The Codex Judas Papers by April D. DeConick

Since the first page was left blank (numbering began with the first left-hand facing page), this means that the codex consisted of 208 pages, or 104 leaves. Obviously 47 pages preceeded page 48, and so 47 pages also followed page 159, for a total of 206 numbered pages. Thus, even with only a fragmentary version of the codex, papyrologists could determine that the codex consisted of 104 leaves, using the following reasoning: Pages 48 and 159 form a conjugate pair. This is true because the number of leaves preceeding any given page is equal to the number of leaves following its conjugate pair. Because P46 used this unique form of construction (which eventually died out due to its impracticality), the precise size of the codex can be determined by simply knowing the page numbers of any conjugate pair of physically joined leaves. This method produces a codex in which the first leaf is physically joined to the last, with the remaining leaves sandwiched between. P46, however, consists of a single quire, which could be formed by simply taking a stack of papyrus sheets and folding them all in half. The illustration below shows how a typical four-leaf quire can be formed from a single sheet of papyrus, parchment, or paper by folding and then cutting the sheet:

Most codices, like modern books, are formed from multiple quires (groupings of typically 4, 8, or 16 leaves), bound together side-by-side. P46 is an example of a relatively old and rare form of codex, the single-quire codex. Thus, codices made from papyrus are both very old and very rare few were known to exist until the vast discoveries of papyri that ocurred during the twentieth century. Beginning around the fourth century, parchment began to replace papyrus as the preferred writing material, and parchment manuscripts remained the most common form of the book until the advent of paper and moveable type. The reasons for the shift from roll to codex are uncertain, yet over the course of a few hundred years the roll became obsolete, permanantly replaced by the form which would evolve into the modern book. Typically about 12 inches tall and a hundred feet or more in length, papyrus rolls could be used to record long works of literature, or cut into smaller pieces to write letters or other short documents.įor some reason, however, early Christian literature began to be written not on rolls, but in codices. Any reader or writer, from the philosophers of ancient Greece to the emperors of Rome, would have been familiar with the papyrus roll as the normal form of the book. Papyrus had been used as a writing material in Egypt for thousands of years, and during the classical period papyrus rolls were exported throughout the ancient world. A codex (left) compared to a roll (right).

The Codex Judas Papers by April D. DeConick