Tatian's Diatessaron, the set of Gospels and Marcion

Question:
Even if one dates Tatian's Diatessaron quite late (170s?) it still seems to presuppose an already established gospel tradition - as in a body of four gospels quite 'set'- since it sits in a (beginning?) tradition of harmonising, so the 'next stage' so to speak is already embarked on, namely producing gospel harmonies. How would you look at that, would the 30-odd years between the production of the gospel texts (going by your dating) and the Diatessaron be 'enough' to be able to speak of an 'established' or 'set' gospel tradition (as in the 4 written gospels)? Or how would you approach this?

My answer:
Tatian sees himself a pupil of Justin, his master whom he calls 'the most admirable' (Tat., Or. 18, see also Iren., Adv. haer. I 28,1), yet, as Justin had also a close relation (not purely adversative) to Marcion, it is no surprise that Tatian was said to have - like Marcion - 'done away with the law, as originating from another God' (Clem. Alex., Strom. III 82,1-3), and shared with Marcion his passion for asceticism and encratism.
That he knew the 'set' of the four gospels is no wonder, therefore, as he must have known Marcion's New Testament and also his Antitheses, in which Marcion had put together this set. Marcion had criticised precisely those four aemulationes (or copies) that he knew of and where published even before he had published his own version. These were those gospels which, as he says (according to Tertullian) were credited to apostles and pupils of apostles, Matthew, John, Luke and Mark. The most interesting of these Gospels of course was Luke, as this Gospel was such a close re-writing of Marcion with most of the wording of Marcion simply been copied, slightly re-arranged, and especially broadened at the beginning and end of the Gospel. Tatian then takes these four attempts (if the title Diatessaron is original, as the Syriac title only indicates that his own gospel is  'ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ' [Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê] = 'Gospel of the Mixed' while the others are 'ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܦܪܫܐ' [Evangelion de Mepharreshe] = 'Gospel of the separated'), and produces a harmony that is different from these 'separated' ones. His own is not an anti-Marcion gospel, but different from the separated ones, he produces no counter-text, but one that harmonises the existing ones (whereby he must have seen Marcion/Luke still as one Gospel, if Diatessaron - 'through the four' is original). The Syriac title ('Gospel of the Mixed) still preserves Marcion's criticism of those 'separated' ones being anti-gospels. Tatian seems to have used not Luke, as we have it, but still a version which was based more closely even on Marcion's Gospel, as many Marcionite readings can still be found in Ephraem's commentary on the Diatessaron. As a result, I take from this that the set of four which is being displayed in Tatian reflects and underpins, indeed, the process which took its outset from Marcion.

My inaugural lecture on Marcion and the beginnings of Christianity life

Only now has my attention been drawn by Martin Willis to a posting by King's College where my inaugural lecture can be viewed online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFB-8CM4UIY
At present I prepare the text in an updated version for publication.
 

Eckhart's biblical exegesis - his preface I to his book of expositions

‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth’. The third principal part of the Three-Part Work, namely the Work of Commentaries, begins here.
By way of preface it should be noted beforehand that I have gone through the Old and the New Testament in order, from outset to end, and I have written down whatever came to me then and whatever I remembered I said about the interpretation of these passages at any time. Not to be long-winded, I have taken care to abbreviate or to omit completely most of it, especially so that the better and more useful interpretations that the saints and venerable teachers, particularly Brother Thomas, have written are not neglected. On a few occasions I decided merely to note where their interpretations are to be found. Sometimes I thought that they should be briefly discussed. Let us begin with the words ‘In the beginning’. The opening of this book Genesis is widely dealt with by Augustine, especially in Super Genesim ad litteram and Super Genesim contra Manichaeos and in the three final books of the Confessions. And also by Ambrosius and Basil in his Hexaemeron. Also by Rabbi Moises [Maimonides], especially book II, chapter 31. Also Thomas [STh] p[art] I q[uestions] 45,45,46 and 47, and later there q[uestions] 65 to 74 inclusively.[1]

Although a short preface, it is highly informative, as it is written, like any good introduction, retrospectively, not only after Eckhart had finished his work of going ‘through the Old and the New Testament in order, from outset to end’, but rather like a review of a longer period of him having worked through and written about the Scriptures, and also lectured about ‘the interpretation of these passages’. Eckhart is not a glossator of glosses. Despite him using readings of others, the saints, venerable teachers and ‘particularly Brother Thomas’, he takes the liberty of giving his own views. Or put more radically, even with his own teachings he does not want to be ‘long-winded’, but presents them in abbreviated form and leaves aside ‘most of it’, a pity for the Eckhart readers of today, but on the other side a challenge to take what he left us with and deduce from it, what was important to him. That he wants to cut short his own explanations so that those of others ‘are not neglected’ is a captatio, as he carries on that ‘on a few occasions’ he ‘decided’ that he should ‘briefly’ discuss the interpretations of them.

As before, he emphasises brevity as a key feature of his approach – and this at the beginning of a compendium of commentaries which cover hundreds of printed pages in over three volumes of the critical edition, while probably some of his works have even gone lost. At the end he gives the most important reference works which start with those of Augustine and two more patristic fathers (Ambrose and Basil), then he also adds the Jewish thinker Moses Maimonides, and eventually Thomas Aquinas. That this prologue opens with the Biblical verse from Gen. 1:1 shows that already with the prologue, Eckhart took Scriptures serious and that his emphasis on brevity is more than a rhetorical device. He begins with the Scriptures’ beginning, ‘in the beginning’, instead of referring in this prologue to any of the known verses that others often have used for their introductions, principia or introitus (like Bar. 3:37; 4:1; Ps. 93:12; Eccli. 24:33).[2] Such opening is more than simply copying the first verse of Genesis, it aligns the interpreter with God, the creator of heaven and earth, and makes him part of God’s creating process. Such process is dynamically understood, yet no long-windedness, but where almost everything can be omitted, where everything can be abbreviated, as everything takes place ‘in the beginning’. As with God himself who creates ‘heaven and earth’ ‘in the beginning’, in the principium, within the principium,[3] a creative act of everything within one moment of a single ‘now’, Eckhart’s interpretation is given ‘in the beginning’, hence, the Biblical verse frames the preface, it opens and closes it, and the preface is his first interpretation of this opening Biblical verse: ‘in principio etc.’

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[1] Eckhart, Prol. in op. exp. I (LW I 183,1-11): ‘'In principio creavit deus caelum et terram'. Operis tripartiti pars tertia principalis, opus scilicet expositionum, incipit. Ubi prooemialiter praenotandum quod transcurrendo secundum ordinem vetus et novum testamentum ab exordio usque ad finem ea, quae pro tunc se offerebant et quae me dixisse aliquando circa expositiones auctoritatum memoriae occurrebant, annotavi. Prolixitatem tamen vitans plurima breviare curavi aut penitus omittere. Sane ne meliora et utiliora circa expositiones huiusmodi, quae vel sancti vel venerabiles doctores, praecipue frater Thomas scripsit, neglecta viderentur, interdum, licet raro, loca ubi talia invenientur ab iisdem exposita, notare hic volui et quandoque etiam succincte tangenda iudicavi. Exordium hoc scripturae Genesis tractat Augustinus diffuse, specialiter Super Genesim ad litteram et Super Genesim contra Manichaeos et in tribus ultimis libris Confessionum. Item Ambrosius et Basilius in suis Hexaemeron. Item Rabbi Moyses l. II c. 31 specialiter. Item Thomas p. I q. 44, 45, 46 et 47, item post ibidem q. 65 usque ad 74 inclusive. Incipiamus ergo et dicamus: In principio etc.’ (trans. by McGuinn, altered).

[2] See A. Sulavik, ‘Principia and Introitus in Thirteenth Century Biblical Exegesis with Related Texts’ (2004), 274-8.

[3] See C. Wojtulewicz, Meister Eckhart on the Principle (2015).

The Didache and the early dating of Matthew (and the other later canonical Gospels)

The fundamental problem, as I see it with the Didache, is given by the fact that we are still missing a major critical edition. All that we have got (SC, FC ...) are editiones minores.

These pretend to give a text which, in fact, is only mirroring fourth century recensions of a text. As all editors admit, the existing recensions that we have are so divergent that an editio maior would need to put side by side the various recensions so that one can recognise the differences and variations (much as we have it now with Aristides). So to the question of origin and date of the Didache one would first need to establish the relation between the various recensions to dating and locating of them, before one moves into hypotheseis about the potential earlier versions. The strong differences between the recensions underline, indeed, that this text was heavily revised, being a non-authored, partly catechetical, liturgical, practical, juridicial document which, as one can see from the reuse in the Apostolic Constitutions, has been seen as a building block for further use.

The question of the right text has an enormous bearing, for example, on the discussion I have with many New Testament scholars. When they point to the use of Matthew in the Didache, they refer amongst others to what scholarship calls the 'gospel insertion' (SC Did 1,3-6) which is almost entirely taken from Matthew 5 (Luke 6 par.) - yet this first 'Christian' part is present in H,CA,O,G, but is missing in KO,E and L, neither is there a parallel in Barn. 18-20, and therefore left out of the edition of the Did. by Klaus Wengst, for example. B. Layton has already pointed out that the Didache, as we have it (also with this insertion), is a harmonised version, where Matthew and Luke have contaminated the text of the Didache. The main argument against this text passage as part of the earlier version of the Didache is that there cannot be given a reason why the KO would have left out from the Didache this passage which sounds most Christian.

Now, on such difficult grounds, a careful dating (locating not yet possible in my eyes) is given by Wengst: Terminus post quem is Matthew, terminus ante quem is Clement of Alexandria. As Wengst assumes an early dating of Matthew, he opts for the beginning of the 2nd century - but here comes the circular argument, as the Didache is being taken by the same scholars as the hook for the early dating of Matthew. As a result, we only know of a relative dating (which is even more dubious, as we do not know to what extent our versions that all date from the fourth century and later, are harmonised versions): Didache after Matthew and before Clement. In addition, as the Didache assumes already a certain separation between Jews and Christians and seems to be prior to Justin (all with huge caveats reg. text basis), it seems that anything that claims a date earlier than the mid second century is loaded with the burden of a heavy hypothesis. The Didache can certainly not provide the basis for a first century dating of Matthew and the other Gospels.

Meister Eckhart joking

Working on a new monograph Eckhart's Bible which is based on the finished first fascicle (the Bible-index, created and annotated by Loris Sturlese and me, one of the reasons why over the past weeks I could not post any blog) of the Indices to Meister Eckhart's critical edition (Kohlhammer, Stuttgart) (to be published early 2015), I came across a wonderful joke which shows Eckhart criticising an abbot who had little knowledge of the Old and the New Testament:

... The two corns of the abbot’s mitre represent the two testaments which the abbot should know in his head, while the two lappets that hang down on the shoulders signify the fulfilment of both testaments by following the mandates. A certain person [Eckhart himself, it seems], however, who was asked about the meaning by a certain officer of the kings who saw somebody with little knowledge in both testaments celebrating under a pontifical mitre, answered that the two corns signified, as stated before, the two testaments, but that the lappets of the mitre signified that he knew neither of them, according to that verse from Jer. 12: ‘You are close to their mouth, but far away from their kidneys’.[1]

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[1] Eckhart, In Ex. n. 258 (LW II 207,3-11): ‘Quod autem hic dicitur de pectusculo et armo dextro, congruit quod in mitra pontificali duo cornua significant duo testamenta in capite per cognitionem, duae vero dependentiae descendentes ad scapulas significant utriusque testamenti impletionem per mandatorum operationem. Quidam tamen, requisitus a quodam ex regibus, `qui´ cum videret quendam celebrantem sub mitra pontificali parum scientem in utroque testamento, respondit quod duo cornua significabant quidem, ut prius, duo testamenta, dependentiae vero a mitra significabant quod neutra sciebat, secundum illud Ier. 12: 'prope es tu ori eorum, et longe a renibus eorum'’; see Innocentius III, De sacro altaris mysterio I c. 60 (PL 217,796: ‘mitra pontificis scientiam utriusque testamenti significat, nam duo cornua sunt testamenta, duae fimbriae spiritus et littera.’