• Salmon (Introd. to HT^, p. 74). on the authority of ilalmrTv. ahowH that i.« »irr«^» may 1k' a muHi'itl lenii tnatrrr-ctly tmi*- ferTLMl to literature, and nieant a hunnony of four, a« itm mmj^. • concord of Uie octave, 2i« run u( Uio tlmt and fifth ootea.
698
JOHN, GOSPEL OF
JOHN, GOSPEL OF
legend of the Saviour's letter to kinf; Alijjariis of Edessa ; and this refers to the llunnony called Dit«urion = Diate8saron, wliich was used and read in the Syriac churclies. We learn from other Syr. documents of the l'2th cent., on the authority of Dionysius liar-Salibi, that Ephraera Syrus, a deacon of Edessa, who died A.D. 373, had written a commentary on the Diate.ssaron of Tatian in the Ia.st ten years of hU life (see Liglitfoot's discussion of tliis belated testimony of 15ar-Salibi, Conlemp. Jieriew, 1877). It is an extraordinary circum- stance that two forms of this commentary are found to exist in tlie Armenian lanf^uajje. These have been collated and translated mto Latin bj Auclier and Moesinger. Tatian is not men- tioned, but Epliraem comments upon one passable after another of the Gospels, and not infrequently upon a text wliich is a blending of two or more Gospels.
Zalin (1881) and Wace (see Expos. 2nd Ser. ii. I, \2S, 193; iv. 161, 294) have given a careful digest of all these passages, and the text on which Ephraem was commenting. The com- mentary aj)pears to have been written in Syriac. Hamlyn Hill, assisted by Armitage Kobinson, liius, by comparison of Moesinger's Lat. and the Arm. text, readied a very close approximation to the words of Ei>hraera. Zahn has been able to arrange tlie text of the Diatessaron in one hundred sections, with explanatory and textual criticism, collation of the Lat., Syr., and Arm. Vulgates, and the codices A, B, etc. But a remarkable addition to the apparatus criticits has been romantically made by the examination of two Arabic MSS of tlie Diatessaron itself : one brought from Egypt to the Vatican Library in 1719, by Assemani, known by the title of No. XIV. ; the other, also brought from E''ypt to Ciasca, of the Vatican Library, and practicfuly a repetition of No. XIV., but with important difi'erimces in detail. The collated text lias been translated into Eng., and edited by Hamlyn Hill (Earliest Life of Christ, 1894 ; see also Hill, Dissertation on Gosp. Harmony of S. Ephraem, 1896 ; and Rendel Harris, Fragments of Com. of Ephrem Syrus, 1895). These translations leave no valid doubt that we have the text before us on which Ephraem commented, and which the Arab. MS avers is a translation from Syriac of the long-lost Diatessaron. A large portion of St. John's Gospel is included in the Diatessaron — a fact which estaolishes, if it is Tatian's collation of the four Gospels, not only the existence of the Fourth, but the esteem in wnich it was held between A. D. 150 and 160. The doubt cherished by many about the ' Memoirs ' of Justin must therefore be aban- doned. Harnack's judgment in the Encycl. Brit. (18S8, xxiii. 81) is to the same effect. Watkins justly observes, ' the Diatessaron of Tatian is the key to the Memoirs of Justin' (Bamp, Led. 71), and it certainly bridges the gulf between the literary phraseology of Justin and Irenoeus.
(3) 'i'he MURATORIAN FRAGMENT, one of the earliest attempts to give a list of the books of NT, not only includes the Fourth Gospel, but, in legendary fashion, describes the circumstances under which the Apostle John was urged by Andrew and other .npostles to prepare his narrative with their recognition and sanction {recognoscenti- btis cunctis). This testimony i" extremely im- portant, but its value depends ou liS date. The writer says, ' Hermas has very recently in our days ^vritten the " Shepherd " while Pius his brother was Bishop of Rome.' The earliest dates for the commencement and close of the episcopats of Pius I. are from A.D. 139-154, the latest from A.D. 141-156. It has been customary to say that the limit of the date (nuperrime temporibus nostris) cacnot be put later than A.D. 170 (so DoUinger,
Lightfoot, and Westcott). But Salmon* (Introd. to A"/', and art. in Smith, Dirt, (f JSiog. vol. iii.J judges dill'orently of this limit, on the ground that the great chanLje in the position of the l!islio]is of Uonie with and after Pius had so long pa-ssed as to be forgotten when the unknown autlior penned these words, and that we cannot assume a date earlier than about A.D. 200. One of the most weighty features of the proof that the Gosi)cl wa< at tliat moment widely prized and regarded uni- versally in the Church as the work of the Ajiostle John, IS the reference to the First Epistle, which the writer treats as an appendix to the Gospel, adding that John 'professes that he was not only an eye-witness, but also a hearer and writer {scrip- torem . . . per ordinem 'a historian') of all the wonderful tilings of the Lord.' The testimony of the Fragment thus conlirnis the conclusion already readied by the testimonies of Theo[)hilus, Irenieus, Tatian, Justin, and Clement of Alexandria.
(4) Our evidence may be carried still further backwards by what remains of the words or life of I'APlA.s. Bp. of Hierapolis. The fragments of the works of tliis early Christian writer were, for the most part, preserved by Eu.sebius {HE iii. 36, .39). t He is there said to have been bishop of the Church of Hierapolis, and a contemporary of Polycarp the disciple of John. It is more than probable that he was born between A.D. 60 and 70. and wrote his exposition in five booka about A.D. 135. The estimate which Eusebius expresses of his mental character in dili'ercnt pages is contra- dictory. In one place he is called an eminently small man, in derogation, perhaps, of some extra- vagantly chiliastic prophecies which he is said to have referred to the lips of our Lord. Elsewhere Eusebius describes Papias as • well skilled in all kinds of learning, and mighty in the Scriptures.' His importance to us lies in the probable source of his information and the nature or his written work. This last appears to have consisted of comments upon the words, miracles, and prophecies of Christ, such as he was eager to obtain from those who had known the Lord ('the truth'), and he mentions ' the elders Andrew, Peter, John, Philip, Thomas, and James, Matthew and other "disciples'" as authorities, whose words came to him by direct speech of friends of his who had known the apostles ; and he adds ' what Aristion and the elder John say {Xiyovaii'},' as thou"h these elders had survived the rest, and were still available for information.