Caesarean Text

The name given by B.H. Streeter* (The Four Gospels, 1924) to a family of MSS of the Greek NT related to the text which Origen used at Caesarea. Its leading representatives are the Koridethi* MS and the two families of minuscules-fam. 1 and fam. 13. This text seems to have been a sort of compromise between the two previous “Western” and “Alexandrian” texts, and because of its consequent similarity in certain points to the Syrian text, its separate existence long escaped detection. K. Lake,* R.P. Blake, and S. New suggested that it probably first came into being in Egypt and was brought by Origen to Caesarea. From there it seems to have been taken on to Jerusalem, to the Armenians (who had a colony in Jerusalem at an early date), and then to the Georgians (the Koridethi MS was found in Georgia). It has therefore been questioned whether the Caesarean text should be thought of as something as distinct as the Western or Alexandrian texts. It is certainly more mixed and less homogeneous. But the work of Streeter has helped to open up an important new line of investigation into the history of the NT text.