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Updated: May 7, 2025
I. Tatian, a follower of Justin Martyr, and who flourished about the year 170, composed a harmony, or collation of the Gospels, which he called Diatessaron, of the four. The title, as well as the work, is remarkable; because it shows that then, as now, there were four, and only four, Gospels in general use with Christians.
When, however, we call to our aid the most orthodox and enlightened men of the second century, we find that such men as Justin, Tatian, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Apollonius and Clement, to say nothing of Origen, believed in Jesus as the only begotten son of God in the sense which these words had at that time for every one who spoke and thought in Greek.
Athenagoras and Tatian are only known through Apologies written for the Heathen, the last of all Christian books in which to look for definite references to canonical writings. The Epistle to Diognetus is a small tract of uncertain date and authorship. The Clementine Homilies is an apocryphal work of very little value in the present discussion.
These are undoubtedly the most effectual remedies for incontinence in ecclesiastics and servants of God. St. Paul said aright that the doctrine of those who forbid marriage is a doctrine of demons. Such was the doctrine of Tatian and Marcoin, whom Augustine and Jerome have mentioned.
Tatian and Hermes also looked upon Greek philosophy as an invention of the devil. Irenæus was more discriminating. He opposed the broad and lax charity of the Alexandrines, but he read the Greek philosophy, and when called to the bishopric of Lyons, he set himself to the study of the Gallic Druidism, believing that a special adaptation would be called for in that remote mission field.
Eusebius has given an account of the martyrdom of Justin upon the authority of Tatian, who was a disciple of the martyr.
The sacrifice of a hero gratified his revenge; the honors of the consulship elated his vanity; but his power was still imperfect and precarious, as long as the important posts of præfect of the East, and of præfect of Constantinople, were filled by Tatian, and his son Proculus; whose united authority balanced, for some time, the ambition and favor of the master of the offices.
Similarly, as is well known, Tatian, the pupil of Justin Martyr, in the middle of the second Christian century, did for the four Gospels precisely what an Old Testament editor did for the two early prophetic histories, he combined them into one composite, continuous narrative.
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.
In this manner all factious distinctions began, for the first time, to pass out of use, no person any longer being either thought of or spoken of under the notion of a Sabine or a Roman, a Romulian or a Tatian; and the new division became a source of general harmony and intermixture.
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