As for their contents,--the notion we form to ourselves of a Diatessaron, is that it aspired to be a weaving of the fourfold Gospel into one continuous narrative: and we suspect that in accomplishing this object, the writer was by no means scrupulous about retaining the precise words of the inspired original.

He held himself at liberty, on the contrary, (_a_) to omit what seemed to himself superfluous clauses: (_b_) to introduce new incidents: (_c_) to supply picturesque details: (_d_) to give a new turn to the expression: (_e_) to vary the construction at pleasure: (_f_) even slightly to paraphrase.

Compiled after some such fashion as I have been describing, at a time too when the preciousness of the inspired documents seems to have been but imperfectly apprehended,--the works I speak of, recommended by their graphic interest, and sanctioned by a mighty name, must have imposed upon ordinary readers.

Incautious owners of Codexes must have transferred without scruple certain unauthorized readings to the margins of their own copies.

A calamitous partiality for the fabricated document may have prevailed with some for whom copies were executed.