Council to adopt the present-day canon of New Testament books was the Council of Hippo that took place in North Africa in 393. However, the decrees of this Council have been lost. Their summary was read and adopted by the Council of Carthage in 397: «Rule 47. Apart from the canonical books, nothing else is to be read in the Church under the name of divine Scripture. The canonical books are as follows: …of the New Testament: the Gospels, four books…».
«Diatessaron» by Tatian
Tatian the Syrian was a disciple of Justin the Philosopher (circa 112/120 – circa 180/185), a Christian writer and apologist. By the end of his life he fell into heresy. He is most known for his book «Diatessaron» (Greek διὰ τεσσάρων, which literally means: «through the four»). It connects the four Gospels into one unified narrative which avoids repetitions and reconciles parallel passages. Sometimes it is referred to as «The Gospel from the Four». For several centuries this text was used as standard in some Christian communities, mainly in the churches of Syria and Antioch. Therefore, it is unlikely that Tatian could have written about irresolvable contradictions between the Gospels. Otherwise how could he have harmonized them? The original text of «Diatessaron» has not been preserved (only one fragment was unearthed during excavations at the archeological site of Dura-Europos in 1933). We can only guess at its contents from brief quotations in other ancient writers. For example, Theodoret of Cyprus points out that «Diatessaron» does not include Christ’s genealogies and other passages which show that Jesus came from the line of David according to the flesh. Theodoret found about two hundred copies of «Diatessaron» in his diocese, so he got rid of them and replaced them with the four canonical Gospels.
Other attempts to harmonize the Gospels
From time to time, other attempts have been made to combine the four canonical Gospels into one narrative.
For example, St. Jerome of Stridon mentions one such work by St. Theophilus of Antioch (died after 180): «Theophilus, the seventh bishop of Antioch after St. Peter, who left us a monument of his intelligence by bringing together into one corpus the sayings of the four evangelists» (Letter to Algasia, 6).
In the middle of the third century, a similar work called «Harmony of the Gospels or Diatessaro» was compiled by Ammonius of Alexandria. Its translation into Latin was made by Bishop Victor of Capua (d. 544) and was often reprinted.
The motivation for such an endeavor may have been the opening of Luke’s Gospel: «Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed» (Lk 1:1—4). In a sense, the Gospel of Luke can be considered a book that brings together various gospel texts and traditions.
Minh’s «Latin Patristics» (vol. CLXXVI) cites a twelfth-century Latin commentary on the Gospel harmony by Zacharias Chrysopolitanus.
The Protestant priest Andreas Osiander published «Harmonia Evangelica» in 1537.
In 1776, Johann Jakob Griesbach published a synopsis of the three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) in parallel columns, to demonstrate their similarities. Later, the first three Gospels were called «synoptic».
Several hypotheses have been suggested to explain the similarities and differences between the Synoptic Gospels, the most famous of which is the «Q source» hypothesis.
In the 19th century, Leo Tolstoy wrote his «Gospel in Brief», a synthesis of the four Gospels. Like Tatian, Tolstoy changed the Gospel texts. He removed the texts related to the Old Testament, miracles, and the Resurrection altogether. In his pseudo-gospel, Tolstoy rejected the idea of God as the Creator and proposed the idea of the universal good.
St. Theophan the Recluse’s approach in «The Gospel Story», published in 1885, was much more precise.
Many textbooks on «the law of God» reflect the content of the four Gospels. Quite often, however, they stray too far from the original text, which results in major distortions.
United Gospel
The «United Gospel» is my attempt to create a gospel harmony that directly connects the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into one cohesive narrative. For the content of the book, I used only the words and phrases from the four Gospels. The Russian version of the book is based on the Russian Synodal translation of the Bible, while the English translation uses the King James Version. In some places, I have added my commentary for clarity.
To align the four Gospels, the tables of synoptic parallels were used. The alignment was based on the Gospel Synopsis from the Orthodox Bible, which reproduces a related publication of the Moscow Patriarchate (Bible. Moscow: Russian Bible Society, 2000). In some cases, the comparison was made based the table borrowed from the Belgian edition of the Holy Scriptures (Bible. Brussels: Life with God, 1983). It is worth noting that, for the goals mentioned above, none of the two tables were acceptable «as is», for a number of reasons. In this respect, the interpretation of the Gospel narrative about the resurrection of Jesus Christ proved to be the most critical. To solve the apparent conflict, we have used the sequence from the Harmony of the Gospels, quoted in Seraphim Slobodsky’s «The Law of God» («The Law of God for Families and Schools». Jordanville: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1967).
The principles of the narrative and the analysis of individual chapters of the «United Gospel» will be presented below.
Part 2. Comparing the Gospels
The principles of harmonizing the Gospels
Harmonization of the Gospels is the best way to demonstrate how the texts of the four canonical Gospels can be brought together. Before we begin, let me make a comment.
The Gospel of Matthew contains 28 chapters and 1,071 verses (the average chapter length is 38 verses). The Gospel of Mark consists of 16 chapters and 678 verses (the average chapter length is 42 verses). Luke has 24 chapters and 1,151 verses (the average chapter length is 48 verses). John’s Gospel consists of 21 chapters and 879 verses (the average chapter length is 42 verses). In total, the four Gospels contain 89 chapters and 3,779 verses (the average chapter length is 42 verses).
In the «United Gospel», similar verses are combined; that is why the resulting text is shorter than the total number of the verses in the four Gospels. In addition, I introduced a new chapter division based on the synopsis table, which takes into account the division of the episodes in the narrative. As a result, the «United Gospel» consists of 190 chapters and 3,171 verses (the average length of a chapter is 17 verses).
The texts related to one episode were harmonized based on the internal logic of the story and two foundational principles: a) retaining as much information as possible, and b) maintaining consistency throughout all Gospel narratives.
a) The principle of retaining information
When comparing the texts of the four Gospels, we can clearly distinguish between two types of episodes: unique ones (found only in one Gospel) and parallel ones (found in several Gospels). Unique episodes do not need to be modified; they just need to be arranged in the correct order.
