In an earlier post, I set out the evidence used to establish that for ancient Greek and Latin prose writing, a stichos (or versus) was generally equal to 16 syllables. In a subsequent post, I drew attention to the discussion of the payment to writers based on number of stichoi in Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices. So, stichometric counting served to measure works in a standardized way and as a basis for payment of writers. This seems simple enough. The odd thing is that, at least when it comes to Christian texts in the early period, these “notional” or “standard” line numbers don’t actually appear to be very standardized.
A spot check of some later Greek manuscripts of Galatians does give a regular stichometric count. Here is the end of Galatians in Codex Angelicus (GA 020, assigned to the 9th century):
The last datum given is the stichometric count: ⲥⲧⲓⲭⲱⲛ ⲥҁⲅ, 293 stichoi (using a cursively formed koppa to represent the number 90). This number, 293, is generally accepted as the “standard” stichometric number for the Greek text of Galatians. The problem is that earlier manuscripts give different numbers. For instance, Codex Sinaiticus:
Written in lighter ink and smaller letters below the closing title ⲡⲣⲟⲥ ⲅⲁⲗⲁⲧⲁⲥ is the notation ⲥⲧⲓⲭ ⲧⲓⲃ, 312 stichoi.1 This count differs again from the tally provided in the Beatty-Michigan Pauline Epistles codex (P46):
Here the notation (in a hand decidedly different from that of the main text) is ⲥⲧⲓⲭ´ ⲧⲟⲉ, 375 stichoi. This is considerably more that the number of lines given in Codex Sinaiticus and the later manuscripts, so much so that I almost suspect that the number could be an error for ⲧⲓⲉ, 315.
There are a few later Greek manuscripts with high stichometric counts for Galatians, but these are mostly explicable as errors for 293 (for instance, some manuscripts have ⲧҁⲅ for ⲥҁⲅ, so 393).2 It is less easy to explain the stichometric total for Galatians in 1739 (assigned to the 10th century):
Here we get ⲥⲧⲓⲭ´ ⲧҁⲃ, 392. It’s more difficult to see that as the result of an error of copying ⲥҁⲅ. We would have to posit mistakes in copying two out of three digits. (I should add that it’s not clear to me that the stichometric notes were produced by the copyist of the main text; I’ve never seen this manuscript in person.)
I didn’t have the time to count the syllables in each of these manuscripts to see what the “real” number of stichoi is in each of them. But I did do a rough count of the number of 16-syllable stichoi in the text of Galatians printed in Nestle-Aland 28, and I came up with 304 stichoi (or, to be more precise, 303 stichoi + 11 extra syllables, or 4859 total syllables).This is a little closer to the 312 stichoi reported in Codex Sinaiticus than it is to the Byzantine count of 293. But here’s where it gets interesting: My count of Nestle-Aland included unabbreviated nomina sacra. If we contracted the standard nomina sacra (forms of θεός, κύριος, Ἰησοῦς, Χριστός, υἱός, πνεῦμα, πατήρ, and σταυρός/σταυρόω) and count again, we would need to subtract about 175 from the total number of syllables (I say “about” because the forms of contraction can of course vary a little). So 4859-175=4684. Divide that by 16: 4684/16=292.75. That’s shockingly close to the Byzantine standard of 293.3
It makes me curious to know what the “real” stichometric count for the Byzantine text of Galatians is. And I am also at a loss to explain the count of 375 stichoi reported in P46, if it is not indeed an error as suggested above. And overall, I’m not sure what to make of this variety of stichometric counts for Galatians. In another post, I will take a look at the Latin evidence.
- 312 is also the stichometric number Codex Sinaiticus gives for Ephesians. But 312 also happens to be the traditional stichometric number for Ephesians. ↩︎
- GA 1891 (Jerusalem, Orthodox Patriarchate, Hagios Sabas 107, folio 173r) 10th-11th century, has ⲧҁⲅ, 393. ↩︎
- Rendel Harris did this exercise for the whole New Testament using the text of Westcott and Hort, and for Galatians, he also got a stichos count of 304. When he reduced that to account for nomina sacra contractions, he got a slightly higher number than me (296), but he only considered four words as nomina sacra (θεός, κύριος, Ἰησοῦς, and Χριστός). See J. Rendel Harris, Stichometry (London, 1893), 38-41. ↩︎
Variant Readings 
Lost myself in stichometry years ago working on the Georgics: was Virgil 4.400 a translation of Odyssey 4.400? That was verse and easy(er), though. This is fascinating.
Yes, it has been enjoyable to take a dive into this topic, which seems understudied.
B.N., Doesn’t Rendell Harris say somewhere that a manuscript written by the syllable will be counted by the syllable and that a manuscript written by the letter will be counted by the letter? And for the letter-stichos he found a range of 32 letters per stichos to 38 or so. (I am away from home and can’t check these recollections.) Some variation might be due to the quality of writing–better quality might imply a smaller stichos which means more stichoi per ms, means more $ for scribe. Length of stichoi could have been negotiable. Once it moves from its homebase in Homeric epic, there is no reason a stichos should be one number of syllables or letters rather than another number. Brother Kenneth Cardwell
Harris does survey the evidence for counting stichoi by letters and sees some evidence for that method at an early stage but concludes as follows: “It must be sufficiently patent from the foregoing researches of M. Graux that every speculation as to the equality between the stichos and the average hexameter is abundantly confirmed. The only thing that does not appear from the results is whether the lines are measured by their letters or their syllables; but this has been already discussed, and we have arrived at a high probability in favor of syllabic measurements, at least in the case of later authors” (Harris, Stichometry, p. 15).
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