TATIANUS

TATIANUS

785

reality, only imitated. An Orpheus had taughtthem poetry, song, and initiation into themysteries, the Tuscans sculpture, the Egyptianshistory. To rustic Phrygians they owed theharmony of the shepherd’s pipe, to Tyrrheniansthe trumpet, to the Cyclopes the smith’s art,and to Atossa, queen of the Persians, the methodof joining letter-tablets (see Otto’s note). Again,they should not boast of the excellency of theirdiction when they imported into it “ barbaric ”expression, and maintained no uniformity ofpronunciation. Of Doric, Attic, Aeolian, Ionian,which was the real Greek? Further, let themnot boast when they employed rhetoric to sub-serve injustice and sycophancy, and poetry todepict battles, the amours of gods, and the cor-ruption of the soul.

Tatian has no love for Greek philosophy orits teachers. Hence he finds no difficulty in ac-cepting and circulating the most exploded errorsabout them (ch. ii., iii.). What holy thing{(T€fivbp), he asks, has this philosophy ever pro-duced, or which of its most zealous teachers hasever been free from imposture or arrogance(aAafovela)? Look, he cries, at their characters—Diogenes killed by his gluttony; Aristippus,the purple-clad, practising the profligacy hepreached; Aristotle, shut up and carried aboutlike a wild animal in most Aristotelian fashionby his pupil Alexander; Heraclitus, “the dark,”the man who had “ explored” himself, physicianand philosopher in one, stupidly killing himselfwith his plaster of cow-dung; Zeno, the Stoic,reviving, by his doctrine of conflagration, morebad men than good!

Men must not allow themselves to be carriedaway by such non-philosophic philosophers.They dogmatise one against the other, and dobut utter the crudest thoughts of the moment.They are stumbling-blocks to each other ; theyhate one another; they differ; and they whoshould (philosophically) wait till the great onesof the earth pay court to them, pick out arro-gantly places of pre-eminence.

Tatian next formulates a grievance against theGreeks. They wished to bring upon Christiansthe blows (cSoTrep eV irvy/xy) of the civil power.Why ? Practically for disobedience to the laws.Tatian answers: “ When a king orders me topay tribute 1 am ready. When my master com-mands my service and duty I recognise his right.But when he bids me deny my God—Who aloneis to be feared—then I will die rather than obeyor be false and ungrateful.” Was that wrong ?Not if the Greeks really knew Who it was theChristians worshipped; and then he explains :“ Our God hath nothing which can be estimatedby time (<riWcwtv iv xp<W)> He alone is with-out beginning (&vapx°0, au d He Himself is thebeginning of all things.” God is Spirit (cp. St.John iv. 24), not (simply) pervading matterG'Aij), but One Who prepares (/caTaoTceucurT^s)^material spirits and the forms which exist in;matter. He is invisible and impalpable ; Him-self the Father of what is cognisable by thesenses and of what is invisible. We know Himthrough His creation, and His invisible powerwe apprehend through His works (cp. Rom. i.20). “ I will not worship,” says Tatian, “ work-

manship ( brifuovpyiav ) which He hath createdfor our sake. He hath made the sun and themoon for us. How can I worship my servants

CUBIST. BlOGIt.—VOL. IV.

(fanip4ras) ? How can I call stocks and stonesgods ? The spirit that pervades matter is inferiorto the more Divine Spirit; but, even when as-similated to the soul, it is not to be honouredequally with the perfect God. Neither will Ioffer gifts to our ineffable (avcoj/6/xa(TTos) God”(contrast the title Ba>po\r}TTTcu applied to thegods of the heathen), “for He Who needs nothing(a^evSeT/s) is not to be slandered as if He wereneedy” (cp. Acts xvii. 25). This train of thoughtleads Tatian to set forth more distinctly theChristian doctrines: e.g. on the Logos (ch. v.)and the resurrection.

Ch. v., if one of the most important (doc-trinally) in the Oratio , is also unhappily one ofthe most difficult. The following translation issubmitted with considerable diffidence :—

“In the beginning was God. We have beentaught that the beginning is the power of theLogos. For the Lord of all, being Himself thesubstance (foreWarn) of all, in so far thatcreation had not yet taken place, was alone;but in so far as He was Himself all power, andthe substance of things visible and invisible, allthings were with Him: (and thus) with Him byLogos-power (5 ta A oyiKijs Si/ya^uecos), the veryLogos Himself, Who was in Him, subsisted(iW<m 7 <re). By the simple will of God theLogos springs forth, and not proceeding forthwithout cause (/caret Kevov), becomes the first-begotten work of the Father. Him we recogniseas the beginning of the world. He was born byparticipation, not by scission (/carcfc (XGpiGfxbv ovKarh airoKoir^v) ; for He Who proceeds by scissionis separated from the first, but He Who has pro-ceeded by participation and has accepted a partin the administration of the world (to . . . oiko-vop.ias tt]v alp€(Tiv irpo(r\a$bv), hath not renderedHim defective from Whom He was taken. Justas many fires are lighted from one torch, but thelight of the first torch is not lessened throughthe kindling of the many, so the Logos comingforth from the power of the Father hath notmade Him Who begat Him without Logos(&\o 7 ov). I myself speak and you hear, yetsurely I who talk with you do not by the trans-mission of speech become empty of speech ; butin putting forth my voice I give order to theunordered matter in you. And as the Logos,begotten in the beginning, begot in His turn ourcreation, He having first created for Himself thematerial (r)]v vAtjv dTjfuovpy'tja'as '); so also I, inimitation of the Logos, being begotten again,and having apprehended the truth, remodelwhat is indistinct in matter kindred (to myself).For neither is matter without beginning likeGod, nor is it—since it is not without beginning—of equal power with God; but it is begotten andnot made by any other being, but produced bythe Creator of all things,”

As a sequence to this belief in the power ofGod being greater than that of matter, Tatianupholds the belief in the resurrection of thebody at the end of all things. It will be aresurrection accompanied by judgment in which,not Minos nor Rhadamanthus, but God theCreator will Himself be the Judge ( 8oKifxacrT-f)s ).“You may think us,” says Tatian, “ chatterersand babblers ” ( [<nr€pfj.o\6yous , cp. Acts xvii. 18)for holding this belief; but the sneer does nottrouble him. His argument is briefly this“ There was a time when 1 did not exist: I was

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