Misplaced Pages

#847152

62-661: Tatian's most influential work is the Diatessaron , a Biblical paraphrase , or "harmony", of the four gospels that became the standard text of the four gospels in the Syriac-speaking churches until the 5th-century, after which it gave way to the four separate gospels in the Peshitta version. Concerning the date and place of his birth, little is known beyond what Tatian tells about himself in his Oratio ad Graecos , chap. xlii ( Ante-Nicene Fathers , ii. 81–82): that he

124-512: A Dutch (c. 1280), a Venetian manuscript of the 13th century, and a Middle English manuscript from 1400 that was once owned by Samuel Pepys . In a lost writing entitled On Perfection according to the Doctrine of the Savior, Tatian designates matrimony as a symbol of the tying of the flesh to the perishable world and ascribed the "invention" of matrimony to the devil. He distinguishes between

186-512: A Persian harmony that seems to have borrowed some readings from the Diatessaron . There are also Parthian texts with borrowings from the Diatessaron . The Arabic translation was made by Ibn al-Tayyib in the early 11th century from the original Syriac. Tatian was an Assyrian who was a pupil of Justin Martyr in Rome , where, Justin says, the apomnemoneumata (recollections or memoirs) of

248-400: A copy of Ephrem's original Syriac text dated to the late 5th or early 6th century, which has been edited by Louis Leloir (Paris, 1966). Many other translations have been made, sometimes including substantial revisions to the text. There are translations into Arabic , Latin , Old Georgian , Old High German , Middle High German , Middle English , Middle Dutch and Old Italian . There is

310-481: A degradatio mosaica, that is, as an imitative corruption of the writings of the Bible (40.1). Consequently he ends up sustaining several theses, the main one being that Moses is older than all the legislators and writers of humanity (31; 36.2-40.1); that there is no plurality of gods but creational monarchy (Oratio ad Graecos 29.2); that there is no plurality of worlds but only one with only one final judgment to come, which

372-539: A distinct tradition, as such texts appear to underlie surviving 13th–14th century Gospel harmonies in Middle Dutch , Middle High German , Middle French , Middle English , Tuscan and Venetian ; although no example of this hypothetical Latin sub-text has ever been identified. The Liège Diatessaron is a particularly poetic example. This Latin Diatessaron textual tradition has also been suggested as underlying

434-633: A mixed manuscript; and, further corrected by Victor so as to provide a very pure Vulgate text within a modified Diatessaron sequence and to restore the two genealogies of Jesus side-by-side, this harmony, the Codex Fuldensis , survives in the monastic library at Fulda , where it served as the source text for vernacular harmonies in Old High German , Eastern Frankish and Old Saxon (the alliterative poem ' Heliand '). The older mixed Vulgate/Diatessaron text type also appears to have continued as

496-589: A narrative about the Passion found in the ruins of Dura-Europos in 1933 was once thought to have been from the Diatessaron , but more recent scholarly judgement does not connect it directly to Tatian's work. The earliest member of the Western family of recensions is the Latin Codex Fuldensis , written at the request of bishop Victor of Capua in 545 AD. Although the text is clearly dependent on

558-461: A single unnamed blind man (Luke 18:35ff). Otherwise, Tatian originally omitted altogether both of the different genealogies in Matthew and Luke, as well as Luke's introduction (Luke 1:1–4); and also did not originally include Jesus' encounter with the adulteress (John 7:53–8:11). The pericope is present in western manuscripts believed to be based on the Diatessaron (e.g., Codex Fuldensis ) but

620-456: A teacher of your own doctrines and have examined many arts and conceptions and finally I was able to study with attention the variety of statues brought by you to the city of Rome. For I do not seek to confirm my doctrines, as the vulgar do, with opinions foreign to my own, but 'I wish to compose anagraphs' (τὴν ἀναγραφὴν συντάσσσειν βούλομαι) on all those things which by myself I have understood (Oratio ad Graecos 35.1). What Tatian seems to propose

682-451: Is derived in turn from Greek , διὰ τεσσάρων ( dia tessarōn ), meaning "out of four" (i.e., διά , dia , "at intervals of" and tessarōn [genitive of τέσσαρες , tessares ], "four"). The Syriac name for this gospel harmony is ' ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ ' ( Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê ) meaning: "Gospel of the Mixed". Tatian's harmony follows the gospels closely in terms of text but, in order to fit all

SECTION 10

#1732765315848

744-714: Is equally unclear whether Tatian took the Syriac Gospel texts composited into his Diatessaron from a previous translation, or whether the translation was his own. Where the Diatessaron records Gospel quotations from the Jewish Scriptures, the text appears to agree with that found in the Syriac Peshitta Old Testament rather than that found in the Greek Septuagint —as used by the original Gospel authors. The majority consensus

806-520: Is generally considered to be a latter interpolation. This whole passage is also generally considered to be a late addition to the Gospel of John, with the Diatessaron itself often cited as an early textual witness in support of its omission. Most scholars agree that Tatian did, from the beginning, include the longer ending of Mark (Mark 16: 9–20), and correspondingly is amongst the earliest witnesses to this inclusion. Tatian added no significant wording to

868-486: Is impossible to say what is true of history" (31.4). The Greeks are embellishers of language and, in general, with respect to productive and artistic techniques they are skilled imitators, not creators or discoverers: "stop calling imitations inventions" (Oratio ad Graecos 1.1). He then asserts that the Greeks received from other cultures all the disciplines that they managed to practice: divination by dreams, prognostication by

930-699: Is that the Peshitta Old Testament preceded the Diatessaron, and represents an independent translation from the Hebrew Bible. Resolution of these scholarly questions remained very difficult so long as no complete version of the Diatessaron in Syriac or Greek had been recovered; while the medieval translations that had survived—in Arabic and Latin —both relied on texts that had been heavily corrected to conform better with later canonical versions of

992-402: Is the image of God in man, and to it man's immortality is due. The first-born of the spirits (identified with Satan ) fell and caused others to fall, and thus the demons originated. The fall of the spirits was brought about through their desire to separate man from God, in order that he might serve not God but them. Man, however, was implicated in this fall, lost his blessed abode and his soul

1054-519: Is thus not a philosophy, theology, or exegesis of some revealed text, but a historical truth that attentive study can achieve. Nor does he do mythology because in impugning the mythologists as a whole, he uses an argument consonant with the critical historians: Greek theology is mythology, literary invention, with no content of truth. For the first time the voice μυθολογία appears in the Christian lexicon (Oratio ad Graecos 40.1); it specifically signifies

1116-459: Is to be universal (Oratio ad Graecos 6.1). The literary genre of the Oratio is still that of apologetics, with elements of diatribe and protreptic. Sterling has called it "apologetic historiography." Diatessaron The Diatessaron ( Syriac : ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ , romanized :  Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê ; c. 160–175 AD) is the most prominent early gospel harmony . It was created in

1178-422: Is true has already been said elsewhere, with greater clarity and perspective. What it says that is new is almost always wrong, plagued [...] with philological, logical, and methodological errors, and a gross insensitivity to things historical (both within the discipline, as well as the transmission-history of texts). Reading this book fills one with dismay and despair. It is shocking that a work which does not rise to

1240-468: The Syriac language by Tatian , an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic . Tatian sought to combine all the textual material he found in the four gospels - Matthew , Mark , Luke , and John - into a single coherent narrative of Jesus's life and death. However, and in contradistinction to most later gospel harmonists, Tatian appears not to have been motivated by any aspiration to validate

1302-749: The Vulgate , the order of the passages is distinctly how Tatian arranged them. Tatian's influence can be detected much earlier in such Latin manuscripts as the Old Latin translation of the Bible, in Novatian 's surviving writings, and in the Roman Antiphony. After the Codex Fuldensis, it would appear that members of the Western family led an underground existence, popping into view over the centuries in an Old High German translation (c. 830),

SECTION 20

#1732765315848

1364-417: The pneuma hylikon , "world spirit," which is common to angels, stars, men, animals, and plants. This world spirit is lower than the divine pneuma, and becomes in man the psyche or "soul," so that on the material side and in his soul man does not differ essentially from the animals; though at the same time he is called to a peculiar union with the divine spirit, which raises him above the animals. This spirit

1426-675: The 16th century Islam-influenced Gospel of Barnabas (Joosten, 2002). Robert F. Shedinger writes that in quotations to the Old Testament where the great uncial codices have κύριος and the Hebrew OT manuscripts יהוה (YHWH), Tatian wrote the term "God". Pavlos D. Vasileiadis reports that "Shedinger proposed that the Syriac Diatessaron, composed some time after the middle of the second century CE, may provide additional confirmation of Howard's hypothesis (Tatian and

1488-458: The Apostles, the gospels, were read every Sunday. When Justin quotes the synoptic Gospels, he tends to do so in a harmonised form, and Helmut Koester and others conclude that Justin must have possessed a Greek harmony text of Matthew, Luke and Mark. If so, it is unclear how much Tatian may have borrowed from this previous author in determining his own narrative sequence of Gospel elements. It

1550-579: The Chester Beatty library was able to track down and buy a further 42 leaves, so that now approximately eighty per cent of the Syriac commentary is available (McCarthy 1994). Ephrem did not comment on all passages in the Diatessaron, and nor does he always quote commentated passages in full; but for those phrases that he does quote, the commentary provides for the first time a dependable witness to Tatian's original; and also confirms its content and their sequence. [1] . Theodoret , bishop of Cyrrhus on

1612-515: The Christian religion and became the pupil of Justin Martyr . During this period Christian philosophers competed with Greek sophists. Like Justin, Tatian opened a Christian school in Rome. Knowledge of Tatian's life following the death of Justin in AD 165 is to some extent obscure. Irenaeus remarks ( Haer. , I., xxviii. 1, Ante-Nicene Fathers, i. 353) that after the death of Justin, he was expelled from

1674-564: The Diatessaron circulated as a supplement to the four gospels, especially in the Latin translation. A number of recensions of the Diatessaron are extant. The earliest, part of the Eastern family of recensions, is preserved in 4th century theologian Ephrem the Syrian 's Commentary on Tatian's work, which itself is preserved in two versions: an Armenian translation preserved in two copies, and

1736-431: The Diatessaron was replaced in those Assyrian churches that used it by the four original Gospels. Rabbula , Bishop of Edessa , ordered the priests and deacons to see that every church should have a copy of the separate Gospels ( Evangelion da Mepharreshe ), and Theodoret , Bishop of Cyrus, removed more than two hundred copies of the Diatessaron from the churches in his diocese. The Syriac Sinaitic manuscript of gospels

1798-524: The Euphrates in upper Syria in 423, suspecting Tatian of having been a heretic, sought out and found more than two hundred copies of the Diatessaron , which he "collected and put away, and introduced instead of them the Gospels of the four evangelists". No Christian tradition, other than some Syriac ones, has ever adopted a harmonized Gospel text for use in its liturgy. However, in many traditions, it

1860-452: The Greeks, Tatian describes himself as a prudent historian on the model of Thucydides , whom he never names. He presents himself as a scholar of documentation "with all my rigor <for you>" (Oratio 41.2.13) Thucydides' principle. He also distinguishes between annals and documents that are within the historian's reach and things that fall outside his direct knowledge (Oratio ad Graecos 20.2), another of Thucydides' principles. He then accepts

1922-584: The Jewish Scriptures, 136–140). Additionally, within the Syriac Peshitta is discernible the distinction between κύριος rendered as ܡܪܝܐ ( marya , which means "lord" and refers to the God as signified by the Tetragrammaton; see Lu 1:32) and ܡܪܢ ( maran , a more generic term for "lord"; see Joh 21:7)." R. F. Shedinger holds that after יהוה, θεός could be a term before κύριος became the standard term in

Tatian - Misplaced Pages Continue

1984-487: The New Testament Greek copies. Shedinger's work has been strongly criticized. Since Tatian's Diatessaron is known only indirectly from references to it in other works, Shedinger's dissertation is based on his collection of 69 possible readings, only two of which, in the judgment of William L. Petersen. reach the level of probability. Peterson complains of Shedinger's "inconsistent methodology" and says that

2046-549: The Syriac original of which was rediscovered only in 1957, when a manuscript acquired by Sir Chester Beatty in 1957 (now Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709, Dublin) turned out to contain the text of Ephrem's commentary. The manuscript constituted approximately half of the leaves of a volume of Syriac writings that had been catalogued in 1952 in the library of the Coptic monastery of Deir es-Suriani in Wadi Natrun , Egypt. Subsequently,

2108-848: The West from the late 2nd century; with a sequence adjusted to conform more closely to that of the canonical Gospel of Luke ; and also including additional canonical text (such as the Pericope Adulterae ), and possibly non-canonical matter from the Gospel of the Hebrews . With the gradual adoption of the Vulgate as the liturgical Gospel text of the Latin Church, the Latin Diatessaron was increasingly modified to conform to Vulgate readings. In 546 Victor of Capua discovered such

2170-413: The canonical material in, he created his own narrative sequence, which is different from both the synoptic sequence and John's sequence; and occasionally creates intervening time periods that are found in none of the source accounts. This sequence is coherent and consistent within itself, but not necessarily consistent with that in all or any of the separate canonical gospels; and Tatian apparently applies

2232-609: The caution of the Greek historians who rejected the mythological 'archaeology' with which the ancient ethnographers and historians ( Titus Livy ) had covered the dark path between the known facts and the legendary origin of each city or ethnic group. Another characteristic of the rigorous historian is the personal inspection of places and cities with the discernment of the various types of documentation and sources: Well then, all these things I do not expound because I learned them from another but because, traveling through many lands I have been

2294-534: The church for his Encratitic ( ascetic ) views, as well as for being a follower of the gnostic leader Valentinius . Eusebius refers to a belief that Tatian had founded the Encratitic sect. It is clear that Tatian left Rome, perhaps to reside for a while in either Greece or Alexandria , where he may have taught Clement of Alexandria . Epiphanius relates that Tatian established a school in Mesopotamia,

2356-407: The falsification of the philosophy of Moses perpetrated by the Greeks. Their poetry is shameful but, nevertheless, not false in an absolute way, because the 'gods' exist and act: they are the 'demons', who impinge on the deviation of human behavior and are the ones who manage the destructive and evil culture of the whole Greek παιδεία. Greek theology, then, is seen not as a praeparatio evangelica but as

2418-492: The final conclusions but also in the details of the argument." Louis Leloir Dom Louis Leloir , O.S.B., (1911–1992), originating from Namur , Belgium, was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Clervaux , Clervaux , Luxembourg . His preoccupations were with oecumenical relations , especially with Judaism , and with research into early monasticism , Armenian and Syriac patristics and apocryphal literature . Leloir

2480-481: The four separate canonical gospel accounts; or to demonstrate that, as they stood, they could each be shown as being without inconsistency or error. Although widely used by early Syriac Christians , the original text has not survived. It was reconstructed in 1881 by Theodor Zahn from translations and commentaries. The title Diatessaron comes from the Latin diatessarōn , meaning: "made of four [ingredients]"; this

2542-472: The four separate gospels; but both outcomes came to pass in different churches. The Diatessaron became adopted as the standard lectionary text of the gospels in some Syriac-speaking churches from the late 2nd to the 5th century, until it gave way to the four separate Gospels such as the Syriac Sinaitic gospels, or later in the Peshitta version. At the same time, in the churches of the Latin west,

Tatian - Misplaced Pages Continue

2604-478: The gospels at first circulated independently, with Matthew the most popular. The Diatessaron is notable evidence for the authority already enjoyed by the gospels by the mid- to late-2nd century. Within twenty years after Tatian's harmony was written, Irenaeus was expressly arguing for the authoritative character of the Four Gospels. It is unclear whether Tatian intended the Diatessaron to supplement or replace

2666-452: The healing of the blind at Jericho the Diatessaron reports only one blind man, Bartimeaus, healed by Jesus when leaving the city according to the account in Mark 10:46ff (expanded with phrases from Luke 18:36–37); consequently omitting any separate mention of two unnamed blind men healed by Jesus leaving Jericho (Matthew 20:29ff), and also the healing by Jesus entering Jericho the previous day of

2728-634: The influence of which extended to Antioch in Assyria, and was felt in Cilicia and especially in Pisidia. The early development of the Assyrian church furnishes a commentary on the attitude of Tatian in practical life. Thus for Aphrahat baptism conditions the taking of a vow in which the catechumen promises celibacy. This shows how firmly the views of Tatian were established in Assyria, and it supports

2790-413: The level of a master's thesis should be approved as a doctoral dissertation; how it found its way into print is unfathomable. One shudders to think of the damage it will do when, in the future, it is cited by the ignorant and the unsuspecting as "demonstrating" what it has not." Jan Joosten's review of Shedinger's work is also condemnatory. In his judgment "Shedinger's study remains unconvincing, not only in

2852-446: The moral life. Originally, the human soul possessed faith in one God, but lost it with the fall. In consequence, under the rule of demons, man sank into the abominable error of polytheism. By monotheistic faith, the soul is delivered from the material world and from demonic rule and is united with God. God is spirit ( pneuma ), but not the physical or stoical pneuma; he was alone before the creation, but he had within himself potentially

2914-485: The new Christian doctrine to philosophy, Tatian manifests a violent rejection of the forms of philosophical literature with which he is familiar and consequently turns to a safer literary genre: the writing of history. He thus recapitulates his treatise: Thus I believe I have summarily but with all my rigor analyzed the treatises of the sages, their 'chronologies' (χρόνοι) and their archives (ναγραφαί), each one in particular" (Tatian Oratio ad Graecos 41.2-3). Tatian gives

2976-462: The old and the new man; the old man is the law, the new man the Gospel. Other lost writings of Tatian include a work written before the Oratio ad Graecos that contrasts the nature of man with the nature of the animals, and a Problematon biblion , which aimed to present a compilation of obscure Scripture sayings. The starting-point of Tatian's theology is a strict monotheism which becomes the source of

3038-624: The published versions of the Diatessaron in English); and a 13th-century Persian harmony. The Arabic harmony preserves Tatian's sequence exactly, but uses a source text corrected in most places to that of the standard Syriac Peshitta Gospels; the Persian harmony differs greatly in sequence, but translates a Syriac text that is rather closer to that in Ephrem's commentary. A Vetus Latina version of Tatian's Syriac text appears to have circulated in

3100-399: The same principle in respect of the narrative itself. Where the gospels differ from one another in respect of the details of an event or teaching, the Diatessaron resolves such apparent contradictions by selecting one or another alternative wording and adding consistent details from the other gospels; while omitting apparent duplicate matter, especially across the synoptics. Hence, in respect of

3162-466: The separate Gospel texts. There is scholarly uncertainty about what language Tatian used for its original composition, whether Syriac or Greek . The Diatessaron was used as the standard Gospel text in the liturgy of at least some sections of the Syrian Church for possibly up to two centuries and was quoted or alluded to by Syrian writers. Ephrem the Syrian wrote a commentary on it,

SECTION 50

#1732765315848

3224-411: The stars, observation of the flight of birds, the art of sacrifice, astronomy, magic, geometry, the alphabet, poetry, singing, the mysteries, plastic arts, anagraphic records, the manufacture of musical instruments and metallurgy (1.1-2) he specifies in each case the nation from which the knowledge that the Greeks have of the arts comes from. However, although he does not recognize the inventive capacity of

3286-529: The supposition that Tatian was the missionary of the countries around the Euphrates . His Oratio ad Graecos (Address to the Greeks) condemns paganism as worthless, and praises the reasonableness and high antiquity of Christianity. As early as Eusebius , Tatian was praised for his discussions of the antiquity of Moses and of Jewish legislation, and it was because of this chronological section that his Oratio

3348-399: The surviving readings do not support his conclusions. Petersen thinks the dissertation should never have been accepted for a doctoral degree, in view of "the illogical arguments, inconsistent standards, philological errors, and methodological blunders that mar this book. [...] the errors are so frequent and so fundamental that this volume can contribute nothing to scholarship. What it says that

3410-416: The textual material he took from the separate gospels. Only 56 verses in the canonical Gospels do not have a counterpart in the Diatessaron, mostly the genealogies and the Pericope Adulterae . The final work is about 72 per cent the length of the four gospels put together; around a quarter of the text of the separate gospels being adjudged by Tatian to be duplicated. (McFall, 1994). In the early Church ,

3472-464: The voice for the first time in the Christian lexicon to ναγραφή, annals or documentary chronology. Tatian claims that the Greeks learned historiography from the Egyptians (Oratio ad Graecos 1.1), who possessed exact techniques for chronology (38.1). For the Syriac the Greeks are skillful literati, bad philosophers, but they can never be good historians, for "for those who have a disjointed chronology it

3534-455: The whole creation. Some scholars consider Tatian's creation theology as the beginning of teaching "ex nihilo" (creation from "nothing"). The means of creation was the dynamis logike ("power expressed in words"). At first there proceeded from God the Logos who, generated in the beginning, was to produce the world by creating matter from which the whole creation sprang. Creation is penetrated by

3596-610: Was born in "the land of the Assyrians", scholarly consensus is that he died c. AD 185, perhaps in Adiabene . He travelled to Rome , where he first encountered Christianity. During his prolonged stay in Rome, according to his own representation, his abhorrence of the pagan cults sparked deep reflections on religious problems. Through the Old Testament , he wrote, he grew convinced of the unreasonableness of paganism. He adopted

3658-467: Was deserted by the divine spirit, and sank into the material sphere, in which only a faint reminiscence of God remained alive. As by freedom man fell, so by freedom he may turn again to God. The Spirit unites with the souls of those who walk uprightly; through the prophets he reminds men of their lost likeness to God. Although Tatian does not mention the name of Jesus, his doctrine of redemption culminates in his Christology . Unlike Justin, who had related

3720-521: Was not generally condemned. His other major work was the Diatessaron , a "harmony" or synthesis of the four New Testament Gospels into a combined narrative of the life of Jesus . Ephrem the Syrian referred to it as the Evangelion da Mehallete ("The Gospel of the Mixed"), and it was practically the only gospel text used in Assyria during the 3rd and 4th centuries. In the mid 5th century

3782-417: Was not unusual for subsequent Christian generations to seek to provide paraphrased Gospel versions in language closer to the vernacular of their own day. Frequently such versions have been constructed as Gospel harmonies, sometimes taking Tatian's Diatessaron as an exemplar; other times proceeding independently. Hence from the Syriac Diatessaron text was derived an 11th-century Arabic harmony (the source for

SECTION 60

#1732765315848

3844-571: Was produced in between AD 411 and 435 as a result of his edict. A number of recensions of the Diatessaron are extant. The earliest, part of the Eastern family of recensions, is preserved in Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's work, which itself is preserved in two versions: an Armenian translation preserved in two copies, and a copy of Ephrem's original Syriac text from the late 5th/early 6th century, which has been edited by Louis Leloir (Paris, 1966). Other translations include translations made into Arabic , Persian , and Old Georgian . A fragment of

#847152