On the Beginning of the Diatessaron

This is the first page of the Luik Diatessaron, turned into modern Dutch. Keep this and I will translate bits for you as needed.

Pronunciation. {ou} is pronounced as in the CANADIAN pronunciation of “out”. {ui} is like this but with lip-rounding. It resembles German {ö} followed by German {ü} but pronounced as one diphthong, not two successive vowels. {oe} is pronounced as in English “soon” or better as in German “nun”. {eu} is pronounced like German {ö}. {g} is pronounced as a voiced version of German [ch} north of The Hague, and as German {ch} south of The Hague. {w} is nearly as in English, not as in German. If a vowel is written double, it is long.

The headings are part of the ms., not the work of the editor. Notice the mention of John right at the start. It says:

“Gospel of John. In principio erat Verbum. At the start was the Word.
St. John, who of the four Evangelists was likened to the flying eagle, since he with knowledge and understanding flew higher into the unfathomable mystery of the Godhead than the others, starts his Gospel thus.
In principio erat Verbum. At the start was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word…….”

Notice that at the end of the bit corresponding to John it doesn’t say anything about Luke. Neither is there any other naming of the Canonical Four in the rest of the book. The mention of the name of John at the start has no counterpart. You could argue that the note at the start is an expansion of an older heading, and that the start of the book was originally like this:
“Gospel of John [= “The Gospel, a book composed by John”]
At the start was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.……”

Here is some help in disentangling the start of the Arabic. I’m using the translation, but following the guidance of the editor’s use of type size. The editor says the Borgia ms. has;
“He began the beginning of his Gospel with Mark. And he said. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. John. In the beginning…..”
The editor says it is uncertain from Ciasca’s edition whether the word “John is there or not in the Borgia ms. I will give you the answer in a few days.

The editor says this is how the Vatican ms. starts:
“The beginning of his [i.e. Tatian’s] Gospel is:
John.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God….”

The Syriac of the start is preserved in many quotations, not all quite the same. I will send you the evidence later on. It won’t alter what I’m about to say., since the quotations don’t reproduce any heading. They start with “In the beginning etc.”. In fact, they don’t even tell you this was the first pericope.

The evidence of the Dutch (translated from Latin translated from Syriac) and the Arabic (translated from Syriac) shows the following. The book later called the Diapente and then the Diatessaron was originally called “The Gospel”. It was ascribed to someone called John as the author. Tatian’s name was attached as editor, probably at the end in the colophon. The first page would have started like this:

THE GOSPEL
by John
At the start was the Word and the Word was with God and God is the Word…..

This is provisional. I’ll be certain after seeing the Arabic.