tion; but they seem to have been in use only in the
grammatical schools, and with a limited application to certain
doubtful passages in the ancient writers. That they were unknown
in the older manuscripts of the New Testament is evident from
the discussions that arose among the church fathers respecting
the right division of certain passages, in which they never
appeal to the authority of manuscripts, but argue solely from
the nature of the connection. The reader may see a collection of
examples in Hug's Introduction to the New Testament, Sec. 43, where
are also some curious examples of the wrong division of words.

6. To obviate the inconvenience of this continuous mode of writing,
there was introduced, about the middle of the fifth century, what is
called the _stichometrical_ mode (Greek _stichos_, a _row_ or _line_,
and _metron_, a _measure_). This consisted in arranging in a single line
only so many words as could be read, consistently with the sense, at a
single inspiration.

The invention of stichometry has been generally ascribed to Euthalius, a
deacon in Alexandria, who, in the year 458, set forth a copy of Paul's
epistles stichometrically arranged; but Tregelles is inclined to the
opinion that he borrowed the system from an earlier writer, Pamphilus
the martyr. However this may be, the original conception doubtless came
from the stichometry of Hebrew poetry. Hug (Sec. 44) and Tregelles (Horne's
Introduct., vol. 4, chap. 4) give an example in Greek from a fragment of
the Pauline epistles. This example (Titus 2:2, 3), when literally
translated into English according to the Greek order of words, reads as
follows:

THEAGEDMENTOBESOBER
GRAVE
SOBERMINDED
SOUNDINTHEFAITH
INLOVE
INPATIENCE
THEAGEDWOMENLIKEWISE
INBEHAVIORASBECOMESHOLYWOMEN
NOTSLANDERERS
NOTGIVENTOMUCHWINE
TEACHERSOFGOODTHINGS

Though the design of stichometry was not interpunction according to the
connection of thought, yet it seems to have led to this result. The
expensiveness of this mode of writing, owing to the waste of parchment,
naturally suggested the idea of separating the lines by a simple point,
thus:

THEAGEDMENTOBESOBER. GRAVE.
SOBERMINDED. SOUNDINTHEFAITH.
INLOVE. INPATIENCE. THEAGED
WOMENLIKEWISE. INBEHAVIORAS
BECOMETHHOLYWOMEN. NOTSLAN
DERERS. NOTGIVENTOMUCHWINE.
TEACHERSOFGOODTHINGS.

As these divisions were mainly _rhythmical_, and often broke the true
connection of thought, men sou