of the other, comparison.  No one who had seen the two works could confuse them, though they bore the same name, Diatessaron.  Eusebius keeps them quite distinct.  So does Bar-Salibi.  Later on in his commentary, we are told, he quotes both works in the same place.” [148:2]

Doubtless, no one comparing the two works here described could confuse them, but it is far from being so clear that anyone who had not seen more than one of these works could with equal certainty distinguish it.  The statement of Dr. Lightfoot quoted above, that the Diatessaron of Ammonius “took the Gospel of St. Matthew as its standard, preserving its continuity,” certainly does not tend to show that it was “quite different in its character from the Diatessaron of Tatian,” on the supposition that the Arabic translation lately published represents the work of Tatian.  I will quote what Professor Hemphill says regarding it, in preference to making any statement of my own:—­

“On examining the Diatessaron as translated into Latin from this Arabic, we find in by far the greater portion of it, from the Sermon on the Mount to the Last Supper (Sec.Sec. 30-134) that Tatian, like his brother harmonist Ammonius, took St. Matthew as the basis of his work ...  St. Mark, as might be expected, runs parallel with St. Matthew in the Diatessaron, and is in a few cases the source out of which incidents have been incorporated.  St. Luke, on the other hand, is employed by Tatian, as also in a lesser degree is St. John, in complete defiance of chronological order.” [149:1]

This is not quite so different from the description of the Diatessaron of Ammonius, which Dr. Lightfoot quotes:—­

“He placed side by side with the Gospel according to Matthew the corresponding passages of the other Evangelists, so that as a necessary result the connection of sequence in the three was destroyed so far as regards the order (texture) of reading.” [149:2]

The next witness cited is Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, writing about A.D. 453, and I need not quote the well-known passage in which he describes the suppression of some 200 copies of Tatian’s work in his diocese, which were in use “not only among persons belonging to his sect, but also among those who follow the Apostolic doctrine,” who did not perceive the heretical purpose of a book in which the genealogies and other passages showing the Lord to have been born of the seed of David after the flesh were suppressed.  It is a fact, however, which even Zahn points out, that, in the alleged Diatessaron of Ephraem, these passages are not all excised, but still remain part of the text, [150:1] as they also do in the Arabic translation.  This is the only definite information which we possess of the contents of the Diatessaron beyond the opening words, and it does not tally with the recently discovered works.

I need not further discuss here the statement of Epiphanius that some called Tatian’s Diatessaron the Gospel according to the Hebrews.  Epiphanius had not seen the work himself, and he leaves us in the same ignorance as to its character.