Sometimes a prologue to a Gospel text will contain traditional information about the life of the evangelist. The lives are attributed to an otherwise unknown Dorotheus of Tyre or to Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem in the first half of the seventh century.
Catenae are comments extracted from ecclesiastical writers.
The comments are written into the margin with the author's name abbreviated and a system of symbols matching the marginal comment to the relevant place in the text. After the fourth century biblical manuscripts begin to exhibit various systems of capitulation. The numbers appear in the margin next to the place in the column where the new section begins. Sometimes the new section will also be designated by the first letter of the first word being placed into the margin slightly and for the first letter to be enlarged. A table of chapters may appear before the book.