Great uncial codices

All these manuscripts were made at great expense of material and labour, written on vellum by professional scribes.

[4] The size of the leaves is much larger than in papyrus codices:[5][page needed][6] Codex Vaticanus uses the oldest system of textual division in the Gospels.

Codex Alexandrinus and Ephraemi Rescriptus use also a division according to the larger sections – κεφάλαια (kephalaia, chapters).

[8] According to Burgon, the peculiar wording in some passages of the five great uncials (א A B C D) shows that they were the byproduct of heresy–a position strongly contested by Daniel B.

[13] Vaticanus has been housed at the Vatican Library at least since the 15th century, but it became widely available after a photographic facsimile of the entire manuscript was made and published by Giuseppe Cozza-Luzi in 1889–1890 (in three volumes).