“The codex, a revolutionary design format, began to suplant the scroll (called a rotulus) in Rome and Greece, beginning about the time of Christ. Parchment was gathered in signatures of two, four or eight sheets. These were folded, stitched, and combined into codices with pages like a modern book. . . .
Christians sought the codex format to distance themselves from the pagan scroll; pagans clung to their scrolls in resistance to Christianity. Graphic format thereby became a symbol of religious belief during the late decades of the Roman Empire.”

—Phil Meggs & Alston Purvis, Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, 2006.