ply one Gospel written by four authors. Epiphanius
states: "Tatian is said to have composed the Gospel by four, which is
called by some, the Gospel according to the Hebrews" ("Sup. Rel.," vol.
ii., p. 155). Here we get the Diatessaron identified with the
widely-spread and popular early Gospel of the Hebrews. Theodoret (circa
A.D. 457) says that he found more than 200 such books in use in Syria,
the Christians not perceiving "the evil design of the composition;" and
this is Paley's harmony of the Gospels! Theodoret states that he took
these books away, "and instead introduced the Gospels of the four
Evangelists;" how strange an action in dealing with so useful a work as
a harmony of the Gospels, to confiscate it entirely and call it an evil
design! To complete the value of this work as evidence to "four, and
only four, Gospels," we are told by Victor of Capua, that it was also
called Diapente, i.e., "by five" ("Sup. Rel.," vol. ii., p. 153). In
fact, there is no possible reason for calling the work--whose contents
ate utterly unknown--a _harmony_ of the Gospels at all; the notion that
it is a harmony is the purest of assumptions. There is some slight
evidence in favour of the identity of the Diatessaron with the Gospel of
the Hebrews. "Those, however, who called the Gospel used by Tatian the
Gospel according to the Hebrews, must have read the work, and all that
we know confirms their conclusion. The work was, in point of fact, found
in wide circulation precisely in the places in which, earlier, the
Gospel according to the Hebrews was more particularly current. The
singular fact that the earliest reference to Tatian's 'harmony' is made
a century and a half after its supposed composition, that no writer
before the 5th century had seen the work itself, indeed, that only two
writers before that period mention it at all, receives its natural
explanation in the conclusion that Tatian did not actually compose any
harmony at all, but simply made use of the same Gospel as his master
Justin Martyr, namely, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, by which
name his Gospel had been called by those best informed" ("Sup. Rel.,"
vol. ii., pp. 158, 159). As it is not pretended by any that there is any
mention of _four_ Gospels before the time of Irenaeus, excepting this
"harmony," pleaded by some as dated about A.D. 170, and by others as
between 170 and 180, it would be sheer waste of time and space to prove
further a point admitted on all ha