Dies illa vertatur in tenebras non requirat eum Deus desuper et non illustretur lumine.' [Isaiah xl.] Vox dicentis : Clama.
Et dixi Quid clamabo ? Omnes caro fcenum, et omnis gloria ejus quasi flos agri.' [r Chron. xiv.] Misit quoque Hiram rex Tyri nttntios ad Da vid, et ligna cedrina, et artifices parieturn, lignorumque, ut mdificarent ei domum.
Cognovitque David quod confirmasset eum Do minus in regem super Israel, et subIevaturn esset regnum suum super populum ejus Israel.
Accepit quoque David alias uxores in Jeru salem : genuitque filios, et filias.' A division of the prophetical books into cola, or stichs, has been considered by some to have had its origin before the time of Jerome. Eusebius ac quaints us (Hist. Eccles. vi. 16) that Origen, in his Hexapla, divided the Greek and other versions into Kaa, which, however, Bishop Christopherson (in Euseb. Eccles. Hist.) supposes to be the columns containing the different texts into which Origen's Folyglott was divided. Hesychius, who died in A. D. 433, also published his artxweis of the twelve prophets, which he calls an invention of the Fathers, in imitation of David and Solomon, who had thus divided their rhythmical composi tions. He observes that he had found a similar division in the apostolical books. In this case such division must have been anterior to the stichomet rical edition of Euthalius, if the date assigned to his publication be correct—viz. A.D. 450. it is not improbable that the work of Hesychius was but an adaptation of Jerome's co/a and conzmata to the Greek text. This is aIso the opinion of Marti anay. Epiphanius (De Orth. Fid. iv.) adds the two books of Wisdom to the poetical books thus arranged.
We have seen that Jerome imitates the mode of writing the works of Detnosthenes and Cicero in his divisions of Chronicles. This custom of writing KCGTet 0-TEXOUS appears ,c) have been usual among profane writers. Josephus observes that his own Antiquities consisted of sixty thousand arIxot, although in Ittigius's edition there are only forty thousand broken lines. Diogenes Laertius, in his
Lives of the Philosophers, recounts the number of stichs which their works contained. There have, however, existed doubts as to what the arixot really were ; some supposing them to be simply lines, or lines consisting of a certain number of words or letters, as in our printed books, while others have maintained them to be lines of varied length regulated by the sense, like the cola and commata of Jerome. The fact is that there are MSS. written in both kinds of verses or stichs, with the number of the stichs placed at the end of each book ; and this is what is called stichometry, or the enumeration of lines. The introduction of lines regulated by the sense into the New Testa ment is supposed to have been a rude substitute for punctuation. The second mode, resembling our printed books, is also common ; it is that adopted in the Charlemagne Bible, at the close of each book of which will be found the number of verses—that is, lines of equal length, but without any regard to the number of words or letters.
We are not aware at what time or by whom stichometry was adapted to the gospels, but not long after the time of Euthalius we find it in com mon use. The Cod. Bezm (C) and the Clermont MS. (D) are thus written. The following is from C [John i.] :— Ev apX73 771, Xayos np 7TpOS TOP 0E09 Kat 0€os siv 6 Xcryos. ovror ev apx73 rpor TOP °coy Ilavra St aurou e-yevero Kat xcopts aurou E-yevero ouSe b, 6 -ye-yovev* ev aurtp Zan.) TIP KUL 'I) P0.171 np TO On TON, APOOW7TWP.
The following is from Acts xiii. 16, in Greek and Latin (Kipling, p. 747) :— Avaaras Se IlauXos—Cum surrexisset Paulus Kat Karaaetcras -rn xetpt etrev—Et silentium manu postulasset, dixit, Avapes IarpasiXtrat, Kat ot OOPOWLEVOI TOP Oeov— Viri Istrabeliti, et qui timetis Deura AKoucare—Audite.