The Earliest Life of Christ: The Diatessaron of Tatian

In the second century, well before the `canonical' gospels took their present form, Tatian wove from the four gospels and one or more Judaic-Christian gospels one harmonized account of the life of Christ, the Diatessaron. He eliminated duplicated passages, deleted or reconciled contradicting verses, and harmonized parallels. Tatian's Diatessaron became the standard gospel among the Syriac-speaking Christians of Syria and Mesopotamia up till the fifth century. Its text spread from China to England, and may be Iceland, and became one of the oldest witnesses to the gospels. The Earliest Life of Christ is an English translation of the Diatessaron based on the Arabic version, itself a translation from the lost Syriac. With an introduction and notes by J. Hamlyn Hill.