stephan huller

Diatessaron readings:

And henceforth began Jesus to shew to his dis- ciples that he was determined to go to Jerusalem, and suffer much, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and of the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day rise. [Diat. 23] (when Jesus rebukes Peter)

Jesus said unto them, Go ye and say to this fox, Behold, I am casting out demons, and I heal to-day and to-morrow, and on the third day I am perfected [Diat. 24.28]

And when he went forth thence, they passed through Galilee: and he would not that any man should know it. And he taught his disciples, and said unto them, Keep ye these sayings in your ears and your hearts: for the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and when he is killed, he shall rise on the third day [Diat 24.48]

And while they were going up in the way to Jerusalem, Jesus went in front of them; and they wondered, and followed him fearing. And he took his twelve disciples apart, and began to tell them privately what was about to befall him. And he said unto Arabic, them, We are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things shall be fulfilled that are written in the prophets concerning the Son of man. He shall be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and deliver him to the peoples; and they shall treat him shamefully, and scourge him, and spit in his face, and humble him, and crucify him, and slay him: and on the third day he shall rise [Diat 30.40,41 = Mark 10:34]

The post-resurrection narrative strangely switches the patter in the canonical gospels. The canonical gospels have 'after the third day' before the resurrection and 'on the third day' thereafter. The Diatessaron has all 'on the third day' before the resurrection and the references are all 'after the third day' when put in the mouth of the Jews (i.e. they didn't understand the meaning of his words)

And the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered unto Pilate, and said unto him, Our lord, we remember that that misleader said, while he was alive, After three days I rise. And now send beforehand and guard the tomb until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him by night, and they will say unto the people that he is risen from the dead: and the last error shall be worse than the first. He said unto them, And have ye not guards? go, and take precautions as ye know how. And they went, and set guards at the tomb, and sealed that stone, with the guards. [Diat. 52.40]

When however the disciples remember Jesus sayings in the post-resurrection context it - like the synoptics - has:

And while they marvelled at that, behold, two men standing above them, their raiment shining: and they were seized with fright, and bowed down their face to the earth: and they said unto them, Why seek ye the living one with the dead? He is not here; he is risen: remember what he was speaking unto you while he was in Galilee, and saying, The Son of man is to be delivered up into the hands of sinners, and to be crucified, and on the third day to rise. [Diat 53.1 - 5]

The bottom line is that the Diatessaron supports my contention that it is likely that the name 'diatessaron' was actually associated with a Tuesday resurrection (see above). If in Aramaic we read 'the third day' a Jewish reader would take this to mean Tuesday.

stephan huller

Ephraim Commentary on the Diatessaron 21:5

"The sun hid its face so as not to see him when he was crucified. It retracted its light back into itself to die with him. There was darkness for three hours. The sun shined again, proclaiming that the Lord would rise from Sheol on the third day."

I think all the Creeds have 'the third day' rather than 'after three days' too (Nicaea, Constantinople etc.)

stephan huller

And why would a Tuesday resurrection 'fit'? The third day is the day 'light' (nehora) was made and the rabbis always say nehora is a codeword for the messiah

stephan huller

Robinson (the Gospel according to Peter and the Revelation of Peter 1892) notes that the closest parallel to the declaration of the 'young man' in the Gospel of Peter:

And having gone off, they found the sepulcher opened. And having come forward, they bent down there and saw there a certain young man seated in the middle of the sepulcher, comely and clothed with a splendid robe, who said to them: 'Why have you come? Whom do you seek? Not that one who was crucified? He is risen and gone away. But if you do not believe, bend down and see the place where he lay, because he is not here. For he is risen and gone away to there whence he was sent.'

is what Aphrahat alludes to in his Diatessaron:

'And the angel said to Mary, He is risen and gone away to Him that sent Him' (cf. Jn. xvi. 5). There is reason to believe that Aphrahat, a Syrian writer, used Tatian's Harmony: and thus we seem to have a second link between our Gospel of Peter and [the Diatessaron]

The other parallel that Robinson identifies between the two works is 'The cry of Woe' which comes from the Jews in both texts after the crucifixion. First the Gospel of Peter:

Then the Jews and the elders and the priests, seeing what evil they had done to themselves, began to lament and to say, Woe for our sins : for the judgement and the end of Jerusalem hath drawn nigh. And I with my companions was grieved

Then Robinson notes that in the Diatessaron of Ephrem:

we read : ' Woe was it, Woe was it unto us : this was the Son of God: ...the judgements of the desolation of Jerusalem have come.' The Old Syriac Version adds to Lc. xxiii. 48, 'Woe to us: what hath befallen us? Woe to us from our sins.' And one Latin Codex (S Germanensis, g!) has: 'Woe to us; what hath happened this day for our sins? for the desolation of Jerusalem hath drawn nigh' " (Robinson). 26.

Chili

Monday is the day since darknes never returns on the everlasting sunday and in Genesis the light was created on the first day and the Sun and Moon was recognized on the 4th day and I say recognized in their function to isolate darkness since darkness has no created essence in being and so is set apart as an illusion.

stephan huller

Doesn't anyone wonder why the Apostolikon makes reference to the Omer (1 Cor. 15:20) viz. Jesus being the first fruits of them that sleep?

It only makes sense if Nisan 16 is Easter Sunday. Now this can't possibly be 'the third day' if Jesus's crucifixion is Nisan 15 (as the synoptics). Even John's narrative doesn't allow for three days between Nisan 14 and 16 (despite the arguments of pseudo-Clement in Chroniclon Paschale)

The solution is to look again at the Gospel of Peter and the calendar reflected in the narrative:

Sabbath (Nisan 14)
1st day (Nisan 15)
2nd day (Nisan 16)
3rd day (Nisan 17)
4th day (Nisan 18)
5th day (Nisan 19)
6th day (Nisan 20)
Sabbath (Nisan 21)
1st day (Nisan 22) Festival of First Fruits/Omer

I have always argued for a Herodian basis to the gospel. Now notice that the Gospel of Peter necessarily has the Passover fall on a Sabbath. The rabbis in interpreting the expression mimmohorat hasshabbat (Lev. 23:16) availed themselves of the understanding shabbat here as "festival day," namely, as the first day after the Passover night, while the Boethusians (bytwsyn) took the expression literally and reckoned from the first regular Sabbath after the Passover celebration day (Bab. Menah 65a). Interestingly Jubilees and some Qumran documents always start the counting of the Omer on the day after the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread as the Falashas do to this day.

The point then is that the Sunday resurrection in GofP would also be the Festival First Fruits (another name for the date that starts the counting of the Omer). This explains the Apostolikon references to Jesus as the 'first fruit' but there is also a sense in the Five Books in Reply to Marcion (anonymous poems directly against Marcion) a clear sense that Christ only came up from the underworld on the third day to appear on the Festival of First Fruits:

One in all captives' room, He did sustain
In body the unfriendly penalty
With patience; by His own death spoiling death;
Becomes salvation's cause; and, having paid
Throughly our debts by throughly suffering
On earth, in holy body, everything,
Seeks the infern! here souls, bound for their crime,
Which shut up all together by Law's weight,
Without a guard, were asking for the boons
Promised of old, hoped for, and tardy, He
To the saints'rest admitted, and, with light,
Brought back. For on the third day mounting up,
A victor, with His body by His Sire's
Virtue immense, (salvation's pathway made,)
And bearing God and man is form create,
He clomb the heavens, leading back with Him
Captivity's first-fruits, a welcome gift
And a dear figure to the Lord

There are many more Patristic references to this idea.

Chili

Nice poem but notice how Jesus was elevated instead of remaining the fodder to conceal the parthenocarpic seed within that must be nursed to maturity, "in him, with him and through him" as the first fruit whence he came and he came 'not to be but to bare fruit to his demise and man's elevation.' He so was the pupa stage to be crucified and discarded so that John could be set free after 'faith' has done it's thing to the very bitter end . . . and the Jews knew all about that, knew exactly how to do it, did it well and did it often enough to know the difference between a comedy and a tragedy.

From Matthew 28:64,
Your commentary is aware of that here:

Bolding is mine for clarity.

So the problem really is that in Matthew and Mark John was in the desert and had to 'fodder' (lol) because there was no manger in Matthew and here now in Mark even that skimpy veil was ripped from him when this Jesus' faith was put to the test in the final end, which so became an abortion of the 'joung man' riding just the colt into the New Jerusalem who so never matured to become fully man riding both the 'old and the new' into Jerusalem on high.

stephan huller

I have rethought my original construction of the chronology of the Gospel of Peter. The Passover agrees with John:

Friday (Nisan 14)
Sabbath (Nisan 15) = First Day of Unleavened Bread
1st day (Nisan 16)
2nd day (Nisan 17)
3rd day (Nisan 18)
4th day (Nisan 19)
5th day (Nisan 20)
6th day (Nisan 21)
Sabbath (Nisan 22)
1st day (Nisan 23)

Chili

But in Christendom (not including America) Monday is the first day of the week and Sunday is the seventh and this was because the sun did stop on that glorious first Easter that lasted for 2 days to make sure that we are aware that Christ remained among us (and does not have to come again).

andrewcriddle

There may be an abrupt change of date in the narrative IE the Gospel of Peter has the resurrection occur on Sunday in Jerusalem around the middle of the feast of unleavened bread but has the appearance of the risen Christ to his disciples, (which is about to happen at the end of the surviving text), occur in Galilee after the end of the feast of unleavened bread.

Andrew Criddle