‘The Diversity of Agreement among the Four Evangelists’

One of Augustine’s most influential treatises on the later western tradition was his De consensu evangelistarum, in which he analysed seemingly all the possible contradictions within the fourfold gospel canon. Some previous scholars have raised the possibility that Augustine might have depended upon Eusebius’ Canon Tables to accomplish this task, while others have argued that he did not. This chapter undertakes an exhaustive investigation of the treatise and concludes that Augustine was dependent upon the Canon Tables throughout, indeed, that he could not have performed such a thorough analysis apart from some such information device. The final section of this chapter argues that on the basis of the insights he gained from the Canon Tables Augustine formulated the first ever theory of gospel composition in the history of Christianity, relying on the rhetorical practice of memoria rerum.