MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE is a series of Research Guides based on case studies. It seeks to demonstrate the significance of the work that has been done by libraries and other institutions which digitize medieval manuscripts. My aim is to make it easier for scholars to find digitized manuscripts as well as manuscripts listed in digital catalogues. Furthermore, these guides seek to create a dialogue between scholars and institutions serving the digital revolution in the study of the European cultural heritage.
For a very long time, teachers of the church treated the various discrepancies between the canonical Gospels through Gospel harmonies. The most influential and remarkable of these is Augustin’s De consensu evangelistarum. As for the Catholic Church, Augustin’s study weighed much heavier than biblical criticism, which – for the most part – originated in German Protestantism. In his memoirs, Alfred Loisy tells that in the late 19th century, the archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Richard, encountered the modern Gospel criticism with a straightforward statement (Loisy, Memoirs I, 292): “There are no contradictions in the Gospels, because Saint Augustine has explained them.”
The latest and only critical edition of De consensus evangelistarum by Franz Weihrich (CSEL 43) stems from 1904. Weihrich consulted 20 manuscripts from 6th to 11th century, and he ranged them in four categories. He also used, at some instances, 19 manuscripts from 12th to 15th century. In the present guide, I have collected from digital catalogues 179 manuscripts; some 25% of them are now digitized (November 2017). I have marked the digitized manuscripts with a green open lock. My survey reveals that, in the past decades, libraries have digitized 24 manuscripts that Weihrich did not consult. Half of them stem from 6th to 11th century.
I do not imagine that my listing is exhaustive. Please kindly let me know of any shortcomings and mistakes you may find.
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