* ‘Ex historia quoque ejus comperi, quod Tatianus, vir eru- ditissimus et orator illius temporis clarus, unum ex quatuor compaginaverit evangelium cui titulum diapente composuit’ (Codea Fuldensis, ed. E. Ranke, 1868, p.1f.). The origin of the curious title ‘Diapente’ (d:& wévre) for ‘Diatessaron’ has long perplexed the minds of scholars. It is not found either in the original Greek of Eusebius or in the Latin (of Rufinus) and Syriac translations of that work. Further, it is expressly excluded by Victor’s statement that the Harmony was compiled from the fowr Gospels (the numeral is also inserted in the trans- lation of Rufinus). Zahn (Horsch. i. 2.) is probably right in regarding it as a dapsus calamé either of Victor or of his scribe.
fit. Wace, Expositor, 1881, 2, p. 128f.; Zahn, Forsch. i. pp. 1-5, 298 f.
t The Diatessaron of Tatian, p. xxiv.
§ Cf. Zahn, Forsch. i. p. 8f.
DIATESSARON
DIATESSARON 457
plain the opposition with which Victor’s identifica- tion of the Harmony was for so long received. The table of chapters commences: Priefatio I. In principio verbum, deus apud deum, per quem facta sunt omnia. From this heading we see that the Harmony commenced with Jn 15, and that Lk 14, which now precedes it in the Harmony, formed no part of the original work. In the same way we can explain the presence of the genealogies of the Lord, which, as we know, were omitted in Tatian’s Diatessaron. The capitulation runs: V. de generationem (sic!) vel nativitate Christi. Here the word generatio is clearly identical with na- tivitas, and does not refer to the genealogies (Mt 1116, Lk 354-38, Mt 117) but to Mt 1'8 (Christi autem generatio sic erat), which is given in the Codex at the beginning of ch. 5. Thus we see that the Latin Harmony originally commenced with Jn 1’, and did not contain the genealogies, the omission of which is so characteristic of Tatian’s work.
The elimination of these later additions to the Latin Harmony undoubtedly removes two of the strongest objections that were urged against the identification of Victor’s discovery with the Diatessaron. There still remains, however, the question of the language, since, in the opinion of many scholars, the Latin translation can have been made only through the medium of a Greek version, whether that of the original Diatessaron or of a translation made from the Syriac. But the evi- dence which we have examined affords no support, or rather is entirely opposed, to the theory of an original Greek Diatessaron, while the researches of Zahn (Forsch. i. 311£.) have shown conclusively that the supposed need of a Greek intermediary translation lacks historical support. Thus a con- temporary of Victor, the African Junilius, who was Questor sacri palatii at Constantinople about A.D. 545-552, made a Latin translation (Instituta regularia divine legis) of an introduction to the Seriptures, composed by the Syrian Nestorian Bent a pupil and teacher of the school of Nisibis, and sent it to Primasius, bishop of Adrumetum.* Eyen at an earlier date Cassiodorus and the Roman bishop Agapetus (d. 536 A.D.) conceived the idea of founding a theological school at Rome on the model of those at Nisibis and Alexandria. Still more important is the testimony of Gen- nadius of Massilia, who wrote a continuation of Jerome’s de Viris Iliustribus. In the first chapter of this work (written about A.D. 495) he discusses at some length the Homilies of Aphraates, whom he identified with Jacob of Nisibis, and explains Jerome’s silence with regard to this writer on the ground that his works had not been translated ; for the works of the few Syriac writers which are included in Jerome’s category were, by his own testimony, known to him only through Greek trans- lations. Gennadius mentions further a Syriac chronicle of Jacob of Nisibis, the writings of two of Ephraem’s pupils, and also those of Isaac of Antioch. It would seem, therefore, that the ignor- ance of Syriac, which prevailed among Western writers at the time of Jerome, had largely dis- appeared during the interval between the date of the latter and that of Victor of Capua. Probably, as Zahn suggests, this change was chiefly brought about by the Syriac monks who settled in Sinai, Palestine, Egypt, and Constantinople, and there came into contact with Western scholars. Hence it is by no means improbable that some Latin scholar in the 5th or at the beginning of the 6th cent. should have compiled that Latin form of the Syriac Diatessaron which has been preserved to us in the Codex Fuldensis.
It is obvious from what has been said above that the Codex Fuldensis can add nothing to our know-
* Kihn, Theodor von Mopsuestia und Junilius Africanus.
ledge of the text of the Diatessaron. It is, how- ever, an important witness to the general structure and arrangement of its Syriac original, though even in that respect it seems to have suffered from revision. Its chief value for our purpose consists, as we shall see, in the fact that it supplies us with the means of controlling the far more trustworthy evidence of the Arabic version.
(c) The Arabic Version.—This version was first published by A. Ciasca, one of the guild of scriptors at the Vatican Library, under the title: ‘The Diates- saron which Tatian compiled from the Four Gospels (in Arabic), sew Tatiani Evangeliorwm Harmonia Arabice. Nunc primum ex duplici codice edidit et translatione Latina, donavit P. Augustinus Ciasca, etc., Rome, 1888.’ Of the two MSS which form the basis of this edition, one (Cod. Vat. Arab. xiv.) had been brought from the East by Joseph Assemani as early as A.D. 1719, and had been definitely described by its discoverer as ‘Tatiani Diatessaron seu quatuor Evangelia in unum re- dacta’ (Bibl. Or. i. 619). A statement to the same effect contained in the colophon* was also quoted by Stephen Assemani; nevertheless the MS was left unnoticed, except by Zahn, until the publication of Ciasea’s De Tatiani Diatessaron Arabica Versione + in 1883. In this essay Ciasca gave a full description of the MS which, like Assemani, he assigned to the 12th century. He further defended the statement of the colophon, despite the fact that the Arabic Harmony com- menced with Mk 1! (instead of Jn 1'), and con- tained the genealogies according to Matthew and Luke. His conjecture that these additions were a later interpolation was substantially confirmed by a comparison with the second MS, which shortly afterwards came into his hands. This MS was presented to the Museo Borgiano in 1886 by the