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,...