TAZIANUS. – A Christian apologist of the 2nd century. Very little is known about his life. He himself tells us that he was born “in the land of the Assyrians,” that he had been a pagan, and that he had been educated in the Greek manner (Or., cap. 42). He traveled extensively, probably as a wandering philosopher in the manner of the rhetors and Cynics of his time; he sought in the mysteries a satisfaction for the spiritual needs that tormented him (Or., cap. 29), and finally came to know the Scriptures, which, as he claims, fully convinced him by their humility, simplicity, and purity and made him a believer.
His growing disgust for the immorality of paganism, a stay in Rome where he met and became a disciple of St. Justin the Martyr, the accusations and persecutions of a Cynic philosopher named Crescens—whom Justin had triumphantly refuted and exposed as ignorant (Justin, *Apol.*, II, 3)—and who in turn harbored mortal hatred for both master and disciple, drove him to violently reject the entire world and the ideas in which he had been raised. The term “barbarian,” which had a long history not only in earlier apologetics but already in paganism and Judaism, was then taken up by him as a banner of revolt and violent opposition. The martyrdom of Justin must have further confirmed him in this stance. His *Oratio ad Graecos*, the only surviving work of his, bears witness to this state of mind as well as to the violent and aggressive personality of the author. It is a diatribe whose language is so violent and whose negations so radical that it rivals the writings of certain Cynics. Undoubtedly, the literary genre he chose also influenced the tone of his polemic; nonetheless, Tatian remains the first virulent and at times truculent apologist of Christianity. Yet he is a man who knows how to write: harsh, mocking, often coarse, but always passionate.
He has a style of his own, though it is often obscure and convoluted due to an excess of subtleties. Convinced that he had been a famous man in his pagan days, he cannot resign himself to not demonstrating that he is now a Christian: this explains both certain stylistic devices and his tendency to summarily condemn what he dislikes or does not understand, almost anticipating the adverse reaction and feeling the need to justify himself in advance (Or., cap. 35). Christian doctrine, anti-pagan polemic, and Christian apology are violently and tumultuously interwoven in his *Oratio*, which is certainly not a model of order or clarity. Tatian begins by accusing the Greeks of having stolen everything from the barbarians: no art or discipline would have been invented by them. Their only boast is philosophy, but it is a wretched thing, as shown by the absurdities of the philosophers (chaps. 1–3). The Christians, by contrast, hold a very different practical and theoretical stance; they believe in one God and therefore reject idolatry (chap. 4). The unity and solitude of God do not preclude the existence of another principle, the Logos, who was eternally with the Father, inasmuch as God was alone in the beginning before creation had taken place, yet all things existed in Him through rational power—thus God and the Logos existed in Him. The Logos then proceeded from the Father and initiated creation (chap. 5: one of the most difficult and controversial chapters of the *Oratio*). Following a partly personal logical sequence, he then expounds the other pillars of Christian doctrine: the resurrection of the body (chap. 6), angelology and demonology (chap. 7), the fall of man and the action of demons (chaps. 8–11), psychology and pneumatology (chaps. 12–13), and the regeneration of man—not referring concretely to the Incarnation but following the speculative and moral lines of the problem as a struggle against the action of demons, whose activity is vast and extends even to the physical evils that afflict humanity (chaps. 13–19). Yet this doctrinal section is continually and extensively interspersed with minute polemics against the various aspects of paganism, especially its mythology, with digressions, developments, returns, and repetitions. Later, after a brief mention (chap. 21) of the belief in a God who appeared in human form—something in which Christians (though their name is never mentioned) believe—he launches into a polemic against the moral and practical aspects of paganism: assemblies, festivals, spectacles (chap. 22); gladiatorial games (chap. 23), tragic performances (chap. 24), the lives of philosophers (chap. 25), the variety of languages and the preciosity of grammarians (chaps. 26–27), and the diversity of laws (chap. 28). The complete lack of unity within paganism, his personal experiences, and his intolerance of vice—these are the points Tatian emphasizes (chap. 29) as he explains his conversion and proceeds (chap. 30) to present what he considers the decisive proof of the validity of the doctrine he has now embraced. It is the chronological argument, which occupies the final part of the *Oratio* (chaps. 31–41), the most frequently cited and exploited by later writers (Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, etc.). In this section, alongside the usual personal and polemical digressions, there is also the so-called “catalogue of statues” (chaps. 33–34), a list of more or less famous statues and more or less well-known sculptors, which Tatian presents as proof of both the immorality and the emptiness of pagan ideals and of his personal familiarity with what he condemns. The basis of the chronological argument is the comparison between the Greek and “barbarian” chronologies, the former beginning with Homer and the latter with Moses. Drawing on Chaldean, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Greek sources, Tatian seeks to demonstrate the priority of Moses and his legislation over Greek legislation, history, literature, and wisdom. He concludes (chap. 42) by affirming his certainty in the goodness of the cause he now upholds and declares himself ready, with God’s help, to withstand the examination of his adversaries.
The date of composition of the *Oratio* is uncertain and debated. It was certainly written outside Rome. According to Harnack, whose chronology rests on very weak foundations (a disputed passage in chap. 35), it would date shortly after Tatian’s conversion, which would also partly explain its tone, and in any case before the death of Justin (163–67). Others (Kukula, Puech, Geffcken) believe it already reflects Tatian’s later development and place it around 170 or after 172 (the date of Tatian’s return to the East). Even this chronology, however, is far from certain. From a doctrinal standpoint, it should be noted that, due to his tendency to present Christian thought in a highly personal way, Tatian does not always clearly reveal his relationship to the more widespread ideas of his contemporaries. Even though he attacks Stoicism, Stoic influences are undeniable, all the more so because his rational presentation of the data of faith leads him naturally to express himself in the prevailing philosophical formulas. In this respect, he is more pronounced than
Logetius tended to present Christian beliefs according to their intimate rational and moral exigencies, which led a man of his character to assume positions sometimes different from those of his contemporaries and even from those of the official Church. After the death of Justin, according to the testimony of Irenaeus (Adv. haer., I, 28; Eusebius, Hist. ecc., IV, 29, 2), T. would have increasingly distanced himself from current teaching. It is quite possible that he approached the Gnostics, particularly the school of Valentinus (Clement of Alexandria, Strom., III, 13, 92, 1). In any case, the heresy for which he was condemned (172 A.D.) was above all a moral heresy, encratism, a rigorous moralism that condemned marriage, the use of meat, and, it is said, even wine. The heresiologists regarded him as the founder of a sect of that name. It is likely, however, that the rigorous moralistic stance, traces of which can also be discerned in the *Discourse to the Greeks* (e.g., in the hostile tone he adopts toward matter), conceals more specific and precise doctrinal reasons of a Gnostic hue. A possible indication of this is his conception of the damnation of Adam, both as the progenitor of the human race and, probably, also due to the belief—shared, moreover, not only by Tatian—that his fall was connected with the sin of sensuality.
After breaking with the Church, T. went to the East, where he is found heading a *Didaskaleion*. It has even been suggested that the *Discourse* was an inaugural oration for one of the courses held there (Kukula). If one is to credit the rather late testimony of Epiphanius (Panar., haer., 46), the *Didaskaleion* was first located in Mesopotamia, while T.’s later activity, now entirely heretical, unfolded in Antioch of Syria, Cilicia, Pisidia, etc. The date of his death is unknown.
Before the *Discourse to the Greeks*, T. had already written a work on animals, to which he himself alludes in the *Discourse* (ch. 15); he also mentions (ch. 16) another work on demons. When he wrote the *Discourse*, he had in mind another work against those who had written on the Divinity (ch. 40), the completion of which is uncertain. He certainly wrote another work, this one heretical, on perfection according to the Savior, to which Clement of Alexandria, who opposed it, refers and of which he preserved a passage that presents a rigorist and encratite exegesis of 1 Cor 7:5 to deduce the diabolical origin of marriage. It is possible that the corrections to Pauline expressions attributed to him by Eusebius (Hist. ecc., IV, 39, 6) pertained rather to certain forced and arbitrary exegeses of the sort just mentioned, or to textual manipulations designed to support his theses more effectively. Eusebius (ibid., V, 13, 8) also recalls a work of *Questions* concerning obscure and convoluted passages of the Old Testament, the explanation of which a disciple of T.’s, Rhodo, claimed to be preparing.
More information is available, however, about another work by T., the *Diatessaron*. This is a fusion of the four Gospels into a single harmonized text, an attempt that, for practical reasons, enjoyed great success. The original text has been lost, not only because the Church upheld and defended the four separate Gospels but also because, having been composed when the author was already a heretic, it contained elements betraying heterodoxy. It is known, for instance, that it lacked the genealogies of Jesus (Mt 1:1–7; Lk 3:23–38) and whatever might reveal a human origin of the Savior. This is what Theodoret of Cyrus (v.) informs us, noting that he had more than two hundred copies destroyed in his diocese, copies that simple faithful were using as a convenient Gospel compendium (Haer. fab. comp., I, 20). Despite this opposition, the *Diatessaron* became extremely widespread; this is also a reason for the extreme complexity of the problem of reconstructing the *Diatessaron*. At present, the material available for studying the question consists of: a) a Persian *Diatessaron* translated from the Syriac, which seems to be to this day the text closest to the original; b) an Arabic translation, also from the Syriac, known in at least three related manuscripts; c) a harmonized Gospel text in Latin, in two recensions, one of which, contained in the Codex Fuldensis, represents the Capua (v.) adopted in 546 in place of the four separate Gospels and which he no longer titled *Diatessaron* but *Diamente*; d) a harmony in Old Dutch translated from a Latin original; e) a group of complete or fragmentary texts of Gospel harmonies in Old High German from northern and southern Germany; f) a harmonized text in Old English known as the *Pepysian Harmon*; g) an Italian vernacular *Diatessaron* in two recensions, one Tuscan and one Venetian; h) a fragment of the Greek *Diatessaron* discovered in 1933 at Dura-Europos, thus dating before 256 (the existence of another Greek fragment is disputed). These texts are of very different value; all of them, however, more or less directly, seem to derive from a Syriac original, including the Greek fragment, which is no longer considered today as T.’s original but as a translation itself of a Syriac original. This series of *Diatessara* presents extremely complicated problems of reciprocal contamination: sometimes, as in the case of the Arabic *Diatessara*, the original text has been partly refashioned with the text of the Peshitta, though certain peculiarities of the original still reappear. For the reconstruction of the original *Diatessaron* and for the history of its reception, the commentaries on it must also be taken into account. The most important is the Syriac commentary by St. Ephrem, of which only fragments of the original and an Armenian translation remain; another, much later commentary (12th century) in Latin is by Zacharias Chrysopolitanus. In addition to the above, one must also consider the lost traces of the *Diatessaron* and the direct and indirect influences exerted by one or another of these texts.
Thus one thinks of an Armenian translation of the Diatessaron which would have influenced the subsequent Armenian and therefore Georgian translations of the Gospels. Influences are detected in the ancient Syriac versions of the Gospels, in readings used in the Syriac Church, in Gospel quotations in the Manichean Kephalaia, in various Eastern and Western liturgical and spiritual texts, ranging from Turkish texts to the Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony, and finally and above all, on the text of the ancient Latin translations of the Gospels and on the Greek text of the New Testament represented by the famous Codex Bezae (D). It has been rightly said that the problem of the Diatessaron represents one of the most difficult problems of ancient Christian literature. Two fundamental questions remain, among others, still unsolved. First of all, whether the original Syriac to which all this complex of texts and testimonies seems to point should authorize the conclusion that the original language of the Diatessaron was Syriac and not Greek, as orientalists are inclined to conclude but as many still do not consider certain. Secondly, whether the presence of discordant readings or those which seem to derive from extra-canonical or heretical texts in the Diatessaron can authorize the conclusion that T. did not use only the four Gospels, occasionally introducing some heretical or extra-canonical readings which fitted well with his ideas, but deliberately basing his harmony on a fifth source which some identify outright with the Gospel according to the Hebrews, also on the basis of the vague testimony of Epiphanius (Pan., 46: but Epiphanius did not know the Diatessaron directly and those who, according to the citation of Epiphanius, identified the Diatessaron with the Gospel according to the Hebrews probably did so because they knew that this Gospel was considered heretical, an heresy of which T. himself was believed to be the founder). It is known that in his Diatessaron T. adapted the narrative of the Synoptics to the historical framework of the Fourth Gospel. The exact date and place of composition are unknown.
the canon Martini, in his attempt to assist spiritually the condemned prisoners — tried every means to save them from capital punishment, even going so far as to request an audience with the Emperor and to invoke the papal intervention: but the prelate’s generous efforts were in vain and he had the painful duty of proceeding to the desecration of the T. before the condemned man was led to the gallows.
The last hours of the T., movingly described by Msgr. Luigi Martini in his famous Confortatorio, were admirable for their Christian steadfastness: he consoled and blessed his fellow sufferers and before surrendering himself to the executioner he said to Martini: “Recommend to all priests not to meddle in politics and to be fervent in church.” His remains, interred at the foot of the gallows, received an honored burial in Mantua after the city’s liberation.
Renzo U. Montini
TQUZZU, João RODRIGUEZ. – Jesuit, missionary and historian, b. at Sernancelhe (diocese of Lamego, Portugal) c. 1561, d. at Macao (China) in 1634.
Having gone to Japan in 1576, he is found in 1578 in the retinue of Yakata Yoshishige, converted to Christianity under the name of don Francisco di Bungo; in 1580 he entered the Society of Jesus, and after being ordained priest in 1594 he continued until 1626 the office of procurator of the mission, begun in 1591. The new persecution of 1614 banished him from Japan and brought him with 12 confreres to Macao. His familiarity with the language and varied doctrines of Japan rendered him very skilled in ministry and highly esteemed by the Shoguns Hyeyoshi and Jeyasu, in whose service he was able to render excellent service to the Order and to Christendom; in 1590 he accompanied as interpreter to the court of Hyeyoshi the pilgrims returned from Italy.
His works are: Arte da lingua de Japon, Nagasaki 1590; Arte breve da lingua japona (Macao 1620). His principal work, Historia da Igreja de Japan, remained incomplete and unpublished (in two manuscripts: one in the Library of the Academy of History in Madrid, the other in the Ajuda Library in Lisbon). Of the three parts which it was to comprise, according to the plan expressed by the author in the preface — Country and population; History of the Church, Neighboring lands (China, Annam, Cambodia, Korea) — only the 1st part, ch. 11, and the 2nd part, ch. 1, remain. An excellent work for its historical and critical value, rich in information and eyewitness accounts of events.