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This version must have been made a sufficiently long time before the age when Tertullian wrote, and before the Latin translator of Irenaeus, for it to have got into general circulation. Tregelles, it should be remembered, is speaking as a text critic, of which branch of science his works are one of the noblest monuments, and not directly of the history of the Canon.
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.
We have not indeed proof that these were confined to the Canonical Gospels. Probably as yet they were not. But it should be remembered that Irenaeus was now a boy, and that by the time he had reached manhood the Canon of the Gospels had received its definite form.
Not until the second century did the episcopate become monarchical and the holder of the office the supreme authority within the Church by which he was elected. The change was complete by the time of Irenaeus, who wrote circa 180 A.D.; to him we owe our earliest catalogue of Roman bishops, beginning with Linus and ending with Eleutherus, the twelfth from Peter and the contemporary of Irenaeus.
We shall probably not be wrong in referring many of the Valentinian quotations given by Irenaeus to Ptolemaeus and Heracleon. By the first writer we also have extant an Epistle to a disciple called Flora, which has been preserved by Epiphanius. This Epistle, which there is no reason to doubt, contains unequivocal references to our first Gospel. Epistle to Flora. Epiph. Haer. 217 A. Ibid. 217 D.
The details of the persecution are so well known, through the letter which the survivors wrote not to Rome, but to their parent Church and personal friends in Asia and Phrygia, a letter preserved to us by the Greek historian Eusebius, that I think they have given a wrong impression as to the extent of the Christian Church in Gaul towards the end of the second century . The Christians at Lyons and Vienne were a small and isolated flock, not however isolated as foreigners speaking a strange tongue, for Irenaeus, who was one of them, mentions his daily use of the Gallic language.
The other passage in the writings of Irenaeus which deserves our notice, is neither more nor less than an emphatic declaration, by Irenaeus himself, that Jesus was not executed when a little over thirty years of age, but lived to be an old man. Explain it away how we will, the fact remains; and it certainly ought not to be ignored.
The Infancy is thought to be one of the earliest gospels. Justin Martyr was acquainted with it, A.D. 150 to 160. It is referred to by Irenaeus, A.D. 190. In the poetical myths of the ancients the sun is yearly overpowered by cold or by the destructive agencies in Nature.
This conversation had been carried on in an undertone on account of the scribes occupied at the desks; but the priest raised his voice with his last words, and he must have been heard in the adjoining room, for a heavy curtain of plain cloth was opened, and an unusually deep and powerful voice exclaimed: "Back again already, Irenaeus! That is well; I want to speak with you."
Ptolemaeus represented the 'Italian' branch of the Valentinian school, and therefore it seems a fair supposition that Irenaeus would come in contact with him during his visit to Rome in 178 A.D.; and the four years from that date to 182 A.D. can hardly be otherwise than a short period to allow for the necessary intimacy with his teaching to have been formed.
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