HistoricalChristian.Faith

The Stichometry of Nicephorus on the Old Testament Canon

Dates: c. 810 AD (the Stichometry — a canon-list with line-counts — appended to the Chronographia [Chronographikon Syntomon] of Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople c. 758–828; the appended catalogue's own origin is unsettled and its core may rest on a seventh-century list, perhaps from Jerusalem) · Wikipedia
Verdict on the deuterocanon: NO — graded, not silent. The witness is a document, not a person: a list that measures every book it names in stichoi (standard verse-lines) and sorts the books into named ranks. Its canonical Old Testament is the Hebrew-sized protocanon (with Baruch attached to Jeremiah) — the deuterocanon is not among the canonical books. But the list does not merely omit those books; it files them by name in a lower rank, the Old-Testament antilegomena ("gainsaid… not recognized in the Church"), each with its line-count: the Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, the Psalms and Odes of Solomon, Esther, Judith, Susanna, and Tobit. So this is a graded No — the same three-rank shape (canon / disputed / apocrypha) that Athanasius and Epiphanius drew, carried into the ninth-century East.

Claims & evidence

The canonical Old Testament — Hebrew-sized, with Baruch on Jeremiah

The catalogue's first rank, the books reckoned canonical, runs through the protocanonical Old Testament, the paired books (Kings, Chronicles, Esdras) collapsed and the single book of Jeremiah carrying Baruch immediately after it:¹

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri, Deuteronomium, Jesus, Judices et Ruth, Regnorum primus et secundus, Regnorum tertius et quartus, Paralipomenon primus et secundus, Esdrae primus et secundus, Liber Psalmorum, Paroemiae Salomonis, Ecclesiastes, Canticum canticorum, Job, Isaias, Jeremias, Baruch, Ezechiel, Daniel, Duodecim prophetae

Measured against the disputed books, the verdict on the canon proper is plain: no Tobit, no Judith, no Sirach, no Wisdom of Solomon, no Maccabees. The one Greek extra inside the canonical rank is Baruch, listed in its own place but right behind Jeremiah — the recurring Eastern signature of Baruch lodged on Jeremiah that Athanasius, Epiphanius, and the later Greek lists keep. The result is the standard Hebrew-sized count of the Eastern canon, set down in the ninth century in the same form John of Damascus had used a generation earlier and the Masoretic tradition fixed for the Jewish Bible.

The deuterocanon ranked as antilegomena — "gainsaid… not recognized in the Church"

Below the canon the list opens a named second rank for the Old Testament, the antilegomena — the "disputed" or "contradicted" books — and it is precisely here that it places the deuterocanon, each title carried with its line-count:²

And the (writings) of the Old Testament which are gainsaid and are not recognized in the Church (canonized) are the following:

1. 3 Books of the Maccabees — 7300 lines
2. The Wisdom of Solomon — 1100 lines
3. The Wisdom of Jesus Sirach — 2800 lines
4. The Psalms and Odes of Solomon — 2100 lines
5. Esther — 350 lines
6. Judith — 1700 lines
7. Susanna — 500 lines
8. Tobith, also (called) Tobias — 700 lines

This is the key datum. The deuterocanon is neither silently dropped nor heaped with the heretical forgeries; it is given a rank of its own — read and reckoned, but disputed and not canonical. The Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, and Tobit are exactly the books the later Latin councils would list among the Scriptures; the Stichometry files the same books one tier below the canon. That this is a deliberate ranking, not an omission, is the whole point of the witness: it took the trouble to measure each disputed book in stichoi and to name its category.

The third rank — the "apocrypha," kept clearly distinct

Beneath the antilegomena the list sets a third Old-Testament rank, the apocrypha proper — Enoch, the Testaments of the Patriarchs, the Prayer of Joseph, the Testament and the Assumption of Moses, Eldad and Modad, and the pseudepigraphic books of Baruch, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, and Daniel.² The deuterocanon does not appear here. The list keeps the disputed Maccabees-Wisdom-Sirach-Judith-Tobit group cleanly above the Enoch-and-Testaments stratum — the same two-step distinction (read-but-disputed vs. rejected apocryphal) that Athanasius built his middle tier on. So the "No" the Stichometry returns on the deuterocanon's canonicity is graded twice over: above the canon's line, but well above the forgeries.

Notes

• A document, not a Father. The witness here is the canon-list itself, transmitted at the end of Nicephorus's short chronicle. Its compiler is not securely Nicephorus — the catalogue's origin "has not been clearly settled," and the core may be older than the ninth-century chronicle it rides on (Jülicher and others place a Jerusalem list behind it, possibly seventh-century). The date used on the timeline, c. 810, is the chronicle's; the underlying canon-judgment may be a century or two older, which only strengthens it as evidence of a long-standing Eastern rank.
• The stichoi are the tell. A stichometry is a working scribe's reckoning — the line-counts let a copyist price and check a manuscript. That the deuterocanonical books are measured at all means they were copied and read; that they are measured under the antilegomena heading means they were copied as disputed, not as canon. The two facts together are the precise force of this witness: in use, but ranked below the canon.
• Esther sits with the disputed books — as in Athanasius. Like Athanasius, the list demotes Esther, a protocanonical Hebrew book, into the disputed rank alongside Judith and Tobit. So the canonical first rank is not simply the Jewish twenty-two renumbered: it drops a Hebrew book (Esther) while keeping a Greek one (Baruch) attached to Jeremiah. The "Hebrew canon" label fits the count, not every title.
• "Psalms and Odes of Solomon," not the canonical Psalter. The disputed item "Psalms and Odes of Solomon" is the pseudepigraphic Psalms of Solomon (with the Odes), not the Davidic Liber Psalmorum that stands secure in the canonical rank. It is listed among the antilegomena on its own account, a distinct disputed work, and is not part of the deuterocanon proper.
• The New-Testament side is its own matter. The same catalogue notably omits the Revelation of John from its canonical New Testament and files it under the New-Testament antilegomena — a New-Testament-canon datum, weighed elsewhere; this page treats only the Old-Testament ranks.

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