Yuri Kuchinsky has offered this essay on the Pepysian Gospel Harmony and the Diatessaron.
PEPYSIAN HARMONY AND ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF TRADITIONby Yuri Kuchinsky
An important principle has been established re Diatessaronic-type gospel harmonies by a number of scholars, such as Petersen, Quispel, and Boismard, viz., these harmonies often preserve ancient readings.
Harmonies seem to be as early, or nearly as early, as separate gospels. They may be based on sources that precede some or all of the canonical gospels. At least some of these sources seem to be Semitic. There also seems to be a close relationship between Semitic sources and the Latin textual tradition. Parts of Latin harmonies may derive from Semitic traditions directly, bypassing the Greek.
Specifically, the Pepysian Gospel Harmony (PG) is considered as one of the most valuable ones, preserving the earliest traditions. This is argued also by a number of scholars, especially by Boismard.
PG is a highly unique text. It's dated paleographically to ca 1400. Only one copy of it exists. It is believed to have been translated from the French, but this is not certain. No such French text is known to exist. Ultimately, this textual tradition is believed to depend on an unknown Latin text.
Scholars identified a number of parallels between PG and certain pre-Diatessaronic harmonistic texts such as the harmony that Justin Martyr used.
Very little scholarship on PG has been done. Until recently this text has been mostly neglected by textual scholars. In fact the ms had been erroneously catalogued and its unusual contents were first discovered by a researcher in Cambridge only in 1902. PG was published by Oxford in 1922 for the Early English Texts Society.
The best-known harmony is Tatian's Diatessaron (DT). It is believed to have been created ca 175, although many questions remain to what extent it was a new work, and what exactly Tatian's own contribution was. It is clear that Tatian was relying on a previous harmony, so perhaps his own contribution was quite minor.
It is important to note that Tatian (ca 120-180?) was a disciple of Justin Martyr (100-165), and that it is generally agreed that Justin already possessed some sort of a harmony text. There are close similarities between Tatian's DT and Justin's Harmony. Both these points are demonstrated by William L. Petersen in TEXTUAL EVIDENCE OF TATIAN'S DEPENDENCE UPON JUSTIN'S APOMNEMONEGMATA, NTS 36 (1990) 512-534.
Diatessaronic studies is an extremely complex and quite obscure area. Not so many scholars work in this field.
In his _Le Diatessaron: de Tatien a Justin_, ME Boismard stresses the great importance of PG for the study of early Christianity. He accepts the view that Justin already possessed some sort of a harmony text before Tatian, and that this text served as a basis for Tatian's DT. And, very importantly, Boismard also argues that PG is very close to Justin's Harmony (JH), although perhaps not identical to it. Thus, according to Boismard, PG textual tradition is in some respects earlier than Tatian's DT.
"En raison de tous ces exemples, il est difficile d'e'chapper `a la conclusion que l'harmonie P(epys) devait de'river de celle que Justin avait utilise'e et not du Diatessaron de Tatien." 82
Also Boismard shows that a source similar to JH or PG was used by Ephrem (?-373) while composing his COMMENTARY. As Boismard shows, a similar situation exists with the ancient SyrS gospel manuscript, and with gospel quotations found in Aphrahat, a Persian exegete who was a slightly older contemporary of Ephrem.
Boismard proposes the following hypothesis in three stages.
1. According to him, Justin's gospels harmony probably preceded Justin, and it appears to have had a very wide dissemination. Boismard demonstrates that its traces can be found in Africa (Tertullian), in Rome (Novatian), and in Gaul (Hilary). Also, it was known in the East, as attested by citations in Ephrem and in Aphrahat. Thus, JH seems to have been a very important document for early Christians.
2. Later, another popular harmony was created based on Justin's fairly closely. Boismard calls it a Syro-latin Harmony. And this was the basis of the Pepysian Harmony, according to him. Also, according to Boismard, this Syro-latin harmony left traces in various other Western harmonies, such as the Liege and the Italian harmonies.
3. And, finally, Tatian's DT was created ca 175 based on JH.
Also, Boismard notes that the sequence of PG is closer to the Lukan order, which may in fact represent an earlier order, whereas later harmonies are more in line with Mt's order.
Petersen, for his own part, does not agree with Boismard about these three stages, since he does not accept the hypothesis of the Syro-latin harmony. At the same time he's clearly of the opinion that PG represents a very important early tradition,
"..although the PG -- whatever its ultimate origin -- has suffered Vulgatization and has a unique sequence, its importance is disproportionate to its physical size (it is shorter than most witnesses) and age (it is one of the youngest witnesses), for it is sometimes the only Western witness to parallel a given DT reading." 170
Both Boismard and Petersen agree that the narrative order of PG is very interesting, and may represent early sequences in which the acts of Jesus were narrated. PG's order is paralleled in the Arabic DT that is seen as an important Eastern witness,
"Boismard .. noticed a remarkable degree of agreement in sequence between the PG and the Arabic Harmony -- against all other DT witnesses.." 349
These disagreements between Petersen and Boismard about the true relationships between JH, PG, and DT are very complex. Nevertheless, it is enough to say that both scholars seem to agree that PG represents an important early tradition that precedes DT in some respects, and that is quite close to JH.
Yuri Kuchinsky has argued recently that PG in fact is nothing else but a source text of the New Testament, and that it represents an entirely pre-canonical tradition. In particular the complete absence of the "Son of man" title in PG appears to be very significant. His book on this subject, that will include the first translation of PG into modern English, is expected to be published in 2001.
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