CODEX, with the ancients, the trunk of a tree stripped of the bark. Before the invention of paper, wooden tablets covered with wax, which were written on with the style and put together in the shape of a book, were called codex. The word was afterward retained, in times when paper was used for writing, to de note a large book. Thus important works, particularly old manuscripts of poets, his torians, etc., which had been preserved, were called codices trunittscrifrti In like manner a collection of laws was called codex, with the addition of the name of the sovereign under whom, or of the person by whom, it had been compiled, as Codex Gregorianus, Codex Theo dosianus, Codex Carolinus. Codex rescriptur (Latin, a rewritten codex) is the natne given to ancient manuscripts, which, in the Middle Ages,. were used, after the orig.inal writing had been in a great measure effaced, for the copying of other wotics, generally ecclesiastical treatises.
Thus the 'Institutions of Galas,' discovered by Niebuhr at Verona in 1816, and published by Goschen in 1821, is a codex rescriptus. Some skill is required to read the antient letters under the others. The Greek name for codex rescrop• hos is palimpsest, now more frequently used. The biblical writings themselves have been sometimes effaced to make way for homilies and legends. One of the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament, designated by the letter C, is a codex rescriptus, on which the works of Ephraem Syrus have been written. (See BOOK ; BIBLE; PALEOGRAPHY ; PALIMPSEST). Consult Scrivener, F. H. A., 'Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament' (London 1894) ; Gregory, 'Textkritilc des neuen Testaments' (Leipzig 1900) • Birt, "Das antike Buchwesen' ; Wattenbacli, 'Paliographie) (Leipzig 1877-78)..