1. we have to understand that Irenaeus on several occasions (albeit preserved with the ambiguity of the Latin translation) refers to his text as 'the idea of the gospel' meaning that the four were read together as one gospel
What is the reference?
2. Matthew was always the first of the four in Ammonius's Diatessaron
Probably true.
3. Ammonius's Diatessaron seems to have been used by Irenaeus in at least two instances....
Secret Alias wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 11:18 am
Ehrman FWIW identifies the Ebionite gospel as a harmony:
For one thing, this particular Gospel of the Ebionites appears to have been a "harmonization" of the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
As such your theory doesn't have a leg to stand on. Not surprising in fact given that Epiphanius - who on occasion preserves ancient testimony - says that the Gospel according to the Hebrews was the Diatessaron.
As I noted on another thread, all Epiphanius says is, "It is said that the Diatessaron, which some call 'According to the Hebrews,' was written by [Tatian]," and Hemphill makes a good argument for why this was "said":
Now these words puzzled critics very much for a long time; nor was there any ready way of explaining them, except by supposing that Epiphanius here, as in many other places, made a blunder. But we must be fair even to Epiphanius. He says, "It is called by some the Gospel according to the Hebrews," but as Zahn notices, he himself does not call it so; and, moreover, whenever he alludes to the Gospel according to the Hebrews, he does so quite apart from any reference to Tatian. His view of the Hebrew Gospel is that it is a mangled edition of S. Matthew; so that here he merely chronicles the mistake of other persons ... The fact is, that the Diatessaron ... was current in Syriac, and was known to be the work of a heretic; at the same time, and in an adjoining tract of country, the Hebrew Gospel was used by the heretical Nazarenes; and certain Greek=speaking people meeting the works in about the same locality, hearing of the heretical authorship of each, and noticing that both were written in oriental characters, which they could not read, hastily concluded that they were the same work, and reported it to Epiphanius.
I argued in a paper that was never published - never submitted - that when you look at Irenaeus's discussion of the four gospels in Book Three there are moments where the way Irenaeus jumps from text to text mirrors the Diatessaron. I can dig out the reference. It is also worth noting at an informal forum like this where we can discuss ideas in a general sense, that Irenaeus's approach to the gospel - namely that 'the gospel' was 'in four' doesn't make sense with four back to back texts. In other words, only a text which has 'four columns' (cf. Irenaeus's description of the four living giving columns of the gospel) can explain his contention that the 'idea' of the gospel was fourfold.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
There is a sect mentioned in Eusebius which used 'musical' gospel terminology which seems to have been Diatessaronic. I forget the name of the group as I am at work but it was an early third century group.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Against Heresies 3.11.9 “For Marcion, rejecting the entire Gospel, yea rather, cutting himself off from the Gospel, boasts that he has part in the Gospel … For, since God made all things in due proportion and adaptation, it was fit also that the ἰδέᾱ of the Gospel should be well arranged and harmonized."
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
1. Ehrman notes that the Ebionite gospel is harmonized (i.e. it has bits of Matthew, Mark, Luke)
2. Epiphanius says he heard (weak evidence) that the Gospel of the Hebrews was the Diatessaron
3. Irenaeus speaks of a fourfold gospel in a way that only makes sense if it is a Diatessaron
4. Irenaeus says that the Ebionite gospel is Matthew, Marcion used Luke, Marcionites Mark and Valentinians John and God arranged there to be four heresies in advance to witness the existence of the Tetrad gospel in heaven (evidently through a period where the Diatessaron did not exist).
What scholars do - and it is annoying trait - is to think:
a) Irenaeus is 'our' guy - he's orthodox
b) Irenaeus mentions four gospels
c) our orthodox canon has four gospels back to back
d) since (a) (b) (c) are all true = Irenaeus was speaking about our canon
The difficulty is that Irenaeus's claim that the Ebionites used Matthew goes back to Papias and Papias isn't talking about canonical Matthew. First problem.
The second difficulty is that all Irenaeus's 'heretics used this or that gospel' claims go back to his propaganda about the fourfold gospel. Scholars, always using their annoying approach, 'strip down' what Irenaeus says and make it seem more reasonable. But really what is talking about can't have happened. It imagines that God set up a scenario where four founders of heresies - Ebion (or his equivalent), Marcion, each Marcionite teacher and Valentinus strayed from the true 'fourfold canon' which hadn't even existed yet and 'chose' with their hand reaching to pick one or in the case of Valentinus extra gospels besides the true 'fourfold' canon.
Irenaeus can't point to a single witness to his fourfold canon before him. So how does he justify it's non-existence? It has to be that the Ebionites - who he describes as the moderate or least heretical of the heresies had a text which closely resembled the fourfold gospel. I can't prove that. But if Ehrman was right we can start to see it manifest itself.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
1. if the Ebionites 'only used Matthew' they'd still have the spine of the Diatessaron - i.e. the basic narrative on which the other 'ornaments' from Mark, Luke and John 'hang.'
2. if the Ebionites used a gospel harmony like Justin you can kind of see that they were close but not perfect. Irenaeus could have tolerated this sort of 'error.'
3. Marcion's error was to push aside the 'spine' - the framework - and pick the ornament(s)
Also I would like to remind people who deny the authenticity of Secret Mark that Matthew's relation to the 'full' gospel of four/Diatessaron is very much like canonical Mark to Secret Mark. Even more so when you reread the Philosophumena's claim about Marcion 'adding' to Mark mystical bits of Empedocles.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
How to reconcile Papias with the existence of a narrative gospel of Matthew? It is worth noting that Clement's description of Mark having hypomnemata of his own which was blended with 'canonical Mark' (i.e. the text Mark wrote for Peter) resembles in theory how a fourfold gospel might have been constructed. Papias was running around collecting testimonies of people. Luke openly says its developed from the kinds of testimonies that Papias would have gathered up. If a canonical Matthew was understood to have existed in ancient times (I am not saying its true but treating it as a testimony) Irenaeus could have argued that Mark and Luke especially as 'apostolics' gathered up testimonies in order to develop their gospels which in turn became the second and third columns of the 'true fourfold gospel.' Remember not all the material from Mark and Luke made its way to the Diatessaron only some of the material.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Since the NT Matthew and Luke contain significant portions of Mark (and I think the author of Luke also used a Matthew-type text as per the Farrer Hypothesis), anyone who used "only" (a version of) Matthew (like the Ebionites, supposedly) or "only" (a version of) Luke (like Marcion, supposedly) was in effect using a gospel harmony (though I'm starting to wonder if the Ebionites and Luke used a similar Matthew-type text, hence the Lukan parallels in the former noted by Ehrman and Ben, but the point remains). In that respect, only people who used only Mark (which in my view was the first gospel) could be said to have not used a gospel harmony.
In other words, whether church writers were aware of it or not, the NT Matthew is in effect a harmony of Mark with Matthew, and the NT Luke is a harmony of Mark and (in my view) a Matthew-type text with Luke. The Diatessaron simply added John to the mix once that came along.
To judge from our sources (and what else can we do besides that than ignore them?), I'm still thinking that Maricon picked a version of Luke (before it had a name and which contained portions of Mark from the get go) and added bits from Matthew and whatever else he thought supported his point of view.
Last edited by John2 on Wed Dec 11, 2019 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
The difficulty is that Irenaeus's claim that the Ebionites used Matthew goes back to Papias and Papias isn't talking about canonical Matthew.
Where does Papias say that the Ebionites used Matthew (or anything about the Ebionites)?
And regarding Papias not talking about the NT Matthew, I could agree with that in the sense that he says that it was originally written in Hebrew and more than one translation was made of it and I think the NT version, which Papias may or may not have been aware of, is one those translations (and that perhaps the Matthew-type text used by Luke was another). But I agree with Ben (though I extend it to all versions, including the original Hebrew) that whatever version of Matthew Papias is referring to was a "sayings and doings" gospel and not just a collection of sayings.
Last edited by John2 on Wed Dec 11, 2019 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
