The Diatessaron was used as the standard Gospel text in the liturgy of at least some sections of the Syrian Church for possibly up to two centuries and was quoted or alluded to by Syrian writers.

Where the Diatessaron records Gospel quotations from the Jewish Scriptures, the text appears to agree with that found in the Syriac Peshitta Old Testament rather than that found in the Greek Septuagint — as used by the original Gospel authors.

Hence from the Syriac Diatessaron text was derived an 11th Century Arabic harmony ( the source for the published versions of the Diatessaron in English ); and a 13th Century Persian harmony.

The Diatessaron is thought to have been available to Muhammad, and may have led to his faulty conclusion in the Qur ' an that the Christian Gospel is one text or one book alone, without reference to the canonical authors or New Testament corpus ; he calls this supposed text the Injil.

With the gradual adoption of the Vulgate as the liturgical Gospel text of the Latin Church, the Latin Diatessaron was increasingly modified to conform to Vulgate readings.

In 546 Victor of Capua discovered such a mixed manuscript ; and, further corrected by Victor so as to provide a very pure Vulgate text within a modified Diatessaron sequence, this harmony, the Codex Fuldensis, survives in the monastic library at Fulda, where it served as the source text for vernacular harmonies in Old High German, Eastern Frankish and Old Saxon ( the alliterative poem ' Heliand ').

The older mixed Vulgate / Diatessaron text type also appears to have continued as a distinct tradition, as such texts appear to underlie surviving 13th-14th century Gospel harmonies in Middle Dutch, Middle High German, Middle French, Middle English, Tuscan and Venetian ; although no example of this hypothetical Latin sub-text has ever been identified.

* a layer derived from earlier source materials, almost certainly transmitted to the vernacular author / translator in Latin ; and comprising, at the least, those extensive passages in the Gospel of Barnabas that closely parallel pericopes in the canonical gospels ; but whose underlying text appears markedly distinct from that of the late medieval Latin Vulgate ( as for instance in the alternative version of the Lord's Prayer in chapter 37, which includes a concluding doxology, contrary to the Vulgate text, but in accordance with the Diatessaron and many other early variant traditions );

The four gospels differ from one another ; like other harmonies, the Diatessaron resolves contradictions.

The Diatessaron is notable evidence for the authority already enjoyed by the four gospels by the mid-2nd century.

Other students have noted a range of textual similarities between passages in the Gospel of Barnabas, and variously the texts of a series of late medieval vernacular harmonies of the four canonical gospels ( in Middle English and Middle Dutch, but especially in Middle Italian ); which are all speculated as deriving from a lost Vetus Latina version of the Diatessaron of Tatian.

" EH 4. 29. 6 mentions the Diatessaron: " But their original founder, Tatian, formed a certain combination and collection of the gospels, I know not how, to which he gave the title Diatessaron, and which is still in the hands of some.

These " separated " ( Syriac: da-Mepharreshe ) gospels, though old, have been shown to be later than the Diatessaron.

* Tatian produces his Diatessaron, a harmony of the four gospels.

Tatian's widely used Diatessaron, compiled between 160 and 175, utilized the four gospels without any consideration of others.

He converted more than 1, 000 Marcionites in his diocese, besides many Arians and Macedonians ; more than 200 copies of Tatian's Diatessaron he retired from the churches ; and he erected churches and supplied them with relics.

This Latin Diatessaron textual tradition has also been suggested as underlying the enigmatic 16th century Islam-inflected Gospel of Barnabas ( Joosten, 2002 ).

Thence came to us in the 2nd century the famous Peshitta, or Syriac translation of the Old Testament ; also Tatian's Diatessaron, which was compiled about 172 and in common use until St. Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa ( 412-435 ), forbade its use.

Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus on the Euphrates in upper Syria in 423, suspecting Tatian of having been a heretic, sought out and found more than two hundred copies of the Diatessaron, which he " collected and put away, and introduced instead of them the Gospels of the four evangelists ".

The name ' Diatessaron ' is Greek for ' through four '; the Syriac name for this gospel harmony is '' ( Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê ) meaning ' Gospel of the Mixed ' while in the other hand we have '' ( Evangelion de Mepharreshe ) meaning ' Gospel of the separated '.

Justin's student Tatian ( c. 172 ), incorporated the " Longer Ending " into his Diatessaron, a blended narrative consisting of material from all four canonical Gospels.

Perhaps his primary importance to the historian of Syriac literature lies in the zeal with which he strove to replace the Diatessaron or Gospel Harmony of Tatian with the four canonical Gospels, ordering that a copy of the latter should be placed in every church.

The storyline of Jesus of Nazareth is a kind of cinematic Diatessaron, or “ Gospel harmony ”, blending the narratives of all four New Testament accounts.

Resolution of these scholarly questions remained very difficult so long as no complete version of the Diatessaron in Syriac or Greek had been recovered ; while the medieval translations that had survived — in Arabic and Latin — both relied on texts that had been heavily corrected to conform better with later canonical versions of the separate Gospel texts.

Only 56 verses in the canonical Gospels do not have a counterpart in the Diatessaron, mostly the genealogies and the Pericope Adulterae.

He composed Diatessaron or " harmony of the Gospels "( Ewangelion da-mhalte ) in Syriac, which contained eclectic ideas from Jewish-Christian and dualistic traditions.

The early literature of Syriac Christianity includes the Diatessaron of Tatian ; the Curetonian Gospels and the Syriac Sinaiticus ; the Peshitta Bible ; the Doctrine of Addai and the writings of Aphrahat ; and the hymns of Ephrem the Syrian.

The majority consensus is that the Peshitta Old Testament preceded the Diatessaron, and represents an independent translation from the Hebrew Bible.

" Tatian's Diatessaron and the Old Testament Peshitta " Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol.

There are also several ancient translations, most important of which are in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic ( including the Peshitta and the Diatessaron gospel harmony ), in the Ethiopian language of Ge ' ez, and in Latin ( both the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate ).

The earliest Christian literature in Classical Syriac was biblical translation, the Peshitta and the Diatessaron.

Robert Shedinger wrote that since Perrin attempts to reconstruct an Old Syriac version of Thomas without first establishing Thomas ' reliance on the Diatessaron, Perrin's logic seems circular.

Ephraem's On the Diatessaron uses this version of the story.

The Diatessaron ( c 160 – 175 ) is the most prominent Gospel harmony created by Tatian, an early Christian apologist and ascetic.

The harmony does not include Jesus ' encounter with the adulteress ( John 7: 53 – 8: 11 ), a passage that is generally considered to be a spurious late addition to the Gospel of John, with the Diatessaron itself often used as an early textual witness to support this.

It is equally unclear whether Tatian took the Syriac Gospel texts composited into his Diatessaron from a previous translation, or whether the translation was his own.

Ephrem did not comment on all passages in the Diatessaron, and nor does he always quote commentated passages in full ; but for those phrases that he does quote, the commentary provides for the first time a dependable witness to Tatian's original ; and also confirms its content and their sequence.

Gradually, without extant copies to which to refer, the Diatessaron developed a reputation for having been heretical.

Frequently such versions have been constructed as Gospel harmonies, sometimes taking Tatian's Diatessaron as an exemplar ; other times proceeding independently.

The Liège Diatessaron is a particularly poetic example.

Saint Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 with Introduction and Notes ( Oxford University Press ) ISBN 978-0-19-922163-9 The first English translation.

* Early Christian Writings: Diatessaron e-text and commentaries.

He wrote biblical commentaries on the Diatessaron ( the single gospel harmony of the early Syriac church ), on Genesis and Exodus, and on the Acts of the Apostles and Pauline Epistles.