The Diatesseron's Peshitta Pedigree.

[Kara]

Shlama Akhay,

Read almost any encyclopedia or commentary on the New Testament, and you are bound to come across a reference to Rabbula (died 433 A.D.), the Monophysite "Tyrant of Edessa", supposedly "suppressing" the Diatesseron - which they claim was the "earliest" gospel in Aramaic.

If we are to believe that, then how does one explain the following subscription to an Arabic translation of the Diatesseron made in the 11th century by the Church of the East?

Here endeth the Gospel which Tatianus compiled and named Diatessaron, i.e., The Fourfold, a compilation from the four Gospels of the holy Apostles, the excellent Evangelists (peace be upon them). It was translated by the excellent and learned priest, Abu'l Fa??ra??j ??Abdulla ibn-at-Tayyib (may God grant him favour), from Syriac into Arabic from an exemplar written by Isa ibn-Ali' al-Motatabbib, pupil of Honain ibn-Ishaq (God have mercy on them both). Amen.

A little history is in order here. This is from an Arabic translation of the Diatesseron made by Ibn-at-Tayyib (died 1043). He is a well known man, a Church of the East monk and scholar who was secretary to Eliyah I, Patriarch of the Church of the East (c.f., Ciasca's Introduction, p. xi. f. and Steinschneider's Polemische and apologetische Lit. in Arabische Sprache, pp. 52-55). Honain ibn-Ishaq (also mentioned in the subscription) was a famous physician, a member of the Church of the East who is well known for his contributions to modern medicine.

Of this Arabic translation today we have 7 manuscripts which survive. Four of them happen to contain the subscription above. The most well-known manuscript is called the "Borgian" and it currently resides in the Vatican Library (and is listed in the Ante-Nicene Fathers series.)

So here we have a translator living in the 11th century (a full 600 years after Rabbula died) who plainly states that he translated the Syriac (Aramaic) Diatesseron into Arabic.

Notice, also, that this is the only translation of the Diatesseron which explicitly states that it was made from the Syriac (Aramaic). No other manuscript makes this claim (not the Latin nor the Armenian.)

Also, notice that the Arabic harmony begins with John 1:1, which we know to be a trademark of Tatian's harmony (c.f., bar-Salibi (12th century in Bib. Or., ii., Volume I pp. 59) who states "Its commencement was, `In the beginning was the Word.'")

But I thought Rabbula "suppressed" the Diatesseron? At least the dated material in encyclopedias and commentaries state this. In fact, these are the words of Rabbula, verbatim:

"Let the presbyters and deacons give heed that in all the churches there be provided and read a copy of the Distinct Gospel," i.e., not the harmonized or mixed gospel.

The truth of the matter is: while it's possible that Rabbula had the power to suppress the Diatesseron in his little corner of the world called Edessa (in Byzantine territory), that hardly gives him the power to extend into Persia and destroy their copies of the Diatesseron.

The subscription to a 600-year later Arabic translation of the Aramaic Diatesseron proves that Rabbula did not suppress the Diatesseron - at least not in Persia where the Church of the East reigned independent of him and his maniacal rantings.

This Arabic translation so exactly matches the Peshitta AGAINST the so-called "Old Syriac", that F.C. Burkitt (remember him?) found it necessary to make the unfounded charge that the text of the Arabic translation must have been tampered with to make it read like the Peshitta. (c.f., Burkitt, Evangelion de-Mepharreshe (2 Vols; Cambridge; University Press, 1904, 1.200)

In Burkitt's worldview, the Peshitta couldn't have existed before Rabbula's time - so the Diatesseron (created ~175 A.D.) couldn't possibly read like it against the so-called "Old Syriac." All this accusation, by the way, without a shred of evidence to support his theory (like his "Rabbula created the Peshitta" theory, which has already been disproved by many scholars.)

It makes perfect sense that a harmony of the Gospels would necessarily require that the distinct 4 Gospels actually existed prior to the harmony. This is common sense. It makes ever more sense that an Aramaic harmony of the Gospels, which Tatian's Diatesseron was, was woven together from the 4 distinct Aramaic Gospels.

Of the 3 surviving translations of the Aramaic Diatesseron (Latin, Armenian and Arabic) the Arabic is the only one which was made in a sister Semitic tongue. The relationship of Latin to Aramaic (or even Armenian to Aramaic) is like the relationship of Chinese to English. The relationship of Aramaic and Arabic is well documented, and one is the daughter of the other.

Since the Arabic translation by Ibn-at-Tayyib is the only one we know for sure was made directly from the Aramaic, and since it reads like the Peshitta (so much so that it worried Burkitt), and since we know that a harmony necessitates a base of 4 distinct Gospels from which it must be drawn - I submit that Tatian's Aramaic Diatesseron was a harmony of the distinct Gospels in Aramaic we currently find today in the canon of scripture we know as the Peshitta.

Occam's Razor is a logical principle which states that one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. In other words, the simplest explanation is usually the best.

The simplest explanation is that Tatian created a harmony of the Peshitta gospels. This harmony existed in Persia until at least the 11th century, when it was translated into Arabic. It then fell out of popular use. This was not a problem - since they had the distinct Gospels in Aramaic from day one. Tatian's harmony was popular at one time in the life of the church - just as any number of contemporary gospel harmonies are popular today. But that doesn't mean that it predates the Peshitta Gospels.

In fact, if we are to believe the textual evidence in the Arabic translation (and not Burkitt's personal opinion) - the Peshitta Gospels were the base of the Diatesseron which history attributes to Tatian.

And this places the Peshitta Gospels at or before 175 A.D. Exactly what Burkitt refused to believe.

You have a couple arguments in this post:

1) Conclusion: Rabbula did not suppress the Diatessaron, at least not in Persia

Reason(s): Six centuries later, an Arabic translation of the Diatessaron emerged.

I see your point, but what's meant by "suppress?" Do you mean he simply discouraged its use after first promoting it? Or does "suppress" mean he attempted to collect the majority of its copies to destroy them? If by "suppress," you mean the former, then there's a considerable probability he did after discovering the following:

Testimony to the Diatessaron comes rather from the Syriac-speaking church of the East than from the Greek. Theodoret says of Tatian: "He composed the Gospel which is called Diatessaron, cutting out the genealogies and such other passages as shew the Lord to have been born of the seed of David after the flesh. This work was in use not only among persons belonging to his sect, but also among those who follow the apostolic doctrine, as they did not perceive the mischief of the composition, but used the book in all simplicity on account of its brevity. And I myself found more than 200 such copies held in respect in the churches in our parts. All these I collected and put away, and I replaced them by the Gospels of the four Evangelists" (Intro of the Diatessaton, Wace)

Rabbula endorsed the Diatessaron earlier than its fallout amongst church leaders, as indicated in the following introduction:

...that in time it fell under the condemnation of some at least of the church leaders, who made violent efforts to suppress it; that it could not be suppressed; that a commentary on it was (perhaps in the fifth century45 ) translated into Armenian; that it was still discussed by commentators, and new Syriac mss. of it made in the ninth century, and thought worth the labor of reproduction in Arabic in the beginning of the eleventh century; that mss. of the Armenian volume continued to be made down to the very end of the twelfth century, and of the Arabic edition down to the fourteenth century; but that this long life was secured at the expense of a more or less rapid assimilation of the text to that of the great Syriac Bible which from the fourth century onwards became more and more exclusively used-the Peshitta. (Roberts-Donaldson Intro)

Whatever "violent efforts" mean. Does that mean inquisitional in the 16th century Roman Church sense? Does that mean they bad-mouthed it? The most I can say is that he probably changed his opinion later on and discouraged its use.

2) Conclusion: Four distinct Gospels were used as a templete for Tatian's Diatessaron (170-175 CE)

Reason(s): Since the Diatessaron is a harmonization of four Gospels, there must have existed four Gospels prior thereto, in the possession of the churches, to begin with.

Agreed.

3) Conclusion: These four distinct Gospels, used as a templete for the Diatessaron, were the Peshitta Gospels (placed before or at 175 CE)

Reason(s): Because the Arabic translation of the Diatessaron is nearly, if not, the same as the Peshitta, the Peshitta Gospels are necessarily prototypal

Assumptions: The Gospels used by Tatian were known as Peshitta in his time. Also, these Gospels were canonized before/during his time. Finally, he merely harmonized these canonical Gospels without altering them.

I hesitant to accept this argument because of its assumptions.

In Andreas Juckel's article, titled "A Re-examination of Codex Phillipps 1388," Codex Phillipps is reexamined in light of the earlier Peshitta manuscript and the Old Syriac. According to German scholar Arthur Allgeier, this codex, which dates back to the 5th/6th century, share a considerable number of readings with the Old Syriac. Interestingly enough, with reexamination, we find contrary to Allgeier's finding, its "individual and singular parts" stay true to an "earlier" Peshitta manscript, forcing Juckel to acknowledge that "the re-examination of the codex advises scholars to re-examine all early Gospel codices in the same way ???Codex Phillipps??? is re-examined in the present article. The analysis of the individuality of the single codices will determine their ???Old Syriac??? heritage as well as their singular and harmonistic readings" (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No1/HV6N1Juckel.html#S5">http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No1/HV ... el.html#S5</a><!-- m -->).

Returning back to my point, he notes:

Accordingly, a ???pre-Peshitta??? as a fixed text (to be reconstructed and printed) cannot be taken as granted by the existence of the ???Old Syriac heritage???; it is possible that a complex development of the formerly fixed Peshitta enlarged or even produced this ???heritage??? (as far as it is not identical with the Peshitta majority text). The complexity of the development is given by the influence of the ???Old Syriac???, the Diatessaron and the Greek, which is tracable in the early Peshitta Gospel manuscripts. Therefore, to alter Gwilliam???s majority text by introducing the ???Old Syriac heritage??? would charge this new text with the petitio principii of a ???pre-Peshitta??? which is not yet properly traced nor sufficiently discussed. Only the re-examination of the early Gospel codices can offer evidence about the textual reality or the textual myth of a fixed ???pre-Peshitta??? and its possible future printed incarnation. For this more comprehensive re-examination the one of 'Codex Phillipps' offers a starting point. The true significance of this codex for the history of the Peshitta Gospels was not dicovered by A. Allgeier but by M. Black (ibid).

Were there 'proto-Syriac Gospels?' Unquestionably. But what did they look like?

The form of the Gospel text used by the early Syriac Church is a topic of much debate.]The earliest form of the Syriac Gospels of which, however, we are certain is the Diatessaron, a Greek word means 'through [the] four [Gospels]'...]the Diatessaron was composed at a time when the notion of canonical Gospels was so young that the composer of the Diatessaron felt free to introduce material not found elsewhere in what we now call canonical Gospels: Matthew 4:4 and Mark 1:6, for example, talk of John the Baptist having lived off 'locusts and wild honey,' which is unusual to an ascetic since locust is a non-vegetarian diet. Tatian felt free to resolve the problem by modifying the text. He substituted 'locusts' with 'milk of the mountains,' the food of the promised land which is mentioned in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 6.3). The reconstruction of the text of the Diatessaron faces several difficulties. Two issues are to be tackled: What was the actual text? And since it is a mixture of the four Gospels, what is the sequence of verses and from which Gospel was each taken? To help resolve this, one of course must consider translations of the Diatessaron, but then one is faced with manuscripts from the sixth to fifteenth century which originate from as far east as Turfan, in China, and as far west as England. Whether scholars will be able to provide us with an acceptable reconstruction of the Diatessaron remains to be seen (The Diatessaron, George Kiraz)

One must wonder if someone "felt free" to alter the Aramaic Gospels prior to "the notion of canonical Gospels." We may never know for certain.

So according to Juckel, we find the following:

1) There were proto- Syriac Gospels. However, it's uncertain if they were fixed. Fixed is defined as canonized or stagnant in its presentation

From Kiraz, we find the following:

1) The "notion" of canonical Gospels was new at the time of Tatian, but we cannot determine what the proto- Syriac Gospels looked like. Tatian took the liberty to edit passages therefrom in his Diatessaron. Consider the following passage:

"Theodoret [Bishop of Cyrus] says of Tatian: "He composed the Gospel which is called Diatessaron, cutting out the genealogies and such other passages as shew the Lord to have been born of the seed of David after the flesh" (ibid). This accusation seems to be in consistency with Tatian's christology. For one, he thought Jesus' flesh was imaginary (according to Jerome, Gal 6:8).

From your argument, we find the following:

The Arabic translation of the DIatessaron matches the Peshitta nearly completely in its rendition.

Conclusion:

Thus we can deduce that the Peshitta matches the Arabic translation of the Diatessaron, a reworking of the unfixed, lost proto-Syriac Gospels. More specifically, we can induce that the Peshitta is the result of a reworked, uncontroversial Diatessaron, thus becoming straight, and not directly from the lost proto-Syriac Gospels. I say induce because it's possible that the churches were in possession of these proto-Syriac Gospels and decided to revert back thereto for the Peshitta. But we must assume that those proto-Syriac Gospels remained unaltered and were faithfully copied from generation to generation, word for word, until the fourth century. Given the originals are lost and no one memorized them, we can never know. We do know that the Peshitta emerged in the fourth century. What were its rivals, to which does it share the most similarities, and which rival(s) enjoyed enough popularity in the Church as to reasonably serve as its templete? The Diatessaron is the only qualified, solid candidate.


What sayest thou?