The Greek Gospel kephalaia are a type of text division, first attested in Late Antiquity, which divide the Gospels into sequential sections based around themes and events from the text. Each section is associated with a brief summary (or titlos); these titloi are placed in lists before each Gospel and as running titles in the margins.

This book traces the development of the kephalaia, which soon became a permanent fixture of Byzantine Gospelbooks alongside other systems of Gospel text divisions, notably the Eusebian sections. It also studies how different aspects of the kephalaia (such as their usefulness as a concordance) became prominent later in the tradition, as well as their influence on and interaction with both other paratexts and other types of literary works. It further examines the kephalaia’s reception, both in the later Byzantine period and in the West, a subject largely omitted from previous studies.

Through editions and translations, this study offers a broad picture of the development of this key Gospel paratext from the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus to Erasmus and beyond.