and profitable of all his works” (Ibid).  More profitable than a harmony of the four Gospels!  So far as the name goes, as given by Eusebius, it would seem to imply one Gospel written by four authors.  Epiphanius states:  “Tatian is said to have composed the Gospel by four, which is called by some, the Gospel according to the Hebrews” ("Sup.  Rel.,” vol. ii., p. 155).  Here we get the Diatessaron identified with the widely-spread and popular early Gospel of the Hebrews.  Theodoret (circa A.D. 457) says that he found more than 200 such books in use in Syria, the Christians not perceiving “the evil design of the composition;” and this is Paley’s harmony of the Gospels!  Theodoret states that he took these books away, “and instead introduced the Gospels of the four Evangelists;” how strange an action in dealing with so useful a work as a harmony of the Gospels, to confiscate it entirely and call it an evil design!  To complete the value of this work as evidence to “four, and only four, Gospels,” we are told by Victor of Capua, that it was also called Diapente, i.e., “by five” ("Sup.  Rel.,” vol. ii., p. 153).  In fact, there is no possible reason for calling the work—­whose contents ate utterly unknown—­a harmony of the Gospels at all; the notion that it is a harmony is the purest of assumptions.  There is some slight evidence in favour of the identity of the Diatessaron with the Gospel of the Hebrews.  “Those, however, who called the Gospel used by Tatian the Gospel according to the Hebrews, must have read the work, and all that we know confirms their conclusion.  The work was, in point of fact, found in wide circulation precisely in the places in which, earlier, the Gospel according to the Hebrews was more particularly current.  The singular fact that the earliest reference to Tatian’s ‘harmony’ is made a century and a half after its supposed composition, that no writer before the 5th century had seen the work itself, indeed, that only two writers before that period mention it at all, receives its natural explanation in the conclusion that Tatian did not actually compose any harmony at all, but simply made use of the same Gospel as his master Justin Martyr, namely, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, by which name his Gospel had been called by those best informed” ("Sup.  Rel.,” vol. ii., pp. 158, 159).  As it is not pretended by any that there is any mention of four Gospels before the time of Irenaeus, excepting this “harmony,” pleaded by some as dated about A.D. 170, and by others as between 170 and 180, it would be sheer waste of time and space to prove further a point admitted on all hands.  This step of our argument is, then, on solid and unassailable ground—­that before about A.D. 180 there is no trace of FOUR Gospels among the Christians.