fact that the earliest reference to Tatian's "Harmony," is made a century and a half after its supposed composition, and that no writer before the fifth century had seen the work itself, indeed that only two writers before that period mention it at all, receives its natural explanation in the conclusion that Tatian did not compose any Harmony at all, but simply made use of the same Gospel as his master Justin Martyr, namely, the Gospel according to the Hebrews,(1) by which name his Gospel had been actually called by those best informed.
Although Theodoret, writing in the fifth century, says in the usual arbitrary manner of early Christian writers, that Tatian "excised" from his Gospel the genealogies and certain passages found in the Synoptics, he offers no explanation or proof of his assertion, and the utmost that can be received is that Tatian's Gospel did not contain them.(3) Did he omit them or merely use a Gospel which never included them? The latter is the more probable conclusion. Neither Justin's Gospel nor the Gospel according to the Hebrews contained the genealogies or references to the Son of David, and why, as Credner suggests, should Tatian have taken the trouble to prepare a Harmony with these omissions when he already found one such as he desired in Justin's Gospel? Tatian's Gospel, like that of his master Justin, or the Gospel according to the Hebrews, was different from, yet nearly related to, our canonical Gospels, and as we have already seen, Justin's Gospel, like Tatian's, was considered by many to be a harmony of our Gospels.(3) No
one seems to have seen Tatian's "Harmony," probably for the very simple reason that there was no such work, and the real Gospel used by him was that according to the Hebrews, as some distinctly and correctly called it. The name Diatessaron is first heard of in a work of the fourth century, when it is naturally given by people accustomed to trace every such work to our four Gospels, but as we have clearly seen, there is not up to the time of Tatian any evidence even of the existence of three of our Gospels, and much less of the four in a collected form. Here is an attempt to identify a supposed, but not demonstrated, harmony of Gospels whose separate existence has not been heard of. Even Dr. Westcott states that Tatian's Diatessaron "is apparently the first recognition of a fourfold Gospel,"(1) but, as we have seen, that recognition emanates only from a writer of the fourth century who had not seen the work of which he speaks. No such modern ideas, based upon mere foregone conclusions, can be allowed to enter into a discussion regarding a work dating from the time of Tatian.(2)
The fact that the work found by Theodoret in his diocese was used by orthodox Christians without
2 Dr. Lightfoot (Contemp. Rev., 1876-77, p. 1137) refers to
an apocryphal work, "The Doctrine of Addai," recently edited
and published by Dr. Phillips, in which it is stated that a
large multitude assembled daily at Edessa for prayer and the
reading of the Old Testament, "and the new of the
Diatessaron." Dr. Lightfoot assumes that this is Tatian's
Gospel. Even if it were so, however, we cannot discover in
this any addition to our information regarding the
composition of the work. We have already the fuller
statement of Theodoret respecting the use of Tatian's work
in the churches of his diocese, so that beyond an
interesting reference, no fresh light is thrown upon the
question by the phrase quoted. But we cannot see any ground
for asserting that the Diatessaron here spoken of was
Tatian's Gospel. On the contrary, it seems perfectly clear
that the writer speaks only of the four Gospels of the New
Testament.
consciousness of its supposed heterodoxy, is quite consistent with the fact that it was the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which at one time was in very general use, but later gradually became an object of suspicion and jealousy in the Church as our canonical Gospels took its place. The manner in which Theodoret dealt with Tatian's Gospel, or that "according to the Hebrews," recalls the treatment by Serapion of another form of the same work: the Gospel according to Peter. He found that work in circulation and greatly valued amongst the Christians of Rhossus, and allowed them peaceably to retain it for a time, until, alarmed at the Docetic heresy, he more closely examined the Gospel, and discovered in it what he considered heretical matter.(1) The Gospel according to the Hebrews, which narrowly missed a permanent place in the Canon of the Church, might well seem orthodox to the simple Christians of Cyrus, yet as different from, though closely related to, the Canonical Gospels, it would seem heretical to their Bishop. As different from the Gospels of the four evangelists, it was doubtless suppressed by Theodoret with perfect indifference as to whether it were called Tatian's Gospel or the Gospel according to the Hebrews. It is obvious that there is no evidence of any value connecting Tatian's Gospel with those in our Canon. We know so little about the work in question, indeed, that as Dr. Donaldson frankly admits, "we should not be able to identify it, even if it did come down to us, unless it told us something reliable about itself."(2) Its earlier history is enveloped in obscurity, and as Canon Westcott observes: "The later history of the Diatessaron is
