Church History · AD 300 to 600

The Book Replaces the Scroll

The codex, a stack of pages bound on one side, was a Roman invention. Christians used it for their Scriptures from the very start, and by the 500s it had pushed the old scroll aside across the Christian world.

Read it in the Bible: Luke 4:17 2 Timothy 4:13 John 20:30-31

For most of history, a book was a scroll. You unrolled it with one hand and rolled it up with the other. Then the Romans came up with the codex, a stack of folded pages sewn together on one side, which is the shape of every book on your shelf today. Christians grabbed the codex early and almost never let go. Between about AD 300 and 600, it took over the Christian world, and by the 500s the scroll was mostly a thing of the past.

What Is a Codex?

A codex is simply a book with pages. The word comes from the Latin caudex, meaning a block of wood. That fits, because the idea probably grew out of wooden writing tablets coated with wax that Romans tied together to take notes. Later, people swapped the wood for sheets of papyrus or parchment, folded them, and stitched them along one edge.

The Roman poet Martial, writing in the late first century, praised little parchment copies of famous authors that fit in one hand. He sounds like a man showing off his new phone. Even so, most Roman readers stayed loyal to scrolls for a long time. Serious literature was supposed to come on a roll.

When Did the Codex Replace the Scroll?

The change was slow. In the first and second centuries, scrolls were still normal for Greek and Latin books. By around AD 300, codices and scrolls show up in roughly equal numbers among the books found in Egypt. By the 400s and 500s, the codex had clearly won. Scrolls never vanished completely. Jewish synagogues still read the Torah from a handwritten scroll to this day, and that is a beautiful tradition.

Parchment helped speed things up. It is made from animal skin, it is tough, and it can be folded without cracking. A big parchment codex could last for centuries, and some of them have. The great Bibles of the 300s, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, are both codices. You can read more about them in the article on Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus on this site.

Why Did Early Christians Prefer the Codex?

Here is the surprising part. While the rest of Rome still loved scrolls, Christians used the codex almost from day one. Nearly every early Christian copy of Scripture that survives is from a codex, not a scroll. Scholars point to a few good reasons.

It holds more. One scroll could hold about one Gospel. One codex could hold all four Gospels and Acts together, or all of Paul's letters.
It is easy to look things up. Try finding Isaiah 53 on a scroll thirty feet long. In a codex you just flip the pages.
It is cheaper. You can write on both sides of the page, so it uses less material.
It travels well. Missionaries and traveling teachers could carry a codex in a bag.
It set Christian books apart. Some scholars think the shape itself said, this is our book, the story of Jesus.

We don't know for sure which reason mattered most. It may have been all of them together. Some early papyrus codices, like the collection of Paul's letters known as P46 from around AD 200, show how early this habit started.

Does the Bible Mention Scrolls and Parchments?

Yes. In the Gospels, Jesus reads from a scroll in the synagogue at Nazareth.

the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it was written: Luke 4:17

Near the end of his life, Paul asks Timothy to bring his reading material to prison in Rome.

When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments. 2 Timothy 4:13

Some scholars wonder if those parchments were notebooks in codex form. That is a guess, and we can't prove it. Still, it is fun to picture Paul with a little parchment notebook full of Scripture.

How Did the Codex Shape the Bible We Have?

The codex did more than change the look of a book. It helped shape how Christians thought about the Bible as one collection. When you bind the Gospels, Acts and the letters into one volume, you are making a statement about which books belong together. The rise of the codex went hand in hand with the church settling its list of books, which you can read about in the article on Athanasius and the 27 books.

The codex also made the Bible easier to copy, check and protect. Monks in monasteries spent their lives copying codices by hand. Later, chapter numbers and verse numbers were added, which only make sense in a book you can flip through. And when Gutenberg built his printing press in the 1400s, he printed his Bible as a codex. The format the early Christians picked is the same one you hold when you open a printed Bible today.

Why It Matters for You Today

The early church cared about getting the Word into people's hands. They chose the newest, handiest technology of their day so the story of Jesus could travel farther and faster. That same spirit runs through Bible apps, audio Bibles and free websites like this one.

But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. John 20:31

Scroll, codex, screen. The format keeps changing. The message stays the same.

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Questions People Ask

What is the difference between a codex and a scroll?

A scroll is one long sheet rolled up on itself, and you read it by unrolling it. A codex is a stack of pages bound on one side, just like a modern book. A codex holds more text, uses both sides of the page, and makes it much easier to find a passage.

When did the codex replace the scroll?

The codex was invented in Roman times and slowly gained ground. By about AD 300 codices and scrolls were roughly equal in number, and by the 500s the codex had replaced the scroll across most of the Christian world.

Why did early Christians use the codex?

Christians used the codex for Scripture from very early on. It could hold several books in one volume, was cheaper because both sides of the page were used, made it easy to look up passages, and was easy for missionaries to carry.

Do Jews still use scrolls?

Yes. Synagogues still read the Torah, the five books of Moses, from a handwritten parchment scroll. Jewish homes and schools use printed books for study, but the scroll remains the honored form for public worship.

Sources

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