Homilies of Aphraates he has printed the text (i. pp. 113–219) in detail; comparing it throughout with the Syriac of Cureton (Sc.), the Peshito (P.), and frequently the Philoxenian text revised by Thomas of Harkel (Hl.), with the Greek MSS. א , B, and D, and with Sabatier and Bianchini's editions of the MSS. of the Itala. Verse by verse the text is reconstructed and tabulated in sections. Each section is accompanied by an exhaustive critical and expository comment, and an index to all the passages incorporated in the Harmony enables the student to examine the evidence respecting any individual verse. These sections indicate the character of the Harmony and may be seen as given by Zahn, with the refs. to Ephrem omitted in favour of Eng. headings in Fuller's Harmony of the Gospels (S.P.C.K.). Zahn has pursued the subject further in his Forschungen zur Geschichte des N.T. Kanons, ii. 286–299, and his Geschichte des N.T. Kanons, (1888) i. 1, 369–429; (1892), ii. 2, 530–556.
(3) The Theological Opinions of Tatian.—Until the death of Justin Martyr he was considered orthodox; after that heterodox. The change can only be roughly sketched. In the Oratio are found traces of the three heretical views which Irenaeus attributed to him. (i) The allusion to Aeons above the heavens (c. xx.) may very well have led on to theories akin to those of Valentinus (Iren. adv. Haer. i. 28). (ii) The doctrine that the protoplast lost the image and likeness of God (cc. viii. xii. xv.) might lead to the denial of the salvation of Adam (ib. iii. 23, § 8). (iii) His allusion (c. xv.) to man as distinguished from the brute—implying by contrast points of resemblance between them—makes possible a transition to the severer views of denouncing marriage as defilement and fornication as did Marcion and Saturninus (Iren. c. xv.; Hieron. Comm. l.c. in Ep. ad Gal. vi.), and also the use of meats (Hieron. adv. Jovin. i. 3). Were the heretical writings in existence which Irenaeus affirmed that Tatian had written and he himself had read (Zahn, i. p. 281), we might be able to judge how far they justified Irenaeus in describing him as "elated, puffed up as if superior to other teachers, and forming his own type of doctrine," and to trace something of his erroneousness in the Problems, and other lost works, e.g. Concerning Perfection according to the Saviour; and in the criticisms, paraphrases, or translations of some of St Paul's Epistles, which Eusebius (H. E. iv. 29) had heard of, and which Jerome described as repudiations of those apostolic writings (Praef. in Comm. to Titus, see Zahn, i. p. 6, n. 4). A few hints only are forthcoming on these points, and these filtered through unfriendly channels. But the general impression cannot be resisted. Tatian became first suspected and then denounced. He left Rome, possibly pausing at Alexandria to teach, among his pupils being Clement of Alexandria (cf. Lightfoot, p. 1133; Zahn, i. p. 12), and then proceeding to the East, to Mesopotamia (Epiphan. Haer. xlvi. i. Correct his error in chronology by Lightfoot and Zahn, i. p. 282), there to live until his death. It is more than probable that on leaving Rome he carried the Diatessaron with him, unpublished. In the West he had become unacceptable. The language of Irenaeus c. 185—i.e. probably after Tatian's death—leaves no doubt upon this point. Men honoured and valued the Oratio (cf. int. al. Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte, pp. 386, 387); but say nothing of the Diatessaron. In the Greek-speaking churches of the East the writer of the Oratio was not less valued (cf. Eus. H. E. iv. 29, v. 28), and they speak of the Diatessaron; but it is by report or at second-hand only. Ugly rumours circulated. Tatian, described broadly as "connexio omnium haereticorum" (Iren. adv. Haer. iii. 23), had become, in defiance of historical probability (Zahn, i. p.288), an ENCRATITE, one whose tenets had spread into Asia Minor from Antioch, and who blossomed out at last into "Encratitarum acerrimus haeresiarches" (Hieron.). Had Irenaeus, Eusebius, or Jerome known the Diatessaron, would they not have examined it as they had examined Tatian's Oratio and other works? Would not the very compilation of a Diatessaron have been obnoxious to one who, like Irenaeus, counted the fourfold Gospels (neither more, nor less) an absolute necessity? But in the Syriac-speaking East he was unknown, or not followed by troublesome reflections upon his orthodoxy, and there the teacher who was eclectic rather than heterodox could produce and circulate that work, which commended itself to the "simplicity" of the churches around Edessa "on account of its brevity," till Theodoret enlightened them.
The date of his death is unknown, but if he left Rome c. 172 or 173 he would have been about 62 years of age, and, humanly speaking, with time before him to circulate the Diatessaron before he died.
Literature.—In the prolegomena (pp xiii–xxix) to Otto's ed. of the Oratio will be found a description of the MSS., edd., etc., in existence (cf. also Harnack, op. cit. pp. 1–97; Donaldson, History of Christian Literature and Doctrine, iii. pp. 60–62). For other works besides those freely used and specified in this art. see Preuschen's art. s.n. in Herzog's R. E.³ The text of the Diatessaron ed. by J. White is pub. by Oxf. Univ. Press, and a trans. in Ante-Nicene Lib.
[J.M.F.]
"Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." Bryennius discovered at Constantinople a MS. thus entitled in a vol. containing an unmutilated MS. text of the two Epp. ascribed to Clement, and pub. it at the close of 1883, no other copy being known to exist in MS. or print.
The MS. bears the heading "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," followed by the fuller title "Teaching of the Lord by the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles." That both titles belong to the original form appears probable from the phrase "the Twelve Apostles." The phrase διδαχὴ τῶν ἀποστόλων occurs in Acts ii. 42; and the earliest writers who have been supposed to speak of the work (Eusebius and Athanasius) do so merely under the name "Teaching of the Apostles"; the addition of "Twelve" being superfluous when the word "Apostle" had become limited to the Twelve. In the work itself "Apostle" is used in a very wide sense; so that if this really represents church usage when it was written, the title
