Glimpses of the Alexandrian 'Super' Gospel

[Ben C. Smith]

Out of curiosity, if in your judgment the Commentary on Matthew was originally a Commentary on Some Lost Diatessaron, what was the Commentary on John?

[Peter Kirby]

I went over to my library which had the Schaff series and I just took book X of the Ante-Nicene Series (for reasons I don't know):

I bought the set a while back for about $100. Not bad if you think of it as ten books.

http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/more-anf.html
http://www.hpbmarketplace.com/The-Early ... k/29125262
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ante-Nicene-F ... 1565630823
http://www.christianbook.com/the-ante-n ... 6/pd/30823

Sometimes a book just beats the internet.

[Peter Kirby]

Out of curiosity, if in your judgment the Commentary on Matthew was originally a Commentary on Some Lost Diatessaron, what was the Commentary on John?

Commentary on Some Lost Diatessaron, parts 2, 4, and 6, of course. Expertly pre-splitted and spliced together again.

[Ben C. Smith]

Out of curiosity, if in your judgment the Commentary on Matthew was originally a Commentary on Some Lost Diatessaron, what was the Commentary on John?

Commentary on Some Lost Diatessaron, parts 2, 4, and 6, of course. Expertly pre-splitted and spliced together again.

Enough to put all my textual manipulations (combined) to shame.

[Secret Alias]

Out of curiosity, if in your judgment the Commentary on Matthew was originally a Commentary on Some Lost Diatessaron, what was the Commentary on John?

Is it still just 'my judgement'? At the very least you'd have to concede that Origen was referencing Mark, Luke and John he was using the tables right? Or at least that's a high probability?

I've been thinking about that all week. All we know is that it was 'rewritten.' Is there a section on the multiplication of loaves in it? What about John 6:9, 6:10, 6:13?

[Ben C. Smith]

Out of curiosity, if in your judgment the Commentary on Matthew was originally a Commentary on Some Lost Diatessaron, what was the Commentary on John?

Is it still just 'my judgement'? At the very least you'd have to concede that Origen was referencing Mark, Luke and John he was using the tables right? Or at least that's a high probability?

I readily admit that there seems to be something Diatessaronic going on. I myself am not yet sure what that something is, whereas you seem to feel pretty certain. So yes, for now, "in your judgment."

The concept of Origin using a (n Ammonian) text with columns is attractive.

I've been thinking about that all week. All we know is that it was 'rewritten.' Is there a section on the multiplication of loaves in it? What about John 6:9, 6:10, 6:13?

The Johannine Commentary is pretty fragmentary. I do not think the part where the multiplication of loaves should be is extant. But there are a LOT of passages unique to Matthew and the other gospels in turn in it.

[Secret Alias]

Then you know what I think already.

[Ben C. Smith]

Then you know what I think already.

Well, not exactly. You could be thinking (A) that it was part of the larger Commentary that, as Peter playfully suggested, was pulled out to create a new bit on John or (B) it is a non-Origenic forgery all the way through, the Commentary on Matthew being the only one that Origen had any part in, however seminal and overwritten.

[Secret Alias]

Adolf von Harnack notes that Eusebius calls the work τὸ εὐαγγέλιον. Crawford says Ammonius' work was titled "the Diatessaron-Gospel." But they all go back to this stupid idea that Eusebius's tables make clear that Ammonius's work also took the form of tables. Clearly Eusebius had to call the work 'the gospel' because the world knew some about the text. He was restricted in his abilities to 'make up shit' because the title of the work was somehow known. If - and I stress - if the missing pieces of the original commentary on the Diatessaron were spread into both the Commentaries on John and Matthew this would be something like its opening statement:

You are not content to fulfil the office, when I am present with you, of a taskmaster to drive me to labour at theology; even when I am absent you demand that I should spend most of my time on you and on the task I have to do for you. I, for my part, am inclined to shrink from toil, and to avoid that danger which threatens from God those who give themselves to writing on divinity; thus I would take shelter in Scripture in refraining from making many books. For Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, My son, beware of making many books; there is no end of it, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. For we, except that text have some hidden meaning which we do not yet perceive, have directly transgressed the injunction, we have not guarded ourselves against making many books.

[Then, after saying that this discussion of but a few sentences of the Gospel have run to four volumes, he goes on:]

For, to judge by the words of the phrase, My son, beware of making many books, two things appear to be indicated by it: first, that we ought not to possess many books, and then that we ought not to compose many books. If the first is not the meaning the second must be, and if the second is the meaning the first does not necessarily follow. In either case we appear to be told that we ought not to make many books. I might take my stand on this dictum which now confronts us, and send you the text as an excuse, and I might appeal in support of this position to the fact that not even the saints found leisure to compose many books; and thus I might cry off from the bargain we made with each other, and give up writing what I was to send to you. You, on your side, would no doubt feel the force of the text I have cited, and might, for the future, excuse me. But we must treat Scripture conscientiously, and must not congratulate ourselves because we see the primary meaning of a text, that we understand it altogether. I do not, therefore, shrink from bringing forward what excuse I think I am able to offer for myself, and to point out the arguments, which you would certainly use against me, if I acted contrary to our agreement. And in the first place, the Sacred History seems to agree with the text in question, inasmuch as none of the saints composed several works, or set forth his views in a number of books. I will take up this point: when I proceed to write a number of books, the critic will remind me that even such a one as Moses left behind him only five books.

But he who was made fit to be a minister of the New Covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit, Paul, who fulfilled the Gospel from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum, Romans 15:19 did not write epistles to all the churches he taught, and to those to whom he did write he sent no more than a few lines. And Peter, on whom the Church of Christ is built, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail Matthew 16:18 left only one epistle of acknowledged genuineness. Suppose we allow that he left a second; for this is doubtful. What are we to say of him who leaned on Jesus' breast, namely, John, who left one Gospel, though confessing that he could make so many that the world would not contain them? But he wrote also the Apocalypse, being commanded to be silent and not to write the voices of the seven thunders. Revelation 10:4 But he also left an epistle of very few lines. Suppose also a second and a third, since not all pronounce these to be genuine; but the two together do not amount to a hundred lines.

[Then, after enumerating the prophets and Apostles, and showing how each wrote only a little, or not even a little, he goes on:]

I will add to the proof of this an apostolic saying which has been quite misunderstood by the disciples of Marcion, who, therefore, set the Gospels at naught. The Apostle says: Romans 2:16 According to my Gospel in Christ Jesus; he does not speak of Gospels in the plural, and, hence, they argue that as the Apostle only speaks of one Gospel in the singular, there was only one in existence. But they fail to see that, as He is one of whom all the evangelists write, so the Gospel, though written by several hands, is, in effect, one. And, in fact, the Gospel, though written by four, is one. From these considerations, then, we learn what the one book is, and what the many books, and what I am now concerned about is, not the quantity I may write, but the effect of what I say, lest, if I fail in this point, and set forth anything against the truth itself, even in one of my writings, I should prove to have transgressed the commandment, and to be a writer of many books. Yet I see the heterodox assailing the holy Church of God in these days, under the pretence of higher wisdom, and bringing forward works in many volumes in which they offer expositions of the evangelical and apostolic writings, and I fear that if I should be silent and should not put before our members the saving and true doctrines, these teachers might get a hold of curious souls, which, in the absence of wholesome nourishment, might go after food that is forbidden, and, in fact, unclean and horrible. It appears to me, therefore, to be necessary that one who is able to represent in a genuine manner the doctrine of the Church, and to refute those dealers in knowledge, falsely so-called, should take his stand against historical fictions, and oppose to them the true and lofty evangelical message in which the agreement of the doctrines, found both in the so-called Old Testament and in the so-called New, appears so plainly and fully. You yourself felt at one time the lack of good representatives of the better cause, and were impatient of a faith which was at issue with reason and absurd, and you then, for the love you bore to the Lord, gave yourself to composition from which, however, in the exercise of the judgment with which you are endowed, you afterwards desisted. This is the defence which I think admits of being made for those who have the faculty of speaking and writing. But I am also pleading my own cause, as I now devote myself with what boldness I may to the work of exposition; for it may be that I am not endowed with that habit and disposition which he ought to have who is fitted by God to be a minister of the New Covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit.

If you really think about it the sense of these words can be taken in one of two ways.

[Secret Alias]

What I should do is spend sometime looking at the Eusebian canons again. I think this will be useful in figuring this out.