 not too hard to explain once it is remembered that there were historical connections between the Syrian and Ethiopian churches. The location of the Armenian suggests that it was revised against a secondary Alexandrian model. Streeter anticipated this, although he thought the revisers' model was a “Caesarean” rather than “Alexandrian” text. Speaking of the fifty Bibles commissioned by Constantine from Eusebius, whose texts might be expected to be like those current in Caesarea at the time, he wrote:
Thus many of the fifty copies originally made for Constantinople, more of less corrected to the standard [i.e. Byzantine] text, would get into the provinces... I venture the suggestion that one of these discarded MSS. was used by St. Mesrop and St. Sahak to revise the Armenian version.
 Could it be that the “secondary Alexandrian” cluster contains witnesses descended from Constantine's fifty? Such a monumental event in textual history as the production of those fifty might be expected to have left a mark on the tradition, and the MDS map may be revealing its echoes here.
 Until now nothing has been said about the textual locations of P46 and B (Codex Vaticanus), the first being our oldest and the second, so some would say, best witness to the “original” text. Looking at the particular projection shown in the preceding MDS map would suggest that B should be associated with a location far to the east of any Christian population centre that flourished in the first two centuries after Christ. Furthermore, P46 would be associated with Palestine or Syria. Surely something is wrong! Taking another two-dimensional projection of the three-dimensional map resolves these difficulties:
 Now a geographical interpretation would place the texts of P46 and B in their own locality to the west of the rest: P46 might even be associated with Italy and B could be interpreted as a text with Italian and African ancestry. The Old Latin and Vulgate texts would be associated with the western side of the north-eastern region. Asia Minor fits this description, a possibility which was again anticipated by Streeter when he said, “there is a certain amount of evidence that in the second century the text used at Ephesus was akin to that found in ... the European Latin.”  Whether the Old Latins go back to a particular geographical location or locations is unknown, and it may be that a study which applies multivariate analysis to the Latin manuscript tradition will throw light on the subject.
 Perhaps P46 preserves an Italian text? This manuscript is almost unique in placing the Letter to the Hebrews immediately after the Letter to the Romans. Trobisch explains the unusual placement by reference to the lengths of the writings in the Pauline corpus. However, if the Letter to the Hebrews was originally addressed to Rome and was subsequently broadcast from there, one can imagine that an Italian copyist would give Hebrews pride of place in a copy which eventually gave rise to descendants such as P46.
 The MDS maps are food for thought. A geographical interpretation, which is inherently two-dimensional, cannot be pressed too far given that two- or even three-dimensional representations account for less than half of the distance information contained in a typical apparatus. Furthermore, it may be that another factor such as organizational structure within the early church was more influential in determining which channels of textual transmission would predominate. Even so, these MDS maps provide a clue that the textual space occupied by New Testament witnesses has been shaped by geographical forces.
 A final question remains. Where would the “original” text be located? Epp warns that the term “original” is multivalent (i.e. has multiple meanings) when used in relation to the New Testament text:
The issue of “original text” is, for example, more complex than the issue of canon, because the former includes questions of both canon and authority. It is more complex than possessing Greek gospels when Jesus spoke primarily Aramaic, because the transmission of traditions 