Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 3.djvu/16

4 The only extant work of Tatian is his "Address to the Greeks." It is a most unsparing and direct exposure of the enormities of heathenism. Several other works are said to have been composed by Tatian; and of these, a Diatessaron, or Harmony of the Four Gospels, is specially mentioned. His Gnostic views led him to exclude from the continuous narrative of our Lord's life, given in this work, all those passages which bear upon the incarnation and true humanity of Christ. Notwithstanding this defect, we cannot but regret the loss of this earliest gospel harmony; but the very title it bore is important, as showing that the four Gospels, and these only, were deemed authoritative about the middle of the second century.