The great codices

In the first century AD a new kind of book appeared, the codex: sheets of papyrus or parchment folded and sewn at the spine, like a modern book. It took writing on both sides, made a passage easier to find and could hold all four Gospels together. Christians were among its first users. By the 4th century Christian Bibles were mostly parchment codices; about AD 332 Emperor Constantine ordered fifty parchment Bibles from Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea.

Three great codices hold nearly the whole Bible in Greek, with books found in Orthodox and Catholic Bibles. Codex Vaticanus, from the 4th century, has been in the Vatican Library since at least 1475. Codex Sinaiticus, from the mid-4th century, was found by Constantin von Tischendorf at St Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai, in 1844–1859. How it left the monastery is still disputed — by one view as a gift to the Russian tsar, by another as a loan never returned; most of it has been in London since 1933. Codex Alexandrinus, of the 5th century, came from Egypt and was given to King Charles I of England in 1627. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus both end Mark’s Gospel at 16:8.