jewish-christian gospels and syriac gospel traditions . Because Origen’s story draws on the phrases and topics that were
available in the stories surrounding it (in the Diatessaronic se-
quence), it represents a secondary stage of tradition which rein-
terprets an earlier version of the Rich Man’s Question, which was
already placed between two other stories.
. Because the connection to the surrounding stories and to the Law-
yer’s Question both concentrate on the middle section of the pas-
sage that is peculiar to Origen’s story, the Lawyer’s Question was
also consulted at a secondary stage of reinterpretation.A crucial question is where the reinterpreter found the sequence of the
three stories. Was it in theDiatessaron? In that case, the reinterpreter
would have had to consult not only the surrounding stories in theDiates-
saronbut also their (later) separate versions in the Old Syriac transla-
tions as well as the separate version of the Lawyer’s Question. This is
not impossible but presumes a relatively complicated process or, alter-
natively, a series of “redactions.” Why would a reinterpreter want to con-
sult the separate gospels if everything needed was available in theDiates-
saron? Furthermore, if the re-interpreter was a Jewish Christian who
was reediting theDiatessaronas a whole and wanted to avoid quot-
ing the Gospel of John—as did the editor of theGospel of the Ebion-
ites—he would have had to delete the Johannine parts of theDiates-
saron.
What kind of a person would be the most likely candidate for con-
sulting separate Syriac gospels when writing a Syriac harmony? Would
not that be someone who was translating a harmony of gospels into Syr-
iac with the help of separate Syriac gospels? And how did he locate the
passages to be consulted in the separate gospels? Perhaps with a list of
parallel passages similar to Eusebius’ canon tables which would, in this
case, also draw attention to the Lawyer’s Question.
These considerations lead to the following hypothesis:Origen’s passage
derives from a gospel harmony that had the same sequence of passages as
the Diatessaron. The harmony was translated into Syriac with the help
of separate Old Syriac translations of the synoptic gospels by a Jewish
Christian who wanted to avoid using the Diatessaron itself, perhaps due
to its dependance on the Gospel of John.
This hypothesis not only explains the similarities and the differences
in Origen’s passage in respect to the Diatessaronic witnesses, but also
accords with other information concerning pre-Diatessaronic traditions
and Jewish-Christian gospels.