Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/491

Rh all his books are in Greek—including that of his Harmony, which he calls Diatessaron. There is therefore a certain amount of probability that he compiled this in Greek, out of the original Greek text of the Gospels, and then translated it into Syriac. Against this conclusion, however, is the fact that its text is of the same type as that of the oldest separate Syriac versions of the Gospels, which of course could not have been dependent on the Harmony. There is then also some probability that this was made from a previously existing Syriac version of the Gospels. But that supposition is confronted with a serious difficulty. No such version was known at Edessa, the one centre of the Syriac-speaking Christians, for it seems certain that Tatian's Harmony was the only form in which the Gospels were first read in the Church. Previously the Syrian Christians had been satisfied with preaching and oral traditions about Christ. It was Tatian who introduced the written gospel record to Edessa, and he did this in the form of a harmony of all four Gospels, as a method which commended itself to his own private judgment. Here was a convenient way of presenting the whole gospel story at once instead of confusing people by offering them four parallel and more or less divergent narratives. Tatian's influence at Edessa must have been considerable; for he succeeded in getting his book read in the church at that city. Thus, while the other churches were using the four Gospels in their services, the Edessene Church was using Tatian's Harmony. Here was a curious distinction bearing witness to the aloofness of the Christians of Mesopotamia.

After Justin suffered martyrdom at Rome, it would appear that Tatian became his successor as a teacher of Christianity in the imperial city. If so, it is probable that his unorthodox views had not yet been developed, or