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1. Epiphanius was bishop of Constantia, in Cyprus, in the latter half of the fourth century. In his book on "Heresies," which he commenced A.D. 374, he writes of Tatian-" The Diatessaron Gospel is said to have been composed by him; it is called by some according to the Hebrews.”*

Here then our author supposes that he has discerned the truth. This Diatessaron was not a digest of our four Gospels, but a distinct evangelical narrative, the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Of this Gospel according to the Hebrews, he says that "at one time it was exclusively used by the fathers." I challenge him to prove this assertion in the case of one single father, Greek or Latin or Syrian. But this by the way. If indeed this Hebrew Gospel had been in its contents anything like what our author imagines it, it would have borne some resemblance at all events to the Diatessaron; for, wherever he meets with any evangelical passage in any early writer, which is found literally or substantially in any one of our four Gospels (whether characteristic of St. Matthew, or of St. Luke, or of St. John, it matters not) he assigns it without misgiving to this Hebrew Gospel. But his Hebrew Gospel is a pure effort of the imagination. The only "Gospel according to the Hebrews" known to antiquity was a very different document. It was not co-extensive with our four Gospels; but was constructed on the lines of the first alone. Indeed so closely did it resemble the canonical St. Matthew-though with variations, omissions, and additions-that Jerome, who translated it, supposed it to be the Hebrew original,† of which Papias speaks. Such a Gospel does not answer in any single particular, unless it be the omission of the genealogy (which however does not appear to have been absent from all copies of this Gospel), with the notices of Tatian's Diatessaron. More especially the omission of all reference to the Davidic descent of Christ would be directly opposed to the fundamental principle of this Gospel, which, addressing itself to Jews, laid special stress on His Messianic claims.

How then can we explain the statement of Epiphanius? It is a simple blunder, not more egregious than scores of other blunders which deface his pages. He had not seen the Diatessaron: this our author himself says. But he had heard that it was in circulation in certain parts of Syria; and he knew also that the Gospel of the Hebrews was current in these same regions, there or thereabouts. Hence he jumped at the identification. To a writer who can go astray so incredibly about the broadest facts of history, as we have seen him do in the succession of the Roman Emperors,‡

* See the reference in the last note.

All the remains of the Hebrew Gospel, and the passages of Jerome relating to it, will be found in Westcott's Introduction to the Gospels, p. 462 seq.

See CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, August, 1876, p. 412, where this specimen of his blundering is given.

such an error would be the easiest thing in the world. Yet it was perfectly consistent on the part of our author, who in another instance prefers John Malalas to the concurrent testimony of all the preceding centuries,* to set aside the direct evidence of a Theodoret, and to accept without hesitation the hearsay of an Epiphanius.

2. "Tatian's Gospel," writes the author of "Supernatural Religion," "was not only called Diatessaron, but according to Victor of Capua, it was also called Diapente (dià tévτe) ‘by five,' a complication which shows the incorrectness of the ecclesiastical theory of its composition."

This is not a very accurate statement. If our author had referred to the actual passage in Victor of Capua, he would have found that Victor does not himself call it Diapente, but says that Eusebius called it Diapente. This makes all the difference.

Victor, who flourished about A.D. 545, happened to stumble upon an anonymous Harmony or Digest of the Gospels,† and began in consequence to investigate the authorship. He found two notices in Eusebius of such Harmonies; one in the Epistle to Carpianus prefixed to the Canons, relating to the work of Ammonius; another in the Ecclesiastical History, relating to that of Tatian. Assuming that the work which he had discovered must be one or other, he decides in favour of the latter, because it does not give St. Matthew continuously and append the passages of the other evangelists, as Eusebius states Ammonius to have done. All this Victor tells us in the preface to this anonymous Harmony, which he publishes in a Latin dress.

There can be no doubt that Victor was mistaken about the authorship; for, though the work is constructed on the same general plan as Tatian's, it does not begin with John i. 1, but with Luke i. 1, and it does contain the genealogies. It belongs therefore, at least in its present form, neither to Tatian nor to Ammonius.

But we are concerned only with the passage relating to Tatian, which commences as follows:

Ex historia quoque ejus (i.e. Eusebii) comperi quod Tatianus vir eruditissimus et orator illius temporis clarus unum ex quatuor compaginaverit Evangelium cui titulum Diapente imposuit.

Thus Victor gets his information directly from Eusebius, whom he repeats. He knows nothing about Tatian's Diatessaron, except what Eusebius tells him. But we ourselves have this same passage of Eusebius before us, and find that Eusebius does not call it

See CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, February, 1875, p. 352 seq.

+ Patrol. Lat. Ixviii. p. 253 (ed. Migne). An old Frankish translation of this Harmony is also extant. It has been published more than once; e.g. by Schmeller (Vienna, 1841).

Diapente but Diatessaron. This is not only the reading of all the Greek MSS without exception, but likewise of the Syriac version,* which was probably contemporary with Eusebius and of which there is an extant MS belonging to the sixth century, as also of the Latin Version which was made by Rufinus a century and a half before Victor wrote. About the text of Eusebius therefore there can be no doubt. Moreover Victor himself, who knew Greek, says ex quatuor, which requires Diatessaron, and the work which he identifies with Tatian's Harmony is made up of passages from our Four Gospels alone. Therefore he can hardly have written Diapente himself; and the curious reading is probably due to the blundering or the officiousness of some later scribe.†

Thus we may safely acquiesce in the universal tradition, or as our author, ouk old oπws, prefers to call it, the "ecclesiastical theory," respecting the character and composition of Tatian's Diatessaron.

J. B. LIGHTFOOT.

The Syriac version is not yet published, but I have ascertained this by inquiry. This seems to be Hilgenfeld's opinion also (Einleitung, p. 79); and curious as the result is, I do not see how any other explanation is consistent with the facts.

ESSAYS AND NOTICES.

IN

THE RATIONALE OF REVIEWING.

N a book which is likely for a long time to furnish commonplaces for the purposes of miscellaneous writers, an authoress who was well qualified to speak on such a subject, and fully entitled to deal with it by a sidewind, remarked that it had become idle to go to "Reviews" for any account of a book; the "review," so-called, being in its latest form an essay round about the book selected for a text. This judgment is at least as true now as it was when the Autobiography in question was written. There are exceptions. There are writers, there are periodicals, which do really think it a duty to give a fair account of a book. But the general tendency is the other way. Your reviewer is for the most part a gentleman who is desirous to show off his own parts of speech, and even when he is a highly competent authority in his particular line, he usually expends his force, not even in a pretence of doing justice to his author (who is perhaps his rival), but in criticizing him upon certain points of difference. Hence, as we may every week see for ourselves, endless wrangling and blundering, though of course some good, results from all this. It is a good thing that experts should criticize each other; but what we contend is that if the expert who sits down with more or less pretension to review a book would take the trouble to begin by giving some account of it, he would often find that there was not much for him to complain of. Not a week passes-we speak within bounds -in which some expert is not exposed for misrepresenting his author, or at least openly charged with that offence; and if one or two cases come to light every week, we may infer that there are others which do not. Perhaps no writer who ever produced a book likely to attract an expert has missed that kind of suffering-often, too, it means loss of money and prestige also-which comes from having to sit down in silence under some gross and absurd misrepresentation. We need not presuppose any malignity in these cases; conceit and haste are quite sufficient originating causes. And the recognition of a duty to give a true account of the book to be handled would be a considerable check upon both haste and conceit.

Reviews, and articles which more or less assume the style of reviews, are written for two classes of readers:-1. The general reading public; 2. The literary public proper and the distinctively and specially reading class. And besides his duty to these, the reviewer has to consider his duty towards the author of the book. But let us consider the readers chiefly.

Among the two classes into which we have divided the readers of ostensible reviews, there are of course book-buyers, who occasionally look to reviews as some sort of guide. There are also a few who will have bought the book before reading the review, and who want to see what some expert has to say about it, or to spend an hour in running through some pleasant writing round the book. There are, we must also bear in mind, books which it is desirable to abstract or represent to the general reader, and at the same time to criticize for the eyes of specialists. Books of this class, however, are not numerous; and the only way of carrying out that idea with success is to do it systematically and on a handsome scale. For instance, it

would be of little use for a Review to analyze Hegel to-day, if it did not hold itself ready to do as much for Schopenhauer and Lotze to-morrow.

Let us come back to the more open ground. Among general readers, the larger number are not book-buyers after all; and what do they want ? Some account of the book; and, above all, some extracts. This is the next best thing to having the book itself; and all the reviewer has to do is to take care that his account and his extracts do not operate unjustly towards the author. When we come to the literary class, the case is still stronger. What a very intelligent and well-informed reader wants is not parts of speech all round the book, from a man who is perhaps no more than his equal; the literary man can and does form his own opinions of new books: what he wants is just what the general reader wants-an account of the book, and above all some instructive extracts,-extracts expressly illustrating the comments. Those who like reviews of another kind, in which things more or less likely to be true are said all round the book, while the book itself remains in the background, we may perhaps divide into two classes (always bearing in mind the important exceptions just now made): first, dreamy readers, who go to reviews mainly for literary excitement, and have neither strong opinions nor clear knowledge, people,-in fact, who like to pick up ideas, and as often pick up wrong as right. Second, readers who, without absolute vagueness of literary impulse, are yet in such a position that they never have to bring their literary impressions to sharp and decided tests. They have no literary wants. Let us suppose, for example, there is a review before them of a new book in etymology. So long as the article is a pleasant one, and they can "pick up" things from it, and go away saying it is "very clever," or "pretty good," they are satisfied. But a serious reader-a student-above all, a literary man proper-does have decided wants in these matters. For example, it might happen that his chief curiosity about such a book would lie in some question about Basque legends or Etruscan dice. The literary man, turning over twenty pages of expert criticism, much of it probably relating to matters on which he has and will keep opinions of his own, naturally exclaims, "This is clever enough, but I can write clever things myself, and I would give all your fine things for half a page of the author's index, or a simple account of his book."

This is a view of the subject which would not be certain to occur to any reader who was not actually engaged either in literary labour or in serious studies. In an American periodical, not long ago, there was an amusing communication from a self-taught man, who informed the world that he had secured, for almost nothing, a very useful library. His plan was to cut extracts out of reviews and magazines, paste them into blank books, and classify them as philosophy, theology, history, science, criticism, and so forth. Unless this collector had more knowledge than perhaps two-thirds of the writers who originally made the extracts, he must have had a very confusing library. A passage from Sir William Hamilton and a passage from Mr. Alexander Bain would alike come under the head of "philosophy," but a philosophical scheme made up in this fashion would hardly be instructive. Nevertheless this poor man did a wise thing according to his lights, and we may well suppose that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ill-provided readers pursue somewhat similar plans. There is always a demand for extract among intelligent people who cannot afford to buy many books.

The demand of the professed student or literary worker is of another kind. He wants to be helped by extracts (and otherwise, of course) to what is characteristic, and what is final, in certain books. He knows by experience how very uncertain is the help derived from exposition. He knows that even a man like M. Ribot can go far astray, when the true road is straight before him. He knows that if the great linguist, Professor Quidam, writes a book, and his rival, Professor Quodam, reviews it in this or that periodical, there will probably be a letter next week from Quidam complaining of the misrepresentations of Quodam, and that after a long wrangle the affair will end in thick smoke. He knows that, as Harriet

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