For, to say nothing of the inverted order of the two principal words, (which is clearly due to 1 S. John v. 6,) let it be carefully noted that the substitution of ἄλλος δὲ λαβών λόγχην, for ἀλλ᾽ εἶς τῶν στρατιωτῶν λόγχῃ of the Evangelist, is a tell-tale circumstance. The turn thus licentiously given to the narrative clearly proceeded from some one who was bent on weaving incidents related by different writers into a connected narrative, and who was sometimes constrained to take liberties with his Text in consequence. (Thus, S. Matthew having supplied the fact that “ONE OF THEM ran, and _took a sponge_, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink,” S. John is made to say, “AND ANOTHER—_took a spear_.”) Now, this is exactly what Tatian is related by Eusebius to have done: viz. “after some fashion of his own, to have composed out of the four Gospels one connected narrative.”(576) When therefore, (as in the present Scholion,) an ancient Critic who appears to have been familiarly acquainted with the lost “Diatessaron” of Tatian, comes before us with the express declaration that in that famous monument of the primitive age (A.D. 173), S. John’s record of the piercing of our SAVIOUR’S side was thrust into S. Matthew’s History of the Passion in this precise way and in these very terms,—(for, “Note,” he says, “That into the Evangelical History of Diodorus, of Tatian, and of divers other holy Fathers, is introduced [here] the following addition: ‘And another took a spear and pierced His side, and there came out Water and Blood.’ This, Chrysostom also says”),—it is even unreasonable to seek for any other explanation of the vitiated text of our two oldest Codices. Not only is the testimony to the critical fact abundantly sufficient, but the proposed solution of the difficulty, in itself the reverse of improbable, is in the highest degree suggestive as well as important. For,—May we not venture to opine that the same καθ᾽ ἱστορίαν εὐαγγέλιον,—as this Writer aptly designates Tatian’s work,—is responsible for not a few of the _monstra potius quam variae lectiones_(577) which are occasionally met with in the earliest MSS. of all? And,—Am I not right in suggesting that the circumstance before us is _the only thing we know for certain_ about the text of Tatian’s (miscalled) “Harmony?”