. Samuel Parris was the minister of

the church in Salem, and no pope ever had higher ideas of his own

infallibility, no bishop a greater love of ceremony, no inquisitor a

greater passion for prying and spying.(397)

(397) For curious examples of this, see Upham's History of Salem

Witchcraft, vol. i.

Before long Mr. Parris had much upon his hands. Many of his hardy,

independent parishioners disliked his ways. Quarrels arose. Some of the

leading men of the congregation were pitted against him. The previous

minister, George Burroughs, had left the germs of troubles and

quarrels, and to these were now added new complications arising from the

assumptions of Parris. There were innumerable wranglings and lawsuits;

in fact, all the essential causes for Satanic interference which we saw

at work in and about the monastery at Loudun, and especially the turmoil

of a petty village where there is no intellectual activity, and

where men and women find their chief substitute for it in squabbles,

religious, legal, political, social, and personal.

In the darkened atmosphere thus charged with the germs of disease it

was suddenly discovered that two young girls in the family of Mr. Parris

were possessed of devils: they complained of being pinched, pricked,

and cut, fell into strange spasms and made strange speeches--showing the

signs of diabolic possession handed down in fireside legends or dwelt

upon in popular witch literature--and especially such as had lately been

described by Cotton Mather in his book on Memorable Providences. The

two girls, having been brought by Mr. Parris and others to tell who

had bewitched them, first charged an old Indian woman, and the poor old

Indian husband was led to join in the charge. This at once afforded

new scope for the activity of Mr. Parris. Magnifying his office, he

immediately began making a great stir in Salem and in the country round

about. Two magistrates were summoned. With them came a crowd, and a

court was held at the meeting-house. The scenes which then took place

would have been the richest of farces had they not led to events so

tragical. The possessed went into spasms at the approach of those

charged with witchcraft, and when the poor old men and women attempted

to attest their innocence they were overwhelmed with outcries by the

possessed, quotations of Scripture by the ministers, and denunciations

by the mob. One especially--Ann Putnam, a child of twelve years--showed

great precocity and played a striking part in the performances. The

mania spread to other children; and two or three married women also,

seeing the great attention paid to the afflicted, and influenced by that

epidemic of morbid imitation which science now recognises in all such

cases, soon became similarly afflicted, and in their turn made charges

against various persons. The Indian woman was flogged by her master, Mr.

Parris, until she confessed relations with Satan; and others were forced

or deluded into confession. These hysterical confessions, the results

of unbearable torture, or the reminiscences of dreams, which had been

prompted by the witch legends and sermons of the period, embraced such

facts as flying through the air to witch gatherings, partaking of witch

sacraments, signing a book presented by the devil, and submitting to

Satanic baptism. The possessed had begun with charging their possession

upon poor and vagrant old women, but ere long, emboldened by their

success, they attacked higher game, struck at some of the foremost

people of the region, and did not cease until several of these were

condemned to death, and every man, woman, and child brought under a

reign of terror. Many fled outright, and one of the foremost citizens of

Salem went constantly armed, and kept one of his horses saddled in the

stable to flee if brought under accusation. The hysterical ingenuity of

the possessed women grew with their success. They insisted that they saw

devils prompting the accused to defend themselves in court. Did one of

the accused clasp her hands in despair, the possessed clasped theirs;

did the accused, in appealing to Heaven, make any gesture, the possessed

simultaneously imitated it; did the accused in weariness drop her head,

the possessed dropped theirs, and declared that the witch was trying

to break their necks. The court-room resounded with groans, shrieks,

prayers, and curses; judges, jury, and people were aghast, and even the

accused were sometimes thus led to believe in their own guilt.

Very striking in all these cases was the alloy of frenzy with trickery.

In most of the madness there was method. Sundry witches charged by the

possessed had been engaged in controversy with the Salem church people.

Others of the accused had quarrelled with Mr. Parris. Still others had

been engaged in old lawsuits against persons more or less connected with

the girls. One of the most fearful charges, which cost the life of a

noble and lovely woman, arose undoubtedly from her better style of dress

and living. Old slumbering neighbourhood or personal quarrels bore in

this way a strange fruitage of revenge; for the cardinal doctrine of a

fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God.

Any person daring to hint the slightest distrust of the proceedings was

in danger of being immediately brought under accusation of a league with

Satan. Husbands and children were thus brought to the gallows for daring

to disbelieve these charges against their wives and mothers. Some of

the clergy were accused for endeavouring to save members of their

churches.(398)

(398) This is admirably brought out by Upham, and the lawyerlike

thoroughness with which he has examined all these hidden springs of the

charges is one of the main things which render his book one of the

most valuable contributions to the history and philosophy of demoniacal

possession ever written.

One poor woman was charged with "giving a look toward the great

meeting-house of Salem, and immediately a demon entered the house and

tore down a part of it." This cause for the falling of a bit of poorly

nailed wainscoting seemed perfectly satisfactory to Dr. Cotton Mather,

as well as to the judge and jury, and she was hanged, protesting her

innocence. Still another lady, belonging to one of the most respected

families of the region, was charged with the crime of witchcraft. The

children were fearfully afflicted whenever she appeared near them. It

seemed never to occur to any one that a bitter old feud between the

Rev. Mr. Parris and the family of the accused might have prejudiced the

children and directed their attention toward the woman. No account was

made of the fact that her life had been entirely blameless; and yet,

in view of the wretched insufficiency of proof, the jury brought in a

verdict of not guilty. As they brought in this verdict, all the children

began to shriek and scream, until the court committed the monstrous

wrong of causing her to be indicted anew. In order to warrant this, the

judge referred to one perfectly natural and harmless expression made

by the woman when under examination. The jury at last brought her in

guilty. She was condemned; and, having been brought into the church

heavily ironed, was solemnly excommunicated and delivered over to Satan

by the minister. Some good sense still prevailed, and the Governor

reprieved her; but ecclesiastical pressure and popular clamour were too

powerful. The Governor was induced to recall his reprieve, and she was

executed, protesting her innocence and praying for her enemies.(399)

(399) See Drake, The Witchcraft Delusion in New England, vol. iii, pp.

34 et seq.

Another typical case was presented. The Rev. Mr. Burroughs, against whom

considerable ill will had been expressed, and whose petty parish quarrel

with the powerful Putnam family had led to his dismissal from his

ministry, was named by the possessed as one of those who plagued them,

one of the most influential among the afflicted being Ann Putnam. Mr.

Burroughs had led a blameless life, the main thing charged against him

by the Putnams being that he insisted strenuously that his wife should

not go about the parish talking of her own family matters. He was

charged with afflicting the children, convicted, and executed. At the

last moment he repeated the Lord's Prayer solemnly and fully, which

it was supposed that no sorcerer could do, and this, together with his

straightforward Christian utterances at the execution, shook the faith

of many in the reality of diabolic possession. Ere long it was known

that one of the girls had acknowledged that she had belied some persons

who had been executed, and especially Mr. Burroughs, and that she had

begged forgiveness; but this for a time availed nothing. Persons who

would not confess were tied up and put to a sort of torture which was

effective in securing new revelations.

In the case of Giles Corey the horrors of the persecution culminated.

Seeing that his doom was certain, and wishing to preserve his family

from attainder and their property from confiscation, he refused to

plead. Though eighty years of age, he was therefore pressed to death,

and when, in his last agonies, his tongue was pressed out of his mouth,

the sheriff with his walking-stick thrust it back again.

Everything was made to contribute to the orthodox view of possession. On

one occasion, when a cart conveying eight condemned persons to the place

of execution stuck fast in the mire, some of the possessed declared that

they saw the devil trying to prevent the punishment of his associates.

Confessions of witchcraft abounded; but the way in which these

confessions were obtained is touchingly exhibited in a statement

afterward made by several women. In explaining the reasons why, when

charged with afflicting sick persons, they made a false confession, they

said:

"... By reason of that suddain surprizal, we knowing ourselves altogether

Innocent of that Crime, we were all exceedingly astonished and amazed,

and consternated and affrighted even out of our Reason; and our nearest

and dearest Relations, seeing us in that dreadful condition, and knowing

our great danger, apprehending that there was no other way to save our

lives,... out of tender... pitty persuaded us to confess what we did

confess. And indeed that Confession, that it is said we made, was no

other than what was suggested to us by some Gentlemen; they telling us,

that we were Witches, and they knew it, and we knew it, and they

knew that we knew it, which made us think that it was so; and our

understanding, our reason, and our faculties almost gone, we were not

capable of judging our condition; as also the hard measures they used

with us, rendered us uncapable of making our Defence, but said anything

and everything which they desired, and most of what we said, was in

effect a consenting to what they said...."(400)

(400) See Calef, in Drake, vol ii; also Upham.

Case after case, in which hysteria, fanaticism, cruelty, injustice, and

trickery played their part, was followed up to the scaffold. In a short

time twenty persons had been put to a cruel death, and the number of

the accused grew larger and larger. The highest position and the noblest

character formed no barrier. Daily the possessed became more bold, more

tricky, and more wild. No plea availed anything. In behalf of several

women, whose lives had been of the purest and gentlest, petitions were

presented, but to no effect. A scriptural text was always ready to aid

in the repression of mercy: it was remembered that "Satan himself is

transformed into an angel of light," and above all resounded the Old

Testament injunction, which had sent such multitudes in Europe to the

torture-chamber and the stake, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

Such clergymen as Noyes, Parris, and Mather, aided by such judges

as Stoughton and Hathorn, left nothing undone to stimulate these

proceedings. The great Cotton Mather based upon this outbreak of disease

thus treated his famous book, Wonders of the Invisible World, thanking

God for the triumphs over Satan thus gained at Salem; and his book

received the approbation of the Governor of the Province, the President

of Harvard College, and various eminent theologians in Europe as well as

in America.

But, despite such efforts as these, observation, and thought upon

observation, which form the beginning of all true science, brought in a

new order of things. The people began to fall away. Justice Bradstreet,

having committed thirty or forty persons, became aroused to the

absurdity of the whole matter; the minister of Andover had the good

sense to resist the theological view; even so high a personage as Lady

Phips, the wife of the Governor, began to show lenity.

Each of these was, in consequence of this disbelief, charged with

collusion with Satan; but such charges seemed now to lose their force.

In the midst of all this delusion and terrorism stood Cotton Mather firm

as ever. His efforts to uphold the declining superstition were heroic.

But he at last went one step too far. Being himself possessed of a mania

for myth-making and wonder-mongering, and having described a case

of witchcraft with possibly greater exaggeration than usual, he was

confronted by Robert Calef. Calef was a Boston merchant, who appears

to have united the good sense of a man of business to considerable

shrewdness in observation, power in thought, and love for truth; and

he began writing to Mather and others, to show the weak points in the

system. Mather, indignant that a person so much his inferior dared

dissent from his opinion, at first affected to despise Calef; but, as

Calef pressed him more and more closely, Mather denounced him, calling

him among other things "A Coal from Hell." All to no purpose: Calef

fastened still more firmly upon the flanks of the great theologian.

Thought and reason now began to resume their sway.

The possessed having accused certain men held in very high respect,

doubts began to dawn upon the community at large. Here was the

repetition of that which had set men thinking in the German bishoprics

when those under trial for witchcraft there had at last, in their

desperation or madness, charged the very bishops and the judges upon

the bench with sorcery. The party of reason grew stronger. The Rev. Mr.

Parris was soon put upon the defensive: for some of the possessed began

to confess that they had accused people wrongfully. Herculean efforts

were made by certain of the clergy and devout laity to support the

declining belief, but the more thoughtful turned more and more against

it; jurymen prominent in convictions solemnly retracted their verdicts

and publicly craved pardon of God and man. Most striking of all was the

case of Justice Sewall. A man of the highest character, he had in view

of authority deduced from Scripture and the principles laid down by the

great English judges, unhesitatingly condemned the accused; but reason

now dawned upon him. He looked back and saw the baselessness of the

whole proceedings, and made a public statement of his errors. His diary

contains many passages showing deep contrition, and ever afterward, to

the end of his life, he was wont, on one day in the year, to enter into

solitude, and there remain all the day long in fasting, prayer, and

penitence.

Chief-Justice Stoughton never yielded. To the last he lamented the "evil

spirit of unbelief" which was thwarting the glorious work of freeing New

England from demons.

The church of Salem solemnly revoked the excommunications of the

condemned and drove Mr. Parris from the pastorate. Cotton Mather

passed his last years in groaning over the decline of the faith and the

ingratitude of a people for whom he had done so much. Very significant

is one of his complaints, since it shows the evolution of a more

scientific mode of thought abroad as well as at home: he laments in his

diary that English publishers gladly printed Calef's book, but would no

longer publish his own, and he declares this "an attack upon the glory

of the Lord."

About forty years after the New England epidemic of "possession"

occurred another typical series of phenomena in France. In 1727 there

died at the French capital a simple and kindly ecclesiastic, the

Archdeacon Paris. He had lived a pious, Christian life, and was endeared

to multitudes by his charity; unfortunately, he had espoused the

doctrine of Jansen on grace and free will, and, though he remained in

the Gallican Church, he and those who thought like him were opposed by

the Jesuits, and finally condemned by a papal bull.

His remains having been buried in the cemetery of St. Medard, the

Jansenists flocked to say their prayers at his grave, and soon miracles

began to be wrought there. Ere long they were multiplied. The sick being

brought and laid upon the tombstone, many were cured. Wonderful stories

were attested by eye-witnesses. The myth-making tendency--the passion

for developing, enlarging, and spreading tales of wonder--came into full

play and was given free course.

Many thoughtful men satisfied themselves of the truth of these

representations. One of the foremost English scholars came over,

examined into them, and declared that there could be no doubt as to the

reality of the cures.

This state of things continued for about four years, when, in 1731, more

violent effects showed themselves. Sundry persons approaching the tomb

were thrown into convulsions, hysterics, and catalepsy; these diseases

spread, became epidemic, and soon multitudes were similarly afflicted.

Both religious parties made the most of these cases. In vain did such

great authorities in medical science as Hecquet and Lorry attribute the

whole to natural causes: the theologians on both sides declared them

supernatural--the Jansenists attributing them to God, the Jesuits to

Satan.

Of late years such cases have been treated in France with much

shrewdness. When, about the middle of the present century, the Arab

priests in Algiers tried to arouse fanaticism against the French

Christians by performing miracles, the French Government, instead of

persecuting the priests, sent Robert-Houdin, the most renowned juggler

of his time, to the scene of action, and for every Arab miracle Houdin

performed two: did an Arab marabout turn a rod into a serpent, Houdin

turned his rod into two serpents; and afterward showed the people how he

did it.

So, too, at the last International Exposition, the French Government,

observing the evil effects produced by the mania for table turning and

tipping, took occasion, when a great number of French schoolmasters and

teachers were visiting the exposition, to have public lectures given in

which all the business of dark closets, hand-tying, materialization of

spirits, presenting the faces of the departed, and ghostly portraiture

was fully performed by professional mountebanks, and afterward as fully

explained.

So in this case. The Government simply ordered the gate of the cemetery

to be locked, and when the crowd could no longer approach the tomb the

miracles ceased. A little Parisian ridicule helped to end the matter. A

wag wrote up over the gate of the cemetery.

"De par le Roi, defense a Dieu De faire des miracles dans ce lieu"--

which, being translated from doggerel French into doggerel English, is--

"By order of the king, the Lord must forbear To work any more of his miracles here."

But the theological spirit remained powerful. The French Revolution had

not then intervened to bring it under healthy limits. The agitation

was maintained, and, though the miracles and cases of possession were

stopped in the cemetery, it spread. Again full course was given to

myth-making and the retailing of wonders. It was said that men had

allowed themselves to be roasted before slow fires, and had been

afterward found uninjured; that some had enormous weights piled upon

them, but had supernatural powers of resistance given them; and that, in

one case, a voluntary crucifixion had taken place.

This agitation was long, troublesome, and no doubt robbed many

temporarily or permanently of such little brains as they possessed.

It was only when the violence had become an old story and the charm of

novelty had entirely worn off, and the afflicted found themselves

no longer regarded with especial interest, that the epidemic died

away.(401)

(401) See Madden, Phantasmata, chap. xiv; also Sir James Stephen,

History of France, lecture xxvi; also Henry Martin, Histoire de France,

vol. xv, pp. 168 et seq.; also Calmeil, liv. v, chap. xxiv; also

Hecker's essay; and, for samples of myth-making, see the apocryphal

Souvenirs de Crequy.

But in Germany at that time the outcome of this belief was far more

cruel. In 1749 Maria Renata Singer, sub-prioress of a convent at

Wurzburg, was charged with bewitching her fellow-nuns. There was the

usual story--the same essential facts as at Loudun--women shut up

against their will, dreams of Satan disguised as a young man, petty

jealousies, spites, quarrels, mysterious uproar, trickery, utensils

thrown about in a way not to be accounted for, hysterical shrieking and

convulsions, and, finally, the torture, confession, and execution of the

supposed culprit.(402)

(402) See Soldan, Scherr, Diefenbach, and others.

Various epidemics of this sort broke out from time to time in other

parts of the world, though happily, as modern scepticism prevailed, with

less cruel results.

In 1760 some congregations of Calvinistic Methodists in Wales became so

fervent that they began leaping for joy. The mania spread, and gave rise

to a sect called the "Jumpers." A similar outbreak took place afterward

in England, and has been repeated at various times and places since in

our own country.(403)

(403) See Adam's Dictionary of All Religions, article on Jumpers; also

Hecker.

In 1780 came another outbreak in France; but this time it was not the

Jansenists who were affected, but the strictly orthodox. A large number

of young girls between twelve and nineteen years of age, having been

brought together at the church of St. Roch, in Paris, with preaching

and ceremonies calculated to arouse hysterics, one of them fell into

convulsions. Immediately other children were similarly taken, until some

fifty or sixty were engaged in the same antics. This mania spread to

other churches and gatherings, proved very troublesome, and in some

cases led to results especially painful.

About the same period came a similar outbreak among the Protestants

of the Shetland Isles. A woman having been seized with convulsions at

church, the disease spread to others, mainly women, who fell into the

usual contortions and wild shriekings. A very effective cure proved to

be a threat to plunge the diseased into a neighbouring pond.

II. BEGINNINGS OF HELPFUL SCEPTICISM.

But near the end of the eighteenth century a fact very important for

science was established. It was found that these manifestations do not

arise in all cases from supernatural sources. In 1787 came the noted

case at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire. A girl working in a cotton

manufactory there put a mouse into the bosom of another girl who had

a great dread of mice. The girl thus treated immediately went into

convulsions, which lasted twenty-four hours. Shortly afterward three

other girls were seized with like convulsions, a little later six more,

and then others, until, in all, twenty-four were attacked. Then came a

fact throwing a flood of light upon earlier occurrences. This epidemic,

being noised abroad, soon spread to another factory five miles distant.

The patients there suffered from strangulation, danced, tore their hair,

and dashed their heads against the walls. There was a strong belief that

it was a disease introduced in cotton, but a resident physician amused

the patients with electric shocks, and the disease died out.

In 1801 came a case of like import in the Charite Hospital in Berlin.

A girl fell into strong convulsions. The disease proved contagious,

several others becoming afflicted in a similar way; but nearly all were

finally cured, principally by the administration of opium, which appears

at that time to have been a fashionable remedy.

Of the same sort was a case at Lyons in 1851. Sixty women were working

together in a shop, when one of them, after a bitter quarrel with

her husband, fell into a violent nervous paroxysm. The other women,

sympathizing with her, gathered about to assist her, but one after

another fell into a similar condition, until twenty were thus

prostrated, and a more general spread of the epidemic was only prevented

by clearing the premises.(404)

(404) For these examples and others, see Tuke, Influence of the Mind

upon the Body, vol. i, pp. 100, 277; also Hecker's essay.

But while these cases seemed, in the eye of Science, fatal to the old

conception of diabolic influence, the great majority of such epidemics,

when unexplained, continued to give strength to the older view.

In Roman Catholic countries these manifestations, as we have seen, have

generally appeared in convents, or in churches where young girls are

brought together for their first communion, or at shrines where miracles

are supposed to be wrought.

In Protestant countries they appear in times of great religious

excitement, and especially when large bodies of young women are

submitted to the influence of noisy and frothy preachers. Well-known

examples of this in America are seen in the "Jumpers," "Jerkers," and

various revival extravagances, especially among the negroes and "poor

whites" of the Southern States.

The proper conditions being given for the development of the

disease--generally a congregation composed mainly of young women--any

fanatic or overzealous priest or preacher may stimulate hysterical

seizures, which are very likely to become epidemic.

As a recent typical example on a large scale, I take the case of

diabolic possession at Morzine, a French village on the borders of

Switzerland; and it is especially instructive, because it was thoroughly

investigated by a competent man of science.

About the year 1853 a sick girl at Morzine, acting strangely, was

thought to be possessed of the devil, and was taken to Besancon,

where she seems to have fallen into the hands of kindly and sensible

ecclesiastics, and, under the operation of the relics preserved in the

cathedral there--especially the handkerchief of Christ--the devil was

cast out and she was cured. Naturally, much was said of the affair among

the peasantry, and soon other cases began to show themselves. The priest

at Morzine attempted to quiet the matter by avowing his disbelief in

such cases of possession; but immediately a great outcry was raised

against him, especially by the possessed themselves. The matter was

now widely discussed, and the malady spread rapidly; myth-making and

wonder-mongering began; amazing accounts were thus developed and sent

out to the world. The afflicted were said to have climbed trees like

squirrels; to have shown superhuman strength; to have exercised the gift

of tongues, speaking in German, Latin, and even in Arabic; to have

given accounts of historical events they had never heard of; and to have

revealed the secret thoughts of persons about them. Mingled with such

exhibitions of power were outbursts of blasphemy and obscenity.

But suddenly came something more miraculous, apparently, than all

these wonders. Without any assigned cause, this epidemic of possession

diminished and the devil disappeared.

Not long after this, Prof. Tissot, an eminent member of the medical

faculty at Dijon, visited the spot and began a series of researches, of

which he afterward published a full account. He tells us that he found

some reasons for the sudden departure of Satan which had never been

published. He discovered that the Government had quietly removed one or

two very zealous ecclesiastics to another parish, had sent the police

to Morzine to maintain order, and had given instructions that those

who acted outrageously should be simply treated as lunatics and sent

to asylums. This policy, so accordant with French methods of

administration, cast out the devil: the possessed were mainly cured, and

the matter appeared ended.

But Dr. Tissot found a few of the diseased still remaining, and he soon

satisfied himself by various investigations and experiments that they

were simply suffering from hysteria. One of his investigations is

especially curious. In order to observe the patients more carefully, he

invited some of them to dine with him, gave them without their knowledge

holy water in their wine or their food, and found that it produced no

effect whatever, though its results upon the demons when the possessed

knew of its presence had been very marked. Even after large draughts of

holy water had been thus given, the possessed remained afflicted, urged

that the devil should be cast out, and some of them even went into

convulsions; the devil apparently speaking from their mouths. It was

evident that Satan had not the remotest idea that he had been thoroughly

dosed with the most effective medicine known to the older theology.(405)

(405) For an amazing delineation of the curative and other virtues of

holy water, see the Abbe Gaume, L'Eau benite au XIXme Siecle, Paris,

1866.

At last Tissot published the results of his experiments, and the

stereotyped answer was soon made. It resembled the answer made by the

clerical opponents of Galileo when he showed them the moons of Jupiter

through his telescope, and they declared that the moons were created

by the telescope. The clerical opponents of Tissot insisted that the

non-effect of the holy water upon the demons proved nothing save the

extraordinary cunning of Satan; that the archfiend wished it to be

thought that he does not exist, and so overcame his repugnance to holy

water, gulping it down in order to conceal his presence.

Dr. Tissot also examined into the gift of tongues exercised by the

possessed. As to German and Latin, no great difficulty was presented:

it was by no means hard to suppose that some of the girls might have

learned some words of the former language in the neighbouring Swiss

cantons where German was spoken, or even in Germany itself; and as to

Latin, considering that they had heard it from their childhood in the

church, there seemed nothing very wonderful in their uttering some words

in that language also. As to Arabic, had they really spoken it, that

might have been accounted for by the relations of the possessed with

Zouaves or Spahis from the French army; but, as Tissot could discover no

such relations, he investigated this point as the most puzzling of all.

On a close inquiry, he found that all the wonderful examples of speaking

Arabic were reduced to one. He then asked whether there was any other

person speaking or knowing Arabic in the town. He was answered that

there was not. He asked whether any person had lived there, so far as

any one could remember, who had spoken or understood Arabic, and he was

answered in the negative.

He then asked the witnesses how they knew that the language spoken

by the girl was Arabic: no answer was vouchsafed him; but he was

overwhelmed with such stories as that of a pig which, at sight of the

cross on the village church, suddenly refused to go farther; and he was

denounced thoroughly in the clerical newspapers for declining to accept

such evidence.

At Tissot's visit in 1863 the possession had generally ceased, and the

cases left were few and quiet. But his visits stirred a new controversy,

and its echoes were long and loud in the pulpits and clerical journals.

Believers insisted that Satan had been removed by the intercession

of the Blessed Virgin; unbelievers hinted that the main cause of

the deliverance was the reluctance of the possessed to be shut up in

asylums.

Under these circumstances the Bishop of Annecy announced that he would

visit Morzine to administer Confirmation, and word appears to have

spread that he would give a more orthodox completion to the work already

done, by exorcising the devils who remained. Immediately several new

cases of possession appeared; young girls who had been cured were

again affected; the embers thus kindled were fanned into a flame by a

"mission" which sundry priests held in the parish to arouse the people

to their religious duties--a mission in Roman Catholic countries being

akin to a "revival" among some Protestant sects. Multitudes of young

women, excited by the preaching and appeals of the clergy, were again

thrown into the old disease, and at the coming of the good bishop it

culminated.

The account is given in the words of an eye-witness:

"At the solemn entrance of the bishop into the church, the possessed

persons threw themselves on the ground before him, or endeavoured to

throw themselves upon him, screaming frightfully, cursing, blaspheming,

so that the people at large were struck with horror. The possessed

followed the bishop, hooted him, and threatened him, up to the middle

of the church. Order was only established by the intervention of the

soldiers. During the confirmation the diseased redoubled their howls and

infernal vociferations, and tried to spit in the face of the bishop and

to tear off his pastoral raiment. At the moment when the prelate gave

his benediction a still more outrageous scene took place. The violence

of the diseased was carried to fury, and from all parts of the church

arose yells and fearful howling; so frightful was the din that tears

fell from the eyes of many of the spectators, and many strangers were

thrown into consternation."

Among the very large number of these diseased persons there were only

two men; of the remainder only two were of advanced age; the great

majority were young women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five

years.

The public authorities shortly afterward intervened, and sought to

cure the disease and to draw the people out of their mania by singing,

dancing, and sports of various sorts, until at last it was brought under

control.(406)

(406) See Tissot, L'Imagination: ses Bienfaits et ses Egarements sutout

dans le Domaine du Merveilleux, Paris, 1868, liv. iv, ch. vii, S 7:

Les Possedees de Morzine; also Constans, Relation sur une Epidemie de

Hystero-Demonopathies, Paris, 1863.

Scenes similar to these, in their essential character, have arisen more

recently in Protestant countries, but with the difference that what has

been generally attributed by Roman Catholic ecclesiastics to Satan is

attributed by Protestant ecclesiastics to the Almighty. Typical among

the greater exhibitions of this were those which began in the Methodist

chapel at Redruth in Cornwall--convulsions, leaping, jumping, until some

four thousand persons were seized by it. The same thing is seen in the

ruder parts of America at "revivals" and camp meetings. Nor in the

ruder parts of America alone. In June, 1893, at a funeral in the city

of Brooklyn, one of the mourners having fallen into hysterical fits,

several other cases at once appeared in various parts of the church

edifice, and some of the patients were so seriously affected that they

were taken to a hospital.

In still another field these exhibitions are seen, but more after a

medieval pattern: in the Tigretier of Abyssinia we have epidemics of

dancing which seek and obtain miraculous cures.

Reports of similar manifestations are also sent from missionaries

from the west coast of Africa, one of whom sees in some of them the

characteristics of cases of possession mentioned in our Gospels, and is

therefore inclined to attribute them to Satan.(407)

(407) For the cases in Brooklyn, see the New York Tribune of about June

10, 1893. For the Tigretier, with especially interesting citations, see

Hecker, chap. iii, sec. 1. For the cases in western Africa, see the Rev.

J. L. Wilson, Western Africa, p. 217.

III. THEOLOGICAL "RESTATEMENTS."--FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW

AND METHODS.

But, happily, long before these latter occurrences, science had come

into the field and was gradually diminishing this class of diseases.

Among the earlier workers to this better purpose was the great Dutch

physician Boerhaave. Finding in one of the wards in the hospital at

Haarlem a number of women going into convulsions and imitating each

other in various acts of frenzy, he immediately ordered a furnace of

blazing coals into the midst of the ward, heated cauterizing irons, and

declared that he would burn the arms of the first woman who fell into

convulsions. No more cases occurred.(408)

(408) See Figuier, Histoire de Merveilleux, vol. i, p. 403.

These and similar successful dealings of medical science with mental

disease brought about the next stage in the theological development. The

Church sought to retreat, after the usual manner, behind a compromise.

Early in the eighteenth century appeared a new edition of the great work

by the Jesuit Delrio which for a hundred years had been a text-book for

the use of ecclesiastics in fighting witchcraft; but in this edition

the part played by Satan in diseases was changed: it was suggested that,

while diseases have natural causes, it is necessary that Satan enter

the human body in order to make these causes effective. This work claims

that Satan "attacks lunatics at the full moon, when their brains are

full of humours"; that in other cases of illness he "stirs the black

bile"; and that in cases of blindness and deafness he "clogs the eyes

and ears." By the close of the century this "restatement" was evidently

found untenable, and one of a very different sort was attempted in

England.

In the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in 1797,

under the article Daemoniacs, the orthodox view was presented in the

following words: "The reality of demoniacal possession stands upon the

same evidence with the gospel system in general."

This statement, though necessary to satisfy the older theological

sentiment, was clearly found too dangerous to be sent out into the

modern sceptical world without some qualification. Another view was

therefore suggested, namely, that the personages of the New Testament

"adopted the vulgar language in speaking of those unfortunate persons

who were generally imagined to be possessed with demons." Two or three

editions contained this curious compromise; but near the middle of the

present century the whole discussion was quietly dropped.

Science, declining to trouble itself with any of these views, pressed

on, and toward the end of the century we see Dr. Rhodes at Lyons curing

a very serious case of possession by the use of a powerful emetic; yet

myth-making came in here also, and it was stated that when the emetic

produced its effect people had seen multitudes of green and yellow

devils cast forth from the mouth of the possessed.

The last great demonstration of the old belief in England was made in

1788. Near the city of Bristol at that time lived a drunken epileptic,

George Lukins. In asking alms, he insisted that he was "possessed," and

proved it by jumping, screaming, barking, and treating the company to a

parody of the Te Deum.

He was solemnly brought into the Temple Church, and seven clergymen

united in the effort to exorcise the evil spirit. Upon their adjuring

Satan, he swore "by his infernal den" that he would not come out of

the man--"an oath," says the chronicler, "nowhere to be found but in

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, from which Lukins probably got it."

But the seven clergymen were at last successful, and seven devils were

cast out, after which Lukins retired, and appears to have been supported

during the remainder of his life as a monument of mercy.

With this great effort the old theory in England seemed practically

exhausted.

Science had evidently carried the stronghold. In 1876, at a little

town near Amiens, in France, a young woman suffering with all the usual

evidences of diabolic possession was brought to the priest. The priest

was besought to cast out the devil, but he simply took her to the

hospital, where, under scientific treatment, she rapidly became

better.(409)

(409) See Figuier; also Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire Infernale,

article Posseses.

The final triumph of science in this part of the great field has been

mainly achieved during the latter half of the present century.

Following in the noble succession of Paracelsus and John Hunter and

Pinel and Tuke and Esquirol, have come a band of thinkers and workers

who by scientific observation and research have developed new growths of

truth, ever more and more precious.

Among the many facts thus brought to bear upon this last stronghold

of the Prince of Darkness, may be named especially those indicating

"expectant attention"--an expectation of phenomena dwelt upon until the

longing for them becomes morbid and invincible, and the creation of

them perhaps unconscious. Still other classes of phenomena leading to

epidemics are found to arise from a morbid tendency to imitation. Still

other groups have been brought under hypnotism. Multitudes more have

been found under the innumerable forms and results of hysteria. A study

of the effects of the imagination upon bodily functions has also yielded

remarkable results.

And, finally, to supplement this work, have come in an array of

scholars in history and literature who have investigated myth-making and

wonder-mongering.

Thus has been cleared away that cloud of supernaturalism which so long

hung over mental diseases, and thus have they been brought within the

firm grasp of science.(410)

(410) To go into even leading citations in this vast and beneficent

literature would take me far beyond my plan and space, but I may

name, among easily accessible authorities, Brierre de Boismont on

Hallucinations, Hulme's translation, 1860; also James Braid, The Power

of the Mind over the Body, London, 1846; Krafft-Ebing, Lehrbuch der

Psychiatrie, Stuttgart, 1888; Tuke, Influence of the Mind on the Body,

London, 1884; Maudsley, Pathology of the Mind, London, 1879; Carpenter,

Mental Physiology, sixth edition, London, 1888; Lloyd Tuckey, Faith

Cure, in The Nineteenth Century for December, 1888; Pettigrew,

Superstitions connected with the Practice of Medicine and Surgery,

London, 1844; Snell, Hexenprocesse und Geistesstorung, Munchen,

1891. For a very valuable study of interesting cases, see The Law

of Hypnotism, by Prof. R. S. Hyer, of the Southwestern University,

Georgetown, Texas, 1895.

As to myth-making and wonder-mongering, the general reader will find

interesting supplementary accounts in the recent works of Andrew Lang

and Baring-Gould.

A very curious evidence of the effects of the myth-making tendency

has recently come to the attention of the writer of this article.

Periodically, for many years past, we have seen, in books of travel

and in the newspapers, accounts of the wonderful performances of the

jugglers in India; of the stabbing of a child in a small basket in the

midst of an arena, and the child appearing alive in the surrounding

crowd; of seeds planted, sprouted, and becoming well-grown trees under

the hand of the juggler; of ropes thrown into the air and sustained by

invisible force. Count de Gubernatis, the eminent professor and Oriental

scholar at Florence, informed the present writer that he had recently

seen and studied these exhibitions, and that, so far from being

wonderful, they were much inferior to the jugglery so well known in all

our Western capitals.

Conscientious men still linger on who find comfort in holding fast

to some shred of the old belief in diabolic possession. The sturdy

declaration in the last century by John Wesley, that "giving up

witchcraft is giving up the Bible," is echoed feebly in the latter

half of this century by the eminent Catholic ecclesiastic in France who

declares that "to deny possession by devils is to charge Jesus and his

apostles with imposture," and asks, "How can the testimony of apostles,

fathers of the Church, and saints who saw the possessed and so declared,

be denied?" And a still fainter echo lingers in Protestant England.(411)

(411) See the Abbe Barthelemi, in the Dictionnaire de la Conversation;

also the Rev. W. Scott's Doctrine of Evil Spirits proved, London, 1853;

also the vigorous protest of Dean Burgon against the action of the New

Testament revisers, in substituting the word "epileptic" for "lunatic"

in Matthew xvii, 15, published in the Quarterly Review for January,

1882.

But, despite this conscientious opposition, science has in these latter

days steadily wrought hand in hand with Christian charity in this field,

to evolve a better future for humanity. The thoughtful physician and the

devoted clergyman are now constantly seen working together; and it is

not too much to expect that Satan, having been cast out of the insane

asylums, will ere long disappear from monasteries and camp meetings,

even in the most unenlightened regions of Christendom.

CHAPTER XVII. FROM BABEL TO COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY.

I. THE SACRED THEORY IN ITS FIRST FORM.

Among the sciences which have served as entering wedges into the heavy

mass of ecclesiastical orthodoxy--to cleave it, disintegrate it, and let

the light of Christianity into it--none perhaps has done a more striking

work than Comparative Philology. In one very important respect the

history of this science differs from that of any other; for it is the

only one whose conclusions theologians have at last fully adopted as

the result of their own studies. This adoption teaches a great lesson,

since, while it has destroyed theological views cherished during many

centuries, and obliged the Church to accept theories directly contrary

to the plain letter of our sacred books, the result is clearly seen to

have helped Christianity rather than to have hurt it. It has certainly

done much to clear our religious foundations of the dogmatic rust which

was eating into their structure.

How this result was reached, and why the Church has so fully accepted

it, I shall endeavour to show in the present chapter. At a very early

period in the evolution of civilization men began to ask questions

regarding language; and the answers to these questions were naturally

embodied in the myths, legends, and chronicles of their sacred books.

Among the foremost of these questions were three: "Whence came

language?" "Which was the first language?" "How came the diversity of

language?"

The answer to the first of these was very simple: each people naturally

held that language was given it directly or indirectly by some special

or national deity of its own; thus, to the Chaldeans by Oannes, to the

Egyptians by Thoth, to the Hebrews by Jahveh.

The Hebrew answer is embodied in the great poem which opens our sacred

books. Jahveh talks with Adam and is perfectly understood; the serpent

talks with Eve and is perfectly understood; Jahveh brings the animals

before Adam, who bestows on each its name. Language, then, was God-given

and complete. Of the fact that every language is the result of a growth

process there was evidently, among the compilers of our sacred books, no

suspicion.

The answer to the second of these questions was no less simple. As,

very generally, each nation believed its own chief divinity to be "a god

above all gods,"--as each believed itself "a chosen people,"--as each

believed its own sacred city the actual centre of the earth, so each

believed its own language to be the first--the original of all. This

answer was from the first taken for granted by each "chosen people," and

especially by the Hebrews: throughout their whole history, whether the

Almighty talks with Adam in the Garden or writes the commandments on

Mount Sinai, he uses the same language--the Hebrew.

The answer to the third of these questions, that regarding the diversity

of languages, was much more difficult. Naturally, explanations of this

diversity frequently gave rise to legends somewhat complicated.

The "law of wills and causes," formulated by Comte, was exemplified here

as in so many other cases. That law is, that, when men do not know the

natural causes of things, they simply attribute them to wills like their

own; thus they obtain a theory which provisionally takes the place of

science, and this theory forms a basis for theology.

Examples of this recur to any thinking reader of history. Before

the simpler laws of astronomy were known, the sun was supposed to be

trundled out into the heavens every day and the stars hung up in the

firmament every night by the right hand of the Almighty. Before the

laws of comets were known, they were thought to be missiles hurled by

an angry God at a wicked world. Before the real cause of lightning was

known, it was supposed to be the work of a good God in his wrath, or of

evil spirits in their malice. Before the laws of meteorology were known,

it was thought that rains were caused by the Almighty or his angels

opening "the windows of heaven" to let down upon the earth "the waters

that be above the firmament." Before the laws governing physical

health were known, diseases were supposed to result from the direct

interposition of the Almighty or of Satan. Before the laws governing

mental health were known, insanity was generally thought to be diabolic

possession. All these early conceptions were naturally embodied in the

sacred books of the world, and especially in our own.(412)

(412) Any one who wishes to realize the mediaeval view of the direct

personal attention of the Almighty to the universe, can perhaps do so

most easily by looking over the engravings in the well-known Nuremberg

Chronicle, representing him in the work of each of the six days, and

resting afterward.

So, in this case, to account for the diversity of tongues, the direct

intervention of the Divine Will was brought in. As this diversity was

felt to be an inconvenience, it was attributed to the will of a Divine

Being in anger. To explain this anger, it was held that it must have

been provoked by human sin.

Out of this conception explanatory myths and legends grew as thickly and

naturally as elms along water-courses; of these the earliest form known

to us is found in the Chaldean accounts, and nowhere more clearly than

in the legend of the Tower of Babel.

The inscriptions recently found among the ruins of Assyria have thrown

a bright light into this and other scriptural myths and legends: the

deciphering of the characters in these inscriptions by Grotefend, and

the reading of the texts by George Smith, Oppert, Sayce, and others,

have given us these traditions more nearly in their original form than

they appear in our own Scriptures.

The Hebrew story of Babel, like so many other legends in the sacred

books of the world, combined various elements. By a play upon words,

such as the history of myths and legends frequently shows, it wrought

into one fabric the earlier explanations of the diversities of human

speech and of the great ruined tower at Babylon. The name Babel (bab-el)

means "Gate of God" or "Gate of the Gods." All modern scholars of note

agree that this was the real significance of the name; but the Hebrew

verb which signifies TO CONFOUND resembles somewhat the word Babel, so

that out of this resemblance, by one of the most common processes in

myth formation, came to the Hebrew mind an indisputable proof that the

tower was connected with the confusion of tongues, and this became part

of our theological heritage.

In our sacred books the account runs as follows:

"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

"And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a

plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

"And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them

thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.

"And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top

may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered

abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

"And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the

children of men builded.

"And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one

language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained

from them, which they have imagined to do.

"Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may

not understand one another's speech.

"So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the

earth: and they left off to build the city.

"Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there

confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord

scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." (Genesis xi, 1-9.)

Thus far the legend had been but slightly changed from the earlier

Chaldean form in which it has been found in the Assyrian inscriptions.

Its character is very simple: to use the words of Prof. Sayce, "It takes

us back to the age when the gods were believed to dwell in the visible

sky, and when man, therefore, did his best to rear his altars as near

them as possible." And this eminent divine might have added that it

takes us back also to a time when it was thought that Jehovah, in order

to see the tower fully, was obliged to come down from his seat above the

firmament.

As to the real reasons for the building of the towers which formed so

striking a feature in Chaldean architecture--any one of which may easily

have given rise to the explanatory myth which found its way into our

sacred books--there seems a substantial agreement among leading scholars

that they were erected primarily as parts of temples, but largely for

the purpose of astronomical observations, to which the Chaldeans were

so devoted, and to which their country, with its level surface and clear

atmosphere, was so well adapted. As to the real cause of the ruin of

such structures, one of the inscribed cylinders discovered in recent

times, speaking of a tower which most of the archaeologists identify

with the Tower of Babel, reads as follows:

"The building named the Stages of the Seven Spheres, which was the Tower

of Borsippa, had been built by a former king. He had completed forty-two

cubits, but he did not finish its head. During the lapse of time, it

had become ruined; they had not taken care of the exit of the waters,

so that rain and wet had penetrated into the brickwork; the casing

of burned brick had swollen out, and the terraces of crude brick are

scattered in heaps."

We can well understand how easily "the gods, assisted by the winds," as

stated in the Chaldean legend, could overthrow a tower thus built.

It may be instructive to compare with the explanatory myth developed

first by the Chaldeans, and in a slightly different form by the Hebrews,

various other legends to explain the same diversity of tongues. The

Hindu legend of the confusion of tongues is as follows:

"There grew in the centre of the earth the wonderful 'world tree,' or

'knowledge tree.' It was so tall that it reached almost to heaven.

It said in its heart, 'I shall hold my head in heaven and spread my

branches over all the earth, and gather all men together under my

shadow, and protect them, and prevent them from separating.' But Brahma,

to punish the pride of the tree, cut off its branches and cast them down

on the earth, when they sprang up as wata trees, and made differences of

belief and speech and customs to prevail on the earth, to disperse men

upon its surface."

Still more striking is a Mexican legend: according to this, the giant

Xelhua built the great Pyramid of Cholula, in order to reach heaven,

until the gods, angry at his audacity, threw fire upon the building and

broke it down, whereupon every separate family received a language of

its own.

Such explanatory myths grew or spread widely over the earth. A

well-known form of the legend, more like the Chaldean than the Hebrew

later form, appeared among the Greeks. According to this, the Aloidae

piled Mount Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion upon Ossa, in their efforts to

reach heaven and dethrone Jupiter.

Still another form of it entered the thoughts of Plato. He held that in

the golden age men and beasts all spoke the same language, but that

Zeus confounded their speech because men were proud and demanded eternal

youth and immortality.(413)

(413) For the identification of the Tower of Babel with the "Birs

Nimrad" amid the ruins of the city of Borsippa, see Rawlinson; also

Schrader, The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, London,

1885, pp. 106-112 and following; and especially George Smith, Assyrian

Discoveries, p. 59. For some of these inscriptions discovered and read

by George Smith, see his Chaldean Account of Genesis, new York, 1876,

pp. 160-162. For the statement regarding the origin of the word Babel,

see Ersch and Gruber, article Babylon; also the Rev. Prof. A. H. Sayce

in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; also Colenso,

Pentateuch Examined, part iv, p. 302; also John Fiske, Myths and

Myth-makers, p. 72; also Lenormont, Histoire Ancienne de l'Orient,

Paris, 1881, vol. i, pp. 115 et seq. As to the character and purpose of

the great tower of the temple of Belus, see Smith's Bible Dictionary,

article Babel, quoting Diodorus; also Rawlinson, especially in Journal

of the Asiatic Society for 1861; also Sayce, Religion of the Ancient

Babylonians (Hibbert Lectures for 1887), London, 1887, chap. ii and

elsewhere, especially pages 96, 397, 407; also Max Duncker, History

of Antiquity, Abbott's translation, vol. ii, chaps. ii, and iii.

For similar legends in other parts of the world, see Delitzsch; also

Humboldt, American Researches; also Brinton, Myths of the New World;

also Colenso, as above. The Tower of Cholula is well known, having

been described by Humboldt and Lord Kingsborough. For superb engravings

showing the view of Babel as developed by the theological imagination,

see Kircher, Turris Babel, Amsterdam, 1679. For the Law of Wills and

Causes, with deductions from it well stated, see Beattie Crozier,

Civilization and Progress, London, 1888, pp. 112, 178, 179, 273. For

Plato, see the Politicus, p. 272, ed. Stephani, cited in Ersch and

Gruber, article Babylon. For a good general statement, see Bible Myths,

New York, 1883, chap. iii. For Aristotle's strange want of interest in

any classification of the varieties of human speech, see Max Muller,

Lectures on the Science of Language, London, 1864, series i, chap. iv,

pp. 123-125.

But naturally the version of the legend which most affected Christendom

was that modification of the Chaldean form developed among the Jews and

embodied in their sacred books. To a thinking man in these days it is

very instructive. The coming down of the Almighty from heaven to see

the tower and put an end to it by dispersing its builders, points to the

time when his dwelling was supposed to be just above the firmament or

solid vault above the earth: the time when he exercised his beneficent

activity in such acts as opening "the windows of heaven" to give down

rain upon the earth; in bringing out the sun every day and hanging up

the stars every night to give light to the earth; in hurling comets, to

give warning; in placing his bow in the cloud, to give hope; in, coming

down in the cool of the evening to walk and talk with the man he had

made; in making coats of skins for Adam and Eve; in enjoying the odour

of flesh which Noah burned for him; in eating with Abraham under the

oaks of Mamre; in wrestling with Jacob; and in writing with his own

finger on the stone tables for Moses.

So came the answer to the third question regarding language; and all

three answers, embodied in our sacred books and implanted in the Jewish

mind, supplied to the Christian Church the germs of a theological

development of philology. These germs developed rapidly in the warm

atmosphere of devotion and ignorance of natural law which pervaded the

early Church, and there grew a great orthodox theory of language, which

was held throughout Christendom, "always, everywhere, and by all," for

nearly two thousand years, and to which, until the present century, all

science has been obliged, under pains and penalties, to conform.

There did, indeed, come into human thought at an early period some

suggestions of the modern scientific view of philology. Lucretius had

proposed a theory, inadequate indeed, but still pointing toward the

truth, as follows: "Nature impelled man to try the various sounds of the

tongue, and so struck out the names of things, much in the same way as

the inability to speak is seen in its turn to drive children to the use

of gestures." But, among the early fathers of the Church, the only one

who seems to have caught an echo of this utterance was St. Gregory of

Nyssa: as a rule, all the other great founders of Christian theology, as

far as they expressed themselves on the subject, took the view that the

original language spoken by the Almighty and given by him to men was

Hebrew, and that from this all other languages were derived at the

destruction of the Tower of Babel. This doctrine was especially upheld

by Origen, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine. Origen taught that "the

language given at the first through Adam, the Hebrew, remained among

that portion of mankind which was assigned not to any angel, but

continued the portion of God himself." St. Augustine declared that, when

the other races were divided by their own peculiar languages, Heber's

family preserved that language which is not unreasonably believed to

have been the common language of the race, and that on this account it

was henceforth called Hebrew. St. Jerome wrote, "The whole of antiquity

affirms that Hebrew, in which the Old Testament is written, was the

beginning of all human speech."

Amid such great authorities as these even Gregory of Nyssa struggled in

vain. He seems to have taken the matter very earnestly, and to have

used not only argument but ridicule. He insists that God does not speak

Hebrew, and that the tongue used by Moses was not even a pure dialect

of one of the languages resulting from "the confusion." He makes man

the inventor of speech, and resorts to raillery: speaking against his

opponent Eunomius, he says that, "passing in silence his base and abject

garrulity," he will "note a few things which are thrown into the midst

of his useless or wordy discourse, where he represents God teaching

words and names to our first parents, sitting before them like some

pedagogue or grammar master." But, naturally, the great authority

of Origen, Jerome, and Augustine prevailed; the view suggested by

Lucretius, and again by St. Gregory of Nyssa, died, out; and "always,

everywhere, and by all," in the Church, the doctrine was received that

the language spoken by the Almighty was Hebrew,--that it was taught

by him to Adam,--and that all other languages on the face of the earth

originated from it at the dispersion attending the destruction of the

Tower of Babel.(414)

(414) For Lucretius's statement, see the De Rerum Natura, lib. v,

Munro's edition, with translation, Cambridge, 1886, vol. iii. p.

141. For the opinion of Gregory of Nyssa, see Benfey, Geschichte der

Sprachwissenschaft in Deutschland, Munchen, 1869, p. 179; and for the

passage cited, see Gregory of Nyssa in his Contra Eunomium, xii, in

Migne's Patr. Graeca, vol. ii, p. 1043. For St. Jerome, see his Epistle

XVIII, in Migne's Patr. Lat., vol. xxii, p. 365. For citation from St.

Augustine, see the City of God, Dod's translation, Edinburgh, 1871,

vol. ii, p. 122. For citation from Origen, see his Homily XI, cited by

Guichard in preface to L'Harmonie Etymologique, Paris, 1631, lib. xvi,

chap. xi. For absolutely convincing proofs that the Jews derived the

Babel and other legends of their sacred books fro the Chaldeans, see

George Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, passim; but especially for a

most candid though somewhat reluctant summing up, see p. 291.

This idea threw out roots and branches in every direction, and so

developed ever into new and strong forms. As all scholars now know,

the vowel points in the Hebrew language were not adopted until at some

period between the second and tenth centuries; but in the mediaeval

Church they soon came to be considered as part of the great miracle,--as

the work of the right hand of the Almighty; and never until the

eighteenth century was there any doubt allowed as to the divine origin

of these rabbinical additions to the text. To hesitate in believing that

these points were dotted virtually by the very hand of God himself came

to be considered a fearful heresy.

The series of battles between theology and science in the field

of comparative philology opened just on this point, apparently

so insignificant: the direct divine inspiration of the rabbinical

punctuation. The first to impugn this divine origin of these vocal

points and accents appears to have been a Spanish monk, Raymundus

Martinus, in his Pugio Fidei, or Poniard of the Faith, which he put

forth in the thirteenth century. But he and his doctrine disappeared

beneath the waves of the orthodox ocean, and apparently left no trace.

For nearly three hundred years longer the full sacred theory held its

ground; but about the opening of the sixteenth century another glimpse

of the truth was given by a Jew, Elias Levita, and this seems to have

had some little effect, at least in keeping the germ of scientific truth

alive.

The Reformation, with its renewal of the literal study of the

Scriptures, and its transfer of all infallibility from the Church and

the papacy to the letter of the sacred books, intensified for a time the

devotion of Christendom to this sacred theory of language. The belief

was strongly held that the writers of the Bible were merely pens in

the hand of God (Dei calami.{;?} Hence the conclusion that not only the

sense but the words, letters, and even the punctuation proceeded from

the Holy Spirit. Only on this one question of the origin of the Hebrew

points was there any controversy, and this waxed hot. It began to be

especially noted that these vowel points in the Hebrew Bible did not

exist in the synagogue rolls, were not mentioned in the Talmud, and

seemed unknown to St. Jerome; and on these grounds some earnest men

ventured to think them no part of the original revelation to Adam.

Zwingli, so much before most of the Reformers in other respects,

was equally so in this. While not doubting the divine origin and

preservation of the Hebrew language as a whole, he denied the antiquity

of the vocal points, demonstrated their unessential character, and

pointed out the fact that St. Jerome makes no mention of them. His

denial was long the refuge of those who shared this heresy.

But the full orthodox theory remained established among the vast

majority both of Catholics and Protestants. The attitude of the former

is well illustrated in the imposing work of the canon Marini, which

appeared at Venice in 1593, under the title of Noah's Ark: A New

Treasury of the Sacred Tongue. The huge folios begin with the

declaration that the Hebrew tongue was "divinely inspired at the very

beginning of the world," and the doctrine is steadily maintained that

this divine inspiration extended not only to the letters but to the

punctuation.

Not before the seventeenth century was well under way do we find a

thorough scholar bold enough to gainsay this preposterous doctrine. This

new assailant was Capellus, Professor of Hebrew at Saumur; but he dared

not put forth his argument in France: he was obliged to publish it in

Holland, and even there such obstacles were thrown in his way that it

was ten years before he published another treatise of importance.

The work of Capellus was received as settling the question by very many

open-minded scholars, among whom was Hugo Grotius. But many theologians

felt this view to be a blow at the sanctity and integrity of the sacred

text; and in 1648 the great scholar, John Buxtorf the younger, rose

to defend the orthodox citadel: in his Anticritica he brought all his

stores of knowledge to uphold the doctrine that the rabbinical points

and accents had been jotted down by the right hand of God.

The controversy waxed hot: scholars like Voss and Brian Walton supported

Capellus; Wasmuth and many others of note were as fierce against him.

The Swiss Protestants were especially violent on the orthodox side;

their formula consensus of 1675 declared the vowel points to be

inspired, and three years later the Calvinists of Geneva, by a

special canon, forbade that any minister should be received into their

jurisdiction until he publicly confessed that the Hebrew text, as it

to-day exists in the Masoretic copies, is, both as to the consonants and

vowel points, divine and authentic.

While in Holland so great a man as Hugo Grotius supported the view

of Capellus, and while in France the eminent Catholic scholar Richard

Simon, and many others, Catholic and Protestant, took similar ground

against this divine origin of the Hebrew punctuation, there was arrayed

against them a body apparently overwhelming. In France, Bossuet, the

greatest theologian that France has ever produced, did his best to crush

Simon. In Germany, Wasmuth, professor first at Rostock and afterward at

Kiel, hurled his Vindiciae at the innovators. Yet at this very moment

the battle was clearly won; the arguments of Capellus were irrefragable,

and, despite the commands of bishops, the outcries of theologians,

and the sneering of critics, his application of strictly scientific

observation and reasoning carried the day.

Yet a casual observer, long after the fate of the battle was really

settled, might have supposed that it was still in doubt. As is not

unusual in theologic controversies, attempts were made to galvanize the

dead doctrine into an appearance of life. Famous among these attempts

was that made as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century by two

Bremen theologians, Hase and Iken. They put forth a compilation in two

huge folios simultaneously at Leyden and Amsterdam, prominent in which

work is the treatise on The Integrity of Scripture, by Johann Andreas

Danzius, Professor of Oriental Languages and Senior Member of the

Philosophical Faculty of Jena, and, to preface it, there was a formal

and fulsome approval by three eminent professors of theology at Leyden.

With great fervour the author pointed out that "religion itself depends

absolutely on the infallible inspiration, both verbal and literal, of

the Scripture text"; and with impassioned eloquence he assailed the

blasphemers who dared question the divine origin of the Hebrew points.

But this was really the last great effort. That the case was lost was

seen by the fact that Danzius felt obliged to use other missiles than

arguments, and especially to call his opponents hard names. From this

period the old sacred theory as to the origin of the Hebrew points may

be considered as dead and buried.

II. THE SACRED THEORY OF LANGUAGE IN ITS SECOND FORM.

But the war was soon to be waged on a wider and far more important

field. The inspiration of the Hebrew punctuation having been given up,

the great orthodox body fell back upon the remainder of the theory,

and intrenched this more strongly than ever: the theory that the Hebrew

language was the first of all languages--that which was spoken by the

Almighty, given by him to Adam, transmitted through Noah to the world

after the Deluge--and that the "confusion of tongues" was the origin of

all other languages.

In giving account of this new phase of the struggle, it is well to go

back a little. From the Revival of Learning and the Reformation had come

the renewed study of Hebrew in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,

and thus the sacred doctrine regarding the origin of the Hebrew language

received additional authority. All the early Hebrew grammars, from that

of Reuchlin down, assert the divine origin and miraculous claims of

Hebrew. It is constantly mentioned as "the sacred tongue"--sancta

lingua. In 1506, Reuchlin, though himself persecuted by a large faction

in the Church for advanced views, refers to Hebrew as "spoken by the

mouth of God."

This idea was popularized by the edition of the Margarita Philosophica,

published at Strasburg in 1508. That work, in its successive editions

a mirror of human knowledge at the close of the Middle Ages and the

opening of modern times, contains a curious introduction to the study of

Hebrew, In this it is declared that Hebrew was the original speech

"used between God and man and between men and angels." Its full-page

frontispiece represents Moses receiving from God the tables of stone

written in Hebrew; and, as a conclusive argument, it reminds us that

Christ himself, by choosing a Hebrew maid for his mother, made that his

mother tongue.

It must be noted here, however, that Luther, in one of those outbursts

of strong sense which so often appear in his career, enforced the

explanation that the words "God said" had nothing to do with the

articulation of human language. Still, he evidently yielded to the

general view. In the Roman Church at the same period we have a typical

example of the theologic method applied to philology, as we have seen it

applied to other sciences, in the statement by Luther's great opponent,

Cajetan, that the three languages of the inscription on the cross of

Calvary "were the representatives of all languages, because the number

three denotes perfection."

In 1538 Postillus made a very important endeavour at a comparative study

of languages, but with the orthodox assumption that all were derived

from one source, namely, the Hebrew. Naturally, Comparative Philology

blundered and stumbled along this path into endless absurdities. The

most amazing efforts were made to trace back everything to the sacred

language. English and Latin dictionaries appeared, in which every word

was traced back to a Hebrew root. No supposition was too absurd in

this attempt to square Science with Scripture. It was declared that, as

Hebrew is written from right to left, it might be read either way, in

order to produce a satisfactory etymology. The whole effort in all this

sacred scholarship was, not to find what the truth is--not to see how

the various languages are to be classified, or from what source they

are really derived--but to demonstrate what was supposed necessary to

maintain what was then held to be the truth of Scripture; namely, that

all languages are derived from the Hebrew.

This stumbling and blundering, under the sway of orthodox necessity, was

seen among the foremost scholars throughout Europe. About the middle of

the sixteenth century the great Swiss scholar, Conrad Gesner, beginning

his Mithridates, says, "While of all languages Hebrew is the first and

oldest, of all is alone pure and unmixed, all the rest are much mixed,

for there is none which has not some words derived and corrupted from

Hebrew."

Typical, as we approach the end of the sixteenth century, are the

utterances of two of the most noted English divines. First of these

may be mentioned Dr. William Fulke, Master of Pembroke Hall, in the

University of Cambridge. In his Discovery of the Dangerous Rock of the

Romish Church, published in 1580, he speaks of "the Hebrew tongue,... the

first tongue of the world, and for the excellency thereof called 'the

holy tongue.'"

Yet more emphatic, eight years later, was another eminent divine, Dr.

William Whitaker, Regius Professor of Divinity and Master of St. John's

College at Cambridge. In his Disputation on Holy Scripture, first

printed in 1588, he says: "The Hebrew is the most ancient of all

languages, and was that which alone prevailed in the world before the

Deluge and the erection of the Tower of Babel. For it was this which

Adam used and all men before the Flood, as is manifest from the

Scriptures, as the fathers testify." He then proceeds to quote passages

on this subject from St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and others, and cites

St. Chrysostom in support of the statement that "God himself showed the

model and method of writing when he delivered the Law written by his own

finger to Moses."(415)

(415) For the whole scriptural argument, embracing the various texts on

which the sacred science of Philology was founded, with the use made

of such texts, see Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft in

Deutschland, Munchen, 1869, pp. 22-26. As to the origin of the vowel

points, see Benfey, as above; he holds that they began to be inserted

in the second century A.D., and that the process lasted until about the

tenth. For Raymundus and his Pugio Fidei, see G. L. Bauer, Prolegomena

to his revision of Glassius's Philologia Sacra, Leipsic, 1795,--see

especially pp. 8-14, in tome ii of the work. For Zwingli, see Praef. in

Apol. comp. Isaiae (Opera, iii). See also Morinus, De Lingua primaeva,

p.447. For Marini, see his Arca Noe: Thesaurus Linguae Sanctae, Venet.,

1593, and especially the preface. For general account of Capellus,

see G. L. Bauer, in his Prolegomena, as above, vol. ii, pp. 8-14. His

Arcanum Premetationis Revelatum was brought out at Leyden in 1624; his

Critica Sacra ten years later. See on Capellus and Swiss theologues,

Wolfius, Bibliotheca Nebr., tome ii, p. 27. For the struggle, see

Schnedermann, Die Controverse des Ludovicus Capellus mit den Buxtorfen,

Leipsic, 1879, cited in article Hebrew, in Encyclopaedia Britannica. For

Wasmuth, see his Vindiciae Sanctae Hebraicae Scripturae, Rostock, 1664.

For Reuchlin, see the dedicatory preface to his Rudimenta Hebraica,

Pforzheim, 1506, folio, in which he speaks of the "in divina scriptura

dicendi genus, quale os Dei locatum est." The statement in the Margarita

Philosophica as to Hebrew is doubtless based on Reuchlin's Rudimenta

Hebraica, which it quotes, and which first appeared in 1506. It is

significant that this section disappeared from the Margarita in the

following editions; but this disappearence is easily understood when we

recall the fact that Gregory Reysch, its author, having become one

of the Papal Commission to judge Reuchlin in his quarrel with the

Dominicans, thought it prudent to side with the latter, and therefore,

doubtless, considered it wise to suppress all evidence of Reuchlin's

influence upon his beliefs. All the other editions of the Margarita in

my possession are content with teaching, under the head of the Alphabet,

that the Hebrew letters were invented by Adam. On Luther's view of

the words "God said," see Farrar, Language and Languages. For a most

valuable statement regarding the clashing opinions at the Reformation,

see Max Muller, as above, lecture iv, p. 132. For the prevailing view

among the Reformers, see Calovius, vol. i, p. 484, and Thulock, The

Doctrine of Inspiration, in Theolog. Essays, Boston, 1867. Both Muller

and Benfey note, as especially important, the difference between the

Church view and the ancient heathen view regarding "barbarians." See

Muller, as above, lecture iv, p. 127, and Benfey, as above, pp. 170 et

seq. For a very remarkable list of Bibles printed at an early period,

see Benfey, p. 569. On the attempts to trace all words back to Hebrew

roots, see Sayce, Introduction to the Science of Language, chap. vi. For

Gesner, see his Mithridates (de differentiis linguarum), Zurich, 1555.

For a similar attempt to prove that Italian was also derived from

Hebrew, see Giambullari, cited in Garlanda, p. 174. For Fulke, see

the Parker Society's Publications, 1848, p. 224. For Whitaker, see his

Disputation on Holy Scripture in the same series, pp. 112-114.

This sacred theory entered the seventeenth century in full force, and

for a time swept everything before it. Eminent commentators, Catholic

and Protestant, accepted and developed it.

Great prelates, Catholic and Protestant, stood guard over it, favouring

those who supported it, doing their best to destroy those who would

modify it.

In 1606 Stephen Guichard built new buttresses for it in Catholic France.

He explains in his preface that his intention is "to make the reader see

in the Hebrew word not only the Greek and Latin, but also the Italian,

the Spanish, the French, the German, the Flemish, the English, and many

others from all languages." As the merest tyro in philology can now see,

the great difficulty that Guichard encounters is in getting from the

Hebrew to the Aryan group of languages. How he meets this difficulty may

be imagined from his statement, as follows: "As for the derivation of

words by addition, subtraction, and inversion of the letters, it is

certain that this can and ought thus to be done, if we would find

etymologies--a thing which becomes very credible when we consider that

the Hebrews wrote from right to left and the Greeks and others from

left to right. All the learned recognise such derivations as

necessary;... and... certainly otherwise one could scarcely trace any

etymology back to Hebrew."

Of course, by this method of philological juggling, anything could be

proved which the author thought necessary to his pious purpose.

Two years later, Andrew Willett published at London his Hexapla,

or Sixfold Commentary upon Genesis. In this he insists that the

one language of all mankind in the beginning "was the Hebrew tongue

preserved still in Heber's family." He also takes pains to say that the

Tower of Babel "was not so called of Belus, as some have imagined, but

of confusion, for so the Hebrew word ballal signifieth"; and he quotes

from St. Chrysostom to strengthen his position.

In 1627 Dr. Constantine l'Empereur was inducted into the chair of

Philosophy of the Sacred Language in the University of Leyden. In his

inaugural oration on The Dignity and Utility of the Hebrew Tongue, he

puts himself on record in favour of the Divine origin and miraculous

purity of that language. "Who," he says, "can call in question the fact

that the Hebrew idiom is coeval with the world itself, save such as seek

to win vainglory for their own sophistry?"

Two years after Willett, in England, comes the famous Dr. Lightfoot, the

most renowned scholar of his time in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; but

all his scholarship was bent to suit theological requirements. In his

Erubhin, published in 1629, he goes to the full length of the sacred

theory, though we begin to see a curious endeavour to get over some

linguistic difficulties.

One passage will serve to show both the robustness of his faith and the

acuteness of his reasoning, in view of the difficulties which scholars

now began to find in the sacred theory." Other commendations this tongue

(Hebrew) needeth none than what it hath of itself; namely, for sanctity

it was the tongue of God; and for antiquity it was the tongue of Adam.

God the first founder, and Adam the first speaker of it.... It began with

the world and the Church, and continued and increased in glory till the

captivity in Babylon.... As the man in Seneca, that through sickness lost

his memory and forgot his own name, so the Jews, for their sins, lost

their language and forgot their own tongue.... Before the confusion of

tongues all the world spoke their tongue and no other but since the

confusion of the Jews they speak the language of all the world and not

their own."

But just at the middle of the century (1657) came in England a champion

of the sacred theory more important than any of these--Brian Walton,

Bishop of Chester. His Polyglot Bible dominated English scriptural

criticism throughout the remainder of the century. He prefaces his

great work by proving at length the divine origin of Hebrew, and

the derivation from it of all other forms of speech. He declares it

"probable that the first parent of mankind was the inventor of letters."

His chapters on this subject are full of interesting details. He says

that the Welshman, Davis, had already tried to prove the Welsh the

primitive speech; Wormius, the Danish; Mitilerius, the German; but the

bishop stands firmly by the sacred theory, informing us that "even in

the New World are found traces of the Hebrew tongue, namely, in New

England and in New Belgium, where the word Aguarda signifies earth,

and the name Joseph is found among the Hurons." As we have seen, Bishop

Walton had been forced to give up the inspiration of the rabbinical

punctuation, but he seems to have fallen back with all the more tenacity

on what remained of the great sacred theory of language, and to have

become its leading champion among English-speaking peoples.

At that same period the same doctrine was put forth by a great authority

in Germany. In 1657 Andreas Sennert published his inaugural address

as Professor of Sacred Letters and Dean of the Theological Faculty at

Wittenberg. All his efforts were given to making Luther's old university

a fortress of the orthodox theory. His address, like many others in

various parts of Europe, shows that in his time an inaugural with any

save an orthodox statement of the theological platform would not be

tolerated. Few things in the past are to the sentimental mind more

pathetic, to the philosophical mind more natural, and to the progressive

mind more ludicrous, than addresses at high festivals of theological

schools. The audience has generally consisted mainly of estimable

elderly gentlemen, who received their theology in their youth, and who

in their old age have watched over it with jealous care to keep it well

protected from every fresh breeze of thought. Naturally, a theological

professor inaugurated under such auspices endeavours to propitiate his

audience. Sennert goes to great lengths both in his address and in his

grammar, published nine years later; for, declaring the Divine origin of

Hebrew to be quite beyond controversy, he says: "Noah received it from

our first parents, and guarded it in the midst of the waters; Heber and

Peleg saved it from the confusion of tongues."

The same doctrine was no less loudly insisted upon by the greatest

authority in Switzerland, Buxtorf, professor at Basle, who proclaimed

Hebrew to be "the tongue of God, the tongue of angels, the tongue of the

prophets"; and the effect of this proclamation may be imagined when we

note in 1663 that his book had reached its sixth edition.

It was re-echoed through England, Germany, France, and America, and,

if possible, yet more highly developed. In England Theophilus Gale set

himself to prove that not only all the languages, but all the learning

of the world, had been drawn from the Hebrew records.

This orthodox doctrine was also fully vindicated in Holland. Six

years before the close of the seventeenth century, Morinus, Doctor of

Theology, Professor of Oriental Languages, and pastor at Amsterdam,

published his great work on Primaeval Language. Its frontispiece depicts

the confusion of tongues at Babel, and, as a pendant to this, the

pentecostal gift of tongues to the apostles. In the successive chapters

of the first book he proves that language could not have come into

existence save as a direct gift from heaven; that there is a primitive

language, the mother of all the rest; that this primitive language still

exists in its pristine purity; that this language is the Hebrew. The

second book is devoted to proving that the Hebrew letters were divinely

received, have been preserved intact, and are the source of all other

alphabets. But in the third book he feels obliged to allow, in the face

of the contrary dogma held, as he says, by "not a few most eminent

men piously solicitous for the authority of the sacred text," that the

Hebrew punctuation was, after all, not of Divine inspiration, but a late

invention of the rabbis.

France, also, was held to all appearance in complete subjection to the

orthodox idea up to the end of the century. In 1697 appeared at Paris

perhaps the most learned of all the books written to prove Hebrew the

original tongue and source of all others. The Gallican Church was

then at the height of its power. Bossuet as bishop, as thinker, and as

adviser of Louis XIV, had crushed all opposition to orthodoxy. The Edict

of Nantes had been revoked, and the Huguenots, so far as they could

escape, were scattered throughout the world, destined to repay France

with interest a thousandfold during the next two centuries. The bones of

the Jansenists at Port Royal were dug up and scattered. Louis XIV stood

guard over the piety of his people. It was in the midst of this series

of triumphs that Father Louis Thomassin, Priest of the Oratory, issued

his Universal Hebrew Glossary. In this, to use his own language, "the

divinity, antiquity, and perpetuity of the Hebrew tongue, with its

letters, accents, and other characters," are established forever and

beyond all cavil, by proofs drawn from all peoples, kindreds, and

nations under the sun. This superb, thousand-columned folio was issued

from the royal press, and is one of the most imposing monuments of human

piety and folly--taking rank with the treatises of Fromundus against

Galileo, of Quaresmius on Lot's Wife, and of Gladstone on Genesis and

Geology.

The great theologic-philologic chorus was steadily maintained, and, as

in a responsive chant, its doctrines were echoed from land to land. From

America there came the earnest words of John Eliot, praising Hebrew

as the most fit to be made a universal language, and declaring it the

tongue "which it pleased our Lord Jesus to make use of when he spake

from heaven unto Paul." At the close of the seventeenth century came

from England a strong antiphonal answer in this chorus; Meric Casaubon,

the learned Prebendary of Canterbury, thus declared: "One language, the

Hebrew, I hold to be simply and absolutely the source of all." And, to

swell the chorus, there came into it, in complete unison, the voice

of Bentley--the greatest scholar of the old sort whom England has ever

produced. He was, indeed, one of the most learned and acute critics of

any age; but he was also Master of Trinity, Archdeacon of Bristol, held

two livings besides, and enjoyed the honour of refusing the bishopric of

Bristol, as not rich enough to tempt him. Noblesse oblige: that Bentley

should hold a brief for the theological side was inevitable, and we

need not be surprised when we hear him declaring: "We are sure, from the

names of persons and places mentioned in Scripture before the Deluge,

not to insist upon other arguments, that the Hebrew was the primitive

language of mankind, and that it continued pure above three thousand

years until the captivity in Babylon." The power of the theologic bias,

when properly stimulated with ecclesiastical preferment, could hardly

be more perfectly exemplified than in such a captivity of such a man as

Bentley.

Yet here two important exceptions should be noted. In England, Prideaux,

whose biblical studies gave him much authority, opposed the dominant

opinion; and in America, Cotton Mather, who in taking his Master's

degree at Harvard had supported the doctrine that the Hebrew vowel

points were of divine origin, bravely recanted and declared for the

better view.(416)

(416) The quotation from Guichard is from L'Harmonie Etymologique des

Langues,... dans laquelle par plusiers Antiquites et Etymologies

de toute sorte, je demonstre evidemment que toutes les langues sont

descendues de l'Hebraique; par M. Estienne Guichard, Paris, 1631. The

first edition appeared in 1606. For Willett, see his Hexapla, London,

1608, pp. 125-128. For the Address of L'Empereur, see his publication,

Leyden, 1627. The quotation from Lightfoot, beginning "Other

commendations," etc., is taken from his Erubhin, or Miscellanies,

edition of 1629; see also his works, vol. iv, pp. 46, 47, London, 1822.

For Bishop Brian Walton, see the Cambridge edition of his works, 1828,

Prolegomena S 1 and 3. As to Walton's giving up the rabbinical points,

he mentions in one of the latest editions of his works the fact that

Isaac Casabon, Joseph Scaliger, Isaac Vossius, Grotius, Beza, Luther,

Zwingli, Brentz, Oecolampadius, Calvin, and even some of the Popes were

with him in this. For Sennert, see his Dissertation de Ebraicae S. S.

Linguae Origine, etc., Wittenberg, 1657; also his Grammitica Orientalis,

Wittenberg, 1666. For Buxtorf, see the preface to his Thesaurus

Grammaticus Linguae Sanctae Hebraeae, sixth edition, 1663. For Gale,

see his Court of the Gentiles, Oxford, 1672. For Morinus, see his

Exercitationes de Lingua Primaeva, Utrecht, 1697. For Thomassin, see

his Glossarium Universale Hebraicum, Paris, 1697. For John Eliot's

utterance, see Mather's Magnalia, book iii, p. 184. For Meric Casaubon,

see his De Lingua Anglia Vet., p. 160, cited by Massey, p. 16 of Origin

and Progress of Letters. For Bentley, see his works, London, 1836, vol.

ii, p. 11, and citations by Welsford, Mithridates Minor, p. 2. As to

Bentley's position as a scholar, see the famous estimate in Macaulay's

Essays. For a short but very interesting account of him, see Mark

Pattison's article in vol. iii of the last edition of the Encyclopaedia

Britannica. The postion of Pattison as an agnostic dignitary in the

English Church eminently fitted him to understand Bentley's career, both

as regards the orthodox and the scholastic world. For perhaps the

most striking account of the manner in which Bentley lorded it in the

scholastic world of his time, see Monk's Life of Bentley, vol. ii, chap.

xvii, and especially his contemptuous reply to the judges, as given in

vol. ii, pp. 211, 212. For Cotton Mather, see his biography by Samuel

Mather, Boston, 1729, pp. 5, 6.

But even this dissent produced little immediate effect, and at the

beginning of the eighteenth century this sacred doctrine, based upon

explicit statements of Scripture, seemed forever settled. As we have

seen, strong fortresses had been built for it in every Christian land:

nothing seemed more unlikely than that the little groups of scholars

scattered through these various countries could ever prevail against

them. These strongholds were built so firmly, and had behind them so

vast an army of religionists of every creed, that to conquer them seemed

impossible. And yet at that very moment their doom was decreed. Within

a few years from this period of their greatest triumph, the garrisons of

all these sacred fortresses were in hopeless confusion, and the armies

behind them in full retreat; a little later, all the important orthodox

fortresses and forces were in the hands of the scientific philologists.

How this came about will be shown in the third part of this chapter.

III. BREAKING DOWN OF THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.

We have now seen the steps by which the sacred theory of human language

had been developed: how it had been strengthened in every land until

it seemed to bid defiance forever to advancing thought; how it rested

firmly upon the letter of Scripture, upon the explicit declarations of

leading fathers of the Church, of the great doctors of the Middle Ages,

of the most eminent theological scholars down to the beginning of the

eighteenth century, and was guarded by the decrees of popes, kings,

bishops, Catholic and Protestant, and the whole hierarchy of authorities

in church and state.

And yet, as we now look back, it is easy to see that even in that hour

of its triumph it was doomed.

The reason why the Church has so fully accepted the conclusions of

science which have destroyed the sacred theory is instructive. The

study of languages has been, since the Revival of Learning and the

Reformation, a favourite study with the whole Western Church, Catholic

and Protestant. The importance of understanding the ancient tongues in

which our sacred books are preserved first stimulated the study, and

Church missionary efforts have contributed nobly to supply the material

for extending it, and for the application of that comparative method

which, in philology as in other sciences, has been so fruitful. Hence it

is that so many leading theologians have come to know at first hand

the truths given by this science, and to recognise its fundamental

principles. What the conclusions which they, as well as all other

scholars in this field, have been absolutely forced to accept, I shall

now endeavour to show.

The beginnings of a scientific theory seemed weak indeed, but they were

none the less effective. As far back as 1661, Hottinger, professor at

Heidelberg, came into the chorus of theologians like a great bell in

a chime; but like a bell whose opening tone is harmonious and whose

closing tone is discordant. For while, at the beginning, Hottinger cites

a formidable list of great scholars who had held the sacred theory of

the origin of language, he goes on to note a closer resemblance to the

Hebrew in some languages than in others, and explains this by declaring

that the confusion of tongues was of two sorts, total and partial: the

Arabic and Chaldaic he thinks underwent only a partial confusion; the

Egyptian, Persian, and all the European languages a total one. Here

comes in the discord; here gently sounds forth from the great chorus

a new note--that idea of grouping and classifying languages which at a

later day was to destroy utterly the whole sacred theory.

But the great chorus resounded on, as we have seen, from shore to shore,

until the closing years of the seventeenth century; then arose men

who silenced it forever. The first leader who threw the weight of his

knowledge, thought, and authority against it was Leibnitz. He declared,

"There is as much reason for supposing Hebrew to have been the primitive

language of mankind as there is for adopting the view of Goropius, who

published a work at Antwerp in 1580 to prove that Dutch was the language

spoken in paradise."

In a letter to Tenzel, Leibnitz wrote, "To call Hebrew the primitive

language is like calling the branches of a tree primitive branches, or

like imagining that in some country hewn trunks could grow instead of

trees." He also asked, "If the primeval language existed even up to the

time of Moses, whence came the Egyptian language?"

But the efficiency of Leibnitz did not end with mere suggestions. He

applied the inductive method to linguistic study, made great efforts to

have vocabularies collected and grammars drawn up wherever missionaries

and travellers came in contact with new races, and thus succeeded in

giving the initial impulse to at least three notable collections--that

of Catharine the Great, of Russia; that of the Spanish Jesuit, Lorenzo

Hervas; and, at a later period, the Mithridates of Adelung. The interest

of the Empress Catharine in her collection of linguistic materials was

very strong, and her influence is seen in the fact that Washington, to

please her, requested governors and generals to send in materials from

various parts of the United States and the Territories. The work of

Hervas extended over the period from 1735 to 1809: a missionary in

America, he enlarged his catalogue of languages to six volumes, which

were published in Spanish in 1800, and contained specimens of more than

three hundred languages, with the grammars of more than forty. It should

be said to his credit that Hervas dared point out with especial care the

limits of the Semitic family of languages, and declared, as a result of

his enormous studies, that the various languages of mankind could not

have been derived from the Hebrew.

While such work was done in Catholic Spain, Protestant Germany was

honoured by the work of Adelung. It contained the Lord's Prayer in

nearly five hundred languages and dialects, and the comparison of these,

early in the nineteenth century, helped to end the sway of theological

philology.