The Harmony of the Gospels
Augustine’s four books on the agreement of the four Gospels (De consensu evangelistarum), written about AD 400. It works through the places where they differ in order or wording and is a primary source for how the early church read those differences.
Augustine wrote this work as bishop of Hippo in North Africa, in answer to critics who used the differences between the Gospels as an argument against them. Book 1 defends the evangelists in general. Books 2 and 3 follow Matthew’s order and compare the other three with it passage by passage, and book 4 treats what is peculiar to Mark, Luke and John.
It is cited in this wiki for Augustine’s own solutions, which were widely followed in later centuries. On the driving of the traders from the temple, which John sets at the start of Jesus’s public work and the other three in his last week, Augustine concludes that Jesus did this twice (2.67.129). He writes some three and a half centuries after the events and has no source for them beyond the Gospels themselves, so the work is evidence for the history of interpretation, not for the events.
Cited in
- c. 6–4 BC, estimated date
- AD 30 or 33, estimated date