Church Father Tatian, Hebrew Elohim and the Greek LOGOS

Peter Craigie contends that the translation "God" for the Hebrew elohim in Psalm 8:4-5 "is almost certainly correct" and he believes that the term probably alludes to the image of deity in humankind (cf. Genesis 1:26-27); however, it is important to note that the LXX, Syriac, MT, Vulgate and the Targumim all indicate that elohim in Psalm 8:4-5 signifies "angels." The pre-Nicenes also prefer the linguistic terminology "angels" over against the rendering "God" for this passage: Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Tatian conceive of the elohim mentioned in the psalm as "angels." Undoubtedly, these writers were influenced by the LXX/OL tradition or had their view informed by the account in Hebrews 2:7.

See Craigie, Psalms 1-50, WBC (Waco: Word, 1983), 108.

Tatian was born in Assyria and eventually became a student of Justin Martyr. The Oratio is his best and most useful work, according to Eusebius. See Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments, trans. Molly Whittaker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), x. He converted to the church by perusing the "barbaric writings" (i.e. the Scriptures) of Judaism and Christianity. See Oratio 30; later, he allegedly became an austere heretic, although we cannot definitively substantiate the heretical nature of Tatian's beliefs (Little, Apologists, 179-180). Whittaker thinks that it is hard to determine Tatian's orthodoxy or heretical status on the basis of the Oratio alone (Oratio, xvi).

While Tatian appears to emphasize gnosis like his famed heretical counterparts (the Gnostics), he still does not speak about intermediary agents (aeons) who are part of some divine pleroma; nor does he juxtapose the Most High (altissimus) with a demiurgical creator-god like one finds in Plato. See ibid., xvii.

Tatian also received training as a rhetor before he settled in Rome. His concept of the LOGOS is an abstract notion of divine rationality that assumes hypostaticity prior to and for the purpose of creation: the criticisms of Irenaeus and Hippolytus directed toward Tatian may therefore be justified. See Adv. Haer. I, 28 and Philosophumena 8.16.