across fibres
across fibres
Two pages from a Christian codex, the modern form of the book which increasingly replaced the papyrus roll after the third century AD, folded open to form a double leaf. The codex contained the Epistle of Jude (or a least part of it) in an unusually small format. All margins are intact. The leaves are not consecutive, but are missing c. 330 letters between them, which will have filled probably two more such double leaves. Very likely the work was copied only in part. But such extensive writing would be impractical in miniature codices, most of which served as amulets thought to protect their possessors against harm, and tend to record short works (like the pater noster) or extracts from longer ones. The largish leisurely half-cursive hand of this codex contrasts with the scale of that of the Cologne Mani codex, for example, which contained the entire life of Mani in miniature format.
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri vol. XXXIV no. 2684