Augustine of Hippo : DIFFERENCES THAT RELATE TO WORDS, NOT TO THOUGHT. —The servant of Abraham, recounting the orders he received from his master, said that they were given to him in the words, You shall not take a wife to my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I travel in their land. But you shall go to the house of my father, and to my tribe, and you shall take from there a wife for my son . Now, if we realize how all these orders were given, we find that the meaning is the same; But the words are not all identical, or are rendered otherwise. I make this observation for the fools and the ignorant, who reproach the Evangelists for not agreeing perfectly in some expressions, while for things and thoughts they do not disagree. There was certainly only one author to write this book, and he could have read again to repeat himself verbatim, if the thing had seemed to him to be adequate: But the truth of the narrative is only about things and thoughts, and it suffices that the will, for the manifestation of which the words are made, be understood quite clearly. [ — QUESTIONS ON GENESIS, Q. 63 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)