Augustinian Hypothesis - Origin

Origin

The hypothesis takes its name from Augustine of Hippo, an early 5th century bishop and church father, who wrote:

"Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable circulation over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as four, …are believed to have written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John."

"Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek. And however they may appear to have kept each of them a certain order of narration proper to himself, this certainly is not to be taken as if each individual writer chose to write in ignorance of what his predecessor had done…"

Mark was famously dismissed by Augustine as "pedissequus et breviator Matthaei", the attendant and abbreviator of Matthew, in direct contrast to the view most commonly held in academia today, that Mark's gospel was the earliest. Augustine also discussed the commonalities between the Synoptic Gospels, including the identical language found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Augustine was not the first to articulate this view, as Irenaeus and Origen, among others, shared this ordering. However, Augustine was the first author to give a detailed scholarly textual analysis of the three texts' interdependence, and to articulate a theory for the express purpose of explaining this fact.