The fathers of the Christian church, Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian, believing that all the truth was contained in Christianity, utterly condemned the philosophy and religion of the Greeks and consequently the poetry which, according to Greek popular belief, was the inspired vehicle for its presentation.

Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian savagely attacked profane poetry, and in defending it Basil, Athenagoras, Clement, and Origen were forced not unwillingly to rely more and more on the traditional moralistic theory of poetry which was so familiar to them.

The contemporary work of Tatian (A Discourse to the Greeks) reveals what the Apologists more or less sought to disguise, invincible hatred towards the civilization in which they lived.

122 Tatian, 44 Themistius, 55 Theodosius I, Emperor, 54 Theophilanthropy, 114 sq. Thomas Aquinas, 69 Thomasius, Chr., 119 Three Rings, story of, 70 Tiherius, Emperor, 40 Tindal, Matthew, 144 sqq.

Tatian was a teacher of rhetoric, an Assyrian by birth, who was converted to Christianity by Justin Martyr, but after his death fell into heresy, leaning towards the Valentinian Gnosticism, and combining with this an extreme asceticism.

[Endnote 238:1] The beginning of Tatian's literary activity will follow accordingly.

Tatian's first work of importance, an 'Address to Greeks,' which is still extant, was written soon after the death of Justin.

It is introduced simply by [Greek: tis (biazetai tis legon)], but there were other Encratites besides Tatian, and the very fact that he has been mentioned by name twice before in the chapter makes it the less likely that he should be introduced so vaguely.

Eusebius mentions this in the following terms: 'Tatian however, their former leader, put together, I know not how, a sort of patchwork or combination of the Gospels and called it the "Diatessaron," which is still current with some.'

He says that the Diatessaron was a harmony of the Gospels, i.e. (in his sense) of our present Gospels, and that Tatian gave the name of Diatessaron to his work himself.

And Theodoret tells us that 'Tatian also composed the Gospel which is called the Diatessaron, cutting out the genealogies and all that shows the Lord to have been born of the seed of David according to the flesh.'

Victor of Capua in the sixth century speaks of Tatian's work as a 'Diapente' rather than a 'Diatessaron' [Endnote 240:3].

If we are to believe the Syrian writer Bar-Salibi in the twelfth century, Ephrem Syrus commented on Tatian's Diatessaron, and it began with the opening words of St. John.

But now we come to the question, was Tatian's work really a Harmony of our four Gospels?

But Tatian wrote within a comparatively short interval of Irenaeus.

It is sufficiently clear that Irenaeus held his opinion at the very time that Tatian wrote, though it was not published until later.

Here then we have a coincidence which makes it difficult to think that Tatian's four Gospels were different from ours.

[Endnote 241:3] and his followers, including the author of 'Supernatural Religion,' is that Tatian's Gospel was the same as that used by Justin.

I am myself not inclined to think this theory improbable; it would have been still less so, if Tatian had been the master and Justin the pupil

The evidence (which we shall consider presently) for the use of the fourth Gospel by Tatian is so strong as to make it improbable that that work was not included in the Diatessaron.

2. Just as the interest of Tatian turns upon the interpretation to be put upon a single term 'Diatessaron,' so the interest of Dionysius of Corinth depends upon what we are to understand by his phrase 'the Scriptures of the Lord.'

I imagine that there can be really no doubt about Tatian.

'Tatian here speaks of God and not of the Logos, and in this respect, as well as language and context, the passage differs from the fourth Gospel' [Endnote 306:1], &c.

He remarks upon it as curious, that more traces should indeed be found 'both in Celsus and his contemporary Tatian of John than of his two nearest predecessors' [Endnote 307:2].

ROACH, J. TATIAN, comp.