Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books I–X

NPNF historical edition · Translated text

Book IV — Chapter XXIX — The Heresy of Tatian.

Chapter XXIX.—The Heresy of Tatian. ^{Edition note 1}

1. He is the one whose words we quoted a little above ^{Edition note 2} in regard to that admirable man, Justin, and whom we stated to have been a disciple of the martyr. Irenæus declares this in the first book of his work Against Heresies, where he writes as follows concerning both him and his heresy: ^{Edition note 3}

2. “Those who are called Encratites, ^{Edition note 4} and who sprung from Saturninus ^{Edition note 5} 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, ^{Edition note 6} thus showing ingratitude to the God who made all things. And they deny the salvation of the first man. ^{Edition note 7}

3. 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, ^{Edition note 8} 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.

4. But a little later a certain man named Severus ^{Edition note 9} 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.

5. 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.

6. But their original founder, Tatian, formed a certain combination and collection of the Gospels, I know not how, ^{Edition note 10} to which he gave the title Diatessaron, ^{Edition note 11} and which is still in the hands of some. But they say that he ventured to paraphrase certain words of the apostle, ^{Edition note 12} in order to improve their style.

7. He has left a great many writings. Of these the one most in use among many persons is his celebrated Address to the Greeks, ^{Edition note 13} which also appears to be the best and most useful of all his works. In it he deals with the most ancient times, and shows that Moses and the Hebrew prophets were older than all the celebrated men among the Greeks. ^{Edition note 14} So much in regard to these men.

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Edition notes

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Edition note 1

From his Oratio (chap. 42) we learn that Tatian was born in Assyria, and that he was early educated in Greek philosophy, from which we may conclude that he was of Greek parentage,—a conclusion confirmed by the general tone of the Oratio (cf. Harnack, Ueberlieferung der Griech. Apol. p. 199 sq., who refutes Zahn’s opinion that Tatian was a Syrian by race). We learn from his Oratio also that he was converted to Christianity in mature life (cf. chap. 29 sq.). From the passage quoted in the present chapter from Irenæus, we learn that Tatian, after the death of Justin (whose disciple he was; see also chap. 16, above), fell into heresy, and the general fact is confirmed by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others.

Beyond these meager notices we have little information in regard to Tatian’s life. Rhodo (quoted in Bk. V. chap. 13, below) mentions him, and “confesses” that he was a pupil of Tatian’s in Rome, perhaps implying that this was after Tatian had left the Catholic Church (though inasmuch as the word “confesses” is Eusebius’, not Rhodo’s, we can hardly lay the stress that Harnack does upon its use in this connection). Epiphanius gives quite an account of Tatian in his Hær . XLVI. 1, but as usual he falls into grave errors (especially in his chronology).

The only trustworthy information that can be gathered from him is that Tatian, after becoming a Christian, returned to Mesopotamia and taught for a while there (see Harnack, ibid. p. 208 sq.). We learn from his Oratio that he was already in middle life at the time when he wrote it, i.e. about 152 a.d. (see note 13, below), and as a consequence it is commonly assumed that he cannot have been born much later than 110 a.d. Eusebius in his Chron. (XII. year of Marcus Aurelius, 172 a.d. ) says, Tatianus hæreticus agnoscitur, a quo Encratitæ.

There is no reason to doubt that this represents with reasonable accuracy the date of Tatian’s break with the Catholic Church. We know at any rate that it did not take place until after Justin’s death (165 a.d. ). In possession of these various facts in regard to Titian, his life has been constructed in various ways by historians, but Harnack seems to have come nearest to the truth in his account of him on p. 212 sq. He holds that he was converted about 150, but soon afterward left for the Orient, and while there wrote his Oratio ad Græcos; that afterward he returned to Rome and was an honored teacher in the Church for some time but finally becoming heretical, broke with the Church about the year 172. The arguments which Harnack urges over against Zahn (who maintains that he was but once in Rome, and that he became a heretic in the Orient and spent the remainder of his life there) seem fully to establish his main positions.

Of the date, place, and circumstances of Tatian’s death, we know nothing. Eusebius informs us in this chapter that Titian left “a great many writings,” but he mentions the titles of only two, the Address to the Greeks and the Diatessaron (see below, notes 11 and 13). He seems, however, in §6, to refer to another work on the Pauline Epistles,—a work of which we have no trace anywhere else, though 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.

We know the titles of some other works written by Tatian. He himself, in his Oratio 15, mentions a work which he had written On Animals. The work is no longer extant, nor do we know anything about it. Rhodo (as we are told by Eusebius in Bk. V. chap. 13) mentioned a book of Problems which Titian had written. Of this, too, all traces have perished. Clement of Alexandria ( Strom. III. 12) mentions an heretical work of Tatian’s, entitled περὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὸν σωτῆρα καταρτισμοῦ , On Perfection according to the Saviour, which has likewise perished.

Clement (as also Origen) was evidently acquainted with still other heretical works, especially one on Genesis (see below, note 7), but he mentions the title only of the one referred to. Rufinus ( H.E. VI. 11) says that Tatian composed a Chronicon, which we hear about from no other writer. Malalas calls Tatian a chronographer, but he is evidently thinking of the chronological passages in his Oratio, and in the absence of all trustworthy testimony we must reject Rufinus’ notice as a mistake. In his Oratio, chap. 40, Tatian speaks of a work Against those who have discoursed on Divine Things, in which he intends to show “what the learned among the Greeks have said concerning our polity and the history of our laws and how many and what kind of men have written of these things.”

Whether he ever wrote the work or not we do not know; we find no other notice of it. Upon Tatian, see especially Zahn’s Tatian’s Diatessaron and Harnack’s Ueberlieferung, &c., p. 196; also Donaldson’s Hist. of Christ. Lit. and Doct. II. p. 3 sqq., and J. M. Fuller’s article in the Dict. of Christ. Biog.

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Edition note 2

In chap. 16.

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Edition note 3

Irenæus, Adv. Hær. I. 28. 1.

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Edition note 4

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Edition note 5

On Saturninus and on Marcion, see chap. 7, note 6, and 11, note 15. On their asceticism, see especially Irenæus, Adv. Hær. I. 24.

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Edition note 6

τῶν λεγομένων ἐμψύχων : i.e. animal food in general.

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Edition note 7

Cf. Irenæus, Adv. Hær. III. 23, where this opinion of Tatian’s is refuted at considerable length. The opinion seems a little peculiar, but was a not unnatural consequence of Tatian’s strong dualism, and of his doctrine of a conditional immortality for those who have been reunited with the Holy Spirit who took his departure at the time of the fall (cf. especially his Oratio, chap. 15). That Adam, who, by his fall, brought about this separation, which has been of such direful consequence to the race, should be saved, was naturally to Titian a very repugnant thought.

He seems, moreover, to have based his opinion, as Donaldson remarks, upon exegetical grounds interpreting the passage in regard to Adam ( 1 Cor. xv. 22 ) as meaning that Adam is and remains the principle of death, and as such, of course, cannot himself enjoy life (see Irenæus, ibid. ). This is quite in accord with the distinction between the psychical and physical man which he draws in his Oratio. It is quite possible that he was moved in part also by the same motive which led Marcion to deny the salvation of Abraham and the other patriarchs (see Irenæus, Adv.

Hær. I. 27 and IV. 8), namely, the opposition between the God of the Old Testament and the Christ of the New Testament, which led him to assert that those who depended on the former were lost. We learn from Clement ( Strom. III. 12) and from Origen ( de Orat. chap. 24) that among Tatian’s heretical works was one in which he discussed the early chapters of Genesis and perhaps it was in this work that he developed his peculiar views’ in regard to Adam.

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Edition note 8

On Valentinus, see chap. 11, note 1. That Tatian was Gnostic in many of his tendencies is plain enough not only from these words of Irenæus, but also from the notices of him in other writers (cf. especially Hippolytus, Phil. VIII. 9). To what extent he carried his Gnosticism, however, and exactly in what it consisted, we cannot tell. He can hardly have been a pronounced follower of Valentinus and a zealous defender of the doctrine of Æons, or we should find him connected more prominently with that school. He was, in fact, a decided eclectic, and a follower of no one school, and doubtless this subject, like many others, occupied but a subordinate place in his speculations.

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Edition note 9

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Edition note 10

οὐκ οἰδ᾽ ὅπως . Eusebius clearly means to imply in these words that he was not acquainted with the Diatessaron. Lightfoot, it is true, endeavors to show that these words may mean simply disapproval of the work, and not ignorance in regard to it. But his interpretation is an unnatural one, and has been accepted by few scholars.

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Edition note 11

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Edition note 12

i.e. of Paul, who was quite commonly called simply ὁ ἀπόστολος . This seems to imply that Tatian wrote a work on Paul’s epistles (see note 1, above).

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Edition note 13

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Edition note 14

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