DIATESSARON OF TATIAN. Literally " Through Four," the Greek name of a Harmony of the Gospels made by Tatian (second century). The name indicates that four Gospels were used. The question has arisen : Were they our four canonical Gospels? The Gospel to the Hebrews, for instance, might have been used and not the Gospel of John. Dr. 'C. R. Gregory, however, points out that as a matter of fact Tatian begins with verses from the Gospel of John. The Harmony gave the gospel in a very convenient form, and was trans lated into Syriac and other languages. It was widely used. Theodoret (390-457 A.D.), as quoted by Gregory, refers to it thus: " This one [Tatiani also put together the Gospel called Diatessaron, not only cutting away the genealogies, but also the other things so far as they show that the Lord was born from the seed of David after the flesh. And not only the people of his society used this, but also those who follow the apostolical dogmas, not having known the evil tendency of the composition, but using it in simplicity as a short book. And I found more than two hundred such books held in honour in the Churches among us, and gathering them all together I put them aside, and introduced instead of them the Gospels of the four evangelists." The Diatessaron was
not in favour with the orthodox, because its author became a kind of Gnostic. But, as Dr. Gregory says, " from Theodoret's description it is perfectly clear that only our four Gospels were used in the Diatessaron. He would have pounced like a vulture on any sign of an apocryphal Gospel in it." The Diatessaron of Tatian, which was translated from a Syriac text into Arabic, "did a long service, and will certainly not have cor rupted the Christianity of any reader, much as Theodoret was exercised about its nse in the Churches near him." Ephraem the Syrian (d. 373) wrote a commentary on the work. James Aphraates, another Syrian writer, who lived about the middle of the fourth century, also com mented on it. " As handed down in Arabic, it differs, both in text and in arrangement, from the text com mented on by Ephraem; and both of these differ from the text commented on by Aphraates " (E. A. Abbott in Encycl. Bibi., s.v. " Gospels," § 107). The explanation seems to be that "at a very early period the Diatessaron was revised in the interests of orthodoxy." See C. R. Gregory.