The DEVIL'S Bible: Why the World’s Largest Manuscript Still Defies Science

The Codex Gigas is a thirteenth-century manuscript so large that it requires two people to lift its cover. Housed today in the National Library of Sweden, it contains the complete Latin Bible along with encyclopedias, medical treatises, historical chronicles, and exorcism instructions. Its most striking feature is a full-page illustration of the devil on page 290, which has given the book its popular name, the Devil’s Bible. The scale of the object and the unusual placement of that image have generated legends for eight centuries.

The Physical Scale and Contents The manuscript measures nearly a meter tall and weighs about seventy-five kilograms. Its vellum pages, if laid flat, would cover the surface of a small swimming pool. A single scribe produced the entire work, including the text and the illuminations. In addition to the Bible, the volume includes copies of Flavius Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews, botanical and surgical remedies of the period, and detailed instructions for expelling demons. The presence of these disparate materials reflects a medieval view in which religious, medical, and protective knowledge were treated as parts of one practical system rather than separate categories.