1843]), ill supposing that Stephens took his idea from this very work. But, not lo niukiply instances. Home {Introd. vol. ii, pt. i, cli. ii, s. iii, § 1) gives the foUow- ing account of their introduction : '' Kahhi Mordccai Nathan . , . undertook a similar concordance [to that of Hugo] for the Hebrew Scriptures; but, instead of adopting the marginal letters of Hugo, he marked every tifth verse with a Hebrew numeral, thus, X 1, " 5, etc. ; retaining, however, the cardinal's divisions into chap- ters. . . . The introduction of verses into the Hebrew Bible was made by Athias, a Jew of Amsterdam [U!('>1], . . . with the figures common in use, except those which had previously been marked by Nathan with Hebrew letters in the manner in which they at present appear in the Hebrew Bibles. By rejecting these Hebrew nu- merals, and substituting for them the corresponding figures, all the cojiies of the Bible in other languages have since been marked." "The verses into which the New Test, is now divided are much more modern [than the arixni], and are an imitation of those invented for the Old Testament by rablii Nathan in the 15th cen- tury. Bobert Stephens was the tirst inventor." In an- other place (§ 2 ), I lorne has observed that the Jlasorites were the inventors of verses, but without intimating that they are the same with those now in use. Doubts were entertained on this subject so early as the 16th century. " Who first," observes Elias Levita, "divided the books of the Old and New Testaments into ari^oi'i There are even some who entertain doubts respecting a matter but recently come into use, viz., who the (lerson was wl.'o introduced the division of verses into the Greek and Latin Bibles." Serrarius {Proleg.) makes the fol- lowing allusion to the circumstance: "I strongly sus- pect that it is far from certain who tirst restored the in- termitted division into verses. Henry Stephens, indeed, having once come to Wurzburg, would fain have per- suaded me that his father, Robert, was the inventor of this distinction in the New Testament ; and I afterwards observed this same statement in his preface to his Greek Concordance, witli the addition that it was on his way from Paris to Lyons that he made the division, a great part of it while ritiing on horseback" (^iiiter eqintandiivi). " This may, after all, be an empty boast; but supposing it true, as Catholics have used the versions of Acpiila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, who were apostates or her- etics, so may we use this division of Robert Stephens;" and, not able to conceal his mortification that the honor should belong to a Protestant, he significantly observes that Seneca had found the best scribes (jwtarii) among the vilest slaves. Henry Stephens, in the preface to his Concordduce, thus expatiates on his father's invention: " As the books of the New Testament had already been divided into the sections (tmemaio) which we call chap- ters, he himself subdivided them into those smaller sec- tions, called by an appellation more approved of by oth- ers than by himself, rfr^/c/es. He would have preferred calling them by the Greek tmemntia, or the Latin secti- uncuUe ; for he perceived that the ancient name of these sections was now restricted to anotlier use. He accom- plished this division of each chapter on his journey from Paris to Lyons, and the greater part of it inter equi- Umdum. A short time before, while he thought on the matter, every one pronounced him mad, for wasting his time and labor on an un[)rofitable affair which would gain him more derision than honor; but lo ! in spite of all their predictions, the invention no sooner saw the light than it met with universal approbation, and ob- tained such authority that all other editions of the New Testament in (ireek, Latin, (ierman, and other vernacular tongues, which did not adopt it, were rejected as unau- thorized." Henry Stephens had already stated the same fact, in the dedication to Sir Philip Sidney, prefixed to his second edition of the Greek Testament (1576). We now proceed to Stephens's own statements.
Upon leaving the Church of Kome, and embracing Calvinism in 1551, in which vear he took refuge in Ge-
neva, he published his fourth edition of the Greek Tes- tament, containing also the Vulgate and the Latin ver- sion of Erasmus, with the date in the title bidlxi, an evident error for mdli. The x has been, in conse- quence, erased in nearly all the copies. In the preface he observes, "As to our having numbered this work with certain versicles, as they call them, we have herein followed the most ancient (ireek and Latin manuscripts of the New Testameiu, and have imitated them the more willingly that each translation may be mad.' the more readily to corresjiond with the opposite Greek." Bishop Marsh (notes to Michaelis), and after him Home {ut sup.), asserts that " Beza split the Greek text into the verses invented by Robert Stephens ;" but the bishop is evidently mistaken, as Stephens's fourth edition is divided into these breaks as well as Beza's (see fac- simile in ChriMian Remembrancer, ut sup.). Each verse commences the line with a capital, the figures being placed between the columtis.
The fourth edition of the Greek Testament was fol- lowed in 1555 by the seventh of the Latin Vulgate, in 8vo, containing the whole Bible, having the i)resent verses marked throughout with numerals, and the fol- lowing address to the reader: "Here is an edition of the Latin Vulgate in which each chapter is divided into verses, according to the Hebrew form of verses, with numerals prefixed, corresponding to the number of the verse which has been added in our new and com- plete Concordance, after the marginal letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, that you may be relieved from the labor of searching for what these figures will point out to you as with the finger." The title-page bears Stephens's olive; and the name of the printer, Conrad Badius, the son-in-law of Stephens, with the date, 8 idibus Apri/is, 1556, shows where and when it was printed. It was the first edition of the entire Bible printed by Stephens since he left the Church of Rome. The text is contin- uous, the verses being separated by a ^[, with the fig- ures in the body of the text. The next edition of the Bible by Stephens is that of 155G-57, in 3 vols, fol., con- taining the Vulgate, the version of Pagninus, and Beza's Latin version of the New Test., now first published. The notes are those commonly ascribed to Vatablus, with those of Claude Bad well in the Apochryphal books. The text is broken up into divisions, and there is a no- tice to the reader apprising him that this edition con- tains the text divided into verses, as in the Hebrew copies.