Ammonius of Alexandria: Essential Insights into Gospel Harmony

He is credited with the first gospel synopsis, a work that placed parallel passages from the other three canonical gospels against the Gospel of Matthew. His work was the basis of the Eusebian canons, a division of the Gospels into numbered sections that cross-references the parallels to each other. J. Quasten writes, Ammonius, who seems to have been a contemporary of Origen, wrote a Harmony between Moses and Jesus. Eusebius mistakenly identified him with the Neo-Platonist Ammonius Saccas and St. Jerome repeats the error. The treatise was probably composed in order to prove the unity of the Old and the New Testament, which many Gnostic sects denied. Possibly, Ammonius is the same as ‘Ammonius the Alexandrian,’ whom Eusebius mentions in his letter to Carpianus as the author of a Diatessaron or harmony of the gospels built on the text of Matthew. St. Jerome is convinced of this identification.

Some Contemporary Texts Apollonius (200-210 A.D.) Caius (200-220 A.D.) Philostratus (200-220 A.D.) Acts of Thomas (200-225 A.D.) Ammonius of Alexandria (200-230 A.D.) Zostrianos (200-230 A.D.) Three Steles of Seth (200-230 A.D.) Exegesis on the Soul (200-230 A.D.) Didascalia (200-250 A.D.)