Tatian (and the Diatessaron) (Full Script)

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Tatian

Post-Apostolic Church

Tatian lived in Rome and wrote around AD 170.

He was born in Assyria but was converted while living in Rome.  He was a student of Justin Martyr.

After Justin's martyrdom, Tatian began to sway towards aestheticism, that is, the teaching that various practices--practices not taught in the Scriptures--made a person more righteous.  Irenaeus wrote that Tatian began his own sect of Christianity called the Encratites (Irenaeus.  AD 180.  ANF, vol 1, page 383.).  From the writings of later Pre-Nicene Christians, it appears that this group maintained the major points of theology and doctrines of the New Testament but added to it their aesthetic practices.  For example, Irenaeus wrote that they required celibacy and vegetarianism for all (ibid).  Origen wrote that they did not acknowledge Paul's letters as Scripture (Origen.  AD 247.  ANF, vol 4, page 572.).  Tatian was expelled by the church in Rome, moved to Syria, and became a missionary there.

About Tatian's aetheticism, Hippolytus wrote,

Although Tatian was himself a disciple of Justin the Martyr, he did not entertain similar opinions with his master....  Similarly with Marcion, he stated that marriage is destruction.  (Hippolytus.  AD 225.  ANF, vol 5, page 112.)

Jerome wrote about Tatian's aestheticism,

Tatian, the chief of the Encratites, endeavored to build his heresy, asserting that wine is not to be drunk, since it was commanded in the law that the Nazarites were not to drink wine.  (Jerome.  AD 400.  ANF, vol 2, page 83.)

Although Tatian's life has somewhat of a sad conclusion, Tatian will always be remembered for compiling the Diatessaron.  The name, Diatessaron, means "out of four."  Tatian combined the four gospels into this one work.  It was probably originally written in his native language of Aramaic.  He did this with incredible accuracy and did not add anything of his own to the gospels.  In fact, Tatian only omitted about 56 verses from the four gospels and most of these were genealogies.  It is in chronological order to the best of Tatian's knowledge.

The Diatessaron was used for the reading of the gospels by Aramaic-speaking Christians in Syria.  This was their Scripture of the gospels until the early fifth century.  Thus it makes sense that when the Diatessaron quotes from the Old Testament, its quotations follow the readings of the Peshitta, which a second-century translation of the Old and New Testaments into Aramaic.  Around AD 423, Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, Syria, began a movement in order to destroy all copies of the Diatessaron because he believed Tatian purposely removed the genealogies to imply that Jesus was not a descendant of David.  Because he destroyed so many copies, it eventually became very scarce and developed a reputation for being heretical.  In Western Christianity around the same time, as the church began using the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Scriptures, the Diatessaron lost popularity.

But the Diatessaron survived and its value was again recognized.  In the 11th century, it was translated into Arabic and later into Persian.  Also, Tatian included the last 12 verses of Mark.  This shows that from such an early date as AD 170, these verses were recognized as being written by Mark.  The Diatessaron is also an early witness that there are only four true gospels.  Less than 20 years after Tatian, Irenaeus wrote that the church only accepted four gospels.  Today, the Diatessaron has become invaluable, showing how the gospels, as we have them today, do not differ from the second century.