s; one in the _Epistle to Carpianus_ prefixed to the
canons, relating to the work of Ammonius; another in the
_Ecclesiastical History_, relating to that of Tatian. Assuming that
the work which he had discovered must be one or other, he decides in
favour of the latter, because it does not give St. Matthew
continuously and append the passages of the other evangelists, as
Eusebius states Ammonius to have done. All this Victor tells us in
the preface to this anonymous Harmony, which he publishes in a Latin
dress.

"There can be no doubt that Victor was mistaken about the
authorship; for though the work is constructed on the same general
plan as Tatian's, it does not begin with John i. 1, but with Luke
i. 1, and it does contain the genealogies. It belongs, therefore,
at least in its present form, neither to Tatian nor to Ammonius."
[153:1]

How this reasoning would have fallen to the ground had the Harmonist, as
he might well have done in imitation of Tatian, commenced with the
words, "In the beginning was the Word"! The most instructive part is
still to come, however, for although in May 1887 Dr. Lightfoot says:
"There can be no doubt that Victor was mistaken about the authorship,"
&c., in a note now inserted at the end of the essay, after referring to
the newly-discovered works, he adds: "On the relation of Victor's
_Diatessaron, which seems to be shown after all not to be independent of
Tatian_ ... See Hemphill's _Diatessaron_." [153:2] On turning to
Professor Hemphill's work, the following passage on the point is
discovered:--

"It will be remembered that Victor, Bishop of Capua, in the year
543, found a Latin Harmony or compilation of the four Gospels
without any name or title, and being a man of enquiring mind he at
once set about the task of discovering its unknown author. I have
already mentioned the way in which, from the passage of Eusebius, he
was led to ascribe his discovery to Tatian. This conclusion was
generally traversed by Church writers, and Victor was supposed to
have made a mistake. He is now, however, proved to have been a
better judge than his critics, for, as Dr. Wace was the first to
point out, a comparison of this Latin Harmony with the Ephraem
fragments demonstrates their substantial identity, as they preserve
to a wonderful degree the same order, and generally proceed _pari
passu_." [153: