Chapter 16: Tatian and the Fabrication of the New Testament

Born in Syria around 120, Tatian posthumously became one of the founders of the Church due to his extremism in matters of asceticism. Irenaeus attacked him because, “like Marcion and Satornil, he called marriage a corruption and debauchery. He maintained that Adam was not saved.”[256]

Converted to Christianity, and a disciple of Justin in Rome, Tatian was exposed to the attacks of Crescentius, Justin’s accuser. Teaching Christianity in Rome around 172–173, he professed the anti-Marcionism of his master and transmitted it to his disciple, Rhodon. Then he left for the East and founded schools while the New Prophecy took off. One supposes that he died at the end of that decade.

Tatian’s single known work falls under the heading of the apologetic. His Speech to the Greeks opposed Christianity to Greek philosophy in general and the Stoics in particular. In it he developed ideas shared by Tertullian and the new popular current. His profession of monotheist faith contradicted accusations of dualism, which were often made about him by the Catholics. On the other hand, his idea of the Christ had not evolved since Justin: “The celestial Logos, spirit born from the Father and reason issued from the reasonable power — in imitation of the Father who engendered him — made man in the image of immortality, so that, to the extent incorruptibility is in God, man likewise participates in the lot of God and possesses immortality. But before forming man, the Logos created the angels.”[257] The holy spirit is called the minister of God who suffered.

Tatian’s essay On Perfection, According to the Savior is lost, but Clement of Alexandria picked out of it an absolute condemnation of marriage that surpasses the Montanist spirit. The Church profited by erecting Tatian as the leader of a phantom heresy called Encratism, in which were grouped together — thanks to the Church’s Fourth Century struggle against the Donatists and the Circoncellions — the supporters of an excessive moral rigor.

No doubt there was another reason for the animosity of the Church towards Tatian. Deschner cites him as among the copyists who re-worked the letters of Paul and gave them a stylistic unity.[258]

The wave of popular Christianity engendered a general revival of the Jewish midrashim, translated somehow or other by the Judeo-Christians, and in need of being de-Judaized and explained rationally to the general public. Tatian has been credited with having harmonized (in addition to Paul’s letters) the many propagandistic texts that were passed off as the gospel preached by the Apostle, because there was only one at the time.

Nevertheless, neither Irenaeus, Tertullian, nor Clement of Alexandria mentioned the Diatessaron euaggelion, which would remain until the Fifth Century the dogmatic work par excellence of the Syrian Christian churches before being replaced by the four gospels of the Catholic Church. A Greek fragment of 14 lines recovered at Dura-Europos dates from 230 at the latest. It proposes placing end to end the fragments of the gospels attributed to Mark, Luke and Matthew. Is this the Diatessaron and, if so, is it that of Tatian? How come Tertullian, an admirer of Tatian, does not mention it? As far as the fragments by Irenaeus, they have been altered too much to offer a serious testimony concerning the canonical gospels in the Second Century.[259]

The Canonical Gospels

What aspect did Christianity present at the end of the Second Century? Although the Greeks and Romans did not distinguish it from Judaism and confused the sectarians of Jesus, the Sethians, the Naassenes, the Barbelites and other messianists, the New Prophecy implanted in the urban milieu a popular Christianity that attracted slaves, a fraction of the plebes and the petite bourgeois (thus a fringe of the aristocracy, as well), until then rather receptive to Gnostic doctrines and philosophical Chrisianity.

If the importance accorded to faith, to life according to the Christ, to asceticism, to the refusal of riches and to the vocation of martyrdom reduced Gnosticism to a marginal existence, which Christianity would nevertheless exploit in the genesis of its theology, Gnosticism was embraced by a good number of bishops and heads of communities who, since Trajan’s conventions (renewed by Hadrian), had been integrated into public life and, careful to avoid all scandal, already carried themselves as if they were future ecclesiastical bureaucrats of the triumphant Church. The ardor and fanaticism of the poor Christians embarrassed the lax bishops of the Second Century. They would form the proto-Catholic current or, more exactly, would be chosen in the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Centuries as the representatives of a back-dated orthodoxy.

Ecclesiastical reticenceincreased the number of lapsi, supplemented by the persecutions of the Third Century, whereas Montanist intransigence was perpetuated among the partisans of Novatian and, much later, Donat.

The midrashim of the Elchasaite and Judeo-Christian Churches conferred a legitimacy to particular and often rival churches: the churches of Thomas, Simon-Peter, Jacob, Saul-Paul, Clement, Philippe, Matthias... The unity imposed by the great movement of the New Prophecy collated writings of diverse origins, translated several times from the Hebrew or Aramaic, which were revised and imitated. The unusual ensemble then gave birth to a Propaganda-literature adapted to the popular brushwork [facture] of the movement. Anti-Semitism, miraculous fables and the exaltation of poverty and sacrifice little by little composed a Jesus who was better conformed to the plebian mindset. The apostles, initially the witnesses of the Lord, whose mythical authority guaranteed such and such a community, thenceforth formed a cohort charged with propagating the Christian law that was substituted for Mosaic law.

The apostles erected as saints and martyrs served as models for the exaltation of the Christians of Carthage, Scili, Lyon, Vienna and Rome.

The Acts circulated, telling of the marvelous adventures, deaths and ascensions of Peter, Paul, Barnabas, Philippe, Andrew and Jacob, who were the heroes of a saga dominated by Joshua, cut from the same cloth as the Christians who caused scandals and perished for their faith.

Justin[260] and Tertullian[261] mentioned the Acts of Pilate. (Augmented in the Fifth Century by a description of hell, the Acts would in the Eighth Century form the Gospel of Nicomede, in which the legends of Joseph of Arimathea and the Grail appeared. The Acts was originally a Montanist or pre-Montanist text that had been excluded from the canon.) Held as a saint and martyr in Syria and Egypt, Pilate still belonged to a dramaturgy in which the angelos-christos entered into a brief terrestrial existence in a historical context.

The Acts of Pilate contain the materials that would serve, in the hands of copyists less exalted and more careful with historical probability, into the fabrication of the canonical Gospels: “It was the sixth hour; an obscurity covered the entire world until the ninth hour. The sun was obscured: the veil of the temple went from on high to down below, and cut it in two. Jesus cried in a loud voice: My Father, Abi, Adasch, Ephkidon, Adonai, Sabel, Louel, Eloei, Elemas, Ablakanei, Orioth, Mioth, Ouaoth, Soun, Perineth, Jothat.”[262]

The names evoked by Jesus, which identified him with a magician or a thaumaturgist, corresponded to the Eons of power that were figured upon the abraxas or talismans of magic rituals.[263]

Tertullian’s recital in his Apologetics merits being quoted because, effacing thaumaturgical aspects, it constitued a more sober and yet very different version than that retained by the Catholic canon. The Christ was still the angelos-christos, but prey to a terrestrial drama that was perfectly understandable by the faithful who were headed towards punishment and a radiant celestial resurrection:

Thus, what comes from God is God, the Son of God, and the two make only one. Thus the spirit that comes from the spirit and the God who comes from God are different in position [la mesure], he is second in rank, not in situation, and he came from his source without being detached from it.

Thus, this ray of God, as he had always foretold, descended as a Virgin and, being incarnated in her womb, he was born man mixed with God. The flesh united with the spirit, nourished itself, grew, spoke, taught, worked — and here is the Christ. For the moment, accept this ‘fable’ (it is similar to yours), while waiting for me to show you how the Christ was tested and who were those who, in advance, circulated among you fables of this type, so as to destroy this truth.

The Jews also knew that the Christ would come, because the prophets had spoken to them. And, indeed, even today, they await his coming, and between them and us there is no greater subject of contestation than their refusal to believe that he has already come.

Because two ascensions of the Christs were announced: one that would be accomplished in the humility of the human condition; another that was expected at the end of the world [siecle], in the sublime splendor of the paternal power received and the divinity clearly manifested. Therefore, the Jews — not understanding the first — believe that the second was unique, and they hoped for it as it was clearly foretold.

By their sin, the Jews have indeed merited being unable to understand the first one: they believed it, if they understood it and they had salvation, if they believed it. They themselves say in the Scriptures that they have been deprived of wisdom, intelligence and the usage of their eyes and ears, as a punishment.

In their abasement, the Jews have thus concluded that he [Jesus] is only a man; and naturally, because of his power, they take him for a magician: actually they see him, according to his own word, chasing demons from the bodies of men, giving sight to the blind, purifying the lepers, straightening up the paralyzed, finally, making the dead come back to life, always according to his word, making the elements serve him, calming the tempests and walking on the waters, thus showing that he was [indeed] the Son previously announced by God, and born for the salvation of all, this Word of God, eternal, first-born, accompanied by his power and intelligence, having his spirit for support.

Hearing the preaching of his doctrines, which confused the doctors and notables among the Jews, who were exasperated, especially when they saw an immense multitude flocking to him: to the point that, finally, they delivered him to Pontius Pilate, who then governed Syria in the name of the Romans and, through the violence of their public approval [leur suffrages], they forced the pro-curator to surrender Jesus so as to put him on a cross. He himself had foretold that they would act thus; this would not have been much, had not the prophets also foretold it.

And yet, attached to the cross, he made many wonderful remarks about his death. Indeed, from himself he rendered his soul with his last words, foreseeing the service of the executioner; at the same moment, the day was deprived of the sun, at the moment that he marked the place of his orb. One certainly believes that this was an eclipse, and those who do not know that this wonder had also been foretold for the death of the Christ, not understanding the reason, deny it and yet you find this global accident set down in your archives.

The Jews, after having detached the body [from the cross] and after having deposited in it a sepulcher, surveilled it with great care, using a military guard: as he had foretold that he would rise from the dead on the third day, the Jews feared that his disciples, furtively removing the cadaver, would deceive their suspicions.

But on the third day, the earth suddenly trembled, the enormous rock placed on the sepulcher was set aside, the guard — struck by fright — dispersed, the disciples did not show themselves, and in the sepulcher one found nothing other than the corpse of a grave-digger.

Nevertheless, the Jewish notables, who had an interest in having people believe in a crime and in diverting people from their faith and thereby rendering them tributary and dependent upon the Jews, spread the rumor that he had been rescued by his disciples. Actually, he did not appear before the multitudes, so as to not uproot the impious from their error and so that faith, destined for a quite precise compensation, was costly to men.

But Jesus passed forty days with several disciples in Galilee, in the province of Judea, where he taught them what he had to teach them. And then, having trusted to them the mission of preaching throughout the whole earth and, enveloped in a cloud, he rose to heaven: an ascension quite a bit truer than the one your Proculus customarily attributes to Romulus.

Pilate, who was himself already a Christian in his heart, announced all of these facts relative to the Christ to Tiberius, then Ceasar. (*) The Ceasars themselves would have believed in the Christ, if the Cesars were necessary to the world or if the Ceasars had been Christians as well as Ceasars.

(*) It is no doubt from the Christian legend of Pilate that the historical staging of the trial of Jesus the agitator was drawn. The events here come under the headings of cosmic dramaturgy and hierophany.

As far as the disciples, scattered throughout the world, they obeyed the precepts of their divine Master; after seeing many suffer at the hands of Jewish persecutors, confident in the truth, they ended by spilling [semer] with joy their Christian blood in Rome, during the cruel persecutions of Nero.

But we will show you irrecusable witnesses to the Christ, even among those whom you adore. It is a great point, which I can make to oblige you to believe the Christians, even those whom you hinder from believing the Christians.

For the moment, here is the chronological history of our religion; here is, we declare, the origin of our sect and our name, with their author.

One no longer reproaches us for any infamy, one does not imagine that there is something else, because it is not permitted for anyone to lie about his religion. Indeed, by saying that one adores another thing than what one [actually] adores, one denies what one adores and one transports one’s homages to another [thing], and by transporting them, one no longer adores what one has repudiated.

Therefore we say, and we say it publicly, and we cry it aloud when we are torn and blood-stained by your tortures: ‘We adore God through the Christ.’ Believe it, [he was] a man, if you like; it is through him that God wanted to be known and adored.

To respond to the Jews, I would say that it was through Moses that they, too, learned to adore God; to the Greeks, I would say that Orpheus in Pierie, Musee in Athens, Melampus in Argos and Trophonius in Boetie bound men [to them] through initiations.[264]

At the same time that the Gnostic Gospels were being propagated, the persistence of an older Christianity — which one discovered at Nag-Hammadi and that consisted of fantastic recitals similar to those which Tertullian decanted for the use of the Greeks and Romans — gave to Jesus more and more of the traits of a historical personage similar to Apollonious of Tyane, not without recalling that he remained God in the same reality as his human nature. For the new Christian wave, Jesus was not a pure spirit. Such a belief, among others, grounds a passsage in the canonical Gospel attributed to Luke (24, 36–43).

In brief, these were the polemics and ideas of the Second Century, which — recuperating and explicating Jewish and Essene speculations about the Messiah — would end up, through additions and corrections, in the novels about Jesus, the Jesus who made people forget about Joshua (but tardily, because in 240 Origen still emphasized the omnipresence of the soldier of Moses).

Upon all those who glimpsed in the growing power of Christianity the perspective of an ascension to power, the necessity imposed itself of ordering and harmonizing the acts, letters, apocalypses and gospels that were as great in number as the rival communities.

It was the epoch in which Celse, in his True Discourse (around 180), mocked the multitude of Christian prophets, their rivalries, their lack of scruples in fabricating texts and in revising the old ones several times. (Tertullian showed where the shoe pinched when he wrote with some irritation: “One does not say that we forge our materials ourselves.”) Each church placed its gospel or sacred text under the name of a “founding father” or an apostle.

The majority of them are unknown. Nevertheless, one cites Tatian and a certain Leucius Charinus. Tertullian attributed the Acts of Paul, in which a recital of his martyrdom and the love that carried him to the young Thecla, to the zeal of an Eastern priest who dedicated a true cult to the Apostle (the text would enjoy a great popular success in its Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syrian, Armenian, Slavic and Arabic versions). The Acts of Paul participated in the Montanist fervor, in the same way that the Gospel attributed to Barthelemy, in which Jesus says, as if addressing Montan: “salvation to you, my twin, second Christ.”

On the other hand, the Ascension of Jacob, of Elchasaite origin, took to Paul warmly.

The misinterpretation of the Hebrew and Aramaic texts engendered, in the course of the cascading translations, incoherencies and bizarre aspects that were all the more perceptible in the apocryphal and canonical Gospels, which subscribed to the Hebrew mythologies through loaned words.

The Epistula apostolorum, probably issued from Asia Minor or Egypt in the second half of the Second Century, appeared as a syncretic attempt that insisted on the miracles and resurrection of Jesus. An apocalypse inscribed itself in the millenarianist preoccupations of Montanism: in the Epistula, Jesus responds to questions about the dates of the parousia and the resurrection. In it there are elements shared with the Gospel attributed to John, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, and Hermas’ The Pastor. In the same spirit, but without millenarianist allusion, the Acts of the Apostles, retained as canonical, reconciles the rival views of Paul and Simon-Peter in a historical novel. It corrects the Epistula, which, in the Montanist line, blamed the bishops and the priests accused of having misled the people of God, after having made apology for “Saul, who wants to be called Paul.”[265]