C 8. 55. 8, which reproduces CTh 8.13. 3, is not an entirely straightforward text:

It provides that where a patron without filii has made a gift of all or part of his goods to his freedmen and subsequently has children the gift reverts to him and remains at his disposal. But one may ask, for example, whether the masculine filios is significant or whether the masculine includes the feminine? Whether a single thing could be “part of his goods”? Whether ownership reverts automatically or whether the text means that the gift is freely revocable? Nevertheless, in one respect, at least, it seems quite simple. There can be little doubt that its provisions were restricted to gifts between patrons and freedmen and since the discovery of the Vatican Fragments, Vat Fragm 272, a fuller version of C 8.55.1, has been regarded as establishing this restriction for the Roman law of the time of its promulgation and for the law of Justinian.