of the Gnostic sect of the Encratites, who, according to Irenæus and Hippolytus, combined the heresy of Marcion with that of Valentinus. His only extant work is his Address to the Greeks, the obvious production of a Gnostic Christian, whose apparent coincidence of language with that of the fourth Gospel is traceable to the same Gnostic formula cited by Theophilus. Thus, he writes: "The soul is not intrinsically immortal, O Greeks, but mortal. If it attains to the knowledge of God, it does not die, but undergoes temporary dissolution. In itself it is darkness, and there is nothing luminous in it; and this is the meaning of the saying— 'The darkness comprehendeth not the light.'"1 Again Tatian says:-" Disavowing the demons, follow the only God, all things have been made by Him, and without Him not one thing hath been made."2 But this coincidence of language tells us nothing more than that the writer was familiar with the Gnostic formula which became the exordium of the fourth Gospel; and, as he speaks, not of the Logos, but of God, as the Creator of the universe, this might be the utterance of any Platonic philosopher.

There is yet another passage in the Address which orthodox theologians identify with the fourth Gospel:"God is a Spirit, not pervading matter; for the spirit that pervades matter is inferior to the more Divine Spirit." But in these words, I find, not the Gospel of John, but the Platonic Gnosticism which believed in a spirit of the universe.

Dr. Lightfoot, now Bishop of Durham, writing in

1 Address to the Greeks, xiii.

2 xix. • Address to the Greeks, iv.

The Contemporary, vol. xxix., 1877, affirms that when Tatian wrote his Address to the Greeks, he was "regarded as strictly orthodox." We may therefore infer from its contents that orthodoxy, in the age of its author, consisted of Christianity minus all its important dogmas, as they are not found in its pages. Dr. Lightfoot, writing in apologetic explanation of the deficiency of Scriptural knowledge disclosed in the Address, says:— “As a rule, the early apologists abstain from quotations, whether from the Old Testament or the New; the writers are dealing with Gentiles, who have no acquaintance with, and attribute no authority to the Sacred Books, and therefore they make little or no use of them." If, therefore, primitive saints and martyrs thus withdrew their Divine credentials from the men whom they sought to win to Christianity, why do not modern missionaries follow their example by avoiding all reference to the Bible, when seeking to convert the heathen, "who attribute no authority to the Sacred Books?"

Eusebius having stated that Tatian was the founder of the Encratites, who combined the Eonic system of Valentinus with the heresy of Marcion, adds:-" Their chief composed, I know not how, a compilation and collection of Gospels, and called it the Diatessaron, which is in the possession of some even now. It is furthermore said that he dared to alter and correct some expressions of the apostles." The word diatessaron (Sià Teσσápwv-through four) simply means harmony, and is derived from the system of four sounds, or tetrachord of ancient music. When therefore orthodox theologians ante-date the ecclesiastical canon by speaking of Tatian's Harmony of the four Gospels, they give a numerical

sense to the word diatessaron which it does not possess, by confusing its derivation from the tetrachord with the number of Gospels accepted as canonical after Tatian had written his work.

Orthodox theologians have affirmed for centuries that Ephraem Syrus, a famous Father of the fourth century, wrote a commentary on the Diatessaron of Tatian, supposed to be irretrievably lost; but a manuscript of the twelfth century, containing an Armenian version of the work of Ephraem, has been discovered in the monastery of Saint Lazarus. It was imperfectly translated into Latin, in A.D. 1841, by Father Joannes Baptista Aucher, and an emended edition has been published in the same language by Dr. Moesinger, with a preface which briefly reviews the information obtainable from ancient records respecting Ephraem's Commentary.

We have already seen what Eusebius says on the subject of Tatian's Diatessaron. Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, near the Euphrates, writing in the fifth century on Heresies, says, as quoted in Latin by Dr. Moesinger1:"Tatian composed the Gospel which is called Diatessaron, the genealogies being cut out, and any other passages which show that the Lord was born of the seed of David according to the flesh. This work was in use, not only among members of his sect, but even among those who follow the apostolic doctrines, as they did not detect the fraud of the composition, but simply used the book on account of its brevity. And I myself found more than two hundred copies held in 'Moesinger's Preface, p. 2.

respect in the churches of our district, all of which I collected and removed, and replaced by the Gospels of the four Evangelists."

So far, we hear nothing of the Diatessaron of Tatian as a Harmony of the four Gospels. But, five hundred years later, Bar-Bahlul, a writer of the tenth century quoted by Dr. Moesinger,' thus defines, in his lexicon, the word diatessaron, “ita dicuntur quatuor Evangelia" --so the four Gospels are called. But as he, or some later editor, for the words are not found in the oldest manuscript-adds, "hæc Alexandriæ a Tatiano episcopo scripta asservantur," it becomes obvious that the Diatessaron of Tatian has been confused with another work of the same name, composed by Ammonius of Alexandria, about A.D. 220, which, according to Eusebius, was a Harmony of the four Gospels, in which the author placed the parallel passages of the other three Evangelists side by side with the text of Matthew.

Bar-Hebræus, a bishop of the thirteenth century, quoted through Assemani (Bibl. Orient., i. p. 57) by Dr. Moesinger,2 affirms that it was on the Diatessaron, or Miscellany, of Ammonius Alexandrinus that Saint Ephraem wrote his commentary. Assemani himself, in reckoning "the Diatessaron of Tatian, or four Gospels reduced to one," among the Arabic MSS. of the Vatican, says, "this work is ascribed by some to Ammonius." And Ebed-Jesu, a Nestorian bishop of the fourteenth century, mentions "a Gospel which Ammonius, a man of Alexandria, compiled, who, 'Moesinger's Preface, p. 3. 2 Ibid., p. 3.

as well as Tatian,' called it also Diatessaron. We thus see that considerable confusion arose as to the identity of Diatessarons, which becomes even more pronounced when we find the same Ebed-Jesu describing the work of Tatian as an "admirable Gospel " compiled from the four, in which the author "most carefully preserved the correct order of the sayings and actions of the Saviour without adding a single sentence of his own." This, Dr. Lightfoot calls a substantially correct description of Tatian's work; but how could the Diatessaron thus eulogised by Ebed-Jesu, be the same heretical production which Eusebius and Theodoret condemned as a corrupt version of the Gospel?

Among the Curetonian Syriac documents acquired by the British Museum from the Nitrian Monastery in Egypt, is an imaginative work, called "The Teaching of Addæus the Apostle," which was probably written at the close of the second or beginning of the third century. The author depicts Addæus as one of the seventy disciples, who established Christianity at Edessa; and he records the daily assembly of the people in a church built by Addæus, to hear "the prayers of the service, and the reading of the Old Testament, and the New of the Ditornon." The last word being indistinct in the ancient MS., the correct reading may possibly be Diatessaron, but, in that event, the extreme improbability of the author of "The Teaching of Addæus" committing so monstrous an anachronism, as that of placing a heretical work of the second century in

'I differ with Dr. Lightfoot in his translation of this passage. He writes: “Ammonius who is also Tatian"—thus implying that EbedJesu gave both names to one man. 2 Moesinger's Preface, p. 4.