Was Ambrose the 'Patron' of Origen, Tatian?

[Secret Alias]

I think I have an explanation from where the name 'Tatian' (in Syriac TTIN) came from - the Encratites = οἱ Ἐγκρατῖται, Encratitae. I've seen the form Titian in English translations.

[Secret Alias]

Epiphanius's chapter on the Encratites (= Κατὰ Ἐγκρατιτῶν)

Ἐγκρατῖταί τινες οὕτω καλούμενοι τοῦτον τὸν Τατιανὸν διαδέχονται

Certain persons whom we call Encratites are the successors of Tatian.

[Secret Alias]

It is interesting to speculate what Greek speakers must have made of a heresy called Ἐγκρατιτῶν associated with Tatian. Eusebius makes the first reference to the name:

Καὶ Μουσανοῦ δέ, ὃν ἐν τοῖς φθάσασιν κατελέξαμεν, φέρεταί τις ἐπιστρεπτικώτατος λόγος, πρός τινας αὐτῷ γραφεὶς ἀδελφοὺς ἀποκλίναντας ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν λεγομένων Ἐγκρατιτῶν αἵρεσιν, ἄρτι τότε φύειν ἀρχομένην ξένην τε καὶ φθοριμαίαν ψευδοδοξίαν εἰσάγουσαν τῷ βίῳ: ἧς παρεκτροπῆς ἀρχηγὸν καταστῆναι Τατιανὸν λόγος ἔχει οὗ μικρῷ πρόσθεν τὰς περὶ τοῦ θαυμασίου Ἰουστίνου παρατεθείμεθα λέξεις, μαθητὴν αὐτὸν ἱστοροῦντες τοῦ μάρτυρος.

And as for Musanus, whom we have mentioned among the foregoing writers, a certain very elegant discourse is extant, which was written by him against some brethren that had gone over to the heresy of the so-called Encratites, which had recently sprung up, and which introduced a strange and pernicious error. Word has it that Tatian was the author of this false doctrine. He is the one whose words we quoted a little above in regard to that admirable man, Justin, and whom we stated to have been a disciple of the martyr.

So Eusebius doesn't tell us where this name 'Encratite' comes from. He also gives an extremely weak endorsement of 'Tatian' as the founder of the 'Encratites.' 'It is said' or 'word has it.' Uncharacteristic of Eusebius who feels free to make stuff up. Clearly Musanus is not the source of this information. I would even go so far as to say that the τῶν λεγομένων is too vague to suggest that Musanus is the source of the name Ἐγκρατιτῶν (note that Eusebius has the much more general τῶν λεγομένων Ἐγκρατιτῶν αἵρεσιν).

[Secret Alias]

It is interesting that Eusebius is the source for our information that 'Tatian' is the author of the Oratio. As we saw the Eastern tradition identifies 'Ambrosius' as its author. Why would Eusebius have provided disinformation? Could it be that Ambrose was the head of the Encratites and that would implicate his beloved Origen with heresy?

[Secret Alias]

Another parallel between Tatian and Ambrose in the Eastern tradition is Jerome's statement "Tatian, the patriarch of the Encratites, "

[Secret Alias]

It is interesting to reread the statement in Irenaeus which is the source of information about this 'Tatian.'

Those who are called Encratites, and who sprung from Saturninus and Marcion, preached celibacy, setting aside the original arrangement of God and tacitly censuring him who made male and female for the propagation of the human race. They introduced also abstinence from the things called by them animate, thus showing ingratitude to the God who made all things. And they deny the salvation of the first man.

But this has been only recently discovered by them, a certain Tatian being the first to introduce this blasphemy. He was a hearer of Justin, and expressed no such opinion while he was with him, but after the martyrdom of the latter he left the Church, and becoming exalted with the thought of being a teacher, and puffed up with the idea that he was superior to others, he established a peculiar type of doctrine of his own, inventing certain invisible æons like the followers of Valentinus, while, like Marcion and Saturninus, he pronounced marriage to be corruption and fornication. His argument against the salvation of Adam, however, he devised for himself. Irenæus at that time wrote thus.

If, as Jerome (who lived in Palestine), Tatian was a Patriarch AND the chief disciple of Justin (with whom Irenaeus is alleged to have been intimate) and who wrote the Diatessaron (which Irenaeus does not report) how can it be that Irenaeus knows nothing about Tatian - saying only that he is a 'certain' Tatian. I think it highly likely that Irenaeus invented the name 'Tatian' from a simplification of ''Encratite.' Note also that Irenaeus identifies 'Teitan' as the name of the Antichrist in Book Five (= 666). It seems likely to me that Irenaeus set up the name 'Tatian' to resemble Teitan enough that the implication was that the Encratites were established by the Antichrist.

Teitan too, (Teitan, the first syllable being written with the two Greek vowels e and i), among all the names which are found among us, is rather worthy of credit. For it has in itself the predicted number, and is composed of six letters, each syllable containing three letters; and [the word itself] is ancient, and removed from ordinary use; for among our kings we find none bearing this name Titan, nor have any of the idols which are worshipped in public among the Greeks and barbarians this appellation. Among many persons, too, this name is accounted divine, so that even the sun is termed "Titan" by those who do now possess [the rule]. This word, too, contains a certain outward appearance of vengeance, and of one inflicting merited punishment because he (Antichrist) pretends that he vindicates the oppressed. And besides this, it is an ancient name, one worthy of credit, of royal dignity, and still further, a name belonging to a tyrant. Inasmuch, then, as this name "Titan" has so much to recommend it, there is a strong degree of probability, that from among the many [names suggested], we infer, that perchance he who is to come shall be called "Titan." We will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing positively as to the name of Antichrist; for if it were necessary that his name should be distinctly revealed in this present time, it would have been announced by him who beheld the apocalyptic vision. For that was seen no very long time since, but almost in our day, towards the end of Domitian's reign.

[Peter Kirby]

I gave this two reads, as I have some rare time to catch up on the backlog (and it's all very confusing, both in the first place and in the presentation). Here is what we have:

• Origen had a sponsor, named Ambrose, who kept him during his Palestine years. Alexander helped maintain the books there.
• Origen was an ascetic, and Tatian was called the founder of the encratites by Irenaeus.
• Tatian is said to have been a student of Justin Martyr (in Rome) but also to have fallen away (due to the encratite ideas).
• The book attributed to Tatian references an origin in Assyria.
• Some book(s) attributed to Tatian are confused in authorship with Ambrose (including a gospel harmony and another one).
• Origen's book On Prayer references Ambrose and his "sister" Tatiana.
• (Nobody knows who she is, but could she be the same as the legendary Tatiana of Rome, patron saint of students?)
• There's a "patriarch" of Babylon named Abris supposedly.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things here...

Honestly, I'm not sure that Tatian was a made-up person. Forgetting Irenaeus for the moment, there is the text (and why not? sometimes what you see is what you get...):

These things, O Greeks, I Tatian, a disciple of the barbarian philosophy, have composed for you. I was born in the land of the Assyrians, having been first instructed in your doctrines, and afterwards in those which I now undertake to proclaim. Henceforward, knowing who God is and what is His work, I present myself to you prepared for an examination concerning my doctrines, while I adhere immoveably to that mode of life which is according to God.

The text itself doesn't paint a picture too far removed from the other clues. There are references to "manliness" and what "becomes a man." And there is this:

For the heavenly Logos, a spirit emanating from the Father and a Logos from the Logos-power, in imitation of the Father who begat Him made man an image of immortality, so that, as incorruption is with God, in like manner, man, sharing in a part of God, might have the immortal principle also.

So here's a reference to immortality and a definition of man as the image of immortality, in which man can share in the divinity. This of course makes entirely good sense of the Christian references to making the male into the female, found in GThomas 114 and also in Origen's address to this Ambrose and Tatiana in Origen's On Prayer:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/orige ... 2_text.htm

But I think, right pious and industrious Ambrosius, and right discreet and manful Tatiana, from whom I avow that womanly weakness has disappeared as truly as it had from Sarah of old, you are wondering to what purpose all this has been said in preface about things impossible for man becoming possible by the grace of God, when the subject prescribed for our discourse is Prayer.

Origen has completely effaced the sex of Tatiana by the end of his treatise, referring to them together as "Ambrosius and Tatiana, studious and genuine brethren in piety." That does not mean that we must do the same. The effect here, from Origen, of changing the female into the male is fully intentional. It is not written back into Origen by another wishing to find more women in Christian history. And it is fitting with the anthropology and ascetic values that Origen held, which may indeed have been under the influence of earlier Christian ascetics.

So I believe that Ambrosius and Tatiana existed, both. I believe that they were real people, and I believe that Origen was writing to them. There are references to Ambrosius in another text from Origen (cf. also Commentary on John, 5, which grounds the claims regarding Marcella, i.e. the letter to Africanus:

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0414.htm

My lord and dear brother Ambrosius, who has written this at my dictation, and has, in looking over it, corrected as he pleased, salutes you. His faithful spouse, Marcella, and her children, also salute you.

I think an explanation here is plain enough. Seeing as this letter is one of the latest works of Origen (ca. 240 being the usual date), then I surmise that Ambrosius may have married or remarried in the interim. (The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak...)

That allows the reading of the previous text, regarding Ambrosius and Tatiana, that they were at the time both pledged to abstaining from marriage. It is curious the way their names are bracketed together twice so closely, is it not? As if they truly were a pair. And perhaps they were -- both pledged in keeping from marriage and encouraging the other in this resolve through prayer.

Notice the complaints of Irenaeus lodged against Tatian touch on just such topics (Against Heresies 1.28.1):

... those who are called Encratites (self-controlled) preached against marriage, thus setting aside the original creation of God, and indirectly blaming Him who made the male and female for the propagation of the human race ... he declared that marriage was nothing else than corruption and fornication.

This would be fitting if Ambrosius and Tatiana were themselves under the sway of such teaching.

So, overall, my reading of these indications is in favor of a historical Tatian, of some sort, but I'm not completely sure where he was active and what role he played, outside of authoring this text To the Greeks, which seems fair enough to attribute to him. I'd also grant that he held ascetic opinions and a low view of marriage. There is enough of a picture here, with enough different references, to make out the existence of an important second century figure. Perhaps the best and most impartial witness available here is that other second century figure, Clement of Alexandria.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... glish.html

And again: "The wife is bound to her husband so long as he is alive, but if he dies, she is free to marry, only in the Lord. But she is happier in my judgment if she remains as she is." Moreover in the former passage he says, "You are dead to the law," not to marriage, "that you may belong to another who was raised from the dead," as Bride and Church. The Church must be chaste, both from inward thoughts contrary to the truth and from outward tempters, that is the adherents of the sects who would persuade her to commit fornication against her one husband, Almighty God, lest as the serpent deceived Eve, who is called Life, we too should be led to transgress the commandments by the lewd craftiness of the sects. The second passage teaches single marriage. One should not suppose, as some have expounded the text, that when Paul says the wife is bound to her husband he means that flesh is involved in corruption. He is attacking the notion of the godless men who attribute the invention of marriage directly to the devil, a notion which dangerously blasphemes the lawgiver.

81. I believe Tatian the Syrian made bold to teach these doctrines. At any rate he writes these words in his book On Perfection According to the Saviour: "While agreement to be continent makes prayer possible, intercourse of corruption destroys it. By the very disparaging way in which he allows it, he forbids it. For although he allowed them to come together again because of Satan and the temptation to incontinence, he indicated that the man who takes advantage of this permission will be serving two masters, God if there is 'agreement,' but, if there is no such agreement, incontinence, fornication, and the devil." This he says in expounding the apostle.

But the picture of Tatian is not without its difficulties, to be sure. Possibly the biggest source of error is that anything associated with "encratites" (principally, those who reject marriage) might eventually comes back to be associated with Tatian, by a sort of fallacy of attributing the contemporary concerns of heretics to their supposed historical author. So we should treat the witnesses of the fourth century with even more skepticism than those of Irenaeus and Clement.

This might explain the way that Clement casually mentions that Tatian interpreted Paul and used it as a basis for his rejection of marriage... yet Eusebius says that the people who are encratites reject Paul, and Jerome who read Eusebius says that Tatian rejected Paul's epistles.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201 ... .xxix.html

They, indeed, use the Law and Prophets and Gospels, but interpret in their own way the utterances of the Sacred Scriptures. And they abuse Paul the apostle and reject his epistles, and do not accept even the Acts of the Apostles.

we learn from Jerome's preface to his Commentary on Titus that Tatian rejected some of Paul's epistles, as Marcion did, but unlike Marcion accepted the epistle to Titus.

Seeing as 1 Timothy 4:3 has this gem predicting people just like Tatian (and, it is said, Marcion as well, who is the original target):

Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.

They will prohibit marriage and require abstinence from certain foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

It is perhaps not surprising that Tatian might find it hard to believe the epistle to Timothy actually came from the apostle Paul.

We also know of a disciple, Rhodon, who mentions another work of Tatian's. Tatian appears here to be quite the author. If anything, what we have is the name of a man (Tatian) being accused of founding a "heretical group" ("encratitism," primarily a continuation of the teachings of those like Marcion, located in the east and without using the letters of Paul) as a way of condemning him in the rejection of marriage and, later on (with Eusebius), categorizing those who accept the Gospel along with the Law and the Prophets only (thus the claim that he wrote the Diatessaron himself). The literary mark of Tatian is fairly extensive and well-attested, too much so just to brush aside.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... on1-2.html

We know from Tatian himself that he composed a work On Animals or On Living Beings (peri zwwn),[5] and perhaps another in which he treated of the nature of demons.[6] He intended to write "Against Those who have Treated of Divine Things," i. e., against the pagan theologians.[7] Rhodon, a disciple of Tatian, mentions a "Book of Problems,"[8] probably a collection of obscure passages in the Scriptures. Clement of Alexandria refers to a work of Tatian "On Perfection according to the Precepts of the Savior," which forbids marriage.[9]

So, in the second century, Tatian was an author (we possess one text in full), was referenced by Irenaeus and Clement, and rejected marriage. This gave him the claim to fame of founding "encratitism" (characterized by rejection of marriage and asceticism, partly based on a reading of Paul) ... on the principle that heresies have schools, with recent founders, and so here is another one. Later on, by the fourth century, Eusebius sees fit to attribute the authorship of the Diatessaron to him and to speak of his followers as rejecting the letters of Paul and accepting only the Gospels and the Law and the Prophets. This is in description of people the fourth century church is dubbing 'encratite,' and so is finding its way back to be pinned on Tatian.

Actually not even Irenaeus can bring himself to claim that Tatian founded a sect, only giving him the dubious honor of a single innovation:

Those who are called Encratites, and who sprung from Saturninus and Marcion, preached celibacy, setting aside the original arrangement of God and tacitly censuring him who made male and female for the propagation of the human race. They introduced also abstinence from the things called by them animate, thus showing ingratitude to the God who made all things. And they deny the salvation of the first man. But this has been only recently discovered by them, a certain Tatian being the first to introduce this blasphemy.

And Clement only says that Tatian was bold enough to teach these doctrines (not the founder of them). It's not until Eusebius that someone, after giving their current name, says that Tatian was their "original founder." The connection (and the term) is so loose, that by the fourth century it has lost hold, and the term of the trade is now Severians, according to Eusebius, no doubt because of the same Latin root behind severe.

But a little later a certain man named Severus put new strength into the aforesaid heresy, and thus brought it about that those who took their origin from it were called, after him, Severians.

I doubt very much the existence of this Severus, who gave them name according to Eusebius, unless "Severians" is a misunderstood pun on the name of the emperor, who may or may not have held some Christians in favor... in which case, did Origen ever have the favor of the emperor's court? Were the partisans of Origen slandered as "Severians" as a way of implying imperial ties as well as condemning their ascetic views? Is that why the name "Severus" must be conjured from the ether to found them, to preserve the good name of Origen, defended by Eusebius' own predecessor Pamphilus?

There is still plenty of other mystery here. Why was there ever confusion of names between Ambrosius and Tatian? Was Origen's patron, Ambrosius, along with Tatiana, associated with Justin's pupil, Tatian, who was someone who rejected marriage? Did she take his name, perhaps to be better made male and attain immortality? Who is the patriarch Abris of Babylon, and is he an echo of the Ambrosius of Palestine? Was Ambrosius made a deacon by Tatian? Are the contradictory indications that Ambrosius was previously under the sway of Valentinus (so Eusebius) or Marcion (so Jerome) both shadows of the truth that Ambrosius was the disciple of Tatian? Was the stewarding of the texts from Tatian and the provision of a large number of scribes (and "girls" who can write, so Eusebius) the reason for the confusion made between Tatian and his pupil Ambrosius? Why does Ambrosius appear later in Nicomedia and with wife and children? What is the relationship between Tatian, Justin, and Marcion -- is Irenaeus hiding more than he admits? Did Tatian actually have a change of heart, or was he always more like Marcion than he was like the apologist Justin? Was it Justin who turned on Marcion of Pontus, who appears in the literary record by name for the first time being savaged as a non-Christian in a defense of the name before the people of Rome? Were Marcionites and Valentinians more properly "Christians" instead of little hermetically-sealed heresies popping off the timeline of the church catholic? What connection has Marcion with the name of the Gospel of Mark or with 1 Peter 5:13, if any? What is the anti-Marcionite prologue to John saying about Marcion and his writing? And will we ever untangle this great web of textual material?

Tune in next time!

[Peter Kirby]

Well... what are the answers? We must have answers. Guesses will do fine. Be sure to set to 200 degrees and bake by half.