We prove this, first, from Christ’s assertion in Matthew 5:18.
We prove this, first, from Christ’s assertion in Matthew 5:18.
§ 336. We prove this opinion with the following arguments: (I) From Christ’s assertion in which He speaks as follows about the immovable firmness and perpetuity of the divine Word: “Amen, amen I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law” (Matt. 5:18). Parallel to this is the passage from Luke 16:17: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to fall.” By “iota” we understand yod, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet; by 
[“dots”] we understand the marks and dots, that is, the vowel points, which stand instead of vowels in the Hebrew language.
From this we infer: Whatever Christ establishes as an essential part of the written Law, that is as old as the written Law. But Christ establishes the vowel points as an essential part of the written Law. Therefore the vowel points are as old as the written Law. Furthermore, the firmness of the divine Law and of Scripture depends on God, their author. But Christ has attributed that firmness also to the 
, the “points and dots.” Therefore these also acknowledge God as their author, and, as a consequence, because God has inscribed His Law on tables of stone (Exod. 24:12; 31:18), those 
(“vowel points”) were also written by God’s finger.
Against those who claim that the vowel points are the invention of the rabbinic scholars gathered at Tiberias, we can formulate the following argument from Christ’s words: Whatever Christ attributes to the written Law was already in the written Law at Christ’s time and was not added to it later in the following centuries. Christ, however, attributes the 
and vowel points to the written Law. Therefore.
They make these exceptions: (1) “The evangelists reported from the mouth of Christ not the formal words but merely the sense of the words; thus one cannot elicit any argument from the word 
.” We respond. From where do they prove what they are assuming as certain? Surely Matthew and Luke recite Christ’s statement with the same contents. Therefore they have kept His very words. But even if we grant that the evangelists recite merely the sense, nevertheless it would remain firm that the points had been added to the written Law at the time of the evangelists, otherwise they could not have expressed Christ’s statement in words of this sort.
(2) “One cannot take 
to mean vowel points but rather that little part of a letter, bent like a little horn, such as one sees at the top of the letters 
and 
. Plutarch on ‘Numa’ calls the high point or extremity of the line extended like a little horn the 
.”
** Barradas is also of the same opinion. In Conc. evang., vol. 2, bk. 7, he wants “the top of the yod itself “to come by the name 
. We respond. He does not dare simply to reject our opinion, for he also writes: “… unless by chance there were at the time of Christ some marks of letters that later dropped out” (loc. cit., c. 14, f. 436b). **
Others think that “by ‘marks’ are understood those distinctive marks denoting commas or colons, as is also the transverse raphe line placed on begad kepat letters after any mobile vowel [shewa].” Drusius (Animadv., bk. 2, c. 60) understands the “marks” as “those by which the letters resh and dalet were once kept separate.” (About this see Jerome’s commentary on Zephaniah 2.) We respond. Christ makes a clear distinction between the iota and 
. Therefore the 
cannot denote a little horn of the kind that the yod is. As the yod, the smallest of the letters, is understood by the iota, so 
is understood to mean the smallest of the vowel points (such as holem, hireq, and shureq) and of the accents (such as revia, etc.). You see, the strongest prohibitions of the Decalogue are marked 
with the smallest point at the top of the longest letter 
. Luther translates Matt. 5:18 in the same sense: Es wird nicht zergehen der kleinste Buchstabe, noch ein Tittel vom Gesetz. But if those who believe the contrary may understand 
metaphorically as little transverse lines that do not have the shape of a little horn, they can certainly take 
metaphorically to mean vowel points, many of which are denoted by little dots; thus they are called 
by synecdoche. How is it that some accents—such as athnach, yerah ben-yomo [also called galgal], zarqa, etc.—almost have the shape of a little horn and that qarney-para received its name from the figure of a little horn?