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Updated: May 8, 2025
Tatian's first work of importance, an 'Address to Greeks, which is still extant, was written soon after the death of Justin. It contains no references to the Synoptic Gospels upon which stress can be laid. The chief interest however in regard to Tatian centres in his so- called 'Diatessaron, which is usually supposed to have been a harmony of the four Gospels.
John's doctrine, but because Tatian's is a philosophical comment perhaps a degree too far removed from the original to be quite producible as evidence. It is one of the earliest speculations as to the ontological relation between the Father and the Son. In the beginning God was alone though all things were with Him potentially.
Ammonius, a learned Alexandrian, who composed, as Tatian had done, a harmony of the four Gospels, which proves, as Tatian's work did, that there were four Gospels, and no more, at this time in use in the church. It affords also on instance of the zeal of Christians for those writings, and of their solicitude about them.
After Justin Martyr's death, about the year 170, appeared Tatian's 'Diatessaron, a work which, as its title implies, was a harmony of four Gospels, and most likely of the four; yet again not exactly as we have them. Tatian's harmony, like so many others of the early evangelical histories, was silent on the miraculous birth, and commenced only with the public ministration.
He says that the Diatessaron was a harmony of the Gospels, i.e. We do not know upon what these statements rest, but there ought to be some valid reason before we dismiss them entirely. John. Here there is clearly a good deal of confusion. But now we come to the question, was Tatian's work really a Harmony of our four Gospels? The strongest presumption that it was is derived from Irenaeus.
But Tatian wrote within a comparatively short interval of Irenaeus. It is sufficiently clear that Irenaeus held his opinion at the very time that Tatian wrote, though it was not published until later. Here then we have a coincidence which makes it difficult to think that Tatian's four Gospels were different from ours. But that Harmony, as we have also seen, included at least our three Synoptics.
From Tatian's time to the present there have been repeated attempts to construct a harmonious representation of events and teachings in the ministry of Jesus, generally by setting the parallel accounts side by side, following such a succession of events as seemed most probable.
But closer analysis does not confirm the importance of this difference. The initiates of the other cults believed that their Lords were historic persons, just as Christians believed that Jesus was. They had, indeed, lived a long time ago, but this was no disadvantage: any one who reads Tatian's Oratio ad Graecos can see how antiquity, not recentness, was regarded as desirable.
The arrangement follows generally the order of Matthew, additional matter from the other gospels being inserted at places which approved themselves to Tatian's judgment. Some portions in particular the genealogies of Jesus were omitted altogether, in accordance with views held by the compiler.
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