Introduction

This synopsis of the four Gospels is designed to allow the reader to easily locate any Gospel passage and to see those other parallel passages lined up side-by-side in order to, at a glance, observe what each Gospel writer wrote concerning the same parable, event, teaching of Christ, etc.  There are many detailed explanations provided here for most of the parallel passages in order to clarify all the various details given by the different Gospel writers. 

The explanations provided in this work come from great theologians from many centuries throughout the history of the Church, such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Maldonatus, Cornelius a Lapide, John McEvilly, etc.  And throughout the synopsis there are notes added along with parallel passages that provide them in an interwoven form so that the reader can see how those passages would look chronologically combined together.  Since the Gospel writers wrote about the Good News of Jesus Christ, and many of their stories parallel each other, some providing details that the others might have left out, or in their own uniqueness articulated the same story differently than the others, this allows you to compare them and to also see how they harmonize with each other by way of the explanations provided. 

As for the Scripture comparisons, I have only lined up those passages that are talking about the same  thing and event, but I have not lined up passages that are similar but are an entirely different event.  There are numerous times, especially among the teachings of Christ, where words and teachings have been repeated multiple times, but they are not the same events.  Some synopsis comparisons that have been done by others will line up all the similar passages, but I have chosen only to line up those that are the same.  The reason why I did that was so that there will be no confusion for the reader when seeking harmonization.  I wanted the parallel passages to not be cluttered up with similar but distinct passages, and for the explanatory notes to match up with the Scripture comparison.

As for the theologians whose explanations have been used in this synopsis, St. Augustine is one that has been extremely valuable.  His work called  “The Harmony of the Gospels” is a massive harmonization that goes to great lengths to compare and to clarify every possible discrepancy in the Gospels.  His work is so massive, yet the available translations of it are not user friendly, which is probably a deterrent for many people to benefit from it due to it being a navigating nightmare.  But hopefully the treasure of his harmonization can be appreciated by the casual reader in this work, since I have labored to provide quite a bit of it in a Bible ‘chapter and verse’ format.  Another great theologian that I made use of is John McEvilly.  His Bible commentaries are such a treasure.  His commentaries on the Gospels have provided for many of the explanations in this synopsis because he dealt greatly with harmonization.  He always interpreted Gospel passages by comparing what all the other Gospel writers said.  Bishop McEvilly always consulted earlier commentators and pointed out what they said and weighed out the best points.  Cornelius a Lapide is another one that I gleaned from for explanations because he also dealt with harmonization, and like McEvilly, he would often provide good points from other commentators.  John Maldonatus is another that did the same, though I used less of his direct quotes because Lapide and McEvilly often consulted his commentaries and provided a more developed explanation because they consulted him.  I also used some of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, who dealt with harmonization in his commentaries.  I consulted his commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew and John, as well as his most wonderful commentary called the Catena Aurea.  Condensed portions of St. Augustine’s Harmony of the Gospels is found throughout the Catena Aurea, in which I have gleaned from.  Note, that all the explanations are concerned only with harmonization between the Gospels and not to be relied upon for interpretation and doctrine of the text.      

The portions of interwoven passages that I provided are taken from a second century harmonization called the Diatessaron, written by an early Christian named Tatian.  The Diatessaron, (which I termed “Weaved Together” in this synopsis), aimed to weave all four Gospels together in chronological order.  This has provided for an extra bit of clarification on the Gospel passages in this synopsis because it allows the reader to see how the Gospel passages flow together.  This synopsis is not intended to lay out the Gospels in chronological order, but to deal with each section of the Gospels and their comparisons, though within the explanations I did provide occasions where the commentators discussed chronology.  None of the four Gospels are in perfect chronological order, yet many commentators feel that St. Matthew’s Gospel provides the closest chronological order.  Though the Diatessaron was designed to put the Gospels in chronological order, my use of it was only to give each section an option to see how the parallel passages flow together.  Note, that the Diatessaron has its own imperfections.  Even though it is a wonderful work, it has some errors in its chronology.  That being said, there are some instances where it won’t exactly match up with this synopsis, but I have kept it very close, and even chose not to use the Diatessaron in some sections, either because the Diatessaron made a much different order, or because it (Diatessaron) chose only to use the words of one Gospel writer for an event instead of blending them. 

The way this synopsis is laid out is all four Gospels are in their own personal order, such as the section on the Gospel of St. Matthew starts from the very beginning with every single passage in order, all the way to the very last verse.  Mark, Luke, and John are the same way.  They are all in the order that they are found in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  In the Gospel of St. Matthew, his Gospel is the primary focus, and his passages are all in the order of his Gospel, with all the parallel passages from the other Gospels lined up side-by-side with his (Matthew).  Underneath each set of verses are the explanations from expositors with their last name in bold and underlined.  And those sections from the Diatessaron are underneath the explanations, referred to as “Weaved Together.”  Like Matthew, Mark’s Gospel is the primary focus in his section, with all parallel passages lined up side-by-side and explanations, and so on with Luke and John.  One reason why I have laid this synopsis out in this way is so that each Gospel gets its own focus and is compared to the other Gospels while being the primary focus.  Another reason why I have chosen this layout is so that it makes a handier reference tool for someone who is searching for a particular verse or passage in the Gospels, and all they have to do is follow the familiar ordering and layout of the “chapter and verse” that has been established for the Bible, rather than trying to locate a specific verse in a layout that is only unique to the book.

As for the areas in the Gospels where it may look like the writers are at variance, there are different reasons, which one will find explained thoroughly and individually in the explanations in this synopsis.  One might hear many accusations saying that the Gospels are full of contradictions, or one may read the Gospels and assume that themselves.  For many of the accusations, there are often a simple explanation that will bring harmonization clarity and satisfaction to the reader, but there are some other areas where a simple explanation is not enough, and a more serious breakdown and well informed expositor is required.  Sometimes it takes a well informed and educated expositor who understands Jewish and Roman history and culture to clarify passages for those whose perception is based upon their own modern culture, such as for calendar calculations and various festivals and so on.  Also you have the fact that the New Testament was originally written in Greek, and possibly Matthew was written in Aramaic, so anytime you translate from one language to another there are some things that don’t always carry over well into English, and it helps to have those things pointed out to make a passage clearer to the reader.  Also there are places in the Gospels where it appears that many of the words are similar, but the details of time and place don’t match up.  There are possible reasons for this.  Sometimes it’s a result of certain teachings being taught more than once at different places and times.  Obviously the Lord had to repeat things over for His disciples and He did not limit Himself only to saying things once.  Another reason why one will find similar words said but place and times don’t match up is because some of the Gospel writers did not concern themselves much with chronology.  It is common for some people to tell a story about something or someone, and while in the progress of telling they recall something that comes to mind that may not concern the time and place of where they are at that point in the story but they feel it important enough to not leave it out of the story so they tell it as they recall it.  Also there are times where one will find the same event being told by more than one Gospel writer and the details vary.  There are different reasons for this.  One reason is they (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are all witnesses of the Gospel, Matthew and John being Apostles who were with Christ and actually saw and heard firsthand most of what they wrote about, while Mark and Luke wrote based upon what was carefully handed down to them by the Apostles and other eyewitnesses, so that being said, they being witnesses, they laid out details of events that naturally took upon their own way of articulation.  Any group of witnesses of any event will often tell the same story and vary in their details, while all of them saying what is true to what happened, but one may leave out something that the other chose to say, or one may expand and emphasize on something that one chose to briefly mention and only chose to summarize.  When someone chooses to summarize an event while another expands and gives fine details, there may appear at first glance to be discrepancies between the stories.  The one witness who summarizes may mention only one person doing something when the other witness who gives fine details may mention that one person who may have had someone else or others with them.  Not that the one witness summarizing failed to be accurate by mentioning only one person, but only chose to mention one person out of brevity, while the other witness may choose a much fuller set of details.  These are natural occurrences in any testimonies that have more than one witness.  Some people choose to relay only the main points of interest, while some people go through every detail.  And when it comes to the Gospel writers, they each had a group of people in mind as readers, whether Jews or Gentiles, which influenced what points of interest they felt compelled to emphasize or summarize. 

One will notice that Matthew, Mark, and Luke have many parallels among them, which is why they are often referred to as the synoptic Gospels.  Yet the Gospel of St. John has many parts that are not found in the other three Gospels.  John, who wrote many years after the other Gospel writers, probably was aware of those other Gospels and what they contained, which gave him an opportunity to write about many things that the others didn’t mention.  St. John seems to fill in many of the gaps, and one will notice in this synopsis that there are portions of John’s Gospel that have no parallels with the other Gospels, and they contain only the words of John’s Gospel.  But there are  also plenty of places where his Gospel does parallel and allow the reader to compare St. John’s words with the other Gospels.

As for the translation of the Scripture text, I have used a revision of the Douay-Rheims Bible of 1609 called the New Douay-Rheims Bible (NBRB), a revision that I published earlier this year.  It is a revision that stays very close to the original Douay-Rheims Bible, but with modern spelling of names and places, and words such as thee, thou, thine, etc. all put into their modern rendering.