uld
confuse them, though they bore the same name, _Diatessaron_.
Eusebius keeps them quite distinct. So does Bar-Salibi. Later on in
his commentary, we are told, he quotes both works in the same
place." [148:2]

Doubtless, no one comparing the two works here described could confuse
them, but it is far from being so clear that anyone who had not seen
more than one of these works could with equal certainty distinguish it.
The statement of Dr. Lightfoot quoted above, that the _Diatessaron_ of
Ammonius "took the Gospel of St. Matthew as its standard, preserving its
continuity," certainly does not tend to show that it was "quite
different in its character from the _Diatessaron_ of Tatian," on the
supposition that the Arabic translation lately published represents the
work of Tatian. I will quote what Professor Hemphill says regarding it,
in preference to making any statement of my own:--

"On examining the _Diatessaron_ as translated into Latin from this
Arabic, we find in by far the greater portion of it, from the Sermon
on the Mount to the Last Supper (Sec.Sec. 30-134) that Tatian, like his
brother harmonist Ammonius, took St. Matthew as the basis of his
work ... St. Mark, as might be expected, runs parallel with St.
Matthew in the _Diatessaron_, and is in a few cases the source out
of which incidents have been incorporated. St. Luke, on the other
hand, is employed by Tatian, as also in a lesser degree is St. John,
in complete defiance of chronological order." [149:1]

This is not quite so different from the description of the _Diatessaron_
of Ammonius, which Dr. Lightfoot quotes:--

"He placed side by side with the Gospel according to Matthew the
corresponding passages of the other Evangelists, so that as a
necessary result the connection of sequence in the three was
destroyed so far as regards the order (texture) of reading." [149:2]

The next witness cited is Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, writing about A.D.
453, and I need not quote the well-known passage in which he describes
the suppression of some 200 copies of Tatian's work in his diocese,
which were in use "not only among persons belonging to his sect, but
also among those who follow the Apostolic doctrine," who did not
perceive the heretical purpose of a book in which the genealogies and
other passages showing the Lord to have been born of the seed of David
after the flesh were suppressed. It i