Copt, Galim dos Gali. It is probably to be assigned
to the 14th century. It displays a less correct orthography than the Vatican MS, but presents the text in a more original form. Both the intro- ductory notice and the colophon describe the work as the Diatessaron. It clearly begins with Jn 1’, Mk 1! forming a sort of title, while the gene- alogies are not included in the text, but have been inserted before the colophon. For his Arabic text Ciasca has mostly followed the Vatican MS, but there are a number of passages in which he has adopted the readings of the later MS ; the variants are in every case added in the footnotes. The usefulness of the Latin translation is a good deal impaired by Ciasca’s attempt to adapt it to the style and character of the Clementine Vulgate ; apart from this fact, it also contains too many inaccuracies to be of much critical value. This translation has been followed by Dr. Hemphill in his English edition of the Diatessaron (1888), and forms the basis of another English translation, which has been compared throughout with the original Arabic, published by Dr. Hamlyn Hill in Lhe Earliest Life of Christ. A more literal and entirely independent English rendering of the Arabic has also been published by the Rev. Hope W. Hoge.t
An interesting statement as to the origin of the Arabic translation has been preserved both in the introductory notice and in the colophon§ of the
% In fine fol. 123 hac a librariis adnotata reperies: Explicit auxilio Dei Sacrosanctum Evangelium quod ex quatuor Evan- geliis collegit Tatianus, quodque Diatessaron vulgo dicitur. Et Jaus Deo’ (Mai, Script. Vet. Nova Coll. iv. 2. 14).
+ Pitra, Analecta Sacra, iv. 465-487. :
t Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Additional Volume. 1897.
§ These are given in full by Hjelt, op. cit. p. 63 n., together with a discussion of the difficulties presented at the commence- ment of the Harmony by the various readings of the two MSS. Hjelt adopts the view (cf. Zahn, Gesch. ii. 538) that the material common to both MSS is probably the remains of an original title which perhaps ran as follows: ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ,
458 DIATESSARON
DIATESSARON
Borgian MS, according to which it was made by the ‘excellent and learned priest’ Abu’l Faraj ‘Abdullah ibn at-Tayyib. he colophon adds further that the Syriac exemplar was written by ‘Isa (MS wrongly Gubasi) ibn ‘Ali al-Mutatabbib, the pupil of Honain ibn-Ishak. By means of these notices, the correctness of which we have no reason to doubt, we are able to fix the date both of the Arabic translation and of its Syriac original. Ibn at-Tayyib was a well-known writer of the llth cent. (d. 1043), who commented on the writings of Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates, translated the Gospels of SS. Matthew and John from Syriac into Arabic, and also wrote an Arabic commentary on the Gospels. The scribe who was responsible for the Syriac exemplar is most prob- ably none other than the famous lexicographer Jesus bar- Ali (see above, § ii. 6), who flourished in the latter half of the 9th cent. (his teacher Honain died in A.D. 873). Thus the date of the Syriac MS used by the translator of the Borgian MS is the latter half of the 9th cent., and that of the Arabic translation itself the first half of the 11th century.
It is disappointing to find that, though the Arabic translation has preserved the outward form and characteristics of Tatian’s Harmony, and in that respect is a most important witness to the order and arrangement of the Diatessaron, the text which it exhibits has throughout been accommodated to that of the Peshitta, and is therefore of no value for restoring the original Syriac version. The data at our command are perhaps insufficient for determining whether this accommodation had already been effected in the Syriac exemplar which was used by the Arabic translator, or is to be assigned to the latter him- self. Zahn * maintains that the translator entirely recast the Syriac in accordance with the existing Arabic versions of the Gospels, and that the his- tory of the Arabic Harmony thus presents a close analogy to that of the Latin (Codex Fuldensis). In support of this view he urges that, when once the Diatessaron had been banished from the public worship of the Church, it would soon cease to have an interest for any but the learned, and the latter would have no motive in introducing any altera- tions. As evidence of such learned interest in the Diatessaron he points to the marginal references, attached to both the Arabic MSS and presupposed by the introductory notice in the Borgian MS, by which the source of each passage was indicated : these, presumably, already existed in the Syriac copy of the 9th cent., since the writer of the notice is silent on the subject ; and they naturally formed no part of the original Diatessaron. It seems, however, more probable that the later type of text preserved in the Arabic version reflects the result of a process of revision by which the Syriac Dia- tessaron had been gradually brought nearer and nearer to the authoritative text of the Peshitta. For the Arabic, unlike the Latin Harmony, shows evident signs of its Syriac origin; and this fact alone makes it difficult to imagine that its text was entirely recast in a similar manner to that of the Codex Fuldensis. Moreover, it is not only, as Zahn admits, a faithful witness to the order and arrangement of the Diatessaron as a whole, but also reproduces in many cases the finer de- tails which determine the internal composition of the individual sections. These arguments would naturally receive strong confirmation if we could