Origen and the Hexapla: the Text & Canon Institute Interviews Dr. Peter Gentry

Several months ago, I and Peter Gurry had the chance to sit down and talk with Peter Gentry about Origen as philologist, his Hexapla, and the Text & Canon Institute’s upcoming colloquium (now rescheduled for March 11–12, 2021). In just over 20 minutes we touch on Origen, his great scholarly editions (the Hexapla and the Tetrapla), and also modern efforts to reconstruct the remains of Origen’s work. Also, I’m told I’m quite distracting in the video (but in a good way!). So enjoy that at least :).

Origen as Philologist: Inaugural Text & Canon Institute Colloquium

My colleague and coblogger, Peter Gurry, and I were busy in 2019 planning the first big events for Phoenix Seminary's Text & Canon Institute. Last year, we announced our first church conference, Sacred Words: A Conference on the History of the Bible, to take place on February 21-22, 2020.

This year we announce our first academic colloquium will be on Origen as Philologist. From the colloquium website:

Twenty five years after Oxford’s Rich Seminar sparked a renaissance of research on Origen’s Hexapla, the Phoenix Seminary Text & Canon Institute will host its first colloquium to explore Origen’s textual scholarship and its reception in late antiquity.

Origen of Alexandria moved to Caesarea around AD 230 and soon after began his work on the Hexapla or six-parallel-columned edition of the Old Testament. This edition inspired the preparation of subsequent scholarly editions of the Greek scriptures at the Caesarean Library that impacted the text and exegesis of the Scriptures in their Greek and Hebrew forms there and in other locales.

For its inaugural colloquium, the Text & Canon Institute is bringing together a group of international scholars to write this chapter of the Bible’s history.

The colloquium will take place November 18–19, 2020.

We have assembled a stellar group of scholars for this colloquium to describe classical philology in the Alexandrian tradition and its reception and use by Origen and others of the Caesarean Library. As you make plans to attend conferences in 2020, please consider attending this one in Phoenix. The weather promises to be wonderful and the conversation over Origen to be even better!

An example of how older editions mislead us about patristic citations

Earlier this week, I was speaking to Dirk Jongkind about Luke 1:50. The THGNT adopts the phrase “εἰς γενεὰς καὶ γενεάς“ as the viable reading that cannot be attributed to harmonisation. Some variants include a form of the phrase that uses singulars instead of plurals, “εἰς γενεὰν καὶ γενεάν“ (ℵ01 Ψ044 f¹ f¹³ [including 69] 892 1424) as well as the reading in the majority of manuscripts, “εἰς γενεὰς γενεῶν“ (A[^{nt; the odes have a different reading}] C² D¹ K Δ^c Θ 33 Byz).

One point of reference that Dirk mentioned is that the there might be patristic citations of the phrase that show that the phrase itself, “εἰς γενεὰς καὶ γενεάς“ is not inherently unusual. Sure enough, the TLG turns up two instances that I want to point out here.

The first instance is Origen’s commentary on Psalm 119(118):90. Origen makes an exegetical point that the text is singular, not plural: the two generations are Israel and the Church, so it is specifically “from generation to generation”.

Origen at the TLG

In the second instance, Chrysostom quotes part of Daniel 4:37 (LXX) in one of his Letters to Olympia (10.9), and he uses the exact same phrase:

Chrysostom in the TLG

So, here we have two patristic sources attesting the phrase that is adopted in the THGNT at Luke 1:50. Admittedly, neither of these phrases is a citation of Luke 1:50, but the question we are considering is whether the phrase itself is particularly unusual, and if so, would that mean that it could be subject to variation that would normalise the phrase into something more common. From the look of it, the phrase “εἰς γενεὰς καὶ γενεάς“ is common enough that Origen and Chrysostom use it, which would be a mark against the rationale that the phrase would be normalised and changed away from “εἰς γενεὰς καὶ γενεάς“ to either “εἰς γενεὰν καὶ γενεάν“ or “εἰς γενεὰς γενεῶν“, which are both more commonly attested.

Wait, not so fast.

Trying to do the responsible thing, I went to the CUL to pull the critical editions. Both are in the Sources chrétiennes series (henceforth, SC). The citation of Origen comes from a catena on Psalm 119(118). The edition is Harl, Marguerite, ed. La chaîne palestinienne sur le Psaume 118 (Origène, Eusèbe, Didyme, Apollinaire, Athanase, Théodoret): Tome I. Introduction, texte grec critique et traduction. Sources chrétiennes 189. Paris: Cerf, 1972. When I turned to the relevant pages, I did not find “εἰς γενεὰς καὶ γενεάς“ as the TLG reported for the text here. Instead, the author of the commentary attributed to Origen roughly quotes Psalm 119:90 in the form of the text attested by the Byzantine tradition at Luke 1:50 (there is an added οὖν, but otherwise it is the same):

Origen in the SC edition

Similarly, the TLG also disagrees with the edition of Chrysostom: Malingrey, Anne-Marie, ed. Jean Chrysostome: Lettres à Olympias. Sources chrétiennes 13. Paris: Cerf, 1947. Instead of the plural form of the phrase “εἰς γενεὰς καὶ γενεάς“ that the TLG says is Chrysostom’s text, we find the singular form “εἰς γενεὰν καὶ γενεάν“:

Chrysostom in the SC edition

But wait, there’s more!

This edition was primarily a revision of an older edition rather than being a genuinely new edition, but there is a second edition of this work in the SC series for that. This second edition of Chrysostom, which is the source of the TLG text, does in fact have “εἰς γενεὰς καὶ γενεάς“, and notes two manuscripts (a: Vatican Library, Palatinus gr. 228, and M: Paris, BnF, gr. 657) that have “εἰς γενεὰν καὶ γενεάν“. Malingrey does note that previous editions used these manuscripts for Chrysostom’s text (“a” in Savile, 1612, and “M” in Fronton du Duc, 1614 and Montfaucon, 1821—this is assuming my memory of the relevant page is correct; the Classics library wouldn’t let me borrow the book, so I had to read and take photos of the text itself with my phone):

Chrysostom in SE 2nd edition

_____

What then is the point of this rather pedantic post? There are two points.

1. Pedantic details matter, because [2].

2. When we rely on older editions, we can be misled about the form of the text that a church father quotes. There even appears to be an error in the first edition of the SC edition for Chrysostom that was carried over from previous editions, so sometimes even critical editions don’t quite get it right. And they differ at a phrase for which there are textual variants when it occurs in Luke 1:50. More than that, Origen (or the author of the comment attributed to him) specifically makes an exegetical point about the precise wording of the text, and even there, the SC edition and the TLG disagree on what that precise wording is. TLG’s text of Origen here is based on J.B. Pitra, Analecta sacra spicilegio Solesmensi parata, vols. 2 and 3 (Paris: Tusculum, 1882). This is also an example why it is appropriate to take older literature with a grain of salt when it claims that certain patristic authors supported one reading against another. They might not have.

For more on why we might have problems citing Chrysostom for particular readings, see Peter Montoro’s guest post, here.

Origen Did Think Paul Wrote Hebrews

Hebrews written by Paul in GA 104

Last fall, when teaching Hebrews at the seminary, I did what one does when discussing authorship of Hebrews: I noted that tradition ascribes it to Paul, pointed out that it’s anonymous (but see here), showed why Paul isn’t the author, surveyed the alternate options, and then ended with Origen who says, “But who wrote the epistle, in truth God knows.” Once the standing ovation had died down, I moved on.

The problem with my presentation turns out to be the last part about Origen. The larger context of Origen’s comment is as follows:

But as for myself, if I were to state my own opinion, I should say that the thoughts are the apostle’s, but that the style and composition belong to one who called to mind the apostle’s teachings and, as it were, made short notes of what his master said. If any church, therefore, holds this epistle as Paul’s, let it be commended for this also. For not without reason have the men of old time handed it down as Paul’s. But who wrote the epistle, in truth God knows. Yet the account which has reached us [is twofold], some saying that Clement, who was bishop of the Romans, wrote the epistle, others, that it was Luke, he who wrote the Gospel and the Acts. (Eusebius Hist. Eccl. 6.25.11–14)

Today, a very good article on Origen and the authorship of Hebrews has been published in NTS by Matthew J. Thomas, arguing that I and so many others have misread this passage. Thomas instead shows that the right way to read this is not that Origen doesn’t know who authored Hebrews but that he doesn’t know who put pen to papyrus. Thus, exactly as he says, the thoughts are indeed the apostle’s but the actual composition is someone else’s. Thomas says that “while Origen suspects Hebrews’ composition to involve more than Paul alone, his surprisingly consistent testimony is that the epistle is indeed Paul’s.”

I read the article in an earlier draft and was convinced and had to revise my course notes accordingly. Next time I teach it, I will not be using Origen as evidence against Pauline authorship. (Hopefully I’ll still get the standing-o though.)

You can read the whole argument here.

New Book: A Critical Edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments of Job 22–42

I can finally announce that my critical edition is set to be released this Fall. I still need to work through  another round of proofs this summer, but it will appear by SBL in San Diego. This is the first volume to be published by the Hexapla Institute in Peeters’ new series, Origen’s Hexapla: A Critical Edition of the Extant Fragments. The description for the series is as follows:

Frederick Field’s marvelous late Victorian edition (1875) of the remains of Origen’s Hexapla is now outdated. Field rearranged earlier collections, and added new material, notably retroversions into Greek from Syriac sources. In the course of work on critical editions of the Septuagint, new manuscripts and patristic sources have become available, as well as new editions of Church Fathers and catenae. Some of these contain better readings and even previously unknown material from Origen’s Hexapla. This new critical reconstruction of all known hexaplaric materials is being prepared by the Hexapla Project, a project spawned by the Hexapla Institute under the aegis of I.O.S.C.S.

 The description for A Critical Edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments of Job 22–42 is as follows:

A Critical Edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments of Job 22-42 contains the established text of all the preserved readings of Origen’s Hexapla in Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Armenian for Job 22-42 with variant author attributions and variant readings presented in a series of apparatuses. In most entries, the editor has supplied Notes in the form of brief commentary on the readings. This edition of hexaplaric fragments surpasses previous editions (e.g. Frederick Field’s work) in two ways: (1) the edition contains more readings of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion and (2) the critical text of each reading is based on the most up-to-date manuscript evidence for the hexaplaric readings of Job. The new edition will have immediate relevance for textual criticism of the TaNaK/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the Greek lexicon of the late second temple period, and early Jewish and Christian interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures in Greek.

I’m thrilled to see this project nearing completion and hope this volume represents well the vision of its editorial committee: Peter Gentry, Alison Salvesen, and Bas ter Haar Romeny. There are several more volumes for the series in the pipeline, and it’s exciting to see growing interest in this field, both for its own sake and also as it relates to Old Testament textual criticism.

XVIII. International Conference on Patristic Studies at Oxford

Every four years the International Conference on Patristic Studies meets at Oxford. This year it meets from August 19–24, and I’ve made plans to participate.

Dr. Francesca Barone (Chargée de recherche au CNRS) and I have organized a workshop entitled, “Early Christians and the Books at the Edges of the Canon” [proposal PDF]. The papers to be presented in the workshop are as follows:

Alessandro De Blasi: Gregory Nazianzen’s poem I 1, 12: On the Genuine Books of the Holy Scripture 

John Meade: Origen and the Disputed Books: A Reappraisal of the Evidence for an Origenic Recension of Books Outside the Hebrew Canon 

Francesca Barone: The Book of Esther in John Chrysostom’s Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae  

Edmon Gallagher: Jerome’s Use of the Deuterocanonical Literature 

Claudine Cavalier: Between the Sages and the Fathers: Esther, a key book

I plan to combine some of my interests in this paper: Origen’s work as grammarian and the disputed books. Here is the abstract of my paper:

In the first half of the third century, Origen created a six-columned synopsis, the Hexapla (perhaps more columns were added as needed for books like Psalms), for those books that were extant in Hebrew, the Seventy, and the Three Jewish revisers (Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion). Debatably, from this work, Origen published a corrected edition of the version of the Seventy. This revised version of the Seventy went through further corrections at the hands of Pamphilus and Eusebius (cf. the many colophons bearing their names in these contexts). But did Origen make a revised edition of the Greek version for the disputed books? In this paper, I will survey the evidence for Origen’s recension of the disputed books for which there seems to be evidence: Baruch, Sirach/Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, and Judith. After surveying the relevant data, I analyze the evidence of a revision of Sirach/Ben Sira further before drawing some preliminary conclusions about Origen’s textual work on this book and others like it.

The overall program for the conference appears to be full of very interesting papers. I look forward to gathering with friends and colleagues in Oxford. It will be my first visit there, and I could not be more excited about it.

Africanus–Origen Correspondence and the Form of Greek Daniel

As often happens in research, while investigating one topic, one becomes distracted by another. In several of my pursuits, the book of Daniel keeps surfacing, and I keep blogging on it. In this post, I tie together a couple of loose threads on the textual form of the book of Greek Daniel.

Order of Sections in Greek Daniel

In a previous post, I noted different orders of the sections/pericopes of the book of Greek Daniel according to B, Q, and Syh. B and Q represent (though with different paratextual features) what appears to have become the dominant order in MSS: Sus–Dan–Bel et Draco, and Syh represented Dan–Sus–Bel–Draco, all set off with separate titles, even though the opening title of the book was “Daniel according to the Seventy” in this same MS. In a post from last week, I commented on Ra 967 in conjunction with my research on Esther but did note that the order of pericopes for Daniel are as follows: Dan–Bel et Draco–Sus, though we can’t be certain whether there were pericope divisions or titles since the joins between Dan–Bel and Draco–Sus in the MS are in lacunae. This MS appears to be the only one that has this order of the sections, and one wonders whether it was because the 2nd/3rd century scribe wanted to place Susanna next to Esther, but I speculate here.

Enter: The Africanus-Origen Correspondence

The Africanus-Origen correspondence probably occurred around 248 AD. This is not the place to launch into all the debates over certain matters in this correspondence (e.g. Origen’s views of the Seventy and Hebrew texts), but there are a couple of places where these letters appear to provide a clue as to the order of the sections of Greek Daniel. First, in Ep. Or. 7, Africanus says, “Now above all these, this pericope (περικοπή) [Susanna] together with the other two at the end (ἐπὶ τῷ τέλει) does not circulate in the [book of] Daniel having been received by/among the Jews.” He does not name Bel et Draco, but he knows of these pericopes at the end of the book and mentions “two other” pericopes–not one.

What was the Hexapla?

What was the Hexapla? There is the question of what were the readings that were at one time in the Hexapla as presented here, here, and here. Then, there is the question of what was the Hexapla? We have to ask this question because it was not transmitted much (if at all), and there is no manuscript to date that we can point to and say, “that’s the Hexapla.” This is one of the saddest truths of literary history. Furthermore, these questions do not answer “Why the Hexapla?” or “How the Hexapla“, which are also interesting questions.

Quick Description

Now, the quick answer is that the Hexapla was Origen’s (ca. 185-254) six-columned synopsis containing the following versions of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: (1) the Hebrew text in Hebrew letters, (2) the Hebrew text in Greek letters, i.e., in Greek transliteration, (3) the Greek version of Aquila, (4) the Greek version of Symmachus, (5) the Greek version of the Seventy, and (6) the Greek version of Theodotion. So far this description matches the early patristic descriptions of Eusebius and Epiphanius of Salamis (who also say that for some books like Psalms, Origen had a Fifth and a Sixth edition; read about them here). Eusebius says:

Having collected all of these [Greek versions], he divided them into sections, and placed them opposite each other, with the indication (σημείωσις) itself of Hebrew [Ἑβραίων pl.] [versions?]. He thus left us the copies (ἀντίγραφον) of the so-called Hexapla, having arranged separately the edition (ἔκδοσις) of Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion with the edition of the Seventy in the Tetrapla (Hist. eccl. 6.16.4; ANFP [adapted]).

The term σημείωσις “indication, inference from a sign” is an interesting way to describe a “text,” but perhaps this term indicates the Hebrew versions in Columns 1 and 2; that is, the Hebrew and its inference, meaning its sense or meaning in transliteration. Since he calls this work “the Hexapla“ and there are four Greek versions, he must envision the very “inference” of Hebrews as two texts. Now, there are two problems we should address.

Rabbi Joseph on Origen’s Book and Jerome

In David Kimhi: The Man and the Commentaries by Frank Ephraim Talmage (Harvard, 1975), we read the following assessment of Origen’s Book and Jerome’s Vulgate from R. Joseph Kimhi (1105-1170; father of David):

[Jerome’s text was based on] the Book of Origen, the most ancient and authoritative [text and the one] from which your text was translated. Everything is dependent upon it. For it was dictated by the prophets, and Jerome the translator relied upon it, translated from it, and trusted it, with the exception of a few words which he did not understand or which were contrary to his belief and which he altered, changing the root of the faith to wormwood (pp. 87-8).

This is an interesting text, and I want to look into it more. I would not think this “Book of Origen” could be the Hexapla since that book had long disappeared. But could it refer to another Greek text still in circulation that was associated with Origen’s textual work? Perhaps. Or is it somehow an historical evaluation that claims Jerome based his work on Origen’s Hexapla? I don’t know. Still, the assessment that Jerome based his Vulgate on this book is an overstatement, since the Vulgate appears to go its own way regularly, even if it did make some use of Origen’s work.

HT: Twitter

Symmachus and the Text of Job 24:25b

In preparation of my critical edition of the Hexaplaric fragments of Job 22-42 for the Hexapla Project, I am noticing again some of the gems among the texts of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion that Origen once assembled in full parallel columns but now come down to us mainly in fragmentary, marginal notes in Christian MSS. The text of Job 24:25b is such a text. Here are the relevant readings:

Hebrew Text: וְיָשֵׂם לְאַל מִלָּתִי׃

And (who) will make my word as not/nothing?

Theodotion (not Old Greek): καὶ θήσει εἰς οὐδὲν τὰ ῥήματά μου

and (who) will set my words as nothing?

Symmachus: καὶ τάξει τῷ θεῷ λόγον ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ

and (who) will deliver a speech to God on my behalf?

Unfortunately, we do not have the text of Symmachus for 25a, but it was probably close to the Old Greek and Hebrew, which is a question on the lips of Job asking, “Who is the one who says that I speak lies?” The Theodotion version (in lieu of the Old Greek) continues the question: “and who will set my words as nothing?” The wording of this line matches the Hebrew closely, except Theodotion must have read מלתי as a plural, not the singular of the later MT. According to this reading, Job appears to be asking who of his three friends will contradict him or show his word to be nothing or of no validity.

The Symmachus version reveals a different reading of the same consonantal text of MT. Symmachus read אל as אֵל “God,” not as later MT’s אַל “no, not.” Furthermore, Symmachus interpreted the final word in the Hebrew “my word” as a word on Job’s behalf (speech on behalf of me), not as a simple possessive pronominal suffix as the Hebrew would be normally construed and as Theodotion read it plainly. Symmachus has read the text differently. He appears to have understood Job’s question not as directed to his three friends but to someone else who could deliver a speech to God on his behalf.

At first blush, this seems like an odd reading. But when we remember that in the so-called witness passages (Job 9:32-35, Job 16:18-22, and Job 19:20-27) that Job has already perceived something of the role of the heavenly court introduced in chs. 1-2 and that his advocate is in heaven (“if not he, then who is it”), perhaps Symmachus read the text of Job 24:25b in light of this understanding. In the midst of the third speech cycle and at the end of Job’s speech, plausibly, Symmachus has read the Hebrew text as Job once again making an appeal to his heavenly advocate who can make his case to God. Of course, all of this reasoning probably indicates that this reading is secondary to the one in MT and Theodotion, but it is still interesting to consider from an exegetical point of view.

One more interesting piece of context comes from reception history. This reading of Symmachus is only preserved beside Job 24:25b in the margin of a relative few Christian manuscripts of the Job catenae, sometimes without an attribution to him. That means Christian scribes continued to find this reading of some exegetical value for this text. We can’t know for sure because I can’t find an explicit comment from a church father that uses this wording exactly (I haven’t attempted an exhaustive search), but perhaps it’s worth speculating that early Christian interpreters found a Christological reference in Symmachus’s version of Job 24:25b, for in it they found Job asking a question to a heavenly advocate who could make an appeal to God on his behalf.

Origen’s knowledge of (multiple) manuscripts of Mark

It is often noted that Mark’s Gospel is not well represented among our early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament or in citations and comments in the Early Fathers (see e.g. Head, 2012).

So I was interested in reading through Origen’s Contra Celsum (as one does - actually for a reading group here in Oxford) to come to the discussion of Celsus’ accusation that the followers of Jesus were all wicked tax-collectors and sailors (Book 1, #62). Origen explains that of the twelve only Matthew was a tax collector. He then says (reading Chadwick’s ET): ‘I grant that the Leves who also followed Jesus was a tax-collector; but he was not of the number of the apostles, except according to one of the copies of the gospel according to Mark.’

I thought it was interesting to see that by the time he wrote Contra Celsum (late in his life according to Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. VI.36.2, post AD 245) Origen could note such a divergence in the manuscripts at Mark 3.18, and could know this variant reading which we know as existing only in Codex Bezae among Greek witnesses (Lebbaion is read in place of Thaddion in Codex Bezae and a good number of Old Latin witnesses). [With Donaldson’s main point, but against her question as to whether this might relate to Mark 2.14, I think this must relate to the passage which numbers the twelve apostles, i.e. Mark 3.18 (as also Koetschau’s notes in the GCS edition)]

When I got back to the office, I thought I should check the Greek text (generally this is a good policy - and ideally before opening one’s mouth in an Oxford seminar):

Ἔστω δὲ καὶ ὁ Λευὴς τελώνης ἀκολουθήσας τῷ Ἰησοῦ· ἀλλ᾿ οὔτι γε τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τῶν ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ ἦν εἰ μὴ κατά τινα τῶν ἀντιγράφων τοῦ κατὰ Μάρκον εὐαγγελίου.

Now it seems that Chadwick’s translation is quite faulty in its definiteness (‘according to one of the copies ...’) and we should think that Origen’s comment is that a reading which includes Levi within the number of the twelve is found ‘in some of the copies’. Even more interesting.

Bibliography

• A.M. Donaldson, Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings among Greek and Latin Church Fathers (PhD; Notre Dame, 2009)
• P.M. Head,‘The Early Text of Mark’ in The Early Text of the New Testament (eds. Charles E. Hill and Michael J. Kruger; Oxford: OUP, 2012), 108–120. 
• B.M. Metzger, ‘Explicit References in the Works of Origen to Variant Readings in New Testament Manuscripts’ in J.N. Birdsall and R.W. Thomson (eds.), Biblical and Patristic Essays in Memory of Robert Pierce Casey (Freiburg: Herder, 1967), 78–95. Reprinted in B.M. Metzger, Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian, New Testament Tools and Studies 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 88–103. [I couldn’t find my copy of this, but Donaldson notes that Metzger mentions this passage.]

Origen on Textual Criticism and Biblical Authority

Over at his blog, Alex Poulos has posted an interesting translation of Origen’s sermon on Psalm 78 (LXX 77). The issue at hand for Origen involves the first verse: “I shall open my mouth in parables, I shall speak riddles as from the beginning.” This is quoted in Matt 13.35 and the problem is that Origen’s text of Matthew attributes this not to a prophet generically, but to Isaiah specifically. This is the reading found today in 01*, Θ, f^{1, 13}, 33, pc. Origen explains this as a simple scribal mistake:

It’s likely that one of the very first scribes found the text, “so that what was said through the prophet Asaph,” and supposed that it was an error because he did not realize that Asaph was a prophet. This caused him rashly to write “Isaiah” instead of “Asaph” because of his unfamiliarity with the prophet’s name.

But then he goes on to discuss the theological cause of textual corruption.

Now it must be said that the devil generally plots against living creatures and plans to divide the churches, to contrive heresies and schisms, and to produce countless stumbling blocks among men. It’s no surprise, then, that he also plots against the scriptures. Since our salvation is through them, he contrives to introduce discrepancies among them, so that through these discrepancies readers might be scandalized. Which are we to heed, this one or that one? You know all that we have labored over for God and for his grace, in juxtaposing the Hebrew text and the other editions to ascertain the proper correction of these mistakes. He will also grant aid in all that we want to do about the rest.

In Search of the Caesarean Text

Right now I am working on an SBL paper on Mark 1:1, "The Son of God Was in the Beginning" (perhaps you can guess from the title which reading I am arguing for). In any case I am working through the patristic citations, which has been very rewarding. One very important father who cite Mark 1:1 is Origen.

He invariably cites the short version in several passages in his Commentary on the Gospel of John, in one passage in his Commentary on Ephesians (fragmentarily preserved) and in Contra Celsum. Gordon Fee who has examined Origen’s Marcan text cited in the commentary on John describes it as “Egyptian” (Alexandrian) in Books 1–10 (1, 2, 6 and 10 are extant). As already Griesbach observed, Origen seems to have used a different copy of Mark for the latter part of the commentary, and B. H. Streeter subsequently found this text to be especially close codex Θ and its relatives (incidentally, Θ also has the short version of Mark 1:1). Origen completed the commentary after he had moved from Alexandria to Caesarea (ca. 231), and, hence, the text-type was labeled “Caesearean.”

However, the three citations of Mark 1:1 are found in the former part of the commentary where Origen used the earlier copy of Mark before he changed in Caesarea at some point. Contra Celsum, on the other hand, was written in Caesarea (ca. 248), whereas it is impossible to say when and where Origen wrote his Commentary on Ephesians. In sum, Origen’s citations of Mark 1:1 appear in works written in distinct places covering a long period of time; it is of course impossible to assign this particular citation to any specific text-type. Besides, the issue of text-types in general has been debated, and the existence of a "Caesarean" text-type in particular has been questioned. Is it a distinct text-type, and, if so, only in Mark?

This post has been inspired by an odd dream I had tonight, which I only remember fragmentarily. I dreamt I was going on a bus travel to Caesarea with other text-critics to somehow find out the truth about the Caesarean text. I remember entering the bus and taking my seat beside Ulrich Schmid when suddenly I realized that I had forgotten to bring my luggage! I had to climb off the bus and I missed the trip. I wonder if the other guys found the Caesarean text.