I. Harmonies as Interwoven Gospels

1. No Harmonies before Tatian

The chance remark of Jerome that Theophilus of Antioch had collected the words of the four Gospels in one work refers to a commentary by Theophilus which embraced all four without sharp distinctions between them. The remark of Ambrose, which may be derived from Origen, to the effect that many heretical teachers collected out of the four Gospels that which suited their form of teaching, hardly proves the existence of a number of old harmonies, but rather refers to the Apocryphal Gospels, which got some of their material from the canonical Gospels, such as the Gospel of Marcion, based on Luke and containing excerpts from Matthew and John. And to this class of composition the work of Ammonius, known only from the letter of Eusebius to Carpianus, does not belong, in which he is said to have taken Matthew as a basis and added the parallels from the other Gospels. While the descriptions do not permit dogmatizing upon the character of this work, it can hardly have been anything other than a handbook for exegetes and especially for harmonists, and it belongs to the class of books called by the Germans synopses.

The oldest trustworthy report of the Diatessaron of Tatian is contained in Eusebius (Hilt eccl., IV., xxix. 6), bpt the character of the description implies that its use was limited to certain circles and that it was not studied by Eusebius. This limitation in circulation is confirmed by Epiphanius, and still more definitely by Jerome when he says that out of all the productions of Tatian, only the Contra gentes remained, and omits mention of the Diatesearon. In Palestine during the fourth century even to the most learned authors the Diatessaron was but the title of an unknown book. If Hegesippus can be held to have referred to the Diates 2. Tatian's Baron under the term "the Syriac Diatessaron (Gospel)," according to Eusebius (Hist. and Its eccl., IV., xxii. 7) this is the earliest

History. testimony to the existence of that work, and .it involves the conclusion that the language was Syriac; but that Hegesippus, writing in Greek, should have cited the Syriac translation of a Gospel harmony which must have followed its Greek original is highly improbable. But the testimonies in the Syrian region to the existence of the Diatessaron are abundant, and from direct knowledge, as when Theodoret, bishop of Kyros (or Kyrrhos), removed about 200 copies of the work from the orthodox churches and substituted the canonical Gospels. Completer knowledge has been recently gained through the discovery of the Armenian translation of the commentary of Ephraem Syrus, made accessible to larger circles by the Latin translation of J. Aucher (ed. G. M6singer, Venice, 1876; cf. J. H. Hill, Dissertation arc the Gospel Commentary of S. Ephraem, Edinburgh, 1896). The legends of the Christianizing of Edeasa, older than Eusebius, mention the Diatessaron as the chief sacred book alongside the Old Testament. Aphraates calls it

"the Gospel of our Savior." In the Syriac translation of the Hist. eccl. of Eusebius, known to have existed as early as Ephraem Syrus' time, the "Diateasaron" of IV., xxix. 6 is translated by "the mingled (Gospel)," showing that in its home that was the name by which it was known, while in distinction from this the other Gospels were known as "the separated (Gospels)," as a canon of Rabbula of Edeasa (412-435) makes clear. In the fifth century there was a definite rejection of the Diateasaron and exclusion of it from use in service, and that without distinction of party affiliations of the bishops who directed the movement. But from near Mosul to the bishopric of Kyros the Diatessaron must have been for the churches long the service-book in the Gospels, while the translations of the separate Gospels were used in the studies of the theologians, a condition which prevailed at least till about 370 A.D., when Ephraem Syrus lectured ,upon the Diatessaron with only occasional references to the canonical Gospels. Similar evidence comes from other writers. Mar Abba, a disciple of Ephraem, had an "Exposition of the Gospel" the fragments of which appear to show that it was based on Tatian'a work. From the fifth century the relations of the two forms of the Gospels were reversed; the separated Gospels were in use in the churches, the Diatessaron, was referred to only by the learned.

Apart from the two translations already mentioned, the history of the Diatessaron seems to have run its course entirely in the region of Syria. And it is to be noted that in its original form it was Greek, and was translated into the Syriac. The lack of any testimony for its existence among the Greek churches and the way in which Greek writers refer to it confirm the conclusion already reached. That Tatian, the writer of an apology in Greek, if he was in any event the author of the Diatessaron. could have written it only in Greek is