CODES (Lat., trunk of a tree, tablet). The name 'codex' seems to have been applied first to books that were made by laying sheets one on an other, like tablets, in sets of three. four. or more. Each one of such sets, when folded and stitched together, constituted a- book (liberl in the more technical sense. Any number of these 'hooks' might he bound together in a large book or codex. In distinction from the codex, the volume or roll was made by pasting or stitching the separate sheets together edgewise. thus form ing a long ribbon which bad to be rolled in order to be easily handled.
The word is at present used almost exclusively for manuseript copies of the whole or parts of the Bible or of the Greek and Roman classics.
Some of the most important of the former are noted in the article on the New Testament text. (See BinLE.) About A.D. 200 the codex form began to stipplant the roll form. The ear lier codices appear to have been larger than the later ones. It was perhai)s in imitation of the appearance of the open roll, with its several parallel columns of reading matter, that the early codices were written with three or even four columns on a page. Later it was more usual to write but two, and finally but one. Co di•es were of either paper or parchment—of various grades—the latter being always the more common. The oldest codices were written in uncial script—that is, in semi-capitals: the let ters being, as a rule, separate from each other.
They are without wo•d-divisions, punctuation, breathings, or accents. The separate books have only the simplest titles. In the fifth and sixth centuries the text was broken up into large sec tions beginning with large capital letters, ac cents and breathings were introduced. the titles enlarged. and more or less of introductory mat ter added. Some slight attempts at decoration were also indulged in. Late uncial codices. from the seventh to the tenth century. were frequent ly elaborately decorated with the parchment colored purple and the text written in gold or silver letters—e.g. the Codex llossanensis. In the monasteries of the Middle Ages decorated or illuminated manuscripts were manufactured in large numbers. In the tenth century the uncial hand gave way to the cursive or running hand. Codices so written are called minuscules:, in distinction from the majuscules or uncials. For other particulars, see BIBLE: BOOK PALE OGRAPHY : TEXTUAL CRITICISM.
Consult: F. H. A. Scrivener, Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (London, 1894) ; Textkritik dcs ?wire?? Testaments (Leipzig, 1900) ; Birt, Dos antike Baehtcesen (Berlin, 1882) ; Wattenbach, Pald ()graphic (Leipzig, 1877-78).