GREEK PAPYRI—METZGER 
height of the columns, which ran 
parallel to the stick on which the roll 
was wound, varied of course with the 
height of the original papyrus sheets. 
Sometimes, but not very often, the roll 
was written on both sides (see Revela- 
tion 5: 1); this was called an opistho- 
graph. 
The roll was relatively inconvenient 
touse. The reader had to employ both 
hands, unrolling it with one hand and 
rolling it up with the other as the read- 
ing proceeded. Moreover the Chris- 
tian community soon discovered how 
laborious it was to try to find certain 
passages in their sacred books when 
written in roll form. Early in the sec- 
ond century the codex, or leaf form of 
a book, began to come into extensive 
use in the Church. This was made by 
folding one or more sheets of papyrus 
in the middle and sewing them to- 
gether. Christians found that this 
form had a number of distinct advan- 
tages over the roll: (1) it permitted the 
four Gospels or all the Epistles of Paul 
to be bound into one book, a format 
which was impossible so long as the 
roll was used; (2) it facilitated the con- 
sultation of proof texts; (3) it was 
better adapted to receiving writing on 
both sides of the page, thus keeping the 
cost of production down.° 
In about the fourth century the fash- 
ions of bookmaking changed. ‘The 
less fragile vellum came to be substi- 
tuted for papyrus as the material for 
the best books in codex form. Quite 
an art and a science of manufacturing 
books developed. Since the hair side 
of vellum is darker than the flesh side, 
it was discovered that the most pleas- 
ing effect upon the reader was obtained 
only when the separate sheets were not 
5 C. CG, McCown, in his helpful article, 
“The Earliest Christian Books,’ Biblical 
Archaeologist, vol. 7, p. 21, 1943, supplies a 
table of figures showing the relative number 
of extant codices and rolls of Christian and 
pagan works from the third and fourth cen- 
turies. Peter Katz suggests that the adop- 
tion by Christians of the codex instead of the 
roll was part of a deliberate attempt to dif- 
ferentiate Christianity from Judaism (Journ. 
Theol. Stud., vol. 46, pp. 61-63, 1945). 
441 
indiscriminately bound together in 
quires, but when the hair side of one 
page faced the hair side of the opposite 
page, and the flesh side faced the flesh 
side, wherever the book was opened. 
In writing on papyrus the scribe was 
accustomed to utilize the horizontal 
fibers on the recto side of the sheet as 
guide lines for his script. In writing 
on vellum he would score the surface 
with a blunt pointed instrument, draw- 
ing not only horizontal lines but two 
or more vertical lines as well for the 
margins of each column of writing. 
In many manuscrips these guide lines 
are still visible, as are also the small 
pin pricks which the scribe made first, 
thus outlining the ruling pattern on 
the vellum.*® Different schools of scribes 
would employ various procedures of 
ruling and it is occasionally possible 
for the modern scholar to identify the 
place of origin of a newly discovered 
manuscript by comparing its ruling 
pattern (as it is called) with those in 
manuscripts whose place of origin is 
known. 
In times of economic depression 
when the cost of vellum increased, an 
older manuscript would be salvaged 
and used over again. The original 
writing was scraped and washed off, 
the surface resmoothed, and the new 
literary material written on the sur- 
face. Such a book was called a 
palimpsest (which means in Greek, 
“re-scraped”’). One of the half dozen 
or so most important vellum manu- 
scripts of the New Testament is such 
a palimpsest; its name is codex Eph- 
6 There is even a science of pin pricks! See 
E. K. Rand, “Prickings in a Manuscript of 
Orleans,” Trans. and Proc. Amer. Philol. 
Assoc., vol. 70, pp. 327-341, 1939; and L. W. 
Jones, ‘‘ ‘Pin Pricks’ at the Morgan Library,” 
ibid., pp. 318-326; ‘“‘Where Are the Prick- 
ings?” op. cit., vol. 72, pp. 71-86, 1944; and 
*Pricking Manuscripts: The Instruments 
and Their Significance,” Speculum, a Jour 
nal of Mediaeval Studies, vol. 21, pp. 389= 
403, 1946. Rand had earlier dealt with 
various methods of ruling manuscripts in 
vogue during the Middle Ages; see his study 
entitled ““How Many Leaves at a Time?” 
in Palaeographica Latina, vol. 5, pp. 52-78, 
1927. 
