It is not improbable that this division may have come from the original authors, which the nature of the sub- ject, and especially the parallelism of the sentences, seems to require (Jebb, Sacred Literature). In the Cod. Alex, are equally divided in this manner the songs of Muses and of Hannah ; the prayers of Isaiah, of Jonah, of Habakkuk, Hezekiah, Jlanasses, and Azarias; the Benedicite ; and the songs of Mary (9f oro/coc), Simeon, and Zachariah in the New Test. ; to which is added the Morning Hymn, or Gloria in Excelsis.
2. A similar metrical ilivision is found in the Latin version. Jerome {Ep. ad Sunn, et Fret.) applies the term versiculus to the words "grando etcarbones ignis" (Psa. xviii, 13), assigning as a reason why the Greeks had not this versicle after the interposition of two
. verses, that it had been inserted in the Sept. from the Hebrew and Theodotion's version (with an asterisk). He also observes that it was not easy to reply to the question why Paul, in citing Psa. xiii, added eight verses not found in the Hebrew. Martianay remarks that these eight verses, which form but three divisions in the Latin psalters, are thus found in an ancient psalter of the koivI] and the Italic, in the Abbey of St.- Gerraain-des-Pres :
Sepnlchi-um patens est guttnr eornm
Lingiiis suis dolose agebaiit [Psa. v, !>].
Venenum aspidum sub labris eoriini [cxi, 3].
Qiioium OS nialedictione et amaiitndiiie plenum est [x, 7].
Veloces pedes eornni ad effniidendinn sauguineni
Contritio et iiifelicitas in viis eornin
Et viam pacis non cognovenint [Isa. lix, 7, S].
Nou est timor Dei ante oculos eorum [Psa. xxxvi, 1].
We need scarcely add that these eight stichs, although found in Justin Martyr, in the Vatican MS., and in the Vulgate, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, are an early in- terpolation from Rom. iii, 15-18. They are wanting in the Cod. Alex.
Jerome observes (Prcef. ad Job), that the book of Job commences with prose, glides into verse, and again ends with a short comma in prose from the verse " Ideirco me reprehendo, et ago poenitentiam in cinere et favilla" (the form assumed also by the text of the oldest He- brew MSS.). He adds that there were seven hundred or eight hundred verses wanting in the old Latin ver- sion of this book, and makes mention of "three short verses" in Ezek. xxi and Isa. Ixiii. That a stichomet- rical arrangement pervaded the whole Latin Bible is further evident from the Speculum <S'«//)^!/?v»', attributed to Augustine, which contains extracts from Psalms, Can- ticles, Ecclesiastes, Job, Hosea, Amos, IMicah, Zephaniah, Malachi, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Wisdom, Ecclesias-
ticus, the four evangelists, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Timothy, 1 John, and Hebrews. All these passages will be fountl extracted in the Christian Remembrancer, 184-.', p. (576-683; and altliougii the first editors of the Spec- ulum se^m to have misunderstood Augustine's meaning (Simon, Hist. Critique^, it is beyond a doubt that tlie verses in the Speculum (one of which was " Popnlus ejus et oves pascujB ejus") were of the character which we are now describing. Jerome has not followed any of the divisions of the present Hebrew text, except in those passages where he could not well have avoided it — viz., the alphabetical division in the book of Lamen- tations, and the alphabetical Psalms; but even here he differs from the present divisions (Morini Exerc. Blbl. ii,2).
Jerome introduced a similar division into the prophet- ical books and the books of Chronicles. To this divis- ion he, in the prophetical books, applies the terms cnla, and commata (or "stanzas" and " hemistichs"), while in the Chronicles he only employs the colon, or longer pe- riod. " No one," he observes, " when he sees the proph- ets divided into verses (versibus), must suppose that they are bound by metrical lines, or that in this respect they resemble the Psalms and the books of Solomon ; but as the works of Demosthenes and Tully are divided into colons and commas, although written in prose and not verse, we have, for the convenience of the reader, also distinguished our new version by a new species of writing." The Chronicles, he says, he divided into members of verses (^per versuum cola), in order to avoid an "inextricable forest of names."
The following specimens of Jerome's divisions are from Martianay :
[Job iii.] " Pereat dies in qua naius snm
et nox in qua dictum est : Conceptus est homo. Dies ilia veitatur in tenebrns
non reqniral, enm Ueiis desuper
et nou illustretur liiniine."
[Isaiah xl.] "Consolamini, Cousolamini, popule mens,
dicit Deus vester. Loquiminj ad cor Jerusalem, et advocate earn: Oranis vallis exaltabitur,
et oninis mons et collis humiliabitur, Et erunt prava in diiecia,
et aspeni in vias jilanas. Et revelabitnr gloria Domini,
et videbit, etc. Vox diceiitis: Clania.
Et dixi :
Quid claniabo ?
Omnis caro fceiuim, et orauis gloria ejus quasi flos agri."
[1 Chron. xiv.] "Misit qnoqne Hiram lex Tyri nuutios ad David, et ligna cedrina, et artilices pai'ietuni, liguonunque, nt sediti- caieut ei domnni. Cognovitqne David quod confiimasset enni Domiinis in regeni super Israel, et sublevatum esset reguum suuiu super popiihini ejus Isracd. Accepit quoque David alias uxoies in Jerusalem: ge- uuitque tilios et Alias."
A division of the prophetical books into cola, or stichs, has been considered by some to have had its origin be- fore the time of Jerome. Eusebius acquaints us (//ist. Eccles.x\, 16) that Origen, in his //ea-f»;)/(/, divided the Greek and other versions into KCjKa, which, however, bishop Christopherson (in Euseb. Eccks. Jlist.) sup- poses to be the cohmms containing the different texts into which Origen's I'oli/rjlot was divided. Hesvchius, who died in A.D. 433, also published his rrTixijpiic uf the twelve prophets, which he calls an invention of the fathers, in imitation of David and Solomon, who had thus divided their rhythmical compositions. He ob- serves that he had found a similar division in the apus- tolical books. In this case such division must ha\c been anterior to the stichometrical editi<in of Euthalius, if the date assigned to his piddication be correct, viz., .\.D. 450. It is not improbable that the work of He- sychius was but an adaptation of Jerome's cola and commata to the Greek text. This is also the opinion