If this signification be also attached to the expression, it is equally certain that [Greek: ouk oid' hopôs] is used to express ignorance, although Dr. Lightfoot chooses, for the sake of his argument, to forget the fact. In any case some of the best critics draw the same inference from the phrase here that I do, more especially as Eusebius does not speak further or more definitely of the _Diatessaron_, amongst whom I may name Credner, Hilgenfeld, Holtzmann, Reuss and Scholten; and should these not have weight with him I may refer Dr. Lightfoot to Zahn, [147:1] and even to Dr. Westcott [147:2] and Professor Hemphill. [147:3] Eusebius says nothing more of the _Diatessaron_ of Tatian and gives us no further help towards a recognition of the work.
Dr. Lightfoot supposes that I had overlooked the testimony of the _Doctrine of Addai_, an apocryphal Syriac work, published in 1876 by Dr. Phillips after _Supernatural Religion_ was written. I did not overlook it, but I considered it of too little critical value to require much notice in later editions of the work. The _Doctrine of Addai_ is conjecturally dated by Dr. Lightfoot about the middle of the third century, [147:4] and it might with greater certainty be placed much later. The passage to which he points is one in which it is said that the new converts meet together to hear, along with the Old Testament, "the New of the _Diatessaron_." This is assumed to be Tatian's "Harmony of the Gospels," and I shall not further argue the point; but does it bring us any nearer to a certain understanding of its character and contents?
The next witness, taking them in the order in which Dr. Lightfoot cites them, is Dionysius Bar-Salibi, who flourished in the last years of the twelfth century. In his commentary on the Gospels he writes:--
"Tatian, the disciple of Justin, the philosopher and martyr, selected and patched together from the four Gospels and constructed a gospel, which he called _Diatessaron_--that is, _Miscellanies_. On this work Mar Ephraem wrote an exposition; and its commencement was--_In the beginning was the Word_. Elias of Salamia, who is also called Aphthonius, constructed a gospel after the likeness of the _Diatessaron_ of Ammonius, mentioned by Eusebius in his prologue to the Canons which he made for the Gospel. Elias sought for that _Diatessaron_ and could not find it, and in consequence constructed this after its likeness. And the said Elias finds fault with several things in the Canons of Eusebius, and points out errors in them, and rightly. But this copy (work) which Elias composed is not often met with." [148:1]