Diatessaron

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For the musical interval, see perfect fourth.
Parchment manuscript of the Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron, from Egypt, late 5th or early 6th century, in the Chester Beatty Library

The Diatessaron (

romanized: Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê; c. 160–175 AD) is the most prominent early gospel harmony. It was created in the Syriac language by Tatian, an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic.[1] 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 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.[2]

Terminology

The title Diatessaron comes from the Latin diatessarōn ("made of four [ingredients]"), derived in turn from Greek, διὰ τεσσάρων (dia tessarōn) ("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'.

Overview

Arabic Diatessaron, translated by Abul Faraj al-Tayyib from Syriac to Arabic, 11th century

Tatian's harmony follows the gospels closely in terms of text but, in order to fit all 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.[3] 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 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 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 a single unnamed blind man (Luke 18:35ff).[4]

Otherwise, Tatian originally omitted altogether both of the different

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 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,[5]
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 the textual material he took from the separate gospels.

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

Syriac Sinaitic gospels,[7] or later in the Peshitta version.[8]
At the same time, in the churches of the Latin west, the Diatessaron circulated as a supplement to the four gospels, especially in the Latin translation.

Recensions and translations

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 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 a Persian harmony that seems to have borrowed some readings from the Diatessaron. There are also Parthian texts with borrowings from the Diatessaron.[9] The Arabic translation was made by Ibn al-Tayyib in the early 11th century from the original Syriac.

Tatian's harmony

Tatian was a pupil of 2nd-century Christian convert, apologist, and philosopher Justin Martyr

Tatian was an Assyrian who was a pupil of Justin Martyr in Rome,[10] where, Justin says, the apomnemoneumata (recollections or memoirs) of 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 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 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 the separate Gospel texts.[11]

There is scholarly uncertainty about what language Tatian used for its original composition, whether Syriac or Greek.[11][12]

Diatessaron in Syriac Christianity

The Diatessaron was used as the standard Gospel text in the liturgy of at least some sections of the

Wadi Natrun, Egypt. Subsequently, 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 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".

Vernacular harmonies derived from the Diatessaron

No Christian tradition, other than some Syriac ones,[

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;[citation needed
] the Persian harmony differs greatly in sequence, but translates a Syriac text that is rather closer to that in Ephrem's commentary.

A

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 the enigmatic 16th century Islam-influenced Gospel of Barnabas
(Joosten, 2002).

Use of the word "God"

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)."[13] R. F. Shedinger holds that after יהוה, θεός could be a term before κύριος became the standard term in the New Testament Greek copies.[14]

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 the surviving readings do not support his conclusions.[15] 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 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 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."[16] Jan Joosten's review of Shedinger's work is also condemnatory. In his judgment "Shedinger's study remains unconvincing, not only in the final conclusions but also in the details of the argument."[17]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Cross, F. L, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, article Tatian
  2. ^ Theodor Zahn: Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons und der altkirchlichen Literatur. Teil 1. Tatian’s Diatessaron. Deichert, Erlangen 1881.
  3. ^ a b McFall, Leslie; "Tatian's Diatessaron: Mischievous or Misleading?"; Westminster Theological Journal, 56, 87–114; 1994
  4. ^ Moore, G. F., "Tatian's Diatessaron and the Analysis of the Pentateuch"; Journal of Biblical Literature, 9:2, 201–215; 1890
  5. ^ "certainly not part of the original text," according to Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, article Pericope adulterae.
  6. ^ Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, Introduction to Diatessaron.
  7. ^ a b Cross, F. L, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, article Diatessaron
  8. ^ Cross, F. L, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, article Peshitta
  9. ^ William L. Petersen, "Diatessaron", in Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition, edited by Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay.
  10. JSTOR 4150739
    .
  11. ^ a b c W. B. Lockwood, Vernacular Scriptures in Germany and the Low Countries before 1500, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. G.W.H. Lampe, Cambridge University Press, 1969, p. 429.
  12. ^ Schmid, Ulrich B. “In Search of Tatian’s Diatessaron in the West.” Vigiliae Christianae, vol. 57, no. 2, 2003, pp. 176–99. JSTOR website Retrieved 19 Mar. 2023.
  13. ^ Vasileiadis 2014, pp. 64.
  14. ^ Shedinger 2001, pp. 138.
  15. JSTOR 3268458
    .
  16. ^ "Reseña en Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 6.2 (2003)".
  17. JSTOR 1561595
    .

References

Further reading

External links

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