This harmony is intended to promote and facilitate the historical study of the gospels. The authors’ study of the Synoptic Problem, extending now through many years, has led them to certain very definite conclusion respecting the relation of the Synoptic Gospels to one another, and their literary sources. The purpose of this book is not to demonstrate this theory; nor is its construction determined by that theory. It aims rather, as largely as possible in independence of all theories, to set the text of the several gospels in such parallelism as will make the facts themselves tell their own story with the utmost possible fullness and clearness.