 It was the first manuscript of great importance and antiquity of which any extensive use was made by textual critics, but the value of the codex was differently appreciated by different writers in the past. Wettstein created a modern system of catalogization of the New Testament manuscripts. Codex Alexandrinus received symbol A and opened the list of the NT uncial manuscripts. Wettstein announced in his Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci (1730) that Codex A is the oldest and the best manuscript of New Testament, and should be the basis in every reconstruction of the New Testament text. Codex Alexandrinus became a basis for criticizing the Textus Receptus (Wettstein, Woide, Griesbach).
