This will be my fifth and final post in this series on stichometry. For the earlier posts, see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

One of the things that initially confused me about the stichometric data for the New Testament was the set of evidence for the Pauline letters presented in Bruce Metzger’s classic, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (corrected ed., Clarendon, 1989). At page 298, Metzger wrote:

“Scribes of Biblical manuscripts would sometimes indicate the length of each Epistle in terms of number of lines, called stichoi. The statistics are as follows:

To Churches
Romans 979 stichoi
1 Corinthians 908 stichoi
2 Corinthians 607 stichoi
Galatians 311 stichoi
Ephesians 331 stichoi
Philippians 221 stichoi
Colossians 215 stichoi
1 Thessalonians 207 stichoi
2 Thessalonians 111 stichoi

Hebrews 243 stichoi

To Individuals
1 Timothy 238 stichoi
2 Timothy 182 stichoi
Titus 100 stichoi
Philemon 44 stichoi”

Metzger cites no source for this data. And if I have understood the evidence of the surviving ancient manuscripts and lists properly, every single one of the numbers reported by Metzger here is incorrect. This strikes me as strange and wholly out of character for Metzger. After making some calculations, I think I see what may have gone wrong. What Metzger reports in this list are not the numbers that “scribes of biblical manuscripts” indicate. Instead, what he seems to be listing are modern estimates based (directly or indirectly) on the work of Charles Graux (1852-1882). In a classic article published in 1878, Graux calculated the number of letters in the editions of several ancient texts, including the Septuagint and the New Testament.¹ Metzger (or a predecessor) seems to have divided Graux’s total counts by 36 (the usual number used when a stichos is reckoned as letters rather than syllables) and then rounded either up or down to arrive at these totals. Here are Metzger’s numbers with the calculations from Graux:

Romans 979 stichoi: 35266 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 979.61
1 Corinthians 908 stichoi: 32685 letters, divided by 36 ≈  907.92
2 Corinthians 607 stichoi: 21851 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 606.97
Galatians 311 stichoi: 11202 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 311.17
Ephesians 331 stichoi: 11932 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 331.44
Philippians 221 stichoi: 7975 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 221.52
Colossians 215 stichoi: 7745 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 215.13
1 Thessalonians 207 stichoi: 7468 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 207.44
2 Thessalonians 111 stichoi: 4011 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 111.42
Hebrews 243 stichoi: 26738 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 742.72
1 Timothy 238 stichoi: 8575 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 238.19
2 Timothy 182 stichoi: 6554 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 182.05
Titus 100 stichoi: 3595 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 99.86
Philemon 44 stichoi: 1567 letters, divided by 36 ≈ 43.53

Metzger’s otherwise strange numbers line up remarkably well with Grauxs calculations, but there are a couple problems with this theory of Metzger’s source. First, Metzger doesn’t cite Graux. Second, to get Metzger’s numbers, it is twice necessary to round down when one would expect to round up (Romans and Philippians). Third, Metzger’s number for Hebrews (243) is impossibly low compared to the calculation from Graux (743).

The third problem is easily handled. Metzger has misprinted 243 for 743. The other two problems are trickier. I’m not sure why the numbers for Romans and Philippians are one digit off, and I don’t know why Metzger doesn’t cite Graux (or some intermediate source) for these numbers.

In any event, the “correct” traditional stichometric totals for the Pauline epistles are those reported by J. Rendel Harris (and reproduced below), although, as we saw in the case of Galatians, the stichometric tallies reported in actual surviving manuscripts can vary substantially.²

Romans 920
1 Corinthians 870
2 Corinthians 590
Galatians 293
Ephesians 312
Philippians 208
Colossians 208
1 Thessalonians 193
2 Thessalonians 106
Hebrews 703
1 Timothy 230
2 Timothy 172
Titus 97
Philemon 38

It is fitting to close the series on stichometry with portraits of Graux and Harris, who, as relatively young scholars, opened up the field of stichometry of early Christian manuscripts.³

1. Charles Graux, “Nouvelles recherches sur la stichométrie,” Revue de Philologie de Littérature et d’Histoire Anciennes 2 (1878) 97-143. ↩︎
2. J. Rendel Harris, Stichometry (London: C.J. Clay and Sons, 1893), 39. ↩︎
3. Also foundational (though less focused on early Christian material) is Kurt Ohly, Stichometrische Untersuchungen (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1928). ↩︎