Tassel. In mediaeval times the sacred vestments of the ministers of the Church were adorned with tas- sels, to which, in the case of dalmatics and tunics, balls of crystal were attached. The word also denotes a thin plate of gold or silver worn on the back of the cope and episcopal gloves.
Tate, Nahuje, a well-known psalmodist, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in l(i52, and at the age of sixteen was admitted to Dublin College, but does not appear to have followed any profession. He succeeded Shadwell as poet- laureate, and continued in that office till his death, which happened Aug. 12, 1715, in the Mint, where he resided as a place of refuge from his creditors. He wa8 the author of nine dramatic performances and a large number of poems; but is at present better known for his version of the Psalms, in whieli he was joined by Dr. Brady. For a complete list of his works, see Al- libone, Diet, of Brit, and Amer. Authors, s. v.; Chal- mers, Bioff. Diet. s. V. See Psalmody.
Tatian, a notable Christian writer of the 2d cen- tury, was a native of Assyria, though Clemens Alexan- drinus and later fathers term him a Svrian. He had
mastered the Gra;co-Roman culture of his day, largely through extended travels; and his reading was very wide, no fewer than ninety-three classic authors being referred to in his works. In the course of his wanderings as a strolling rhetorician he came to Rome, at that time the great centre for all intellectual interests and tenden- cies, and there turned his attention to Christianity. To justify this action he wrote his Aoyoc Trpoc EA\?;j'at', a work in which he confesses himself a convert to the barbarian philosopliy of the despised sect, and invites his contemporaries to examine it, that they too might ob- serve the astonishing contrasts it presents, with its sim- plicity and its clearness, to the darkness of the heathen- ism of that and every other age. At Rome Tatian was associated with .lustin, perhaps as a pupil; but he soon became liimself a teacher of Christianity. His attitude was apologetic, and necessarily involved the most mark- ed antagonism to paganism. Stern and even harsh in his morality, he could recognise no truth in heathen philosophy', and feel no sympathy, even though but of a scientific or :«sthetical nature, with heathen life and culture. To him, as to his Contemporary Christians, the belief in one (lod was of the highest moral signifi- cance. The loss of this faith, he taught, had exposed the soul of man to the rule of the dark powers of mate- rial nature, the daemons with whom polytheistic views originate. Its recovery delivers from servitude to the wandering diemons (the planets) upon which astrolog- ical fate is based. In opposition to the materialistic pantheism of the Stoics, Tatian defended the supermun- dane spirituality of the one God, the Creator and First Cause of all things,1n v. hum, as the Great Source of be- ing, all things, including matter, potentially existed at the first. At the beginning the Logos sprang into be- ing as the first-born work of the Father, that he might, produce the world, himself creating the material. The created universe is everywhere pervaded by the spirit of material life, which is inferior to the Divine Spirit — being in man the soul, which is indissolnbly connected with the body, and in the world the world-soul {in'tvfia uXtKOJ'). Human nature in its pure state is, however, privileged to a substantial and intimate union (crK^yyia) with the perfect nature, the Spirit of God himself. This throws a significant light upon Tatian's conception of the Trinity. He teaches that as the Father is (in his essence) Spirit, so the Logos proceeding from the Father is Spirit; and the latter, that he might imitate the Fa- ther, has made man in the image of immortality, to the end that man might have part in God and attain to immortality. The Spirit thus became the life-compan- ion of the soul. In this way God himself lives in man by his ministering Spirit, by which is to be understood simph' the hypostatized efficiency of the Logos. The fall involved the removal of the Divine Spirit from the soul, and plunged the latter deeper into the condition of the merely hylic, so that but faint sparks of the Spirit and dim longings after God remain. It is possible, however, for the soul to turn away from evil and towards God in the exercise of its freedom — how, Tatian does not clearly state. The fame which Tatian acquired through his apology, from which the foregoing sketch is principally taken, was lost in consequence of his per- version to Gnosticism. He went to Syria, it would seem, after the death of Justin (in 166?). He is charged with holding to the existence of oeons after the fashion of Valentinus (q. v.),and similar speculations; with an ascetical course of life, carried even to the extent of using water instead of wine ; with rejecting marriage as a state of practical fornication; with promulgating Docetic ideas respecting the person of Christ, etc. — all of which must be regarded as substantially a truthful indictment. He would seem, however, to be more near- ly related to Saturninus (q. v.) than to Valentinus in his views. The time of Tatian's death is not exactly known, but it seems to have been prior to the date of the work by Irenteus, Adv. Hcer. (c. 175). His most famous work was a harmony of the Gospels, the Diates-