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Other Traces of a Syriac Text.--No copy of a Syriac Diatessaron has yet been shown to have survived. 1 A number of quotations 2 from such a work have, however, been found in a Syriac commentary on the New Testament by Ishodad of Merv (circ. 852), a contemporary of Honain, Ibn-Ali's teacher. 3 The value of these extracts is apparent, for they take us back one generation earlier than Ibn-at-Tayyib's Syriac exemplar. More important still, they do not entirely agree with the text of our Arabic version. To solve the problem thus raised, we must examine some of the statements about the Diatessaron to be found in ecclesiastical writers.
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Prof. Gottheil, indeed, announced in 1892 in the Journal of Biblical Literature (vol. xi., pt. i., p. 71) that he had been privately informed of the existence of a complete copy of the Syriac Diatessaron. Unfortunately, however, as he has kindly informed me, he has reluctantly come to the conclusion that the ms. in question, which is not yet accessible, is "nothing more than the commentary of Ishodad" mentioned in the text. A similar rumor lately circulated probably originated simply in the pamphlet of Goussen mentioned in the next note. S. Bäumer, on the other hand, in his article, "Tatians Diatessaron, seine bisher. Lit. u. die Reconstruction des Textes nach einer neuentdeckten Handschrift" (Literarischer Handweiser, 1890, 153-169) which the present writer has not been able to see, perhaps refers simply to the Borgian ms. ↩
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Attention was called to these by Profs. Isaac H. Hall and R. J. H. Gottheil (Journ. of Bibl. Lit., x., 153 ff.; xi., 68 ff.); then by Prof. J. R. Harris (Contemp. Rev., Aug., 1895, p. 271 ff., and, more fully, Fragments of the Com. of Ephr. Syr. on the Diatess., London, 1895) and by Goussen (Studia Theologica, fasc. i., Lips., 1895). ↩
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Prof. Harris promises an edition of this commentary. ↩
