literaryhistoryo02crut - Carmel Apologetics

346 THE APOLO(;iSTS.
the two genealogies of Christ, and other allusions to His
human birth of the seed of David. He therefore ordered all
existing copies to be collected and put away, and replaced in
every case by the four Canonical Gospels.
This incident reveals
to us the long-continued and widespread
influence of Tatian's Harmony. Nearly three centuries
after his death we find it in established use among
a wide circle of orthodox churches, who apparently knew
nothing of its heretical source or the imperfection of its
teaching. The progress of research has also l)rought to light
evidence of its employment in the Syrian Church at a still
earlier period. A commentary on it by S. Ephraem, Bishop
of Edessa (A.D. 360), was said by Barsalibi, an Armenian
bishop, to exist in his day (a.d.
1171), and this statement is
proved by the publication of Ephraem'scommentary within the
last few years.
Twenty-five years further back, Aphraates,
a Persian bishop, who resided near Mosul (Nineveh), wrote
homilies on the Gospels, which are proved to be founded on
Tatian's Harmony, and estalilish the fact that it was the only
Gospel in use among the Syrian churches of that neighbourhood
(a.d. 340), while as early as the middle of the third
century, in a romance called " The Doctrine of Addai the
Apostle," the Diatessaron is mentioned as read in the church
service conjointly with tlie Old Testament. Both this work
and the Connnentary of Kpliraem expressly call the Diatessaron
" Scripture."
We are nf>w in a position to trace llic jtrocess which has led
to the recovery of this remarkable work.^ The first evidence
comes, oddly enough, Uawi tlie Latin Church. Bishop Victor
of Ca])ua (a.d. 654) discovered a Latin l)ook of the Gospels
without title or author's name, which was clearly a coml)ilation
from the four Canonical liooks. On referring to
Kusebius for information, he found noticesof two Harmonies,
that of Tatian and that of Annnonius of Alexandria. The
principle of arrangement not agreeing with that of tlie latter
• The reader is referred to Hemphill s useful work on tiie Diatessaron,
and to the article in Smith's Dictionary, both of which the writer has
freelv used.