There is a (ireek stichometrical manuscript of Isaiah, probably of the 9th century, in the Bibliolheque du Roi (1892), in which the stichs do not commence with the line; but there is a (Jreek numeral letter attached in the margin opposite each stich, the enumeration re- commencing at the end of everj- hundred lines, in this form :
1. The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw
concerniug Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uz- zinh, Jothani, Aha/., and Ilezekiah, kings of
2. Jndidi. Hear, O heavens, and
3. give ear, O earth : for the Lord hath spoken.
4. I have nouris^hed and brought up children, and they .5. have rebelled against me. The ox kuowelh
G. his owner, and ilie ass his master's crib:
7. but Israel doth not know, my people
8. doth not consider. O sinful inition,
9. a people laden with iniquity, a seed
10. of evil-doers, children that are C(n'rupters; they have
forsii
11. ken the Lord, they have provoked the ho
ly one of Israel to aniier: they aie gone away backward. Ye will revolt more and more, etc.
12. \\'hy should ye be stricken any more?
Hug is of opinion that the stichometrical system gave rise to the continuous and regular grammatical punctuation. Attempts at interpiuiction for the sake of the sense were, however, of much greater antiquity in profane authors than the »ra of stichometry. (Gram- matical points are said to have been first introduced by Aristophane.s of Bj'zantium about two centuries before the Christian a?ra. Wo have already seen that inter- punction was in use in j\ISS. of the New Test, before Eiitlialius. as in the Cod. Alex. Isidore of Spain in- forms us that the only note of division in his time was a single point, which, to denote a comma, or short pause, was placed at the bottom ; to denote a colon, or larger pause, in the middle; and to denote a full pause, or period, was ]daced at the top of the final letter of the .sentence. ' jNIanu.scripts of the New Test., as the Zurich Cod. Bas. E, have come down to us thus pointed. In others, as the Cod. Alex, and Cod. Ephrem., the point is placed indifferently at the top, bottom, or middle of the letter (Tischendorf, Cod. Kphrem.). Others, as L, use a cro.ss for the purpose of marking a period, and Colb. 700 makes use of no other mark. Hupfehi, however {Stud. u. Krit.), doubts whether the points in Cod. Cy-
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prius are notes of the sticlis, ami Jeiiies any distinction between ii;raintnatical and other interpinietion.
Originally there were no spaees between the words, but in the ISth or 9th century they bei;an to be sepa- rated either by spaces or by points. About the same period the present marks of |)unctuation began to be gradually and imperceptibly adoptetl, and had become universal in the 10th century. Michaelis {Introd. ch. xiii) says "that Jerome introduced the comma and co- lon;" but this was not for the purpose of ilividing sen- tences. Cod. V, however, in Alattluei, of the Sth cen- tury, has the comma and the point, and Cod. Yat. 351 the colon. The Greek note of interrogation came into ii»e in the 9th century. After the invention of print- ing, the Aldine editions fixed the punctuation, which was, however, varied by Robert Stephens in his differ- ent editions of the Bible. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the punctuation of the Bible possesses no authority, and that no critic hesitates to dissent from it. The accents, or the writing Kara TvpoaifiCiuv, which were already in use in the Old Test., were added by Euthalius to his edition, but were not in general use before the 10th century.
■1. The Hebrew MS.S. all contain a versicular divis- ion, marked with the accent called silluk, and the soph pitsukXend of the verse). The word jjhsm/;, pIDS, is found in the Talmud, where it denotes some division of this kind; but whether the Talmiidical pesukim are identical with those in the manuscri]its has been strong- ly contested. It is said in tract Kiddushiii (xxx, 1), "Our rabbins assert that the law contains 5888 [or, ac- cording to Morinus, 8888] pesukim, '' while, according to the division in our Bibles, there are 5845 verses. " The Psalms have eight more." There are at present 2527. "The Chronicles eight less." This division rather re- sembles the oTi'xoi in the Sept., of which the Psalms contain 5000. In the Mishna {Mef/illa/i, iv, 1) it is said, " He who reads the law must not read less than three pesukim. Let not more than one be read by the inter- preter, or three in the prophets." The passage in Isa. lii,3-5 is reckoned as three pesukim. In Taen (iv, 3) a precept is given for reading the history of the crea- tio.i according to the parashes and the verses in the law ; and in the Bab. Talmud {Baba Bathru, xiv, 2) the passage in Deut. xxxv, 5-12 is called "the last eight verses (pesukim) in the law." It is evident, therefore, that some at least of our present verses correspond with the Talmudical. The term U^p'i'^'D'''S, pisukim, is also applied in the Gemara, as synonymous with C'^w"13, to reading lessons in general, and sometimes to short passages or half-verses. But no marks appear to have existed in the text to distinguish these divisions, which were doubtless preserved by oral teaching. The first notice of such signs is found in Sopherim (iii,7), in these words: " Liber legis, in quo incisum est, et in quo capita incisorum punctata sunt, ne legas in illo." No such marks occur in the synagogue rolls. The Sept. and Vulg. differ both from the Hebrew and from each other in divisions of this character (Psa. xliii, 11, 12; xc, 2; Lam. iii, 5; Jonah ii, 6; Obad. 9; l'u/r/.Vain.v,b; Ec- cles. i, 5). The pesukim of the Talmud, which are there said to have descended from Closes, inay have been jjossibly separated by spaces. From a Targum on Cant. v, 13, it appears that the decalogue was originally writ- ten in ten lines (fammim). All the pointed or jNIasoretic MSS. contain the present verses, divided by the sop/i pasuk (;). We have already referred to the (practice of the Masorites in numbering these verses, which was done at the end of each book. Thus at the end of Genesis, " Genesis has 1534 verses," etc. ; and at the end of the Pentateuch, "The number of verses (pesukim) in the book of Deuteronomy is 955, its sign T'Sn [which represents the same number] ; the middle verse is, 'And thou shalt do according to the sentence' (xvii, 10); the Dumber of parashes is ten, and of sidarim twenty-seven;