no Z110.S8 HST" ""'™"'*'' '■'""^ olin 3 1924 029 487 679 STICHOMETEY. EonSon: 0. J. CLAY and SONS, CAMBEIDGB UNITEESITY PRESS WABEHOUSB, AVE MAEIA LANE. CamiitaiBE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. ILeipjis: F. A. BEOOKHATJS. i^cfa lor*: MACMILLAN AND CO. STICHOMETEY. BY J. RENDEL HARRIS, M.A., D.Litt., FELLOW OF CLAKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. LONDON : C. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MAEIA LANE. 1893 [All Rights reserBed.] I ,n Y y *"^ 11 Y •y k The following pages have been reprinted, by the kind permission of the Editor, Prof. Gildersleeve, from the American Journal of Philology, Vol. iv. Pts. 2 and 3. PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS, AT tHB ONIVE.BSITY PBES8. V • , V . Il l.l STICHOMETEY. Introduction. The following investigations have been undertaken in the hope of obtaining some critical conclusions with regard to the extent of early documents, chiefly Biblical, from the apparently insignificant, yet highly important data furnished by certain numbers appended by ancient scribes to the books which they copied. It is only lately that I have come to regard, with any other feeling than complacent pity, the labors of those Masoretic editors of the Hebrew Bible who so carefully inform us as to the number of verses and the points of bisection of the separate books ; the natural impulse of one's mind being towards the conclusion that such work might perhaps be agreeable at some period of involuntary incarceration accompanied by a most plentiful lack of books. The Masoretes themselves, however, seem to have been sensible of the importance as well as of the arduous nature of the work of book-measuring, since they preface their annotations with the word pTPl, which is gene- rally understood to be an encouragement (fortis esto) either to themselves or their readers. How much more strongly would they have expressed themselves if their task had been, like ours, the inverse problem of restoring the ancient books from their accredited measurements ! Doubtless their sympathy would have flowed (after the approved Rabbinic fashion, which I remember to have noted somewhere) in votive oSerings of midnight oil for the labors of the devoted calculator. H. 1 2 STIGHOMETRY. Nature of Stichometric data. The first part of this enquiry is retrospective, and consists in the accumulation and estimation of the principal results arrived at by modern philologists, with regard to the form of the early books and the manner of the ancient scribes ; and these conclusions are presented as far as possible in an orderly form. The stichometric data which we obtain from MSS, or from early quotations of various writers, chiefly Greek and Latin, are frequently nothing more than pure numbers, some- times followed by the word (ttLxoi, or an abbreviation of the same, and sometimes accompanied by additional information as to the number of leaves { ^^^ similar annotations are found at the close of each of the separate books ; i.e. the 5th book contains 14 leaves and 678 verses, results which Iriarte (Reg. Bibl. Ma- tritensis, Cod. Gr. p. 408) could not harmonize with the MS or the text. The inference is that the archetypal copy whose numeration and pagination have been transmitted was com- posed of 14 leaves, each of which contained 50 verses, with the exception of the last, which had only 28 verses. Their Antiquity. That stichometric measurements are of great antiquity will appear from the following considerations : M. Weil has recently published fragments of Euripides from a papyrus' of the second century before Christ, the first of which comprises 44 lines of an unknowu play, and at the close the words XTU'xpt MA. The importance of this document for our purpose is evident; not only does it establish the antiquity of the custom of counting and appending the number of lines of a poem or portion of a poem, but the enumeration is made in the ordinary Greek manner. 1 Un papyrus m(§dit de la biblioth6que de Firmin-Didot. Paris, 1879, p. 6. STICHOMETRY. 3 Similar annotations are found on the margin of the Papyrus Bankesianus of the Iliad. The Herculanean rolls provide us with abundant instances of the same usage ; here we find prose writings enumerated in a manner similar to poems, and frequently the older form of Greek numeration presents itself, as, for instance, n. 1027 (ed. Oxon.) has the subscription KAPNEI2KOT *IAI2TA B. API©. XXXHHAAAnill, which implies that a certain portion of the writings of Karniskus contains 3238 verses. What these verses represent in iwose writings is a problem presently to be considered. Other instances of the preservation of the more ancient Greek numeration may be seen in the MSS of Herodotus, Cod. Laurentianus LXX 3, and Cod. Angelicanus C 1, 6, and in several important MSS of Demosthenes. [The only Biblical MS in which I have found any traces of numeration of ariyoi in the Archaic Greek manner is Cod. Monacensis 375 (= Acts 46) in which we have as follows : Rom. P'HHHAA 1 Thess. HPAAAAIII 1 Cor. PHHHFAA 2 Thess. PHHIII Gal. HHPAAAAIII 1 Tim. HHAAA Eph. HHHAII 2 Tim. HP A All Philip. HHnill Tit. HHnil Col. HHnill Philem. A A AH 1 1.] Stichometry earlier than the Alexandrian Library. It is suflSciently evident that the custom of measuring literary works by o-Tt%ot is coeval with literature itself, and instances may be given which establish the continuance of such measurements, both for prose and verse, down to the twelfth century, if not later. It is possible, however, that these more modern subscriptions are to a great extent traditional measure- ments from an earlier time. RitschP, in his important re- searches on the subject of stichometry, came to the conclusion 1 Opuso. Philolog. I, p. 84. 1—2 4 STICHOMETRY. that Callimachus, of the Alexandrian Library, was the inventor of the stichometric method ; the chief authority for such a statement is found in the following extracts from Athenaeus : Tou X.aipe(j)a)VTo<; koX (rv'yfpaiMiia ava'Ypd(f>ei Ka\Xiyu.a;;^o? ev rS T&v iravTohairSiv irivaKi ypdcfxjov ovrayf AelTrva baoi, erypayjrav' Xai,pe(f)Sv Kvprj^imvi' eW i^fji rrjv dpxv^ vTredi^Kev' ETreiSij fjiot, •jroXKaKi'i iirecTTeiXa';' crTi^eai' roe'. Athen. VI, p. 244 A. Aveypa'yfre Be aiiTov (vo/mov Tivd a-vacriTiKov) KaWt/ia^of iv TM TpiTW TTLvaKi Twv v6p,a>v, Kol ap'^r)v avTOv Trivhe wapeOeTO ' Ooe o v6fJL0<; 'iao<; iiypde')^pi' tov reXevraiov' tov he dptdfiov TOV Xo'X^ov ol /lev oktco dvSpdSv eiroirjaav, ol 8e SmSeKa, ol he heKae^' ecnw he vvv eKxaiheKa dvhp&v 6 Xoxo'i' crvfifiirpa)^ rydp e'X^ei irpo^ re to iirJKO^ rrjt; (fydXayyof 6 Xo'^^oi; he o\o; ecrrl iroaov fieyedo<; iv ' Longinus, ed. Egger, p. 69. 8 STIGHOMETRY. Ov/jLot'i KOI ^6^oi<;' ev Tavrri apa to TradrjriKov t^? '^^XV'' icTTiv.' el Se avvdeir)^ a>hl tovtov; tov<; Bvo Xoyov^ ov TrKeiov Twv OKTQ) e^afierptov to aviyKeijjLevov e^ avrwv TrXTJOof e identified with hexameter of 16 syllables. According to Galen then, 39 syllables of prose writing are equivalent to 2^ hexameters; 83 syllables represent 5 hexa- meters; the two quotations together, 122 syllables, do not amount to more than eight hexameters. From which it is obvious that the prose hexameter of Galen is 16 syllables ; and we observe further that this line-unit is dignified with the alternative titles of 67ro9 e^df^erpov, eiro^, and a-Ti-xp'; ripmiKoii. The peculiarity in the use of these words seems to consist in the extension of the meaning of eTro? which is implied in the use of an adjective, from its normal meaning of a heroic or hexameter line to the more general application which includes any written line whatever ; while, on the other hand, the term a-TLxoi, which normally represents any written line whatever, undergoes a contraction of meaning until we frequently find it used synonymously with hexameter, even to the exclusion of lines of other lengths. A curious instance of this may be seen in a tenth-century MS, written on Mount Athos, and described in Montfaucon, Bibl. Coislin., p. 597. Here we find aTlxo are given in letters, we have only to remember that the average hexameter, taken by M. Graux from 50 lines of the ' Birt, Buchwesen, p. 161. [For Eudoxus is describing the Egyptian convenience of reference, I transcribe year with its supplementary five days.] the poem ; the reader wiU see that E 'Ev rwtfie Sei^uj Trafftv eK^adelv ao^v Y 'T/Mi* Tr6\ov atjpra^iv ifj. ^pax^"^ \6yui, A Aoi/s TTJHr = A$Nr = 1553 37.2 Lib. II ATnr = 1483 37.2 Lib. Ill AflNH = 1858 36.1 For Gregory of Nazianzus ; from the MS Laur. VII. 8 : Homily I PH II An?r III PMB IV BTNH V AMB VI XKE VII ^IH VIII (• also occurs, three times, once with the previous mark, once at the 345th a-rixo'i, and once at the 368th. These are probably the marks of the Ziopdanrj^ or MS corrector, and may refer to simple pauses in the work of revision, or perhaps to pages either of the MS copied or of that used in the process of revision. In the actual case in question, the first pause was at the sixth page of the MS copied ; while the proportion of the numbers 345 and 368, which are 15 x 23 and 16 x 23, shows that the other two marks may be the conclusions of the 15th and 16th pages respectively of the revising MS. The Urbinas MS has also other annotations of various kinds, the most prominent being the paragraph mark, a horizontal stroke against the beginning of the line where the pause is to be made. All these marks may be found quoted in Fuhr's article already referred to. For Plato. Schanz^ has discussed a precisely similar question for the Plato manuscripts. He remarks that the Bodleian Plato (Clarkianus) has partial stichometry in the Cratylus and Symposion, the letters running continuously to y^. Counting the lines of Clarkianus between the successive marks, we have 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75; 71 being the most frequent in- terval. Now this gives us a o-ti'^o? of 35"56 letters for the Cratylus, and 34-32 for the Symposion, which are sufficiently in accord with M. Graux's results. Similar stichometric marks are found in another MS of Plato, Venetus 185 (11 of Bekker, D of Schanz). Here again they are confined to Cratylus and Symposion. Between two following letters lie on the average 68 lines ; and the same sections are marked off by the letters as in Clarkianus. An interesting application is made by Schanz to determine the authenticity of a passage in Cratylus 437d, where certain words are wanting in MSS B and T. We can at once verify that these words were wanting in the exemplar that supplied the stichometry. 1 Hermes, XVI 309, 1881. STICHOMBTRY. 21 W. Christ has studied in a similar manner the partial sticho- metry of Demosthenes^ (Codex Bavaricits), and applied the results to the discussion of the integrity of various works of Demosthenes. The data for this investigation will also be found in the preface to Reiske's edition ; though Reiske himself seems to have been ignorant of the meaning of the letters for which he gave the references. It will be sufficiently evident from this brief statement that the partial stichometric notes are even more important than the concluding numerical results for the purpose of the determination of the text as it stood in the early exemplars from which the numbers must have been derived. FuHher instances. The Papyrus Bankesianus has the verses marked by hundreds on the margin. So, apparently, the Ambrosian Pentateuch"; and many intermediate data for the measurement of the Acts and Epistles will be found in Zacagni's edition of Euthalius. Some instances of quotation by the number of crrlxoi are found in Diogenes Laert. VII 33, 187, 188, but they are mostly in round numbers {Kara tou? SiaKoaiov; evTa IIpo? T^v eiricrToXrjv ^iXlirirov' tovtov yap a-rl^o/Mev, crvv Oew ^dvai, /card xaXov KaravTrjaavre'i ek rrjv -Koa-oTqra t&v KmKcov Kara tov dpt,dfjibv rov eyKcifievov ev roh dpxaloK /3t/3Xtot?, tu? ifierprjo-ev avrof 6 Arj/juocrOevq'i rov iBiov Xoyov. 1 Migne, Patrol. Lat. XXVIII, col. " Ehein. Mus. N. F. II 452. 771. 4 Walz, Eh. Gr. Ill 721, ■^ S, V. KW\0V. 24 STIGHOMETRY. Castor proposes, that is, to punctuate a passage of Demo- sthenes so that the numeration of the broken-up text may agree with the number of verses found in the old copies. Whether he supposes Demosthenes himself to have divided the text in this way, or whether he implies by the word i^jierprjaev a regular and uniform measure, is not very apparent at first sight ; but a little consideration will show that it is not important to decide such a point, for it is sufficiently demon- strated that the stichometry of the MSS of Demosthenes is hexameter stichometry; and it must be the number of such verses that Castor wishes to preserve. Dionysius Halic. De Comp. Verb. XVIII gives explanations of the methods em- ployed in breaking up the text of Demosthenes into cola and periods. For instance, in De Corona the first period is to consist of three cola, as follows : 'Ev hrj TcS trepi rod (xre^dvov Xoycp, rpia fiev eaTiv a ttjv 7rpQ>T7]v ireploSov avp^TrKrjpol Koika' ol 8e Koi ravra Karajie- TpQVVTe<; oiSe elalv ol pvdjMov. TipwTOV fjLev, M avhpe<; ^Adrjvalot, tois 6eol<; ev')(pp,ai Trdai, Kal irdaaK . . . ToO Be SevTepov kcoXov rovBe. "OcTTjv eiivoiav e%<»z' 670) huaTekSi ry re rroXei icai, Traaiv VflCV . . . Tov Se rpirov kcoKov, ToC rocravrriv virap^ai pjOt, irap vfia>v eh rovrovi rov dycova. It is evident that this custom of colon-writing introduces a measure of confusion into the subject; the more so because colon-writing is sometimes accompanied by colometry, of which occasional traces may be found, as in Dionysius Hal.' who makes the proem to Thucydides up to ov 'x^akerrm'i drravi- aravro to be 30 cola, and the beginning of the Aristocratea to be 9 cola. Misled by this peculiar dissection of the text at the hands of the rhetoricians, F. Blass^ maintained strongly that the ancient artpj^o? was not a space-line but a sense-line. And 1 Dion. Hal. de Comp. pp. 169, 199. Ehein. Mus. N. F. XXIV, 1869, p. 2 Zur Frage iiber die Stichometrie. 524. STICHOMETRY. 25 with remarkable skill, which M. Graux honoured with the term iiahileti de main, he proceeded to divide various passages, principally in Demosthenes, into a number of cola, sufficiently nearly in accord with the traditional number of verses. Besides this, he reasoned that if the crTt;i^09 were a fixed quantity there ought to be a sensibly uniform ratio between the number of verses and the number of lines occupied in the printed text. This he maintained not to be the case. In this, however, he seems to have failed almost completely, if we allow for the small margin of variation necessary in the measurement of the lines, and the small variations in the sizes of the Teubner pages to which he referred. A single instance will suffice. Taking the data for Herodotus, Blass gives : ZHxoi. Teubner Lines. Ratio. Lib. IV 3253 2764 ■849 Lib. V 2200 1866 ■845 Lib. VIII 2322 1952 •840 Lib. IX 2206 1849 •842 If this does not demonstrate the use of a uniform verse- measure for Herodotus, it would be difficult to prove anything. The merit of Blass' work consists, however, in the light it throws on the early rhetorical studies, and not at all in its bearing on stichometry. Blass himself, after making his colon division, came to the conclusion that the colon could not be very different from the hexameter. "Die Zeilen sind mitunter lang, aher selten Idnger als ein Hexameter^." " Das rlietorische Colon entspricht dem poetischen Vers'\" This is precisely what we should expect to find, for we have indicated that the colon was introduced as an alternative for the hexameter, and was made as far as possible equivalent to it. Another instance of this tendency, besides those which have been already quoted, is found in Cicero, Orat. 222 : " E quattuor igitur (sc. membris) quasi hexametrorum instar versuum quod sit, constat fere plena comprehensio. His igitur singulis versibus quasi nodi apparent continuationis, quos in ambitu coniungimus." 1 P. 529. ^ P. 530. 26 STICHOMETRY. Herodes Atticus' is said to have had a clepsydra made which was the time-equivalent of 100 hexameters, eru/i/^e/te- Tprjfievrjv e? eKarov eirri, by means of which his enunciation was regulated. Scrivener's pay and price of books. We now turn to the question of the employment of sticho- metric measurements in determining the pay of scribes and regulating the price of books. For investigations on this point the best researches are those of Graux and Birt. It is established by means of the celebrated edict of Diocle- tian (a.d. 301), which was a tariff of maximum prices for the Roman empire, that the pay of scribes was by the hundred lines ; and M. Graux very justly remarked that this assumed the fixity of the line, and would be altogether illusory upon any other hypothesis. I have discussed elsewhere the state- ments of this edict and their stichometric valued It is only necessary, therefore, to give a brief recapitulation of the points thereby established. The edict from which the data are sup- plied is found in greater or less completeness in many localities, but the most important form is presented in an inscription from Stratonice ; the figures being edited in the Corpus In- scriptionum from another inscription found in Phrygia. We have then : Membranario in [qua]t[r]endone pedali pergamena. [XL denarii] Scriptori in scriptura optima versus No. centum. [XXV] Se[quentis] scripturae versuum No. centum. [XX] Tabellanioni in scriptura libelli vel tabular[um] in versibus No. centum. [X] It is clear from the inscription that there are at least two principal types of writing, if not a third ; and in every case the measurement is by verses, no distinction being made or ima- gined between prose and poetry. It is inconceivable that the difference in price should be due to a difference in the quality of the writing (as Birt suggests), 1 Pbilostratus Sophist. II. 10, p. ^ American Journal of Philology, 185, quoted by Waohsmuth, Ehein. 12, Suppl. p. 22 sqq. Mus. 34, 1879, p. 481. STICH021ETRY. 27 for it would be somewhat difficult to graduate such uncertain things as the hands of scribes, to say nothing of dividing them exactly into good and bad ; it must, therefore, be of different lengths of line that the edict speaks, optimus and sequens being the common terms all through the edict for first size and second size. If the prices are correctly edited in the Corpus, the ratio 5 : 4 ( = 35 : 28) is very nearly that of the normal hexameter to the normal iambic line, which confirms our previous speculations as to the existence of the iambic lines. The difficulty in all such cases is to reduce the brass denarius of Diocletian's time into an equivalent of modern money. If we may take the values given by Birt^ from Hultsch^, the payment is sufficiently small; 100 denarii being worth no more than 2'4 marks. The denarius is then '6 cent ; the scribe's pay being 15 cents for a hundred hexameters and 12 cents for a hundred iambics. On this basis I have calculated the cost of production of the complete volume of which the Codex Sinai- ticus forms a part ; the result being approximately 180 dollars, the cost of the vellum being included. It is not uncommon to find in early codices notes of the prices for which they were sold ; Montfaucon (Bibl. Coislin. p. 57) observes that the price on the first leaf of a Psalter is lypocra 8' = grosa sive drachmae quatuor ; and at p. 83 he notes that codex 29 was bought for 24 aspra, the book itself being a commentary by Chrysostom on S. Paul's Epistles. A cursive MS of the Gospels (No. 444) sold in A.D. 1537 for 500 aspra; upon which Scrivener^ notes that "the asper or asprum was a mediaeval Greek silver coin (derived from dcnrpo'i = albus) ; we may infer its value from a passage cited by Ducange from Vincentius Bellovacus XXX 75, ' quindecim drachmae seu asperos.' " Since the four Gospels are not more than twice as long again as the Psalms, it is difficult to see why the Psalter should sell for 4 drachmae and the Gospels for 500. And it is possible that Montfaucon's price is incorrect. 1 Birt, p. 209. ^ Scrivener, Introduction to N. T., 3 Hultach, Neue Jahrbuoher fUr p. 208. Philologie, 1880, Heft 1. 28 StICUOMMTRY. M. Graux^ gives us the further important information with regard to the pay of scribes, that the custom of regulating, if not the tariff, at least the measure of lines written, continued right into the Middle Ages, especially at Bologna and other university towns in Italy. He quotes Savigny^ "Geschichte des Romischen Rechts im Mittelalter," to establish this point. The unit of measure is the pecia, which consists of 16 columns, each containing 62 lines, and the number of letters in each line being 32. "Secundum taxationem studii bononiensis firmamus quod petia constituetur ex sedecim columnis quarum quaelibet contineat sexaginta duas lineas et quaelibet linea litteras XXXII." The numbers here are peculiar, and it is extremely difficult to believe that as many as 62 lines were normally written on the page. It is interesting, however, to observe the survival of ancieat custom in the columnar writing, and the measurement of lines by letters. The statute is, therefore, in all probability the relic and modification of previous laws. Whether the line of 32 letters has any reference to the Italian poetry, as Birt suggests, is extremely doubtful. It is more likely to have been suggested as a multiple of the favourite number 16. We have no reason to suppose that such a statute as that mentioned required that MSS should actually be copied in columns or liues of the pattern indicated; all that was necessary was the adoption of this unit as the standard, and the record by the scribe of the number of peciae. M. Graux remarks that these notes of the scribe as to the progress of his work, " finis pecie I," are sometimes found in the body of the pages or the text. Upon the whole, I am inclined to believe that the text of the statute is incorrect in reading sixty-two lines, a most im- probable number. If we read 72 for 62, the pecia is almost exactly ] 000 hexameters of 36 letters each ; strictly speaking it is 1024. And this is aa extremely likely unit of work to have been handed down by tradition from the early scribes. An interesting survival of this early manner of determining > Eevne de Philologie, p. 139. ^ T. III. o. xxv, § 579. STICHOMETRY. 29 the pay of a scribe is found in the modern custom among Indian copyists. Here the basis is the 9loka, an iambic metre of 32 syllables, which is applied as a unit of measurement to writings of all kinds'. We shall now turn our attention to the bearing which these results have upon the restoration of the early book-form, and in particular upon the texts of the New Testament. Thus far we have avoided almost entirely any reference to the stichometric data supplied by Biblical MSS, because they constitute so im- portant a factor in textual criticism that they deserve a separate discussion, and one more complete than has hitherto been accorded them. For the same reason we have reserved any allusions to Euthalius and his edition of the New Testament. Extension of previous results to Bible-texts. It might almost be assumed that the previous investiga- tions as to the nature and interpretation of stichometric data, comprehending as they do writers of so many different centuries, and books of such different character, might be expected to apply without further examination to the texts of the Old and New Testaments. But as the subject reaches here its greatest importance, and has been attended by a good deal of confusion in consequence of the facility with which many of the books of the Bible are divisible into sense-lines, it becomes necessary to establish over again the fixity of the a-rixo'i, and other points connected with the development of the art of transcription. This we shall easily be able to do, for the examination of the texts after the manner previously explained will show that in almost every instance the verse of the ancient scribes is a hexameter, and is measured by a standard number of letters or syllables. Nature of stichometric data for Old and New Testaments. The MSS of the Old and New Testaments, but especially of the latter, provide us with a rich collection of stichometric references, both total and partial, which enable us to measure ' Note by Dr Bloomfield in Amer. remark by Gardthausen from Noldeke, Journ. Phil. 12, Suppl. p. 22, and in Grieoh. Palaeogr. p. 132, 30 STICH0METR7. the text with very great accuracy from point to point, and are a very valuable addition to any critical apparatus which is aimed at the restoration of the text of the early centuries. The total subscriptions stand not only at the end of the separate books, but sometimes at the close of a group of books, as the Catholic Epistles; the marginal subscriptions supply us with the successive fiftieth verses, and also with the number of verses proper to any particular lection in a book that has been divided for church or private use. The stichometric notes do not^ appear in the archaic nume- ration which we noted in Herodotus and Demosthenes, nor does marginal stichometry present itself in the transitional form which uses the successive letters of the alphabet, but pays no regard to the decimal system, as we have seen it in some Plato and Demosthenes MSS ; there is, however, no doubt that these marks are of great antiquity, and in some cases we shall be able to fix an inferior limit to the date of their publication. Variations of stichometric attestation. There are several hindrances that encounter us at this point of our inquiry ; and in particular the variety which is found amongst the stichometric subscriptions of any one book in different MSS seems to militate very strongly against the theory of a fixed and uniform verse-measure. A little consi- deration, however, shows us that the same argument would hold against the hypothesis of sense-lines, unless we assume that these were perfectly arbitrary in their character, and did not constitute a uniform system of division banded down by tradition as a convenience to the reader and a safeguard to the text. The real reason of this variety lies in the following direc- tion. First of all we must remember that we are dealing with books whose variety of reading is great, and where the import- ance attaching to the acceptance or rejection of a reading is likely to make the stichometry agree closely with the compass of the text, and change as the text changes. The insertion or rejection, for instance, of such a passage as the pericope de ' I have noted on p. 3 a single instance which contradicts this statement. STIGHOMETRY. 31 adultera would modify largely the stichometric count in the Gospel of St John. We must also bear in mind that these books are extant in various versions, and unless we adopt the hypothesis of sense-lines, the count may vary from version to version, even with a similar text. "We have further to observe that in the early Bible-texts we have certain conventional abbreviations which may in some cases even date from the autographs, and which will certainly affect the reckoning if a letter-line be used in the measure- ments, and probably also where the syllable-line is employed. Then there is a frequent corruption of the actual stichometric data, arising from carelessness on the part of the scribe, and sometimes, perhaps, from an ignorance on his part as to the meaning of certain old symbols employed to designate the numbers 90 and 900, etc. Last of all, it is possible that we may have to admit in some cases a variety in the measuring- line, though we shall still see that the most usual unit is the 16-syllabled hexameter. Transition from space-lines to sense-lines. We shall also be able to trace that same law of degradation in the form of the transcription which we observed to hold in the adaptation of continuous uncial texts to public reading ; and it is possible that the first step towards this change of style in the early MSS consists in the exact numeration of the text from point to point by means of a suitable line-unit. This change of form is first apparent in the poetical books of the Old Testament, from which it seems to have spread gradually to the whole of the Bible. We have already seen from Jerome's preface to Isaiah, that the method of division by cola and commata was becoming general, and was reckoned by Jerome himself to be as applicable to the Psalms as to the writings of Demosthenes and Cicero, and to the prophets as to the Psalms and other distinctly poetical books. And it is almost inevitable, if two different systems of transcription, cor- responding respectively to stichometry and colometry, are found in the same volume, that a degree of confusion will arise be- tween the regular verses of the earlier and the irregular verses of the later system, and that in the end one of these systems 32 STICHOUETRY. will entirely supplant the other. This explains how it is that we find the term a-rlxo's retained even when the fixed line to which it properly belongs has disappeared. It is in consequence of this degradation of form that we find the poetical books of the Old Testament in the earliest uncial MSS written in quite a different manner from the rest of the Bible. For example, the triple and quadruple columns of the Vatican and Sinaitic codices are replaced in these books by double columns of irre- gular verses, forming a remarkable contrast to the uniform writing of the remaining books. I regard it, however, as certain that this quasi-stichometry is not the original form of the books where it appears. The Song of Solomon, for ex- ample, is stated by Nicephorus and Anastasius to contain 280 verses ; and, by an actual enumeration, it may be seen to be 275 sixteen-syllabled hexameters, which is such a close agree- ment that we may conclude that the earlier mode of reckoning, and therefore, in all probability, of division of the text, must have been at some time applied to the book in question. A great deal of light is thrown upon these points by some remarks of Hesychius of Jerusalem, in the sixth century, intro- ductory to the study of the twelve minor prophets. An exa- mination of the following passage will show the progressive encroachment of colon-writing upon the uniform text, and the consequent confusion between the crrt^^o?, properly so called, and its substitute. Xri'XTjpoV TWV l/S' TrpOCJjTjTWV. "EiTTt fiev dp')(cuov TovTo T019 6eo6poi<; ro crTrovSaa-fia, aTiyrfhov, (o? ra TroWa, Trpo 'Iw/8 ^i^'Kov, ovtco fj,6pia-devTa rot? cttl'x^oii; Ta Twv ' Ai,afJ,aT(ov ' Aicr/iaTa' ifKrjv aWa /cal ttjv ' Airoa'ToXtKrjv /3i^'Kov ovTOD Tivl a-vyypa^eiaav evpmv, ov fiaTTjv iv Tai<} Svo- Se/ca /3t/3X.ot9 Twv ■7rpor)Tcov kuI aiiTO'i riKo\ov6r}cra' aX)C eireihrj iroXKd fiev twv doov rj twv aTL'x^av aa^rjvi^ei, hiaipeai'i, BtBdcTKei Be TWV (TTcyfiwv twv diropwv ttov Set tclttsiv t^J? STIGHOMETBY. 33 TrXetoi/a?, &(ne km tov IBioittjv koX tov wyav iinaTijfiova rpv- 'yijaai, rt TravTO)? rj fitKpov ^ /jLeya rov vovrifiaTO^ 'XP'^o'i/j.ov^. It is evident from the foregoing passage that the first means employed to facilitate the reading of the continuous texts is interpunction ; and that interpunction paves the way for colon-writing ; Hesychius himself extends the irregular verse-writing to the minor prophets, and informs us that some- one else had edited the Pauline epistles in a similar manner ; and finally we notice that the new form of writing has the effect of restoring to the term aTi^of somewhat of its original indefiniteness, and deflecting it from a space-line in the direc- tion of a sense-line. Actual instance of numbered sense-lines. An instance of this deflection may be seen in a MS Mem- phitic Psalter, referred to by Lagarde in his edition under the sign D, which has stichometric data to every psalm. An exa- mination of these will show that the appended numbers are not proportional to the lengths of the Psalms, neither in the He- brew, the LXX, nor the Coptic. The following table for the first ten Psalms, based on Lagarde's edition and on the LXX, will make this apparent. The o-rt'^o? and Psalm are measured in letters : Psalm I 15 Mempli. 514 Letters to verse. 34-3 LXX. 604 Letters to verse. 40-3 II 27 755 28-0 806 29-8 III 15 521 34-7 545 36-3 IV 15 619 41-3 651 43'4 V 28 880 31-4 911 32-5 VI 21 621 29-6 709 33-7 VII 37 1180 31-9 1289 340 VIII 17 619 36-4 646 38 IX 82 2559 31-2 2908 35-4 X 17 528 31-0 583 34-3 It is, however, easy to write the Psalms rhythmically in irregular sentences, so as to make the reckoning true. For 1 Migne, Patrol. Graeo. 93, col. 1340. H. 3 34 STICHOMETRY. instance, the 119th Psalm, which has 176 verses in ordinary Bibles, has 170 in the Memphitic text. It is oven possible that the figure 6 has dropped. The remarkable point to notice is that the irregular verses are numbered just like the regular ones, a practice which leads to some confusion, though it has the advantage of giving the same reckoning for all the various versions. Euthalius and his work. We turn now to the stichometry of the New Testament. And here a fundamental misunderstanding seems to have prevailed for a length of time as to the connexion between Euthalius of Alexandria and the stichometric divisions of the text. Scholz, in his Prolegomena, I xxvii, states that " Euthalius in epistolis Paulinis, actubus apostolorum et epistolis catholicis, eos (sc. versus) ita distinxit in usum lectorum, ut singulae lineae singulas absolverent sententias; qua distinctione obser- vata scirent lectores quae continue spiritu essent legenda, atque ubi intermissione opus esset. Exaratis in hunc modum epistolis adtexuit ad calcem cujusque epistolae numerum versiculorum, qui in plurimos codices irrepsit." And the same statement somewhat modified seems to have been repeated right on to the present. According to Scrivener, Introduction to the N. T. p. 60^ "Euthalius is said to have been the author of that reckoning of the arixot which is annexed in most copies to the Gospels, as well as the Acts and Epistles"; and in the introduction to the American edition of Westcott and Hort's New Testament, Dr. Schaff remarks "that the sti- chometric divisions or lines (a-rixoi) corresponding to sentences were introduced by Euthalius."^ But it will easily be seen that in no strict sense can Eu- thalius ever be regarded as the inventor of stichometry, which 1 P. 60, 2d Ed. ; p. 62, 3d Ed. metry were inseparable ; and for this 2 Misled by the concurrence of these reason stated in a former study that and other New Testament editors and the division of the New Testament critics, I endeavoured to believe that into numbered sense-lines was intro- in some way Euthalius and sticho- duced by Euthalius. STICHOMETBY. 35 is anterior in date to the Christian era, and by no means a peculiarity of the New Testament ; that he did not measure the Gospels at all ; nor will it be easy to prove that he broke up the text into sentences, nor are these sentences the o-Tt%ot which he enumerates. In fact, the New Testament text was reckoned by arlxot long before the time of Euthalius, as we find that Origen reckons the second and third epistles of John to be less than a hundred verses, and the first epistle to contain a very few ; and in the fourth century Eustathius of Antioch quotes two passages in the Gospel of John, with a remark that the interval between them is 135 o-tlxoi. Euthalius was a deacon of Alexandria somewhere about A.D. 458, and sub- sequently became bishop of Sulca, supposed by some persons to be a city in Upper Egypt. He describes his work in a dedica- tion to a younger Athanasius, in the following language : irpunov St) ovv e^ym^e rriv aTrocTToXiKrjv ^i^Xov (ttolxI'^ov avayvov^ re Kai, ypdyjrwi, irpmrjv Bieire/jbylrdfirjv tt/jo? rova tmv iv H-pitTTm Trarepav r/fidSp, fierpiwi TreTroiTj/j-ivrjv ifioi . . . ' evajxo'i Tolvvv, to? e^iiv, rfjv IlavXov ^l^Xov dveyvcoKaii, avTiKa Brjra Koi rijvSe Trjv rwv diroaToXuKwv irpd^ewv a/na Trj T(op KadoXiKcov eTTLo-ToXdov e/SSo/taSt iroveaa';, dprto)? aot ire- •7ro/i(j)a . . .^ Toto? Toiyapovv tj)c\,oXoyo'i ayav virdp-^otiv rbv Tpoirov,... evayxp'i 'ifioiye rtjv re twv irpd^ecov ^l^Xov afia, Kal KaffoXcKoov iiriaToXuiv avayvcovai re Kara irpocrwhlav Kai ttg)? dvaxe^a- XaiaxraaOai, koI SieXeiv tovt(ov e/cdaTri<; tov vovp XeTTTO/ieptos irpocreTa^wi, dZeXt^e ' Adavaaie TrpocrcjjtXecrTaTe, koI Tovro doKvio^i iya> Kal wpodvp.ai's TreTroiijKa)';, aroixv^o^ t^ avv6el<; tovtcov to v0';, Kara ttjv if^avTOV crv/j-p-eTpiav, tt/so? evarjfiov avdyvcoaiv, SieTrefiylrd/irjv ev ^pa^el to, eKacnd aoi...' 670) fie Tot a-TOXV^ov ra? KadoXiKdaXaiav eKdecnv dfia Kal delcov /J^ap- rvpiwv fieTpl(o<; evdevhe iroiovnevo';*. SteiXov rdi; dvayva)a-ei<; Kal e(TTL')(}co> irdaav rrjv dirocrroXi- KYjv j3i^Xov dKpi^oo<; Kara irevrrjKovTa (TTi)(ov'i, Kal ra KeipdXaia 1 Zacagni, p. 404. » jftj^j. p. 409. 2 Ibid. p. 405. * Ibid. p. 477. 3—2 36 STIGUOMETliY. eKdarrji; dvayvwcr6a}<; TrapeOrjKa, kol Ta<; ev avrrj (j)epofjbeva<; fiapTvpta<;, ert Se zeal oacov Cf. Tregelles, Canon Muratoria- STICHOMETRY. 37 informs us that his measurements were accurate; and in the next place, the MSS which he employed, at least for the Acts and Catholic Epistles^ were the celebrated copies preserved at Caesarea in the library of Pamphilus". It is unfortunate that the word a/cptySta?, which Euthalius employs, and which makes the weight of his work, has been so much overlooked. Accurate measurements made by reference to the best MSS provide us with critical data of immense value. It becomes interesting, then, to find out what the accurate measuring line is which Euthalius employs. In ZacaguL's edition of Euthalius, or in the less complete one of Migne^ we have a rich vein of stichometric information which seems to have been very slightly worked. Not only is every programme, preface, and elenchus measured and the number of aTixoi appended, but there are so many inter- mediate stichometric data supplied for the text that we can measure from point to point with great accuracy, as soon as we know the measuring line employed. M. Graux examined casually the numeration of the separate lections for the Acts of the Apostles, but he was perplexed at finding that the data supplied by Zacagni from the Vatican Codex Regius- Alexaudrinus did not tally with those given by a Madrid MS Codex Escorial. -^ — 111 — 6, and he seems to have given up the point in despair. The following table affords a comparison between the measures of the lections as given by the two MSS, and those given by actual division of Westcott and Hort's text into 16-syllabled aXaia}ai^ ( „ 640) ?' 107 "EKdea-f; Ke^aXaimv ( „ 652) ? 17 11 Ke^aXata rwv Tipd^emv ( ,, 652) 172 178 Breviarium capitulorum ( „ 661) 40 40 Catholic Epistles. 'AvaK€(j)a\aLO)a-i<; (Migne, col. 668) 14 " 14 Ke(f>aXaia laKci^ov ( „ 677) 25 26 Ke4>d\ata Uirpov a ( „ 680) 25 24 Ke^xiXaia Herpov /3' ( „ 684) 10 10 K.ed\ata ^ladwov a ( „ 685) 23 23 K6d\.aia 'I(i)dvvov /S' ( „ 688) 5 5 K.edXaia 'lovSa ( „ 689) 11 11 And in the same way we might count the text of Euthalius through the Pauline Epistles, and we should find our hypothesis fully confirmed. There is sometimes, as above, a little confu- sion in the figures, but this is precisely what we expect when figures are handed down by successive transcription. These then are some of the results of comparison between a measured selected text and the traditional verse-numberings. Although they are more irregular in the Gospels, to which we shall presently refer, than in the Epistles, it must be admitted that in both cases (but especially in the Epistles) they offer a new critical instrument to the student of the New Testament, by means of which to restore the text to the same compass as it occupied in the early copies. The matter is, however, much complicated by those causes which produce diverse measurement, to which allusion has been already made. Corruption of the data is common, and fre- quently affects the greater part of the testimony : for example, the number jof verses in Romans is 920, as given by Euthalius ' PN in Reg. Alex. PM in Cod. '■> The reading AI of E. Al. and lA Esc. of Cryptoferr. are evidently corrup- 2 PN in Eeg. Al. PK in Cod. Ese. tions of this. PZ or PH corr. STIGHOMETRY. 43 and many MSS ; but a larger group gives the impossible Xk and Xh, which are nothing more than a corruption of ^K. It is, perhaps, a reasonable prediction that the next edition of the New Testament will be accompanied by a marginal stichometry. Instances of partial stichometry. Zacagni, in his edition of Euthalius, has furnished us with a series of notes and various readings under the title "Variae lectiones ex Regie Alexandrino Vaticanae Bibliothecae codice depromptae." Amongst these are found a great many instances of partial stichometry : some of these coincide with the close of the lections ; and others have reference to the measurement by fifties and hundreds, of which Euthalius speaks as having been a feature of his edition, though it is by no means certain that he introduced it. The following instances are given for the margin of the Acts : Chapter. 1, 15 No. of verses. 40 No. of verses by count as before : 16- syll. abbr. 40 Chapter. 8,13 No. of verses. 650 No. of verses by count as before : 16- syll. abbr. 654 1,19 50 50 8,34 700 703 2,36 150 150 9,1 717 719 3, 11 200 201 9,15 750 751 4,23 300 297 9,31 792 795 4,31 315 319 9,36 800 804 6,1 440 438 10, 12 850 851 6,5 450 449 11,7 950 954 7,10 500 501 11,27 998 1000 7,53 600 610 13, 11 1100 1102 7,60 625 625 14,1 1200 1201 15,1 1271 1271 22,5 1950 1953 15, 11 1300 1301 22,26 2000 2004 15,34 1350 1352 23, 10 2050 2046 17,1 1465 1460 23, 30 2100 2102 17,15 1500 1502 24,18 2150 2153 18, 4 (?) 1550 1750 25,4 2170 ') 2187 18,11 1590 (? ) 1580 25, 12 2200 2210 19,11 1650 1655 26, 1 2260 2255 20,7 1750 1751 27,1 2325 2336 44 STICIiOMETRY. No. of verses No. of verses by count as by count as No. of before : 16- No. of before : 16- Chaptcr. verses, syll. abbr. CImpter. verses, syll. abbr. 20, 28 1800 1803 27, 10 2350 2360 21, 8 1850 1852 27, 29 2400 2406 21, 14 1870 1870 28, 1 2450 2452 21,28 1900 1905 28,17 '■J And the completed reckoning gives us 2559, which must be corrected for abbreviations to 2527; results which agree very closely with the number given by Euthalius, 2556 ; and the number given by Scholz from a large group of manuscripts, 2524. It will be noticed that our reckonings are 2 or 3 verses in excess in either case. In the partial stichoraetry tabulated above, it will be noticed that the results (which I have done my best to keep clear of error) are very closely in harmony with one another : and it is conceivable that the adoption of a letter-line might make the approximation even more close. In one or two of the data errors appear, as at c. XVIII 4, where we have 1550 verses; and at XXV 4 we are told to put the figure 2170, where the scribe seems to have dropped a ten, and the defect shows itself in the subsequent figures. It must be remembered that a single printed verse will sometimes contain five or six aTt,xoi, so that we could hardly look for much better agreement, and we must defer a closer critical comparison until the text can be printed stichometrically with proper abbreviations, and an accurate marginal reckoning of the lines, suitable for com- parison with a revised critical edition of Euthalius. I think we may conclude also that the printed text of Westcott and Hort in the Acts is within three hexameters of the text circulated in the third century. The importance of these intermediate stichometric data is obvious ; and the only difficulty in applying them lies in the determination of the part of the verse to which the stichometric number belongs. Sometimes an intimation of this is given by Zacagni, at other times he does no more than designate the verse against the margin of which the mark stands. Let us apply the evidence supplied by these marks to the critical question of the authenticity of the passage Acts VIII 38. STIGIIOMMTRY. 45 The doubtful sentence is about three hexameters long. Against the margin of VIII 34 stands the number 700 : against the first verse of IX, which is also a new lection, the number 717. The 34th verse of the eighth chapter is 21 hexameters, from the 3oth to the end is 13 hexameters, omitting the doubtful words, and the first verse of the 9th chapter is a hexameter and a half. But since this first verse ought clearly not to be counted, for the beginning of the lection is the point noted, we have at the most 15 J hexameters, with no allowance made for abbrevia- tion. It requires, therefore, the disputed passage to make up the tale. The partial stichometry, therefore, recognizes this passage. We shall now give in order for the Catholic Epistles, for convenience of reference, the Euthalian measures, together with any partial stichometry supplied by Zacagni : James I Peter II Peter I John II John III John Jude James I Peter II Peter Lection I Verses. 112 Lection II (c. 3, 1) I 121 58? Lection Lection Lection Lection II (c. 2, 9) I I II (c. 3, 15) I I 149? 154 150 140 30 31 Lection I 68 c. 1, 26 50 c. 2, 21 100 ad fin. c. 1, 22 230 (? 237) 50 c. 2, 9 58 c. 4, 19 200 ad fin. c. 2, 1 246 50 c. 2, 20 100 c. 3, 17 150 ad fin. 154 46 STIGHOMETRY. I John II John III John Jude In the Pauline Epistl Romans I Corinthians II Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians c. 2, 26 c. 4, 11 ad fin. ad fin. V. 14 ad fin. es we have the following data Lection I II c. 5, 1 III c. 9, 1 IV c. 12, 1 V c. 15, 1 Verses. 100 200 37(?) 32 60 68 Total Lection I II c. 7, 1 III c. 8, 1 IV c. 12, 1 V c. 15, 1 Total Lection I II c. 4, 7 III c. 8, 1 IV c. 10, 1 Total Lection Lection Lection Lection I II I II I II I II c. 3, 15 Total c. 4, 1 Total 3,1 Total 0. 3, 17 242 248 185 125 125 250 84 116 266 154 152 156 94 187 130 163 136 176 120 88 157 51 920 870 590 293 312 208 Total 208 STIGHOMETRY. 47 I Thessalonians II Thessalonians Hebrews I Timothy II Timothy Titus Philemon Lection I Lection I Lection I II c. 1, III c. 11 11 1 Total Lection Lection Lection Lection Total for the Pauline Epistles, The partial stichometry is as follows : Romans c. 1, 24 I Cor. II Cor. Gal. 2, 14 3,9 4,9 5, 1 5, 6 6,1 7,1 7,21 8, 22 c. 1, 26 3,4 4,8 5, 10 7,27 8,1 9,16 11, 10 c. 3, 2 5,10 8,1 8,20 c. 2, 1 2,21 3, 15 50 100 150 200 240 250 300 350 400 450 50 100 150 200 300 331 400 500 100 200 308 350 50 100 130 I Cor. Verses. 193 106 257 232 214 230 179 97 37 Romans c. 9, 30 11,1 11, 24 12,1 12, 11 13, 13 14, 23 15,25 16,18 c. 12, 1 12,27 14, 29 15, 1 15, 16 15, 47 16, 13 II Cor. c. Gal. 9,14 11,4 11, 26 12, 18 3,24 4, 27 5,22 703 (?172) 4936 550 600 650 675 700 750 800 850 900 550 600 700 720 750 800 850 400 450 500 550 160 200 250 48 STIGUOMETRY. Ephes. c. 3, 3 100 Ephes. c. 5, 28 250 3,21 136 6,19 300 4, 10 150 Phil. c. 1, 17 50 Phil. c. 3,1 120 2,19 100 4,18 200 Colos. c. 1, 23 50 Colos. c. 3, 18 157 2,14 100 4, 16 200 3,13 150 I Thess. c. 2, 10 3,11 50 100 I Thess. c. 5, 3 150 II Thess, , c. 2, 9 50 Hebrews 1 c. 2, 8 50 Hebrews c. 9, 21 400 3, 12 100 11, 5 500 4, 14 150 11,26 550 5,13 200 12,4 600 7,2 250 13, 1 650 7,25 300 13, 23 700 9,1 350 I Tim. c. 4, 1 .5,11 100 150 I Tim. c. 6, 10 200 II Tim. c. 2, 14 3,6 50 100 II Tim. c. 4, 16 150 Extension of inquiry to the Gospels. When we turn to the Gospels we find a difficulty arises from the fact that almost all the causes which tend to produce variety of stichometric subscription are in operation. In par- ticular the variety of texts is great. The Textus Receptus, for example, shows an excess of at least 50 hexameters in the Gospel of Matthew over the text of Westcott and Hort. This makes our inquiry extremely interesting, for we begin at once to ask such questions as relate to the authenticity of the last twelve verses of Mark, the pericope de adulter a, and other important passages. Does the stichometry, which is certainly very ancient, recognize these disputed places as belonging to the texts of the New Testament on which its reckoning is based ? In the first place we have to face the diversity of the traditional measure- STICHOMETRY. 49 ments ; the following tables are based upon numbers supplied by Scholz, Tischendorf and Scrivener. flvoh' = 1474 ,^v = 2400 ,^virS' = 2484 M' = 2500 fix = 2600 Matthew. MS. Zrlxoi. 428 421 157 161 164, 262, 300, 376 ,/8^tS' = (? ;S^i/8') = 2554 9, 13, 124, 163, 174, 175, 345, 346, 427 ,^^' = 2560 G. H. S. 7, 18, 28, 41, 45, 46, 48, 50, ] ' 117, 122, 131, 153, 237, 241, 246, 252, 261, 263, 277, 280, 290, 292, 347, 348, 388, 435, and 1, m, n, w, (of Scr.) K. 6, 116, 387 339 264, 273 Mark. 4 164, 262, 300, 376 117, 153, 157 A. G. H. S. 7, 18, 28, 41, 45, 48, 50, 128, 167, 202, 237, 241, 246, 252, 261, 267, 277, 280, 290, 292, 301, 347, 388 9, 13, 124, 163, 174, 175, 339, 346, 427, 435 K. 6, 116, 387, 128, 131 264, 273 M = 2700 ,/3«r = 2860 ,7T??' =?3397 ^aK = 1020 ,"■¥ = 1506 a'!' = 1590 kO' = 1600 = 1616 = 1700 = 1829 Luke. 20 A. 164, 262, 300, 376 124, 163, 174, 175, 345, 346 9, 13, 427 157 H. Mot' = 2606 = 2676 = 2740 = 2750 = 2760 4 50 STICHOMETBY. ar' = 1300 ,a^X' = 1930 fi<: = 2010 ,/3«S' = 2024 fiat' = 2210 A' :2300 MS. Xrtxoi- G. H. K. S. 4, 6, 18, 28, 41, 45, 46, 48," 50, 116, 117, 122, 128, 131, 153, 202, 237, 241, 246, 252, 261, 263, 267, 277, \ fico' = 2800 280, 290, 292, 347, 848, 387, 388, 435, and 1, m, n, -' 264, 273 ,ycoK^ = 3827 John. 4 157 20 9, 13, 124, 163, 174, 175, 345, 367, 427 A. 164, 262, 300, 376 G. H. S. 4, 6, 7, 18, 28, 41, 45, 46, 48,1. 50, 122, 128, 131, 167, 202, 241, 252, 1 261, 263, 267, 277, 280, 290, 292, 301, f 347, 348, 387, 388, and 1, m, n, J These are the principal MSS data, and it must be owned that their discordance is a formidable objection to the assump- tion that the Gospels are measured in precisely the same way as the Epistles. A number of the data are evidently corrup- tions; in Matthew ,/3&)^' is probably altered from fij 407 2 11 = 219 800 jj 409 1 23 = 222 900 )> 410 3 33 = 222 1000 i) 412 2 37 = 214 1100 >» 414 2 4 = 219 1200 )j 416 1 9 = 215 1300 )j 417 3 11 = 212 1400 419 2 15 = 214 1500 jj 421 1 25 = 220 1600 )j 422 3 28 = 213 1700 jj 424 2 33 = 215 1800 )j 426 1 32 = 209 1900 j> 427 3 31 = 209 2000 jj 429 2 7 = 186 2100 j> 431 1 16 = 219 2200 2300 i> 434 1 38 = 400 2400 )j 435 3 35 = 207 2500 437 2 37 = 212 2600 j> 439 2 1 = 216 2700 /» 440 3 27 = 194 iv. Reg. 442 2 1 100 200 445 3 7 = 426 300 )j 447 2 10 = 213 400 449 1 11 = 211 500 )j 450 3 12 = 211 62 STICHOMETRY. No. of verses. Page Col. Line. Lines of B. 600 aTixoi 452 2 11 = 209 700 it 454 1 11 = 210 800 >y 455 3 16 = 215 900 )J 457 2 10 = 204 1000 » 459 1 16 = 216 1100 it 460 3 25 = 219 1200 462 2 22 = 207 1300 )» 463 3 35 = 223 1400 )i 465 2 39 = 214 1500 >j 467 2 5 = 218 1600 )) 469 1 11 = 216 1700 )y 470 3 8 = 207 1800 JJ 472 2 13 = 215 1900 ji 474 1 12 = 209 2000 a 475 3 11 = 209 2100 jj 477 2 7 = 206 2200 )» 479 1 8 = 211 ceterae desunt. lesaia. 1002 3 1 100 o-Tt^ot 1004 2 25 = 225 200 300 „ 1008 1 32 = 469 400 500 „ 1011 2 38 = 426 600 „ 1013 1 41 = 213 700 „ 1014 3 42 = 211 800 „ 1016 3 6 = 216 900 1000 „ 1020 1 25 = 439 1100 „ 1021 3 29 = 214 1200 1300 1400 „ 1027 1 23 = 666 STIGHOMETRY. 63 No. of verses. Page Col. Line. Lines of B, 1500 aTl^ot 1028 3 15 ^ 202 1600 )) 1030 2 19 = 214 1700 )> 1032 1 27 = 218 1800 »j 1033 3 30 = 213 1900 » 1035 2 32 = 212 2000 ]) 1037 1 38 = 216 2100 2200 yt 1040 3 12 = 436 2300 )> 1042 2 13 = 211 2400 ft 1044 1 16 = 213 2500 „ 1045 3 24 = 218 2600 J3 1047 2 16 = 202 2700 J) 1049 1 5 = 199 2800 1050 2 38 = 201 2900 tj 1052 1 38 = 210 3000 „ 1053 3 42 = 214 3100 )) 1055 2 26 = 194 3200 1057 1 28 = 212 3300 3400 )) 1060 2 13 = 405 3500 „ 1062 1 12 = 209 ceterae desunt. The foregoing figures furnish some interesting material for speculation as to the character of the MS from which the Vatican MS is derived. Perhaps we may obtain some light in this direction when we come to write the history of that famous MS. Meanwhile it is interesting to observe that the measure- ments confirm the theory that the line of Codex B is a slightly curtate half-hexameter. We see also that in the first book of Kings where the scribe was writing 44 lines to the page, the effect of the arrangement of the matter was to make every five columns of the text equivalent to 100 hexameters. There is some method in this ; was it for the more easy calculation of his pay, or for some more occult cause ? 64 STICHOMETBY. Fixity of the Ancient Verse Measurement. It is worthy of notice that the fixity of the ancient a-Tt%09 was pointed out by Michaelis; as the following extract will show : " ^rixo'' were only lines which contained a certain number of letters and therefore often broke off in the middle of a word." (Marsh's Michaelis, II 526.) Michaelis expressed the wish that the line-arrangement had been preserved, so as to form the verses of the text and their reckoning not from the sense but from the number of letters (Ibid. II 328, quoted by Granville Penn in his Annotations, ii. 88). NOTE on the pijfiara which are reckoned in Biblical MSS. In Scrivener's Introduction to the New Testament (ed. 3, p. 62) we are told that " besides the division of the text into A ; in Ps. ii. versus duo- decim, sed **a Ava.. It seems, therefore, to be used in Syriac much in the same way as arixo': in Greek. Now there is in one of the Syriac MSS. on Mount Sinai (Cod. Sin. Syr. No. 10) a table of the Canonical books of the Old and New Testaments with their measured verses. We will give some extracts from this table ; but first, notice that the Gospels are numbered as follows : Matthew has 2522 Klsai^Av^ Mark „ 1675 Luke „ 3083 John „ 1737 and the whole of the four Evangelists 9218, which differs slightly from the total formed by addition, which, as the figures stand, is 9017. On comparing the table with the numbers given by Scrivener from Greek MSS., viz. Matt. = 2522 Mark = 1675 Luke = 3803 John = 1938, we see at a glance that we are dealing with the same system ; Luke should evidently have 3083, the Greek number STIGHOMETRY. 67 being evidently an excessive one ; and if we assume that John should be 1938 the total amounts exactly to the 9218 given for the four Gospels. This is very curious, and since the pTj/Mara are now proved to be rightly equated to r€ 'A^avacne in the text of the prologue; but since it has been held impossible to push back the date of Euthalius into the days of Athanasius the Great, it has been assumed that the person CODI). N AND B. 79 meant is tlie younger Atlianasius, and so the work of Euthalius on the Acts has been brought down later than the date 490 a.d. This again has its difficulties, for a comparison with the portion of the text belonging to the Pauline Epistles shews that the writer reckons the number of years which have elapsed from the time of Paul's martyrdom to the year 458 a.d., more than 30 years before the time assumed for the production of the edition of the Acts. We are, therefore, obliged to regard the latter as the work of old age, and the former the product of his juvenile activity. Cer- tainly there are some things which look that way, as, for instance, when in the preface to the Acts he speaks as having written his text of the Pauline Epistles when he was like an untrained young colt {TrpwTOv Si; ovv eywye rrjv 'AttocttoXiki;!' fSi^Xov crTOt}^LSdv dvayvov<; le. Kai ypai/'as, Trpia-qv SuTrefjuj/aiJ.riv irpos riva tuv iv Xpto-Tw Trarepuiv -q/jLuyv, fieTpiui's TreTTOirjfuh'Tjv ip,oi, oia Tt9 iroJXos aySaSj/s ijf veos d/jLadrj's lprip.iqv dSdi' Ktti drpiPrj Uvai irpocmTayp.a'o^) ; but since he goes on to say that he had immediately followed up the Pauline edition which he had just made, we can hardly infer that so great a time as thirty years has elapsed between the two editions (l^ay^os tolwv, oSs €Lkrjv i'7nrj- ixicraip.' dv croi, xai KaraXe^u) Tr]v einrpocrrjyopov, tt^v Trdw (j)ep yv yeyiovio's (1. yeyovtos:) iX6xpi-<^'''^, '"''' €icra)y€ toi twv Biktvihv aiiTrj'; v!rdp\epwvv/j.ov. At the close of the arguments of the Pauline Epistles the writer adds a note^ on the chronology of the Acts and St Paul's Preaching; he takes his information from the Chronicon of Eusebius, and says that soon after the Ascension the Apostles appointed to the diaconate the appro])riately named Stephen. Zacagni edits Tov avTOepei ttjv K€a\rjv ixTroTjiiiy^eis, iv tw TptaKocrTu koX cktio erei TOV (TtoTqpicru TrdOovi tov KaX.6v dywva ayconcrajnevos iv Pto/xj; Tre/iTTTi; ■qjxipa. Kara Svpo/naKeSovas Uave/jLov ^ijvos i7Tts AeyoiTO av irap Atywmots eTTW^t c', Trapa Si 'Piojiiatois i; Trpo Tpiwv KoXavhav 'IovA.tu)v, Ka6' Tjf €T€Xem)6?; 6 aytos 'AiroorToXos t<3 xar airoi/ fxaprvpiw, efjyKOtrTcp Kai £WaT(i) €T£t TTj; ToB (TWTrjpo's fjp.uiv 'Iiycrov XptuToC TrapOVO'MS. Eo"Ttv ouv o 7ra5 T^povos c^ ov lii.apr6prqcr€ TpiaKoaia TpiaKOVTa err) /^e^t ttjuiTd.Tu>v TiVL, /cat iXoy^!.(TTia irarepav ly/u.oij' irarefxav). Who is the father of whom Euthalius speaks? To my delight I find that the suggestion comes from two quarters (or rather the suggestion from one quarter and the confirmation from another) that the person in question is Theodore. If you will turn to Mill's prolegomena to the New Testament (a mine of unexhausted learning which is too much neglected by many of us) you will find a reference to the question of the Pauline prefaces and capitulations'. Mill asks, after noting that the writer seems to be rather a Syrian than an Asiatic, " Quidni vero is fuerit Theodoras Mopsuestenus ? Certe mire conspirant omnia in hanc sententiam. Erat Theodorus genere Syrus, Eoclesiae Antiochenae Presbyter. Erat et ante annum modo dictum ccoxcvi Mopsuestiae in Cilicia Episoopus. Erat etiam insigniter eruditus ; et quidem inter alia scripserat in has ipsas D. Pauli Epistolas Commentaria. Neque certe parum huic opinioni favet, quod Euthalius retiouerit eximii hujus Episcopi nomen: exosum quippe, et in Synodo Con- 1 p. Ixxxvi in the Oxford edition of Mill. 86 THE ORIGIN OF stantinopolitana damnatum; ut proinde haud commodiim fuerit ipsum expresse nominasse." We naturally turn to Dr Swete's edition of Theodore's Com- mentary on the Pauline epistles to see what light is thrown on the question by the recovery of the lost work of which Mill speaks : and we find' the following remarks : " This theory [of Mill] receives some support from the facts now brought to light by the recovery of the Latin Theodore. (1) At 1 Thess. V. 1, where the 6th Euthalian chapter of that Epistle begins, Theodore has the remark, " alterum hie incipit capitulum." (2) Though I have not noticed any other clear instance of this use of the word capitulum, there is a very general coincidence between the be- ginnings of the Euthalian chapters and the successive steps which Theodore seems to take in unfolding the arguments of the several Epistles. (3) Both the uTro^ecrcts and the headings of the Kieiav ®€ov, where, if we omit the bracketed words, the remainder will exactly represent the drift of Theodore's singular exposition. Now the original work upon which Euthalius drew appears to have been executed a.d. 396. If it proceeded from Theodore's pen, may we not reasonably see in it his first step in preparation for carrying out the great project of commenting upon St Paul? " As I have said, it was a delight to me to find that my little investigation led to results in harmony with the speculations of Mill and Swete. And I shall assume, therefore, that the basis of Euthalius' work, at all events in the Pauline epistles, is to be sought amongst the lost works of Theodore. I might now go a step further and point out that there is another anonymous father in the story : in the prologue to the Acts, Euthalius tells us that his edition of the Pauline epistles, upon which he had laboured to the best of his ability, had been sent to a certain one of our fathers in Christ {irpiiriv SieTreij.ifrdfji.rjv tt/dos tivo. twv iv Xpto-To! ■traTepwv ly/Atoi/); On turning to the Pauline prologue, we find the person in question addressed anonymously as ndrep rt/iworaTe. One can 1 Swete, Theodxire of Mopsiiestia, p. Ixi, CODD. K AND B. 87 hardly help wondering whether this may not have been Nestorius. The date of his death is, I believe, uncertain; being placed somewhat later than 439. It would be interesting if Euthalius should turn out to have written a book in which he borrowed materials from one famous heretic, Theodore, and dedicated the two parts of the treatise in succession to two other famous men, Nestorius and Meletius, who were under the ban of the Church. The thing is by no means impos- sible ; but in the absence of more exact knowledge concerning the date of Nestorius' death, it is wise not to speak too positively. The fact that the dedication changes from the unknown father to Mele- tius would seem to imply that the former died between the two editions. But, it will be said, what has all this to do with Codex B ? Well, we are coming to that point. You will remember that the observed fact which we work from is that Codex B and Euthalius have a common division of 40 chapters in the Acts. Now it is extremely unlikely that Cod. B has taken any system of chapters invented by Theodore, for the date of B is probably superior to that father '- Moreover, B does not seem to have the Theodore chapters in the Pauline epistles; we are therefore driven to seek* for another source for the Euthalian materials. And it is in the following direction that we shall expect to find the capitulations which B and Euthalius have in common. The other source from which Euthalius draws his material was the Cesarean library. I prove this as follows : (i) The edition of the Acts and Catholic Epistles according to Euthalius ends with the statement that " the book of the Acts and Catholic Epistles was collated with the exact copies preserved at Cesarea in the library of Eusebius Pamphilus." (ii) The edition of the Pauline Epistles, according to Za- cagni, does not shew any such reference to Cesarea ; but we can shew as follows that such must have existed. 1 It is not to be supposed that Egyptian priest Abul-barakat says of Theodore did no work on the Acts; Theodore "Theodorus commentator perhaps he did ; the reference which Syrorumque doctor habet expositio- Swete (p. x) quotes from Assemani is nem quarundam epistolarum Pauli et suggestive ; it is to the effect that the actuum apostolorum," 88 THE ORIGIN OF If you will take the trouble to look at the MS. which is known as H '""'', you will find the following curious subscription at the end of the Epistle to Titus. eypaij/a Koi iiiOi/xyjv Kara, Syva/j-iv crreix^Opov (sic !) ToSe to reirj^os TravXov tov d-Troa-ToXov Trpos iyypa.fX.fJi.ov (1. f.iypafi.fi.ov) koi evKara- Xr]fJ.TrTOv dvayvtaiTiV tuJv Kad' ■qfx.d's d.8e\(j>iSv. irapSiv (sic) diravTiav roX.firj's crvyyvdfJirfv airS' ivxV ''"^ ^""^P e/i(uv (1. ij/icov) tyjv (7vvmpiopav KOfi.iljofx,€vo^' d.vT£J3\rj6r] 8e rj /3t'^A.o? irpos to iv Katcrapta avTiypa^ov TrJ9 jStySXto^ijKTjs TOV dyiov UafifjiiXov X^V yeypafjifiivov avTOv. If you compare this with the prologue of Euthalins to the Acts you will be at once struck with the coincidence in the language, which shows conclusively that Cod. H is a Euthalian text, not far removed from the archetype : e.g. compare the sentence arvyy(i}fi.r]v ye TrXeiaTijv aircuv eir afX.(^oZv ToXfj.-q% Ofiov koX TrpoTre- TEi'as T^s if-yj'S, avravres t6 cikotms Kotvfj, KadiKeTevoiv aSeXc^oiJS re /cat Trarepas )U.et' aya-Trrj's avTats ivTvy)(dveLv, t(Sv te ifjLwv dfJi,apTqimTtiiv T£ Koi a'aXfj.aTuiv T