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  • From: Matthew Baldwin <baldwin AT apocryphum.com>
  • To: <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Corpus-Paul] On the Subject of Stichoi & Stichometry
  • Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 07:15:16 -0500



Dave Inglis writes a question about comments on his reasoning regarding
Stichometry in P46. My own researches into paleography, and investigations
of the Stichometry of Nicephorus and the topic of stichometry in late
antiquity and antiquity in general suggest that measuring lines was not an
exact art, and no professional scribe seems to have cared one way or another
about the "actual number of lines."

The professional scribe would work by charging customers a price based on
some multiple of money by "number of lines." This system lent itself to
imprecision.

In comparing the available stichometric lists that survive for the canonical
gospels, to name only one example, one should be struck by something right
away. Every extant list provides a different set of numbers for the
gospels. Relatively speaking, the numbers are always "right," in that they
reflect the relative lengths of the gospels, i.e. Mark is given a smaller
number than Matthew, etc. But relative to one another, the lengths in the
lists vary by a significant amount (i.e. 30-40% often); early lists reported
the following numbers for the gospel lengths: Matthew, from as few as 2500
to as many as 2700 lines; Mark, as few as 1600 to as many as 2000; Luke, as
few as 2300 to as many as 3800; John, as few as 1700 to as many as 2300. It
depends on the list in question--for a table of the lists see T. Zahn,
Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons (Leipzig, 1892) vol. II p. 395 .

If one examines the lists, one should also notice another fascinating thing
about lengths reported for gospels: they are all given in even round number
increments, reported in units of 100 lines only.

Zahn's hand count of the lines from Vaticanus indicate that actual lengths
of gospel texts did not come in even 100 line units, of course, and neither
do their relative lengths ever correspond to the relative lengths reported
in the ancient lists.

Stichometric numbers, in other words, should be thought of not as
scientifically accurate figures, but as price tags for scribal work. Their
presence probably indicates the activity of a professional scribe in an
manuscript where they appear.

See also: J. Rendall Harris, Stichometry, London, 1893.

Matthew Baldwin
Mars Hill College
Mars Hill, NC
28754
mbaldwin AT mhc.edu




>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Stichoi in P46 - A professional scribe? (David @ Comcast)
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

> On page 207 of 'The Text of The Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts',
> Comfort & barrett write with regard to the scribe of P46: "He was a
> professional scribe, because there are stichoi notations at the end of
> several books." However, has anyone noticed that these line counts appear
> to bear no relation to the actual number of lines in P46?
>
> ETC...
>
> Stichoi C&B Count
> Rom 1000 Approx 1075 (Missing pages prevent accurate count)
> Heb 700 900
> 1 Cor N/A 1266
> 2 Cor 600 785
> Eph 316 362
> Gal 375 308
> Php 225 244
> Col 1xx 228
>
> As can easily be seen, whoever wrote the stichoi seems to have made a very
> bad job of counting. This raises the following possibilities:
>
> ETC...
>
> Does anyone have any comments on this suggestion?
>
> Dave Inglis
> davidinglis2 AT comcast.net
> 3538 O'Connor Drive
> Lafayette, CA, USA
>

>




  • [Corpus-Paul] On the Subject of Stichoi & Stichometry, Matthew Baldwin, 03/02/2004

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