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Bible Dictionaries
Synoptics, Synoptists
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or SYNOPTICS, SYNOPTISTS.—The term ‘Synoptics’ is, according to the universal practice of modern NT scholars, applied to the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, as distinguished from the Gospel of St. John; and these three Evangelists are known as the ‘Synoptists.’ It is so used because these Gospels are so constructed that, together, they present a synopsis or conspectus of the leading features of the work and teaching of our Lord. From Tatian, in the 2nd cent., to our own day, frequent attempts have been made to exhibit the Canonical Gospels in the form of a Harmony. Such a Harmony usually took the form of a compilation of these accounts of the life of Jesus, arranged in parallel columns, so as to present a complete Gospel, constructed out of the materials supplied by each Evangelist. The title of Tatian’s lost work, the Diatessaron (τὸ διὰ τεσσάρων, ‘the one by means of four’), illustrates the principle adopted in such Harmonies. In the early Church, and indeed until the time when the modern view of the mutual relations of the Gospels was first stated by Griesbach in 1774, the example of Tatian was followed, and the Synopsis was made to embrace all four Gospels; some, like Irenaeus, being led by various reasons, more or less fanciful, to lay stress upon the fourfold nature of the Gospel. Modern scholars, however, observed that the Fourth Gospel differed from the others in so many important points as to call for separate treatment. It has been noted, for instance, that while St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, except in their accounts of the closing scenes, relate almost exclusively the Galilaean ministry of Jesus, St. John confines himself mainly to His work in Judaea. It may be observed, in particular, that the first three Gospels ‘proceed in the main upon a common outline … variously filled up and variously interrupted, but’ which ‘can be easily traced as running through the middle and largest section of each of their Gospels.’ These Gospels form, in fact, a group altogether unique, in which, while each member has its own distinctive peculiarities, all three are of a common type. See, further, art. Gospels, and the artt. on each of the Gospels.
Hugh H. Currie.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Synoptics, Synoptists'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/synoptics-synoptists.html. 1906-1918.
