The following nomina sacra (sacred names/words considered sacred in Christianity) are employed in the manuscript (the ones cited here are only nominative case (subject case) examples): ΙΗΣ (Ιησους / Iēsous / Jesus), ΧΡΣ (Χριστος / Christos / Christ), ΠΑΡ (πατηρ / patēr / Father), ΣΤΗ (σταυρωθη / staurōthē / [he] was crucified).

Other words which usually feature among the nomina sacra are written out in full: μητερ (mēter / Mother), υιος (huios / Son), σωτηρ (sōter / savior), ανθρωπος (anthrōpos / man), ουρανος (ouranos / sky), Δαυιδ (David), Ισραηλ (Israel), and Ιερουσαλημ (Iērousalēm 'Jerusalem').

[9] Acts in Codex Bezae differs quite considerably from other manuscripts, which some argue possibly represents an earlier version directly from Luke.

When you enter into a house and are summoned to dine, do not sit down at the prominent places, lest perchance a man more honorable than you come in afterwards, and he who invited you come and say to you, "Go down lower"; and you shall be ashamed.

[9] The manuscript is believed to have been repaired at Lyon (France) in the ninth century, as revealed by a distinctive ink used for supplementary pages.

The manuscript was consulted, perhaps in Italy, for disputed readings at the Council of Trent, and was at about the same time collated for Stephanus's edition of the Greek New Testament.

It was delivered to the Protestant scholar Theodore Beza,[16] the friend and successor of Calvin, who gave it in 1581 to the University of Cambridge, in the comparative security of England, which accounts for its double name.

The importance of the manuscript is such that a colloquium held at Lunel, Hérault, in the south of France on 27–30 June 1994 was entirely devoted to it.

[17] Papers discussed the many questions it poses to our understanding of the use of the Gospels and Acts in early Christianity, and of the text of the New Testament.