The Harmony of the Gospels

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.25 · 1.26–1.44 · 1.45–2.5 · 2.6–2.16 · 2.17–2.24 · 2.25–2.42 · 2.43–2.60 · 2.61–2.81 · 2.82–2.95 · 2.96–2.121 · 2.122–2.139 · 2.140–2.154 · 2.155–3.11 · 3.12–3.26 · 3.27–3.38 · 3.39–3.55 · 3.56–3.68 · 3.69–3.77 · 3.78–4.6 · 4.7–4.20

1. 1.1The gospel excels all the holy writings, and of the apostles who preached it, Matthew and John also wrote it down.
2. 1.2Providence also gave Mark and Luke, followers of the apostles, authority to write the gospel, while other writers on Christ and the apostles were not received into the canon.
3. 1.3The four evangelists wrote in the order Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, so that the two who were apostles enclose the two who were not.
4. 1.4Each evangelist wrote with his own plan, Matthew on Christ's royal line with Mark as his abridger, Luke on his priestly line.
5. 1.5Christ is both king and priest, as the title on the cross, the psalm on Melchizedek, David's eating the holy bread, and Luke's priestly details show.
6. 1.6Matthew and Luke both stress Christ's humanity; Matthew, writing of the king, has Mark as companion, while Luke, writing of the priest who enters alone, has none.
7. 1.7John, unlike the other three, sets out above all Christ's divinity, equal with the Father, as one who drank it from the Lord's breast.
8. 1.8The active and contemplative virtues, figured in Leah and Rachel, correspond to the first three evangelists and to John.
9. 1.9Augustine prefers the reading of the four living creatures that assigns the lion to Matthew, the man to Mark, the calf to Luke, and the eagle to John.
10. 1.10Augustine undertakes to answer those who attack the gospels by alleging that the four evangelists contradict each other.
11. 1.11Some pagans ask why Christ wrote nothing, and claim that his disciples made him more than the wise man he was.
12. 1.12The pagans believe what the disciples of Pythagoras and Socrates wrote about masters who wrote nothing; they should likewise believe Christ's disciples.
13. 1.13If the pagans trust report, the far greater report of the church proclaims Christ as God; and if they have books by Christ, let them produce them.
14. 1.14Those who claim Christ wrote books of magic betray their own desires, and cannot do from such books what they say he did.
15. 1.15The supposed books of magic were even said to be addressed to Peter and Paul, a forgery that even child readers can laugh at.
16. 1.16The forgers chose Peter and Paul from church paintings, not knowing that Paul became a disciple only after Christ's ascension.
17. 1.17Christ could not have used magic to inspire the prophets who foretold him before his birth, or to make a whole nation prophesy him.
18. 1.18The Hebrews worshiped the one true God only, and the Romans refused to adopt his rites because he forbade all other gods.
19. 1.19The gods of the conquered nations did not give Rome its empire; the one true God distributes earthly kingdoms by his hidden judgment.
20. 1.20God let the Jews be subjugated for their sins, and the end of their kingdom, temple, priesthood, and anointing showed that these existed to foretell Christ.
21. 1.21The God of Israel, though refused by the Romans, is now worshiped everywhere and has through Christ turned the Roman empire to overthrow its idols.
22. 1.22The scattered Jews keep the prophetic books as witness to Christ, and the forging of magical books in his name only shows how great that name is.
23. 1.23Because Porphyry reports oracles praising Christ, the pagans blaspheme his disciples instead of him.
24. 1.24Those who blame the disciples rather than Christ for the overthrow of idols should read the prophets, who both commanded and foretold it.
25. 1.25Augustine presses the pagans on why the God of Israel alone was refused worship, when he has prevailed over all their gods.
26. 1.26The Romans refused the God of Israel because, as Socrates said each god should be worshiped as he commands, his worship excluded all others.
27. 1.27If the pagans call gods those whose seers gave petty answers, the God whose prophets foretold the conversion of all nations is surely God.
28. 1.28No pagan seer foretold the triumph of the God of Israel or warned against obeying him, while the prophets foretold the fall of the idols.
29. 1.29Since the God of Israel publicly forbids the other gods while they never forbid him, he is the one to be chosen.
30. 1.30Some identify the God of the Jews with Saturn or, like Varro, with Jupiter, yet neither of those gods forbade the worship of the other.
31. 1.31The pagans' Jupiter wavers between the philosophers' all-filling spirit, the poets' ether, and the goat-nursed god of the Capitol.
32. 1.32Euhemerus, Cicero, and the deification of Romulus and Caesar show that the pagan gods were dead men whose names were later given to the stars.
33. 1.33Varro and the Egyptian priest Leon also show that the pagan gods were once human beings.
34. 1.34If Saturn is interpreted as time, the pagans admit that all their gods, his offspring, are temporal.
35. 1.35Later Platonists reinterpreted Saturn as 'full mind' and Jupiter as the world-soul; Augustine leaves the world-soul an open question, since wisdom comes only from God's wisdom.
36. 1.36The Romans did not share the Platonists' exalted Saturn, whom astrologers made a malevolent star and people feared to name.
37. 1.37The Platonists who worship all gods cannot rightly worship the God of Israel, who through his prophets forbade all others.
38. 1.38No pagan god forbids the worship of another, however shameful, while the God of Israel forbids them all and has overthrown them.
39. 1.39The pagans cannot deny the God of Israel, whose promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that all nations would be blessed in their seed is now being fulfilled in Christ.
40. 1.40The prophets, whose books the Jews themselves carry everywhere, foretold that the nations would abandon their idols, so the disciples did not invent this teaching.
41. 1.41The God of Israel, who forbade idols through Moses and promised blessing to all nations in Abraham's seed, has overthrown idolatry through Christ.
42. 1.42Whether the pagans identify the God of Israel with Jupiter or Saturn, they do not obey him, though he has now subjected kings to Christ and made the idolaters hide.
43. 1.43Augustine introduces Isaiah's prophecy that the Lord alone would be exalted and idols cast away in fear.
44. 1.44Augustine quotes Isaiah 2:5–21 on the Lord alone being exalted and idols being hidden and cast away.
45. 1.45Even if the God of Israel is only the ruler of the elements, as one philosopher said, he outranks all the gods of parts and should be worshiped alone.
46. 1.46Lucan called the Jews' God 'uncertain,' but Psalm 19 now shows him certain, as the apostles' preaching has gone out to all the earth.
47. 1.47Isaiah 52:13–54:5, quoted in full, foretells Christ's humility and passion and the church from all nations, whose God is called God of the whole earth.
48. 1.48Even pagans who accept Christ's passion must see that Isaiah's prophecy of the suffering servant is now fulfilled in his exaltation among the nations.
49. 1.49Neither magic nor the disciples' invention can explain the prophecies of the church's worldwide spread, which are now fulfilled.
50. 1.50The pagans can produce no prophecy from their own seers against the God of Israel or the Christians, which shows their complaint of decline to be baseless.
51. 1.51The supposed decline in Christian times is the loss of shameful luxuries such as theaters and games, which even Cicero and the philosophers condemned.
52. 1.52Augustine sums up Book 1: the God of Israel, now worshiped everywhere, shows that Christ and his disciples taught the same against the gods.
53. 1.53Christ, the wisdom of God, became man so that by faith in temporal things we might be cleansed and reach eternal truth; he is the mediator between God and humanity.
54. 1.54Christ is the head and the evangelists his members, so what they wrote is as though written by his own hand; Augustine now turns to the alleged contradictions.
55. 2.1Having answered the pagans in Book 1, Augustine turns to showing how the four evangelists agree with themselves and each other.
56. 2.2Matthew traces Christ's human descent to Joseph, who remained Mary's husband and Christ's father though Christ was born of a virgin, an example of marriage kept in continence.
57. 2.3Luke calls Joseph Christ's father and both of them his parents, while noting that only some supposed Jesus to be Joseph's son by nature.
58. 2.4Christ is the son of David through Joseph's legal fatherhood and also through Mary, who was related to both the royal and the priestly lines.
59. 2.5Joseph had two fathers, one by birth (in Matthew, who says 'begot') and one by adoption (in Luke), as adoption was an ancient custom in Israel.
60. 2.6Even if Luke had said 'begot,' adoption can be called begetting, as believers are 'born of God' by adoption and grace, unlike the only-begotten Son.
61. 2.7Matthew's 'begot' and Luke's 'son of' mark the natural and the adoptive father of Joseph, a solution open to anyone not bent on quarreling.
62. 2.8Matthew lists forty generations because forty signifies the laborious time in which Christ rules us with a rod of iron in this world.
63. 2.9The forty-day fasts of Moses, Elijah, and Christ, and Christ's forty days after the resurrection, show that forty signifies this life of labor and temptation.
64. 2.10Matthew's three fourteens make forty-one, not forty-two, because Jechoniah is counted twice at the turn to Babylon, a figure of Christ the cornerstone of Jews and Gentiles.
65. 2.11Matthew's descending genealogy shows Christ coming down to our mortality; Luke's ascending one, placed at the baptism and ending in God, shows the priest who takes away sin.
66. 2.12Matthew's genealogy signifies Christ taking up our sins, Luke's their removal, and Luke's seventy-seven names signify the forgiveness of all sins.
67. 2.13Seventy-seven is eleven, the number of transgression of the ten commandments, times seven, and so signifies the full remission of sins.
68. 2.14Matthew and Luke agree that Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit; Luke tells the annunciation Matthew omits, and Matthew tells Joseph's dream Luke omits.
69. 2.15Matthew alone tells of the magi and Luke alone of the manger, shepherds, circumcision, and presentation in the temple.
70. 2.16Each evangelist joins what he tells so that it seems continuous, leaping over what he omits; so the flight to Egypt fits after the presentation in the temple.
71. 2.17Augustine weaves Luke 1–2 and Matthew 1–2 into one continuous narrative of Christ's birth, infancy, and boyhood.
72. 2.18All four evangelists begin their accounts of John the Baptist's preaching at this point; the harmony of the infancy narratives serves as a model for other passages.
73. 2.19Matthew's 'in those days' covers the whole span from Christ's return from Egypt to John's preaching, which Luke dates by the rulers of the time.
74. 2.20There were two Herods: the king who sought the infant Christ, and his son Herod the tetrarch, who ruled Galilee in John's time.
75. 2.21When Joseph returned, Archelaus reigned as king in Judea; the tetrarchy of Herod in Galilee belongs to the later time of Pilate.
76. 2.22Joseph first took 'the land of Israel' to mean Judea, or thought he should live in Jerusalem, but fear of Archelaus led him to Galilee, which also belongs to that land.
77. 2.23The yearly visits to Jerusalem fit either after Archelaus's reign or as brief, unnoticed visits at the crowded festival.
78. 2.24The presentation in the temple could take place before Herod's search, since Herod may have thought the magi deceived until the words of Simeon and Anna spread.
79. 2.25The Isaiah testimony may be Matthew's own comment or John the Baptist's words about himself, as the Fourth Gospel reports he applied it to himself.
80. 2.26Matthew, Luke, and Mark report John's preaching with variations in wording but the same sense, and John's Gospel shows the Baptist repeating what he had said.
81. 2.27It does not matter whose exact words the Baptist used, since the evangelists convey the same meaning, each as he remembered.
82. 2.28Differences in wording, order, fullness, or memory among the evangelists are not lies; what matters is the truth of the things and meanings, which they share.
83. 2.29Whether John said 'carry' or 'untie' the sandals, he may have said both, or each evangelist conveyed his one intention of humility; what counts is the speaker's meaning.
84. 2.30Only Matthew records the exchange between John and Jesus before the baptism; the others mention only the baptism.
85. 2.31The variations in the words of the heavenly voice at the baptism convey one sense; the reading 'today I have begotten you' in some copies of Luke, if genuine, means both were spoken.
86. 2.32John already knew Jesus before the baptism, but learned from the dove that Christ alone, by his own divine power, baptizes in the Holy Spirit.
87. 2.33Matthew and Luke narrate the temptation in different orders, Mark only briefly; the order is uncertain but does not matter.
88. 2.34John's account of the first disciples and the wedding at Cana comes in the days before the return to Galilee that the others report; Peter received his name then, not at Caesarea Philippi.
89. 2.35Mark inserts the teaching in the synagogue, the unclean spirit, and Peter's mother-in-law where Matthew goes straight to the Sermon on the Mount.
90. 2.36Matthew's summary of Jesus' tour of Galilee leaves room for the events Mark narrates, some of which Matthew tells later.
91. 2.37The disciples first met Jesus by the Jordan, as John says, and returned home; they were called to follow him later from their fishing, as the other three relate.
92. 2.38John calls them disciples at Cana by anticipation, as we say the apostle Paul was born in Tarsus.
93. 2.39It is uncertain whether the disciples who went with Jesus to Capernaum in John were Peter, Andrew, James, and John, since the evangelists do not record the order of the apostles' calling.
94. 2.40Scripture calls all who learned from Christ his disciples, of whom he chose twelve as apostles.
95. 2.41Luke's miraculous catch came first, with only a prophecy to Peter; the call of the two pairs of brothers in Matthew and Mark came later, when they returned to fishing.
96. 2.42The first three Gospels pass over Jesus' first visit to Galilee, which John records, and narrate his later return after the Baptist's arrest.
97. 2.43Mark omits the Sermon on the Mount but leaves room for it in his summary of preaching in Galilee, after which both he and Matthew place the cleansing of the leper.
98. 2.44Luke's long sermon begins and ends like Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, so it might be the same discourse with some sayings omitted or added.
99. 2.45Matthew's sermon was given sitting on the mountain, Luke's standing on a level place; Christ may have given one on the mountain to the disciples and a similar one below to the crowds.
100. 2.46The cleansing of the leper may have come after both sermons, since Matthew does not say how long after the descent it happened.
101. 2.47Alternatively, there was one sermon, given on a level place on the mountainside after Christ came down from its height.
102. 2.48Luke places the centurion's servant after his sermon and Matthew after the leper; the leper was cleansed in the unspecified interval before Christ entered Capernaum.
103. 2.49Matthew says the centurion came to Jesus though Luke says he sent elders and friends, because in ordinary speech one approaches or reaches a person through others.
104. 2.50Matthew also speaks mystically: by his faith the centurion truly approached Christ, as the woman with the flow of blood touched him by faith more than the pressing crowd.
105. 2.51Matthew tells of Peter's mother-in-law out of order; each evangelist narrated in the order in which God brought things to his memory, where order does not affect the truth.
106. 2.52The Holy Spirit guided the evangelists' memory and allowed different orders; this work seeks only to show that they do not contradict each other where chronological order is clear.
107. 2.53Mark and Luke keep the order of evening healings and the next morning's departure; Matthew instead inserts another occasion, the command to cross the sea.
108. 2.54Luke tells of the would-be followers at another point and without fixing the time, so there is no conflict with Matthew, who still keeps chronological order here.
109. 2.55In the calming of the storm the evangelists word the disciples' cry and Jesus' rebuke differently, but the meaning is one, and several of the words may all have been spoken.
110. 2.56Matthew's two demoniacs and the others' one are reconciled by supposing one was more famous; the other differences in the story are not contradictions.
111. 2.57In the healing of the paralytic, Matthew's 'son' and Luke's 'man' both fit, and both words may have been spoken.
112. 2.58Matthew's 'his own city' can mean Galilee or Capernaum, its chief town, where Mark places the healing; or Matthew has passed over events in between.
113. 2.59Matthew and Levi are the same man; Matthew recalls his own call out of order, since he must have been called before the twelve were chosen on the mountain.
114. 2.60Mark and Luke show that the meal with tax collectors, which Matthew does not locate, took place in Levi's, that is, Matthew's, house.
115. 2.61The variations in the Pharisees' objection and Christ's answer at Levi's feast convey one sense; Luke's 'to repentance' explains why Christ calls sinners.
116. 2.62The question about fasting was raised by several people at once, including John's disciples, which explains the different speakers in the three Gospels.
117. 2.63The sayings about the bridegroom's sons, mourning and fasting, and the new cloth and wine agree in sense, distinguishing a fast of sorrow from a fast of spiritual joy.
118. 2.64Matthew places Jairus's request right after the feast in his house, while Mark and Luke place it after the return from the Gerasenes; the feast fits in the interval they leave open.
119. 2.65The three agree about the woman with the flow of blood; 'touched my garments' and 'touched me' mean the same.
120. 2.66Matthew gives the father's real wish, that his dead daughter be raised, while Mark and Luke give his words when she was still dying; both are true.
121. 2.67From such variations we learn to look for the speaker's intention, not the letter of his words.
122. 2.68Some copies of Matthew call the girl a 'woman,' which in Hebrew usage, as with Eve and Mary, can mean any female, even a virgin.
123. 2.69Matthew alone tells of these two blind men and the mute demoniac; similar events happened more than once, which can solve apparent contradictions.
124. 2.70The order of the mission of the twelve is uncertain; Luke's Judas son of James is Matthew's Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus, one man with several names.
125. 2.71The staff that Mark permits and Matthew and Luke forbid is meant in two different senses, as 'temptation' and 'judgment' are in Scripture.
126. 2.72Many words have more than one sense, as Paul's 'burden' in Galatians 6 and 'rod' show, and so does the staff of the mission charge.
127. 2.73Christ forbade the apostles to carry provisions because they had a right to support from those they evangelized, a right that Paul, as 1 Corinthians 9 shows, chose not to use.
128. 2.74'Not even a staff' means not even the smallest thing, while 'a staff only' signifies the right to support given by the Lord; Christ said both.
129. 2.75The prohibitions of sandals and a second tunic forbid anxious provision; Mark's sandals and single tunic also carry mystical meanings.
130. 2.76Christ said all these things, some literally and some figuratively, as he does elsewhere; the evangelists each recorded part.
131. 2.77Christ repeated sayings and deeds in different places, so differences of order are no contradiction.
132. 2.78Matthew and Luke both tell of John's messengers and Christ's words about John, in different orders.
133. 2.79Luke seems to place the woes on the cities in their original setting; if Matthew's 'then' is exact, Christ said them twice, as Luke himself shows he repeated sayings.
134. 2.80Christ's thanksgiving to the Father was said once; Luke records part of it and puts little between it and the woes, so both accounts fit.
135. 2.81The plucking of grain on the Sabbath is told consistently; Matthew's 'at that time' may keep the order of events, or refer broadly to that period.
136. 2.82The healing of the withered hand was on another Sabbath; the Pharisees' question, Christ's counter-question, and the comparison of the sheep fit in one sequence.
137. 2.83Only Matthew quotes Isaiah's servant prophecy here; Mark keeps the order of Christ's withdrawal to the sea, and the ascent of the mountain came later.
138. 2.84Luke tells of the same demoniac as Matthew, later and mentioning only that he was mute.
139. 2.85The Beelzebul controversy agrees in all three; Luke's 'finger of God' for Matthew's 'Spirit of God' shows what the finger of God means in Scripture.
140. 2.86Luke arranges the demand for a sign and Christ's reply differently and adds material, but order in reporting a discourse is no matter of truth.
141. 2.87Matthew's 'while he was still speaking' fixes the coming of Christ's mother and brothers in sequence; Luke tells it earlier and detached, with no conflict.
142. 2.88The parables by the sea followed the visit of Christ's mother and brothers 'on that day,' and the evangelists' accounts and orders do not conflict.
143. 2.89Christ's rejection in his own country need not follow the parables directly, since Mark and Luke place the storm and the Gerasene demoniac next.
144. 2.90Luke deliberately anticipates the rejection at Nazareth, since in it Christ refers to deeds at Capernaum that Luke has not yet narrated.
145. 2.91Herod's words about John risen from the dead can be read as a conviction he came to after his perplexity, or as a doubting question.
146. 2.92Luke anticipates John's imprisonment before narrating the baptism, and Matthew and Mark also tell it later than it happened, prompted by Herod's words.
147. 2.93After John's death Christ withdrew to a desert place, where all four Gospels place the feeding of the five thousand.
148. 2.94John reaches the feeding of the five thousand by another road, through the Samaritan woman, the official's son, and the healing at the pool, and meets the other three there.
149. 2.95To examine the feeding of the five thousand, Augustine begins with John's account, which names Philip and Andrew.
150. 2.96The disciples' request, Jesus' question to Philip, and the answers of Philip and Andrew fit into one sequence; the others assign to 'the disciples' what John assigns to individuals.
151. 2.97The variety of words and agreement of meaning teach us to seek in words only the speaker's will.
152. 2.98Luke's fifties and Mark's fifties and hundreds show how one evangelist may give part of what another gives in full.
153. 2.99Christ walking on the water 'wished to pass by' the disciples so as to draw out their cry, which he then answered.
154. 2.100Jesus came down to feed the crowds and went back up the mountain, fleeing those who would make him king and praying; John recapitulates the disciples' embarkation.
155. 2.101Luke's 'alone praying' with the disciples, when Christ asked who people said he was, is a different occasion from Matthew's prayer alone on the mountain.
156. 2.102The healings at Gennesaret and the dispute about unwashed hands fit with John's discourse on the bread of life, since Capernaum lies by the lake of Gennesaret.
157. 2.103The Canaanite woman came to Jesus in a house, as Mark says, and kept crying after him when he left in silence, as Matthew implies.
158. 2.104Matthew and Mark both tell of the feeding of the four thousand; Mark alone adds the healing of the deaf man with 'Ephphatha.'
159. 2.105Because Matthew and Mark record both feedings, no one confuses them; similar deeds elsewhere may likewise be two events, not contradictions.
160. 2.106The demand for a sign was answered twice, as Matthew shows; Magadan and Dalmanutha are the same place, and Mark omits the sign of Jonah.
161. 2.107Matthew and Mark both tell, in the same order, of the warning against the leaven of the Pharisees.
162. 2.108Peter's confession is in the same order in Matthew and Mark; Luke's 'praying' and Mark's 'on the way' agree, since one can pray while walking.
163. 2.109Peter received his name when John records it, not at Caesarea Philippi or when Mark lists the twelve.
164. 2.110The first prediction of the passion follows in the same order in all three; Luke omits Peter's rebuke.
165. 2.111The sayings on taking up the cross and the coming judgment agree in meaning across all three Gospels.
166. 2.112The transfiguration is told by three evangelists in the same order and with the same meaning.
167. 2.113Matthew and Mark's 'six days' count only the days between; Luke's 'eight' counts the first and last days too.
168. 2.114Luke adds that Peter spoke as Moses and Elijah were departing, and that the voice came as they entered the cloud; the others do not contradict this.
169. 2.115Matthew and Mark agree on Christ's words about Elijah, and Matthew alone adds that the disciples understood he meant John.
170. 2.116The healing of the boy with an evil spirit is told by all three in the same order without conflict.
171. 2.117The second prediction of the passion is in the same order in all three.
172. 2.118Only Matthew tells of the temple tax and the coin in the fish's mouth.
173. 2.119Matthew's discourse on greatness and forgiveness is partly paralleled in Mark and Luke; Christ said such things, such as the saying on binding and loosing, on several occasions.
174. 2.120Matthew and Mark both tell of the question on divorce, though in Mark Jesus asks what Moses commanded, while in Matthew the Pharisees raise Moses' bill of divorce in reply.
175. 2.121Whether the Pharisees raised Moses' bill of divorce unprompted or in reply to Jesus' question, both evangelists show the intentions of the speakers truly.
176. 2.122Alternatively, the Pharisees mentioned Moses' permission twice, once in reply to Jesus and once after his appeal to creation, and Mark places Jesus' answer after the first.
177. 2.123On the rich man, Matthew's 'Why do you ask me about the good?' and the others' 'Why do you call me good?' were probably both said.
178. 2.124Mark gives the sons of Zebedee's request as their own, Matthew as made through their mother; the saying on serving was spoken twice, as Luke's placement shows.
179. 2.125Matthew's two blind men and Mark's one are reconciled as with the Gerasene demoniacs: Bartimaeus was the famous one, a fallen man of note.
180. 2.126Luke's blind man healed as Jesus approached Jericho is a second, similar miracle, not a contradiction.
181. 2.127Matthew's she-ass and colt and the others' colt alone do not conflict, since one evangelist gives more than the others.
182. 2.128Matthew's she-ass in the Zechariah quotation reflects the Hebrew, as the Septuagint's variations from the Hebrew, made by the same Spirit, keep God's meaning in different words.
183. 2.129Christ cleansed the temple twice: John records the first time, the other three the last.
184. 2.130Augustine quotes Matthew's account of the healings in the temple, the children's hosanna, and the cursing of the fig tree.
185. 2.131Matthew keeps the order of the temple cleansing, Mark that of the fig tree; Matthew joins the third day's marveling at the withered tree to the second day's curse.
186. 2.132The question about Christ's authority agrees in all three; Luke's 'one of the days' is the same day the others mean.
187. 2.133Only Matthew has the parable of the two sons; all three give the parable of the tenants in the same order.
188. 2.134Matthew gives the verdict on the tenants to the hearers, Mark to Christ; either their words were added without 'they said,' or the truth they spoke is his.
189. 2.135Luke reports the hearers' 'Far be it!', which the saying about the rejected stone answers in all three Gospels.
190. 2.136Some hearers gave the verdict against the tenants and others said 'Far be it!'; Mark and Luke ascribe the verdict to Christ because truth spoke through them, as through Caiaphas.
191. 2.137The parable of the tenants was spoken to the whole people, among whom believers could have given the verdict, rightly ascribed to Christ as the voice of his members.
192. 2.138As in John 8, where believers and would-be killers stood in one crowd, so here some hearers believed and gave the verdict while others protested.
193. 2.139Only Matthew gives the parable of the wedding feast here; Luke's similar parable is a different one.
194. 2.140The questions about tribute to Caesar and the woman with seven husbands follow in the same order in all three.
195. 2.141The lawyer who 'tested' Jesus in Matthew may have been corrected by his answer, or tested him cautiously rather than maliciously, so Mark's praise of him fits.
196. 2.142Luke's lawyer who prompted the parable of the good Samaritan is probably a different man from the scribe praised in Mark.
197. 2.143Whether or not the Pharisees first answered 'David's,' Christ's question about David's Lord taught the hearers that the Christ is God as well as David's son.
198. 2.144The woes against the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew (in Jerusalem) and in Luke (at a Pharisee's meal on the way) seem to be two similar discourses.
199. 2.145Christ's words 'you will not see me until you say, Blessed is he who comes' refer mystically to his coming in glory; Luke either anticipated them or Christ said them twice.
200. 2.146Mark and Luke insert the widow's mites before the prophecy of the temple's destruction, otherwise keeping Matthew's order.
201. 2.147In the eschatological discourse, given in one setting by all three, any differences must be shown not to be contradictions; the order of sayings does not matter.
202. 2.148Mark's 'first' before the end means the same as Matthew's 'and then the end will come.'
203. 2.149Matthew's 'holy place,' Mark's 'where it ought not,' and Luke's Jerusalem surrounded by armies all describe the abomination of desolation.
204. 2.150Luke's 'let those in its midst depart' and the others' 'let him on the housetop not come down' agree when taken spiritually, as warnings not to cling to this life.
205. 2.151Luke's warning against cares and drunkenness explains Matthew's flight 'not in winter or on the Sabbath'; other parallels with Luke reflect anticipation or repetition.
206. 2.152All three place the approach of the Passover two days ahead; John mentions its nearness three times, the third at this same time.
207. 2.153Matthew and Mark tell the anointing at Bethany, which John dates six days before the Passover, by recapitulation, inserted between the two-day notice and Judas's betrayal.
208. 2.154Luke's anointing by a sinful woman at Simon the Pharisee's house was an earlier act by the same Mary, who anointed Jesus again at Bethany, as the other three relate.
209. 2.155Matthew and Mark's anointed head and John's anointed feet are both true; the woman anointed both.
210. 2.156The disciples' murmuring in Matthew and Mark refers to Judas, whom John names, either by the plural for the singular or because others joined him with better motives.
211. 2.157Matthew's 'to a certain man' is the evangelist's own brief insertion into Christ's words, referring to the householder whom Mark and Luke identify by the man carrying water.
212. 2.158The announcement of the betrayer at the supper raises no question among the evangelists.
213. 3.1From the Last Supper on, Augustine will weave all four accounts into a single narrative to show their agreement.
214. 3.2Augustine begins the combined narrative with the institution of the Eucharist and the announcement of the betrayer, drawing on all four Gospels.
215. 3.3After the cup Christ spoke again of the betrayer, and John's account of the beloved disciple's question and the morsel follows at this point.
216. 3.4Satan's entering Judas after the morsel means a fuller possession than his earlier prompting, as the apostles received the Spirit more fully at Pentecost.
217. 3.5The prediction of Peter's denial comes at different points in different Gospels, after different sayings, suggesting Peter boasted and was warned three times.
218. 3.6The occasions of Peter's boast differ in John, Luke, and Matthew–Mark, making it more credible that he boasted and was warned three times.
219. 3.7Mark's 'before the cock crows twice' agrees with the others: the threefold denial began before the first crowing and was completed before the second, and was conceived in Peter's fear beforehand.
220. 3.8Whether Christ foretold the denial three times or once, there is no conflict among the evangelists.
221. 3.9Augustine arranges John's farewell discourse, Luke's dispute about greatness, the warning to Peter, the two swords, and the departure to the Mount of Olives in one sequence.
222. 3.10Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, and John's garden across the Kidron are the same place; Augustine quotes Matthew's account of the prayer in the garden.
223. 3.11Christ's 'sleep now and take your rest' was a permission, followed by a silence, then 'it is enough,' as Mark shows, not a reproach.
224. 3.12Luke adds the angel and the bloody sweat without numbering the prayers; John is silent about the prayer in the garden.
225. 3.13'If it is possible' refers to the Father's will, not his power, as Mark's 'all things are possible to you' and Luke's 'if you will' show.
226. 3.14Mark's 'Abba, Father' signifies the church from Jews and Gentiles, the others' 'Father' its unity; Christ's sorrow shows martyrs they need not despair.
227. 3.15Augustine combines the four accounts of Judas's kiss and the arrest into one sequence.
228. 3.16The four accounts of the striking of the high priest's servant and Christ's rebuke and healing fit into one sequence.
229. 3.17Luke's 'let it go this far' answered the disciples' question, while Peter struck in the meantime; Matthew gives Christ's condemnation of the sword.
230. 3.18Christ's words to the crowd, the disciples' flight, and the young man who fled naked are combined from Matthew, Luke, and Mark.
231. 3.19Christ was led first to Annas, then to Caiaphas; Peter followed and was admitted to the court through the other disciple.
232. 3.20The false witnesses, the high priest's question, Christ's answer 'You have said it' (Mark's 'I am'), and the mockery agree across the Gospels.
233. 3.21The evangelists place Peter's denial and Christ's mockery in different orders, John interweaving them by recapitulation.
234. 3.22In Matthew's account of the three denials, the first cockcrow, which Mark mentions, came after Peter went out following his first denial.
235. 3.23Peter's second denial was at the fire after he had gone out and returned, and he was questioned there by a second servant girl and by a man, as Luke and John show.
236. 3.24John shows that Annas was also high priest and that Peter's second denial was inside at the fire after his return; Matthew and Mark omit his return for brevity.
237. 3.25The third denial: Luke's 'about an hour' explains 'after a little while'; one questioner or several, to Peter or about him, are reconcilable; the cock then crowed the second time.
238. 3.26Luke's 'the Lord turned and looked at Peter' was a divine, not bodily, look, since Christ was elsewhere in the house; it moved Peter to repentance.
239. 3.27The morning council, which Luke describes in detail, is the one Matthew and Mark mention; the night interrogation with false witnesses came earlier.
240. 3.28Matthew alone narrates Judas's remorse, death, and the purchase of the potter's field, citing 'Jeremiah.'
241. 3.29Although some copies omit 'Jeremiah' and the prophecy is in Zechariah, the better and older manuscripts have 'Jeremiah,' which was removed by those troubled by the difficulty.
242. 3.30Providence let Matthew write 'Jeremiah' for Zechariah to teach that all the prophets speak by one Spirit, so that each prophet's words belong to all.
243. 3.31The name Jeremiah also points the reader to Jeremiah's purchase of a field, to be read with Zechariah's thirty pieces of silver as a figure of Christ's price and the burial of pilgrims in baptism.
244. 3.32Augustine quotes Matthew's account of the trial before Pilate.
245. 3.33Mark's 'king of the Jews' and Matthew's 'Jesus who is called Christ' mean the same, since 'christs' were kings of the Jews; both show Pilate's efforts to release him.
246. 3.34Luke gives the charges, the sending to Herod, and Pilate's repeated attempts to release Jesus, which Matthew's 'he was gaining nothing' implies.
247. 3.35John's longer account of the trial before Pilate includes charges (claiming to be Son of God and king) that agree with Luke's, though the Jews at first gave none.
248. 3.36Matthew's scarlet cloak and Mark's purple are the same mock royal robe; Matthew and Mark tell the mockery by recapitulation, since John places it before Pilate's sentence.
249. 3.37Jesus carried his cross at first, as John says, and Simon of Cyrene was then compelled to carry it, as the other three relate.
250. 3.38Matthew's wine with gall and Mark's wine with myrrh both mean bitter wine; Christ tasted it but would not drink.
251. 3.39The three briefly record the dividing of Christ's garments; John gives the detail of the seamless tunic and the psalm fulfilled.
252. 3.40Mark's 'third hour' for the crucifixion seems to conflict with John's 'about the sixth hour' for Pilate's sentence.
253. 3.41John's 'about the sixth hour' means early in the sixth hour, when Jesus was handed over; the darkness came at the end of the sixth.
254. 3.42Mark's 'third hour, and they crucified him' refers to the hour when the crowd cried 'Crucify,' showing that their tongues rather than the soldiers' hands killed Christ.
255. 3.43Augustine offers his solution until a better is found, insisting only that no evangelist lied or erred.
256. 3.44Two hours passed in Pilate's attempts to release Jesus between the crowd's cry at the third hour and the sentence in the sixth; Matthew inserted the wife's message early.
257. 3.45Luke too shows a long struggle, from the first 'Crucify' at the third hour through Pilate's repeated efforts, taking two hours or more.
258. 3.46John's detailed account of Pilate's hesitation fills the two hours between the cry 'Crucify' at the third hour and the sentence in the sixth, after which the crucifixion and darkness followed.
259. 3.47Christ was crucified at the third hour by the Jews' tongues and the sixth by the soldiers' hands; Mark's 'was saying' indicates Pilate's long efforts.
260. 3.48The order of the evangelists' recollections was governed by God, whose hidden justice lets apparent contradictions blind some and exercise others.
261. 3.49Mark placed the 'third hour' where the soldiers' deed is told so that the crime would not be shifted from the Jews to the Romans.
262. 3.50An alternative solution counts John's 'sixth hour' from the beginning of the Preparation at the ninth hour of the night, when Christ was condemned, which coincides with Mark's third hour of the day.
263. 3.51All four agree on the two crucified with Jesus.
264. 3.52The mockery by passers-by and rulers agrees in all three, Luke's 'rulers' including priests, scribes, and elders.
265. 3.53Matthew and Mark's plural 'robbers' reviling Jesus means one, as Luke shows, by the common use of the plural for the singular, as in Hebrews and the Psalms.
266. 3.54The darkness, the cry of dereliction, and the vinegar agree across the Gospels; Luke's plural 'soldiers' offering vinegar means one of them.
267. 3.55The loud cry in Matthew and Mark was 'Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,' as Luke gives it; John's 'It is finished' came just before.
268. 3.56Luke places the tearing of the veil with the darkness by anticipation; Matthew's 'and behold' shows it happened at Christ's death.
269. 3.57The centurion's words 'Son of God' and Luke's 'righteous' are both true or express the same meaning; he marveled at all the signs, including the manner of Christ's death.
270. 3.58The women stood both near the cross, within Christ's sight, and at a distance from the crowd, or moved away after he entrusted his mother to the disciple.
271. 3.59The four accounts of Joseph of Arimathea agree; the secret disciple dared to ask for the body because his rank gave him access to Pilate.
272. 3.60The three agree on Joseph's burial of Jesus; John adds Nicodemus, and his 'linen cloths' fits the others' single sheet.
273. 3.61Matthew and Mark agree on the women watching the burial.
274. 3.62Only Matthew tells of the guard at the tomb.
275. 3.63Matthew's angel sitting on the stone outside and Mark's young man sitting inside on the right are either two angels or one seen within a walled enclosure before the tomb.
276. 3.64Mark's 'they said nothing to anyone' means to the angels or guards, and Matthew mentions both their fear and their joy.
277. 3.65Mark's 'very early, the sun having risen,' Luke's 'at early dawn,' and John's 'while still dark' mean daybreak; Matthew's 'evening of the Sabbath' stands for the whole following night, ending at dawn.
278. 3.66The 'three days and three nights' of Christ in the tomb are reckoned by the figure of the whole for a part: part of Friday, all of the Sabbath, and part of Sunday.
279. 3.67Luke's two standing angels may be additional to the one angel seen sitting by the stone (Matthew and Mark), appearing inside where the body had lain.
280. 3.68John's account of Mary Magdalene, Peter and the beloved disciple, the two angels, and Christ's appearance to Mary agrees on the time and with Luke's two angels, but needs careful ordering.
281. 3.69Augustine weaves all four resurrection accounts into one: Mary's report, Peter and John at the tomb, the angels, Christ's appearances to Mary and the women, the disciples' unbelief, and the guards' bribe.
282. 3.70The evangelists' resurrection appearances must agree with Paul's list; Luke's account of Peter at the tomb is a recapitulation, and Peter first stooped down and then went in, as Luke and John together show.
283. 3.71Of the men, Christ appeared first to Peter, then to the two going to Emmaus, whose 'village' Mark calls the 'country'; Paul's 'twelve' may be a fixed sacred number or other disciples.
284. 3.72Mark's 'another form' is Luke's 'their eyes were held,' an impediment removed at the breaking of bread, signifying that Christ is known by sharing in his body, the church.
285. 3.73Mark's two who were not believed are Luke's Emmaus disciples; some present doubted, and Mark omits how they recognized Christ, joining his account as the evangelists often do.
286. 3.74Luke's and John's accounts of Christ's appearance to the disciples on Easter evening interlock; Luke joins the ascension, forty days later, without marking the interval, and Thomas had left before Jesus came.
287. 3.75John's second appearance, to Thomas, is not Mark's 'last' appearance; Mark's 'last of all' means the last on Easter day itself, when Christ reproached the doubters.
288. 3.76Mark's 'eleven' may mean the apostolic company even with Thomas absent, or the last appearance on the fortieth day, when Christ rebuked their unbelief before sending them to preach.
289. 3.77Mark's signs and ascension suggest this was the last appearance on the fortieth day, though 'after he had spoken to them' need not mean immediately after.
290. 3.78John's third appearance, at the sea of Tiberias, with the catch of fish and the charge to Peter, ends his Gospel.
291. 3.79The angel's words in Matthew and Mark suggest the disciples would see Christ first in Galilee, yet Mark records appearances in Jerusalem and Matthew only the one in Galilee.
292. 3.80The angel did not say Christ would be seen first or only in Galilee, so Matthew does not conflict with the Jerusalem appearances; yet the choice of Galilee invites a search for its mystical sense.
293. 3.81Matthew's appearance in Galilee cannot have been on Easter day; if within the next eight days, the 'eleven disciples' there may have included others besides apostles, so that Thomas was absent.
294. 3.82John's 'third time' counts days of appearance, not appearances; so Matthew's appearance on the mountain in Galilee came after all these.
295. 3.83The Gospels record ten appearances of the risen Christ: nine on earth and one at the ascension.
296. 3.84Christ appeared often but not daily during the forty days; Peter's 'for forty days' is a whole for a part, and forty signifies the world or this age.
297. 3.85Paul's list of appearances agrees with the Gospels, since he does not say Cephas was first, and the later appearances fit the forty days.
298. 3.86'Galilee' means 'passing over' (Christ's grace passing to the nations) and 'revelation' (the vision of Christ in his divine form in eternity).
299. 4.1Book 4 examines what Mark, then Luke, then John have beyond Matthew, up to the Last Supper.
300. 4.2Mark's opening has been treated with Matthew; the teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, shared with Luke, raises no question.
301. 4.3Mark's 'tearing' or 'convulsing' the man and Luke's 'without harming him' agree: the demon threw him down but left him unharmed.
302. 4.4Mark's 'he gave Simon the name Peter' is a recapitulation of the naming John records earlier.
303. 4.5Christ, who knew human wills, forbade the healed to speak knowing they would proclaim him more, so as to rebuke the slothfulness of those commanded to preach.
304. 4.6'Whoever is not against you is for you' and 'Whoever is not with me is against me' agree: the exorcist was with the disciples in using Christ's name, against them in being outside their fellowship, as heretics share the sacraments yet divide the church.
305. 4.7Mark gathers here sayings given elsewhere because they fit the occasion: those who favor Christians will come to salvation, while members who cause stumbling must be cut off or tolerated like chaff.
306. 4.8From Mark 10 to the Last Supper, everything has been treated except the widow's mites, where Mark and Luke agree.
307. 4.9Luke's preface shows he also wrote Acts; 'all things' means a selection, and the 'many' who attempted gospels lack the church's authority, while Mark and Luke were approved by the living apostles.
308. 4.10Luke's material from the birth of John to the catch of fish raises no conflict; John's catch after the resurrection is a different event.
309. 4.11The first three Gospels present Christ's humanity as king and priest, Mark sharing both; John, like an eagle, presents his divinity, as at Cana.
310. 4.12In John Christ says he will raise the temple of his body himself, showing that he raised himself as one God with the Father.
311. 4.13John's accounts of Nicodemus, the friend of the bridegroom, the Samaritan woman, and the official's son lift the mind to unchangeable things.
312. 4.14At the healing of the man ill thirty-eight years, Christ's words 'My Father is working, and I am working' show his equality with the Father.
313. 4.15John joins the others at the feeding of the five thousand but alone tells of Christ fleeing those who would make him king and of the discourse on the bread of life.
314. 4.16In John Christ answers his brothers about his time, and at the feast speaks of being known by origin in the flesh but unknown in divinity, and of giving the Spirit.
315. 4.17In John Christ forgives the adulteress, writing on the ground, and calls himself the light of the world and the beginning, distinct from the lesser lights of disciples and the Baptist.
316. 4.18John's blind man, Good Shepherd discourse, Dedication feast, and raising of Lazarus show Christ's divinity; at Bethany he rejoins the others.
317. 4.19John rises highest in Christ's discourses, especially at the Last Supper, and walks with the others only rarely, presenting Christ's divinity and the Spirit as also the Son's.
318. 4.20Christ's word that John should 'remain until I come' signifies that the contemplation John's Gospel offers is perfected only at Christ's coming; meanwhile we walk by faith, active and humble, with the three evangelists.