The ''Epistula ad Carpianum'' ("Letter to Carpian") or Letter of Eusebius is the title traditionally given to a letter from

Eusebius of Caesarea Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christia ...

to a Christian named Carpianus. In this letter, Eusebius explains his ingenious system of

gospel harmony A gospel harmony is an attempt to compile the canonical gospels of the Christian New Testament into a single account. This may take the form either of a single, merged narrative, or a tabular format with one column for each gospel, technically kn ...

, the

Eusebian Canons Eusebian canons, Eusebian sections or Eusebian apparatus, also known as Ammonian sections, are the system of dividing the four Gospels used between late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The divisions into chapters and verses used in modern texts d ...

(tables) that divide the four

canonical gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

s, and describes their purpose, ten in number. Eusebius explains that Ammonius the Alexandrian had made a system in which he placed sections of the gospels of Mark, Luke and John next to their parallel sections in Matthew. As this disrupted the normal text order of the gospels of Mark, Luke and John, Eusebius used a system in which he placed the references to the parallel texts in ten tables or 'canons'. By using these tables, the parallel texts could easily be looked up, but it also remained possible to read a gospel in its normal order. (The number of sections was: Matthew 355, Mark 236, Luke 342, John 232 – together 1165 sections). The number of each "Ammonian section" is written in the margin of a manuscript, and underneath these numbers, another number was written in coloured ink. The coloured numbers referred to one of the ten Eusebian canons, in which the reference numbers were to be found of the parallel sections in the other gospels.

F. H. A. Scrivener Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener (September 29, 1813, Bermondsey, Surrey – October 30, 1891, Hendon, Middlesex) was a New Testament textual critic and a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee which produced the Revised Version ...

, ''

A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament ''A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament: For the Use of Biblical Students'' is one of the books of Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener (1813–1891), biblical scholar and textual critic. In this book Scrivener listed over 3,0 ...

'' (London 1861), p. 50-53.

Text

Armenian - Letter of Eusebius to Carpianus - Walters W5383R - Open Obverse

The text of this epistle in

Koine Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

is: English translation: The copy of this letter appears with the canon tables on the opening folios of many Greek Gospel manuscripts (e.g. 021, 65,

108 108 may refer to: * 108 (number) * AD 108, a year * 108 BC, a year * 108 (artist) (born 1978), Italian street artist * 108 (band), an American hardcore band * 108 (emergency telephone number), an emergency telephone number in several states in Ind ...

, 109,

112 112 may refer to: *112 (number), the natural number following 111 and preceding 113 *112 (band), an American R&B quartet from Atlanta, Georgia **112 (album), ''112'' (album), album from the band of the same name *112 (emergency telephone number), t ...

113 113 may refer to: *113 (number), a natural number *AD 113, a year * 113 BC, a year *113 (band), a French hip hop group * 113 (MBTA bus), Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus route * 113 (New Jersey bus), Ironbound Garage in Newark and run ...

, 114, 117, etc.). The epistle is also given in modern editions of Greek New Testament.

References

External links

Epistula ad Carpianum ad canones evangeliorum praemissa
(original text in Koine Greek) *

{{Authority control 4th-century Christian texts Canonical Gospels Greek New Testament manuscripts Works by Eusebius of Caesarea