Tatian’s Diatessaron: The Arabic Version, the Dura Europos Fragment, and the Women Witnesses

Abstract

Abstract Tatian’s Diatessaron (c. 180 CE) does not survive in its original form but only in later versions. Its content and wording, even its original language, can then be debated. However, there is a small, third-century fragment written in Greek (P. Dura 10), discovered in Dura Europos, identified as coming from the Diatessaron. Some have disputed this identification. The difficulty is that reconstructing the Diatessaron on the basis of later versions has proven problematic, so there is no agreed-upon text with which the fragment can be compared. This study presents current understandings of the Diatessaron and reviews the situation in regard to the Arabic version: a translation of the Diatessaron done in the 11th century from a Syriac text. It is argued that the Arabic Diatessaron manuscripts offer readings that are close to the Dura parchment, and this can be shown particularly in regard to the women’s presence as witnesses to the crucifixion, though there is a slightly different ordering of component parts. It is observed that the Dura fragment itself is not a perfect copy of any master text, but contains significant errors of reading, and thus it may be a writing exercise. As such it cannot be considered a definitive version of the Diatessaron, made by an expert scribe. It does, nevertheless, attempt to copy the Diatessaron, given that its content significantly overlaps with the Arabic version. This analysis uses more manuscripts than ever before assembled of the Arabic Diatessaron, so as to provide a reliable reading of the section that overlaps with the Dura fragment, and calls for a new edition, given that it provides a reasonably accurate representation of the content of Tatian’s work.