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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
To one who is familiar with the New Testament and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, Tatian's Discourse to the Greeks comes as quite a surprise. Supposedly an apology for Christianity, there is within it not one mention of Christ or Christianity (at least, not in these terms). Other familiar words such as “Jesus,” “Lord,” “Church,” “Savior,” “salvation,” etc., are also absent. Except for a passing reference to “the God who suffered” (15, 5–6), and the unqualified statement that “God was born in the form of a man” (23, 6), one might overlook altogether the fact that Tatian was a Churchman.
1 See Goodspeed, E. J., Index Apologeticus (Leipzig, 1912)Google Scholar.
2 The Greek text used is that of Edward Schwartz, Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos (Leipzig, J. C. Hinrich'sche Buchhandlung, 1888), and all references to this text will be by page and line (i.e., 5,11–16). In translating the Greek, however, I have usually followed the rendering made by Ryland, J. E. in Antenicene Fathers, II (Buffalo, 1887)Google Scholar.
3 Puech, A., Recherches sur le Discours aux Grecs de Tatien (Paris, 1903), pp. 3–4Google Scholar.
4 See the last section of this article.
5 Given by Tatian himself at some special occasion — perhaps the exercises inaugurating the school he founded at Edessa or Antioch. See Kukula, R. C., Tatians sogenannte Apologie (Leipzig, 1900)Google Scholar, ch.1.
6 Puech, , Les apologistes grecs (Paris, 1912), pp. 151–2Google Scholar.
7 Schwartz, 37,5: τούτων καὶ τὴν ἀναγραϕὴν συντάσσειν βούλομαι Puech translates as “Je veux le rédiger par écrit” (Recherches, p. 4). Again, 37,9, where Tatian says, “I began to show how this (our barbarian philosophy) was more ancient than your institutions,” is rendered by:… γράϕειν μὲν ἀρξάμενος. In 43,9–10 Tatian again uses the expression συντάσσειν.
8 Les apologistes grecs, p. 153; also p. 149. R. M. Grant sees the date of the Discourse as a possible explanation of its tone, dating it as he does during Marcus Aurelius' reign: “His bitter criticism of philosophers may be due to his realization that the presentation of Christianity as the true philosophy… has ended in a persecution by the philosopher-emperor,” HTR 46 (1953), 100Google Scholar.
9 See his reasons in Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius (Leipzig, 1897)Google Scholar, II, 286–289.
10 Recherches, pp. 8–9; Les apologistes, p. 151; also Kukula, Tatians sogenannte Apologie, ch.3.
11 HTR 46 (1953), 99–101.
12 See his “The Heresy of Tatian,” JTS 4–6 (1954)Google Scholar. See , Pauly-Wissowa, Real-enzyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1932)Google Scholar, IV2, col.2469. Here are summarized the views as to place and date.
13 Clem, of Alex. (Strom. III.12) says he was Syrian.
14 See M. Elze, Tatian und seine Theologie (Göttingen, 1960), who maintains that even as a Christian writer Tatian is a philosopher chiefly taken up with the question of truth, and that his treatise is the result of a careful effort to make a systematic statement of the unified truth of orthodox Christianity and its priority to Greek philosophy. It, therefore, is not an apology at all. See R. M. Grant's review of this book in Ch. Hist. 29 (1960), 355–6.
15 Professor Robert Grant believes that grammar and rhetoric rather than philosophy serve Tatian's theology. See his treatment of this in his article, “Studies in the Apologists,” HTR 51 (1958), 123 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 This is J. Rendel Harris' view. See Tatian's Perfection according to the Savior, reprinted from the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, VIII, 1 (Jan., 1924), p.32. This hypothesis, based on the tense, is supported from the context where Tatian says: δοξομανίας ἀπήλλαγμαι (11,29) (Doxomania meaning philosophic conceit — see ch.19), “I have rid myself of doxomania, i.e., I have given up philosophy.” In other words, I was in it, but now I am out (cf. ch.42).
17 Strom. III.12.
18 Harris, op. cit., pp.17–24.
19 A History of Early Christian Literature (Chicago, 1942), p.151, where he notes that C. H. Kraeling published “A Greek Fragment of Tatian's Diatessaron from Dura,” dating from early in the 3rd century (in Studies and Documents, III [London, 1935], 1–37Google Scholar).
20 “Tatian's Diatessaron and the Dutch Harmonies,” JTS 25 (1923–1924), 128–230Google Scholar.
21 “Tatian and the Bible,” Studia Patristica, I, 1 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1957), 303Google Scholar.
22 Speaking of the discrepancies of those who have spoken of Homer, Tatian writes: “For it is possible to show that the opinions held about the facts themselves also are false. For where the assigned dates do not agree together, it is impossible that the history should be true.” Antenicene Fathers, op. cit., II, 78; Schwartz, 32,20–22.
23 Tradition puts Addai into the time of the Apostles, making him one of the 72. But the Doctrine of Addai (36) tells that what he brought to Edessa was the Diatessaron. Burkitt, JTS 25 (1923), 130.
24 The author of the Discourse calls himself Tatianus, but since he was an Assyrian by birth, what was his Assyrian name? Burkitt wants to make it Addai, possibly derived from the name of the God Hadad or Dadda, possibly Hermetic “Thoth” spelled in Greek “Tat.” Tatianus may have meant “Tat's Devotee.” Ibid.
25 Adv. Haer. I.28.
26 “The Heresy of Tatian,” JTS 4–6 (1954), 62–8Google Scholar.
27 So Grant, JTS 4–6 (1954), 64.
28 See Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., IV.29; Hippolytus, Philosophumena, VIII.16. See Bardy, “Tatien,” Dict. de Théologie Cath., XV (Paris, 1946), col.66, where he writes that later heresiologies merely reproduce, with some additions or commentaries more or less extended, those heresies enumerated by Irenaeus. But he says these commentaries are to be challenged, for Euseb. (Eccl. Hist., IV.28) and Epiphan. (Haeres., XLVI, XLVII) make Tatian the founder of the Encratites, whereas Iren. specifically attaches their doctrine on continence and marriage to Marcion and Saturninus.
29 Euseb., Eccl. Hist., V.13. See Elze, op. cit., pp.113–6.
30 Euseb., ibid., V.28.
31 Harris, op. cit., p.30; Clem. of Alex., Strom., III.13, refers to this work on Perfection and relates Tatian's condemnation of marriage to it, as though it were the source from which one could learn this teaching. Yet, there is no specific reference to marriage in the tract. Nevertheless, from some of the statements made therein it may have been possihle for Clem. to have inferred such an idea. Note the following: “This that our Lord says… If he does not separate himself from all his possessions, he cannot be my disciple…”
32 For a full treatment of this subject see Elze, Tatian und seine Theologie; also Puech, Recherches, ch.5; Steuer, W., Die Gottes- und Logoslehre des Tatian (Leipzig, 1893)Google Scholar.
33 Here Tatian seems to assert that spirits are material though not fleshly. So Ryland, Antenicene Fathers, II, 66, fn. But since Tatian goes on to speak of God as being the maker of the forms in it — αὐτῆ (Schwartz, 5,3) referring to matter — perhaps he is simply using “Spirits” as an equivalent for that essential element that gives form to matter. This idea seems to be expressed clearly in 5,10: “The spirit that pervades matter.”
34 Wolfson, H. A., Philosophy of the Church Fathers (Cambridge, 1956)Google Scholar, I, 313. See Discourse, ch.14.
35 On the word ἀρχή see Daniélou, J., Théologie du Judéo-Christianisme (Tournai, Belgium, 1958), pp. 220–2Google Scholar.
36 Cf. Hippolytus, op. cit., IX.12.
37 So asserts Hatch, Edwin, The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity (New York, 1957), p. 266Google Scholar; Wolfson, op. cit., 123, 296–7. But see Grant, R. M., “Studies in the Apologists,” HTR 51 (1958), 123 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. for a different view as to the nature of Tatian's aid to theology.
38 Hatch, op. cit., pp.266–7. Though differing somewhat from Justin in his presentation (Justin makes no real distinction between ἀποκοπή and μερισμός), Tatian depends largely upon him for his ideas. Cf. Dialogue w. Trypho, 61, where both metaphors of fire and speech are used to illustrate the point, as in Tatian Disc. 5.
39 “Studies in the Apologists”, 126–7. See definitions in Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon.
40 Hatch, op. cit., p.267; Wolfson, op. cit., 298.
41 Wolfson, op. cit., 235.
42 “Tatian and his Heresy,” op. cit., 65–66.
43 See Ignatius, Rom. VI.3.
44 Cf., “We recognize two varieties of spirit, one of which is called the soul, but the other is greater than the soul, an image and likeness of God. Both existed in the first men, that in one sense they might be material, and in another superior to matter” (ch.12).
45 θάνατον διὰ τιμωρίας ἐν ἀθανασίᾳ λαμβάνουσα — a difficult expression to interpret. Apparently he is using thanatos in a different sense from cessation of life, for it is in death that one receives immortality. Perhaps he means to convey the idea that the last judgment will be a punishment, the nature of which is a never-dying separation of the soul from the Higher Spirit, or in other words, of man from the fellowship with God (see above, and cf. also ch.14).
46 See Elze.
47 Though such statements on his part as, “In itself the soul is darkness, and does not comprehend the Light” (the Logos being the Light), should caution one against being too dogmatic on this point.
48 Perhaps a third reason could be offered as well: Tatian could not quite shake himself free from the doctrine of free-will held so strongly by the Stoics, whose philosophy had profoundly influenced him in his earlier life.
49 See Johnson, Aubrey R., The Vitality of the Individual in the Thought of Ancient Israel (Cardiff, Wales, 1949)Google Scholar; see especially chapter III.
50 Grant, on the other hand, believing that Tatian is now as he writes the Discourse somewhat under the influence of Gnosticism, interprets his allusions to the bodily resurrection as “a resurrection of the soul and spirit alone, apart from anything more material than the soul.” Grant bases his argument on the fact that when Tatian talks of a resurrection of bodies, he indicates the substance of these bodies with the word sarkion (6,2; 25,2), “fleshly element,” not sarx, “flesh.” But notice that in ch.15 Tatian does use the word sarx when refering to the resurrection of the body (sōma). Apparently, then, sarkion, as an adjective, means essentially the same thing to Tatian as the noun sarx does.
51 See Elze, pp.103–4, for Tatian's concept of time, and Grant's review of this book, Ch. Hist, (1960), 356. See also Grant, “Tatian's Heresy,” for the suggestion that Tatian's reference to the “better aeons” reflects Gnostic tendencies, but see also Ryland's alternate suggestion, Antenicene Fathers, II, 74, fn.
52 Christ and Culture (New York, 1956), p. 52Google Scholar.
53 Recherches, p.164.
54 Puech, Recherches, p.38. Cf. Mueller, K., Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (Paris, 1848–1874)Google Scholar, II, 369.
55 Puech, op. cit.; Mueller, op. cit., III, 32; Marrou, H. I., A History of Education in Antiquity (New York, 1956), pp. 161Google Scholar, 165.
57 An unpublished paper entitled, “Tatian and Graeco-Roman Culture,” used by permission of the author.
58 Lives of the Philosophers.
59 Puech, Recherches, p.40.
60 Botsford, G. W. and Robinson, C. A., Hellenistic History (New York, 1956), p. 440Google Scholar.
61 W. Steuer, op. cit. (Leipzig, 1893).
62 Ibid., p.85. Note that Tatian used the expressions “Spirit of God” and “Holy Spirit” rather than “Logos,” but, as has been noted earlier, he seems to make no clear-cut distinction between the Logos and the Holy Spirit.
63 Ibid., p.86.
64 So Wolfson, op. cit., 297. But see Grant, “Studies in the Apologists,” op. cit., 123ff., for an opposing view.
65 Daniélou, Jean, Message Évangélique et Culture Hellénistique (Tournai, Belgium, 1961), pp. 115–6Google Scholar.
66 Steuer, op. cit., p. 89. See Zeller, , Die Philosophie der Griechen (Leipzig, 1892)Google Scholar, III. 2, 165–169.
67 Ibid. One should point out, however, that many of these ideas are Judeo-Christian, and may be the result of the biblical exegesis, not the absorption of concepts from a platonic milieu.
68 Ibid. See also Zeller, op. cit, III. 2, 168.
69 Antiquities, II, 34–36.
70 Recherches, p. 41.
71 For example, see that of Posidonius in Diogenes Laertius, VII. 129. See Hartlich, Exhortationum a Graecis Romanisque Scriptarum historia et Indoles (found in Vol. XI of Leipziger Studien zur klassischen Philologie, Leipzig, 1878–1902) for examples of the disagreement between the doctrine and the life of the philosophers. See also Pseudo-Plutarch, de Lib. educ, 7; Dio Chrysostom, Or. XIII.425; Epictetus, III.22,23; Lucian, Cynic, 18. See Puech for these citations, ibid., pp. 41–2.
72 Grant, “Tatian and Graeco-Roman Culture,” op. cit.; see also Puech, Recher-ches, p. 42, where he compares Tatian's Discourse, ch.28, with a passage from Dio Chrysostom, Euboikos, 133; ἱπποϕορβῶν καὶ ὀνοϕορβτρον ἔργον ἐργαξομένους. See also Justin, Apol., I.27.
73 Puech, ibid., p. 50. See Plutarch, Περὶ τοῦ μὴ χρᾶν ἔμμετρα νῦν τὴν Πυθίαν, ch.XIV. See also chs.XV and XVI.
74 W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilization, 3rd. rev. ed. (New York, 1961), pp. 233–4, points out Alexander Polyhistor as one who has preserved the attempts of various hellenized Jews to show that the Jewish cult was the oldest in the world and that the Jews really taught other peoples. See this in K. Mueller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, III, 206ff. Tarn also refers to the writings of Aristobulus, the Peripatetic, at the time of Ptolemy VI, in this connection. R. M. Grant refers to systematic chronology as being the creation of Alexandrine learning, and notes the chronologies of Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Apollodorus of Athens, Castor of Rhodes, and the chronographies of Varro, Thallus Phegon of Tralles in the Rom. period. He notes, too, the work of Justus of Tiberias. “The Bible of Theophilus of Antioch,” JBL 66 (47), 189–90.
75 Niebuhr, op. cit., p. 55.
76 See Fragmenta in Schwartz's edition, p. 50.
77 References to the Disc, are by page and line of Schwartz's ed.
78 Jerome, Praef. in com. ad Tit. (see the Fragmenta in Schwartz's edition, p. 50, for this), said that Tatian rejected some of Paul's epp. but believed Titus to have been written by the Apostle. Which epp. Tatian rejected are not known, but one should infer from Jerome's statement that he rejected any of them not because they contained things unacceptable to his theology, but rather because he considered them non-Pauline.
79 Grant, “Tatian and His Bible,” op. cit., 301, sees in the many allusions to Paul a similarity to the Marcionites and Valentinians. If there is this affinity on Tatian's part with Marcion, would it explain the silence of Tatian with regard to the Old Testament?
80 See Grant, ibid., 300.
81 Elohim in the Heb. text, and cf. the RSV translation of this verse in the Psalm.
82 See Harris, op. cit., p. 19.
83 See Grant, “Tatian and His Bible,” op. cit., 298–9 for an explanation of Tatian's exegesis of this parable.
84 Justini, S.Philosophi et Martyris Opera, ed. Otto, J. C. T. (Jenae, 1842)Google Scholar, I, 1–12; See Dods' translation in Antenicene Fathers, I, 271–2.
85 Justin, Oratio ad Graecos, ch.1; Tatian, chs.29 and 42.
86 This is not quite as clear in Justin, ch.5, as it is in Tatian, ch.29.
87 Justin, ch.5; Tatian, ch.5.
88 Justin, ch.5; Tatian, ch.13.
89 Justin, ch.5; Tatian, ch.13.
90 Justin, ch.5; Tatian, ch.7.
91 Justin, ch.5; Tatian, ch.15
