cannot be defended with the weapons of error. This vicious method was usually the result of mechanical views of inspiration. That view of inspiration which rightly recognises language as vital, and which therefore seeks to know the meaning of every word, has no worse foe than the hermeneutical principle which ignores the historical sense of any word of Scripture. The tendency just referred to brought harmonistic labours into disrepute. The immense activity of the present century in exegetical theology has not taken this direction. Moreover, the historical method received its greatest impulse from the tendency-theory of the Tübingen school, which presupposes the impossibility of constructing a Harmony of the four Gospels. Hence the reaction, in Germany especially, has been excessive. Yet Harmonies are still prepared, and are still useful. Harmonistic labours have their rightful, though limited, place in the field of Exegetical Theology. A very brief sketch of the leading works of this character will serve to illustrate the above statements. The earliest attempt at constructing a Harmony was that of Tatian494 (died A.D. 172). The date of its appearance was between A.D. 153 and 170; and its title, Diatessaron, furnishes abundant evidence of the early acceptance of our four canonical Gospels. Our knowledge of this work was, until recently, very slight. But the discovery of an Armenian translation 69 of a commentary upon it, by Ephraem the Syrian, has enabled Zahn to reconstruct a large part of the text. The commentary was translated into Latin in 1841, but little attention was paid to it until an edition by Moesinger appeared in 1876.495 The influence of Tatian’s Diatessaron upon the Greek text seems to have been unfortunate. Many of the corruptions in the received text of the Gospel of Mark are probably due to the confusion of the separate narratives occasioned by this work. Tregelles (in the new edition of Horne’s Introduction, vol. iv. p. 40) says that it “had more effect apparently in the text of the Gospels in use throughout the Church than all the designed falsifications of Marcion and every scion of the Gnostic blood.” It seems to have contained nothing indicating heretical bias or inten- tional alteration. The next Harmony was that of Ammonius of Alexandria, the teacher of Origen, the first work bearing this title (ἉΑρμονία). It appeared about A.D. 220, but has been lost. Until recently it was supposed that the sections into which some early mss. divide the Gospels were those of Ammonius himself; but, while he did make such divisions, those bearing his name are to be attributed to Eusebius (see below). Ammonius made Matthew the basis of 494 See Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. ii. rev. ed., pp. 493 sqq., 726 sqq.; also Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia, article “Diatessaron.” For the literature, see as above, and the supplementary volume of the Ante- Nicene Fathers, pp. 33–35. Tatian’s Address to the Greeks may be found in vol. ii. Ante-Nicene Fathers, pp. 65–83. 495 For full titles of these volumes, see Schaff, as above. 156 Introductory Essay.