Codex Fuldensis Gospel

[Voco_proTatiano]

The Body and Blood of Our Lord as in the Codex Fuldensis Gospel
Witnessed in Cod. Sang. 56.
cesg.unifr.ch/getMs.php?ref=56-272
Using data publicly available from:
liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/2009/Jun09.shtml
and The Sunday Missal to cross-check.
This Week’s Gospel: Mark 14: 12 - 16, 22 - 26
(14th-Jun-2009) The Body and Blood of Our Lord, year B

** This is my body. This is my blood.**
Here we are recapitulating recent readings. From the first capitulum, we have SG 157: 1 – 5, and from the second, we have SG 160: 1 – 3. There is a longish tract from John, before the closing verse from Mark, which almost stands in its own context, so it is here omitted.

** CLV. Ubi Ihesus mittet discipulos præparare sibi pascha et dicit eis, quod unus ex vobis tradit me. **
(Where Jesus sends the disciples to prepare the Pasch for Him, and he says to them: One of you betrays me.)
** CLVI. Ubi Ihesus tradet de sacramento corporis et sanguinis sui et Ubi Ihesus dicit ad Petrum: expetivit satanas, ut vos ventilet, et omnes hodiæ in me scandalizamini. **
(Where Jesus hands over the sacrament of His body and blood, and where Jesus says to Peter: Satan hath desired that he winnow you, and all this day be scandalised in me.)

The complete posting can be found on the blogsite below:
I treat this blog as if it were a Catholic site, and I expect it to be criticized if I overstep any mark which would earn criticism on your site.
The Forgotten Gospel

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

This week’s Gospel as in the Codex Fuldensis Gospel: 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time.
Witnessed in Cod. Sang. 56.
cesg.unifr.ch/getMs.php?ref=56-86
Using data publicly available from:
liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/2009/Jun09.shtml
and The Sunday Missal to cross-check.
This Week’s Gospel: Mark 4: 35 - 41
(21st-Jun-2009) 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time, year B

** Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.**
Though the capitulum below witnesses well the account in Mark, yet it uses only a dozen or so words of Mark. This account is primarily from Matthew, with tiny fragments from Mark, and from Luke, who provides the ‘punch-line’.

** LII. Ubi navigans increpavit tempestati et cessavit. **
(Where sailing, He rebuked the storm and it ceased.)

The complete posting can be found on the blogsite below:
I treat this blog as if it were a Catholic site, and I expect it to be criticized if I overstep any mark which would earn criticism on your site.
The Forgotten Gospel

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

This week’s Gospel as in the Codex Fuldensis Gospel: Ss. Peter and Paul, apostles.
Witnessed in Cod. Sang. 56.
cesg.unifr.ch/getMs.php?ref=56-142
Using data publicly available from:
liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/2009/Jun09.shtml
and The Sunday Missal to cross-check.
This Week’s Gospel: Matt 16: 13 - 19
(28th-Jun-2009) Ss. Peter and Paul, apostles.

** You are Peter, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.**
This week’s reading is embodied in the beginning of the following capitulum. The reading is entirely from Matthew, and thee are no material differences between this text and the standard, except that the prescribed reading breaks in the middle of a paragraph in the SG notation. Hence, the complete paragraph is given, reading a further verse.

** XC. Ubi Ihesus interrogat apostolos: quem me dicunt homines esse? et quæ secuntur, et dicit Petro: scandalum mihi es. **
(Where Jesus asks the apostles: Whom do men say of me to be? And what follows, and says to Peter: Thou art a scandal to me.)

The complete posting can be found on the blogsite below:
I treat this blog as if it were a Catholic site, and I expect it to be criticized if I overstep any mark which would earn criticism on your site.
The Forgotten Gospel

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

This week’s Gospel as in the Codex Fuldensis Gospel: 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, year B.
Witnessed in Cod. Sang. 56.
cesg.unifr.ch/getMs.php?ref=56-113
Using data publicly available from:
liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/2009/Jul09.shtml
and The Sunday Missal to cross-check.
This Week’s Gospel: Mark 6: 1 - 6
(5th-July-2009) 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, year B.

** A prophet is despised only in his own country.**
This week’s reading is embodied in the following capitulum. The reading is mainly from Matthew, and Luke, with a few fragments from Mark. The capitulum boundary at the beginning indicates that the positioning of the Victorian heading marker in the text referenced, was a marginal note, and not accurately placed for some reason. Hence, the reading here given is paragraphs 78: 1 - 9 in the SG notation. Hence, the reading is somewhat extended.

** LXXVIII. Ubi contra Ihesum cives eius indignati sunt dicentes: unde huic tanta sapientia? **
(Where against Jesus, His fellow citizens were indignant, saying: How came this man by such wisdom.)

The complete posting can be found on the blogsite below:
I treat this blog as if it were a Catholic site, and I expect it to be criticized if I overstep any mark which would earn criticism on your site.
The Forgotten Gospel

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

This week’s Gospel as in the Codex Fuldensis Gospel: 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, year B.
Witnessed in Cod. Sang. 56.
cesg.unifr.ch/getMs.php?ref=56-75
Using data publicly available from:
liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/2009/Jul09.shtml
and The Sunday Missal to cross-check.
This Week’s Gospel: Mark 6: 7 - 13
(12th-July-2009) 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, year B.

** He began to send them out.**
This week’s reading is embodied in the following capitulum, but is greatly magnified with augmentations from Matthew, and Luke, to the few fragments from Mark.

** XLIIII. Ubi Ihesus mittit ·XII· discipulos suos docere et curare omnes infirmitates. **
(Where Jesus sends his twelve disciples to teach and to cure all infirmities.)

The complete posting can be found on the blogsite below:
I treat this blog as if it were a Catholic site, and I expect it to be criticized if I overstep any mark which would earn criticism on your site.
The Forgotten Gospel

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

This week’s Gospel as in the Codex Fuldensis Gospel: 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, year B.
Witnessed in Cod. Sang. 56.
cesg.unifr.ch/getMs.php?ref=56-25
Using data publicly available from:
liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/2009/Jul09.shtml
This Week’s Gospel: Mark 6: 30 - 34
(19th-July-2009) 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, year B.

** They were like sheep without a shepherd.**
The Victor Codex does not support this reading.
I will take this failure to find support as an omen that the time has come for me to stop this line of this thread.
I will however, give periodic reports on my work transcribing Ernestus Ranke’s copy of the Codex Fuldensis.

Likewise, this line of the thread will also be concluded in the blogsite below:
I treat this blog as if it were a Catholic site, and I expect it to be criticized if I overstep any mark which would earn criticism on your site.
The Forgotten Gospel

 

[utunumsint]

Sorry for joining this thread so late, but I was wondering what was it’s purpose?

Is it that Tatian’s amalgamated Gospel was really the original gospels?

God bless,
Ut

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Sorry for joining this thread so late, but I was wondering what was it’s purpose?

Is it that Tatian’s amalgamated Gospel was really the original gospels?

God bless,
Ut

In a very real sense, the answer has to be positive.
There exist no direct witnesses to the Gospels that predate Tatian.
That does not mean that the tales and traditions did not exist, for indeed, they had to be existant in some form for Tatian to use them.
They were not though, seen as ‘scripture’, they were just the tales of story-tellers.
Not that this implies any disrespect, story tellers were the Reuters of their time.
A story teller was a much respected person. he was the source of the latest news, and also a purveyor of country wisdom.

There is evidence that the writing of the Latin Gospels, which was commissioned by Pope Victor I, just before his death, and completed about AD200, was based on the work of Tatian, indeed, Tatian may have worked on the project.

You have to consider the possibility that Tatian and Ammonius were one and the same person.
For:
Tatian disappears into obscurity in Syria at about the same time as Ammonius appears at Alexandria.
There is no tradition of the death of Tatian, and no grave marker.
There is no history connected with Ammonius, who appears from nowhere, as a man without a past.
Both these persons have the same skills and interests, in quite close detail.
Against:
Doing the arithmetic, with what dates we have, if we take the meeting of Tatian with Justinius to be about his 14th birthday, this could bee seen as very early, but was the traditional age for entering an apprenticeship, then given the known date for the death of Ammonius, this requires an age in excess of 110 years. Improbable, but not impossible.
There is also a curious passage in the Codex Fuldensis Gospel, where Tatian uses a passage from John in preference to one from Matthew.
When the text is examined, the possibility begins to grow, that this passage never was in Matthew, but is a migration of the Johanine passage, via Tatian into Matthew.

It needs to be understood though, that the Diatessaron, written by Tatian, under his own name, was a more primitive record, based upon verbal traditions, whereas, the Latin Diatessaron, attributed to Tatian, but associated with Ammonius, is closely related to the existing Latin Gospels.

Victor of Capua, writing the preface, calls it Diapente, or from five, rather than Diatessaron, from four. This implies that he understood the tradition that this was a reworking of the Diatessaron, recompiling from the new, (AD200) Gospels, using the old Diatessaron as a guide.
It is NOT a re-editing of the Diatessron, both the coarse structure, and the fine structure are significantly different. It is definitely a fresh compilation.

As such it is an excellent witness to how the Latin Gospels stood in AD200.

Actually, the Codex Fuldensis is not the Victor Codex as it left the hands of Victor of Capua, but rather, a copy, possibly made in Ireland, about AD700, possibly made especially for Wynfried. It shows some signs of “correction” to Jeromean text in places, whereas, the Codex Sangallensis, seems to be a closer copy of the original, with fewer “corrections”.

Trouble is, all this is Latin.
In spite of my challenges and pleas, the only existing English version of this witness is from my very poor hand.
You can look at the eBook, and you can easily find my sources.

I cannot give definitive judgments, only opinions from perceived probabilities.

 

[utunumsint]

In a very real sense, the answer has to be positive.
There exist no direct witnesses to the Gospels that predate Tatian.
That does not mean that the tales and traditions did not exist, for indeed, they had to be existant in some form for Tatian to use them.
They were not though, seen as ‘scripture’, they were just the tales of story-tellers.
Not that this implies any disrespect, story tellers were the Reuters of their time.
A story teller was a much respected person. he was the source of the latest news, and also a purveyor of country wisdom.

There is evidence that the writing of the Latin Gospels, which was commissioned by Pope Victor I, just before his death, and completed about AD200, was based on the work of Tatian, indeed, Tatian may have worked on the project.

You have to consider the possibility that Tatian and Ammonius were one and the same person.
For:
Tatian disappears into obscurity in Syria at about the same time as Ammonius appears at Alexandria.
There is no tradition of the death of Tatian, and no grave marker.
There is no history connected with Ammonius, who appears from nowhere, as a man without a past.
Both these persons have the same skills and interests, in quite close detail.
Against:
Doing the arithmetic, with what dates we have, if we take the meeting of Tatian with Justinius to be about his 14th birthday, this could bee seen as very early, but was the traditional age for entering an apprenticeship, then given the known date for the death of Ammonius, this requires an age in excess of 110 years. Improbable, but not impossible.
There is also a curious passage in the Codex Fuldensis Gospel, where Tatian uses a passage from John in preference to one from Matthew.
When the text is examined, the possibility begins to grow, that this passage never was in Matthew, but is a migration of the Johanine passage, via Tatian into Matthew.

It needs to be understood though, that the Diatessaron, written by Tatian, under his own name, was a more primitive record, based upon verbal traditions, whereas, the Latin Diatessaron, attributed to Tatian, but associated with Ammonius, is closely related to the existing Latin Gospels.

Victor of Capua, writing the preface, calls it Diapente, or from five, rather than Diatessaron, from four. This implies that he understood the tradition that this was a reworking of the Diatessaron, recompiling from the new, (AD200) Gospels, using the old Diatessaron as a guide.
It is NOT a re-editing of the Diatessron, both the coarse structure, and the fine structure are significantly different. It is definitely a fresh compilation.

As such it is an excellent witness to how the Latin Gospels stood in AD200.

Actually, the Codex Fuldensis is not the Victor Codex as it left the hands of Victor of Capua, but rather, a copy, possibly made in Ireland, about AD700, possibly made especially for Wynfried. It shows some signs of “correction” to Jeromean text in places, whereas, the Codex Sangallensis, seems to be a closer copy of the original, with fewer “corrections”.

Trouble is, all this is Latin.
In spite of my challenges and pleas, the only existing English version of this witness is from my very poor hand.
You can look at the eBook, and you can easily find my sources.

I cannot give definitive judgments, only opinions from perceived probabilities.

Interesting

Just a quick question. What exactly do you mean by this? “There exist no direct witnesses to the Gospels that predate Tatian.”

Ireneaus mentions that Marcion was editing the existing Gospel of Luke, which caused an outrage among orthodox Christians, not just because he edited this Gospel, but also because he rejected the other Gospels. How can this be if there was only one Gospel?

Clement of Alexandria mentions Matthew, Marc, Luke and John. How is it that he was wrong?

Also, on another note, I once made note of all quotations from Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, and Clement of Rome, and I found that 95% of the new Testament was being quoted from. These certainly predate both Tatian, Marcion, and Justine…

God bless,
Ut

 

[utunumsint]

I also forgot to mention the Muratorian fragment.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Interesting

Just a quick question. What exactly do you mean by this? “There exist no direct witnesses to the Gospels that predate Tatian.”

Tatian’s first Diatessaron is dated about AD 170. We have a very direct witness of his text from Ephrem Syrus, who quotes verbatim, quite considerable passages. Thus we have good witness, not only of its existance, but of quite a few extensive readings.
What these readings show though is that the form of his source was still fluid, and probably verbal tradition. The currency of story-tellers.
Indeed, Tatian himself was a story teller, as was Justinius, his master.
What Justinian, and especially Tatian did, was to write down the stories.
Tatian, though, following the tradition of Luke, gathered the disparate witnesses into a unified account, and performed the task with remarkable skill.

Ireneaus mentions that Marcion was editing the existing Gospel of Luke, which caused an outrage among orthodox Christians, not just because he edited this Gospel, but also because he rejected the other Gospels. How can this be if there was only one Gospel?

I do not deny, in fact I assert strongly, that the Gospels did exist, but for the most part they were just verbal traditions. One exception is Proto Matthew, which has been reconstructed from evidence woven into the synoptics.
Matthew was a tax collector, and a scribe.
The tools of his trade included the wax tablet, and the stylus.
His education included a primitive form of shorthand, with which he could note down actual speech in real time. It is from ‘Q’ that nearly all the words spoken by Our Lord are reported.
Whether Matthew copied his wax tablets to parchment, or onto his heart, is an open question, for no written evidence of Q exists.
Likewise, no written evidence of any Gospels prior to Tatian’s first Diatessaron exists.

Clement of Alexandria mentions Matthew, Marc, Luke and John. How is it that he was wrong?

Clement of Alexandria was a contemporary of Ammonius, the presumed alter ego of Tatian.
In this era, the Latin Gospels were newly in existance.
The Gospel of Marcion was like the other Gospels, a verbal account, and still fluid in form.

Also, on another note, I once made note of all quotations from Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, and Clement of Rome, and I found that 95% of the new Testament was being quoted from. These certainly predate both Tatian, Marcion, and Justine…

God bless,
Ut

Et cum spiritu tuo.
Yes, the verbal traditions were current, but no written account is witnessed prior to AD200.

ps.
The Muratorian fragment is just that.
But this is not an ancient document, seventh century I believe.
There are fragments of written Gospel text, which are indeed ancient, but these can not be proven to be anything more than commentaries on reports heard.
They are but sand, upon which nothing can be built, other than what they witness, which is:
There was a tradition. . .

 

[utunumsint]

Tatian’s first Diatessaron is dated about AD 170. We have a very direct witness of his text from Ephrem Syrus, who quotes verbatim, quite considerable passages. Thus we have good witness, not only of its existance, but of quite a few extensive readings.
What these readings show though is that the form of his source was still fluid, and probably verbal tradition. The currency of story-tellers.
Indeed, Tatian himself was a story teller, as was Justinius, his master.
What Justinian, and especially Tatian did, was to write down the stories.
Tatian, though, following the tradition of Luke, gathered the disparate witnesses into a unified account, and performed the task with remarkable skill.

I do not deny, in fact I assert strongly, that the Gospels did exist, but for the most part they were just verbal traditions. One exception is Proto Matthew, which has been reconstructed from evidence woven into the synoptics.
Matthew was a tax collector, and a scribe.
The tools of his trade included the wax tablet, and the stylus.
His education included a primitive form of shorthand, with which he could note down actual speech in real time. It is from ‘Q’ that nearly all the words spoken by Our Lord are reported.
Whether Matthew copied his wax tablets to parchment, or onto his heart, is an open question, for no written evidence of Q exists.
Likewise, no written evidence of any Gospels prior to Tatian’s first Diatessaron exists.

But this flies in the face of what Ireneaus says, who does not mention verbal traditions, but written documents that Marcion mangled.

Ireneaus mentions Matthew here in his first book against the Heresies:

1. Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God;
   but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of
   Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the Gospel according to Matthew only,
   and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from
   the law.

And here he mentions Luke, and certainly not a verbal version of Luke.

Besides this, he mutilates the Gospel which
is according to Luke, removing all that is written respecting the
generation of the Lord, and setting aside a great deal of the teaching of
the Lord, in which the Lord is recorded as most dearly confessing that the
Maker of this universe is His Father. He likewise persuaded his disciples
that he himself was more worthy of credit than are those apostles who have
handed down the Gospel to us, furnishing them not with the Gospel, but
merely a fragment of it. In like manner, too, he dismembered the Epistles
of Paul, removing all that is said by the apostle respecting that God who
made the world, to the effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and also those passages from the prophetical writings which the
apostle quotes, in order to teach us that they announced beforehand the
coming of the Lord.

See him also quoting directly from the Gospel of John in the second book

John, the disciple of the Lord,
declares regarding Him: “All things were made by Him, and without Him was
nothing made.”(1)

it is written, “For many believed in Him, when they saw the signs which He
did,”(8) as John the disciple of the Lord records.

He does not mention a verbal record, but uses the words, "It is written…as John… records.

And here is one in book 3 from Mark

Wherefore also Mark, the interpreter and follower of Peter, does
thus commence his Gospel narrative: "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send My
messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way.(10)

Anyway. I don’t see evidence of a verbal tradition that Ireneaus was working from. Nor do I see this in Ignatius, Clement of Rome, or Polycarp.

Or maybe I’m just not understanding your argument…

God bless,
Ut

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

But this flies in the face of what Ireneaus says, who does not mention verbal traditions, but written documents that Marcion mangled.

Ireneaus mentions Matthew here in his first book against the Heresies:

And here he mentions Luke, and certainly not a verbal version of Luke.

See him also quoting directly from the Gospel of John in the second book

He does not mention a verbal record, but uses the words, "It is written…as John… records.

And here is one in book 3 from Mark

Anyway. I don’t see evidence of a verbal tradition that Ireneaus was working from. Nor do I see this in Ignatius, Clement of Rome, or Polycarp.

Or maybe I’m just not understanding your argument…

God bless,
Ut

All your witnesses are contemporary with Ammonius, and are quoting from the Latin Gospels translated on the commission of Victor I papa.

I think you misunderstand the concept of story teller.
These were extremely well skilled memorizers. They could recite, from memory, the complete works of Isaiah.
They were the equivalent of news-print.
The skill is not lost, even today, many Muslims can recite the entire Koran from memory, without so much as a comma out of place.
A story-tellers recital was as much a witnessed version, as was the written word in many senses. A scribe though was needed for legal purposes to record details.
The quotations you have then would be these scribal reports.
But, yes, the accounts did drift,
Sometime due to a less skilled story teller, and sometimes due to deliberate mutation.
This was easier without a written record, but a skilled story teller would recognise the errors, and report them, if he could not correct them.
Again, a scribe would record these reports.

Thus the position still stands, that there is no solid evidence of complete written Gospels prior to the Latin Gospels of AD200.

 

[utunumsint]

All your witnesses are contemporary with Ammonius, and are quoting from the Latin Gospels translated on the commission of Victor I papa.

So are you implying that Irenaeus was lieing? Or are you simply saying that Tatian/Ammonius were the first to collect various versions of the Gosepls of Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John, amalgamated it, and pope Victor used this version to create the version of the four that we know today?

I think you misunderstand the concept of story teller.
These were extremely well skilled memorizers. They could recite, from memory, the complete works of Isaiah.
They were the equivalent of news-print.
The skill is not lost, even today, many Muslims can recite the entire Koran from memory, without so much as a comma out of place.
A story-tellers recital was as much a witnessed version, as was the written word in many senses.

My issue with this statement is that in the examples of the story tellers you mention, there had to be a written version first. The Koran and the works of Isaiah are examples.

A scribe though was needed for legal purposes to record details.
The quotations you have then would be these scribal reports.

So are you claiming that the Gospels were first written down for legal purposes?

But, yes, the accounts did drift,
Sometime due to a less skilled story teller, and sometimes due to deliberate mutation.
This was easier without a written record, but a skilled story teller would recognise the errors, and report them, if he could not correct them.
Again, a scribe would record these reports.

Thus the position still stands, that there is no solid evidence of complete written Gospels prior to the Latin Gospels of AD200.

What I will admit to is this: Scripture up until and even after the time of Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, and even Justine, was more associated with the old testament than the new. It took a hack like Marcion to startle the church into the necessity of forming an official cannon. Also included in this impetus was the circulation of douzens of gnostic gospels. Ireneaus is the first one who looks on the gospels as an official “cannonical” group of text that by default negates the authority of all pretender gospels.

So in a sense, I can see that it would make sense from a Catholic perspective to make this claim since it was the church that decided on the contents of the scriptures.

But I do have issue with claiming that Tatian’s amalgamated gospel was the original version of the four since the style of Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John are so very different. It also throws out the historical critical analysis of these different gospel traditions…or maybe you are not going that far?

God bless,
Ut

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

So are you implying that Irenaeus was lieing? Or are you simply saying that Tatian/Ammonius were the first to collect various versions of the Gosepls of Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John, amalgamated it, and pope Victor used this version to create the version of the four that we know today?

If you read the introduction to ‘The Forgotten Gospel’, you might get a feeling for what I believe happened.
Both Justinius and Tatian worked on Gospel Harmonies based on word-of-mouth accounts current in the Holy Land. Whereas Justinius failed to incorporate the Johanine tradition, Tatian saw a way to entwine the Matthean tradition with the Johanine tradition, after each had been individually augmented with the traditions of Mark and Luke, using the latter traditions as markers.
This was the first witnessed written form of the Gospel account.
There were a multitude of what are incorrectly called fragments, but because these ‘fragments’ had never been part of any written whole, they should more correctly be called building blocks. Many of these building blocks had been collected in the great library of Alexandria, where Tatian/Ammonius found them, and recognising them for what they were, and with his knowledge of the traditions, for both he and Justinius were accomplished story-tellers, he was able to assemble these blocks into the Gospels we know today.
The job was not executed perfectly, and some sections were attributed to the wrong traditions. For instance, the tale of the adulteress, which belongs in Luke, was placed in John. There were also building blocks missing, which Tatian/Ammonius restored from memory. This could account for the change of style at the ending of Mark.
All this work was done under the supervision of Victor I papa, shortly before his death.
It is through the genius of Victor and Tatian that we have the Latin Gospels, which have changed so little in all these years. Even St Jerome withheld his hand from anything more than the most necessary emendation, touching less than 15% of verses, an then only changing a word or two. In terms of words, then, he changed less than 0.5% of the Gospels.
It was only after the completion of the 4 Latin Gospels that the Latin Diatessaron was compiled. It was decided that the old version, based upon verbal tradition was too inaccurate to be updated in view of the new Gospels, for its time-line was in error, so it was recompiled, using the original only as a guide.

My issue with this statement is that in the examples of the story tellers you mention, there had to be a written version first. The Koran and the works of Isaiah are examples.

No. The Koran was recited. It was not written down until some time later.
Consider the Dream Time stories of the Australian Aborigines. They have been told Grandfather to Grandson for 40,000 years! The dawn of writing in Australia was less than a few hundred years ago.
A written account was not needed, only a reliable method of handing on the tale, using saturation immersion, over many years, as is available with the tradition of grandfather to grandson, and with apprenticeship.

So are you claiming that the Gospels were first written down for legal purposes?

In a word, yes.
Occasionally, a wealthy person might send his scribe to record a story where he could not himself attend a hearing.
But for the most part, the teaching was carried by word of mouth, and the text was riddled with mneumonics to assist the recall of the teller.

What I will admit to is this: Scripture up until and even after the time of Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, and even Justine, was more associated with the old testament than the new. It took a hack like Marcion to startle the church into the necessity of forming an official cannon. Also included in this impetus was the circulation of dozens of gnostic gospels. Ireneaus is the first one who looks on the gospels as an official “cannonical” group of text that by default negates the authority of all pretender gospels.

Though Tatian is derided as a terible heretic, actually, his Encratite tendency was no worse than that of St Paul. In regard of the Syrian Area, his beliefs were quite orthodox, and he went out of his way to put down heretics, writing many condemnations of such.
It is quite possible that the first Diatessaron was intended as a response to the Marcion heterodoxy. It was Tatian who decided that the best basis for a Gospel record was founded upon the 4 Evangelists, it was in response to his unified Gospel, that some professors started to seek out the ‘pure’ evangelical traditions, but though the traditions could be found, they comprised only packs of building blocks without any key to their structure. Tatian’s Diatessaron was the key to the structure.

So in a sense, I can see that it would make sense from a Catholic perspective to make this claim since it was the church that decided on the contents of the scriptures.

But I do have issue with claiming that Tatian’s amalgamated gospel was the original version of the four since the style of Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John are so very different. It also throws out the historical critical analysis of these different gospel traditions…or maybe you are not going that far?

God bless,
Ut

end of part 1

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

No, I am not going that far. What I m saying is that prior to Tatian, the Gospels only existed as disconnected building blocks. If you look at Mark, you can see what I mean.
There is no continuous story, just a collection of vignettes assembled into something resembling a sequence, bu whereas in Matthew, the sequence can be interpreted as a tale lasting, for the ministry, 3 years, Mark’s account is collapsed into just one year.
It would seem that Mark’s Gospel was intended as a liturgical calendar, rather than a history. Why though was not the time line in Mark corrected? Well, Tatian used only a tiny fragment of the Markan record, not enough to correct the time-line.
As for Critical analysis, where most of them fall down is in the assumption that each Gospel appeared complete in its own instant. This is far from true. The collections of tales crystalized only slowly. So basing a sequence upon the instants of completion, assuming zero gestation, generates a fallacy.
Yes Mark was finished first, but both John and Matthew were started during the ministry.
Luke was Paul’s spin-doctor.

 

[utunumsint]

OK. In term of what you say about historical criticism, I think this rings true with what the church teaches about the formation of the gospels, and the sitz in leiben.

But reguarding your theory on snippets of gospel stories, and verbal traditions, I think there were men who wrote down the gospels very early for liturgical, theological, and apologetical purposes. Not just snippets of stories.

I agree with you that we do not have the original manuscripts, but that does not mean there was none. Justine witnesses very early on that during the liturgy, the memoirs of the apsotles were read. Granted, it may not be in the final form we know of today, but there was certainly some kernel of the gospels in use in his day. Irenaeus metions that the ebionites only used Matthew, which fits well since they were a strictly jewish sect of christianity, most likely a remenant of the judaizer faction that Paul struggled with and the “against” faction represented in the Jerusalem council, or in line with the jewish Jerusalem church that relocated to pella just before the fall of the jerusalem under Titus.

The point is that if Marc comes before Matthew, then we have the formation of the gospels very early on, and because this formation was in a liturgical context, it only makes sense it would be written down.

There may have been other motivations than liturgical for the writing down of the gospels. For example, the church of Matthew’s day most likely knew about the destruction of the second temple. This was a monumental change in their religious self understanding. If you read act, you see that James’ group in Jerusalem still visited the temple, often on a daily basis, to make prayers and sacrifices. They only leave for Pella after the High Priest kills James. But along with this departure comes a departure from all temple based sacrifices and worship. Fortunatly Paul and Peter had already given them a groundwork for understanding their faith apart from the Jewish ceremonial law and the physical kingdom of Israel. The gospel of Matthew clearly shows these kinds of internal issues, focusing on the new kigndom of Israel, the new sacrifice instituted by christ, the destruction of the temple, etc…

Anyway, your work is very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Dear Friends,
I have been busy, and still am.
Though I have stopped posting the reading, I am still working on Ernestus Ranke’s transliteration of the Codex Fuldensis, rendering the image file, available from Google Books, into a text file, keeping a close as physically possible to the original lay out.
This is to assist proof reading.
I have so far completed 269 of the 616 pages, completing the Gospel, Romans, and Corinthians I.
It is not a quick and easy job, and I am lucky if I complete 10 pages in a day, more usually, about 3 is the score.
You can access my work via my website.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Progress so far:
320 of 616 pages;
This though completes the Gospel,
Romans,
Corinthians I,
Corinthians II,
Galatians,
Ephesians,
Philippians,
Thessalonians I,
Thessalonians II,
and is starting Colossians.

The complete posting can be found on the blogsite below:
I treat this blog as if it were a Catholic site, and I expect it to be criticized if I overstep any mark which would earn criticism on your site.
The Forgotten Gospel

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

23Noli adhuc aquam bibere sed uino modico utere propter
sthomacum tuum et frequentes tuas infirmatates»

In re-typesetting Ernestus Ranke’s book, I have reached close to the ending of I Timothy.
Here at the 23rd verse of the Vth chapter, I found the above, and alarm bells started ringing, for I recalled how we commonly recall this injunction:
Drink a little wine for your stomach’s sake.
I read again, how this is reported in RSVCE, and find:
No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for your stomach and your frequent ailments.
However, uino, and modico are both ablative, so modico should not be understood as a little of wine, which would imply that uino should be genetive, but rather that modicum describes the quality of the wine, rather than the quantity.
Let is consider the times.
Many of the Christians were at the bottom of society.
Many were slaves.
Living in cities, the water supply would likely be tainted, as was the water supply in 18th, and 19th century London.
There, drinking water was dangerous, and a hazard of cholera, and indeed many died, from what was indeed an infirmity of the stomach.
There were among Christians also, those from the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Extremists from among them held fast to abstinance from alcohol, as was John the Baptist raised.
Remember, Paul’s primary helper was Luke, a physician, who would be aware of the hazards of drinking tainted water.
In London, the medical advise was to drink beer, for the yeast, which fermented the beer, also killed the microbes responsible for the cholera.
Is not Paul just giving this same advice to a people living in an area with tainted drinking water?
Should not the verse be read as:
No longer drink water, but use weak wine for your stomach and your frequent ailments.

Progress so far:
335 of 616 pages;
This though completes the Gospel,
Romans,
Corinthians I,
Corinthians II,
Galatians,
Ephesians,
Philippians,
Thessalonians I,
Thessalonians II,
Colossians,
Laodicians,
and is finishing I Timothy.