On Titus destroying the temple on a Sabbath

Yes, the day of the week must have been chosen. This might only be coincidence. I was thinking that Titus’s daughter must have been a Leo. Then I thought the sun must have been nearly exactly at the middle of Leo, and the lion represents Judah, as well as rulership or hegemony. And isn’t it the lion that corresponds to Mark, or am I wrong there?

I have just acuired a book by M. E. Boismard. Le Diatessaron de Tatien à Justin, Paris 1992. A bit sloppy on the use of the Luik Diatessaron. He knows about the 5 vols. published in Plooij’s edition in 1929, but doesn’t know about the 3 vols. completing the work, published between 1965 and 1970. He thinks the Luik Diatessaron is written in some language called “Flemish”. Luik is indeed in Flanders, but the language is Middle Dutch. Dutch is what is spoken by Flemings in Flanders. Also, he is unaware of the vol. on the Syriac quotations of the Diatessaron in the Biblia Polyglotta Matritensia, published in 1965. The editor, Alejandro Diez Macho, collected all the Syriac quotations (including ones only extant in Armenian translation), and carefully sifted the variations be tween different quotations of the same verse to establish the original text. Boismard confines himself to Efrem. Much more could be said.

Nevertheless, the book is very useful. Two bits of information for the moment. First, the Arabic translation of the Diatessaron preserves the layout and content of the original, but the wording has been adjusted to the Peshitta in many places. This means that where it differs from the Peshitta it can be relied on, but the absence in it of a distinctive reading known from the Syriac or Dutch etc. proves nothing and does not weaken the evidence. Second, the Beatitudes, delivered on the mountain, are the Decalogue of the New Torah. This information comes from the Latin through the later translations.