Toto

Stephan Huller on the diatesseron.

Interesting - the Pythagoreans thought that 4 was a magic number, and that the fourth was the divine musical interval.

stephan huller

The problem with living two thousand years from the development of the gospel (or 1700 years for Pete) is we do not possess sufficient Sprachgefühl to often understand what THINGS HAD TO MEAN.

It would be like if someone invented chicken flavored lollipops and called them 'cocksuckers.' Yes someone living two thousand years from now could probably look up in a dictionary that 'cock' is the male chicken but they would nevertheless completely miss the real context.

I don't know why Tatian would have called a gospel by this term but I am trying to figure it out. Here is what strikes me so far:

1) Petersen notes that a lot of Diatessaronic scholars had problems with the name 'Diatessaron' being applied to a text which synthesized four gospels into one. Some of those people note the overwhelming use of the term διὰ τεσσάρων as a general music term used in the period (and applied to other fields of study).
2) the reason everyone gives in to the idea of 'dia tessaron' meaning 'from four' gospels is because of the use of the term at the end of the Third Vision of the Shepherd of Hermas. http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/20...saron-and.html But I think there is something fishy here too. It seems to have been introduced to support the Irenaean 'four gospel' concept but strangely no one ever cites it - not even Irenaeus which suggests to me there were questions about its authenticity.
3) there is clear evidence of Christian groups incorporating the Pythagorean musical terminology to Christianity. It appears throughout Book One of Irenaeus's Against Heresies. Just do a search of the term 'Tetrad' and you will see I think 34 examples in Book One alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys

Indeed the indebtedness to Pythagoreanism appears right at the start of the Book and never stops "This Nous they (the Valentinians) call also Monogenes, and Father, and the Beginning of all Things. Along with him was also produced Aletheia; and these four constituted the first and first-begotten Pythagorean Tetrad, which they also denominate the root of all things. For there are first Bythus and Sige, and then Nous and Aletheia. [AH 1.1]

The followers of Mark (or Marcus) speak about a similar Tetrad in Pythagorean terminology.

Now I am by no means an expert in the field of Pythagoreanism but it would seem to me that the 'dia tessaron' was the fourth note and the Tetrad (or Tetractys) is the derived thing that is made up of four other things.

If Tatian really wanted to identify his text as a gospel from four he would have called it the Tetrad.

I think it is called the dia tessaron because he was positioning things the other way around - i.e. the Catholic Tetrad derives from his original text which he MUST have claimed he inherited from Justin.

Actually I just thought of this now and I think it is the right answer (the answer I have been struggling to find for the last few days). I still think we are missing a link. There had to be a text which represented the 'octave' (or the 'tonic' to use musical theory). This makes the canonical gospels even more removed from the original source. I can't help but think in terms of 'literal' Mark and 'secret' Mark in to Theodore. In other words, there must have been 'the full gospel' which was the tonic and then another text which was shorter and called 'the dia tessaron' (or 'dia pente' in Victor of Capua) this in turn spawned the fourfold 'Tetrad' of the Catholic church but we see how removed the material is from the original gospel. This is probably why the Catholics had a problem with the term and eventually developed a synthesized 'copy' which is now evidenced by the Arabic Diatessaron (which is certainly not the original text that Tatian received from Justin). Just a suspicion but one I would still defend.

Chili

I think that many students after 40 years of studying the gospels now for 2000 years want to have something to say and come up with these fanciful ideas that miss the target completely.

The fact is and remains that the four gospels are not synoptic and clearly show the difference between heaven and hell and how to get there . . . which has to be true because when 'our' Jesus went to heaven hell came crashing down with it and this is simply true because a pair of opposites cannot be conceived to exist without the other.

To understand this all one has to do is compare 'the Visitation' in Luke with 'Joseph's dream' in Matthew to see the distinction made in John 1:13 as to 'who got who' pregnant and then go to the 'magi' filling Joseph's shack (read TOL) with empty promises while he was not home and compare this with 'the shepherds in adoration' to see what the illuminating fire was all about and the stage is already set for Matthew's fire to keep on burning without understanding.

Add to this the 'the great massacre' in Matthew that is juxtaposed by Luke's victorious Cana event it is easy to see why Matthew's Jesus goes back to Galilee for another fourty years and die there nonetheless (from John's divine summary statement made in 6:58), along with Mark who doesn't even know that there is a fire burning in his own mind . . . and so back to Galilee he goes also for another 40 years.

The upshot here is that all 'left brain' scholarship is wrong in that it is not possible to write a tragedy unless one knows the comedy since the devil cannot be in the details unless someone put him there.

Doug Shaver

I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never seen anybody make that claim.

Not saying nobody has ever made it, just that if they have, I've never seen it, though I've done an awful lot of reading on early Christian history.

stephan huller

Well I should have said that the Diatessaron is so called from the fact that it was 'made through' the four gospels, but it was very late. Wikipedia:

aa5874

But, at the supposed time of Tatian, there were supposed to be more than four Gospels and none were probably named according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The claims by the Church that Matthew and John were disciples who each wrote gospels are most likely false or erroneous and that Mark and Luke were disciples of Peter and "Paul" respectively who also wrote Gospels are also most likely to be fiction.

It is MORE likely that ONE source BECAME many.

It is MORE likely that the VERSIONS of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were NOT original and was possibly based on another source such as the "MEMOIRS of the Apostles" as mentioned by Justin Martyr.

In fact, TODAY'S version of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are based on MULTIPLE versions of the Gospels in EXTANT CODICES.

stephan huller

I agree with you aa. There is also an established school of thought within New Testament scholarship. Unfortunately like most scholars they rarely have the balls to come out and say what they believe. I never understood why people are so afraid of being called names. Nevertheless, the Diatessaron has to be older than the fourfold gospel. Not the Arabic Diatessaron but the original text common to Justin and Tatian (I ignore those who say that Tatian 'made' the Diatessaron because they fail to explain Justin's gospel citations).

Chili

How can one source become many if Matthew and Mark are tragedies and Luke and John are comedies?

Further, how can Matthew and Luke support and even complement each other in distinquising the intricate details that make Matthew a tragedy and Luke a comedy if they were not written by the same author to make this clear?

Please know that they are all metaphors such as the manger, the swadling clothes, the flight into Egypt vs the presentation etc.

rlogan

The top pauline scholars are the Radical Dutch IMHO. This is Detering's summary. A lot of their works are of course not translated into English, but this is a very good synopsis with Detering's views. Compelling in my view:

http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/detering.html


I had mentioned that generally speaking whoever shows up with a document first is the most likely author. Tertullian tells us Marcion "found" the epistle to Galatians here:


Gee. How lucky to find Marcionite teachings in letters from the legendary Paul in your basement.

Generally, what Detering does is make the case that the Apostolikon shows up in Marcion's hands but the catholic redactors commandeer and change the Marcionite core to make it acceptable to the Roman creed which is claiming descent from Jerusalem.

Whereas Marcion via Paul is in Galatians immediately dismissing any earthly source and gaining direct revelation from God, sort of like I do when kidnapping and killing people from shopping centers, schools, and Taco Bell.

Detering does far better than I can ever do.

He entertains the possibility of a historical Paul, but the important thing is all of the material here suggesting dating in the mid 2nd century. The anachronisms, the surrounding history, etc.

stephan huller

I respect and admire Detering greatly but I don't see how it is possible that the Pauline writings were created in the mid second century. Yes this is when the Catholic tradition seems to get started but the paradigm breaks down at that point IMO. Why pretend that Paul and Peter are having a fight with the backdrop of the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of Judaism? 70 CE is the anchor of all things Christian. The Catholics argue their apostles came before the destruction. The Marcionites seem to suggest that their apostle flourished after the destruction. But the relation to the bar Kochba revolt seems tenuous at best for me.