Ordering Gospel Textuality in the Second Century Ordering Gospel Textuality in the Second Century

This article interrogates how several second-century figures ordered a pluri-form Gospel corpus. Focusing on approaches to Gospel plurality visible in the Epistula apostolorum , Tatian the Syrian, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Ammonius of Alexandria, we argue that a number of Christian readers—across the Roman Mediterranean, from Alexandria to Gaul and from Syria to Rome—employed similar approaches. Drawing on evidence for second-century reading practices, we demonstrate continuities in both textual practices and conceptual frameworks that illuminate Gospel reading and writing. These figures engaged Gospels in multiple dimensions—horizontal juxtaposition of parallel material and vertical coordination of narrative sequence—in order to map relationships between imperfectly parallel texts. These spatial textual practices enabled synthetic reading of an emergent pluriform Gospel corpus.


Introduction
Over the past century and more, scholars have devoted immense attention to the emergence of a fourfold Gospel canon. Scholars debate when and for whom four Gospels-four particular Gospels 3 of 46 ORDERING GOSPEL TEXTUALITY The hermeneutical and philological challenges posed by textual plurality are fundamental to many disciplines, both ancient and modern. In the ancient Mediterranean world, scholars sought to make sense of parallel texts attributed to Homer and other esteemed figures. 5 Historians grappled with the perennial concerns afforded by parallel texts, divergent details, and conflicting timelines. 6 Writers of technical literature synthesized sources in order to offer better accounts of varied technologies. 7 And, of course, textual plurality mattered for Gospel readers, both before and after the emergence of a fourfold Gospel. 8 Building on recent scholarship on readers and reading cultures in the Roman Mediterranean, we focus on the strategies that second-century Christian figures employed to map the complex geography of their Gospel texts. 9 To introduce the challenges of coordinating a pluriform Gospel corpus, we begin with the 'Gospel through four' produced by Ammonius of Alexandria. We then analyse two earlier compositions, the mid-second-century Epistula apostolorum and the Gospel produced by Tatian in the later second century; both incorporated material from multiple existing Gospels in order to offer new narratives. We turn finally to Irenaeus of Lyons, who analysed a complex landscape of Gospel literature and theorized the shape of a Gospel corpus. 10 Each of these texts navigates the similarity and difference of multiple 5 F. Schironi, The Best of the Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018). 6 For classic discussion, see A. D. Momigliano, Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Oxford: Blackwell, 1977). 7 M. Asper, Griechische Wissenschaftstexte: Formen, Funktionen, Differenzierungsgeschichten (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2007). 8 Not all second-century engagement with Gospel material and not all new Gospel texts primarily reflect the activities of readers. A number of scholars have argued for the role of secondary orality in Gospel production and reception. Nonetheless, in this article we focus on second-century practices of reading. 9 The framework of 'textual geography' builds on J. Coogan 10 As we discuss below, the sources for second-century Gospel reading pose certain challenges; the evidence is-to varying degrees-fragmentary, versional, or late. We have approached this matter with caution by building our arguments on the aspects of these second-century projects that are clearest in our sources and least open to debate and by discussing major alternative interpretations where relevant.
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jts/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jts/flad011/7100625 by Santa Clara University user on 12 April 2023 existing Gospels, characterized by similar but different narrative sequences and by overlapping but distinct parallel material. 11 In this article, we articulate the varied ways in which these second-century figures and texts engaged the complexities of a pluriform Gospel corpus and locate these textual practices in a broader second-century context. 12 Building on the work of William Johnson, the concept of 'textual practices' is fundamental to our approach, providing a framework for comparison both between different projects of Gospel reception and between these projects and wider second-century habits of reading and writing. We emphasize how second-century figures engaged the burgeoning corpus of Gospel literature. As we argue, their practices of Gospel reading simultaneously involved a vertical dimension (appreciating the sequence of individual Gospels) and a horizontal dimension (observing similarities and differences in Gospel parallels). The spatial thinking that we describe involves both physically spatial practices and conceptual negotiation in two dimensions-and these two are often intertwined. This bidirectional mode of reading in the later second century differed from the practices that characterized the composition of Gospels and other prose narratives in the first-century Roman Mediterranean. In contrast with second-century readers and writers of Gospel literature, earlier writers of biographies and histories generally used one main source 11 Following Johnson, we note that such textual practices are 'intimately bound with active interrogation of the text-which itself implies an abiding confidence that texts, especially classic texts, have a depth of meaning that repays the group's efforts at interpretation and discussion' (Johnson,Readers,p. 202). 12 Important studies that locate second-century Christians like Justin, Tatian, and Irenaeus in wider intellectual currents of the second century include K. Eshleman, The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists, Philosophers, and Christians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)  at a time. 13 They did not hold together the vertical and horizontal dimensions of multiple sources in the way that we observe in second-century attempts to organize the pluriform Gospel corpus. While no sharp break divides first-and second-century phenomena, we discern a substantial shift over the century (or more) separating Luke and Ammonius.

Ammonius: Juxtaposition
The philosopher and textual scholar Ammonius of Alexandria, who flourished at the end of the second century or the beginning of the third, illustrates one of the ways in which Christian thinkers charted the vibrant constellation of texts about the words and deeds of Jesus. 14 Ammonius' approach illuminates how second-century figures negotiated Gospel plurality. 6 of 46 COOGAN AND RODRIGUEZ Ammonius' project is, regrettably, mediated to us only via a brief description by the fourth-century bishop-scholar Eusebius of . 15 We begin with Eusebius' report: 16 Ἀμμώνιος μὲν ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεὺς πολλὴν ὡς εἰκὸς φιλοπονίαν καὶ σπουδὴν εἰσαγηοχὼς τὸ διὰ τεσσάρων ἡμῖν καταλέλοιπεν εὐαγγέλιον, τῷ κατὰ Ματθαῖον τὰς ὁμοφώνους τῶν λοιπῶν εὐαγγελιστῶν περικοπὰς παραθείς, ὡς ἐξ ἀνάγκης συμβῆναι τὸν τῆς ἀκολουθίας εἱρμὸν τῶν τριῶν διαφθαρῆναι ὅσον ἐπὶ τῷ ὕφει τῆς ἀναγνώσεως· ἵνα δὲ σωζομένου καὶ τοῦ τῶν λοιπῶν δι' ὅλου σώματός τε καὶ εἱρμοῦ εἰδέναι ἔχοις τοὺς οἰκείους ἑκάστου εὐαγγελιστοῦ τόπους, ἐν οἷς κατὰ τῶν αὐτῶν ἠνέχθησαν φιλαλήθως εἰπεῖν, ἐκ τοῦ πονήματος τοῦ προειρημένου ἀνδρὸς εἰληφὼς ἀφορμὰς καθ' ἑτέραν μέθοδον κανόνας δέκα τὸν ἀριθμὸν διεχάραξά σοι τοὺς ὑποτεταγμένους. (Ep. Carp., Ammonius the Alexandrian, exerting great industry and zeal-as is fitting-has left us the 'Gospel through four'. He juxtaposed the corresponding sections of the other evangelists alongside Matthew's Gospel with the unavoidable result that the coherent sequence of the other three was destroyed insofar as concerns the web of reading. But in order that, by the content and sequence of the remaining evangelists being preserved throughout, you would still be able to know the distinct passages of each evangelist, in which they were compelled by love of truth to speak in their own way, I have adopted the raw material from the work of the aforementioned man, but have inscribed the ten canons that are attached for you below by a different method. Ammonius thus restructured multiple existing narratives to create a new Gospel text, creating a textual space with two dimensions: a horizontal relationship of parallel juxtaposition and a vertical relationship of narrative sequence. 15 On Ammonius' Gospel, see Eusebius, Ep. Carp., lines 3-6. Later testimonia recycle Eusebius' report. Cf. W. L. Petersen, Tatian's Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship (Leiden: Brill, 1994 We focus first on the horizontal dimension. Ammonius 'juxtaposed the corresponding sections' from multiple evangelists (τὰς ὁμοφώνους τῶν λοιπῶν εὐαγγελιστῶν περικοπὰς παραθείς, lines 5-6). That is, he engaged a pluriform corpus of Gospel texts. Segmentation was integral to the project; Ammonius identified 'corresponding' material in Mark, Luke, and John, and placed these blocks of material alongside their Matthean parallels (reflecting, of course, Ammonius' judgment about what material was parallel). 17 Ammonius employed spatial practices to make sense of a complex Gospel corpus.
We turn to the vertical dimension. As Eusebius reports, Ammonius 'juxtaposed the corresponding sections of the other evangelists alongside Matthew's Gospel' (τῷ κατὰ Ματθαῖον τὰς ὁμοφώνους τῶν λοιπῶν εὐαγγελιστῶν περικοπὰς παραθείς, lines 5-6). Matthew provided the sequence for Ammonius' new Gospel text. As a corollary to this Matthean sequence, non-Matthean texts were disrupted. After all, Matthew does not always arrange material in the same order as Mark, Luke, or John. This feature of Ammonius' project prompted critique: Eusebius complained that his predecessor's actions had 'the unavoidable result that the coherent sequence' of the other Gospels was destroyed (ἐξ ἀνάγκης συμβῆναι τὸν τῆς ἀκολουθίας εἱρμὸν τῶν τριῶν διαφθαρῆναι, lines 6-7), a result that Eusebius found undesirable. The problem of sequence, so central here, occurs in many early projects of reading a pluriform Gospel corpus. 17 Despite repeated scholarly references to numbered 'Ammonian sections', no evidence indicates that Ammonius numbered sections and there is good reason to think that he did not. Numerous scholars have recognized the point over the past two centuries-including C. Ammonius produced a new text that Eusebius described as a 'διὰ τεσσάρων Gospel' (τὸ διὰ τεσσάρων…εὐαγγέλιον, lines 4-5). 18 Both dimensions-horizontal juxtaposition and vertical sequenceworked together to create a new Gospel: a creative spatial arrangement of multiple existing sources into a new composite text. Like an exploded-view diagram that enables one to observe interactions between the various parts of a mechanism, Ammonius' project deconstructed into its constituent components the complex process of ordering Gospel plurality. 19 He created a space for both horizontal juxtaposition and vertical sequence. The Ammonian project thus affords a vantage from which to analyse earlier textual practices that orchestrated a pluriform (sometimes quadriform) Gospel corpus.
Yet Eusebius' description was intended to explain the impetus for his own novel reconfiguration of the Gospels; it does not answer all of our questions about Ammonius' project. The absence of other evidence-direct or indirect-means that it is impossible to answer a number of these questions. But the uncertainties highlight broader issues of scholarly practice and compositional method-not only in Ammonius' project, but in the work of his varied predecessors who likewise engaged multiple Gospel texts.
First, we remain uncertain about the mise-en-page of Ammonius' juxtapositions. Eusebius informs us that 'Ammonius the Alexandrian…juxtaposed the corresponding sections of the other evangelists alongside Matthew's Gospel.' How did Ammonius do this? Most scholars have described Ammonius' Gospel as a synopsis in the modern sense, comprising four parallel columns for four parallel Gospels. 20 This model is easy to visualize, offers contemporary analogues, and coheres with Eusebius' complaint that the 'other evangelists' were disordered by the imposition of Matthew's sequence. This reconstruction also parallels two other 18 22 Riggsby observes that Origen's Hexapla arranged parallel material with corresponding elements in each row; with rare exceptions, every cell in Origen's design is full. The same, however, could not have been true in Ammonius' project. Regardless of how one divides Matthew into sections, many lack parallels in other Gospels. The greater differences between Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John than between the different Greek versions of the Jewish Scriptures mean that numerous cells in Ammonius' design would have remained empty. These technological considerations lead Riggsby to propose a different model. Instead of a four-column synopsis, Riggsby suggests, Ammonius created an annotated Matthew. He added the 'corresponding sections' of other Gospels alongside the relevant Matthean material but did not arrange each Gospel in a distinct column. On this reconstruction, while Ammonius juxtaposed parallel material with a running text of Matthew, he did not distinguish the additional texts spatially from one another.
We observe further late ancient analogues to this arrangement.  Matt. 15.14, where he explicitly declined a parallel-column approach to the Gospels-even though he had used such an approach for the Jewish Scriptures. Origen implied that the reason for this decision was an unwillingness to conflate the Gospels into a new composite edition that would dissolve their individual integrity. 29 While one cannot decide conclusively between these alternative models given the state of the evidence, they highlight a recurrent question: how important was it to distinguish different sources of Gospel material? Second, while Eusebius described Ammonius' project as a 'Gospel through four', what does this indicate about Ammonius' material? If Ammonius found identical material in another Gospel-which occurs frequently with Synoptic parallels-would he have redundantly included it alongside Matthew? We do not know. Furthermore, did Ammonius limit himself to material he found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Even if Ammonius used these texts as his primary sources-as implied by the description 'Gospel through four'-we should not exclude the possibility that he included additional material. 30 A number of other figures in the second, third, and fourth centuries-including some who vocally privileged a collection of precisely four Gospel texts-occasionally cited additional Jesus material (sometimes attributed to specific written Gospels). 31 The evidence does not answer this question either. 28 This reconstruction of the relationship between Hexapla and Tetrapla follows Gentry, 'Aristarchean Signs ', pp. 146-7. 29 In Comm. Matt. 15.14, Origen discusses scribal errors that lead to divergent Gospel narratives (ad , the rich young man) and compares Matthew with parallels in Luke, Mark, and the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Origen contrasts this engagement with Gospel similarity and difference with the Hexapla-Tetrapla project that addressed the diversity of Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible. Origen states that he had not attempted a similar project for the Gospels because he feared recrimination. 30 Most scholars assume that Ammonius used only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Yet although Eusebius focused on a fourfold Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we need not assume that Ammonius' project was so constrained. At the same time, the decision to include additional material need not be understood as a rejection of the emergent fourfold Gospel corpus. As discussed below, both EpAp and Tatian employed material not found in Matthew, Mark Third, what did Ammonius do with material that had no Matthean parallel? Numerous sayings and narratives are absent in Matthew but present in other Gospels-especially John, to a lesser extent Luke, and even occasionally Mark. Did Ammonius exclude this material because it did not fit his Matthean structure? 32 Did he incorporate it at an appropriate point? 33 Did he collect it in an appendix at the end? 34 Previous scholars have proposed each of these solutions, but one cannot answer this question with the available evidence. 35 These uncertainties about Ammonius' project prompt questions about how earlier second-century figures grappled with similar challenges posed by difference in the Gospels. What textual technologies and readerly practices might one use to organize a pluriform Gospel corpus? What Gospel texts does one use? What should one do with material that does not fit one's chosen structure? Ammonius negotiates a plurality of texts by means of creative spatial arrangement, placing four Gospels in the same artefactual geography. He addresses an ongoing question: how should one bring order (τάξις) to a variegated constellation of Gospel texts? This, in turn, requires resolving questions of parallel and sequence in a pluriform corpus. In the case of Ammonius, Matthew provided sequence, while he incorporated further material from other texts (primarily Mark, Luke, and John). Ammonius offered a complex Gospel text; the spatial reconfiguration of textual knowledge afforded new possibilities of reading. Ammonius' approach opens up a window into the practices employed by those reading and writing Gospel texts in the second century. These practices-especially 32   practices, 42 but the evidence does not allow more than conjecture. In the remainder of this article, we focus on late second-century projects that develop these dynamics of synthetic Gospel reading.

Epistula apostolorum: Epitome
We turn to two projects of Gospel writing that address questions of sequence and parallel. The first of these texts, the Epistula apostolorum, is a second-century text whose origins remain uncertain. Preserved partially in a Coptic translation and some Latin fragments, it remains complete only in medieval manuscripts of a late ancient Ethiopic translation. 43 The Vorlage of these translations was probably Greek, and scholars agree that it was written around EpAp negotiates a pluriform corpus of written Gospels, both through the eclectic assortment of Gospel material that it employs and through the textual practices that it reflects. Some scholars have argued that EpAp attests a fourfold Gospel prior to Irenaeus. 46 Others maintain that EpAp is a Gospel in its own right, continuing a process of Gospel writing that extends from Mark to the later Synoptics and John, proliferating in further Jesus books that would only later be deemed 'non-canonical'. 47 We do not wish to enter that controversy in the present article. We focus on the author's working methods, by which the author identifies particular chunks of Gospel material and arranges them in sequence. What are the textual practices demonstrable in the construction of this new composition that rewrites earlier Gospel texts?
EpAp 3.10-12.4 summarizes numerous stories to offer an epitome of Jesus' life. 48 The selection of material suggests a pluriform Gospel 44 The majority dating for EpAp falls between 120 CE (e.g., M. Hornschuh, Studien zur Epistula Apostolorum [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965], pp. 116-9) and 170 CE (e.g., Schmidt and Wajnberg, Gespräche Jesu, p. 402). The parameters of dating are established by Jesus' enigmatic prediction in EpAp 17.2 that the parousia would take place 120 (Coptic) or 150 (Ethiopic) years following Jesus' dialogue with the apostles. Since this numbering is enigmatic, it is best not to be more precise than Julian Hills (Tradition and Composition in the Epistula Apostolorum [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008], pp. 8-9), who considers EpAp to reflect a Christian milieu in the mid-second century. 45 We borrow this phrase from Jens Schröter (Jesus zum Neuen Testament, p. 326), who uses it to describe the Acts of the Apostles. 46 (2020) Thomas. 52 Finally, the author elaborates on an episode found in all four Gospels that became canonical: the feeding of the five thousand (Matt. 14:13-21//Mark 6:32-44//Luke 9:10-17//John 6:1-15//EpAp 5.17-22). The EpAp thus incorporates an eclectic variety of Gospel material-even though it does not mark the material as derived from multiple sources-in the concentrated space of 3.10-12.4. Since EpAp presents itself as a consensus document written by a college of apostles, this eclecticism may intentionally integrate multiple texts about Jesus. 53 We discern both horizontal and vertical engagement with a pluriform Gospel corpus. The author's textual eclecticism indicates that they were reading Johannine and Synoptic Jesus books together-likely John and Matthew, plausibly also Luke. 54 This 49 Johannine distinctive material: John 1:14//EpAp 3.10; John 2:1-11//EpAp 5.1; John 20:24-29//EpAp 11.5-7; Matthean distinctive material: Matt. 17:24-27//EpAp 5.14-16; Lukan distinctive material: Luke 2:7//EpAp 3.12. 50 For Matthean redaction, see Matt. 14:21 (ἄνδρες ὡσεὶ πεντακισχίλιοι χωρὶς γυναικῶν καὶ παιδίων)//EpAp 5.18 (ወተረክበ ፡ ኁልቆሙ ፡ ፶፻ዘእንበለ ፡ ደቅ ፡ ወአንስት). Lukan redaction in Luke 8:45 (τίς ὁ ἁψάμενος μου) resembles the Ethiopic in EpAp 5.4 (መኑ ፡ ገሠሠኒ), although see Mark 5:30 (τίς μου ἥψατο τῶν ἱματίων). Compare the Lukan redaction in Luke 24:3 (οὐχ εὗρον τὸ σῶμα)//EpAp 9.5 (ⲙ̅ ⲡⲟⲩϭⲛ̅ ⲡⲥⲱⲙⲁ). Some of these similarities may result from later conflation to the transmitted text of the Gospels in Ethiopic or Coptic, but such conflation is unlikely to be the sole reason. 51 Matthew/Luke agreement: Matt. 9:20 (ἥψατο τοῦ κρασπέδου τοῦ ἱματίου αὐτοῦ)// Luke 8:44 (ἥψατο τοῦ κρασπέδου τοῦ ἱματίου αὐτοῦ)//EpAp 5.3 (ለከፈት ፡ ጽንፈ ፡ ልብሱ); Luke/ Mark agreement: only Mark (5:9) and Luke (8:30) include the name 'Legion' (λεγιών) in the exorcism narrative in the Gerasenes; EpAp 5.10 includes the name (ሌጌዎን eclecticism, and the condensation of Gospel narratives in epitomized form, suggests that the composer had the conceptual framework to divide these Gospels into sections, to excerpt distinctive material, and to rewrite this material into a new sequence, thus creating a new work with its own literary and theological possibilities. The author's decision to include so many different patterns of Gospel material may indicate that the author had identified and categorized both unique material and various patterns of overlap between Gospel texts. Attention to both unique material and different patterns of material suggests detailed engagement with similarity and difference in these sources. EpAp's horizontal reading differs from what we discovered in Ammonius' Gospel; here it is oriented toward identifying similar material rather than toward conflating parallel passages, since the epitomized form of the Gospel material in EpAp does not require the author to integrate a similar degree of parallel detail. EpAp negotiates a pluriform Gospel corpus in large part by circumventing the need for either conflating or choosing one version over another. Nonetheless, the compositional practices of EpAp imply engagement with the complexities of parallel material in a pluriform Gospel corpus. EpAp also offers a new vertical narrative sequence. The Gospel epitome begins with the Johannine prologue, offers a Synoptic birth narrative, initiates Jesus' public ministry with the wedding at Cana, fills Jesus' ministry with Synoptic episodes, and concludes with a Johannine resurrection appearance. John, rather than Matthew (as for Ammonius), provides the narrative macrostructure for EpAp's account of Jesus' words and deeds-but EpAp nonetheless engages the same conceptual challenge as Ammonius. Moreover, the integration of Synoptic and Johannine material into a single narrative resembles what Tatian would later do in his Gospel. 55 Moreover, like Tatian's Gospel, the author's creative juxtaposition 55 The author of EpAp may have employed similar working methods to the author of the Longer Ending of Mark . James Kelhoffer has argued that the Longer Ending weaves together resurrection traditions from Matthew, of episodes from multiple Gospels suggests a particular theological Tendenz. 56 Themes of water and blood flow into an allegorical reflection on baptismal faith in EpAp 5.21-22. 57 Episodes involving physical touch build to a resurrection scene where the Johannine emphasis on touching the risen Christ is prominent (EpAp 11.7; 12.1). Christ's power over the waters and the physical touch of the incarnate Christ are central to the theological impetus of EpAp (cf. 2.1; 3.4-5). The Gospel epitome in EpAp reflects intentional arrangement of this earlier material. We might therefore ask what conceptual tools and textual practices EpAp reflects. Segmenting existing Gospel narratives into episodes-whether paratextually or mnemonically-was a preliminary step for comparing parallels side by side, identifying similar patterns of shared material, and juxtaposing episodes into a fresh composition. These compositional practices reflect elite readerly habits of interrogating textual structure and locating distinctive material. Although the composition of EpAp does not require Ammonius's parallel juxtaposition, the author's segmentation of Gospel material, their ability to excerpt and condense these sections, and their construction of a new meaningful sequence involve the same dynamics of multi-Gospel textual geography. EpAp thus reveals nuanced two-dimensional engagement with Gospel material along contours that resemble the emergent fourfold Gospel.

Tatian: Integration
Tatian the Syrian features prominently in discussion about ordering multiple Gospels. 58 The evidence for Tatian him among other second-century intellectuals. 59 He composed a narrative of Jesus' life that he titled simply 'Gospel', as reflected in the Eastern reception of his work. 60 The Western reception, following Eusebius, has often referred to Tatian's work as the Diatessaron, an interpretive move that read Tatian's work through the lens of an ascendant fourfold Gospel canon. 61 Since the present project investigates second-century Gospel reading, we refer to this work as Tatian's 'Gospel'. The evidence for Tatian's project is fragmentary and complex. 62 Since his Gospel is no longer extant, Tatian's sources and method remain obscure; the text remains notoriously difficult to reconstruct. One manuscript is extant, dating to the second or third century, but the attribution of this fragment to Tatian has been questioned. 63 Scholars therefore reconstruct Tatian's Gospel from the quotations, allusions, and lemmata of a fourth-century Gospel Tatian's Gospel and is the primary basis for our argument. The Latin and Arabic texts cannot be relied upon for Tatian's wordingand there is always the possibility that they have been expanded to include material that Tatian did not-but they remain valuable for the sequence of material in Tatian's Gospel. Although Tatian's precise wording often remains inaccessible, we can be reasonably confident of the sequence when these three major witnesses agree.
Tatian continues the project of synthetic Gospel writing along the same compositional lines as Luke. 67 He interweaves multiple Gospels (at least Matthew, Luke, and John; we suggest also Mark) in order to produce an expanded text. Tatian integrated narrative structures, redactional features, and distinctive material from Matthew, Luke, and John, and probably Mark. He also included several brief units of material about Jesus that are paralleled in other sources. 68 Tatian employed Matthew, Luke, and John. For example, from Matthew, Ephrem comments on the visit of the Magi, the Matthean antitheses, the fish and the temple tax, and several Matthean parables. 69 From Luke, Ephrem comments on the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist, Jesus the boy at the temple, and several Lukan parables. 70 Ephrem begins his Commentary with a reflection on the Johannine prologue, and includes Johannine episodes such as the wedding at Cana, Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus, the raising of Lazarus, and Jesus' festal visits to Jerusalem. 71 Tatian's use of Mark is less obvious, but Ephrem's Commentary reveals several instances of Markan redaction. 72 (1) Ephrem describes the spirit as the one who 'casts' Jesus out into the desert (cf. Mark 1:12). 73 (2) In the episode of Jesus healing the haemorrhaging woman, Ephrem records the Markan reference to Jesus' garment, 'who touched my garments?' (Mark 5:30). 74 Furthermore, Ephrem states that the woman 'perceived within herself that she was healed of her afflictions' (cf. Mark 5:33) 75 and that she had spent her money on doctors who were unable to heal her (cf. Mark 5:26). 76 (3) Ephrem relates a story in which Jesus heals a blind man in stages, and he recounts how the blind man finally 'saw everything clearly ' (cf. Mark 8:25). 77 (4) When Jesus heals the epileptic demoniac, Ephrem preserves the saying, 'I command you, mute spirit, come out from him and never come back again' (cf. Mark 9:25). 78 (5) Ephrem includes the name of the blind man healed on the road to Jericho, Bartimaeus (cf. Mark 10:46,50). 79 Moreover, Ephrem mentions the Markan detail that Bartimaeus 'abandoned his cloak' (cf. Mark 10:50). 80 (6) 81 Tatian's use of other Gospels is more difficult to establish than his use of the four Gospels that became canonical. The presence of non-canonical sources in Tatian's Gospel has been debated by scholars since at least the nineteenth century. 82 Of 11 or so proposed parallels with non-canonical Gospels, 83 four appear 25 of 46 ORDERING GOSPEL TEXTUALITY only in the post-Fuldensis Western vernacular tradition 84 and therefore do not meet the methodological threshold of the 'New Perspective' in Diatessaron studies. 85 (They may instead be later developments without connection to Tatian's own project.) The remaining seven fragments resonate with a variety of texts, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and the Protevangelium of James. The systematic use of another text as a 'fifth' Gospel is not demonstrable. The non-canonical fragments in Tatian's composition resemble the floating units of Jesus material (sometimes called agrapha) that appear in manuscripts of the canonical Gospels or in other early Christian writings rather than Tatian's extensive use of Matthew, Luke, and John. 86 We turn from Tatian's sources to his compositional methods. When we tabulate the sequence of the material from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that Ephrem cites in his Commentary on the Gospel, several important observations can be made. On the horizontal axis, Tatian included material from each of the four Gospels. This is true of distinctive material from Matthew, Luke, and John (and from Mark, if we accept the multi-stage healing of the blind man as Markan distinctive material). Tatian's desire to include is especially visible in episodes that appear in all four of these Gospels. If we may recover the intra-pericope sequence of the empty tomb account from the correspondences between the Arabic Harmony and Codex Fuldensis, 87 we find that Tatian densely interweaves Matthean, Markan, Lukan, and Johannine elements. The Arabic   87 Mills, 'Wrong Harmony,' questions the reliability of Fuldensis for recovering the intra-pericope sequencing of Tatian's Gospel, but the extent of correspondence between the Arabic Harmony and Fuldensis in the resurrection narrative suggests at least remnants of Tatian's order. 88 Although their sequences are not identical, the resurrection scenes in the Arabic Harmony and Fuldensis overlap by inserting the same elements from the following verses in the same sequence: Matt. 28 These observations demonstrate Tatian's spatial practice of organizing material from multiple Gospels on the horizontal axis. We turn to the vertical axis, narrative sequence. We find that Tatian is versatile in the ways he handles episodes from different points in separate Gospels. He includes Luke's version of the sinful woman anointing Jesus' feet early in his Gospel (Luke 7:36-50; CGos. 10.8-10) and includes the Matthean (Matt. 26:6-13)// Markan (Mark 14:3-9)//Johannine version in its Johannine position (John 12:1-11) before the triumphal entry ). Yet Tatian's Gospel had only one Temple incident (CGos. 15.23), differing from both the Synoptic and Johannine narrative locations. Tatian appears to place the Temple incident at a separate feast that Jesus celebrates in Jerusalem, a year before his final visit to Jerusalem. 89  Metzger suggested in 1977 that, in order for Tatian to accomplish such meticulous work without clunky repetition, he would have needed to consult four individual Gospel manuscripts simultaneously, annotating them as he used each pericope, and marking them off in order to avoid redundancy. 94 Yet the intricacy of Tatian's Gospel combinations may have required a more sophisticated technology than four manuscripts in the hands of (enslaved?) scribal assistants; Tatian's control of multiple imperfectly parallel narrative sequences may imply a physical map by which to coordinate these textual trajectories. 95 Tatian's weaving of the Johannine festal pilgrimages to Jerusalem into a Synoptic narrative scheme, and his solution to the placement of the temple incident, would have been difficult to execute without a visual aid to the textual geography of the four Gospels. Tatian could even locate Lukan redactions of triple and double tradition (which Luke often scattered across his narrative in different locations than either Matthew or Mark) and insert them into this Matthean and Markan sequence; this would have been difficult without a graphic tabulation of multiple Gospel sequences-perhaps resembling what Ammonius developed. Given Tatian's nuanced negotiation of parallel Gospel material, one might imagine that he constructed a synopsis to facilitate his project. 96 93 On the basis of Ephrem's Commentary, we deduce that Tatian followed the sequence of Mark 2:1-28 and Luke 5:1-6:5 against Matthew (CGos. 5). Tatian also appears to follow Mark's sequence from Mark 9:14-29 to Mark 10:2-12, against Matthew (CGos. 14), and much of the Lukan sequence of the passion narrative against Matthew and Mark (CGos. 20 96 This is precisely what was proposed by Baarda ('Διαφωνία -Συμφωνία', p. 151), who asserts that 'one of the required preparatory tasks was to create a kind of synopsis of the sources' since Tatian's ambitious project 'could not be fulfilled just with "scissors and paste"'. This is as much as Baarda explores this tantalizing technological suggestion. Baarda does not differentiate between the columnar synopsis and the annotated running text, the two alternate models we discussed for Ammonius. In either case, Tatian's Gospel does not run precisely according to the order of any other Gospel-unlike Ammonius' Matthew-structured Gospel-which raises questions about how he would have structured such a preliminary project.
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Irenaeus: Mapping
Writing around the year 180 CE, Irenaeus presented four Gospels as distinct and yet unified, a quadriform whole. 97 Irenaeus' theology of the fourfold Gospel is well known, but our present concern is the conceptual and material practices that facilitated his spatial engagement with these four Gospels. This has received far less attention. Irenaeus' negotiation of a pluriform Gospel differs from that of Ammonius, EpAp, or Tatian; he did not produce a new Gospel. Nonetheless, his engagement with the multiple Gospels reveals the same dynamics of spatial thinking, in horizontal and vertical dimensions, that we have explored throughout this article. Irenaeus engaged his four Gospels as distinct works. 98 He was an active reader, engaged in thinking both horizontally and vertically about the Gospels. 99 Spatial engagement with Gospel literature included both the production of new Gospel texts and broader practices of Gospel reading that have left their traces in texts-like Irenaeus'-about Gospels and Gospel writing. 100 Irenaeus' horizontal engagement with parallel Gospel material is clear in his use of distinctive material. He analysed both parallels and the absence of parallels, including sustained attention to distinctive material. Irenaeus' treatment of distinctive material implies horizontal reading and spatial practices of comparison. 101 (

Conclusion
New Testament scholarship over the past century has exhibited a persistent fascination with the emergence of a fourfold Gospel canon. There are good reasons for the time and labour devoted to the subject. The articulation of a fourfold Gospel composed of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (not always in that order) is a pivotal development in the history of early Christian reading. Moreover, it is central to the formation of the collection we know as the New Testament, and thus to the discipline of New Testament studies itself. Canon intersects with important questions of reading, technology, and authority. At the same time, a focus on the emergence of an authoritative list of books has often eclipsed further important historical phenomena. In this article, therefore, we redirect attention to reading and technology. What are the textual practices-both material and conceptual-by which Christians in the second century negotiated a pluriform constellation of Gospel texts? These textual practices are, of course, interwoven with broader questions of reception and of the emergent fourfold Gospel canon: how one reads parallel texts together depends, to a certain extent, on which parallel texts one chooses to read. In the present article, however, we shift the focus away from canon in order to call attention to a broader, but neglected, practical and hermeneutical question: how does one read parallel texts together?
As we have argued, a number of second-century Christians engaged a pluriform Gospel corpus through sophisticated textual practices. As with any historical reconstruction, our analysis is imaginative. We have used the work of Ammonius of Alexandria to examine the textual space in which readers engaged Gospel literature. A range of other ancient readers-from Theon and Quintilian to Gellius and Galen-enable us to ask better questions and imagine new possibilities. As we have demonstrated, second-century projects of reading and writing Gospel literature engaged two dimensions-vertical narrative and horizontal parallel-in variegated ways and for divergent ends. Nonetheless, these varied practices-dividing texts into units, listing pericopes, excerpting material, arranging Gospel texts side by side, integrating parallel material into new narrative compositions-each contributed to the spatial imagination that characterized engagement with Gospel literature in the later second century. These scholarly practices are attested across the Roman Mediterranean-in Alexandria, Syria, Rome, and Gaul-as Christian thinkers used increasingly sophisticated textual technologies and hermeneutical strategies to negotiate similarity and difference across an emergent fourfold Gospel corpus.