ignorance as to its character.

It is clear from all this that we have no detailed information regarding
the _Diatessaron_ of Tatian. As Dr. Donaldson said long ago: "We should
not be able to identify it, even if it did come down to us, unless it
told us something reliable about itself." [150:2]

We may now come to the documents recently published. The MS. of the
Armenian version of the commentary ascribed to Ephraem is dated A.D.
1195, and Moesinger declares that it is translated from the Syriac, of
which it is said to retain many traces. [150:3] He states that in the
judgment of the Mechitarist Fathers the translation dates from about the
fifth century, [150:4] but an opinion on such a point can only be
received with great caution. The name of Tatian is not mentioned as the
author of the "Harmony," and the question is open as to whether the
authorship of the commentary is rightly ascribed to Ephraem Syrus. In
any case there can be no doubt that the Armenian work is a translation.

The Arabic work published by Ciasca, and supposed to be a version of
Tatian's _Diatessaron_ itself, is derived from two manuscripts, one
belonging to the Vatican Library and the other forwarded to Rome from
Egypt by the Vicar Apostolic of the Catholic Copts. The latter MS.
states, in notes at the beginning and end, that it is an Arabic
translation of the _Diatessaron_ of Tatian, made from the Syriac by the
presbyter Abû-l-Pharag Abdullah Ben-at-Tib, who is believed to have
flourished in the first half of the eleventh century, and in one of
these notes the name of the scribe who wrote the Syriac copy is given,
which leads to the conjecture that it may have been dated about the end
of the ninth century. A note in the Vatican MS. also ascribes the
original work to Tatian. These notes constitute the principal or only