Eusebius, writing in Caesarea in Palestine, is the first to name Tatian as the Diatessaron's composer, and the first to use the title "Diatessaron" in Greek.
However, their [the Encratites'] first leader, Tatian, brought together a certain combination and collection — I do not know how — of the gospels, he called this the Diatessaron, which is also still now received by some [or: many].Although the meaning of Eusebius' "I do not know how" has been disputed, it is best understood as an indirect disclaimer of firsthand acquaintance with the Diatessaron. This seems correct, for he does not specify those who use it beyond mentioning an indefinite tisin and nowhere does he remark on any of its specific readings or features. Since Eusebius was extremely interested in the relationships among the gospels (cf. his On Problems and Solutions in the Gospels and his Canons), one must conclude that had he seen a Diatessaron, he would have been more specific.
In the fourth century, an anonymous translator produced a Syriac version of the he in the following form: .
He, then, this Tatianus their first leader, collected and mixed up [or: combined] and composed a Gospel, and he called it Diatessaron; now this is [the Gospel] of the Mixed, the same that is in the hands of many unto this day.
The Syriac translator omits the clause "I do not know how" found in the Greek Eusebius; from this it is inferred that the translator did "know how," ie, he had firsthand acquaintance with the Diatessaron. Unlike the Greek Eusebius, the Syriac translation calls Tatian's composition a "gospel". The fact that the Greek word "Diatessaron" requires explanation ("now this is 'of the Mixed'") suggests that the Syriac- speaking audience is unfamiliar with the Greek title. It would seem that the designation da-Mallahete "[the Gospel] of the Mixed") was the earliest Syriac name for Tatian's creation. In Syriac, the four separated canonical gospels were commonly referred to as da-Mapharreshe ("[the Gospel] of the Separated").
In 402, Rufinus made a Latin translation of Eusebius' Greek he Save for a few minor differences, his translation follows the Greek quite closely:
Their first founder Tatian, making a composition of the gospels, composed in some way or other one gospel from the four, which is called Diatessaron, which is even now possessed by many.
The Syriac and Latin translations of the he offer the first recorded use of the word "diatessaron" in those languages; the translations are also the first Syriac and Latin texts to attribute the Diatessaron to Tatian. Since both translations specifically speak of the Diatessaron as a "gospel," it suggests that Eusebius' Greek text originally referred to the Diatessaron as an εὐαγγέλιον.
In his Epistle ad Carpianum Eusebius also uses the words διὰ τεσσάρων but this time to designate a work created by Ammonius of Alexandria, who apparently arranged pericopes in synopsis-like sequence. (Eusebius' text was presented in the preceding chapter, supra, 32f.) Despite the fact that Eusebius never links the two "dia tessarons," and despite the fact that scholarship today concludes that the two were distinct creations — Tatian's being a real harmony, and Ammonius' a type of synopsis — later Patristic writers sometimes confused not only the two documents, but also the two men (examples are below, in items N, Q and R).
B) THE DOCTRINA ADDAI
The second reference to the Diatessaron appears in the Doctrina Addai, a Syriac document probably dating from around 400, although some of its traditions are much older. In describing the introduction of Christianity, into Syria, it mentioned that:
Moreover, much people day by day assembled and came together for the prayer of the service and for [the reading of] the Old Testament and the New, that [is] of the Diatessaron.
The Doctrina Addai does not name the Diatessaron's composer. The juxtaposition of "New" and "Diatessaron" prompted Burkitt to suspect tampering with the text. He suggested that "Diatessaron" was the original reading, and "New" was a later interpolation. Other scholars have suggested that "Diatessaron" is the intruder.12 This debate is not without moment, for after the Doctrina Addai, the next known original Syriac source to use the word is Theodore bar Koni's Liber Scholiorium (late eighth century; see infra. item F). The situation is complicated by the fact that the word occurs in the already-mentioned fourth- century Syriac translation of Eusebius' he, and, according to a testimonium discovered by Baarda (see infra, 44) the word stood in the title of Ephrem's Commentary, which was composed in the mid-fourth century. Although it is odd that the use of the word "Diatessaron" in Syriac literature of the third through eighth centuries is not more frequent, it may be accounted for in part by the fact that the Syriac name for the Diatessaron ("Diatessaron" being a Greek loan word) was, as noted above, the Euangelion da-Mahallete ("the Gospel of the Mixed") a term which occurs in fifth century Syriac literature, as will be seen below.
C) EPIPHANIUS, HAER. 46.1.8-9
Epiphanius, a Greek ecclesiastical writer who often depends upon Eusebius, wrote his Panarion between 374 and 376. In it he mentions the Diatessaron, attributes it to Tatian, and — like the Syriac and Latin traditions of Eusebius - calls it a 'gospel':
It is said the Diatessaron gospel was created by him [Tatian], which some call according to the Hebrews. - Haer 46.1.8-913
Epiphanius is noted for his garbled reporting. Scholarship usually assumes that he confused two distinct documents: the Diatessaron, and a Judaic-Christian gospel called "according to the Hebrews." This may be so, but there are other possibilities as well, which may shed light on how this confusion came about. Epiphanius' testimonia from the "Hebrew gospel" (which modern scholarship calls the Gospel according to the Ebionites) were cited for the "light" at Jesus' baptism in our previous chapter. There we noted that his testimonia showed that this "Hebrew gospel" was (1) a gospel harmony composed from the Synoptics, which he described as (2) a "falsified and distorted" version of Matthew, (3) from which the genealogies had been excised. Theodoret of Cyrrhus (see infra, item D) states that Tatian's Diatessaron likewise lacked the genealogies (Theodoret's assertion is confirmed by Diatessaronic witnesses). These "coincidences" raise an intriguing possibility: Could these similar characteristics have caused Epiphanius to confuse the two?
But there is a another possibility as well. As explained in the previous chapter, although antique sources name only one Judaic-Christian gospel (the Gospel according to the Hebrews, presumably also known as the "Hebrew gospel"), modern scholarship posits two additional Judaic-Christian gospels, namely, the Gospel according to the Nazoraeans, and the Gospel according to the Ebionites. In the previous chapter it was pointed out that two of these "documents" (a more accurate description would be "collections of fragments") contain Diatessaronic parallels: the harmonized document quoted by Epiphanius, which scholars call the Gospel according to the Nazoraeans. These modern scholarly names are derived from the names of the sects Epiphanius and Jerome report used the documents. The problem arises from the fact that Jerome once states that a reading which scholars assign to the Gospel according the Nazoraeans (as they do all of Jerome's citations from Judaic-Christian gospels) stood "in the gospel which the the Nazoraeans and the Ebionites use" ("In euangelio quo utuntur Nazareni et quo utuntur Nazareni et Hebionitae" [Comm. in Matt, at 12.13]); Jerome goes on to state that he recently translated this gospel "from Hebrew to Greek," and that many call it the "authentic text of Matthew." Two of Jerome's fragments which are assigned to the Gospel according to the Nazoraeans by modern scholars! - he himself states are from "the Gospel according to the Hebrews" (Jerome, Comm. in Matt, at Matt 6.11 [cp Tract, de Ps. 135]: "in euangelio quod appellatur secundum Hebraeos"; Comm. in Matt, at Matt 27.16: "in euangelio quod scribitur iuxta Hebraeos").
Jerome's description has obvious parallels with Epiphanius' description of the document he is citing, which modern scholars have chosen to call the Gospel according to the Ebionites. It too (1) is used by Ebionites, (2) is called "according to Matthew," and (3) is written "in Hebrew and with Hebrew letters" (Haer. 29.9.4). Epiphanius also tells us that the document he is quoting (4) is called κατα Εβραιους ("according to the Hebrews": Haer. 30.3.7) and [το] Εβραίκον ("the Hebrew [gospel]": Haer. 30.13.2). And (5) both sets of fragments — those And (5) both sets of fragments — those from Jerome, assigned to the Gospel according to the Nazoraeans and those from Epiphanius, assigned to the Gospel according to the Ebionites have variants which show up in the Diatessaron. This evidence suggests to the present writer that we are dealing here with one Judaic-Christian gospel, which modern scholarship has erroneously divided up between two hypothesized gospels. If we are, in fact, dealing with only one gospel and not two — something Alfred Schmidtke argued long ago - and if it were related to the harmonized Diatessaronic tradition (an assumption which is correct, for the textual parallels are indisputable) — then Epiphanius' remark that the Diatessaron is known κατα Εβραιους ("[the gospel] according to the Hebrews") becomes understandable. [William Petersen, the Diatessaron p. 35 - 41]
dating back to conversations with his grandfather, Gaston Frank. "He said we represent one of the last descendants of the Frankist Jewish faith in the world," he muses. "I grew up thinking that our family was something like the Last of the Mohicans."