Perrin, Nicholas, Thomas and Tatian: The Relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature ("Academia Biblica," 5), 2002. Pp. xii + 216.
Paul-Hubert
Poirier
Université Laval
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
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Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2003
Vol. 6, No. 2
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https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv6n2prpoirier
Paul-Hubert POIRIER
Perrin, Nicholas, Thomas and Tatian: The Relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature ("Academia Biblica," 5), 2002. Pp. xii + 216.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol6/HV6N2PRPoirier.pdf
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2003
vol 6
issue 2
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
Syriac Studies
Gospel of Thomas
Diatessaron
Perrin
File created by XSLT transformation of original HTML encoded article.
[1] Shortly
after the discovery of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (NHC
II, 2; hereafter GT), many scholars—for example, H.-Ch.
Puech, G. Garitte, A. Guillaumont, and G. Quispel—drew
attention to the fact that the text of the new gospel contained
a certain number of expressions or syntactical constructions
which could be labelled as semiticisms. This observation among
others contributed significantly to the ascription of GT to an
Aramaic, i.e., Syriac or Edessene, milieu. Drawing on G.
Quispel's and T. Baarda's work, Nicholas Perrin's monograph
pursues a triple objective: it seeks to establish (1) that GT
was originally composed in Syriac, (2) that this Syriac text
forms a unity and not a random collection of sayings, and (3)
that the author of GT relied on written Syriac gospel sources,
among them, Tatian's Diatessaron. This assumption
implies that GT be assigned a relatively late date of
redaction, since it is generally agreed that the
Diatessaron was composed sometime after 170 C.E.
Therefore Perrin's thesis takes the opposite course to that of
a significant part of GT scholarship, which dates the gospel to
the beginning of the 2nd century, if not
earlier.
[2] This
monograph originates from a Ph.D. dissertation submitted at
Marquette University under the supervision of Prof. Julian
Hill. It opens with an expanded introduction which presents
"Thomas among the Gospels". In this introduction, Perrin
discusses the main literary and historical issues that have
monopolized the attention of GT scholars: the relationship of
the Coptic gospel to the Synoptic Gospels, its provenance and
date, its original language of composition, its theology, genre
and purpose, and its sources. At the end of the review, Perrin
comes to the conclusion that "Thomasine scholarship has settled
into two entrenched camps," some scholars maintaining "that GT
is a re-editing of the canonical gospel tradition," while
"others hold fast to their insistence that the collection is
independent of the synoptic tradition" (14). In reaction to
what he sees as a deadlock, Perrin proposes to "reframe the
question" by asking whether there is not a third possibility.
This third possibility would be "that GT is neither independent
of nor directly dependent on the Greek synoptic gospels; rather
the literary relationship between Thomas and the canonical
gospels can best be described as one of indirect
dependence" (15). As to the actual link between the canonical
gospels and GT, Perrin thinks that, "if Thomas was influenced
by Matthew, Mark, Luke (and John), it is only as the latter are
mediated through the first Syriac gospel record: Tatian's
Diatessaron" (ibid.).
[3] Perrin's
proposal is unquestionably clear; it is also a daring one. The
reader is then all the more eager to see how he will make his
point. The author's demonstration is offered in three chapters.
The first one, "A Syriac Gospel of Thomas?", begins with
stating the three conditions under which it could be suggested
that Thomas knew and used the Diatessaron: (1) GT has to
be of Syriac provenance, (2) it was written in Syriac, and (3)
it was written after 173 C.E. (the received dating for the
Diatessaron). These propositions lead to a late date for
GT's composition, which contradicts "the unexamined assumption"
of Thomas studies (24), that it was penned around 140 C.E. In
order to establish that GT was influenced by Tatian's harmony
gospel and "that the Thomasine collection is to be understood
not as a string of Greek logia randomly compiled through many
stages, but as a unified Syriac text carefully worded and
arranged so as to conform to a certain literary-rhetorical
pattern," as a "tightly woven Syriac text" (25), the issue of
the original language of GT must be settled. There are, at
least theoretically, three possibilities: Coptic, Greek, and
Syriac, which Perrin presents while asking what each of them
means for the dependence of GT on the Syriac
Diatessaron. Considering that the Greek fragments of GT
(P. Oxy 1, 654, and 655) are dated around 200 C.E., which
leaves a maximum of 25 years between the redaction of the
Diatessaron and the composition of GT, a most direct
road from the former to the latter is needed, which practically
excludes Greek—not to speak of Coptic—and leaves
only Syriac as a viable option. After a review of evidence for
a Syriac GT in the form of a Status quaestionis, and
some observations on possible syriacisms in GT 9, 33, and 41,
Perrin concludes that "it must now be recognized that at least
a fair number of logia do show signs of having been composed
either in western Aramaic or Syriac" (46). As for whether this
specific context was Syriac rather than western Aramaic, Perrin
favours Syriac for two reasons. Firstly, by a process of
elimination, in view of the fact that "clear and unequivocal
evidence for a western Aramaic (and only western Aramaic)
background is simply lacking" (ibid.). Secondly,
"whereas the Aramaic theory certainly has the potential to
explain some of the semiticisms in GT, the strength of the
Syriac theory lies in its ability to explain them all"
(ibid.).
[4] In the
second chapter, Perrin seeks "to put the theory to the test by
introducing a new kind of analysis: a linguistic analysis
involving catchwords" (49). Catchwords are defined as "any word
which can be semantically, etymologically, or phonologically
associated with another word found in an adjacent logion" (50).
The choice of catchwords is based on the assumption that where
there appears to be the convergence of a word-sound and a
word-meaning within two juxtaposed logia, then these logia must
be considered as joined. Furthermore, to focus solely on
catchwords provides a measurable standard of comparison, and a
valuable one, since catchwords were "undoubtedly an important
feature at some level of redaction in GT" (53). The following
one-hundred pages of chapter 2 are devoted to "a comparison of
catchwords occurring in Coptic, Greek, and Syriac," presented
as a four column synopsis (the author's English translation of
GT; Coptic [NHC II, 2]; Greek [reconstructed except when the P.
Oxy are extant]; Syriac [reconstructed]). While the English
column presents the entire text of GT, the three other columns
give only those words which qualify as catchwords. A system of
arrows in the English translation indicates whether a catchword
links a logion with the previous or the following logion, or
with both. In the end, it appears that 502 catchwords are
retrievable in Syriac as compared to 263 in Greek and 269 in
the extant Coptic text. Consequently, "the quantitative
evidence points decisively in the direction of Syriac
composition" and "suggest a single linguistic background for
the entire collection" (156). In Perrin's eyes, this cumulative
evidence confirms the "Syriac theory" beyond reasonable doubt:
"GT was composed entirely in Syriac" (169).
[5] With the
third chapter, "Thomas and His Sources", Perrin comes to
his "final concern": to demonstrate Thomas's dependence upon
the Diatessaron. His demonstration proceeds in three
stages. Firstly, given the document's organic unity exemplified
by its pervasive recourse to catchwords, it is to be inferred
that the collection was written by one author at one time.
Secondly, his sources must have been written instead of oral.
Thirdly, these written sources were in Syriac and included
materials from the synoptic tradition as well as from the
Diatessaron.
[6] The
final conclusion restates the main results of the study, first,
that Thomas is dependent upon the Diatessaron, second,
that Tatian and the author of GT belonged to the same world,
the world of Edessene Christianity, and third, that "GT is to
be read as an esoteric Syriac collection in which the hearer's
ability to distinguish wordplay figures prominently" (192). In
his use of authoritative texts, Thomas is indebted to "a broad
exegetical tradition within Judaism and early Christianity"
(195) of which the closest analogy lies perhaps in the Qumran
material. The means by which this exegetical tradition came to
Thomas remains, however, a question still to be answered. The
book ends with the wish that "the placement of Thomas's gospel
within the milieu of early Syriac Christianity will prove to be
(the) much needed new beginning" (196) for the study of GT.
[7] Perrin's
monograph is undeniably a detailed and sophisticated study of
GT, and it is impossible within the context of this review to
discuss the value of his reconstruction of the Syriac
background of the Coptic gospel. I will therefore limit myself
to a few general remarks. First of all, it must be said that
this book is a very valuable contribution to the elucidation of
the unmistakable Semitic, i.e., Aramaic or Syriac, character of
GT. Perrin has added a number of important pieces of evidence
pointing towards a Syriac original to those already collected
by Guillaumont and others. His demonstration, however, is far
from being the best way to establish that GT was composed in
Syriac. The main difficulty with such a proof lies in the fact
that we have absolutely no evidence of Syriac literary texts
prior to the Bardesanian Book of the Laws of Countries
(end of 2nd - beginning of 3rd century).
As to Tatian's Diatessaron, if it was composed in
Syriac—which seems to be, if not the reality, at least
the opinio communis—, it can be reconstructed only
indirectly. On the other hand, our knowledge of Aramaic-western
or eastern- for the first two centuries of the Common Era is
scarcely better than that of Syriac. Nevertheless, the fact
that Syriac was practically standardized by the beginning of
the 2nd century, if not earlier, argues in favour of
its use as a bench mark for the quest for the original language
of GT. My second remark concerns Perrin's main thesis, namely,
that the author/redactor of GT relied upon Tatian's
Diatessaron. Let's say from the start that Perrin's
conclusion is a default one. To put it in his own words, "since
Tatian's harmony was presumably the only gospel record
available in the Syriac language at that time, the evidence
points ineluctably to Diatessaronic influence" (17; see also
193: "Tatian's Diatessaron is the only Syriac text of
the Synoptic tradition that could have been available to
Thomas"). In order to validate this post hoc propter hoc
argument, a side-by-side comparison of the Coptic GT and its
Syriac retroversion with the actual text of the
Diatessaron—provided that it can be reconstructed
with some certainty—would be necessary. Paradoxically,
however, Tatian (and his Diatessaron) is the most
noticeable absentee from this book. Perrin's endeavour has made
out his case for a Tatianic dependence but the
case still has to be tried. There is no doubt that the
discussion resulting from his study will provoke will help
clarifying the matter. Whatever the issue, Dr. Perrin has made
a noteworthy contribution to the study of GT and its
Aramaic/Syriac background.
[8] It is
not easy to produce such a technical book without any flaws. I
mention only those which affect Syriac words. P. 38,
2nd line of the Syriac quotation: read
tšbhwn; p. 44, paenult. and ult. lin.: read
trtyhyn; p. 45, lines 11-12, inverse the two part of the
Syriac phrase; p. 67, n. 40, "from us" is never man but
menan; p. 96, n. 121: read npq (twice); p. 118,
n. 189, 1st line: transliterate ab; p. 161,
line 14: read wnšbhwn; p.
177, ult. lin. (and 74, ad logion 18, 3): "he will know"
is reconstructed in two different fashions, myd' and
nehwā ida' (which has to be changed into nehwe
yāda'); p. 180, middle (and 144, n. 266, ad
logion 100, 4):
dcamm(ī)
would
be a very awkward—if not impossible—Vorlage
for Coptic ptn pôei, instead of
ddīl(ī). As for Coptic, p. 55: the basic form
of the Coptic negator is
en (and
em, the assimilation of it before a labial);
p. 152, n. 296: read arkhei; p. 182-183: peje
signals direct discourse in the past, and not in the present
(cf. B. Layton's Coptic Grammar, § 380), therefore:
"Jesus said", and not "says".