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VERITAS
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THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
BS.
2550
T2
As
432
London: C. J. CLAỶ AND SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
Cambridge: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN
A PRELIMINARY STUDY
amez
BY
J. RENDEL HARRIS,
FORMERLY FELLOW OF CLARE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
AND NOW PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LANGUAGES IN HAVERFORD COLLEGE
PENNSYLVANIA.
LONDON:
C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
1890
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
12-12
'ell w.jood
PREFACE.
HE following notes are an attempt to meet the needs of
THE
students who are commencing the study of the relation of the
re-discovered - Harmony of Tatian to the early texts and versions
of the New Testament. For such an important and far-reaching
enquiry we are not likely to have too many helps by the
way. Those who read German will enjoy Zahn's masterly study
of the question; but in view of the published Arabic version
of Tatian's Harmony, there is much in Zahn that needs to be
re-stated; those who do not read German will be obliged to
use Hemphill's little book, which contains some of the principal
facts about Tatian and his work, but does not profess to offer
anything that is new. There is certainly room for one more short
introductory tract on the subject. I cannot but believe that we
are on the border of a new era in the criticism of the origin of
the Gospels, and that before long the obscurity which hangs over
the primitive texts will in great measure disappear; the multi-
tude of possible hypotheses is in process of rapid reduction;
there is an enormous heap in the critical threshing-floor, it is
true; but we may live to see the chaff and corn fly asunder.
314480
I. TATIAN
CONTENTS.
II. THE MSS. UPON WHICH THE ARABIC TRANSLATION OF TATIAN'S
PAGE
1
HARMONY IS BASED
5
III. HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE DIATESSARON
A. Doctrine of Addai
B. Eusebius
9
•
9
10
C.
Epiphanius
•
D. Rabbula
E.
Theodoret
F.
Bar-Ali
G.
Bar-Bahlul
11
12
13
13
14
•
•
H. Dionysius Bar-Salibi
14
I.
J.
Gregory Bar-Hebraeus
Ebed-Jesu
15
•
16
•
K. A scholiast in Ev. 72
IV. QUOTATIONS FROM THE DIATESSARON
A. Doctrine of Addai
B. Aphraates
C. Ephrem
16
17
17
19
•
•
22
V. THE RELATED HARMONY OF VICTOR OF CAPUA
25
VI. APOCRYPHAL ADDITIONS TO THE GOSPELS FOUND IN THE DIA-
TESSARON
27
VII. COMBINATIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS IN THE TEXT OF THE
HARMONY
35
VIII. TRACES OF THE DIATESSARON IN THE MSS. OF THE GREEK
AND LATIN GOSPELS
42
IX. TEXTUAL RELATIONS OF THE TATIAN HARMONY
50
X. UNSOLVED PROBLEMS
APPENDIX ON CODEX Wd
59
62
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
BY
J. RENDEL HARRIS.
I. TATIAN.
THE present tract offers itself as a study of the work of a
famous Church writer of the second century, whose direct
influence over the men of his day must have been very great,
if we may judge from the circle of holy acquaintance in which
he moved, and the disciples that attached themselves to his
teaching; and whose indirect influence over the Church at large
by means of the edition of the Gospels which he brought out, to
say nothing of his other works, remains still an uncalculated
factor of which we can hardly say less than that it must have
been wide-spread, since it outlived for centuries the excommuni-
cation with which the Church visited both the man and his
writings. But, while we may feel safe in regarding Tatian as
one of the leading Christians of the second century, we cannot
say that we know much of the details of his personal life. There
is nothing that operates more powerfully as an 'oblivious antidote'
in the consciousness of the early Christian centuries than an
excommunication¹; and, while in modern times heresy has often been
the passport to biographical honor and a certain measure of dignity,
there is hardly a case of the kind in the early days; for one can
hardly dignify with the name of history the scanty and often
misleading notices which are found in the pages of Epiphanius
and other writers on the primitive heresies, nor can we accuse
these writers of the fault of excessive charity towards doubtful
characters.
What we know about Tatian is, then, briefly as follows: he was
¹ I suppose Mr Hemphill to mean something of this kind when, in his Diates-
saron, p. ix., he says that Tatian's “influence for good had outlived itself”!
H. V.
1
2
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
a native of Assyria (by which we are to understand, in all proba-
bility, the country east of the Tigris) who came to Rome in the
days of Justin Martyr. In those times the search for truth was
commonly accompanied by the outward and visible sign of a
pilgrim's staff; and Tatian's long outward journeyings are no
inapt representation of the visits which his enquiring mind made
to the various schools of Greek philosophy. He went through
dry places, seeking rest and finding none. The solemn assemblies
of the philosophic seemed to him to be a mere dogmatizing of
one against another, and a crude venting of transitory fancies.
Rhetoric was worse than philosophy, a mere hireling taking sides.
for a fee; and as for poetry its chief end seemed to be to glorify
the amours of the gods and to secure the corruption of the
soul.
We shall probably be right in referring the conversion of
Tatian to Christianity to the influence of Justin, whom he met
in Rome. Not only did he accept Justin as his teacher in the
new faith, and imitate, in his presentation of Christianity, the
method of Justin, which of itself suggests that the influence of
Justin goes back into the first stages of his Christian life; but
the terms in which he describes his conversion are parallel to
Justin's own experience. Precisely as Justin was led by his
instructor to make a careful study of the Hebrew Scriptures, so
Tatian affirms that he lighted on certain barbaric writings too old
to be compared with the opinions of the Greeks and too divine to
be compared with their errors; and from the study of these
writings he at length came to find within himself the principle of
truth which he had sought without in so many quarters: and it
shews something of the struggle through which he had passed,
when we find him saying that, when we dig for the hidden
treasure of the kingdom, we may indeed be covered with dust,
but we secure it as our lasting possession.
The Address to the Greeks, the only one of Tatian's works
which has survived besides the Harmony of the Gospels, gives
many suggestions of the writer's experience; and although some of
the methods which he employs are very foreign to our time, and
some of his points sound oddly enough in the nineteenth century
(as for instance when he refuses to believe a philosophy-say that
of Anaxagoras—which maintains the sun to be a red-hot mass,
and the moon an earth), we can readily forgive the defect of his
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
3
physics, when he tells us that the chief business of man is to seek
for what we once lost, to unite the soul with the Holy Spirit, and
to strive after Union with God. Nor is it to be wondered at that
a man who expresses himself in this language of the Mystics
should have shewn tendencies of an ascetic character, since every
mystic is at some part of his career an ascetic, and in the early
Church it often happened that the whole of the Christian life was
made the arena of the spiritual athlete, in which he combated the
foes that he found in his flesh. So that we need not be surprised
that Tatian abandoned the use of wine and of flesh-meats, and
that he denounced marriage, and that he wrote a treatise on the
teachings of our Lord concerning Perfection.
The early fathers affirm that, as long as Tatian was under
Justin's influence, no extravagance was found in him deserving of
censure; and they are probably right in referring the more formal
development of his views to the later part of his life. His
fellowship with Justin was unbroken up to the close of Justin's
earthly career; and when the machinations of the cynic philo-
sopher Crescens were employed to revenge upon the Christian
teacher the denunciation of his vile life, Tatian was, as he him-
self tells us, exposed to the same danger as Justin: so that we
may be sure that Tatian never was excommunicated by his
teacher. After Justin's death, Tatian became a prominent leader
of Christian thought. Amongst his pupils were Rhodon, of whose
writings some fragments are preserved, and no less a personage
than Clement of Alexandria. We may conjecture that his inter-
course with the latter is to be assigned to the return of Tatian
to his native country Assyria by way of Greece'. The extreme
asceticism of Tatian is condemned by Clement in his writings,
which is another indication that in his later life he must have
become more pronounced in his views: and we may therefore say
that Tatian became an Encratite (as the Ascetics of that day were
named) after his return to the East, and (which is perhaps involved
in the preceding term) a Gnostic. Certainly he must have ac-
cepted so much of Marcion's views as concerns the belief in a
1 The language of Clement of Alexandria is as follows (Strom., 1. 1): "of these
blessed men, one was in Greece, the Ionian; the other in Magna Grecia; another
of these from Coele Syria, and one from Egypt: and others in the East of whom
one was born in the land of Assyria, and the other a Hebrew from Palestine." He
is generally understood in these last cases to refer to Tatian and Theodotus.
1-2
4
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
Demiurge, and the distinction between the Good God and the
Just God, for he interpreted the sentence, "Let there be light," as
a prayer made by some lesser being, some struggling Ajax of an
inferior deity, to the Supreme God. He also took an extreme
view with regard to the salvability of Adam, and is condemned by
the fathers for not recognising that, so far from Adam being the
representative lost soul, we ought rather to believe that, where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound: an argument which
Irenæus did not seem, in giving it, to realize as capable of an
application beyond the immediate subject. We shall shew by-
and-by that all of these views, or nearly all,-celibacy, disuse of
wine in the Eucharist and elsewhere, Gnostic distinction of God,
non-salvability of Adam,-are commented upon by Ephrem in the
exposition which he made of the Tatian Harmony; and, since no
personal allusion is made to Tatian throughout Ephrem's work, we
can form some idea of the hold which his principles must have
taken in Mesopotamia, for his work remained in circulation long
after he was dead and his errors are discussed anonymously.
We may now proceed to the discussion of the Diatessaron,
Tatian's Gospel-harmony, and we may observe that this work
had been to all appearances lost at a very early date. At least
the historical notices which we have of it are all early except
those in a few Syrian writers. No attention had been paid to the
Arabic codex brought by Assemani to the Vatican library more
than a century and a half ago, which was said to contain a version
of the Diatessaron. But as soon as Ephrem's commentary on it
was made accessible in a Latin translation by Mösinger, and it was
recognized that the early Syrian father Aphraates quoted it
extensively, it became possible for Zahn to make a critical study
of the Diatessaron and to attempt to reconstitute a part of the
text mainly from Ephrem's commentary assisted by the homilies
of Aphraates. Remarkable as a successful attempt at textual
reconstruction, it yet gives but an imperfect idea of the text of
the Diatessaron: it contains only about one-fifth of the whole
work, and even that in a most fragmentary and disjointed con-
dition, while the textual accuracy of a large portion is doubtful
and tentative. This is not said in disparagement of Zahn's
wonderful work, but to correct a misapprehension which seems
quite current, that he has practically reconstituted the entire text.
This opinion is embodied in the elaborate paper in Smith and
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
5
20
Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography, where it is stated that
he has recovered and "printed the text in detail.”
On the other hand, for textual criticism, Zahn's text, as far as
it goes, is far more valuable than the Arabic version. In the
former we have the primitive, in the latter a reformed text. A
slight comparison will make this quite clear. Tatian's original
Syriac text agreed in great part with the Curetonian Syriac (Sc.
of Zahn), and evidently preceded the Peshito (P.) or reformed
Syriac text. This is shewn by Zahn. It is a disappointment to
find that, in the case of the Arabic version, the passages where
there was a substantial difference between Sc. and P. have been
altered to conform to the latter. It is impossible to say exactly
at what time this was done, and whether in the Syriac original
or in the Arabic version. It seems, however, probable that, after
the Peshito had become the authoritative text, fresh copies of
the Diatessaron were made to agree with it, probably long before
the ninth century, when the Syriac MS. from which the Arabic
version was made, was written by a pupil of Honain.
A second textual change, also to be regretted, consisted in the
omission of a large proportion of the passages introduced by
Tatian into the Gospel narrative, which were either wholly apo-
cryphal or adapted from some other Gospel passage. Most of
these have disappeared from the Arabic version, probably by a
process of gradual elimination, but those that still remain in
Zahn's fragments are sufficient proof that their number in the
original text was considerable'.
II. THE MSS. UPON WHICH THE TEXT OF THE DIATESSARON
IS BASED.
The Diatessaron of Tatian has been preserved to us in an
Arabic version of which two MSS. are now in Rome; the text of
these MSS. has been published by Agostino Ciasca, a well-known
Orientalist and one of the guild of Scriptors connected with the
Vatican library. One of these MSS. has long been known as
1 The obliteration of the Israelitish character of the Gospels as shewn, e.g., by
the omission of the words "in Israel," "among the Israelites" &c., as noticed by
Zahn, is not to be found in the Arabic version.
2 Tatiani Evangeliorum Harmoniae Arabice. Nunc primum ex duplici codice
edidit et translatione latina donavit P. Augustinus Ciasca ord. Erem. S. Augustini,
Biblioth. Ap. Vat. Scriptor, Romae, 1888.
6
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
existing in the Vatican library; while the other has recently been
brought from Egypt, and is now in the possession of the Museo
Borgiano at the College of the Propaganda. From these Arabic
MSS., which are in close textual relation with one another, Ciasca
produces an edited text which may confidently be taken to
represent the Tatian Harmony in the form of its first Arabic
appearance, and he accompanies this text with a translation,
designedly expressed, as far as might be done, in the terms of the
Clementine Vulgate. It must be admitted that this method of
text transference is somewhat misleading: the assumption being
made that the original text of Tatian underlies the Arabic, it
would be more reasonable to connect it with those earlier Latin
versions, whose critical relations with the text of Tatian are
certainly extremely close, by means of an apparatus criticus,
even if no attempt was made to employ their modes of expression
in the translation of the Arabic. It is true that Ciasca's edition
does not pretend to be a critical one, and consists merely of text
and translation without prolegomena, excursuses or foot-notes,
mainly in order to avoid delay in the publication.
Denoting the two MSS. from which the Arabic text is taken
by the signs A and B we collect the following data concerning
them from the published accounts: and first in regard to MS. A,
which, because of its completeness, forms the basis of the text
though it is but carelessly written. It is not a little strange that
this MS. should have waited so long for an editor, when it was
definitely described more than 150 years ago by Stephen E.
Assemani in the Catalogue of the Vatican Arabic MSS. (Mai, Vet.
Script. Nov. Coll. iv. 14), amongst which it bears the number XIV.,
as being the very Diatessaron of Tatian. For Assemani quotes its
colophon as follows: "In fine fol. 123 haec a librariis adnotata
reperies: Explicit auxilio Dei sacrosanctum Evangelium quod ex
quatuor Evangeliis collegit Tatianus, quodque Diatessaron vulgo
dicitur. Et laus Deo." It was described with equal clearness by
Joseph S. Assemani (who brought it to the Vatican library) in his
Bibl. Or. 1. 619, as Tatiani Diatessaron seu quatuor Evangelia in
unum redacta. The MS. consists of 123 leaves of paper, written pro-
bably in Egypt, by a hand judged variously to be of the twelfth
or probably of the fourteenth century. The book, especially in the
earlier part, is in a bad state of preservation: one leaf is missing
after fol. 17, and another after fol. 117. By a curious misunder-
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
7
זי
standing on the part of Assemani, it was believed for a long while
that this Ms. commenced with the Gospel of Mark, instead of begin-
ning, as tradition affirms of the Tatian Harmony, with the fourth
Gospel. Thus, according to Assemani, the introduction stood as
follows: Exordium primum Evangelii ex Murco. Dixit Initium
praedicationis Jesu Christi: and, although the Gospel of John
follows immediately upon this, the tendency of the words quoted
was to obscure the identification of the text with Tatian, It was
however suggested by Ciasca, in a preliminary pamphlet published
some time ago¹, that the words were the gloss of a scribe, directing
the reader to commence the Harmony, much in the same way as in
modern churches the preface is made, "Here beginneth" in reading
the lesson. According to Ciasca the words should therefore run:
Incipe exordium Evangelii ejus ex Marco. Dic: Initium evangelii
Jesu Christi, Filii Dei. This explanation turns out not to be
perfectly correct, but the conjecture was verified, in so far as the
statement was made that the prefixed words were not a part of
the Harmony, by the recovery of the second Ms. (B), which has
them in a slightly different form at the close of a prologue to
the Harmony and detached from the text. This at once suggests
that the MS. A is, in some of its details, subordinate to, and a
later form than that of B, a supposition which the following
consideration confirms. The early tradition concerning Tatian
emphatically asserts that his Harmony did not contain the genea-
logies of our Lord as found in Matthew and Luke. These
genealogies are, however, found in the Vatican text. A reference
to the text of B shews them, not indeed in the text, but as an
appendix to the Harmony, that is to say, in the first stage of the
process of insertion. Such an observation, while it establishes to
a certain extent the subordinate character of the text of A, and
vindicates the identification of the text of the Harmony with that
of Tatian, awakens at once our suspicion as to the state of
preservation of the text itself. It is very unlikely that MSS.
which shew the absorption of such considerable interpolations
(which were probably made as an appendix in their Syriac
ancestor) should have remained free from those lesser and almost
unconscious adaptations by which the text of a Biblical Ms. is
¹ De Tatiani Diatessaron Arabica Versione. Cod. Vat. decimum quartum de-
scripsit, etc. A. Ciasca, Paris, 1883. (Extract from Pitra's Analecta Sacra Spicil.
Solesm. Vol. IV. p. 465 sqq.)
8
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
continually conformed to the received texts of the time in which it
is written. We must be prepared, therefore, to find accretions
and omissions in the transmitted text of the Harmony as received
from the Arabic copies.
The second MS. of the Harmony (B of Ciasca) was presented in
1886 to the Borgian Museum by Halim Dos Galî, a Copt in
communion with the Catholic Church. It consists of 355 leaves
of paper, and is referred to the 14th century: the first part of the
book is occupied with a prefatory dissertation on the Gospels; the
Tatian Harmony being found on foll. 96-353. From the
prologue to the Harmony, as well as from a note at its closing
page, we obtain the following important information :
1. That the Harmony is the work of Tatian, called Dia-
tessaron, or Quaternary :
2. That it was translated from Syriac into Arabic by a certain
Abulfaraj¹, or, as the scribe calls him with fuller name, Abulfaraj
Abdullah Ben-at-tîb:
3. That the copy used by Abulfaraj was a Syriac Ms. made
by the hand of 'Isa ben Ali Almottabbeb a disciple of the
celebrated Abu Zaid Honain ben Ishaq.'
This Honain was a famous Syrian physician and writer in
medicine, who died in the year 873, and whose headquarters were at
Bagdad, at the court of the Khalifs. He was noted as a literary
leader and as the head of a school of translators from Greek into
Syriac and into Arabic which was very important in the develop-
ment of Arabic culture. Since Almottabbeb was his disciple, we
can hardly place the translation of the Diatessaron into Arabic
earlier than the end of the ninth century. Further, the date of the
death of Abulfaraj is given by Bar-hebraeus as A.D. 1043. The
copy which he used was therefore less than 150 years old. The
Diatessaron had seen 700 years of Syriac life before its translation
into Arabic; and we can readily infer that the Syriac at the time
of translation must have been in many points altered from its
original cast. Still, the comparison with the collateral evidence is
sufficient to justify us in our belief that we have here substantially
the work of Tatian.
1 To be distinguished from the later and more famous Abulfaraj (Gregorius
Bar-hebraeus, A.D. 1226—1286).
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
9
III. HISTORICAL NOTICES OF THE DIATESSARON.
1
From what has been said, it will be seen that, in describing
the MSS. from which Ciasca's text is made, we have been careful to
avoid the assumption that the text of the Arabic Harmony is
necessarily and at all points identical with that of the Diatessaron
of Tatian. For, even if we accept the Harmony as Tatian's on the
ground of its general agreement with the traditional Tatian, we
are obliged to note in the MSS. themselves a tendency to change in
the most striking Tatian characteristics; and further, since the
Harmony is substantially a New Testament MS., it is impossible
that it could have remained in circulation without being affected
by the same causes which were in operation to change the form of
every successive recension of the New Testament into agreement
with the latest recension of all.
But this assumed liability to change, while it may be regarded
theoretically as inevitable, requires to be carefully estimated by
the practical comparison of the Arabic form with such portions as
may be current in earlier periods, or with other Harmonies which
may be traced back into the same root with it. This requires a
study, in the first place, of the general descriptions given by the
earlier fathers of the Diatessaron as known, more or less completely,
to them; and, secondly, of the portions of the text of the New
Testament current in early patristic writings which with any
degree of probability are assumed to be derived from or closely
related to the Harmony.
We begin with the chronological notices of the Harmony.
The first of these is, we believe, found in the apocryphal Syriac
work known as the Doctrine of Addai, a tract best known on
account of the correspondence which it contains between the
Lord Jesus Christ and Abgar Uchomo the king of Edessa.
A. Doctrine of Addai (beginning of III. cent.).
((
Moreover, much people day by day assembled and
Phillips,
Doct. Add. came together for prayer and for the reading of the
c. 35, 15-17. Old Testament, and the New, the Diatessaron'.
they believed in the resurrection of the dead."
And
¹ Diatessaron is clearly the reading of the St Petersburg мs. of the Doctrine
of Addai; though the British Mus. мs. has the unintelligible Ditornon, while the
Armenian, connecting with what follows, makes the people believe in the Trinity.
The wide-spread corruption indicates antiquity for the true reading.
10
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
From this curious apocryphal history of the founding of the
Church of Edessa, we are entitled to infer that, at the time of its
composition, the use of the Diatessaron was so habitual in that
city that the writer of the legends had no idea of the prevalence of
any other custom at an earlier time: for, if the idea had been
present to him of the circulation of any such earlier gospel, he
would not have made his apostles and primitive teachers gather
the people together to the hearing of the Diatessaron. But this
writing must be assigned to a very early period: it was translated
into Armenian in the fifth century; the St Petersburg MS. of the
work belongs to the sixth century, while the British Museum MS.
may be even earlier; and it was translated into Greek for Eusebius
in the earlier part of the fourth century. We cannot, therefore,
assign it to a later date than the close of the third century: and,
since a large part of a century must be allowed for the growth of
the tradition in the Church as to the use of the Harmony by the
apostolic men who brought Christianity to Edessa, we are obliged
to regard the passage quoted above as evidence for the circulation
of the Diatessaron in Edessa at a time very soon after that of its
composition. We may verify this by another consideration. In the
original document there stood these words of Addai: “Blessed are
ye that have believed in me, not having seen me: and, because ye
have so believed in me, the town in which ye dwell shall be blessed
and the enemy shall not prevail against it for ever." Now it
seems almost certain that such predictions could hardly have been
referred to the Lord in the time immediately following the year
A.D. 217, when Edessa was devastated by the Romans; and
perhaps this date may be an inferior limit to the time of product-
ion of the Doctrine of Addai, and, à fortiori, to the date of
production of the Diatessaron. This takes us back to the time of
Tatian himself.
B. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., IV. 29, 6 (A.D. 264—340).
Ο μέντοι γε πρότερος αὐτῶν ἀρχηγὸς ὁ Τατιανὸς συνάφειαν
τινα καὶ συναγωγὴν οὐκ οἶδ' ὅπως τῶν εὐαγγελίων συνθεὶς, τὸ
διὰ τεσσάρων τοῦτο προσωνόμασεν ὃ καὶ παρά τισιν εἰσέτι νῦν
φέρεται.
"The former leader of the Encratites, Tatian, composed some-
how a kind of combined and concurrent gospel and called it the
Diatessaron, a work which is still circulated in some quarters."
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
11
It is not quite easy to tell how much acquaintance, on the
part of Eusebius, with the text of the Diatessaron may be inferred.
His language seems to imply a want of approbation of Tatian's
method, but has been interpreted to mean total ignorance of his
work'. If the last were the true interpretation, it would not only
militate strongly against the existence of a Greek Diatessaron, but
would require us to believe that the Diatessaron in Syriac was
circulated entirely, or almost entirely, in the Euphrates Valley, for
Eusebius could hardly have been unacquainted with a Syriac book
commonly current in Palestine. Of one thing we may be certain ;
that in the time of Eusebius the Diatessaron was already under
censure and in process of elimination from the Churches; otherwise
he could not speak of its being still circulated in some quarters.
And, if under censure in the time of Eusebius, it looks as if this
were the result of an undiscriminating antagonism to Tatian's
writings generally; for it is not easy to see why a simple harmony
of the Gospels should provoke hostility, even if an occasional
apocryphal sentence be found therein. There is hardly any period
in the history of the Church when some one has not been
combining or harmonising the narratives of the four Gospels:
nor would the Church normally visit such efforts with censure.
C. Epiphanius, Heresies, 46, 1. (A.D. 320—402.)
λέγεται δὲ τὸ διὰ τεσσάρων εὐαγγέλιον ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ γεγενῆσθαι,
ὅπερ κατὰ Ἑβραίους τινὲς καλοῦσι.
((
They say the Diatessaron Gospel owes its origin to Tatian,
some people call it the Gospel according to the Hebrews."
What Epiphanius means, by suggesting an identification
between the Diatessaron and the Gospel according to the Hebrews,
is not very plain. The confusion may have arisen, (a) by a
reflection that since the Encratites used the Gospel according
to the Hebrews, and Tatian had joined himself to them, his Syriac
compound Gospel must be the same as theirs; or (B) because
Tatian may have made use of passages found in the Gospel of the
Hebrews, so that the transference of the singularities of that
Gospel invited a misunderstanding as to the nature of the Har-
1
¹ According to Lightfoot (Cont. Rev., 1877, p. 1136: Essays on Supernatural
Religion 1889, p. 278): "It is not ignorance of the contents, but disparagement of
the plan of Tatian's work, which the expression of Eusebius implies."
12
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
monised Gospel on the part of superficial readers; or (7) it may
mean nothing more than that one Syriac (or Hebrew) Gospel was
mistaken for another, which was current in some neighboring
region of the East. Of these alternatives the second stands
without support; no passage which tradition assigns to the Gospel
of the Hebrews having been clearly demonstrated to be absorbed
in the Harmony: the third alternative seems hardly a strong
enough explanation: the first is, however, an adequate hypothesis
for the facts of the case; nor would it be inconsistent with our
second hypothesis, viz., the use of the Hebrew Gospel in the
Harmony, if such use could be clearly proved. If Tatian made his
harmony after he joined the Encratites, he would be very likely to
transfer something from their favorite text; but this point is not
yet clear; the Harmony, as we have it, is singularly free from
anything bordering on Gnostic Asceticism.
D. Rabbula, Canons of Edessa (A.D. 412-435).
Zahn quotes from amongst the Canons of Rabbula, bishop of
Edessa, the following rule:
Let the presbyters and deacons have a care that in all the
churches there be provided and read a copy of the distinct Gospel"
(Rejas.
alvor).
This distinct Gospel is the antithesis to the compiled Gospel,
and the Canon is an enforcement of the same rule which we shall
presently find Theodoret putting in operation, viz. the expulsion
of the Diatessaron and the introduction of the separate Gospels.
This is the reason why, in the Syriac Gospels of Cureton, the first
gospel is marked with the singular title, "Distinct Gospel of
Matthew"; and not, as Cureton imagined, because it was in any
way detached in historical development from the other Gospels.
The use of the expression shews that the Cureton copy (the MS.,
not the Version) is an antidote to another gospel which was
current when it was written. The fact that the Diatessaron was
really a Church Lectionary comes out also from the fact that the
Arabic Version still presents it to us as divided into 55 sections,
for the Sundays and chief feasts of the Ecclesiastical year, much in
the same way as the Pentateuch is divided by the Jews.
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
13
E. Theodoret, De fab. haer. (A D. 453.)
Οὗτος τὸ διὰ τεσσάρων καλούμενον συντέθεικεν εὐαγγέλιον,
τάς τε γενεαλογίας περικόψας καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ὅσα ἐκ σπέρματος
Δαβὶδ κατὰ σάρκα γεγεννημένον τὸν κύριον δείκνυσιν. ἐχρήσαντο
δὲ τούτῳ οὐ μόνοι οἱ τῆς ἐκείνου συμμορίας, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ τοῖς
ἀποστολικοῖς ἑπόμενοι δόγμασι, τὴν τῆς συνθήκης κακουργίαν οὐκ
ἐγνωκότες, ἀλλ᾽ ἁπλούστερον ὡς συντόμῳ τῷ βιβλίῳ χρησάμενοι,
εὗρον δὲ κἀγὼ πλείους ἢ διακοσίας βίβλους τοιαύτας ἐν ταῖς παρ
ἡμῖν ἐκκλησίαις τετιμημένας, καὶ πάσας· συναγαγὼν ἀπεθέμην
καὶ τὰ τῶν τεσσάρων εὐαγγελιστῶν ἀντεισήγαγον εὐαγγέλια.
((
He (Tatian) composed the so-called Diatessaron by cutting
out the genealogies and whatever goes to prove the Lord to have
been born of the seed of David according to the flesh. And
this work was in use not only among his own party but even
amongst those who follow the tradition of the Apostles, who used
it somewhat too innocently as a compendium of the Gospels,
without recognising the craftiness of its composition. I myself
found more than 200 copies in reverential use in the churches of
my diocese, all of which I removed, replacing them by the Gospels
of the four Evangelists."
Theodoret was bishop of Cyrus on the Euphrates, and his
diocese included about 800 churches'. If we assign a single
copy of the Gospels to each church, we find one fourth of the
churches reading the Diatessaron. So that in the neighborhood
of the Euphrates and beyond that the Harmony must in earlier
times than Theodoret have been substantially the one Gospel
accepted for church use. No such phenomenon presents itself
elsewhere. For once, the proverb that "a prophet is without
honor in his own country" was completely falsified. But then
Tatian spent most of his time in travel and in the West.
p. 869.
F. Bar-ali, Glossary. (A.D. 885.)
"Diastarsun (otherwise Diakutrun): the Gospel
Payne Smith,
Thesaurus, 1. which is the Diatessaron, made by Titianos, the com-
piled Gospel. A gospel made, in a general sense, on
the sense of the four Evangelists (God's blessing be upon them!).
It contains neither the natural nor the traditional genealogy
1 Theod., Ep. 113.
14
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
of our Lord Christ: and he who made it (Titianos) has on that
account been anathematised."
G. Bar-Buhlul (latter half of Xth century).
A Syriac lexicographer of this time and name gives us the
following notice: “Diatessaron, that is to say, the Gospel compiled
from the four Evangelists."
In this there is no reference to the author; so that, in strict-
ness, Bar-Bahlul ought not to be quoted amongst the historical
authorities for Tatian's work. The sentence above given is taken
from the oldest мS. of Bar-Bahlul's work, dated 1214 A.D.'. Later
MSS. however, quoted in Payne Smith's Thesaurus (p. 870), add the
sentence, "and this was composed in Alexandria and was made by
Tatian the Bishop." These words are taken from a notice of
Dionysius Bar-Salibi or from Bar-Hebraeus to whom we shall
presently refer, and it will not be necessary to explain twice over
the confusion into which the lexicographers have fallen.
2
The name "the compiled Gospel," which is probably the old
Syriac twin-term with Diatessaron, suggests acquaintance on the
part of Bar-Bahlul with the book itself: and the more so, since, as
Zahn has pointed out, he uses the corresponding term, “the
distinct Gospel," to describe the Gospel of Matthew. For he says
(on Matth. xxvii. 16) that in this passage "This Bar-abba is
called Jesus. So it stands written in the distinct Gospel." The
Curetonian text is missing at this point, or we should probably
be able at once to verify the gloss which gives a well-known and
remarkable ancient reading ("Jesus Bar-abba or Jesus who is
called Messiah ?").
H. Dionysius Bar-Salibi († later than 1207 A.D.).
In his Commentary on the Gospels³, he writes:
<<
Tatian, the disciple of Justin the Philosopher and Martyr,
selected from the four Gospels and patched up and made a Gospel
and called it Diatessaron, that is to say, the Compiled: and this
work Mar Ephrem commented on. Elias of Salamia, who is also
called Aphthonius, made a Gospel on the model of the Diatessaron
1
Ms. Socin., 1.
2 Tatian, p. 105.
3 Assemani, Bibl. Or., 1. 57: 11. 159.
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
15
which Ammonius had made, to which Eusebius alludes in the
introduction to the Canons which he gave to the Gospel. But
Elias sought for that Diatessaron and could not find it, and so he
made another, taking it for his model. And Elias finds fault here
and there with the Canons of Eusebius, and points out errors in
them, and with good reason. The copy which Elias made is not
easy to come at.”
The writer distinguishes three Diatessarons, all of which were
until recently supposed to be lost. The first is Tatian's, of which
he speaks somewhat scornfully as if he were drawing his informa-
tion from Eusebius, but at the same time adding the important
information which he could not have derived from Eusebius, that
Ephrem had made the text of the harmony the groundwork of a
Commentary. This information is of the highest value, and has
been verified by the recovery of the actual commentary of Ephrem.
The second harmony is the one mentioned by Eusebius as the
work of Ammonius of Alexandria. Bar-Salibi knew little of it,
and we hardly know more: it may, however, some day be found.
The third, that of Elias of Salamia, is, I believe, only known
from this passage. Even in the time of Bar-Salibi, it was rare to
find a copy.
I. Gregory Bar-Hebraeus († 1286).
Bar-Hebraeus, in an introduction which he makes to his Scholia
on Matthew', writes as follows:
((
When Eusebius of Caesarea saw the confusion which Am-
monius of Alexandria had made in the Gospel, that is the Dia-
tessaron, the compiled Gospel whose beginning is, 'In the beginning
was the Word,' and Mar Ephrem has expounded it; he preserved
the four Gospels in the integrity of their form, but pointed out the
agreement of the words by Canons written in red.”
The language shews that this is derived from Eusebius and
Dionysius Bar-Salibi: only the writer confounds two of the
Diatessarons mentioned by Bar-Salibi, and describes Tatian's as
though it were that of Ammonius, while he makes a further
blunder in raising the author of the Harmony to the Episcopate.
¹ Assemani, Bibl. Or., 1. 57.
16
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
J. Ebed-Jesu (beginning of cent. XIV).
This writer describes correctly the Harmony of Tatian, whose
labors he makes the model of his own: but he falls into an
apparent confusion between Tatian and Ammonius, into which he
may have been led by Bar-Hebraeus. The passages in which he
refers to the Diatessaron are as follows:
Mai, Script. vet. nov. Coll., x. 191: "When Tatian, a certain
philosopher, had comprehended intellectually the meaning of the
utterances of the Evangelists, and had fixed in his mind the object
of their divine work, he collected from the four of them that
admirable work which he called the Diatessaron, in which, while
following most carefully the right order of the words and deeds of
the Saviour, he did not add a single sentence of his own."
Cf. also Assemani, Bibl. Or., III. 1, 12: "The Gospel which an
Alexandrian of the name of Ammonius collected (he is also called
Tatian) and named it the Diatessaron."
From Ebed-Jesu's remark about Tatian's caution in compiling
the harmony, we can almost infer that he used some such copy as
our Arabic text gives, in which Tatianisms (if one may coin the
word) have been reduced almost to zero. It is remarkable that,
as Tatian's text became accommodated to the accepted versions, he
himself seems to have recovered his ecclesiastical reputation.
K. A scholion in Ev. 72 (XIth cent.).
This MS., one of the Harley Codices in the British Museum
(No. 5647), has been brought forward in connection with Tatian
on account of a scholion which is found on its margin over against
Mt. xxvii. 49.
n
σ ὅτι εἰς τὸ καθ᾽ ἱστορίαν εὐαγγέλιον Διαδώρου καὶ Τατιανοῦ
καὶ ἄλλων διαφόρων ἁγίων πατέρων· τοῦτο προσκεῖται·
η
"
• Αλλος δὲ λαβὼν λόγχην ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν πλευράν· καὶ
ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καὶ αἷμα· τοῦτο λέγει καὶ ὁ Χρυσόστομος.
These notes (onμeiwoeîs) have provoked much comment, inas-
much as they proffered an explanation of the presence in many
early copies of Matthew (at the close of c. xxvii. 49) of words
describing the piercing of the Saviour's side: "But another taking
a spear pierced his side and there came out water and blood."
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
17
The Annotator says that it was found so in the historical gospel of
Diodorus, Tatian, and other holy fathers; and that Chrysostom
says the same. The testimony is obviously incapable of verifi-
cation inasmuch as neither in the Arabic nor the Armenian does
the passage in John follow here. Probably it was a guess on
the part of the Annotator, who referred to the Diatessaron of
Tatian, as the most natural cause to explain a displacement: but
his suggestion may have been quite wide of the mark. Possibly
we are to understand Atadopov as a mis-read abbreviation for
διατεσσάρων = διαδ, for we know of no historical gospel of
Diodorus, although the well-known Diodorus of Tarsus wrote
a commentary on the gospels, now lost. The reference of the
writer to Chrysostom is probably a misunderstanding caused by
a hasty reference. The writer can hardly be taken therefore as
an authority for anything in Tatian. Dr Burgon, in his Last
Twelve Verses of Mark (p. 316), has unfortunately stamped his
approval too definitely on this scholium: "Not only is the testi-
mony of the critical fact abundantly sufficient, but the proposed
solution of the difficulty, in itself the reverse of improbable, is in
the highest degree suggestive as well as important. The circum-
stance before us is the only thing we know for certain about the
text of Tatian's (miscalled) harmony." The italics are Dr Burgon's!
IV. QUOTATIONS FROM THE DIATESSARON.
A. Doctrine of Addai.
Passing from the direct or indirect historical references to the
Diatessaron in early writers, we ask what quotations from the
Tatian Harmony may be considered as fairly identified. Naturally,
our first thought will be that we should most likely find such
quotations in Syriac writers, and especially in such as flourished
before the edition of the Syriac Vulgate, or before that text had
thoroughly established itself in public favor. For instance, we
have shewn that the Doctrine of Addai makes reference to the
use of the Diatessaron in the city of Edessa, and implies no know-
ledge of any other gospel as current in that city: and we may
therefore reasonably expect that the scriptural references in the
Doctrine of Addai are references to the Diatessaron. This is a
matter capable of being tested: we shall shew, later, traces of
II. V.
2
18
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
remarkable apocryphal readings found in the Doctrine and in the
Diatessaron. But, without referring to these, we may examine
some simple Scripture references in the Doctrine of Addai, and
compare them with the Harmony. Take the following passage
for example:
<<
Abgar commanded them to give to Addaeus silver and gold.
Addaeus said to him: How can we receive that which is not ours?
For, lo! that which was ours have we forsaken, as we were com-
manded by our Lord to do: because without purses and without
scrips, bearing the cross upon our shoulders, were we commanded
to preach His Gospel in the whole creation.”
The last words certainly contain a reference to the 15th verse
of the last chapter of Mark: "Preach the Gospel to every
creature," and we are sure that the last twelve verses of Mark
were found in the Diatessaron, for they are in Zahn's reconstructed
text, in the modern Arabic Harmony, in the old Cureton Syriac,
and in other early Syriac monuments which use the Diatessaron or
are related to it. There are other references of a less certain
character, such as perhaps Luke xxii. 35: "I sent you out without
purse and scrip," where the Diatessaron has the plural, 'purses
and scrips,' just as the Doctrine of Addai.
Again, take the following passage:
“And he said to them: Because the gate of life is strait and
the
way of truth narrow, therefore are the believers of the truth
few." Here the passage quoted is Matth. vii. 14. The text
which the writer used contained therefore the sentences:
((
Strait
is the gate and narrow the way which leadeth unto life, and few
there be that find it." Now the words "the gate" are omitted by
a group of early authorities, and were accordingly bracketed as
doubtful by both Lachmann and Tischendorf. The Diatessaron,
however, has them. The present case is not so good as the
previous one, because there was really no sufficient ground on
which to base a rejection of the words from the text, or even a
hesitation with regard to them. Several other references may be
found in the Doctrine, all agreeing with the Diatessaron with
sufficient closeness; nor is there any reference, so far as I know,
to invalidate the hypothesis, that the Gospel of the author of the
Doctrine of Addai was the harmonised Gospel of Tatian. More
striking instances will be found later on.
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
19
B. Aphraates the Persian (c. 340 A.D.).
Aphraates of Farad, better known as Mar Yakub, was bishop
of Nisibis (?) and Abbot of the convent of St Matthew near Mosul,
and, according to Zahn, is one of the chief Patristic authorities for
the Diatessaron.
His homilies, comprising an alphabetically ordered series of 22
sections, were written about the year 336 A.D., and a supplementary
23rd homily was added in the year 345. From these homilies we
may extract large portions of the Gospel as used by Aphraates,
and determine the relative order of many parts of that Gospel.
The first 22 homilies are based upon the text of the Diatessaron.
We may test this in various ways. In the first place, the general
sequence of the narrative may be examined. Before the complete
Harmony came to light, this was done by Zahn, who detected the
following sequence in a summary of our Lord's sayings and doings,
as given by Aphraates: against each detail we will set its place
in the Diatessaron.
Aphraates.
Diatessaron.
1.
Sermon on the Mount:
Ch. VIII, IX, X.
2.
First case of healing (the Centurion's son):
Ch. XI.
3. Stilling of the Storm, and expulsion of the legion of devils:
Ch. XII.
4. Healing of Jairus's daughter, and of the woman with the
Ch. XII.
issue:
5. Healing of two blind men:
Ch. XII.
6. Sending out of the Apostles:
Ch. XII.
7. The woman who was a sinner:
Ch. xv.
8.
Of the cost of building a tower:
Ch. xv fin.
9. Expulsion of the devils and purifying of the house:
Ch. XVI. init.
10. Parables of the Sower and the treasure hid in the field:
Ch. XVI.
11. Attempt to throw Jesus headlong :
Ch. XVII.
12. Feeding of the 5,000:
Ch. XVIII.
13. The Canaanite woman :
Ch. xx.
14. Healing of the man with an impediment in his speech:
Ch. XXI.
2-2
20
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
15. Healing of blind men:
Ch. XXIII.
16. Transfiguration :
Ch. XXIV.
Ch. XXIV.
17. Healing of the lunatic lad :
18. Warning not to despise these little ones: Ch. XXIV.
19. The man with an infirmity of 38 years' standing:
Ch. XXII.
20. The rich young man receives counsel as to perfection:
21. The rich man and Lazarus:
22. The workers sent into the Vineyard:
Ch. XXVIII.
Ch. XXIX.
Ch. XXIX. fin.
In every case, except No. 19, the order followed is that of the
Diatessaron: observe the place occupied by the attempt of the
Nazarenes to throw Jesus headlong, which is far beyond the place
to which it is usually assigned by Harmonists. It certainly looks
as if Zahn were right in his general statement, that Aphraates
used a Harmony, and that this Harmony was that of Tatian.
But we may also take a continuous passage in Aphraates and
subject it to examination. Let us take the one quoted by Zahn
(p. 76), the story of the rich young man. We will place the
Arabic Harmony side by side with the Homily:
Aphraates.
"What shall I do that I
Mark
X. 17.
"Good
I
do
eternal
may inherit eternal life?
The Lord said unto
him :
Do not commit adultery,
Do not steal,
and honour thy father and
thy mother and love thy neighbour
as thyself: The young man
said unto
Thus
have
him :
I done, since I was
18.
19.
unto
Tatian: Arabic.
Master, what shall
that I may have
life?
Jesus said
him : Why callest
thou me good? none is
good save one, God.
Thou knowest the commandments.
If thou wilt enter into life,
XIX. 17. keep the commandments.
Matth.
The young man said unto
18. Him,
What commandments?
Mark
X. 19.
Matth.
XIX. 19.
20.
Jesus · said unto him :
Do not commit adultery:
Do not steal, Do not kill,
Do not bear false
false witness :
Honour thy father and
and thy
mother and love thy neighbour
as thyself. The young man
said unto him, All these
have I kept from my youth:
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
21
a boy. But what lack I?
Then Jesus looked upon him
lovingly and said,
One other thing is lacking to thee:
If thou wilt be perfect, go,
sell all that thou hast
and give to the poor,
Mark
Matth.
What lack I yet? But Jesus,
x. 21. having looked upon him,
loved him, and said to him;
If thou wilt be perfect,
XIX. 21. one thing is lacking to thee,
go, sell all that thou hast,
and give to the poor and thou shalt
have treasure in heaven :
and take thy cross and
follow me.
At this
the face of the
22.
and take up thy cross and
follow me. And that man,
when he heard, became
very
sorrowful and went
away gloomy to his house,
austere, and he
because he was very rich XVIII. 23, sorrowful;
in possessions. And Jesus
Luke
24
this word
youth became
went away
for he was
very rich. But Jesus seeing
Mark his
X. 23.
how hard it is
said: See
for those
who trust in their possessions
to enter into the kingdom
of heaven."
sorrow, looked towards
his disciples and
them, How hard it
said to
is
is for
monies,
those who have
to enter into the kingdom
of God."
It will be observed that the order in Aphraates is closely that
of the Harmony: he transposes two clauses in Matth., XIX. 21:
and in the last sentence he gives "those who trust in riches," for
"those that have riches," as though he had a different text to the
Harmony: but this is not the case, for the reading of Aphraates is
the early Western text in Mark, x. 24, which follows almost
immediately in the Harmony. We may say, then, that there is
a close agreement between the text of the Harmony and the text
that underlies the Homilies of Aphraates. Perhaps the connection
will be clearer if we draw attention to one or two singular passages.
Let us compare Diat. XXIX. Luke XVI. 28 with the following
from Aphraates: "That he may go and testify to them and so
they may not sin and also may not come into this torment."
Now the Arabic Harmony has "Let him go, lest they also sin
and come into this place of torment."
We observe that there must have been a primitive error in the
Greek text, according to which the words oπws diapaρтúρηтaι by
a confusion with Siapaprávo became read "that they may not sin"
as we have it in the harmony and with a correction and subsequent
conflation in Aphraates. And no other evidence, as far as I know,
is forthcoming for the existence of the reading.
Or take Diat. XXXII. = John II. 21 where we have in the
22
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
Arabic, "But he spake of the temple of his body: for when they
should destroy that he would raise it in three days.”
The last sentence, which is thoroughly characteristic of a
Harmony for popular use, has happily escaped excision in the
Arabic Harmony and is certainly genuine Tatian.
Now in Aphraates we find: "And his disciples understood
that he spake of his body, in that he would, after they had broken
it, raise it up in three days."
Coincidences of this kind are the best evidence of the relation
between the texts in question.
C. S. Ephrem the Syrian (373 A.D.).
Among the later historical notices of the Diatessaron, we find
the statement that Mar Ephrem commented upon the text of the
Diatessaron; and this statement has been confirmed in a remark-
able manner by the recovery of the very work of Ephrem to which
allusion has been made.
In the year 1862, Lagarde, in issuing his text of the Apostolic
Constitutions, remarked as follows, at the close of his preface :
"We have not a few of the works of S. Ephrem the Syrian in an
Armenian translation, published at Venice in four volumes in the
year 1836, which are denounced as supposititious with a hardihood
exactly proportional to the critic's ignorance of Armenian. In vol.
II. 5—260, will be found a commentary upon a harmony of the
Gospels, beginning with the passage John i. 1, so that it may be
easily discerned upon what sort of a harmony the commentary of
Ephrem was based, as I shall presently undertake to shew."
These words seem to have attracted almost as little attention
as the published works of Ephrem in the Armenian dress: and
yet could anything have been much more significant? A harmony
of the Gospels in Syriac, and commencing with the fourth Gospel !
The works of Ephrem to which Lagarde alluded were produced
from the press of the Armenian monks of the monastery of
S. Lazaro near Venice, to whom we are indebted for so many
other early pieces, now extant only in the Armenian language.
In the year 1876, Professor George Mösinger of Salzburg
re-published the commentary of Ephrem in a Latin translation
which was an emendation of one made by Aucher, the editor of
Ephrem, with an introductory preface shewing that the underlying
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
23
and accompanying Biblical text was the Harmony of Tatian. By
the aid of this valuable work, it became possible, even for those
unacquainted with the Armenian tongue, to re-construct for
themselves large parts of the Tatian Harmony. We learn also,
from Mösinger's collection of authorities for the statements made
as to the commentary of Ephrem on the harmonised Gospels, that
this work must have been current, not only in the Syriac from
which the Armenian was made, but also in a Greek version, for
extracts from it are current in Greek in certain MSS. of the
Vatican library'. It is difficult to believe, therefore, that the
commentary of Ephrem and the Diatessaron of Tatian can have
wholly perished from the Syriac language, when they were once in
such demand; and we cannot help suspecting that the Diatessaron
may even now be lying on the shelves of our great libraries,
disguised perhaps as a lectionary, especially since so many lection-
aries begin with the fourth Gospel.
It was this work of Mösinger, then, that prepared the way for
the valuable researches of Zahn, who by a skilful combination
of this work of Ephrem with the earlier Syriac writers succeeds
in restoring approximately large parts of the Tatian Harmony
to their proper order and context, so that we can very nearly
judge, without the Arabic Harmony, what sequence Tatian followed,
what passages he omitted, and what additions his text shews when
compared with later texts. According to Mösinger, we are to
ascribe this work of Ephrem to the year 364 A.D., on account
of reference made in it to the desolate and distracted condition
of the Church of Edessa after the expulsion of their bishop
Barses by the Emperor Valens in order to place an Arian bishop
in the vacated see. Zahn, however, has shewn that the date of
the banishment of Barses is not susceptible of such exact deter-
mination, and regards it as probable that the year 373 is a
more exact date for the persecution of the Church at Edessa
consequent upon the expulsion of their Bishop. We have accord-
ingly given this date for the production of Ephrem's com-
mentary; and the allusions to the state of Edessa under the name
"this city" render it certain that the place of publication was
exactly the place where we should have expected the commentary
1 According to Assemani, Bibl. Or., 1. 157, in codd. Vat. gr. 663, 733, et 1190.
2 Zahn, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, Theil 1.
Tatian's Diatessaron: Erlangen, 1881.
24
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
on the Diatessaron to have shewn itself, if the most popular Bible
text had been selected as the basis of the commentary. By the
year 373, however, there must have been other textual influences
at work. Dr Hort points out the fact of the revision of the old
Syriac version of the Gospels, and the introduction of the Peshito
(or Vulgate Syriac). His words are important¹: "two facts render
it highly probable that the Syriac revision was instituted or
sanctioned by high authority, personal or ecclesiastical: the almost
total extinction of old Syriac MSS. contrasted with the great
number of extant Vulgate Syriac MSS.; and the narrow range of
variation found in Vulgate Syriac MSS., so far as they have yet
been examined. Historical antecedents render it tolerably certain
that the locality of such an authoritative revision, accepted by
Syriac Christendom, would be either Edessa or Nisibis." Now it
will hardly be likely, if such a revision had gone on (completed
before 350 according to Dr Hort), that no traces of it should be
felt in the quotations of Ephrem; and, as a matter of fact, three
times in his commentary he expressly quotes a certain "Graecus ”
as against the text of Tatian; in which passages he is probably
referring to the Peshito which has been revised by means of the
Greek, much in the same way as in his commentaries on the Old
Testament he calls his authority the Iaunâjâ or Greek version,
though he is supposed to have been unacquainted with Greek.
We must be prepared, therefore, to make some allowance for this
influence in our analysis of the text of Ephrem. The same cause,
which we just begin to feel in Ephrem, operated finally to produce
a revised text of the Diatessaron, such as we find in the Arabic
version.
There is another point that must be kept in mind in handling
the commentary of Ephrem: it may be shewn that Ephrem was
perfectly aware of the origin of the work upon which he was
occupied. For he goes out of his way to make a peculiarly unfair
attack upon the Encratites, with their bread-and-water Eucharist,
in his comment on the departure of Judas from the supper-table.
For he represents our Lord as dipping the bread which he gave to
Judas in water, and he says: "The Lord separated Judas from
the disciples by means of the water when he gave him bread
dipped in water, because he was not worthy of that bread which
1 Introduction to N. T., p. 136.
2 Ephrem, Concord., p. 221.
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
25
was given along with wine to the twelve [read eleven] apostles."
Here, then, we have a direct attack on the Encratites'. But these
sentences did not carry with them a condemnation of Tatian's
Harmony, as some writers have supposed, for, in that case, Ephrem
would have been very unlikely to have handled the book for
didactic purposes. The most we can say, as a consequence of the
observed blow at the Encratites in the commentary on Tatian, is
that Ephrem would have been likely to omit anything which he
found in the Harmony that was capable of an Encratite interpre-
tation: or, in other words, the absence of such matter from the
text of Ephrem would prove nothing as to the Harmony, if
evidence of its existence in the Harmony were forthcoming from
other quarters².
V.
THE RELATED HARMONY OF VICTOR OF CAPUA.
The celebrated Codex Fuldensis, which is one of the earliest
and best authorities for the text of the Vulgate version of the
New Testament, contains its Gospels, not in the usual form, but
harmonised into a single gospel; and this Harmony is stated by
its author, Victor, Bishop of Capua, to have been based upon an
earlier Harmony which came accidentally into his hands. The
first question which suggested itself to Victor was that of the
authorship of the work, for he had seen nothing of the kind
before. From Eusebius' letter to Carpianus he learnt that Am-
monius of Alexandria had made a connection between the Gospel
of Matthew and the parallel passages of the other three Gospels,
and that Eusebius had imitated this work in his table of Canons
of Reference for the four Gospels. From the Ecclesiastical History
of Eusebius he learnt, further, that Tatian had composed a con-
tinuous Gospel which he called Diapente (Victor having here
¹ In the same way, in describing the marriage at Cana, he says (p. 56) that by
the change of water into wine He shewed Himself the Lord of creation, and by
restricting that change to things already existing, as water and wine, they might
understand that the thing made was not to be gnostically despised or reprobated.
On the lost piece of money he notes that it may mean that the image of Adam
is compared to a drachma. This was aimed at one of Tatian's peculiar views, the
non-salvability of Adam (p. 162: cf. Iren., 1. 28).
2 It will be seen that the facts brought forward dispose conclusively of Dr
Burgon's contention, that Westcott and Hort have attached the name of Tatian to
a work "which does not even pretend to be his."
26
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
made some blunder between the similar terms Diapente, and
Diatessaron, “ Five-in-one," and "Four-in-one")'. Was the Har-
mony which he had found that of Ammonius or that of Tatian?
Victor inclined to the latter, though he seems to have been
perplexed at the thought of such an obviously useful and
meritorious work being due to a heretic; but he evidently
swallowed his scruples as to whether any good thing could
emanate from Encratism, and decided for Tatian. The solution
was rendered more easy by the thought that the work might
have been due to the earlier years when he kept close to the
side of the blessed Justin and had not yet become so extreme in
his asceticism. And, further, Victor seems to have argued that,
in any case, the words of his Lord were not to be visited with
a censure that might have lighted upon Tatian, it being sufficient
to reject and discard from the Evangelic text anything which the
heretic might have added by way of commentary. Accordingly,
somewhere about the year 541, Victor reconstructed the Harmony
on the basis of the Vulgate, and with the help of a skilful
calligraphist produced one of the most splendid manuscripts that
have come down to us from the early days of the Church. The
verification of Victor's ascription of the ground-work of his
Harmony to Tatian turns upon the order shewn by his Vulgate
text, and more especially upon the order shewn by the descriptive
capitulation prefixed to the same; for example, the Codex Ful-
densis opens with Luke i. 1-4, followed by John i. 1-5: this
differs from Tatian, who seems never to have incorporated the
prologue of Luke. But a reference to the table of chapters shews
us as follows: Praefatio. I. In principio verbum deus apud
deum · per quem facta sunt omnia. This suggests, at once, that
Victor has inserted the prologue to Luke on his own account.
In the same way, we can explain the presence of the genealogy of
our Lord in the Codex Fuldensis, which certainly found no place
in the Tatian Harmony, and is not mentioned in the capitulation:
for, although this gives: XXV. v. De generationem vel natiuitate
Christi, this refers more naturally to Matth. i. 18 (Christi autem
generatio sic erat) than to the prefixed Matth. i. 1—17, “Liber
generationis Ihesu Christi" etc.
•
1 It is certain that the text of Eusebius gives Diatessaron, and that Victor's book
was a Gospel “made up out of four." But perhaps the volume contained the Acts.
* Hence, Lightfoot's verdict in Essays on Supernatural Religion, p. 286, needs
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
27
But the verification of Victor's view demands a much closer
examination; and when we place the two Harmonies (the Arabic
Tatian and the Codex Fuldensis) we shall find, in the midst of
frequent misplacement, such agreement in singular details as will
furnish the strongest confirmation of the theory in question.
For example, from the thirtieth chapter of the Tatian Harmony
to the end, the agreement with the capitulation of the Codex
Fuldensis (cc. 110-182) is only thrice broken, first by the
exemplar of the Codex Fuldensis having carried back c. 39 of the
Harmony (the triumphal entry into Jerusalem) and placed it
between c. 31 and 32, where it should have stood historically;
secondly, by the same codex having carried the parable of the ten
minae (c. 31) forward so as to place it almost immediately after
the parable of the ten talents (c. 43); thirdly, by the carrying
back, on the part of the same codex, of the account of the
repentance of Judas, to its right place in the Gospel of Matthew.
Of the stages by which the Tatian Harmony passed over into
the form in which Victor found it, we know but little: it is
conceivable that there may lie between the Syriac Tatian and the
Latin Victor a Greek adaptation of the Harmony, but the whole
question is complicated by the fact that we do not possess the
Tatian Harmony in its primitive form.
It will be seen that this agreement covers more than a third
of the whole book. In the middle of the book the displacements
are frequent, although it is often possible to assign a motive for
them but these displacements do not affect the argument.
VI. THE APOCRYPHAL ADDITIONS TO THE GOSPELS FOUND
IN THE DIATESSARON.
Few subjects are of greater interest in connection with the
Gospels than the study of the additional matter which has at-
tached to them in their process of transmission or of the subtracted
matter which may have been separated from them and discarded.
a slight re-statement: "There can be no doubt that Victor was mistaken about the
authorship: for, though the work is constructed on the same general plan as
Tatian's, it does not begin with John i. 1, but with Luke i. 1, and it does contain
the genealogies. It belongs therefore, at least in its present form, neither to
Tatian nor to Ammonius." There is a confusion here between the Harmony
which Victor found and the one which he made.
28
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
Especially in connection with the sayings and doings of our Lord,
the so-called apocryphal sentences, many of which were once
current in copies of the New Testament, form a collection of such
importance both for His own teaching and for the knowledge of
the opinions of early schools of Christian thought, that they ought
certainly to be attached to the authorized scriptures in the form of
an appendix. Nor should we mourn much, if, in order to find a
place for them, the prefaces and appendices which are found in
the modern Revised Bible were to be curtailed or excised alto-
gether. It is a matter of very small importance whether we say,
Our father which," or "Our father who;" but no one can say that
the Section found in Codex Bezae concerning the man whom the
Lord found working on the Sabbath day is destitute of ethical or
even textual importance. Certainly not the latter; for, if we
could find out the quarter from whence Codex Bezae derived the
story, we should probably have in our hands the key to a multitude
of other peculiarities found in that MS. and in a group of asso-
ciated texts. Now, if we ask ourselves in what directions we
ought to look for the existence of apocryphal matter connected
with the New Testament, especially the Gospels (we use the word
apocryphal in its right sense, without any contempt), the answer
would be that the principal sources are:
(1) The Gospel according to the Hebrews, of which scraps are
preserved to us in the margins of sundry copies of the Gospels, and
in some of the early fathers:
(2) The old-Latin and old-Syriac versions of the Gospels:
(3) The Diatessaron of Tatian.
With respect to the first, we have at present little to say:
what we know of it hardly concerns the Diatessaron; nor can we
as yet trace any points of contact between the two in the matter
of external eccentricities. If there be any such contact, it does
not lie on the surface; and we may defer the search for it until
we know more about the Diatessaron.
But with reference to the other two, the connection is intimate:
the text of the Diatessaron is directly affiliated with the oldest
Syriac texts of the Gospels; it is a brother to the old-Syriac of
Cureton, and a first cousin to the old-Latin texts. If we can
succeed in restoring it to its archaic form, it will probably solve
for us more than half of the yet unsolved textual riddles in the
Gospels. This means that its text is what Dr Hort calls Western;
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
29
even when revised it is Western and Syrian, with hardly a trace
(if there be a trace) of the importation of Alexandrian readings,
and no neutral readings at all or next to none.
This is a subject which will demand close and careful attention.
At present, we only refer to it in order to indicate the following
conclusion as one to which we shall probably be led, viz., that the
Apocryphal additions which existed in the earliest Syriac texts of
the Gospels will most likely find themselves a place in the text of
the Diatessaron; and, conversely, apocryphal sentences which
may be found in any pair of the triad, old-Latin + old-Syriac
+ Diatessaron, will probably be readings of the earliest Syriac text
that ever existed: and, even where only one member of the group
testifies to an apocryphal addition, we may occasionally support
that reading so strongly from other quarters as to demonstrate its
extreme antiquity.
Let us proceed to test this matter by a succession of examples
of early Diatessaron readings. We begin with Matth., XVIII. 7:
"It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto him by whom
they come." To this sentence are prefixed in the Homilies of
Aphraates the words: "It must needs be that good come and
blessed be he by whom it comes." Now, there is no reference
in the homily of Ephrem to either part of the passage; but
Aphraates introduces it with the words, "It is written," which
shews that he is quoting from his Gospel, that is, from the
Diatessaron or from a Syriac text closely related thereto.
When we turn to the Arabic version, we find no trace of the
added words, so that, as far as the evidence of the Arabic
goes, one
would be inclined to say, it can hardly be a Diatessaron reading.
The passage has no place in the Curetonian Syriac nor in any
other copy or version.
But, suppose we turn to the Clementine Homilies, here we
find (in Hom. XII. 29) the following sentence: "Then Peter
answered, The prophet of the truth has said, Good things must
needs come, and blessed, said he, is he by whom they come in
like manner, evil things must needs come, but woe to him through
whom they come." Here, again, the language carries one to a
sentence in one of the Gospels; and, while we cannot assert,
positively, that this Gospel is the Diatessaron in its earliest form,
we can at least say that it came from the Diatessaron or from
some other early and uncanonical gospel. On examining the
30
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
<<
Arabic Version more closely, we find the verse runs: Woe unto
the world because of offences. But woe unto that man by whom
the offence cometh." The Arabic has therefore a curtailed text:
it has left out at least the words, "It must needs be that offences
come." Does it not look as if in erasing the added sentence,
Good things must needs come, etc.," and conforming the extract
to the current gospels, the corrector had gone a little farther with
his work of emendation than he intended to do? The suspicion
is enough to turn the scale in the question as to whether the
Diatessaron was used or not.
(c
Suppose we take, as a second example for study, the famous
apocryphal saying which is so frequently quoted by Origen and
the early fathers, though not found, so far as I know, in any copy
of the Gospels: I mean that powerful sentence, composed of only
three words, in which our Lord advises His disciples to “be good
money-changers" (гíveσle Soxiμoì траπеÇîтα). Harnack supposed
that he had found a trace of this in a sentence of Ephrem's
commentary on Luke, XVI. 1-12, which runs as follows: "Buy
for ye, O Sons of Adam, by means of these transitory things which
are not yours, that which is your own, which doth not pass away."
But it must be admitted that, as the passages stand, the identifi-
cation or connection of one with the other is uncertain, especially
in view of the early interpretation of the trustworthy banker
which makes him the person who tests philosophy and tells the
base metal from the true. We can therefore understand why
Zahn should have said, of Harnack's reference, that it was to him
unintelligible. But let us carry the matter a little further; we
have shewn, in the previous section, that there is some probability
that the writer of the Clementine Homilies was acquainted with
the Diatessaron, or at least that he drew from a source used by
the Diatessaron. Whatever may be the probability for that
acquaintance bears also upon the reference of the sentence about
the trustworthy bankers to the same source; for this sentence is
also an apocryphon of the Clementine Homilies. Thus we find in
Clem. Hom., III. 61: "Thou oughtest to have given my money to
the exchangers and then I at my coming should have got my
own. Cast out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness!
And with good reason, 'for,' says He, 'it is thine, O man, to prove
my words, as silver and money are proved among the exchangers.
This evidently assumes the underlying sentence, "Be good money-
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
31
·
changers"; only the sentence is somewhat worked up after the
fashion of the Homilies. It occurs, moreover, as a direct quotation
in three other places of the Homilies, viz. II. 51: "with good
reason said our Master, Be good money-changers "—III. 50: “And
inasmuch as He said, Be prudent money-changers, it is because
there are genuine and spurious words "-XVIII. 20: "For thus He
spake, Become experienced bankers. Now the need of bankers
arises from the circumstance that the spurious is mixed up with
the genuine." So far, then, it favours Harnack's view, that the
sentence was found in the Diatessaron; only it seems to locate it
in the neighborhood of Matth., xxv. 30.
But this is not all: we have shewn that the Gospel which was
in the possession of the writer of the Doctrine of Addai was the
Diatessaron of Tatian: now in the Doctrine of Addai we find the
apostle addressing the people of Edessa as follows: “According as
my Lord commanded me, lo! I preach and publish the Gospel, and
lo! His money do I cast upon the table before you." The last
sentence presupposes the doctrine of the good bankers: which
must therefore have been in the Gospel of the person who wrote
the Doctrine of Addai.
A further curious confirmation may be found in the following
consideration. We have shewn, some pages back, that Victor of
Capua, in the sixth century, possessed a copy of Tatian's Harmony
which he made the foundation for the Harmony of the Gospels
that is contained in the famous Codex Fuldensis. Now, it is worthy
of note that, although Victor has deserted the text of Tatian,
preserving only his method and using the readings of the Vulgate
in his gospel, he has in his preface shewn acquaintance with the
saying about the "trustworthy bankers": for he concludes with a
prayer that the Holy Spirit will impart to him the grace of
discretion, whereby he may be able, like the best bankers, and
according to the word of the apostle, to prove all things and
follow those things which are good'." We may be strengthened
1 Ut nos in ueritate scripturarum suarum erudire dignetur · et discretionis gratiam
tribuat • quatenus ut optimi trapezitae • omnia probemur secundum apostolum et quae
sunt bona sectemur. The connection of ideas is the same as in Origen who, in his
commentary on Matthew, says: "It is the part of a great man to hear and fulfil
that which is said, Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. Still, for the
sake of those who cannot like money-changers distinguish whether words are to be
held as true or false, and cannot guard themselves carefully, so as to hold that
which is true and yet abstain from all evil appearance, no one ought to use for the
32
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
by this language of Victor to believe that the saying in question
was a part of the Tatian Harmony which he possessed, although
Victor gives us no clue as to its place in the Harmony.
Upon the whole then we see reason to believe that there stood
originally in the Diatessaron the sentence in question, though we
are not quite sure in what part of the Gospel it stood. Thus far
then we may agree with Harnack. Two of the sentences in the
Clementine Homilies are on this shewing Diatessaron quotations.
It has been the fashion to refer these passages in the Clementines
to an Ebionite gospel: this may be so, but in that case Tatian
must have used the Ebionite gospel along with the other four,
which I am extremely reluctant to believe. There are many
indications that the author of the Clementines used a harmony
and not a collection of gospels.
The fact is that there are more traces of such use of harmonized
Gospels than people are well aware of: not only do the Clementine
Homilies suggest the use of a harmony, but a similar feature
shews itself in the Apostolical Constitutions. It was in conse-
quence of his perception of this fact that Lagarde' was so earnest
in his efforts to bring out an edition of the Arabic Harmony, such
as we now possess; and was indeed only deterred from his pur-
pose (as he has so often been hindered) by difficulties that attach
themselves to Oriental printing. It becomes an interesting
question, then, to examine whether any of the passages in the
Clementines, or in the Apostolical Constitutions, which seem to
be based on a harmonised narrative, exhibit any agreement with
the Diatessaron. This enquiry we defer for the present.
A further question presents itself, as to whether the other
apocryphal sayings in the Clementines are capable of being traced·
to a similar origin. These quotations are as follows: Hom. III. 55:
"He said, The evil one is the tempter "-Hom. XIX. 2: "He said,
Give no pretext to the devil." These sentences we have not yet
succeeded in tracing to their source: nor have we been successful
in identifying the Harmony which seems to have been used by
confirmation of doctrines any books which are not received in the Canonized
Scriptures."
¹ Ap. Const., p. vii.: si evangeliorum in margine nomina adscribo, non ideo
auctorem ex evangeliis sua hausisse credo, legit enim illa ni fallor harmoniam
e quatuor evangeliis concinnatam.
2 Lagarde at first wished to publish the Arabic text, at Ciasca's request, but
relinquished the plan after giving a specimen in the Götting. gelehrte Anzeigen.
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
33
the author of the Clementines in other passages than those
quoted.
The "trusty banker" is also found in the second book of the
Apostolical Constitutions: the passage is as follows: "To the
priests alone has injunction to judge been made, for it has been
said unto them, 'Judge righteous judgment'; and again, 'Be tried
money-changers'......; and in another place, 'Why of your own
selves judge ye not that which is right?' Become therefore like
cunning money-tellers, for as these condemn the false coins, and
appropriate the tested money, in the same way the bishop must
hold to the unblameable, and heal or cast away the blameable.”
The question then arises as to whether the author of this part
of the Constitutions used the Tatian Harmony, for he certainly
quotes the famous saying as part of the Scripture. The hypothesis
is an inviting one, in view of the fact that a number of the
quotations in the Constitutions seem to be harmonized; upon
examination, however, we are unable to detect a sufficient
agreement between these quotations and the text of the Arabic
Harmony to warrant us in saying that the text of Tatian has
influenced that of the Constitutions.
<<
Our third instance of apocryphal addition to the Gospel
narrative is taken from Diat. c. XXXI. = Mark x. 51: Jesus said
unto him: What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The
blind man said unto Him: My Lord and Teacher, that thou
shouldst open my eyes, and that I may see thee." A more
exquisite gloss, if it be a gloss, it would be difficult to imagine.
One can understand how the revision of the Diatessaron came to
spare it. Suppose we enquire, then, as far as possible into the
origin of the reading: there is every reason à priori to regard it
as coming from the earliest form of the Diatessaron, or even from
a preceding Syriac version; but confirmation seems wanting.
Nothing of the kind is found in the extract which Zahn gives
from Ephrem on the passage: nor is there anything from
Aphraates: further, the Curetonian Syriac is wanting in this part
of Mark. When, however, we turn to the parallel passage in
Matthew (xx. 32), we find the Curetonian Syriac reads: They
say unto him, Our Lord, that our eyes may be opened and we may
see thee." Furthermore in the still more closely parallel passage
in Luke (XVIII. 41), the Curetonian Syriac has a like reading:
What wishest thou I should do to thee? He said to him, My
H. V.
،
3
34
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
Lord, that my eyes may be opened, and I may see thee." So that
there must have been something of the kind current in the
earliest Syriac, and in all probability the quotation in the
Diatessaron should be regarded as an adaptation of Luke, rather
than of Mark, especially as the rest of the narrative in the
Diatessaron (except the next verse) is taken entirely from Luke.
Moreover, when we turn to Ephrem (p. 181), we find something
which suggests the same reading. "The Lord, seeing that his
inward eyes were illuminated, while the outer eyes saw nought,
made these as open as the other, in order that He might be visible
and manifest to him." Here again we are brought to the same
apocryphal appendix. So that a careful study of the collateral
testimony confirms our belief that the apocryphal passage of the
Arabic Version may be carried back to the earliest form of the
Harmony.
Our next illustration of an apocryphal saying in the Diatessaron
is taken from Luke, XXIII. 48. The verse in the Arabic follows on
Matth., XXVII. 54, thus: Matth., XXVII. 54, "Truly this was the
Son of God. Luke, XXIII. 48, And all the multitudes, who had
come together to the sight, seeing what had happened, returned
beating their breasts." So far, there is nothing that differs from
our current texts; but, when we turn to the Doctrine of Addai,
we find the following passage, in which the connection of ideas
needs to be carefully studied: "Unless those who crucified Him
had known that He was the Son of God, they would not have had
to proclaim the desolation of their city nor would they have
brought down Woe! upon themselves." Now, we may detect in
this passage a reference to the passage which the Diatessaron
quotes from Matthew; but there is nothing in what follows in the
Arabic Harmony which suggests an allusion to the desolation of
the city, or an imprecation upon or lamentation over themselves.
Suppose we turn to the Curetonian Syriac: here we have: Luke,
XXIII. 47..." Truly this man was just. And all those which were
assembled there, and saw that which was done, were smiting
upon their breast and saying, Woe to us, what is this! Woe to
us for our sins."
Here we have the connection which was wanting in the Arabic
Harmony; and the same reading is found in the celebrated old-
Latin Codex of St Germain, which reads: "Woe unto us, the
things which are done to day for our sins: for the desolation of
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
35
""
Jerusalem hath drawn nigh." Taking this with the Curetonian
passage, we can restore the whole of the sequence which is found
in the Doctrine of Addai. But that Addai took it from the
Diatessaron and not from the old-Syriac is evident, not only from
what we know of its text from its own allusions to the Diatessaron,
but also from the fact that it does not say, "This was a just man,'
as all Mss. do in Luke, but, "This was truly the Son of God," as it
runs in Matthew. We can therefore restore the missing sentences
to the Diatessaron, and, if any doubt remained in our minds, it
would be dispelled by turning to Ephrem's Commentary on the
Harmony (pp. 245, 246): "Woe unto us, woe unto us, this was the
Son of God....When the sun of righteousness had appeared,
purifying the lepers and opening the eyes of the blind, by that
light the blind men did not recognise that the king of the city of
Jerusalem had come. But when the natural sun had failed them,
then by the darkness it became transparent to them that the
destruction of their city had come. The judgments of the ruin of
Jerusalem, saith he, are come."
The present case has the special interest that, although the
Arabic version furnished no clue to an omission, the old-Syriac and
old-Latin with Ephrem and the Doctrine of Addai enable us to re-
store the matter of the missing sentence with perfect confidence.
Over and above the Apocryphal additions properly so called
there are a number of glosses due to Tatian himself and added by
way of explanation; sometimes they seem to contain matter of
tradition which he had gathered outside of written sources. We
will examine a few of these passages in order to get an idea of the
method employed by Tatian and of the liberty which he allowed
himself in his combinations.
VII.
COMBINATIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS IN THE TEXT OF
THE DIATESSARON.
One of the first things that will strike the reader of the Arabic
Harmony as translated by Ciasca is the occurrence of numerous
apocryphal sayings and sentences, and the suggestion which the
text gives of the excision of other similar sayings and sentences,
now no longer apparent. These additions range from the smallest
glosses, frequently only single words (which may be mere expres-
sions of a translator's freedom), up to whole sentences of foreign
and interpolated matter. For example, take the following in-
3-2
36
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
stances, which have, as far as I know, not the slightest attestation
elsewhere:
In Mc. VII. 26 it is added that the Syrophenician woman was a
Gentile from the city of Emesa: "et illa mulier erat gentilis ex
Hemesen Syriae." It is possible that the addition is due merely
to a local tradition current in the neighborhood where the
Diatessaron was written: and patristic students will recall a
somewhat similar statement in the Clementine Homilies (II. 19)
where Peter speaks of the same woman as follows:
"There is amongst us one Justa, a Syro-Phoenician, by race a
Canaanite, whose daughter was oppressed with a grievous disease.
And she came to our Lord crying out, and entreating that He
would heal her daughter. But He, being asked also by us, said
It is not lawful to heal the Gentiles, who are like unto dogs on
account of their using various meats and practices, while the table
in the kingdom has been given to the sons of Israel......For she
being a Gentile and remaining in the same course of life, He
would not have healed her had she remained a Gentile, on account
of its not being lawful to heal her as a Gentile."
What one notices in this Clementine extract is that the writer
has apparently extra-evangelic information about the Canaanite,
viz. her name, and that the point which he wants to get over is
the fact of her being a Gentile: now certainly this might have
been taken from the current gospels, but it seems to me very
likely that he may have got it from the Tatian Harmony in which
it is given especial prominence; in which case it would be
reasonable to infer that there stood originally in the Harmony
also the name Justa. For otherwise both the Clementines and
the Harmony are working up a common tradition; but even then
the tradition gave her name, as well as her place of abode; and
Tatian in expanding his narrative for Syriac readers would have
been as likely to add the one as the other.
Another curious addition will be found in Matt. xxvI. 47:
where after describing the approach of the crowd with lanterns
and torches, and swords and staves, sent by the chief priests, &c.,
it is added:
'And with them there was a man of the Romans."
What is the reason of this addition? Was it to explain the
presence of the soldiery? Or is it an anticipation of the young man
in the linen garment? Most likely it is the former: as the term
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
37
"Romans" is the natural Syriac equivalent for soldiery. Certainly
there seems no other textual evidence forthcoming to support it.
So in Matt. XVI. 12 we are told that they understood "that they
should beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees
which he called bread." Such instances of unsupported glosses,
which are certainly Tatianisms, give us greater confidence in
affirming a similar statement for certain similar passages in
Ephrem, as for example, where at the end of Mc. VII. 10 "He
that curseth father or mother, let him die the death" is added the
sentence "he that blasphemes God, let him be crucified"; or in
John 1. 47 where Nathanael is spoken of by Ephrem as "a true
Scribe, an Israelite, in whom is no guile": although these glosses
do not any longer stand in the Arabic text.
The same thing may
be true of Aphraates who gives Matt. v. 5 as "Blessed are the
meek for they shall inherit the land of life.”
With these unsupported glosses, then, the Tatian Harmony
must have been thickly sprinkled; we are not bound, however,
to infer that they stood in the Gospels which he used. Such
additions as John XXI. 6, "They could not draw the net for
the multitude of fishes which had come into it"; or John xxI. 12,
Knowing that it was the Lord. But he did not appear to them
in His own form," are just the sort of additions which one might
expect from a free hand, occupied in transcribing a continuous
gospel for Church use. The last gloss is perhaps due to Mark
XVI. 12 (èv étéρą μoppy), and so is of critical importance. These
glosses then are for the most part what we may call unattested in
the text of the N.T.; and singly attested amongst the authorities
for the Harmony. When we pass to those which have a greater
degree of attestation in the Harmony, we are the less able to
speak confidently with regard to their non-attestation in the N.T.:
because we shall find that there is some unknown nexus between
the text of the Western authorities for the N.T. and the text of
the Harmony. The surer we are of a Diatessaron reading, the
more likely we are to find it in Western attestations, whatever
may be the reason for the coincidence.
Some of these better attested readings are very interesting:
for instance in Luke VII. 14 Ephrem gives "Young man, young
man, I say unto thee, arise," while in Mark v. 41 Aphraates
expressly says “He called her twice and said to her, Maid, maid',
1 Hence the corruption in Codex Bezae: λεγει αυτη ραββι . θαβιτα κουμι.
38
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
arise." The combined evidence betrays a tendency to reduplication
in our Lord's mode of address, similar to what we find in the rest
of the Gospel (e.g. Simon, Simon; and Martha, Martha), although
the Arabic does not preserve the trait. The reading turns up
also in Codex Bezae and one or two early Latins.
In Matt. XIV. 32 the N.T. gives us, without any sensible vari-
ation, the words: "When they were come into the ship, the wind
ceased." The Arabic has “And when Jesus had drawn nigh, he
ascended into the ship, himself and Simon, and immediately the
wind ceased”: compare with this Ephrem's text, “When the Lord
had come, and had ascended the ship along with Peter": and it
is easy to see that the Harmonist had to expand the narrative
for his hearers, in order that they might more clearly see that,
when Jesus came on board, Peter was not left outside.
In John IV. 7 for the common reading "Give me to drink,"
the Harmonist, as shewn by Ephrem and the Arabic, must needs
complete the sentence and write "Give me water to drink"; the
addition marks a tendency to expansion of the statements of
Scripture and is not due to the fact that Tatian was an Encratite !
Will Dr Hort maintain in the view of this and similar passages
that "the evidence which has recently come to light as to his
(Marcion's) disciple Tatian's Diatessaron has shewn that Tatian
habitually abridged the language of the passages which he com-
bined"? It seems to me that for a Harmony the tendency is all
the other way. A few more cases of the kind may be given with
advantage.
Luke IV. 20.
"And he folded the book and gave it back to
the minister and went away and sat down."
Mark 1. 33. “And all the city was gathered together at the
door of Jesus."
Luke VI. 8.
He saith to the man with the withered hand,
"Stand forth into the midst of the synagogue."
All of these are Tatianisms, taken almost at random from the
pages. Do they look like habitual abbreviation? Or take Matt.
x. 29, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing in the tavern ?”
which shews that the birds were sold for eating, or the next verse,
where the emphatic word (vμŵv) in the sentence "The hairs of
your
head are all numbered," is brought out by the rendering
"But as far as relates to you, even the hairs of your head, &c.”
Or in Luke x. 39 where the feeling of motion which the Greek
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
39
puts into the words "Mary sat at Jesus' feet” (πρòs τоùs πódas)
is expressed in the Arabic by "Mary coming sat at the feet of
the Lord," and in Ephrem by "Mary came and sat." The evi-
dences of this tendency are constant: and they prohibit us from
regarding Tatian as an abbreviator.
Neither does the Arabic Harmony give us any encouragement
in the belief that Tatian made doctrinal omissions to suit his own
views: if he wrote the Harmony after he became a Gnostic he
would perhaps have followed Marcion in omitting the words of
Christ to the thief: "This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
But these words are in the Arabic and in the Armenian. It
may be urged that perhaps he omitted them and that they were
subsequently restored: Ephrem would be sure to do this, since in
using the Harmony he rails assiduously at Marcionism and En-
cratism en route, comparing the Encratites to Judas who received
from the Lord bread soaked in water, and with such like criticisms
securing his readers from the danger of the heresy that might
lurk in the Harmony: but even if we admit this we may still say
the case against Tatian on the ground of tampering with the
Scriptures for doctrinal ends is an unproved case. He can only
be condemned on hypothesis: suppose, for instance, that the
passage which occurs twice in the Clementine Homilies' "ye do
err, not knowing the true things of the Scriptures; for this reason
ye are also ignorant of the power of God" were asserted to be
from the Tatian Harmony; we find no support for it in our
Arabic Version, nor any trace of it in Ephrem who discusses the
adjacent verses. The passage certainly has a Marcionite look
about it and there are some points of contact between the
Clementine Homilies and the Tatian text, but the proof of wilful
change is inadequate; and if it existed it extends only to ex-
pansions and not to omissions. The Arabic Harmony certainly
encourages no such belief. But perhaps the best idea of Tatian's
method would be to take a passage which seems to have come
down to us without much change; say the account of the
Transfiguration: Ciasca gives it as follows:
Mc. VIII. 39. Et dixit illis: amen
dico vobis: Sunt enim quidam
hic stantes, qui non gustabunt
1 Hom. II. 51. Hom. 111. 50.
40
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
Mt. xvi. 28°.
XVII. 1.
Luc. IX. 29ª,
mortem, donec videant regnum
Dei veniens in virtute;
et Filium hominis
venientem in regno suo.
Et post dies sex assumsit
Jesus Simonem Cepham, et
Jacobum et Joannem
fratrem eius et duxit
illos in montem excelsum
seorsum.
Et dum ipsi orarent,
transfiguratus est Jesus
et factus est in speciem
alterius personae.
Matt. xvII. 2b. et resplenduit facies
eius sicut sol,
Luc. IX. 29. et vestitus eius factus
est candidus nimis velut
nix et sicut splendor fulguris
Mc. Ix. 2b. ita, ut nihil super terram
possit sic candidum fieri.
3. et apparuerunt illi Moyses
et Elias loquentes cum Jesu.
Luc. Ix. 31. Et putabant tempus
adventus eius futuri, qui
complendus erat in Jerusalem,
iam advenisse.
32. Simon autem, et qui cum illo
erant, gravati erant sopore somni.
Et expergefacti sunt vix, et viderunt
gloriam eius, et duos viros,
qui stabant apud illum,
33ª. Et cum hi coepissent discedere
ab illo, ait Simon ad Jesum
Praeceptor, bonum est, nos hic
esse;
Matt. XVII. 4. si vis, faciamus hic
tria tabernacula ;
Luc. IX. 33. tibi unum, et Moysi
unum, et Eliae unum:
nesciens quid diceret,
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
41
Mc. IX. 6. propter timorem, qui
eos apprehenderat.
Matt. XVII. 5ª. Adhuc eo hoc dicente,
et mox nubes lucida
obumbravit eos:
Luc. IX. 34. et cum vidissent Moysen
et Eliam intrantes in nubem,
iterum timuerunt.
Mt. XVII. 5. Et audita est vox de nube,
dicens: Hic est Filius meus
dilectus, quem elegi: ipsum
audite.
Luc. 1x. 36ª. Et cum audiretur haec
vox, inventus est Jesus solus.
Mt. xvii. 6. Et audientes vocem discipuli
prae timore, qui apprehenderant
eos, ceciderunt in faciem suam.
7. Et accessit Jesus, et tetigit eos,
et dixit: Surgite, nolite timere.
8. Et levantes autem oculos suos,
viderunt Jesum sicut erat.
The above passage affords an instructive study in the com-
bination of the several documents. Under Luke ix. 29ª we see
the words 'transfiguratus est Jesus' introduced from Matt., while
the rest of the clause shews, (1) the change of singular to plural
(dum ipsi orarent), and a free translation of ἐγένετο τὸ εἶδος τοῦ
προσώπου αὐτοῦ ἕτερον.
In Luke ix. 29' the text has taken up 'nimis' from Mark and
perhaps 'velut nix' from the same source, while the è§αστρáπTWV
of Luke has been combined with as Tò pws of Matt., by the aid of
Matt. xxviii. 3 into 'et sicut splendor fulguris.'
In Mc. ix. 2 the allusion to the 'fuller' is dropped: but it is
to be noticed that the Harmony here has the support of D, X,
the Peshito, and the old Latins a, b, i. The omission is clearly
Western.
It reads outws with many early authorities.
In Mc. ix. 3 we have by error 'illi' where we should have the
plural; the reading is unsupported.
Luke ix. 31 furnishes us with remarkable variations, which
can however be traced to their origin; a reference to the Ethiopic
42
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
text shews us the evidently conflate text "gloriam eius quam
oportet fieri in Hierosolyma et exitum eius quoque," from which
it is obvious that ἔξοδον has been read as δόξαν. Further the
'putabant' comes from the preceding words év dó§n éλeyov and
the sentence was completed by 'tempus adventus eius futuri'
to explain 'gloriam' and by adding ‘iam advenisse' at the close.
In Luke ix. 34 in accordance with the best Western interpre-
tation the persons who enter into the cloud are Moses and Elias;
the Curetonian Syriac agreeing therewith by saying "and when
they saw these, that they enter into the cloud."
In Matt. xvii. 5° we find substituted from Luke o éxλeλeyµévos
for ev & evdókŋoa: and a reference to Ephrem shews that there
once stood at the end of the verse the words 'et vivetis.' These
have disappeared in the Arabic.
Finally in Matt. xvii. 8 we have the addition of 'sicut erat'
which is perhaps from 1 John iii. 2; and must be due to Tatian.
This would make an early authority for, and evidence of the
diffusion of that epistle.
At all events we see from the foregoing that hardly a word is
dropped by Tatian which could have been introduced; and that he
does not hesitate to gloss his text from other Scriptures besides
the Gospels, as well as from his own handiwork, where anything
was needed to complete the sense or clarify the meaning, appears
from many passages. Thus the Harmony is a commentary on
Scripture as well as Scripture and no unworthy commentary.
We see again the assimilation of the Tatian texts and the
Western texts, one to the other. It may be regarded as certain
that the restored Tatian text is one of the earliest forms of what
are known as Western authorities.
VIII. TRACES OF THE DIATESSARON IN THE MSS. OF
THE GREEK AND LATIN GOSPELS.
The chief point of uncertainty, with regard to the origin and
circulation of the Tatian Harmony, lies in the direction intimated
by the heading which we attach to this chapter. Was the
Harmony written in Greek and translated into Syriac? and, if so,
had it any Greek currency? Or was it purely and only a Syriac
book? Harnack maintains strenuously that the Diatessaron is
¹ An exactly similar error may be found in the Greek of the Acts of Perpetua, c. xix.
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
43
properly a Greek document, and even goes so far as to discount
the researches of Zahn, by which so much was done to shew the
influence of the Diatessaron on the churches of Mesopotamia.
Without engaging ourselves, at the present time, in this problem
further than to say that the two positions are not mutually
exclusive, we propose to approach the more simple question, as to
whether any traces of the Diatessaron can be found in the actual
Greek texts which have come down to us, leaving the question as
to how they came there to be decided after we have proved that
they exist. Whether in the proof we have armed Harnack with
valid arguments wherewith to strengthen his somewhat uncertain
attack, or whether we have disarmed Zahn of any of the forcible
conclusions which follow from his analysis of the early Syrian
fathers, will be a question for speculation after we have assured
ourselves of certain preliminary facts. Now, the facts are these:
It is indisputable that, in certain notable MSS. of the Greek
Gospels, there are found sporadic traces of readings which cannot
be easily paralleled from any other source than the Tatian Harmony.
Of this we shall give some striking examples.
α. Codex Wa
In the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, there are pre-
served, between two plates of glass, a number of fragments of an
uncial MS. of the Gospel of Mark, which were discovered in
the binding of a copy of Gregory Nazianzen by Mr White of
Trinity College Library who pointed them out to the librarian of
the University (Henry Bradshaw ó μakapíτns). The MS. may be
referred by its handwriting to the ninth century, and has many
points of interest, as for example, that the Eusebian canons are
given in harmony at the foot of the page, while the Eusebian
sections are set on the margin. But the most remarkable feature
of all is a unique reading in the text itself, according to which we
have as follows: Mark vii. 33: "He (Jesus) spit upon his fingers
and put them into the ears of the deaf man and he touched the
tongue of the man with the impediment in his speech" (eπTνσEV
εἰς τοὺς δακτύλους αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔβαλεν εἰς τὰ ὦτα τοῦ κωφοῦ καὶ
ἥψατο τῆς γλώσσης τοῦ μογγιλάλου).
Compare with this the following from the Arabic Harmony:
Mark vii. 33: “and spitting upon his fingers he put them into his
ears and touched his tongue, etc." No other evidence is forth-
44
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
coming for this eccentric reading, the Curetonian Syriac being
deficient; but, even if the latter text were extant and shewed the
reading in question, it would scarcely weaken our belief that the
passage came from the Diatessaron: the only alternative being,
that it stood not only in the Diatessaron, but in an earlier Syriac
before the Diatessaron'. And, when we remember that the Greek
MS. is furnished with musical notes and was very likely itself
written for lectionary use, there is nothing strange in its absorbing
a sentence which, originally, was commonly read in the churches.
B. Codex Algerinae Peckover.
This MS., numbered 561 Evv. in the New Testament Catalogue,
was described in the Amer. Journal of Biblical Literature and
Exegesis (Dec. 1886) as containing a remarkable text which
awakened suspicions of a genealogical connection with the famous
Ferrar-group. By the kindness of my friend, the owner of this
MS. (Miss Algerina Peckover of Wisbech, England), I was able to
collate it pretty thoroughly, twice; and in the course of the study
I lighted upon a singular reading which, from the negative
evidence of every critical apparatus, I decided to be unique in the
New Testament, although I had some suspicion that it had
distant relation with the Curetonian Syriac. The passage was as
follows: Matth., XVII. 26: "Of whom do the kings of the earth
take custom or tribute? Of their own children or of the aliens ?
Peter saith to him: Of the aliens.
the children free? Simon said, Yes.
thou also give, as being an alien to
offend them go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish
that cometh up, and when thou hast opened his mouth thou shalt
find there a stater lying, etc." The important parts of the Greek
text being as follows: αράγε ἐλευθεροί εἰσιν οἱ υἱοί; ἔφη Σίμων·
ναί· λέγει ὁ Ἰησοῦς· δὸς οὖν καὶ σύ, ὡς ἀλλότριος αὐτῶν.
Jesus said to him, Then are
Jesus saith to him, Then do
them. But that we do not
Now let us compare with this the following passage from the
Arabic Harmony: Matth., XVII. 25: "Simon saith to him, From
aliens. Jesus said to him: Then the children are free. Simon
saith to him, Yea. Jesus said to him: Then do thou also give to
them as being an alien: but lest they be brought into straits,
go
1 Cf. what is said on p. 47, touching the relations of the Harmony to the
Ferrar group.
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
45
to the sea and cast a hook, and having opened the mouth of the
fish that first comes up, thou shalt find a stater."
It is evident that both of these writers, of the Arabic Harmony
and of the Greek Gospel, have taken something from a common
source.
That which is eccentric in the modern Harmony must certainly
be taken from the primitive Harmony, the Arabic from the early
Syriac; that which is eccentric in the Greek looks as if it had a
Syriac origin; the abrupt change from Peter to Simon is sufficient
to suggest this. Furthermore, there are, in the Old-Latin texts,
suspicious indications which look as if, at one time, something had
stood there corresponding to our Codex and the Old-Syriac, at the
close of the story, "Thou shalt find there a stater lying," where
these texts read either "there" or "in him," and are supported in
the reading by the Curetonian Syriac.
It is within the bounds of possibility, then, that the Codex
to which we have referred has been affected by the text of a
Diatessaron, possibly a Syriac Diatessaron.
The question at once arises as to whether any further co-
incidences with the Harmony can be found in Ev. 561: the answer
is not easily given; for the Tatian text is, as we have shewn
already, a Western text, and is therefore hardly capable of
identification, where it has influenced other copies, because of its
similarity to other Gospels of the Old-Latin or Old-Syriac type.
We might, for example, at first sight be tempted to say that when,
at the close of Matth. VIII. 13, the MS. adds the words from Luke,
"and the centurion returned to his house in that very hour and
found him in sound health," that these are the very words which
follow in Tatian. But the suggested inference would prove too
much, for there are many MSS. which have the same assimilation
of the texts of the two gospels. Certainly it is nothing peculiar
to the MS. in question, and the difficulty is one that will recur:
how are we to distinguish between a reading that is purely
Tatian's and one that is Western, as we shall proceed to shew that
Tatian's text generally was?
Relation of the Tatian Harmony to the Ferrar Group.
The lost MS. which Professor Ferrar attempted to restore from
the combined texts of the group designated by the numbers
46
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
13—69—124—346 is well known to be a very early text and as
eccentric as it is early. It is perfectly alive with assimilations of
the Gospels to one another, and misplacements of the matter
contained are common. And the singular conflate readings
which it contains shew that at least two types of text are
present in it, of which one has been used to correct the other.
It becomes interesting therefore to see whether any of these
singularities are due to the Tatian Harmony. The following
cases of agreement should be noticed:
Matt. ix. 35. The Arabic Harmony adds: et multi sequebantur
eum: with the support of the Ferrar group and the Uncials & L
(λ om. multi). The reading is certainly not original; but it is a
very natural one to arise in a Harmony.
Matt. xiv. 24. The Arabic Harmony reads: "Navicula autem
pluribus stadiis a terra distabat": with the support of the Ferrar-
group and of almost all the versions but not the Latin, nor any
uncial except B. The question is whether this reading is the
original or derived from John vi. 19. If the latter it probably
came by way of Tatian.
d
Mark vii. 33. It may be maintained that the curious reading
which we noted in Wª and the Harmony was in the ancestry of
the Ferrar-group, which now stands: ἐπέβαλε τοὺς δακτύλους
αὐτοῦ πτύσας εἰς τὰ ὦτα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἥψατο τῆς γλώσσης αὐτοῦ,
where we have only to interchange eßaλe and πтúo as to get the
Harmony reading.
"}
Luke ix. 29, where the Harmony reads "Et dum ipsi orarent"
the Ferrar-group gives καὶ ἐν τῷ προσεύχεσθαι αὐτούς, not indeed
in Luke where it has the usual text, but in Mark ix. 3 where it
expands the text as follows: καὶ ἐν τῷ προσεύχεσθαι αὐτοὺς
μετεμορφώθη ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἔμπροσθεν αὐτῶν.
A comparison with the Harmony shews that the Ferrar text
has been emended from the Harmony, for it has not only the
curious change to the plural, but also the necessary insertion of
ó 'Inooûs which does not belong to the text.
In the same account (the Transfiguration) the Ferrar-group
gives us for νεφέλη φωτεινή, νεφέλη φωτός (Matt. xvii. 5). Now
this reading is obviously a Syriasm; and as such it appears no
doubt in the Tatian Harmony, although Ciasca gives us 'nubes
lucida': for it is also the reading of the Curetonian Syriac, and
according to Tischendorf, of some passage of Ephrem. The
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
47
only Greek authorities for it besides the Ferrar contingent
(13-124-346) are 209, 238 and a few others. It is reasonable
to refer the reading to Syriac influence, and this, taken with what
has preceded, means Tatian influence.
In Mark ix. 28 the Harmony gives: "Et cum introisset Jesus
in domum, accesserunt discipuli ejus etc.,” where the word accesse-
runt has been borrowed from Matthew xvii. 19 to complete the
account, the Matthew text being Τότε προσελθόντες οἱ μαθηταί.
Now the Ferrar text in Mark has made precisely the same
completion as the Harmony and like the Harmony has changed
the participle of Matthew into a verb, so as to read πрoσîìov
αὐτῷ: nor is this all: the Harmony for ἐπηρώτων αὐτὸν has
interrogantes eum, dixerunt illi; and accordingly the Ferrar text
gives ἐπηρώτων αὐτὸν, λέγοντες. The addition is probably due to
the text in Matthew (eiπov). No other evidence exists for it
beyond one or two cursives. It seems reasonable to suppose this
is not a mere accidental coincidence in assimilation.
In Luke xvi. 21 the text of Aphraates certainly added the
words “and no man gave unto him" to the passage where Lazarus
desired to "fill his belly" (so Aphraates, by assimilation to the
story of the Prodigal) " with crumbs from the rich man's table."
Now the Ferrar text has not altered xopтaσ0ĥvaɩ into agree-
ment with Tatian, but it has added the words kai ovdeìs édídov
avr. The authorities for this change are very slight (a stray
cursive or Latin MS. :) in the absence of any early Western
attestation we may perhaps say this reading too is a Tatianism'.
In Luke xxiv. 40 the Harmony has "ostendit eis manus et
pedes et latus": a reading which is apparently compounded of
Luke xxiv. 40 and John xx. 20. Now if we turn to John xx. 20
in the Ferrar text, we shall find the verse run
ἔδειξεν αὐτοῖς τὰς χεῖρας καὶ τοὺς πόδας καὶ τὴν πλευρὰν αὐτοῦ.
There is some ground for believing this reading also (which
has no other Greek support and only that of one Latin Vulgate
MS.) to be a Tatian reading.
From the above passages we see a strong probability that the
1 On the other hand note that there is a converse assimilation in Luke xv. 16
where χορτασθῆναι has been substituted for γεμίσαι τὴν κοιλίαν αὐτοῦ. Dr Hort holds
that xopraσ0ĥval is the primitive reading. But as no one can deny that the words
χορτασθῆναι
"no man gave unto him" in Aphraates are from Luke xv., it seems reasonable
to affirm that the previous words came from the same source.
48
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
Ferrar text has been influenced by Tatian, either by a Greek
rendering of Tatian or by Syriac corrections.
Now if this could be proved, then, without arguing in a circle,
we could carry back some curious passages in the Ferrar text to
Tatian, where the Arabic Harmony shews no direct signs of them.
For example; at the close of Luke xxiv. 43 the Ferrar text
adds (i.e. 13346) καὶ λαβὼν τὰ ἐπίλοιπα ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς. In
this it has the support of Cod. 561 which we have detected in
one palpable Tatianism and the Old Syriac which Tatianizes
eternally; so that we may with a bold face claim the reading for
Tatian. Not indeed for Tatian's MSS. but for himself: for the
only other support consists of late Latin and two late Greek
uncials KII. It must therefore follow further that late Western
texts at all events shew some traces of Tatianism.
A similar singular reading in Ferrar is John xx. 16 where there
is added the words
καὶ προσέδραμεν ἅψασθαι αὐτοῦ.
This reading is supported by sea and scanty late Latin and
Syriac testimony. The Ferrar text here is attested by 13–346.
I conjecture this reading to be added by Tatian as a preface to
"Noli me tangere."
In Luke vii. 45 the Harmony (c. 15) reads
"Osculum tu mihi non dedisti."
But that something more stood here is evident from Ephrem who
gives "Osculum unum salutationis tu mihi non dedisti.”
Now it is significant that Cod. A with Cod. 346 (Ferrar) read
ἀγάπης after φίλημά μοι. The Curetonian Syriac however has
no addition to the text. Nevertheless from the conjunction of
Ephrem and the other two, we may very well imagine the
Tatian text had here a word answering to the Greek aɣáπns.
No doubt other instances of the kind may be forthcoming: and
the suspicion of Tatianizing in the Ferrar group becomes a key to
explain the origin of numerous singular early readings. The
difficulty consists in the determination of a Western reading from
a Tatian reading proper, not by any means an easy thing. But
it may be very fairly maintained that where there are found in a
copy of the Gospels any assimilations or additions of a harmonistic
nature and when there are also found the same conjunctions in
an actual harmony, it is at least an open question whether the
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
49
harmony in question may not claim to be the author and origin
of some at least of the variants.
For example when in transcribing Mark xvi. 14 the Harmonist
gives
Et obliti sunt discipuli eius panem sumere
where the words discipuli eius are added from the parallel
narrative in Matt. xvi. 5 (but, as so often happens in the Arabic
Tatian, without any marginal explanation of their origin); and
when we find the same addition made in the Ferrar group, in D
and one or two others; it is not inconceivable that the Harmony
is answerable for them,
Again, when in the Arabic we find
Matt xvi. 8ª.
Sciens autem Jesus, dixit eis: Quid cogitatis intra
vos, modicae fidei.
Mark viii. 17". et solliciti estis quia, etc.
it is not surprising that the Ferrar group should read in Mark Tí
διαλογίζεσθε ἐν ἑαυτοῖς ὀλιγόπιστοι although the last three words
are not considered to form a part of the true text of Mark.
Where the Arabic gives Mark ix. 28 as follows: Et cum
introisset Jesus in domum accesserunt discipuli eius et inter se et
illum interrogantes eum, etc. with the words πроσîìÐоv avτậ
adapted from Matt. xvii. 19, the Ferrar text reads kai eioeλ-
θόντος αὐτοῦ εἰς οἶκον προσῆλθον αὐτῷ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ κτέ.
In Luke xix. 22 the Arabic has
Dixit ei dominus eius: De ore tuo iudico serve nequam, negli-
gens, fiducia destitute.
It is needless to say that this did not all come from Luke:
fiducia destitute may perhaps be traced to Matt. xxv. 30 (axpeîov)
and is certainly represented by the Curetonian 'qui non fidelis';
negligens is from Matt. xxv. 26 (ỏkvŋpé); and it is only reasonable
to assume that the explanation dominus eius is from the same
source: but this addition is made by the Ferrar group as well as
the Curetonian text. Does not this throw Ferrar's origins into the
neighbourhood of Tatian?
In Mark xiv. 13 we find :
Mark xiv. 13. Ite intrate civitatem.
Luke xxii. 10. et introeuntibus vobis, etc.
In view of this conjunction, is it a thing to be astonished at
H. V.
4
50
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
that the Ferrar text should carry into Mark the words
εἰσελθόντων ὑμῶν εἰς τὴν πόλιν?
The same thing happens in the following case:
Mark xiv. 65.
Matt. xxvi. 68.
Milites autem, percutientes genas eius, dicebant :
Prophetiza nobis, Messia, quis est, qui te percussit :
and the Ferrar text gives us in Mark προφήτευσον + νῦν Χρίστε
τίς ἐστιν ὁ παίσας σε
These instances will suffice to shew that the conjunctions of
passages in the Tatian Harmony are a sufficient cause of many
assimilations in the Ferrar text; it will probably be urged in reply
that the same thing would be true of any text which had made
rational assimilations of connected passages: this is perfectly true;
and the only thing to be remembered is that we have also a
singular concurrence in queer readings which put the two texts
in question side by side and invited the explanation which we
have suggested.
The transposition of the famous passage in Luke (xxii. 43, 44)
to Matt. by the Ferrar group has little light thrown on it by the
Harmony. While it is certain that Tatian had this passage, the
Harmony in its present state presents it in the proper connection
in Luke.
Those persons who hold the Calabrian or South-Italian origin
of the Ferrar group will find no difficulty in the supposition
that à Tatian Harmony strayed into the hands of Victor of Capua
in the sixth century.
IX. ON THE RELATION OF THE TATIAN TEXT TO THE
WESTERN NON-INTERPOLATIONS.
One of the most important questions in connection with the
textual criticism of the N. T. is that of the so-called Western
non-interpolations. These passages are practically nine in number,
and the peculiarity of the textual evidence is this, that an impor-
tant and early group of witnesses do not recognize their existence,
and upon the faith of this group of witnesses (chiefly Old-Latin
texts) Dr Hort excludes them from the representation which he
gives of the original text of the Gospels, although for convenience
he retains them provisionally within double brackets. Of these
nine passages, one is in the Gospel of Matthew, and the remaining
eight at the close of the Gospel of Luke.
Now it is of the highest importance for us to be able to
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
51
determine how the original Tatian text stands with regard to
these interpolations; for we have shewn reason for believing that
the Tatian text is in the main a Western text, according to
Dr Hort's classification: and not only a Western text in general,
but where it can be come at, a Western text of the highest
antiquity.
Let us then examine these nine passages with care, and see
what light they throw upon the origin of the Tatian text.
The first of them adds in Matt. xxvii. 49 the words.
dè
ἄλλος δὲ λαβὼν λόγχην.........αἷμα
and on the faith of an anonymous Scholion in Ev. 72 it has been
maintained that this glaring transposition (as it certainly seems
to be) from the Gospel of John (xix. 34) was found in the con-
secutive Gospel of Tatian.
Now certainly it is just such a mistake as a Harmonist might
be guilty of, and there is no reason why such a mistake, once
made, should not be widely propagated. It is, however, almost
impossible to believe that the Scholion can be correct, since the
Arabic version gives the passage in John without any sign of
displacement, and the Armenian text, as we get it from Ephrem,
certainly places the piercing of our Lord's side after His death.
And although we have not the old Syriac text to help us, we may
reasonably hesitate to believe that the primitive Syriac harmony
shewed any trace of such a dislocation. The only way to defend
such a position would be to shew that Ephrem has corrected the
error: now this might be maintained in the following way: first,
by shewing that a comparison of Ephrem's text with the Arabic
displays several displacements of the order, evidently on the part
of Ephrem; secondly, that the quotation in Ephrem is accompanied
by the remark "This was done that they might know that he was
alive after death," which shews that the question as to whether
a living or a dead body had been pierced was in the mind of
Ephrem. But the evidence is insufficient to establish the case.
The proof that Tatian's New Testament contained the passage in
connection with Matthew is not yet forthcoming.
Let us now go on to examine the eight passages in Luke
which are obviously from one origin, either by omission or in-
sertion, as the classified attestation will shew: the simplest way
will be to present the variants in tabular form :
4-2
52
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
a.
Luke xxiv. 3. [τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ]
Dabeffrhe om.
Syr. vt. Tat. arab. Tоû 'Iŋσoû.
β. Luke xxiv. 6. [οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε ἀλλὰ ἠγέρθη]
Dabeffrhe om.
γ. Luke xxiv. 12.
Da be rhe om.
Syr. vt. Tat. arab. rell. habent.
[Ὁ δὲ Πέτρος......γέγονεν]
ff.
Syr. vt. rell. habent.
δ. Luke xxiv. 36. [Καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς Εἰρήνη ὑμῖν]
Dabeff rhe om.
Syr. vt. rell. habent.
rell, habent.
e. Luke xxiv. 40. [καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἔδειξεν αὐτοῖς
τὰς χεῖρας καὶ τοὺς πόδας]
rell. habent.
Dabcffrhe syr. vt. om.
5. Luke xxiv. 51.
Dabcffrhe om.
[καὶ ἀνεφέρετο εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν]
rell. habent.
Syr. vt. deest.
ζ. Luke xxiv. 52. [προσκυνήσαντες αὐτὸν]
Da beffrhe om. Tat. arab. rell. habent: Syr. vt. deest.
The last passage is Luke xxii. 19, 20 which we will turn to
presently.
Now in examining the foregoing table, the following points
must be noticed, viz. that under (7) no evidence is forthcoming
with regard to the Harmony, because the passage in Luke could
not be quoted, even if it were known to the Harmonist, being only
an abbreviation of the fuller account in John which the Harmony
gives. Under (8) we observe that in the Arabic the passage runs
John xx. 19. ...venit Jesus et stetit in medio eorum et dixit
eis: Pax sit vobiscum:
Luc. xxiv. 36.
ego sum, nolite timere
37.
et ipsi conturbati et conterriti &c.
Now it is obviously impossible to tell whether the words.
italicised belong to John or to interpolated Luke, since they
stand precisely in the right place for either supposition. We
therefore leave it an open question for the present.
Precisely the same thing happens under (e) for although the
Arabic Harmony has the verse it has it in such a form that
although it comes in due sequence in the narrative from Luke
(xxiv. 36—49) it betrays the use of John's Gospel, at least in
part, for it reads "Et cum hoc dixisset, ostendit eis manus et
pedes et latus," which is John xx. 20 with a slight modification.
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
53
The same difficulty arises under 5, where the Harmony gives
Et dum benediceret illis, divisus est ab eis, et
ascendit in caelum
Luke xxiv. 51.
Mc. xvi. 19.
et sedit a dextris Dei.
Now the words underlined might equally well be the first part
of the verse quoted from Mark, which verse, as far as concerns us,
is not a later addition to that Gospel since the Harmonist was
certainly acquainted with the last twelve verses of that Gospel.
Now the survey of these seven passages shews us, that where
we have the evidence of the Arab. Harmony and of the Old Syriac,
they stand together, and thus give us with sufficient clearness the
evidence of the original Tatian text. The same thing comes out
when we examine the remaining passage (Luke xxii. 19, 20) as we
shall see presently. Now the presumption is that the same agree-
ment between the two authorities holds in the remaining cases;
i.e. that we may regard the Arabic Harmony as concurring with
the Syriac in (8) where we have the clear evidence of the Syriac
version and perhaps in () where we have the fairly clear
evidence of the Arabic, although the text of the last may have
been subject to change. Leaving this last passage out, the
evidence would shew that the Archaic Tatian text was generally
under the influence of the so-called Western non-interpolations;
and since these interpolations are obviously the work of a single
hand, to prove the influence in one case for such an early text as
Tatian used would be to practically prove it for Tatian all round.
We see it, however, not in a single case, but in a number of cases,
and some of these as (a) (B) are perfectly decisive. The case (e)
where the Old Syriac is with the non-interpolating Latins is the
only clear contrary case. And this is probably due to the fact
that the Syriac text, like the Ferrar archetype, carried the passage
in question over into John instead of taking it back into Luke:
but the Curetonian text of this part of John is missing. Now
here we have two important facts which demand an explanation;
first, how does it come about that such a notably Western text as
that of Tatian furnishes no clear support to the non-interpolating
early Western texts; and secondly how does it happen that the
Harmony which apparently knows the interpolations as anterior
to itself furnishes the very material to explain the origin of the
interpolations? By the last question we mean this, that Dr Hort
holds the interpolation (8) in the gospel of Luke to be due to
54
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
John xx. 19 which evidently precedes the passage from Luke in
the Harmony, and similar explanations may be made for (€)
and (5).
The solution of this perplexity seems to lie in the following
direction; THERE MUST HAVE BEEN A PREVIOUSLY EXISTING HAR-
MONY, PROBABLY A HARMONY OF THE PASSION-GOSPELS, which
Tatian used, AND WHICH HAS ALSO BEEN USED AS A REVISING
FACTOR IN THE ANCESTRY OF ALL TEXTS OF THE GOSPELS EXCEPT
THE NON-INTERPOLATING WESTERNS. Such a supposition explains
the reading (a): it shews why Tatian gives the reading (B)
although he has already quoted the passage in Matt. (xxviii. 6)
from which the interpolation was made: it explains why the
Harmony does not give us (y) Luke xxiv. 12, for though this
stood in the earlier Harmony it was not suited (in Tatian's idea)
to be used along with the passage in John of which it is an
obvious epitome. The other cases are perfectly lucid in view of
the hypothesis made; only we have to notice that the Old Syriac
has not been influenced by the Harmony in Luke xxiv. 10, but
perhaps it may have been so in John xx. 20.
Now let us turn to the remaining passage Luke xxii. 19, 20.
Here the words
τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν διδόμενον... ἐκχυννόμενον
are omitted by Dabeffirhe.
The Old Syriae reads τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν· τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν
áváμvnov and makes a transposition in the remaining part of the
narrative so as to make the Eucharistic order more natural.
Now the Tatian Harmony agrees closely with the Syriac in this:
that it quotes nothing from the interpolated section except the
words which correspond to the following sentence
καὶ οὕτως ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν.
This is sufficient agreement to shew that the Tatian Harmony
was not constructed without a knowledge of the interpolation:
but since the interpolation is only partially used in Tatian, and is
itself of a harmonistic character, we may reasonably refer it, as
before, to a previously existing Harmony, which has evidently
taken it from 1 Cor. xi. 24, as we may also see from the language
of Aphraates whose text stood καὶ οὕτως ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν
ἀνάμνησιν, ὁσάκις ἐὰν συνέρχησθε which has an additional adap-
tation from 1 Cor., which must have stood in Tatian if not in
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
55
Pre-Tatian, and it is also seen from the omission of Sidóμevov by
the Curetonian Syriac, so furnishing a closer agreement with the
text of 1 Cor. xi. 24. The close agreement between the Old
Syriac and Tatian may seem to support the theory of Baethgen
that the former is actually based upon the latter. And certainly
they are very closely related; but in one or two places the Old
Syriac seems to shew an acquaintance with the interpolated
passages beyond what we can trace at present in Tatian: and
the simplicity of the theory offered to account for the inter-
dependence of Tatian and the Old Syriac may be thought to have
given it an undue weight.
Perhaps we may sum up the matter as follows: the early
N.T. texts divide on certain notable readings into non-Western
interpolators and Western non-interpolators: the text of Tatian
is naturally Western, but it has followed in part a previously
existing Harmony of the Passion from which the interpolating
MSS. have drawn their peculiar accretions: and hence it appears
amongst the interpolating MSS. as if supporting their evidence
when it is in reality explaining it away. Whether this previously
existing Harmony, which we may call 'Pre-Tatian,' was in Greek
or not, is an interesting question: since it gives us avepépeтo in
Luke for the aveλýµpen of Mark, from which the interpolator
borrowed, we may incline to the belief that this Pre-Tatian was
not a Greek work: most likely, then, as in the case of Tatian
proper, it was a Syriac work. Now it is precisely in Syriac that
we find the Harmonies of the Passion-gospels so frequent.
We may now return to the famous scholion in Ev. 72 which
attributes to Tatian the interpolation in Matt. xxvii. 49. It will
be very difficult to explain the reading as anything else than a
careless harmonistic error; and since we have shewn that no trace
of it can be found in the evidence for the Tatian Harmony, while
the evidence for its being a Western non-interpolation is very
strong, we may refer it to the Passion-Harmony which Tatian
used and this perhaps explains the reference of the Scholiast,
while it carries the error back into the earliest times.
The assumed Passion-Harmony will explain also why Justin
so positively refers the words "Do this in remembrance of Me"
to the gospels. Even in Aphraates the words carry the marks of
their origin in 1 Cor., for he gives "Do this in remembrance of
me, as often as ye meet together"; which is the best evidence we
56
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
have for the primitive Tatian text. Now Justin's gospels shew
the harmonization of the passage in 1 Cor. with the Gospels before
the time of production of Tatian's Harmony.
But the supposition suggests even more than this: if the
existence of the Tatian Harmony is evidence for the antiquity
of the Gospel of John, the existence of an early stage of textual
growth, marked by a Harmony of the Passion-Gospels or at least
by the existence of the passages called "Western non-interpola-
tions" as anterior to the time of Tatian, presupposes the existence
of the matters harmonized at a very early time indeed. Thus
the existence of Tatian's Harmony is momentous evidence for
(i) the antiquity of the four Gospels,
(ii) of the Acts of the Apostles,
(iii) of the first Epistle to the Corinthians,
and perhaps of some other portions of the New Testament of
which we find traces in Tatian or pre-Tatian. Let us explain this
a little more at length. We can easily see that the four Gospels
being necessarily anterior in date to the time of Tatian, must be
long anterior to the period mentioned. And we see it in three
ways: first, because it is unreasonable to quibble over a passage
which seems to be quoted by Justin from St John's Gospel, as
to whether it be really the Johannine text, or the Johannine
theology in the air and in embryo, when we find that the disciple
of Justin harmonizes four Gospels of which St John's is one;
secondly, when we find that prior to the Tatian Harmony there
was an earlier Harmony containing portions of the four Gospels,
and this Harmony was used by Justin; so that the question of
the antiquity of the four Gospels is removed by at least one more
generation than was required in order to make Tatian's Harmony
possible, and thirdly, whether the pre-Tatian Harmony existed or
not, the various readings which were caused by the interpolations
existed before Tatian, and these readings being of a harmonistic
nature, the case for the priority of the Gospels stands as it did
before; for a reading in Luke is not going to be expanded from
John or Mark except on the hypothesis that these Gospels exist
in a form from which borrowing is practicable: so far-reaching
is the evidence to be derived from the elementary lesson which
Dr Burgon conveyed in one of his writings, in his own forcible
manner: "Have you not yet found out, sir, that all various readings
are early?" To which we append the further question, "Have
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
57
you not found out yet that all harmonistic readings prove that
the passages harmonized are earlier than the early readings?"
And as we have said, the evidence which we draw attention to
is not confined to the four Gospels. Pre-Tatian used the first
Epistle to the Corinthians. Tatian, if we may judge from
Ephrem, inserted the account of the death of Judas from the
Acts of the Apostles. Pre-Tatian used the last twelve verses of
St Mark; and just as we argued from Tatian's use of the four
Gospels to their use by Justin, so we are able to infer from
Tatian's use of the last twelve verses that Justin used them.
It does not depend merely upon the inference that Justin used
pre-Tatian; it is well known that Justin used a passage which
has been held by many to be a part of the last twelve verses;
accordingly Dr Hort places at the head of the Patristic Greek
evidence for these verses the name of Justin, bracketed and
queried, thus-(? Justin). And he argues as follows:
"The Greek Patristic evidence for vv. 9-20 perhaps begins
with Justin (Ap. I. 45) who interprets 'Paßdòv dvváμews éžaπo-
στελεῖ σοι ἐξ Ιερουσαλήμ (Ps. cx. 3) as predictive τοῦ λόγου τοῦ
ἰσχυροῦ ὃν ἀπὸ Ἱερουσαλὴμ οἱ ἀπόστολοι αὐτοῦ ἐξελθόντες
πανταχοῦ ἐκήρυξαν. On the one hand it may be said that the
combination of the same four words recurs in v. 20: on the other
that they were natural and obvious words to use, and to combine,
and that v. 20 does not contain the point specially urged by
Justin ἀπὸ Ἱερουσαλήμ... ἐξελθόντες (cf. Ap. I. 39, 49) which is
furnished by Lc. xxiv. 47 ff., Acts i. 4, 8. On both sides the
evidence is slight, and decision seems impossible. It should be
added, however, that the affinity between Justin's text and that
of Irenaeus (see below) leaves the supposition of a reference to
v. 20 free from antecedent improbability as regards textual
history." Happily for us, the Arabic Harmony is still able to
throw some light on the question; the changes through which it
has passed have not been sufficient to remove all its ancient
characteristics; when we turn to the text of Ciasca we find
Luc. xxiv. 25. Et ipsi, adorantes eum, regressi sunt in Jeru-
salem cum gaudio magno:
53. et omni tempore erant in templo laudantes et benedi-
centes Deum. Amen.
Marc. xvi. 20. Et, inde egressi, praedicaverunt ubique &c.
Here then we have the evidence for the missing ảπò 'Iepov-
58
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
oaλýμ; it is even possible that the very words stood in the
Tatian-sources; at all events they are sufficiently implied in the
word inde which still stands in the Arabic. Dr Hort may
therefore remove the query from the name of Justin in the
tabulated evidence for the last twelve verses.
On the other hand, this is not inconsistent with his theory
that the verse to which Justin alludes is made up out of passages
in Luke and Acts, for we have shewn reason to believe that Justin
drew the verses from a Harmony earlier than Tatian. Our
hypothesis satisfies all Dr Hort's criticisms, and in establishing
the antiquity of the last twelve verses of St Mark as a literary
product (for of course we have not proved authorship), we have
a fortiori established the antiquity of the Gospels out of which
the last twelve verses were compounded (e.g. the words in
Luke xxiv. 13 sqq. which may have been epitomized in Mark
xvi. 12 etc.).
If this reasoning is valid, it will be seen to involve a very high
antiquity for many of the New-Testament books. And indeed
the argument might have been strengthened; for it may well be
true as we have suggested, that the primitive Harmony, the
nucleus of Tatian's, was itself a Syriac work: and the supposition
of a translation is one more step that requires time in the observed
processes of change¹.
Nor is the argument for antiquity confined to the Gospels; for
there are other touches in Tatian which suggest the use of the
Apostolic Epistles: we have not dwelt on them because it encum-
bers an argument to burden it with doubtful matter. Still it
is conceivable that when in his account of the Transfiguration
Tatian says that the disciples "saw Jesus as He was," that his
thought might have been coloured by 1 John iii. "We shall see
Him as He is."
I have also detected an alteration of text which seems to have
been made under the influence of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
In Luke xxii. 43 the words yevóμevos év ȧywvią are replaced
1 It may not be amiss at this point to draw attention to a curiously confident
passage in Dr S. Davidson's book on the Canon of the Bible, p. 99. "Whatever
may be said about Justin's acquaintance with this Gospel (i.e. the Gospel of John)
its existence before 140 A.D. is incapable either of decisive or probable shewing.
The Johannine authorship has receded before the tide of modern criticism and
though this tide is arbitrary at times it is here irresistible."
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
59
by "Et cum timeret ": and it may perhaps be that the words came
from a passage in Heb. v. 7 where our Lord is said to have poured
out "strong crying and tears," and to have been "heard for His
pious fear" (evλaßeías which the Latins give as 'pro metu,'
'a metu' amongst other renderings). Now we know sufficient
of Tatian's method to enable us to say that he never omitted any-
thing in the shape of a historical detail which might serve to give
completeness to his story; hence it seems likely that the 'cum
timeret' is from Hebrews: and if he carried that over he certainly
took the 'tears' also from Hebrews at the same time; and this
brings us to the reading kaì ékλavσe which Epiphanius accuses
the orthodox of subtracting from the text of the Gospel.
The main body of the passage Luke xxii. 43, 44 may very well
have been found not only in Tatian but in Pre-Tatian, for the
allusion of Justin to the Opóμßo alμatos in his Dialogue with
Trypho (c. 103) is distinctly from the aπoµvnµoveúµata tŵv
άπоσтóλv or Memoirs of the Apostles, which is the same term as
he uses in previous quotations from Pre-Tatian, though it must
not be limited to any such composition.
The importance of the study of Tatian for the knowledge of
the New Testament in the middle of the second century is
certainly very great.
X. UNSOLVED PROBLEMS.
It will be seen by what precedes that there is a great deal of
work to be done in connection with the Arabic Harmony, and it
is beset with difficulties. To begin with, in the determination of
the missing Syriac of Tatian, we must be careful to remove all
those readings of the Arabic version which are either due to a
translator's liberty of speech or to erroneous reading of his copy.
When, for example, we find in Luke iv. 19 the words "praedicare
malis remissionem," although at first sight it might appear to be
an ancient Greek reading of ἁμαρτωλοῖς for αἰχμαλώτοις, a closer
.ܒܝܫܐ s ܫܒܝܐ examination will shew that the translator read
And in the same way it is conceivable that the gloss in Mark vii. 26,
ex Hemesen Syria," may have arisen out of a corrupt transcrip-
tion of Συροφοίνισσα. At all events we must be prepared for
such cases.
Again when Ciasca gives us in Matt. xxiii. 24 "ornantes
60
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
camelum," there must be some mistake either in the Arabic or
in the translation; and in fact if we correct Ciasca's, to
, which is only a transposition of a couple of adjacent
letters we get the ordinary reading, which no doubt stands for
the primitive Syriac as in the Curetonian text. So when
the Arabic gives Betharrahmat for the name of the pool of
Bethesda, this only means that there has been a translation
made of the Syriac o du; and the Arabic name is the
same as that found in the Curetonian.
ܒܠܥܝܢ
When we have succeeded in replacing the Arabic text, as far
as possible, by the primitive Syriac out of which it was developed,
our next step will be to determine the nature of the Greek text
from which the Syriac translation was made.
We shall readily detect that it was a Greek text in which
disintegrating textual influences had been busy. Some of the
changes made are mere trifles as when in Matt. iii. 10 the
Harmony followed by the Old Syriac gives "Ecce securis ad
radicem, &c.," which involves the reading of dŋ as ide. But
others are much more serious: let us examine for instance:
Mark ix. 15: "et cum vidissent homines Jesum, recesserunt,
et prae gaudio properantes, salutarunt eum." Here the ordinary
text is ἐξεθαμβήθησαν, καὶ προστρέχοντες ἠσπάζοντο αὐτόν.
2
The words 'prae gaudio' evidently arise from reading πрoσxé-
роνтes (=πроσxaípovтes) in the Greek: and the old Latins shew
the influence of the same text: D reading πpoσxéρovτes and c ff "
i k gaudentes which b disguises as cadentes. This error is very
important from a critical point of view, inasmuch as it could not
have passed into the Western text from a Syriac harmony: it
must have been earlier than the Harmony. Again in Luke
xxi. 35 “ipsa enim tanquam ictus percutiet omnes &c."; here it
is tolerably clear that wayis (written of course in uncials) has
been confounded with λnyn. Further than this it is also likely
that έπεισελεύσεται has been read as ἐπισαλεύσεται.
Such readings shew that the text upon which Tatian worked
had serious errors of transcription in it. Let us take one more
instance; in Luke xxii. 11 we find along with other changes from
the usual text, the words et fames et pestilentiae et commo-
tiones; terrores ac pavores erunt." The last words are a misreading
for φόβητρά τε which has been taken as φόβοι τέρατα τε, a
"
THE DIATESSARON OF TATIAN.
61
reading actually preserved in Cod. A, a MS. whose text has
affinities with Tatian. The Syriac of the error is preserved in
and it must have stood so in ,ܕܚܠܬܐ ܘܣܘܪ̈ܕܐ ,the Peshitto
Tatian; but we cannot say that the error originated in the Syriac;
it is clearly an error made in a Greek text.
But what Greek text was this? an ordinary Western copy?
and did Tatian write his work originally in Greek and then
translate it into Syriac; or was his earliest edition a bilingual in
the style of Codex Bezae with line for line translation? And
whether in Greek or in Syriac, did it exercise any reflex influence
upon the current texts, and if so, what are the characteristics of
this influence in extant copies? All of these questions are at
present involved in great obscurity. But they will, we may hope,
be resolved before long; the solution would be much expedited if
we could recover an early copy of the Syriac Tatian; and such a
prospect is by no means unreasonable. But even if the recovery
of such a text should be delayed indefinitely, we ought not to
despair of the results which may be attained by an honest
criticism working on the materials that are already accessible.
APPENDIX ON CODEX Wa
THE prominence into which this MS. is thrown by the coinci-
dences between its text and the Tatian harmony renders it
advisable that its text should be printed in full: we have
accordingly given a transcription and photographic reproduction
of the fragments. The size of the various pieces can be estimated
by means of the attached scale of inches which has been photo-
graphed along with the Ms. The accents and reading signs we
have not transcribed.
From the appearance of the MS. and an examination of the
contents of the separate pages it would seem that we had here
a part of the outside double leaf of a quaternion and a complete
inside leaf, the two intermediate leaves being lost.
!
:
APPENDIX.
63
>
V V V
Mark vii. 3.
ΜΗΠΥΓΜΗΝΙΨΟΝΤΑ [Ιτα
χειρα ογκεςθιоYCINKPA]
ΤΟΥΝΤΕ ΤΗΝ Παραδοσ[ι]
των πρεσβγτερων· [και]
새
​ΣΘ
λε
ΡΝΓ
Mark vii. 6, 7.
•
πορρω απέχει πεΜΟΥ ΜΑ
ΤΗ ΝΔ ΣΕΒΟΝΤΑΙ ΜΕ ΔΙΔΑΣ
ΜΠΑΤΑΝΩΝ ΒΑΠΤΙΣMOYC
•
Σε]ετων και Ποτηριών
1
}
64
APPENDIX.
K
1 × 18
Mark vii. 30-36.
ΜΟΓΓΙΛΑΛΟΥ
ΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΟΝ Εξεληλυθος
[Και παλι εξελθωναπ[οτ]ῶ
οριωντυρο και ιδωνος
ΗΛΘΕΝΕΙΣΤΗΝ
AN
THCAIA CANAME[CO]N
των ορίων Η Δεκαπολε]
ως + και φερOYCINAYTO
κωΦΟΝΚΑΙ ΜΟΓΓΙΛΑΛΟΝ
Και παρεκαλοΥΝΑΥΤΟΝ
ΙΝΑεπιθΗ[τα]χειpact k
επιλαβΟΜΕΝΟ ΑΥΤΟ ΑΠΟ
τογοχλογκαΤΙΔΙΑΝΕΠΤΥ
CENEI TOY Δακτυλογιαγ
το και βαλει ταωτα
•
Τογκωφο και ψατο
TH ΓλωccacΤΟΥ ΟΓΓΙΛΑ
λογ + ΚΑΙ ΑΝ Βλεψα ειςTON
ΟΥΝΟΝΑΝΕΣΤΕΝΑΖΕΝ ΚΑΙ
λεΓεΙα τω + εφφαθαρες
ΤΙΝ ΔΙΑΝΥΘΗΤΙ + ΚΑΙ ΔΙ
ΗΝΟΙΧΘΗΣΑΝ ΑΥΤΟΥΔΙΑΚΟ
ΔΙΚΑΙΤΟΥΜΟΓΓΙλάλογεΛΥ
[HONE MOTH Γλως HCκαι]
Ελληορθως + και Διετειλατο
εγθεως
NA
0€
мо
pz
05
APPENDIX.
65
Η. V.
Mark vii. 36-viii. 4.
ΑΥΤΟΙΣΙΝΑΜΗΔΕΝ ΛΕΓΩΝ
σε OCON[ΔΕ]ΑΥτοι διετέλλετο
|
Αγτοιμάλλον περιccoTe
pacekHpycCON ΚΑΙ ΠΑΝ
ός Tec[ε]επληCCONτολεΓΟΝΤΕΣ
ΚΑ
[καλω πανταποιεί τους
κωφογοποιΕΙΑΚΟΥΕΙΝ
και το γάλαλογελάλειν
ENEKEINAICTтAICHMEрAIC
παμπολλογο λογ[CYNax]
τι φαγωσιν προσκάλεσα
MENO TOY Μαθητας λε
ΓειαΥτοις πλάγχνΙΖΟ
Με επιτοκοχλΟΝΟΤΙ ΗΔΗ
Ημερα τρει πρOCMENOY
CIMOIKAIOYкεχωσιντι
Φαρω IN KAI [ea] Ναπολγ
CAYTOYCNHCTICEICOI
κ[ου]αντω[ΝΕΚΥΘΗ] CON
ΤΑΙΕΝΤΗΟΔω 'TINE ΓΑΡ
Αγτων ακροθΕΝΗΚΟΥ
CINκαιαπεκριθHCANAY
τωοιΜΑΘΗΤΑΙΑΥΤΟΥ
66
APPENDIX.
Mark viii. 4-10.
ΠΟΘΕΝΤΟΥΤΟΥ ΔΥΝΗΣΗ
ταιτισχορτασαιω εαρτῶ
επερΗΜΙΑ και πρωτα
Αυτογεποεογcεχετεαρτογε
ΟιΔεειπο επτακαι [πα]
ΡΗΓΓειλετωοχλω αναπε
CINEΠITHCFHC Καλά
XAPITHACA
ΚΑΙ
ΕΔΙΔΟΥΤΟΙ ΜΑΘΗΤΑΙ ΑΥ
Το ΙΝα παραθώσι ΚΑΙ
παρεθηκα τωοχλω
ΚΑΙ ΙΟΝΙΟΥΔΙΑ ΛΙΓΑ Κ
ΑΥΤΑΕΥΛΟΓΗCac˙ ΕΙΠΕΝΤΑ
ΑΘΗΝΑΙ ΕΦΑΓΟΝ ΔΕ ΚΑΙ
EXOPTACHCAN ΚΑΙ ΗΡΑΝ
περισσεγματα κλασματω
επτα πΥΡΙΔΗ ΑΝΔ
Οι ΑΓONTEсεω τετρακι
χιλιοι και απελYC NAY
ΤΟΥΣ
Θεωσει το πλοιο Μετατ
ΜΑΘΗΤΩΝ ΑΥΤΟΥ ΗΛΘΕΝ
ειςταμερ ΔαλμαΝΟΥθα
2210
M
ΟΖ
ΚΕ
ΝΓ
pza
PZB
APPENDIX.
67
Mark viii. 11-16.
ΟΗ
KB
KAI PANTOYZHTEIN
ΑΥΤΟ ΖΗΤΟΥΝΤε παραγ
TOYCHMEIOΝΑ ΠΟΤΟΥΟΥΝΟΥ
ΠΕΙΡΑΖΟΝΤΕΣΑΥΤΟΝ ΚΑΙ
ANACTENAZA τωΠΝΙΑΥ
τούλεγει ΤΗ ΓΕΝΕΑ
AYTHCHMEIONΕΠΙΖΗΤΕΙ
ΑΜΗΝ ΛΕΓΩ ΥΜΙΝ ΕΙΔΟ
ΘΗΣΕΤΑΙΤΗΓΕΝΕΑΑΥΤΗ
CHMEION
TOY EMBA ΠΑΛΙΝ ICTO
ΠΛΟΙΟΝ ΑΠΗΛΘΕΝΕΙΣTO
οθ
100
περαν
και επελάθοντο
οι μαθητα αγΤΟΥΛΑΒΕΙΝ
TONOY EIXON θεατώ
Εν τωπλοιω
ΚΑΙ ΔΙΕ
Сτελλετο γτοιςλέγων Ο
Ρατ και βλεπΕΤΕΣΠΟΤΗΣ
KAITHCZYMH Ηρωδογ
[ΚΑΙ ΔΙΕΛΟΓΙΖΟΝΤΟπρος[αλλη]
λογcλεγοντες. οτιαρτογε
OH
ο θ
ח
ΡΜΘ
:3
M
ΡΕΓ
ΡΕΔ
Αξε
68
APPENDIX.
Mark ix. 2.
[ΚΑΙ ΜΕΤΑΗ]
M[epaceźпapa]λamBaneloic
Τον πετρου και ακωβο
ΚΑΙΪΩΑΝΝΗΝ· ΚΑΙ ΑΝΑ
rela TorcelCOPO ΥΨΗΛΟΝ
·
ΚΑΤΙΔΙΑΝ ΜΟΝΟΥΣ ΚΑΙ
ΜΕΤΑΜΟΡΦΟΥΤΑΙ ΜΠΡΟΣ
Ν
Α
:3
M
πTS
ΠΖ
Cz
poa
ΣΗ
pob
Mark ix. 7, 8.
ΜΟΥ ΑΓΑΠΗΤΟΣΟΝεξελε
·
ΣΑΜΗΝ ΑΚΟΥΕΤΕΑΥΤΟΥ·
και ευθεως περιβλεψάμε
ΝΟΙ· ΟΥΚΕΤΙ[ΟΥΔΕΝ ΕΙΔΟΝ]
ΕΙΜΗΙΝΜΟΝΟΝ· ΚΑΙ ΚΑ
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
OCT 2 3 1917

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