"The Gestation of the Codex"
or, "From Scroll and Tablets to Codex and Beyond"

by Robert A. Kraft (spring term 2008, University of Pennsylvania; 14ap08 draft)

The following depends heavily on the previous studies by Colin Roberts ("The Codex" 1954) and Theodore C. Skeat (The Birth of the Codex, 1983), and on Joseph van Haelst "Les Origines du Codex" (1989) with several significant revisions as well as much additional material. 

Desiderata Noted in Reviews of Roberts & Skeat:

Review by Eldon Jay Epp, Journal of Biblical Literature 105 (1986) 359-361 -- Mostly a report, with some emphasis on the speculative nature of the relationship to early Christianity.

Review by G. D. Kilpatrick, Vigiliae Christianae 38 (1984) 409-412 --Problem of Pauline authorship of Pastorals; early use of Mark; connection of (Greek) Roman Christianity with Latin Roman evidence; simplistic argument for nomina sacra unity; place of the epistles in canon formation. Kilpatrick himself is inclined to emphasize Christian desire to differentiate from Judaism in both codex and nomina sacra choices.

Review by Rosamond McKitterick [Oxford Journals page] Library (1985) 360-363 -- 
The codex, however, antedates the formation of the Gospel canon and is very difficult to link with it. This part of the discussion would have been enriched had the possible ownership of the surviving books, the market for the new format and the question of who would have been reading these books been considered, for the manuscripts and their proposed context seem to have significant implications for levels and use of literacy among the Christian communities of the ancient world. (363)
[also qustions the actual isolation of Egypt in bookmaking, arguing for possible imports having much effect]

Review by Peter J. Parsons, Classical Review (1987) 82-84
Offers several queries and corrections, noted  in the appropriate places in the electronic file. Also check:  "P. 13 The reference, Asc., In Mil. 29, has dropped out" [presumably was present in the earlier CHR version?].

Note by J. David Thomas in his obituary for T.C.Skeat:
Skeat's other major contirbution to palaeographical and codicological studies was the book he produced with Colin Roberts, The Birth of the Codex ( based in part on a previous article by Roberts in the Proceedings of the British Academy). Although in some respects controversial and by no means the last word on the subject, this book is fundamental for any examination of this extremely complicated problem, and has been reprinted more than once. Also of enormous value is the chapter on Early Christian Book-Production [[1969, reprinted in Elliott]], which he contributed to the Cambridge History of the Bible (an Italian translation appeared as a separate volume in 1976).

Contents:

Tablets and Codexbooks [vocabulary? gk δέλτοι? δελτάριον, γραμματεῖον -- Lat tabulae, pugillares, codices]

For persons in almost every walk of life in the Greco-Roman world, as well as long before and long after, codices composed of rigid tablets of wood and/or other materials were commonplace. Individual tablets were bound together on one edge with some sort of hinging (e.g. leather strips, cord), so as to open either vertically (hinged at the top or bottom) or horizontally (hinged at the side). The hinged tablets could also be arranged accordian (or concertina) style, to emulate more closely the equally common scroll format. [[What constituted "front" or back??]] The tablets themselves often were coated with wax in a framed and slightly hollowed out area and thus could be reused when older markings were smoothed over with a flat ended tool. Sometimes wooden tablets were painted white or a light shade (or even reddish), and writing in ink or chalk was sometimes placed directly on the painted or unpainted wood. [[e.g. Vindolanda]]

The tablet was one of the oldest, if not the oldest, recipient of writing known to the Greeks, who may have borrowed it from their neighbors to the east.\1/  Homer knew of it, for it was on a folded tablet or diptych [["two piecer"]] that Proitos scratched the 'deadly marks' that were intended to send Bellerophon to his death; in Sophocles, Agamemnon orders the muster roll [list] of the Greek princes to be read from a tablet, and it is on a tablet that Zeus, in a fragment of Euripides, records the sins of men.\2/ In later Greece tablets were the familiar recipient of anything of an impermanent or informal nature -- letters, bills, accounts, school exercises, memoranda, writers' drafts. Already by the fifth century bce tablets of two or more  leaves were in use, but the thickness and rigidity of the material limited the number of leaves that could be included, and in fact no specimen surviving from Greco-Roman antiquity has more than ten. [[add rabbinic reference to 12?]] The earliest surviving Greek tablets, seven in number, date from the middle of the third century bce.  Both sides of each leaf were covered with wax, sometimes black, sometimes red; they are hinged horizontally and contain rough accounts of expenses during a journey on the Nile.\3/ In Rome tablet codices were equally familiar from an early date and were employed not only for the casual purposes of everyday life but for legal documents and official certificates [[e.g. debts and birth records]].\4/

\1/ The Mycenaean Greeks used clay tablets and also, possibly, papyrus (cf. clay sealings containing impressions of papyrus fibres, Marinates, Minos, i, p. 40; Maurice Pope, "The Cretulae and the Linear A Accounting System," Annual of the British School at Athens 55 [1960] 201). For other Near Eastern evidence, see C. Wendel, Die griechisch-römische Buchbeschreibung verglichen mit der des Vorderen Orients, 1949, p. 91; L. Koep, Das himmlische Buch in Antike und Christentum,1952, pp. 15-16.  Especially interesting is the set of ivory tablets from Nimrod, dated to about 707-705 bce, which still retained some of their yellow wax coating, and had originally been hinged together on both sides so as to fold up concertina-fashion, whereas the tablets of walnut wood found with them had perforations so that they could have been hinged on one side only by, e.g. leather thongs (Iraq 16 (1954) 65, 97-9; 17 (1955) 3 20. For representations of wooden writing-tablets in Neo-Hittite reliefs of the same period see B. van Regemorter, 'Le codex relié à 1'époque néo-Hittite,' Scriptorium 12  (1958) 177-181 and J. A. Szirmai, "Wooden Writing Tablets and the Birth of the Codex," Gazette du livre me/die/val 17 (1990) 31-31 (see also Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible 209). An Aramaic letter on two folded wood slats was also found among the Bar Kokhba letters from ca 135 ce Palestine, similar in format to some of the Vindolanda wooden tablet letters from slightly earlier in Britain (see Y.Yadin's report in IEJ 11 [1961] 40ff, and the online Vindolanda materials by A.Bowman and D.Thomas).

\2/ Homer, Iliad 6.168 sq. (Proitos sent Bellerophon to Lycia,  /  with a lethal message, coded symbols / inscribed on a folded tablet.  These told / many lies about Bellerophon. The king was angered, but shrank from killing Bellerophon, so he sent him to Lycia bearing baneful signs [sêmata], written inside a folded tablet and containing much ill against the bearer.); Sophocles, fr. (Pearson) 144 (muster roll); Euripides, fr. 506 (Nauck) (Zeus records human failings). On the authority of tablets in ancient Greek thought, see Dziatzko, op. cit., p. 138, quoting a paper by Fr. Marx (not accessible to us); the gods are represented as using δέλτοι, διφθέραι, ὄστρακα, σκυτάλαι (tablets, parchments, ostraca, stick-codes), anything in fact except βίβλοι, written papyrus rolls.

\3/ Published by H. I. Bell and Flinders Petrie, Ancient Egypt 3 (1927) 65-74. For photographs of three of them see Petrie, Objects of Daily Use, pl. lix. One is reproduced here as Plate I.

\4/ For the uses to which tablets were put see Schubart, Das Buch...2, pp. 24 sqq., and notes, p. 175; the ninefold wax tablet illustrated on p. 24 must originally have had ten leaves (see Plaumann's article referred to by Schubart, p. 175). P. Fouad 74 of the fourth century C.E. refers to and describes a δελτάριον δεκάπτυχον (ten folded little tablet). [[Jewish rabbinic literature refers to a 12 leafed version -- see Lieberman, etc.]] On "fold" as applied to rigid objects such as tablets, cf. Euripides, I.T. 727, δέλτου μὲν αἵδε πολύθυροι διαπτυχαί (of a tablet, then, many folding pages). Schubart's comment (op. cit., p. 175) that πτυχή (fold) is not strictly applicable to a rigid material such as wood, and that therefore in this passage it implies a previous use of folded leather, papyrus, etc., is misconceived, since πτυχή can be used of the folds of doors. Cf. LSJ and Pollux, Onomast., ed. Bethe, i, p. 207 [= TLG 418, 2nd century CE]: καὶ Ἡρόδοτος (VII 239) μὲν λέγει `δελτίον δίπτυχον,’ οἱ δ’ Ἀττικοὶ ‘γραμματεῖον δίθυρον,’ καὶ θύρας τὰς πτύχας ἄχρι δύο, εἶτα πτύχας, καὶ τρίπτυχον καὶ πολύπτυχον (and Herodotus said "two-fold tablet," but the Attic commentators "two-paged notebook," and pages/doors the folds until two, then folds, even tri-fold and multiple-fold) [[check ET of Herodotous 7.239]].


We have evidence of such tablet codices already in Greek art of the 5th century bce, and on into the Islamic period in Egypt up to modern times. The recommended use of such tablet codices by Roman authors of orations is set out in some detail by Quintilian in the late first century ce (Institutio Oratoria 10.3.6-33), in his  advice to prospective rhetoriticians about preparing their written materials:

[6] In order to do this with the utmost care, we must frequently revise what we have just written. . . ..
[19] The condemnation which I have passed on such carelessness in writing will make it pretty clear what my views are on the luxury of dictation which is now so fashionable. . . . [22] the advantages of privacy are lost when we dictate. . . . [31] There are also certain minor details which deserve our attention, for there is nothing too minute for the student. It is best to write on wax owing to the facility which it offers for erasure, though weak sight may make it desirable to employ parchment by preference. The latter, however, although of assistance to the eye, delays the hand and interrupts the stream of thought owing to the frequency with which the pen has to be supplied with ink [32] But whichever is employed, blank pages (tabellae) must be left in which one is free to make additions at will. For lack of space at times gives rise to a reluctance to make corrections, or, at any rate, is liable to cause confusion when new matter is inserted. The wax tablets should not be overly wide; for I have known a young and over-zealous student write his compositions at undue length, because he measured them by the number of lines, a fault which persisted, in spite of frequent admonition, until his tablets (codicibus) were changed, when it disappeared. [33] Space must also be left for jotting down the thoughts which occur to the writer out of due order, that is to say, which refer to subjects other than those at hand. [4.1] . . . There is good reason for the view that erasure is quite as important a function of the pen as actual writing.

There is no reason to doubt that such tablet codices also were in use in other ancient cultural contexts such as Judaism, although no actual specimen have yet been publicized. The Bar Kokhba letter (above, n. 1) does not seem to have been hinged, but consisted rather of two wooden slats, each of which contained a column of Aramaic writing in ink, with each slat then scored and folded [were the two originally joined?], resulting in four sections (two still connected) as found. According to Yadin, the resulting letter when opened was about 17.5 by 7.5 cm, which suggests that the horizontal folding resembled more a scroll (accordian style?) than a codex. Yadin comments that "the practice of writing on wood was widespread throughout the Orient, and is often mentioned even in rabbinical literature" (41 -- no references provided).

Quintilian's contemporary Martial, also writing in Rome near the end of the first century ce, makes frequent mention of writing materials in his long list of possible gifts for the Saturnalia celebration. Rigid tablets are listed first (14.3-6): of citrus wood (pugillares citrei),  waxed five leaved (quinquiplices [cera]), of ivory (pugillares eborei), and three leaved (triplices); most later references by Martial are to parchment material, as we shall see below.

The rigid codices also make a strong showing in the older Roman legal traditions gathered by Justinian's commission in the 6th century, especially as objects containing records of debts the value of which can be passed on to heirs along with the objects. Ulpian, for example, in the early third century, is reported to debate whether the designation "books" (libri) can include materials other than papyrus and parchment, and concludes that all written objects qualify, with explicit reference to
writing on wood-slabs (in philyra), on ivory (eboreis), and on wax tablets (in ceratis codicillis)..

Probably the most extensive and longest lasting use of the rigid codex was in the "school" context.  The quest for literacy put everyone involved in contact with tablets and tablet books. Raffaela Cribiore has studied this material closely in her Columbia dissertation (1993) and subsequent publications.  In her section on "notebooks" (##379-412), she describes 22 rigid codices dating from the first to the 7th centuries, most of them waxed wood, and the largest with 10 leaves.

Scroll to Codex in Various Greco-Roman Contexts

The transition from scroll to codex in the Greco-Roman world at large followed different patterns with different types of material. On the "high literature side," the statistics provided by M-P\3 (January 2008) show the following for texts of Homer: The total throughout the period covered (500 bce through 800 ce), is 1663 items (1413 Iliad; 250 Odyssey, including some scholia and other paratextual materials and 10 ostraca), of which 161 are codices (112 papyrus and 49 parchment) and 8 are wood tablets (about 10%). For the period up to about 200 ce, of the 1149 total only 11 (01%) codices are listed (9 papyrus, 2 parchment), and from 201-300, of the 559 total, 48 (08.6%) codices (41 papyrus and 7 parchment); after 301 we find 230 total Homer texts, of which 125 (54%) are codices (80 papyrus and 45 parchment). The numbers don't add up correctly, presumably because ambiguous dating shows up twice. But that is only part of the story, since as we have seen, in the school setting in which the producers of these texts learned to write, it was quite normal to see Homeric materials written on tablets and tablet codices. Indeed, under "Homerica" of various sorts, M-P\3 lists 187 items, of which 29 are "codices" of papyrus (27) or parchment (2) and 7 are on wood (2) or waxed wood (5) -- a significantly higher percentage in codex format (almost 20%).  It is, then, somewhat surprising that Homer was so relatively slow in being displayed in the emerging new format. Martial at least could imagine Homer "in hand held parchments ... in many folds of skin" (14.184-186) in the late first century, even if early examples have not survived for us.

Perhaps the situations was significantly different for other types of literature, such as Martial's Epigrams for which we not only have the author's statement that they were available in codex form, but also the name of the Roman bookseller from whom the work could be obtained in that format in the late first century ce. M-P\3 combines "Elegy and Epigrams" as a category, with 36 examples of which only one is a codex. With regard to similar categories that can be explored rapidly:
"Oratorical" -- 95 total, with 9 codices (papyrus; only one earlier than 300 ce)
"Epic poetry, pastoral, didactic, and hymns" -- 151, with 29 codices (7 before 300 ce)
"Unidentified poetry" -- 117, with 14 codices (7 before 300 ce)

More narrative types:
"History and Geography" -- 152 total, with 14 codices (10 on papyrus; 2 papyrus earlier than 300 ce; earliest on parchment ca 100 ce)
"Romances" -- 48 total, of which only one is in codex form (plus two copies of the Jewish/Christian story of Jannes and Jambres, which we will handle separately; all three on papyrus).


One subject area in which the codex format was adopted relatively early was for calendric matters, with nearly 30 such codex fragments (all on papyrus, plus two wooden tablets) listed in M-P\3 (January 2008) as earler than ca 300 ce, and 13 more (all papyrus) in the 4th century. In the same periods, 191 papyri rolls and one parchment are listed up to 300 ce, and only 14 papyrus and no parchment in the 4th century. [detail: up to -101, 5 rolls; -100 to 001, 3 (includes1 wooden tablet; the search function finds 54 total but this includes some 1st ce and a great many undated!); between 001 and 100, 22 (no codices!!); 101-200, 94 (6 codices); 201-300, 96 (21 codices, one wooden tablet); 301-400, 28 (13 codices); after 401 only 8 (3 codices)]
M-P2021.71 Almanach, pour 136-144 (?) = P.Oxy. 61.4189 Jones. Oxyrhynchus    after 144 ?
M-P2021.83 Almanach mensuel, Jupiter, pour 14-6a = P.Oxy. 61.4199 Jones. Oxyrhynchus    II
M-P2040.02 Traité astrologique : distinction des planètes en bénéfiques et maléfiques = P.Med. inv. 160. Prov? II    avec indication de la pagination
M-P2014 Tables astronomiques ("Tables faciles") = P.Lond. 3.1278 (Brit.Libr. inv. 1278). Prov?. c. 200 (éd.; III Baccani)
M-P2021.38 Tables pour le soleil = P.Oxy. 61.4162 Jones. Oxyrhynchus    II/III
M-P2043.16 Sur les qualités des signes du zodiaque = P.Oxy. 65.4476. Oxyrhynchus    IIex./IIIin.
M-P2113 Traité de palmomancie = PSI 6.728. IIex./III (P. Degni, dans Mostra2 ; IV éd.)

M-P2021.75 POxy 61.4193 almanac 195-203 (after 203)
M-P2021.69 POxy 61.4188a almanac 201-208 (after 208)
M-P2021.87 POxy 61.4203 almanac Saturn for 215/216 (after 216)
M-P2021.78 POxy 61.4196 almanac 218-220 (after 220)
M-P2021.72 POxy 61.4190 almanac 241-243 (after 243)
M-P2021.73 POxy 61.4191 almanac 236-245 (after 245)
M-P2021.91 POxy 61.4205 five day almanac 257/258 (after 258)
M-P2021.92 POxy 61.4205a five day almanac [see 2021.91 "same hand?"]
M-P2021.39 POxy 61.4163 tables (after 259)
M-P2021.93 POxy 61.4206 five day almanac 272-274 (after 274)
M-P2021.74 POxy 61.4192 almanac 276-280 (after 280)
M-P2021.76 POxy 61.4194 almanac 272-286 (after 286)
M-P2021.94 POxy 61.4207 five day almanac 289-291 (after 291)
M-P2021.81 POxy 61.4197 perpetual almanac (3rd c)
M-P2044 POxy 3.470 horoscope (3rd c)
M-P2053 PSI 3.158 on planets (3rd c)
M-P2066.4 PSI 15.1495 (unedited) fragment (3rd c)
M-P2033.1 POxy 46.3299 planetary tables (3rd c?)

M-P2024 POxy 31.2551 kings of Egypt/astrological text (3/4th c)
M-P2039 PErl 14 astrological treatise (3/4th c)
M-P2021.77 POxy 61.4195 almanac 300-304 (after 304)
M-P2021.98 POxy 61.4211 five day almanac 306/307 (after 307)
M-P2021.12 POxy 61.4143 Ptolemaic tables (after 329)
M-P2010 PHeid 34 (after 349)
M-P2037 (4/5th) PVindob 19370+ for year 348 or 424
M-P2017.1 POtago frg (later 4th c)
M-P2021.14 POxy 61.4145 calculations (4th c)
M-P2021.47 POxy 61.4173 tables (4th c)
M-P2021.48 POxy 61.4173a tables (4th c)
M-P2021.84 POxy 61.4200 almanac Jupiter (4th c)
M-P2067 PGM 4.835-849 astrological section (4th c)

M-P2021.49 (undated) POxy 4174 Table des mouvements moyens de la lune
M-P2021.79 (undated) POxy 4196a Almanach
M-P2021.82 (undated) POxy 4198 Almanach perpetual
M-P2021.92 (undated; but see 2021.91 "same hand?") POxy 4205a Almanach for 5 days
M-P2111.02 (undated, provisional) P.Prag. inv. G IV 71 + 156 Traité de palmomancie (inédit)
M-P2762 (undated) Sept signes isolés du "commentaire" (tétrades 72-73, 78, 83-84, 88-89  P.Monts.Roca 1) = P.Ant. inv. 2. Antinoé ?
M-P2021.61 (undated) POxy 4182 Ephéméride
M-P2021.62 (undated) POxy 4183 Ephéméride
M-P2020 (5th c)
M-P2021.58 (5th c)

Another subject area in which codicess made a relatively strong  showing overall is "law."  Indeed, Elizabeth Meyer has argued that "legal tabulae ... seem the most likely model that a Christian codex could be imitating" (316-317), basing her case especially on similar dimensions. In her third appendix (334-338) she lists 37 "Roman Legal Documents on Wooden and Wooden-and-Wax Tabulae" of which 16 or 17 are birth certificates, most of which have their own special formatting for security purposes. Many of the other tablets are similarly formatted; all are dated before the end of the 3rd century ce. None of these tablets are found in the "law" section of the online M-P. Most of them are in Latin (23), or Latin and Greek (13); only one is in Greek alone.

On the other hand, M-P does list 17 papyri codices under the category "law." None are dated earlier than 3/4th CE, and most in 5th or 6th CE. Of 10 listed codices on parchment, several are dated 4th or 4/5th, only one possibly 3/4th CE. Here are the earliest listed examples of parchment (CM) and papyri (CP) codices under the heading "law":
M-P2985 = P.Berol. inv. 6757 Fragment juridique 1e moitié IV (Seider; III/IV éd.; IV/V Turner, Typ.)    CM
M-P2993.2 = CLA 10.1527 (P.Vindob. inv. L 59 + 92) Fragment légal Fayoum ?    IV (Seider; IV/V éd.)    CM
M-P2989 = P.Berol. inv. 11323 Fragment juridique (inédit) Hermopolis ?    IV/V    CM
M-P2990 = P.Berol. inv. 11324 Fragment juridique (inédit) Hermopolis ?    IV/V    CM
M-P2979.31 = BKT 9.201 (P.Berol. inv. 21595) Texte juridique ? Hermopolis ?    IV/V    CM
M-P2972 = P.Grenf. 2.107 (Bodl.Libr. inv. Lat.cl.g.1(P)) Fragment juridique : Societas IV/V (éd.; IV Seider)    CM
M-P2979 = P.Ant. 1.22 Fragment juridique Antinoé    IV    ® (¯ texte non identifié)    CM

M-P2978 = P.Amh. 2.28 (P.Pierpont Morgan inv. Pap. G 28) Fragment juridique IV (Seider; IV/V éd.)    CP
M-P2282 = P.Ryl. 3.476 Registre de constitutions impériales, en grec et en latin IV/V    CP
M-P2991 = P.Coll. Arangio-Ruiz s.n. + P.Haun. 3.45 (inv. L 1 + G 169 c-e + 172 b-c) Manuel juridique IV/V (P.Haun.; IV P.Coll.Arangio-Ruiz    CP 
M-P2281 = P.Berol. inv. 16976 + 16977 Fragment sur Longi Temporis Praescriptio (?) ou sur "prescriptiones temporis" (Schönbauer) (en grec, avec quelques mots latins) IV/V (Lowe; V ? éd.; c. 400 Seider)    CP
M-P2984 = P.Vindob. inv. L 110 Rubriques d'un ouvrage sur le droit criminel Fayoum ?    c. 400 (Seider; VI Wessely)    CP
M-P2988 = PSI 13.1346 (P.Cairo inv. SR 3796) Fragment juridique (?) Antinoé    V (Lowe et Turner, Typ.; IV ? éd.)    CP

Otherwise, the earliest of the 15 papyrus "Law" rolls are:
M-P2986 = P.Mich. 7.431 (inv. 513) from 1st CE;
M-P2987 = P.Mich. 7.456 (inv. 5604 br) + P.CtYBR inv. 1158r from perhaps 1/2nd; and
M-P2993.6 = ChLA XII 544 (P.Monac. inv. L 2r) from perhaps around 100 CE
M-P2286.1 = P.Brux. inv. 7172 is 1/2nd CE; 2983 = P.Aberd. 130 (inv. 2 c) from about 100 CE or later;
M-P2279.1 = P.Oxy. 46.3285 is dated 2nd half of 2nd CE;
Several of these 15 pieces are opisthographs or are written on reused materials. The 6 "Law" parchments rolls are dated 4th to 6th CE.

It is difficult to know what to do with this evidence. If Meyer's argument based on tablet dimensions relative to early codex dimensions is cogent (ca 1:1.33 width to height), we might expect the earliest papyri and parchment law codex fragments to fit that pattern. Unfortunately the evidence is spotty and, as has been noted, late, making any evaluation of that sort difficult. Where measurements are given in Turner's list, the law codices tend to be in the ratio 1:1.5; but more importantly, many other types of material have similar size ratios in all attested periods from the 3rd century onward. Dimensions and content do not seem to be closely enough related to be determinative.

Scroll and Codex in Jewish and Christian Contexts

Many of the earliest preserved codices contain works that later came to be canonized as Jewish and Christian scriptures as well as some related texts. This is remarkable, given the small percentage of identifiable Jewish and Christian papyri in relation to other such remains from Egypt in the first three centuries of the common era. This has caused some scholars to look to Christianity as a major factor in the acceptance of the codex format in the Greco-Roman world and in any event, it calls for explanation. Almost noone has explored the possibility that the codex also gained significant popularity in some Jewish circles apart from Christianity, despite the clear evidence that most Christian ideas and practices developed in continuity with the Jewish origins of the Jesus movements. In what follows, an attempt will be made to examine the remnants of Jewish and Christian writings without identifying as "Christian" materials that do not contain any  identifiable Christian indicators.

The survival of horizontal scroll formats among Christians also deserves note. Around the year 400, Jerome comments on the use of scrolls for collections of his letters [R&S 24 n.68], and the "Deeds of Zenophilus" [c 395] regarding Diocletian's attempt to collect and destroy Christian books in the early 4th century includes references such as "when they came to the house of Proiectus [in Cirta, Numedia] he brought out five big and two little books. Victor the schoolmaster brought out two books, and four books of five volumes each." It is likely that at least the mention of multi volumed "books" referred to scrolls. [William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West,  289-290; online Paul Halsall's site]. Fragments of Jewish and Christian scrolls from the end of the first century  and later (as well as earlier Jewish ones -- of pre-Christian date) also have been preserved: \n/
POxy4443 of Esther E + 8-9 (1st/2nd ce, papyrus roll; paragraphing, ekthesis, spacing),
PFouad 203 prayer/amulet? (1st/2nd ce, papyrus roll) [no image yet] [vh911]
P. Oxy. 3.405. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses. Van Haelst 671; papyrus roll (7 fragments), ca 200 ce. [LDAB 2459]
P. Oxy. 10.1228v. John 15-16. Van Haelst 459. papyrus roll (|, -- blank) 3rd c. [LDAB 2779]
P. Oxy. 9.1166. Genesis 16. Van Haelst 14. papyrus roll (--, | blank) 3rd c. [LDAB 3114]
P. Oxy. 8.1075 & 1079.  Exodus 40.26-32 (--; nom sac KS), 3rd ce; other side (|) has Apocalypse 1.4-7 in a different hand .Van Haelst 44, 559; 3/4th ce. [LDAB 3477 & 2786]
Stud. Pal. 11.114. Psalms 68/69, 80/81 (Symmachus ?). Van Haelst 167. parchment roll (--, | blank) 3/4 c. [LDAB 3492; nom sac tetragrammaton]
++ Leiden, Private collection Scherling 126 + Cairo, IFAO Copte 379. Coptic Ascension of Isaiah. 3/4th c. [LDAB 107888]
P. Lit. Lond. 207. Psalms 11-14, papyrus roll (--, 3/4 ce); other side (|) has Isocrates [M-P 1245]. Van Haelst 109. 3/4th c. [LDAB 3473]
P. Alex. Inv. 203. Isaiah 48. Van Haelst 300. papyrus roll (--, | blank) 3/4th c. [LDAB 3127; nom sac KS]
P. Lit. Lond. 211. Daniel 1 (Theodotion) [reused in cover of a Sahidic codex]. Van Haelst 319. early 4th c. parchment roll (other side blank)  [LDAB 3493]
P. Oxy. 10.1225. Leviticus 16. Van Haelst 48. papyrus roll (--, | blank) 4th c. [LDAB 3185]
P. Harr. 31. Psalms 43. Van Haelst 148.papyrus roll (--, | blank) 4/5th c.  [LDAB 3198]
Stud. Pal. 15.234. Psalms 9. [roll or sheet?] Van Haelst 104. papyrus (--, | blank) 5/6th c. or later [LDAB 3295]


Van Haelst catalog evidence ala R&S 42ff: "Apocrypha" -- both manuscripts of the Gospel of Thomas are rolls; so too is the so-called Fayum Gospel and an Oxyrhynchus fragment dated to about C.E. 200 and now plausibly assigned to the [[subsequently??]] banned Gospel of Peter, while a roll is also the format of the only surviving manuscript of the Greek Diatessaron.
Shepherd of Hermas roll and oposthograph; of early patristic texts 6, including 3 manuscripts of Irenaeus, are rolls
In view of the persistent use of the roll in the liturgy of the Eastern Church (see below, p. 51, n. 6[[??]]) it is not surprising that 6 of the 11 texts in the Liturgical section are on rolls.
In the miscellaneous section we have 16 rolls and 21 codices; the rolls (if we ignore 2 the nature of which is quite uncertain) are all treatises or homilies (only one is opisthograph), and their significant proportion testifies to the maintenance of the literary tradition.
[Philo (4) and Josephus (1) are codices,  no scrolls]
\n/ The following are reused scrolls on which the Jewish or Christian material is secondary:
P. Mich. 130. Hermas, Shepherd.  Van Haelst 657. (written on verso of a 2nd c. land register). [LDAB 1096]
P.S.I. 8.921v. Psalms 77 [on other side of register of Arsinoite diagrafai from 143-144 = PSI 8.921r]. Van Haelst 174. 2nd/3rd c. [LDAB 3088]
++ Cairo, IFAO P. 237 b. Revelation 1.13-20. Back of a used roll. 2/3rd c. [LDAB 2776]
P. Oxy. 4.657 + P.S.I. 12.1292. [P\13] Hebrews 2-5, 10-12; on back of P.Oxy. 668 Livy epitome (--, 3rd c) = LDAB 2574. Van Haelst 537. papyrus roll (|, 3/4th c.) [LDAB 3018]
P. Lond. Inv. 2584 [10825]. Hosea-Amos Greek-Coptic glossary (|) on other side of a papyrus scroll with a land register (--, c 200 ce]. Van Haelst 286. 3/4th c. [LDAB 3141]
P. Lips. Inv. 39. Psalms 30-55 (almost complete in 35 cols., | of roll; on other side (--) of accounts from up to 338 ce = "P. Lips. 1.97"]. Van Haelst 133. paprus roll, 4th c. [LDAB 3168]



Statistics and related details for the unusually extensive use of the codex for Jewish and Christian texts prior to the 4th century are provided by most of the works that deal with the codex developments. Roberts took this approach already in his classic 1954 essay, and the articles that led up to it. But apart from Treu, little attempt has been made to isolate those early codex fragments that on the basis of content might be claimed as Jewish. That list is not insignificant or unimpressive, and includes the following extra-biblical materials:
deuterocanonicals (Tobit)
Philo
Josephus
Jannes-Jambres
Onomastica

Why did the codex catch on so relatively quickly with Christians? A number of hypotheses have been offered:

1. The Gospel of Mark was the catalyst (Roberts 1954, 187-191):

"The papyrus codex must have been an imitation of the parchment notebook and this, as we have seen, was of Roman origin and was used in Italy at a time when it was unknown in Egypt and (as far as we know) elsewhere in the East. The first two generations of Christians may be described in general as literate but not literary, and the form in which their writings circulated would have been quite uninfluenced by the practice of the Greco-Roman book trade. If we may make the common assumption that the second Gospel was the first to be written and that, as tradition records, St. Mark reduced to writing his own or St. Peter's reminiscences before or not long after St. Peter died in Rome, we can take the argument a stage farther. The circle in which he moved in Rome -- Jewish and Gentile traders, small business men, freedmen or slaves -- would use waxed tablets or parchment notebooks for their accounts, their correspondence, their legal and official business, and it would [[188]] be natural that St. Mark should use the same format for a work intended to be copied but not to be published as the ancient world understood publication. The Christian papyrus codex which we know from the early second century must have had a parchment predecessor and this is more likely to be traced to Rome than elsewhere. In Christian circles there the Jews would be accustomed to leather rolls of the Law, and at this early date St.Mark's reminiscences would scarcely be thought of as a complement, let alone a rival, to the Law. Moreover, we know from Jewish sources\1/ that while the Oral Law, the Mishnah, could not be formally published in writing, isolated decisions or rabbinic sayings might be and were put down on tablets (PINAKES) or on what the Mishnah calls 'small private rolls'.\2/ The Jews would be accustomed to the former since Jewish children started their education as did Gentile children on  tablets and continued to use them for private memoranda. So the disciples of Jesus would write down His sayings as part of the Oral Law either on writing tablets or on small rolls: a decision quoted in the Mishnah,\3/ said to be not later than the middle of the second century, mentions three kinds of tablet, that filled with wax, that with a polished surface, and that made of papyrus, of which only the second fulfils the ceremoinal requirements. This usage, while it does not explain the exclusive use of the codex by Christians in the second century, since the small roll might equally well have been employed, makes it easier to understand why they adopted the parchment notebook when they met it in Rome."

Problems:
1. Origin of parchment notebook is necessarily Rome? See earlier discussion.
[Skeat 54] If -- which is by no means certain -- the papyrus codex was a development from the parchment notebook, we have first to consider where the parchment notebook itself originated.  We have already seen strong reasons for thinking that it was of Roman origin, and these are supported by the fact that the earliest known examples of the parchment codex, the codices mentioned by Martial and discussed above, were Roman, while the very word codex is Latin and has no Greek equivalent.\139/ Conversely, there is no trace of the parchment notebook being used for literary purposes in the only Eastern country for which we have adequate evidence, namely Egypt.  All this suggests that we should look to Rome for the ultimate origin of the papyrus codex and its adoption by Christians.
2. Such a notebook not known in the east in late first century? Check current evidence.
3. What do we know of the literacy of the first two Christian generations? What languages, etc.?
4. What do we know of the "book trade" throughout that world, and how is that relevant?
5. Relation of priority of Mark to earlier written sources. See below on "sayings" as well.
6. What do we know of Mark, or Peter, in Rome -- circles in which they moved, etc.?
[Skeat 54-55] If we accept the common hypothesis that the Gospel of Mark was the first to be written down, an explanation may be forthcoming. Early tradition records that Mark reduced to writing his own or Peter's reminiscences during the latter's lifetime or, according to some [[55]] authorities, shortly after his death,\140/ to meet the demands of those who had heard Peter preach. Peter's auditors, whether Jews or Gentiles, would be accustomed to use wax tablets or parchment notebooks and notebooks for their accounts, for legal and official business, and perhaps for correspondence. It would therefore have been natural for Mark to use the parchment notebook for a work intended to be copied in the same format for a limited and specialist readership, but not to be published as the ancient world understood.
7. How do we know what Mark intended in relation to "publication"?
8. Why assume a parchment predecessor to Christian papyrus codex (Rome setting)?
9. What do we know of the Jews of Rome in the first century? Languages, texts, etc.
10. What relevance does rabbinic tradition have for Jews in this period, especially in Rome?
11. What do we know about the education of Jewish children in Rome or elsewhere at that time?
12. Why mention "sayings" of Jesus in this context? More to the point for "Q" materials in Matthew and Luke!
13. What is implied in the last sentence? Choice of parchment as distinct from approved Jewish materials?

"A late tradition associates St. Mark with the foundation of the Church of Alexandria; whatever may lie behind this legend, there are ceretainly grounds for thinking that the origins possibly, the associations certainly, of the Alexandrian Church were western rather than eastern.\4/ Supposing St. Mark's notebook to [[189]] have reached Egypt, it woiuld have been copied on papyrus rather than on parchment since the former was so much easier to come by. Why the notebook format was retained and on material not at that time commonly used for such a purpose it is harder to see. But we may guess that when his Gospel circulated it already enjoyed a measure of authority, and so the form itself, not least because, as the years went by, it stood in sharp contrast both to the Jewish Roll of the Law and to the pagan book, acquired a sentimental and symbolic value as well as a practical one. This may seem far-fetched, but we have to explain why not merely the Gospels but all distinctively Christian literature, Old Testament as well as New, was copied and circulated in the codex form. Something must have occasioned this breach with tradition and we may surmise that it was the position enjoyed by the second Gospel as the earliest of authoritative Christian writings to reach Egypt. Whatever the cause, the process of adapting the codex form to receive all texts both of the Old and the New Testament used in Christian communities in Egypt was complete, as far as our present evidence goes, before the end of the second century if not earlier. For the second Gospel (or any other Christian writing) to establish itself and, once established, to exercise so marked an influence on other Christian literature (even on the third Gospel and Acts whose original format would certainly have been the roll) must have taken time; so universial is the use of the codex by Christians in the second century that the beginnings of this process must be taken back well into the first century. For religious history it is significant that Christian book production should have severed itself from Jewish by the middle of the second century; for even if the occasional use of the writing tablet by the Jews for recording the Oral Law influenced the first generation of Christians in their choice of the codex, yet the transcription of the Pentateuch on to the codex shows how complete the severance was. It is worth noting that the practice of writing in double columns, which is often said to be characteristic of early codices\1/ and an indication that the book in question had been directly copied from a roll, is found more frequently in Christian manuscripts of the fourth century than in those of the second or third, and is commoner in manuscripts of the Old Testament (as would be expected if our [[190]] argument is correct) than in those of the New; six of the eight biblical papyri of the second century are written in single columns.\1/"

Problems:
1. What evidence is there for strong western associations of earliest Alexandrian Christianity?
[Skeat 55] A late tradition, preserved by Eusebius and Jerome\142/ associates Mark with the foundation of the Church of Alexandria, and the connections of this  Church, when it emerges into the light of history, are with the West rather than the East.\143/ If the Gospel of Mark, in the form of the parchment notebook postulated above, had reached Egypt, it is likely that it would have been copied on papyrus, so much more readily available than parchment, and the papyrus codex might thus have been created.
[Roberts (1979) 44] The long historical contacts between Palestine and Egypt and the close religious associations between Alexandria and Jerusalem need no emphasis; but in themselves thay are not sufficient to make it plausible that the system of nomina sacra originated in Jerusalem and thence spread to Egypt and everywhere where Greek was written.\fn on Antioch/ There are more compelling reasons which point in t his direction. [Discusses "name" theology emphasis.]
2. Is it so clear that papyri notebooks were not developed by ca 100 ce?
3. Mark is not alone as a proto-canonical early Christian writing; how did all such writings come together to be influenced?
4. No evidence that Christian choice of codex was intended to differentiate from Jews and pagans.
5. How is it possible that Mark could influence all Christian practice already in the late first century!?
[See further below, on Skeat's evaluation of the Mark hypothesis]
6. If Luke-Acts was originally two scrolls, what about Matthew, John, Hebrews, Revelation, etc.?
7. What if Greek Jews already were using the Pentateuch in codex form?
8. Is the two column format argument of any value at all?

"Such a hypothesis of the origin and influence of the second Gospel, or of the first two Gospels, if we accept the possibility that the first was written on tablet form under Jewish influence,\2/  would go some way to solve the problem set by the early Christian codices from Egypt; it may even receive some support from  the New Testament itself. Firstly, we may note that, if we believe St. Mark's Gospel to be incomplete, the loss is more intelligible if the original was written in a codex, since in a codex the last leaf is the most exposed to damage while the last column of a roll is the best protected.\3/ Secondly, we have noted that membranae in Latin commonly denotes the parchment notebook and that there is no exact equivalent in Greek since DIFQERAI would denote parchment rolls. When therefore St. Paul\4/ asks Timothy to send him TA BIBLIA, MALISTA TAS MEMBRANAS there is every reason to think that he is using the Latin word in the Latin sense. The BIBLIA would be books in the then accepted sense, perhaps rolls of the Septuagint, and the importance he attaches to the MEMBRANAI makes it unlikely that they contained jottings of a practical nature, lists of addresses, and the like. They may have contained drafts for his own work, but it is at least possible that the book in question was one of the earliest Christian writings. Among [[191]] such would have been a Book of Testimonies, i.e. and anthology of passages of the Old Testament, which could be used to support Christian claims, but the possibility that it was the second Gospel or a predecessor of it cannot be excluded.\1/"

Problems:
1. Note the injection of Matthew into the discussion, without reference to "Q" possibilities (even in the footnote)!
2. The possibly lost ending of Mark probably tells us nothing about the original form of that work.
[Skeat 55] That Mark’s original manuscript was in codex form is independently suggested by the text of the Gospel itself. If the Gospel as we have it is incomplete, as it was clearly thought to be in the ancient world, the loss of the ending is much more intelligible if the manuscript was a codex, since the outermost leaves of a codex are the most exposed to damage, in complete contrast to the last column of a roll, which being in the interior of the manuscript when rolled up is the best protected. \141/
3. Is the last column of a roll necessarily the best protected?
4. How much mileage is possible from MALISTA, which Skeat reads (unconvincingly) as an equals sign?
5. The contents of these MEMBRANAI is entirely conjectural, although the Testimonies anthology merits closer exploration.
6. Pauline origins of the passage in 1 Tim (even if Paul did not write 1 Tim -- see his note) is unnecessary for the passage to be relevant, and TA BIBLIA need not refer to scrolls.

Overall evaluation -- Skeat 55-57:
     The foregoing is the hypothesis put forward in the predecessor of the present work,\144/ but it must be admitted that the arguments [[56]] against it are formidable. In the first place it is hard to see why the notebook format should have been retained in conjunction with a writing material, namely papyrus, not at that time commonly used for such a purpose. The assumption would have to be made that Mark's original manuscript, or copies of it in the same notebook format, already enjoyed a measure of authority when they first reached Egypt, and that the codex format itself thus acquired a symbolic value, not least because it stood out in sharp contrast both to the Jewish Roll of the Law and to the pagan book; and that for these reasons when it came, inevitably in Egypt, to be copied on papyrus, the codex format was preserved.       A second objection is that the obscurity of the early history of the Church of Alexandria makes it difficult to believe that it could have imposed this novel form on other churches.\145/ Either Rome or Antioch would have been more likely to have been able to exert such influence. Nor does the fact that the fortunes of discovery have brought to light early Christian codices from Egypt and virtually none from anywhere else prove that the papyrus codex was of Egyptian origin. Moreover, the suggestion that it was the Gospel of Mark which provided the inspiration for the codex is itself difficult to accept.  Despite the fact that there is more detailed tradition relating to the date and circumstances of composition of the Gospel of Mark than there is for any of the others (though in this early tradition there is no allusion to Alexandria), this is the very Gospel which has been described as the 'least read and esteemed in the early Church.'\146/ Not only is this so in the early Church generally, but in Egypt in particular, in spite of the alleged association of Mark with the See of Alexandria, no manuscript of the second Gospel earlier than the fourth century has so far been discovered there, with the single exception of the Chester Beatty codex of the four Gospels and Acts. This position contrasts sharply with eleven copies of John, nine of Matthew, and four of Luke from the same first three centuries.\147/ The Coptic evidence makes it plain that this cannot be explained as an accident of survival: in Coptic manuscripts of the fourth century [[57]] there are 60 quotations from Matthew, 15 from Luke, 15 from John, and none from Mark.\148/ A Gospel which was so largely ignored, and of which the original manuscript [[or at least an early MS]] was in all prob­ability so neglected that it lost its final leaf, is unlikely to have set the standard for the Christian book.

2. The logia of Jesus were recorded in notebook codices, and became a model (Roberts 188-189 [see above]; Lieberman 205; Skeat 58-60)
     The claims of Antioch\155/ for at least some part in the origin of both nomina sacra and the codex are strong. It was one of the principal places where Jewish Christians, dispersed from Jeru­salem after Stephen's death, sought refuge,\156/ and where some of them, Jews from Cyprus and Cyrene (and thus likely to possess [[59]] a knowledge of Greek) preached the Gospel to the Greek-speaking section of the local population.\157/ More important, it was in this center of Greek culture that the breakthrough of the mission to the Gentiles took place. The missionaries to the Gentiles would have needed Greek manuscripts, initially perhaps only of the Septuagint. Obviously these manuscripts, intended for Gentile consumption, cannot have made use of the Hebrew tetragram for the Name of God, and the necessity to find an alternative may have led to the invention of the nomina sacra.\158/ But we still have to explain the apparently simultaneous emergence of the codex. We know from Jewish sources\159/ that while the Oral Law, the Mishnah, could not be formally committed to writing, isolated decisions or rabbinic sayings might be, and were, written down either on tablets (PI/NAKES) or on what the Mishnah calls 'small private rolls.' Since Jewish children, like Gentile children, started their education on tablets and continued to use them for memoranda, these would have been familiar everyday objects. A decision quoted in the Mishnah\160/ said to be not later than the middle of the second century, mentions three kinds of tablets, those filled with wax, those with a polished surface (like the ivory tablets of the Romans) and those of papyrus, of which, however, only the second fulfilled the ceremonial requirements. There was a large Jewish community in Antioch from Hellenistic times onwards, and tablets of the kinds just mentioned, including tablets of papyrus, would have been in common use amongst the Jews there.  It is possible, therefore, that papyrus tablets were used to record the Oral Law as pronounced by Jesus, and that these tablets might have developed into a primitive form of codex. To the records of these logia might have been added an account of the Passion, and the way would be clear for the production of a Proto-Gospel.\161/ [[60]] Once the Jewish War began, the dominating position of Antioch as the metropolis of Christianity in the Greek-speaking world would have been unchallenged, and any development of the tablet into the codex is most likely to have taken place here, thus laying the foundation of the city as a centre of biblical scholarship. If the first work to be written on a papyrus codex was a gospel,  it is easy to understand that the codex rapidly became the sole format for the Christian scriptures, given the authority that a gospel would carry.

Problems:
1. Picture of Antioch is based on Acts accounts, otherwise mostly on silence; Jerusalem is mentioned as another possibility, but is not explored in depth. Caesarea is not mentioned, while Rome and Alexandria are dismissed.
[Roberts (1979) 49] In the preceding chapter we have found reason to think that Christianity reached Egypt from Palestine in a form strongly influenced by Judaism.
[Roberts (1979) 71] The original Christian mission to Egypt, addressed to the Jews and particularly to the Jews of Alexandria, came from the Church in Jerusalem. This mission miscarried, its task becoming increasingly difficult as relations between Jews and Greeks and Jews and Romans became exascerbated; it was closely identified with Judaism, all the more so because the gospel that reached Egypt was Jewish in emphasis rather than Pauline. It persisted, however, and spread slowly and a tradition of scholarship, once established in the favourable soil of Alexandria, took root early and may well have had an unbroken existence up to the time of its flowering at the end of the second century. Then, when the link with Judaism was snapped in the twenties of the second century, the suppressed energies of the church found expression in a variety of directions. We may surmise that for much of the second century it was a church with no strong central authority and little organization . . . [to explain the "gnostic" direction taken by some)].
2. Earlier discussion of nomina sacra neglects possibility of Jewish uses. Is nomina sacra development a mark of centralized influences in early Christianity, along with codex?
[Roberts (1979) 46] Everything would fall into place were we  to assume that the guidelines for the treatment of the sacred names had been laid down by the Church at Jerusalem, probably before A.D. 70; that would carry the authority of the leaders of the Church as the first Gospels must have done. The system was too complex for the ordinary scribe to operate without either rules or an authoritative exemplar; otherwise the difficulty of determining which was a secular, which a sacred usage would have been considerable even in a small community.
3. Largely undocumented use of later rabbinic Jewish materials is problematic.
4. Any evidence for "tablets of papyrus" being used in Jewish Antioch?
5. Antioch theory fails to account for other Jewish and Christian writings taking on codex form.

3. The Letters of Paul circulated in codex format and became the model:
Gamble, Trobisch

A case for Paul's letters, or a collection thereof, as the model that led to Christian favoring of the codex format depends on showing that long letters may have taken the form of codices in the century between 50 and 150 ce. [The format of Marcion's collection of Pauline epistles is unknown.]The earliest surviving copy of the Pauline corpus is in codex form, and normally dated paleographically to about the end of the 2nd century. It seems clear that rigid surface codices were used for letter writing (including drafts) and delivery from a very early period, although surviving examples are few. The Jewish letters of Bar Kokhba found in the Dead Sea area dating to around 135 ce are mostly single sheets of papyrus, and one of a wooden slat with two columns of writing folded into four sections (see above). They bear little resemblance to either rigid or flexible codices. Augustine is thought by Roberts and Skeat (24 n.67) to have written letters in codex form (Ep. 171 to Maximus), although the passage they cite is at best ambiguous, mentioning only that Augustine writes quickly and on papyrus to close associates.

Evidence for papyri letters (not school exercises) prior to 4th century is plentiful, but mostly they are short, written on only one side of the papyrus. APIS lists hundreds, but the search criteria are limited. The following are on LDAB.
4. Anthologies of Jewish scriptural passages in codex form were developed early on (see Roberts 191)
This might follow the "scholia" model in the Greco Roman world; see also Philo "Questions"

5. Greek Jewish scriptural codices were available by ca 100 ce.
Perhaps for study purposes, also in connection with textual notes such as "scholia"


More adequate explanations are needed for:

1. Presence of codex format for almost all types of Jewish and Christian works by 3rd century --
 2. Means of book production among early Christians (private copies? booksellers?)

3. Relation of genres of materials (memoirs, letters, historical narrative, record of revelation, law) to formats

Elizabeth Meyer (2007) argues for the codex developing in Egypt in imitation of legal documents, basing her arguments mainly on the physical dimensions of the legal (wood, wood and wax) tablet codices, combined with "an aggressively anti-Jewish stance" (326-328). "The argument here is that second-century Egyptian Christians, when they looked to commit their traditions to writing, were actively looking for a prestigious and authoritative form that could preserve and convey authoritative versions of sayings and stories of the authoritative master, Jesus. they found it in the Roman wooden legal diptych, which was neither the papyrus scroll (nor parchment codex) of [[318]] Greek and Roman literature, nor the leather roll of Jewish law, and made it their own first by using papyrus, then by slowly changing it according to their own needs and desires" (317-318). Her arguments are to me unvonvincing not only because of weaknesses in her description of early Egyptian Christianity, but mainly because the Roman legal tabulae have little similarity to early Christian codices beyond the ratio of external dimensions (many of the tabulae have writing in horizontal relationship on the inside, and in transversa [along the short side] on the outside; she bases her argument on the outside [visible] format and dimensions).

Literature on grammarians may be useful:

See Catherine M. Chin, Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Pp. 272. ISBN 10: 0-8122-4035-9. ISBN 13: 978-0-8122-4035-1. $59.95. Reviewed by M. Shane Bjornlie, Claremont McKenna College (sbjornlie@cmc.edu)

[note 2] Some of the more luminous works which have brought into sharp focus the rich texture of the history of late-antique education are
R. A. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988;
Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001;
Edward J. Watts, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006; Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius and the Library of Caesarea. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2006; and
Raffaella Cribiore, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2007.

4. Jewish practices, especially in the Greek world, but also in semitic contexts.

5. The location and organization needed for an initial impetus to become virtually universal.


Appendix on tablets and tablet codices [in process]:

Using M-P3,  the Paraliterary Papyri data bank, and Cribiore's catalog, here is a list of known tablet codices, arranged roughly chronologically: It is not always possible to determine whether a wood slat was used independently, or whether it was hinged to one or more other slats -- the summary descriptions (e.g. in Cribiore) do not always indicate whether hinge holes are present.  M-P distinguishes between "tabula lignea" (92, 14 before 100 ce) and "tabula cerata" (46, 5 before 100 ce), further complicating the task of determining when a rigid codex is represented. [Check Meyer's lists.]

[Not in M-P or Cribiore?] University College London 36088-89 The earliest surviving Greek tablets, seven in number, date from the middle of the third century bce.  All surfaces [[both sides]] were covered with wax, sometimes black, sometimes red; they contain rough accounts of expenses during a journey on the Nile -- see H. I. Bell and Flinders Petrie, Ancient Egypt 3 (1927) 65-74. For photographs of three of these tablets see Petrie, Objects of Daily Use (1927), pl. lix. One is reproduced in Roberts & Skeat as Plate I [horizontally hinged (holes)].
M-P 0430 [Crib 182=XIX] BKT 5.2.98 (inv. 17651) Euripides  (1st c) [vertically hinged (holes)]
M-P 1436 [Crib 381] T.Berol. inv. 14283 Posidippus & Elegy (1/2nd c diptych)
M-P 1166.1 PBingen 8 (T.Mil.Vogl. inv. 8) Homeric scholia minora (first part 2nd c)
M-P 1191 [Crib 329] Homeric Lexicon (2nd c) [hinge holes]
M-P 1196  [Crib 328]  TBerol 10510 Homeric Lexicon (2nd c)
M-P 1198 [Crib 326-pl] TBerol 10508 Homeric Lexicon (2nd c) [hinge holes]
M-P 1199 [Crib 327-pl] TBerol 10509 Homeric Lexicon (2nd c) [hinge holes]

M-P 2713 [PP 0281 LDAB 2642 Crib 383] school text (waxed wooden diptych 2nd c)
M-P 2738 [PP 0362 LDAB 5007 Crib 384] Berlin (now lost) school exercise, declension (4 wooden waxed tablets [only 2 inscribed; sides 4-5] 2/3rd c)
M-P 1765 [Crib 202]  TBM 29527 Epigrams (2/3rd c)
M-P 2739.01 TBerol 10506 fractions table (2/3rd c)
M-P 0174 + 0491 [Crib 386] Babrius Fables (7 tablets, both sides 3rd c)
M-P 1882 [Crib 139] PRossGeorg 1.13 Maxim in verse (3rd c)
M-P 2732 [PP 0255 LDAB 2418 Crib 388] Ps 46, school text, grammar, Homerica (7 wooden tablets vertical, late 3rd c; various hands)
M-P 2712 [PP 0278 LDAB 5315 Crib 385] Lond BM 37533 school word lists (8[9] wooden tablets 3rd c; two student hands, both sides; ##6-8 blank; "pages" numbered both sides)
M-P 2731.1 [Crib 389] TBorely 1564-1567 (4 waxed tablets 3/4th c)
M-P 2758 BM 33270 commentary (3/4th c)
M-P 2643.12 [PP 0313  LDAB 5587] Paris school word list (5 wooden waxed  tablet 3/4/5th c; two hands)
M-P 1886 [PP 0124 LDAB 5613 Crib 392] PBrookl  31 Achilles story (3 wooden tablets 4th c [3rd Goodsp]; final page only, unpracticed schoolhand)
M-P 2736.01 [PP 0277 LDAB 2530 Crib 395] Leiden  list of names (5 vertical wooden waxed tablets 4th c.; waxed both sides)
M-P 1885 [0294 LDAB 5614 Crib 391] PBrookl 29 school word list (5 vertical wooden waxed tablets 4th c.[3rd Goodsp]; waxed both sides; teacher & student hands)
M-P 2736.23 [Crib 305] PLugdBat 25.16 acrostic poem  (4th c)
M-P 2730 [Crib 399] alphabets & accounts (8 waxed tablets; 4th c?)
M-P 2643.11 [Crib 394] PFlor 18 misc (5 waxed tablets 4th c)
M-P 1619? [Crib 396 vanH 239] Louvre Menander, Ps 146, etc. (5 waxed tablets [incomplete]  4th c; nom sacra)
Crib 397 [vanH 205] Ps 92 (2 waxed tablets; 4th c)
Crib 398 Leiden (2 vertical waxed tablets; mid 4th c)
M-P 2643.12 [Crib 400] PFlor 18 misc (5 waxed tablets; 3-5th c)
M-P 2704.81 TBerol 17759 alphabets (4/5th c)
M-P 2643.16 [Crib 402] TWuertzburg 1013 arith, etc. (5 waxed tablets; 4/5th c)
M-P 2714 [Crib 401] BM 33368 gramm cases, portrait (8 waxed tablets; 4/5th c?)
M-P 2737 [Crib 404-pl] T.Berlin 14000 (9 waxed tablets; 4/5th c or later; Christian crosses, terms)
M-P 2704.81 TBerol 17759 alphabets (4/5thc)
M-P 2753.1 TVindob syllabaries (4/5th c)
M-P 2109 Numerology (not waxed; 5/6th c)
M-P 2274.2 TLouvre lists {byantine epoch, 5/6th c?)
M-P 2310.01 TVatgr fractions (4 waxed tablets, 6th c)
M-P 2753.11 TVindob  tachygraph (8 waxed tablets 6th c)
M-P 2773 PHal 59++ tachygraphic syllabary (6th c)
M-P 2773 PHal 59++ tachygraphic syllabary (6th c)
M-P 2343.13 [Crib 407] TLouvre 913 arithmetic (4 waxed tablets; end 6th c)
M-P 2343.14 [Crib 408] TLouvre 914 arithmetic (10 waxed tablets; end 6th c; nom sac etc.)
M-P 2307.3 [Crib 320] TMoen 601 multiplication table (6/7th c)
M-P 2309.3 Crib 411 math stuff (3 waxed tablets; 7th c)

undated 
M-P 1883.1 TBerol [no#]  Gnomic (nd)
M-P 2710 [Crib 200] TBodl 159 writing exercise? ("Roman period")
M-P 2742.01 TLeid 158 Alphabet (nd)
M-P 2161.2 TLouvre grammatical text (byzantine epoch)
M-P 2161.3 TLouvre exercises/conjugations (byzantine epoch)
M-P 2274.1 TLouvre lists {byantine epoch)
M-P 2643.15 TPierMorg [no#]  math problems (5 wax tablets including one cover byzantine)



Bibliography:

Bibliography and Abbreviations [indexed; new additions are preceded by a "+"]

+Aland, Barbara. "The Significance of the Chester Beatty Papyri in Early Church History," Pp. 108-121 in C. Horton (ed.), The Earliest Gospels: The Origins and Transmission of the Earliest Christian Gospels -- the Contribution of the Chester Beatty Gospel Codex P\45 (?? 2004)
Aland, Kurt. Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (de Gruyter 1963) [02 & passim]
__, Repertorium der griechischen Christlichen Papyri: 1, Biblische Papyri, 1976 [03, 38]
__. Studien zur Uberlieferung des Neuen Testaments und seines Textes, p. 114 [n.103, n.117?]
+Alexander, L. "Ancient Book Production and t he Circulation of the Gospels," pp. 71-111 in R. Bauckham (ed.), The Gospels for all Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (?? 1998)
Archi, Gian Gualberto. Ivra: Rivista Internazionale di diritto Romano e Antico 12 (1961) 428-450 [nn.90, 92, 95]
Arns, E. La Technique du Livre d'après S. Jerome (Paris: De Boccard 1953) [nn.7, 68]
+Arvin, Leila. Scribes, Script and Books: The Book Arts from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Chicago & London 1991)
+Ashton, J. The Persistence, Diffusion and Interchangeability of Scribal Habits in the Ancient Near East before the Codex. PhD Dissertation, University of Sydney 1999.
Atsalos, B. La Terminologie du livre-manuscrit à l'époque byzantine, 1e partie, 1971, pp. 148-176 [nn.133, 136]
+Bagnall, Roger S. Reading Papyri, Writing Social History (London 1995)
+Bagnall, Roger S. "Jesus Reads a Book," JTS 51 (2000) 577-588.
+__. Early Christian Books in Egypt ( four lectures  at the E/cole Pratique des Hautes E/tudes, 2006; forthcoming).
+Bagnall and Cribiore, Raffaela. Women's Letters from Ancient Egypt 300 BC-AD 800 (Ann Arbor 2006)
Bailey, D. R. Shackleton. Cicero's Letter to Atticus, vol. v, no. 332, and commentary pp. 379, 380 [16 n.43]
+Barker, D. C. "A Comparative Anlaysis of Secular and Christian Codices from Second Century Oxyrhynchus" [paper read at the 25th International Congress of Papyrology, Ann Arbor, 31 July 2007]
+Beare, F.W. "Books and Publication in the Ancient World," University of Toronto Quarterly 14 (1945), 150-167
Bell, H. I. and W. Flinders Petrie, Ancient Egypt 3 (1927) 65-74 [n.28]
+Bell, H. Isdris. "Evidences of Christianity in Egypt during the Roman Period," HTR 37 (1944) 185-208.
Bilabel, art. "Membrana" in Pauly-Wissowa, RE, [14]
Birt, Theodor. Das antike Buchwesen in seinem Verhältnis zur Literatur, mit Beiträgen zur Textgeschichte des Theokrit, Catull, Properz und anderer Autoren (Berlin, 1882) [1 et passim]
__. Kritik und Hermeneutik nebst Abriss des antiken Buchwesens (Iwan v. Müller, Handbuch der Altertums­wissenschaft 1.3 (München: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchh. 1913) [1 et passim]
__. Die Buchrolle in der Kunst [25 n.75]
+Bischoff, Bernhard. Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Cambridge 1990)
+Blanchard, Alain. 1989. ed. Les débuts du codex: Actes de la journée organisée à Paris les 3 et 4 juillet 1985 par líInstitut de Papyologie de la Sorbonne et líInstitut de Recherches et díHistoire des Textes, Bibliologia 9 (Turnhout 1989).
+Bloom, Jonathan. Paper Before Print (New Haven 2001)
+Bowman, Alan K. "The Vindolanda Writing-Tablets and the Development of the Roman Book Form," ZPE 18 (1975) 237-252/
+Bowman, Alan K. Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier: Vindolanda and its People (London 1984)
+Bowman, A.K. and J. D. Thomas, Vindolanda: The Latin Writing-Tablets (London, 1983), part 1.2 "Writing on Wood."
+__,  with contributions by J. N. Adams. The Vindolanda Writing Tablets (Tabulae Vindolandenses 11; London 1994)
+Bowman, A. K. and J. D.Thomas, "New Writing-Tablets from Vindolanda," Brittania 27 (1996) 299-328.
+Brashear, William and F.A.J.Hoogendijk,. "Corpus Tabularum Litnearum Ceratumque Aegyptiarum," Enchoria 17 (1990) 21-54.
Browne, G. M. 'A new papyrus codex of the Sortes Astrampsychi', Arktouros: Hellenic Studies presented to Bernard M. W. Knox... 1979, pp. 434-439 [70]
+Brown, Michelle P. A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (Toronto 1990)
Campenhausen, Hans von. The Formation of the Christian Bible, 1972 [n.143, 63, 64, 66, n.165]
+Capasso, Mario 1995. Volumen. Aspetti della tipologia del rotolo librario antico (Naples) [rev. Quaderni di Storia 44 (1996) 225-33, Rosa Otranto]
Cavallo, Guglielmo. 'La genesi dei rotoli liturgici Beneventani alia luce del fenomeno storico-librario in occidente ed oriente,' Miscellanea in memoria di G. Cencetti, 1973, pp. 213-229 [n.136]
__. Libri, Editori e pubblico nel Mondo antico: Guida storica e critica (Rome 1975) [2-3 & passim] [[1991 van pelt?!]]
+___ 1985. "La nascita del codice," SIFC ser. 3.111: 118-121.
+___ 1983. Libri Scritture Scribi a Ercolano. Cronache Ercolanesi supplement 1. Naples, 1983.
+___ 1992. "Le Tavolette come suppporto della scrittura: qualche testimonianza indiretta," Pp. 97-101 in E/. Lalou (ed.) Les Tablettes a\ e/crire de l'antiquite/ a\ l'e/poque moderne (?? 1992).
+___ (ed.) 1998. Scrivere libri e documenti nel mondo antico (?? 1998)
+___ 1996. "Veicoli materiali della letteratura di consumo. Maniere di scrivere e maniere di leggere," in O. Pecere and A Stramaglia, eds., Lat letteratura di consumo nel mondo greco-latino (Cassino).
+Cavallo, G. and R. Chartier 1997. eds., Storia della lettura nel mondo occidentale. / Histoire de la lecture dans le monde occidental (Paris : Seuil).
Cavenaile, R. Corpus Papyrorum Latinarum 1958 [n.86]
Cencetti, G. 'Gli archivi dell' antica Roma nell' eta repubblicana,' Archivi d'Italia, Ser. 2, 7 (1940) [n.33]
+Cerny, J.  Paper and Books in Ancient Egypt (1952).
+Choat, Malcolm. Belief and Cult in Fourth-Century Papyri (Studia Antiqua Australiensia 1; Macquarie University - Turnhout 2006); reviewed by Roger Bagnall in BASP 43 (2006) 205-209.
+Citroni, M. 1988. "Pubblicazione e dediche dei libri in Marziale," Maia 40: 3-39.
+___ 1989. "Marziale e la letterature per i Saturnali (poetica dellíintrattenimento e cronologia della pubblicazione dei libri)," ICS 14: 201-206
+Clark, John R. "Early Latin Handwriting and Plautus' Pseudolus," Classical Journal 97 (2001-02) 183-189
+Cribiore, Raffaela. Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (American Studies in Papyrology 36; Atlanta 1996) [rev. CP 93.3 (1998) 276-79, W A. Johnson].
+__. Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton 2001)
+__. The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2007
+Crisci, Edoardo. "Papiro e pergamenta nella produzione libraria in Oriente fra IV e VIII secolo d. C. Materiali e reflessioni." Segno e testo 1 (2003) 79-127
+Cugusi, Paolo. 1992. ed., Corpus Epistularum Latinarum Papyris Tabulis Ostracis Servatarum (Papyrologica Florentina 23) (Florence).
+Cuvigny, He/le\ne. "The finds of Papyri: the Archaeology of Papyrology." Ch. 2 of The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, ed. R. S. Bagnall (Oxford 2008 ?)
+Devijver, H., et al. "Eine lateinisch Holztafel in Leiden," OMRL 65 (1984/5) 19-22.
+Dimarogonas, A. D. 1995. "Pliny the Elder on the Making of Papyrus Paper," CQ 45: 588-
+Diringer, David. The Book Before Printing (NY 1982)
D'Israeli, Isaac. Curiosities of Literature (4 vols; London [New York : A. C. Armstrong, 1881]) [n.39]
+Dougherty, R. P. "Writing upon Parchment and Papyrus Among the Babylonians and the Assyrians," Journal of the American Oriental Society 47 (1928), 109-35.
Downey, Granville. A History of Antioch in Syria, 1961, Chapter 2. "The Christian Community at Antioch from Apostolic times to A.D. 284," [n.155]
Dziatzko, K. Untersuchungen über ausgewählte Kapitel des antiken Buchwesens: mit text, übersetzung und erklärung von Plinius, Nat. hist. XIII 68-89 (Leipzig: Teubner 1900) [2 & passim]
__. 'Buch' and 'Buchhandel' in Pauly-Wissowa, Real Encyclopädie [2]
+Elliott, J. Keith, "Manuscripts, the Codex, and the Canon," JSNT 63 (1966) 105-123.
+Elliott, J. Keith. The Collected Biblical  Writings of  T. C. Skeat (NTS 113; Brill 2004)
+Emmel, Stephen. "The Christian Book in Egypt: Innovation and the Coptic Tradition." Pp. 35-43 in The Biblie as Book: The Manuscript Tradition, ed. J. L. Sharpe and Kimberly van Kampen (London 1998)
+Epp, Eldon J. "The Codex and Literacy in Early Christianity and at Oxyrhynchus." Pp 15-37 in Critical Review of Books in Religion 1997, ed. C. Prebisch (Atlanta 1997)
+Fo"rster, Hans. "Heilige Namen in Heiligen Texten." Antike Welt 33 (2002) 321-324.
+Fowler, Donald 1995. "Martial and the Book," Ramus 24: 31-58. [see White 1996]
Galiano ii [n.113, with Wilcken]
+Gamble, Harry Y. The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1985.
+__. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale UP 1995)
+Gascou, Jean. "Lex codices documentaires E/gyptiens." Pp. 71-101 in Les de/buts do codex, ed A. Blanchard (Turnhout 1989)
+Gelb, I. J. A Study of Writing (1952)
+Grafton, Anthony, and Megan Williams. Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea (Cambridge MA 2006)
Giacchero, Marta. Edictum Diocletiani et Collegarum de pretiis venalium (Genoa: Istituto di Storia Antica e Scienze Ausiliarie 1974) [n.15]
Goodspeed, E..J. suggested that the collection was the work of the slave Onesimus, placed the event soon after 85 C.E., [n.168]
+ Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius and the Library of Caesarea. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2006
+Hall, David D. 1997. Cultures of Print. Essays in the History of the Book (Amherst).
+Haran, Menachem. "Book-Scrolls in Israel in Pre-Exilic Times", Journal of Jewish Studies 33:1-2, (1982), pp. 161-173.
+__. "Book-Scrolls at the Beginning of the Second Temple Period -- The Transition from Papyrus to Skins", Hebrew Union College Annual 54 (1983), pp. 111-122.
+__. "More Concerning Book Scrolls in Pre-Exilic Times", Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (1984), pp. 84-85.
+__. "Bible Scrolls in Eastern and Western Jewish Communities from Qumran to the High Middle Ages", Hebrew Union College Annual 56 (1985), pp. 21-62.
+__. "The Codex, the Pinax and the Wooden Slats", Tarbiz 57 (1988), pp. 151-164 [Hebrew with English abstract]
+Haines-Eitzen, Kim. Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000
+Harris, W.V., 1989. Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, Mass.).
+Hunger, H., O. Stegmüller, et al. Geschichte der Textüberlieferung der antiken und mittelalterlichen Literatur (Zürich, 1961), especially pp. 47-51 (Hunger), 346-50 (K. Büchner) [[get titles]] [02]
+Hurtado, Larry W. The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids 2006)
Ibscher, H. 'Der Codex' in Jahrbuch der Einbandkunst 4 (1937) 3-15 [nn.10-11, 129]
+Immerwahr, Henry. 1964. Book Rolls on Attic Vases. In Classical, Mediaeval and Rennaissance Studies in Honor of Berthold Louis Ullman. Roma.
+Immerwahr, H. "More Book Rolls on Attic Vases," ANTIKE KUNST 16 (1973) 143-147.
IVRA = Rivista Internazionale di Diritto Romano e Antico (Italy)
+Jakab, Attila. Ecclesia alexandrina: Evolution sociale et institutionelle du christianisme alexandrin (IIe et IIIe sie\cles) (Christianismes antiques 1; Bern 2001)
Johnson, Richard R. The Role of Parchment in Greco-Roman Antiquity (UCal dissertation 1968; University Microfilms, microfilm and xerox).[5-6]
__. 'Ancient and Medieval accounts of the "Invention” of Parchment,' California Studies in Classical Antiquity 3 (1970) pp. 115-122 [n.9]
+Johnson, William A. "Toward a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity." American Journal of Philology 121 (2000) 593-627
+__. Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus (U Toronto 2004) [coins term "voluminology"; review by Silvia Barbantani in Classical Review 56 (2006) 485-488; review by Efrosyni Stigka in Classical World 100 (2006) 67-69; review by S. A. Stephens,  Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2005.01.04]
+Jones, A. The Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society 233; Philadelphia 1999). Nos. P.Oxy. 4133—4300a.
Jouanique, P. 'Le codex accepti et expensi chez Cicéron,' Revue historique de Droit francais et étranger 46 (1968) 5-31.[n.32]
Judge, E. A. The Social Pattern of the Christian Groups in the First Century, 1960 [n.170]
+ A. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988

+Katz, Peter. "The Early Christians' Use of Codices Instead of Rolls," JTS 46 (1945) 63
+Kenney, E.J. 1982. "Books and readers in the Roman world," in E.J. Kenney and W.V. Clausen, eds., The Cambridge History of Classical Literature Volume II: Latin Literature. Cambridge: 3-32.
Kenyon, F. G. Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, 2nd ed., 1951 [nn.57, 76, pp.27, 40, n.113]
+Kilgour, Frederick G. 1998. The Evolution of the Book (Oxford).
Kleberg, Tönnes. Buchhandel und Verlagswesen in der Antike (Darmstadt, 1969 [1967?]), especially "Exkurs über die Buchherstellung und die Formen des Buches in der Antike" (69-86) [02-03]
Knox, John. who suggested that the collection was the work of the slave Onesimus, placed the event soon after 85 C.E. [n.165]
+Koenen, Ludwig. "Ein Mo"nch als Berufsschreiber: Zur Buchproduktion im 5/6 Jahrhundert." Pp. 347-354 in Festschrift zum 150 ja"hrigen Bestehen des Berliner A"gyptischen Museums (Berlin 1974)
Koep, L. Das himmlische Buch in Antike und Christentum, 1952 [n.24]
+Kotsifou, Chrysi. "Books and Book Production in the Monastic Communities of Byzantine Egypt." Pp. 48-66 in.Klingshirn and Safran
+Klingshirn, W. E. and L. Safran (eds.). The Early Christian Book (Washington DC: Catholic University of America 2007)
+Kramer, Johannes. "Antike Kanonbildung." Pp. 3-36 in  W. Dahmen et al. (eds.), Kanonbildung in der Romanistik und in der Nachbardiziplinen (Romanistik Kolloquium 14; Tuebingen: Gunter Narr Verlag 2000)
+Krieg, W. 1974. ed., Kleine Schriften zum antike Buch- und Bibliothekwesen (Cologne)
Lassus, Jean. ‘Antioche à l’époque romaine: Christianisme’ in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.8 [[date]] [n.152]
Lefort, Th. "??" Muséon 66 (1953) 16 sq., quoted in Roberts, op. cit., p. 61, n.4. [148]
+[LDAB] Leuven Data Base of Ancient Books (online at http://www.trismegistos.org/ldab/)
Lewis, Naphtali. Papyrus in Classical Antiquity (Oxford, 1974) [05]
__. L'Industrie du Papyrus dans l’Egypte gréco-romaine (Paris, 1934) [05]
__. ??, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 11 (1974) 49-51 [n.34]
Lieberman, S. Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 1950, Appendix III, 'Jewish and Christian Codices' [nn.159-160]
Lowe, E. A. C.L.A., 10 [nn.84-85]
__. 'Codices Rescripti: a list of the oldest Latin palimpsests with stray observations on their origin,' Palaeographical Papers 2, pp. 480-519 [17, n.49]
Lührmann, D, in ZNTW 72 (1981), pp. 216-26 [n.116]
Marinates, Minos, i, p. 40; [Marinates, Sp. 'Some General Notes on the Minoan Written Documents.' In Minos, \ (1951), 39 ff.] [n.22]
Marquardt, Privatleben der Romer 2 [n.10]
Marrou, Henri-Irénée. 'La technique de l'édition à l'époque patristique,' Vigiliae Christianae 3  (1949) 208 sq. [n.68]
+ H. I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956.
+Marshall, A. J. 1976. "Library Resources and Creative Writing at Rome," Phoenix 30: 260-
McCown, C. C. 'Codex and Roll in the New Testament', Harvard Theological Review 34 (1941) 219-250 [nn.1, 141]
__. ‘The earliest Christian books' in The Biblical Archaeologist 6 (1943) 21-31 [n.1]
+McKitterick, Rosamond. The Carolingens and the Written Word (Cambridge University Press 1989 )
 

+K. McNamee [identifying and grouping ancient libraries] Pp. 693-707 in Jaakko Froese/n, Tiina Purola, Erja Salmenkivi, Proceedings of the 24th International Congress of Papyrology Helsinki, 1-7 August, 2004. 2 vols. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum, 122.  Helsinki:  Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2007.  Pp. 1075; pls. 34.  ISBN 978-951-653-345-5.
Mertens, P. Proceedings of the 12th International Congress of Papyrology, pp. 303-4 [nn.2-3]
Metzger, B, M. The Early Versions of the New Testament [nn.142, 163]
+Meyer, Elizabeth A. Legitimacy and Law in the Roman World: Tabulae in Roman Belief and Practice (Cambridge 2004)
+Meyer, Elizabeth A. "Roman Tabulae, Egyptian Christians, and the Adoption of the Codex," Chiron 37 (2007) 295-347

Montevecchi, O. La Papirologia, 1973, pp. 360-363 [69]
Moule, C. The Birth of the New Testament, 3rd ed., 1981 [n.141, p. 63]
+Mratschek, Sigrid. "Codices vestri nos sumus: Bu"cherkult und Bu"cherpreise in der christlichen Spa"tantike." Pp. 369-380 in Hortus litterarum antiquarum, Festschrift fu"r Hans Armin Ga"rther zum 70 Geburtstag, ed. A. Haltenhoff and F.-H. Mutschler (Heidelberg 2000)
+Naldini, Mario. Il christianesimo in Egitto: Lettere private nei papiri dei secoli II-IV. (Fiesole1968, 1998\2)
+Norden, Edouard 1915. Die Antike Kunstprosa I3, "Nachträge" (Leipzig & Berlin)
+O'Donnell, James J. Avitars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace (Cambridge MA 1998)
+Oates, John F.,  Roger S. Bagnall, Sarah J. Clackson, Alexandra A. O'Brien, Joshua D. Sosin, Terry G. Wilfong, and Klaas A. Worp. Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca and Tables (BASP Supplement 9, 2001; online at http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html)
Ohly, K. Stichometrische Untersuchungen, 1928, pp. 109-18 [n.128]
Pack, Roger A. The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt (University of Michigan Press, 1st edition 1952, 2nd edition 1965, here referred to as Pack-1 and Pack-2) [03 & passim -- add Pack-Mertens]
Petrie, (W.M.) Flinders. Objects of Daily Life [sic, Use (1927)]  [n.28]
__. see also Bell
Pope, M. Annual of the British School at Athens 55 [1960] 201 [n.22]
Posner, E. Archives in the Ancient World [n.34]
Reed, R. Ancient Skins, Parchments and Leathers (Seminar Press, 1972) [5,8]
__. The Nature and Making of Parchment, 1975 [[publ??]] [n.8,21]
Regemorter, B. Scriptorium 12 (1958) 177 ff. ('Le codex relié à 1'époque néo-Hittite' [n.23]
+Reynolds, L.D. 1983. ed. Texts and Transmission. (Oxford).
+Reynolds, L. D. and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford 1978\2, 1991\3)
+Resnick, Irven M. "The Codex in Early Jewish and Christian Communities." Journal of Religious History 17 (1992) 1-17 [well researched, with argument for "theological" considerations]
+ Pierre Riche/, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West: From the Sixth through the Eighth Century. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1976.
Roberts, Colin H. The Codex. Proceedings of the British Academy 40 (1954) 169-204 [passim]
+__. "Early Christianity in Egypt." Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 40 (1954) 92-96
__. Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt [n. 103]
Robinson, J. A. T. Redating the New Testament, 1976 [nn.140, 146, 150]
+Rossum-Steenbeek, Monique van 1998. Greek Readersí Digests? Studies on a Selection of Greek Sub-literary Papyri (Leiden) [rev. BMCR 98.6.29, Teresa Morgan].
Rudberg, G. Neutestamentlicher Text und Nomina Sacra, Uppsala, 1915 [n.164]
Sabbe, E. 'Papyrus et parchemin au haut moyen age,' Miscellanea historica in honorem Leonis van der Essen 1 (1947) 95-103.[n.18]
+Saenger, Paul 1997. Space between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading (Stanford: expands and supersedes his article, "Silent Reading: its Impact on late Medieval Script and Literacy" in Viator 13 [1982] 367-414.)
Sage, Evan T. "The Publication of Martial's Poems," Trans. Am. Phil.Ass. ... (1919) [n.40]
Sanders, H. A. "The Beginnings of the Modern Book: the Codex," University of Michigan Quarterly Review 44.15 (Winter 1938) 95-111 [02, n. 34 & passim]
__. 'Codices Librariorum,' Classical Philology 29 (1934) 251-252, [n.34]
Santifaller, L. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Beschreibstoffe im Mittelalter mit besonderer Berucksictigung der papstlichen Kanzlei, 1953, [nn.133, 135, 139]
Schönbauer, E. Ivra: Rivista Internazionale di diritto Romano e Antico 12 (1961) 117-161 [nn.88, 95, 97]
Schubart, W. Das Buch bei den Griechen und Römern (2nd ed., Berlin, 1921; 3rd ed., by E. Paul, Heidelberg and Leipzig, 1961, adds some illustrations, but omits the notes of the 2nd edition) [01 & passim]
+Seider, Richard. Pala"ographie der lateinischen Papyri (Stuttgart 1972)
+Sider, David. The Library of the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum (Malibu CA 2005)
+Sirat, C., M. Dukan & M. Beit Arie, Les papyrus ecrits en lettres hebraiques trouves en Egypt [CNRS].
Skeat, T.C. 'Two notes on Papyrus: 1. Was re-rolling a papyrus roll an irksome and time-consuming task?' Scritti in onore di Orsolina Montevecchi, 1981, pp. 373-376. [[republished in Elliott ..]] [n.127]
__. 'The Length of the Standard Papyrus Roll and the Cost-advantage of the Codex', Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 45 (1982) 169-75 [reprinted in Elliott...]]. [nn.14, 121]
__. The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2 [57, n.151]
__. "The Origin of the Christian Codex." Zeitschrift fu"r Papyrologie und Epigraphik 102 (1994) 263-268
+Small, Jocelyn Penny. Wax Tablets of the Mind: Cognitive Studies of Memory and Literacy in Classical Antiquity (Routledge 1997) [partial copy online]
Hermann von Soden [n.164]
+Starr, R.J. 1987. "The Circulation of Literary Texts in the Roman World," CQ 37: 213-23.
+_____ 1990-91. "Lectores and Book Reading," CJ 86: 337-343.
+__. `The Used-Book Trade in the Roman World,' Phoenix 44(1990)
Ste Croix, G.E.M. de. 'Greek and Roman Accounting' in Studies in the History of Accounting, ed. A. C. Littleton and B. S. Yamey (1956) 41-3 [n.32]
+Stephens, S.A. 1988. "Book Production," in M. Grant and R. Kitzinger, eds., Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean. Greece and Rome, vol. 1 (New York) 421-36.
+Tov, Emanuel. "Copying a Biblical Scroll," Journal of Religious History 26 (2002) 189-209 [col ##, dots, etc.]
+__. Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 54; Brill 2004)
Treu, Kurt. "Christliche Papyri VI" and "...VII," in Archiv für Papyrusforschung 26 (1978) 149-159, and 27 (1980) 251-258 [[update needed]] [38]
+__. "Die Bedeutung des Griechischen fuer die Juden im roemischen Reich" ["What Greek meant for Jews in the Roman Empire"] in KAIROS 15 (1973) 123-144 (ET by W. Adler and RAK)
+Trobisch, David. Paul’s Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress. Press, 1994)
Turner, Eric G. The Typology of the early Codex (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977) [01 & passim]
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[[various authors??]] Testi recentemente pubblicati: Testi letterari greci in Aegyptus 51 (1971) 227-30; 52 (1972) 163-8; 53 (1973) 160-4; 54 (1974) 206-9; 55 (1975) 275-9; 57 (1977) 202-47; 58 (1978) 225-87; and 60 (1980) 233-65 [36]
[[author?]] Iraq 16 (1954) 65, 97-99; 17 (1955) 3 20 [n.23] [[M. E. L. Mallowan, "The Excavations at Nimrud (Kalhu)," Iraq 16 (1954) 98-107; Margaret Howard, "Technical Description of the Ivory Writing-boards from Nimrud," Iraq 17 (1955) 14–20]
Marx, Fr. (not accessible to us) [n.24] [Rheinische Museum für Philologie. Hrsg. v. Fr. Marx. Neue Folge, Band 74, 3. Frankfurt a.M. 1925. 110 p].