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Tatian

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Also known as Tatianus, Tatian the Syrian

Tatian of Adiabene, or Tatian the Syrian or Tatian the Assyrian, (; ; ; ; – ) was an Assyrian Christian writer and theologian of the 2nd century.

Person · Open Library

Born
ca. 120
Died
173
Works
20

Top works

  • Rede an die griechen übersetzt und eingeleitet
  • Tatian's Diatessaron
  • [Ioustinou tou Philosophou kai martyros episolē proōs Diognēton, kai logos prōs Ellōas]
  • Tatiani Alexandrini harmoniae evangelicae antiquissima versio theotisca ut & Isidori Hispalensis ad Florentinam sororem De nativitate Domini
  • Het leven van Jesus, naar het Middellimburgsche handschrift van Sint Truyen uit de 14. eeuw

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Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
15
Total plays
309

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Tatian">Read more on Last.fm</a>

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Quotes

  • Be not, O Greeks, so very hostilely disposed towards the Barbarians. To the Babylonians you owe astronomy; to the Persians, magic; to the Egyptians, geometry; to the Phoeicians, instruction by alphabetic writing. Cease, then, to miscall these imitations inventions of your own. Orpheus, again, taught you poetry and song; from him, too, you learned the mysteries.
  • What noble thing have you produced by your pursuit of philosophy? Who of your most eminent men has been free from vain boasting? Diogenes, who made such a parade of his independence with his tub, was seized with a bowel complaint through eating a raw polypus, and so lost his life by gluttony. Aristippus, walking about in a purple robe, led a profligate life, in accordance with his professed opinions. Plato, a philosopher, was sold by Dionysius for his gormandizing propensities.
  • The power of the Logos, having in itself a faculty to foresee future events, not as fated, but as taking place by the choice of free agents, foretold from time to time the issues of things to come; it also became a forbidder of wickedness by means of prohibitions, and the encomiast of those who remained good.
  • My soul being taught of God, I discerned that the former class of writings lead to condemnation, but that these put an end to the slavery that is in the world, and rescue us from a multiplicity of rulers and ten thousand tyrants, while they give us, not indeed what we had not before received, but what we had received but were pre vented by error from retaining.
  • Of the Egyptians also there are accurate chronicles. Ptolemy, not the king, but a priest of Mendes, is the inter preter of their affairs. This writer, narrating the acts of the kings, says that the departure of the Jews from Egypt to the places whither they went occurred in the time of king Amosis, under the leadership of Moses.
  • But, that we may complete what is still wanting, I will give my explanation respecting the men who are esteemed wise. Minos, who has been thought to excel in every kind of wisdom, and mental acuteness, and legislative capacity, lived in the time of Lynceus, who reigned after Danaus in the eleventh generation after Inachus. Lycurgus, who was born long after the taking of Troy, gave laws to the Lacedemonians.

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Wikidata facts

Show 4 more facts
date of birth
0120-01-01
date of death
0173-00-00
Commons category
Tatian
name in native language
ܛܛܝܢܘܣ
Sources (4)

via Wikidata · CC0

~15 min read

Article

8 sections
Contents
  • Life
  • Writings
  • Theology
  • Historiography
  • See also
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

Tatian of Adiabene, or Tatian the Syrian or Tatian the Assyrian, (; ; ; ; – ) was an Assyrian Christian writer and theologian of the 2nd century.

Tatian's most influential work is the Diatessaron, a Biblical paraphrase, or "harmony", of the four gospels that became the standard text of the four gospels in the Syriac-speaking churches until the 5th-century, after which it gave way to the four separate gospels in the Peshitta version. He was controversial in his own age due to his Gnostic influences, leading Russell to state Tatian "lived in the border between ortodox and Gnostic theology".

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