The Rise of the Codex

Unlike the rest of the Graeco-Roman world, Christians showed a preference for the codex at an early date. Among the manuscripts of the New Testament written between the second and the fourth centuries—a time when almost all other manuscripts were rolls—nearly 93 percent are codices (Epp, “The Codex and Literacy,” 531–532, 548–549). As these statistics are the opposite of those from non-Christian literature, they have led to speculation that the codex was a Christian invention, but Martial’s testimony and the identification of a fragment of a Latin historical work (P. Oxy. I.30, usually dated to the late first or early second century) as the earliest recognized codex suggest otherwise (Gamble, Books and Readers, 52; Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex, 39, 128). Numerous theories have attempted to explain why Christians embraced the codex:

• Literary Advantages: Assumes that the design of the codex was the decisive factor, as it allowed for more text in a single volume and the ability to quickly locate a passage (Harris, Ancient Literacy, 294–297). Although there is no doubt that codices offered greater capacity, however, it is difficult to demonstrate that they were much more user-friendly than rolls. Unlike the books of today, codices contained no word divisions, verse divisions, or chapters, and very little punctuation or pagination (Gamble, Books and Readers, 55–56). Moreover, it is not evident that ancient readers considered rolls to be unusually vexing (see Turner’s references in Gamble, Books and Readers, 270 n.54).

• Financial Advantages: Assumes that using both sides of the writing material allowed for significant savings. A model formulated by Skeat estimates that the codex decreased total production costs by 26 percent (Skeat, “The Length of the Standard Papyrus Roll,” 199). However, Skeat’s subsequent research concludes that additional manufacturing costs such as sewing the sheets and quires and adding a binding, which required professional skills, probably would have eliminated any monetary differences between the codex and the roll (Skeat, “The Origin of the Christian Codex,” 265).

• Transportability: Assumes that the compact size and shape of the codex was especially attractive to itinerant professionals, including the teachers and preachers of the early church. Martial’s testimony stresses the value of the format for travelers, and the majority of non-Christian codices dating to the first and second centuries are educational or medical treatises whose owners may have been following a similar lifestyle (McCormick, “The Birth of the Codex,” 157–158). There are many larger manuscripts containing educational or medical works, however, and although the convenience of the codex probably played some role in its success, the unwieldiness of the roll, which was usually no more than 4–9 centimeters in diameter, may be overstated (Johnson, “The Ancient Book, 264).

The common flaw among these three proposals is that they do not address the Christians’ virtual monopoly of the codex until the third century. If its success were rooted in simple structural or financial superiority, others would have utilized it as well. With this in mind, other theories have been offered emphasizing the connection to Christianity:

• The need to distinguish Christian Scriptures from those of Judaism: Assumes that the codex represented “a fresh instance of the well-known tendency of the early church to differentiate itself sharply from Judaism” (Katz, “The Early Christians’ Use of Codices,” 163). However, this theory holds no corroborating historical, archaeological, or textual evidence. Moreover, Christians continued to use the roll in both biblical and non-biblical manuscripts. Even the columns of some codices—particularly the tall, thin examples in Codex Sinaiticus—are visually similar to an unrolled document, and it is difficult to understand why Christian scribes would have crafted a product so reminiscent of a form that they rejected.

• The use of a codex in an apostolic document: Assumes that the codex was associated with the life and work of a leading member of the early church and was retained out of veneration. Drawing upon traditions that the author of the gospel of Mark was an associate of the Apostle Peter who recorded Peter’s recollections in Rome and later established the church in Alexandria, Roberts speculates that the author would have taken notes in the notebook used by the Romans for such tasks, and that it became inextricably intertwined with its sacred content when it was transferred to Egypt (Roberts, “The Codex,” 187–188). This is highly hypothetical, and the relatively small number of early manuscripts and patristic quotations of Mark do not support the belief that it was particularly prized, making the idea even more problematic (Gamble, Books and Readers, 56–57).

• The collection of the Gospels or the Letters of Paul: Assumes that the most important consideration was the compilation of groups of key documents for the early church. Neither the Gospels nor the Letters of Paul could be contained in a roll. Skeat and Gamble have demonstrated that each would have required a roll much longer than the rough standard of 3–15 meters (Skeat, “The Origin of the Christian Codex,” 264; Gamble, “The Pauline Corpus,” 276–277). No rolls of the length necessary to hold the Gospel of Luke, let alone the four Gospels together, have been recovered (Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts, 18–19). The codex could contain either corpus, however, and the manuscript evidence indicates that collections of Gospels and letters were circulating by the beginning of the third century at the latest. Other testimony implies that this may have occurred even earlier, such as Irenaeus of Lyon’s spirited defense of the fourfold gospel (Adversus Haereses 3) and 2 Peter’s reference to the Letters of Paul as apparent Scripture (2 Pet 3:16). It is unclear which collection came first. Observations that the majority of the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament contained one or more Gospels suggest that they were the catalyst (e.g., Skeat, “The Origin of the Christian Codex,” 263–264); however, the early attestation of the Letters of Paul as a unit and their position as the oldest writings in the New Testament suggest that they were first (Gamble, “The Pauline Corpus,” 271–278; Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts, 73–74). This view seems to be most likely, as it is based upon the indisputable fact that the rise of the codex began with Christian scribes.

Ultimately, questions surrounding the Christian adoption of the codex will not be definitively answered unless additional evidence is discovered.