Among the first to recognize the great import- ance of Moesinger’s translation was Professor Zahn, to whom, indeed, all NT scholars are largely in- debted for a knowledge, not only of a considerable part of the Diatessaron itself but also of a large number of facts bearing on its history and char-
* Zahn, Forsch. i. 46f.; J. Hamlyn Hill, 4 Dissertation on the
Gospel Commentary of S. Ephraem the Syrian, Edinburgh, 1896.
acter. Those portions of the text which the author was able to restore with the aid of the new trans- lation (and also of the Homilies of Aphraates) were incorporated in the first volume of his Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons und der altkirchlichen Literatur (Erlangen, 1881). In this work Zahn further gave a full and complete account of all that was then known of the Diates- saron and its author, and, to a large extent, solved the many complicated and difficult questions which are connected with its origin and history. The main interest of the volume, however, centres in his brilliant restoration of the text, and in the evidence which he has adduced in support of his reconstruction. We therefore append a brief de- scription of the methods employed by Zahn in recovering the lost text.
The task of reproducing the order and arrange- ment of the Diatessaron, as Zahn discovered, was materially lightened by the character and form of Ephraem’s commentary. For the latter consists of a series of lectures or discourses, which are largely homiletic both in form and substance, and appear to have been delivered orally. Moreover, each discourse was apparently preceded by the reading of the Gospel section which formed the subject of discussion ; and though, unfortunately, the text of the section was not included in the commentary, the discourse itself affords sufficient evidence for oe the passage of Scripture thus com- mented on. In reconstructing the text itself Zahn had to fall back upon the Gospel quotations contained in the commentary as translated by Moesinger,* and in the Homilies of Aphraates.t
The Gospel quotations that occur in the Latin translation of Ephraem’s commentary naturally form the basis of the text. Those quotations,{ however, which occur—chielly by way of illustra- tion—out of their context, 7.e. in other discourses than the one to which they belong, are inserted in square brackets, as also the quotations from Aphraates, the latter being given, for the sake of clearness, in German instead of Latin. Further, all quotations, whether in Ephraem’s commentary or in the Homilies of Aphraates, which are not given literally, but freely reproduced, are printed in italic type ; and, lastly, all Zahn’s own additions, e.g. references, etc., are enclosed in round brackets. In the voluminous notes appended to each section Zahn has compared the Curetonian and Peshitta versions, and, in many cases, also the Harklean ; while in the more important passages reference is made to the Greek MSS (8, B and D) and to the Itala MSS.
It is no slight tribute to the skill and ingenuity of Zahn to say that he has by these means succeeded in restoring not only the broad general features of the Diatessaron, but also, to a relatively large extent, its actual text. The former we are able to control by means of the Latin (Codex Fuldensis) and Arabic translations of the Diatessaron, which confirm in the most striking manner the accuracy of Zahn’s deductions; but these versions, unfortu- nately (see below) afford but little assistance in restoring the actual text.
Enough, however, of the original Diatessaron
* A more accurate English translation from the Armenian MSS by Canon Armitage Robinson is given in Appendix x. to Dr. Hamlyn Hill’s Lhe Earliest Life of Christ ever compiled from the Four Gospels, being the Diatessaron of Tatian, etc. ; and in the same writer’s Dissertation, p. 75f.
+ Of. Baethgen, Hvangelienfragmente, p. 62f., who points out that, though Aphraates knew and used the Diatessaron, his Gospel quotations are not taken exclusively from that wo the doubt expressed by Zahn as to whether these quotations were taken from the Diatessaron or from the Peshitta has now been dispelled once and for all. Since the publication of Mr. Burkitt's work on S. Ephraem’s Quotations from the Gospel, it ay a regarded as certain that Ephraem did not use the Peshitta.
DIATESSARON
has in this way been restored to enable us to make out both the object of the author and the methods which he followed. It is clear that the object of the Harmony was not to detract from, or impair, the authority of the four canonical Gospels, which undoubtedly form the basis of Tatian’s work, but rather to put together a single connected account of the life of our Lord, which should contain all that was essential in the narratives of the Gospels. It was thus a popular rather than a learned work, and was desigried to obviate those difficulties to which the fourfold form of the Gospels was only too apt to give rise. But, though the author was fully convinced of the genuineness of his sources, he did not adopt, as Zahn puts it, a ‘superstitious attitude’ towards them. He rightly perceived that divergent accounts did not necessarily imply more than a single occurrencelof the same incident, and acted accordingly ; while in cases of actual discrepancy or contradiction he boldly followed one authority to the exclusion of theothers. Thus he followed St. Mark’s (10“) narrative of the healing of one blind man after leaving Jericho, in prefer- ence to that of St. Matthew (202 8°), who speaks of two blind men, and to that of St. Luke (18*), who plates the miracle before the entry into Jericho.