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LEFT TASTE 264 TATIAN Like smell, the sense of taste is placed at the entrance of the alimentary canal, and affords us knowledge of the nature of the food about to be eaten. We have so far adapted ourselves to our environ- ments that, as a rule, those substances which please these senses are salutary foods, and the converse is equally true. This is however, a rule with many ex- ceptions. TATE, NAHUM, an English poet; born in Dublin, Ireland, about 1652; re- ceived his education in Trinity College; and went to London, where he engaged in literary pursuits, and was appointed poet laureate. He was the author of sev- eral dramatic pieces; assisted Dryden in the second part of "Absalom and Achito- phel"; altered and arranged Shakes- peare's "King Lear" for the stage; and wrote, in conjunction with Dr. Nicholas Brady, the metrical version of the Psalms which used to be appended to the English Book of Common Prayer. He died in London, England, Aug. 12, 1715. TATIAN, a Christian apoloeist; born early in the 2d century (110, Zahn) ; was an Assyrian by birth ; studied Greek phil- osophy; and wandered about as a soph- ist round the Roman world; but about 150 at Rome was won to Christianity by the simple charm of the Old Testament Scriptures and the example of the purity and courage of the Christians. He be- came a disciple of Justin, in whose life- time he wrote his "Oratio ad Graecos," a glowing and uncompromising exposure of the faults of heathenism as compared with the new "barbarian philosophy," After Justin's death (166) Tatian fell into evil repute for heresies, and he re- tired to Mesopotamia, probably Edessa, writing with characteristic fearlessness and vigor, treatise after treatise, all of v/hich have perished. He was certainly infected with gnostic notions of the uni- verse, the supreme God, the demiui-ge, and the world of seons; but the notions of his which gave most offense were his excessive asceticism, his rejection of mar- riage and animal food, and adoption of the practices of the Encratites. Neither the place nor date of his death is known, but it took place perhaps at Edessa, and probably about 180. Of his writings one maintained a place of importance in the Syrian Church for 200 years, and supplies one of the most interesting chapters in the history of sa- cred literature. This was the "Diates- saron," a gospel freely constructed out of the four gospels known to us, not a harmony in the modern sense, but a kind of patchwork gospel. This Harnack thinks was written in Greek; but Zahn and most other scholars, among them Lagarde, Bathgen, Lightfoot, and Hll- genfeld, in Syriac. There is no mention of the "Diatessaron" in any Latin writer before the middle of the 6th century. In the 5th century this work was used in the Syrian churches as the form in which the gospel was read, and fur- ther back still we find evidence of its use in the 3d century "Doctrines of Ad- dai." The Syriac text of the "Homilies" of the former was edited by Professor Wright in 1869, and Zahn has proved that the key to the difficulty of his gospel citations is the fact that he used the "Diatessaron," Bar-Salibi, a Syrian bishop (12th century), distinctly states that Ephraem wrote an exposition of Tatian's "Diatessaron." Lightfoot print- ed his famous article on Tatian (May, 1877), ignorant of the fact that a year before Dr. Moesinger of Salzburg had published at Venice a Latin translation of the same commentary, made as early as 1841 by Father Aucher of the Mechi- tarist monastery of San Lazzaro from the Armenian edition of Ephraem's works published in 1836 (4 vols.). The first scholar to make this remarkable dis- covery widely known was Ezra Abbot in his "Authorship of the Fourth Gospel" (1880). In 1881 Zahn published his masterly monograph on Tatian's "Diatessaron," containing a reconstruction of the text from the Latin, based on Moesinger's Lat- in version of Ephraem's Commentary, on the quotations in Aphraates, and occa- sional parallels with the "Codex Fulden- sis." He showed that Tatian's original Syrian text agreed in great part with the Curetonian Syriac, and evidently pre- ceded the Peshito or reformed Syriac text. The fresh interest thereby aroused in the question led Ciasca of the Vatican Library to examine anew the Arabic MSS. there. The existence of one was already known, it having been partially described by Assemani, Rosenmiiller, and Akerblad. In 1886 Antonios Morcos, vicar-apostolic of the Catholic Copts, for- warded to Rome a 9th-century MS., which Agostino Ciasca edited for the jubilee of Pope Leo XIII., and this was found both in contents and arrangement to correspond with the work edited by Moesinger. Harnack thus sums up the conclusions that may be drawn from what may be considered as proved: (1) In Tatian's time there was still no recognized Nev/ Testament Canon, and the texts of the gospels were not regarded as inspired. (2) About 160 of our four gospels were already in existence and authoritative, and the fourth on equality with the three synoptics. (3) The text of the gospels in 160 was substantially the same as it is