It is certain that the name of Tatian did not appear as the author of the Diatessaron. [152:1] This is obvious from the very nature of the composition and its object.  We have met with three works of this description and it is impossible to say how many more may not have existed.  As the most celebrated, by name at least, it is almost certain that, as time went on and the identity of such works was lost, the first idea of anyone meeting with such a Harmony must have been that it was the Diatessaron of Tatian.  What means could there be of correcting it and positively ascertaining the truth?  It is not as if such a work were a personal composition, showing individuality of style and invention; but supposing it to be a harmony of Gospels already current, and consequently varying from similar harmonies merely in details of compilation and arrangement, how is it possible its authorship could remain in the least degree certain, in the absence of an arranger’s name?

An illustration of all this is aptly supplied in the case of Victor of Capua, and I will allow Dr. Lightfoot himself to tell the story.

“Victor, who flourished about A.D. 545, happened to stumble upon an anonymous Harmony or Digest of the Gospels, and began in consequence to investigate the authorship.  He found two notices in Eusebius of such Harmonies; one in the Epistle to Carpianus prefixed to the canons, relating to the work of Ammonius; another in the Ecclesiastical History, relating to that of Tatian.  Assuming that the work which he had discovered must be one or other, he decides in favour of the latter, because it does not give St. Matthew continuously and append the passages of the other evangelists, as Eusebius states Ammonius to have done.  All this Victor tells us in the preface to this anonymous Harmony, which he publishes in a Latin dress.

“There can be no doubt that Victor was mistaken about the authorship; for though the work is constructed on the same general plan as Tatian’s, it does not begin with John i. 1, but with Luke i. 1, and it does contain the genealogies.  It belongs, therefore, at least in its present form, neither to Tatian nor to Ammonius.” [153:1]

How this reasoning would have fallen to the ground had the Harmonist, as he might well have done in imitation of Tatian, commenced with the words, “In the beginning was the Word”!  The most instructive part is still to come, however, for although in May 1887 Dr. Lightfoot says:  “There can be no doubt that Victor was mistaken about the authorship,” &c., in a note now inserted at the end of the essay, after referring to the newly-discovered works, he adds:  “On the relation of Victor’s Diatessaron, which seems to be shown after all not to be independent of Tatian ...  See Hemphill’s Diatessaron.” [153:2] On turning to Professor Hemphill’s work, the following passage on the point is discovered:—­