While working on my last post, another in a series on The First Eight Words of the Risen Jesus, I remarked on the possibility that St. Paul might have written “Farewell” at the beginning of Chapter 3 in his letter to the Philippians, and again soon after he began Chapter 4.
Regardless of whether the correct translation is “farewell” or “rejoice,” the letter’s haphazard division into chapters and verses is puzzling. The same can be said about the Bible as a whole. So who decided where chapters and verses begin and end in our Holy Scriptures?
Most scholars believe it was an Archbishop of Canterbury named Stephen Langton. Born around 1150 in a small Surrey village called Friday Street, Pope Innocent III appointed him as Archbishop in 1207 during the reign of Robin Hood’s nemesis, King John. Some claim that the Archbishop was riding a horse while dividing his Bible into chapters and verses, and at each bump or dip in the road, his pen slipped, creating the next chapter or verse!
Langton is also credited by some as the author of Veni Sancte Spiritus (“Come Holy Spirit), an anthem sung before the reading of the Holy Gospel on the Day of Pentecost:
Come, father of the poor, come giver of gifts, come, light of the heart.
Greatest comforter, sweet guest of the soul, sweet consolation.
In labor, rest; in heat, temperance; in tears, solace.
O most blessed light, fill the inmost heart of your faithful.
Without your divine will, there is nothing in humankind, nothing is harmless.
Wash that which is unclean, water that which is dry, heal that which is wounded.
Bend that which is inflexible, warm that which is chilled, make right that which is wrong.
Give to your faithful, who rely on you, the sevenfold gifts.
Give reward to virtue, give salvation at our passing on, give eternal joy.
Amen. Alleluia.
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