368 Clarence Russell Williams, 



the form in which the Gospels were pubHcly read in the churches of 

 Edcssa, as wc learn from the " Doctrine of Addai," an apocryphal work 

 which seems to ])reserve the popular tradition of Edessa at the close 

 of the fourth centur\\ It reads : 



"[Now much people day by day] were gathering together and 

 coming to the prayer of (Divine) Service and to the Old Testament 

 and the New of the Diate^saron ; and in the Resurrection of the 

 dead they were believing. . . ." (xxxv. 15—17). 



Thus we see the Doctrine of Addai transfers the Diatessaron to 

 apostolic times (so Wright, History of Syriac Literature, p. 8). 



While still at Rome he probably commenced his Diatessaron, and 

 it is quite likely that Justin Martyr knew and approved his under- 

 taking (cf. Hill, "The Earliest Life of Christ," Introd. p. 9). Whether 

 this work was originally in Greek (or Latin) and was afterwards trans- 

 lated into Syriac, as Harnack, Burkitt, and others hold, or was origi- 

 nally prepared in the Syriac, does not vitally concern this discussion, 

 if it be granted that in the compiling of his work, as to its contents 

 Tatian would include what was found in the Greek texts of the Gospels 

 current at that date in Rome, with which he would of course be 

 familiar 



Since it has never been proved that Tatian included in his compila- 

 tion a passage of any considerable length taken from any other source 

 than our canonical Gospels, and since the Longer Conclusion is worked 

 over into the Harmony, for "this same mosaic of Mt. 28, Mk. 16, and 

 Lk. 24 is found in fuld [Codex Fuldensis] as in the Arabic Diatessaron. 

 Aphaates 120 mentions Christ's ascension at the right hand of the 

 Father (Mk. 16 : 9) immediately after quoting Mt. 28 : 20," (Burkitt, 

 Encycl. Bib;, col. 5003, note), we conclude that at Rome in 170 A. D. 

 these twelve verses were accepted as an authentic part of our canonical 

 Gospels, and if so none will deny that they must 1 ave formed then as 

 now the closing section of the Gospel according to Mark. If they did 

 not originate at Rome, they must have been brought to that city as 

 early as the middle of the second century. 



This conclusion will of course be affected somewhat by the view- 

 one takes of the language in which the Diatessaron was originally- 

 compiled. If the original form was in Greek this conclusion is mucli 

 strengthened, but if, from the first, it was composed in Syriac, it seems 

 natural to suppose that, as to content, the tradition of Rome would 

 be followed. 



As to language, however, we believe that Tatian made use of and 

 in part borrowed from an earlier Syriac version of the Gospels, as 



