Unlike some competing hypotheses, this hypothesis does not rely on, nor does it argue for, the existence of any document that is not explicitly mentioned in historical testimony.

The foundation of evidence for the hypothesis is the writings of the Church Fathers: historical sources dating back to as early as the first half of the 2nd century, which have been held as authoritative by most Christians for nearly two millennia.

And however they may appear to have kept each of them a certain order of narration proper to himself, this certainly is not to be taken as if each individual writer chose to write in ignorance of what his predecessor had done..."[1] Mark was famously dubbed by Augustine as "pedissequus et breviator Matthaei", the attendant and abbreviator of Matthew,[1] in direct contrast to the view most commonly held in academia today, that Mark's gospel was the earliest.

Augustine also discussed the commonalities between the Synoptic Gospels, including the identical language found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

However, Augustine is the earliest extant author to give a detailed scholarly textual analysis of the three texts' interdependence, and to articulate a theory for the express purpose of explaining this fact.

The Church Fathers who wrote about the order and authorship of the canonical gospels all supported some basic ideas of the Augustinian hypothesis.

According to Irenaeus, Papias was "a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp, a man of primitive times," who wrote a volume in "five books.

The Griesbach hypothesis attempts to resolve the difficulty concerning this secondary point of contention by stating Luke wrote before Mark.

Nonetheless, because the Augustinian hypothesis does not address whether Peter was alive at the time of the composition of Mark or not, this discrepancy is not a basis for objection to the theory.

[18] Eusebius wrote in c. 325 that Pantaerus found a copy of the Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew in India, and that it had been left there by Bartholomew.

Recently, modern scholars accepting some form of the Augustinian hypothesis have attempted to develop a detailed argument explaining the theoretical origin of the gospels.

There was a perceived need for this in response to recent competing theories, expressed by Bernard Orchard: “the two-document hypothesis and the priority of Mark are still only hypotheses, not infallible dogmas, and they have stood secure for so long chiefly because no one has been able to offer any satisfactory alternative.

The reasons for this, he asserted, were: the need for instruction when no qualified teacher was available, the need for consistency and accuracy in what was taught as it spread throughout the first scattered Christian communities, and for the basic need of evangelization.

[27] Wenham also argued that Matthew was a natural choice since, as a tax collector,[28] he would have had the requisite literacy, as well as his first hand memories, and perhaps even notes.

Orchard countered the claim that the Gospel of Mark must have been written first, since it contains less information than Matthew and Luke, by positing that Peter elected not to speak on certain subjects, such as the birth and resurrection narratives, since he had not been a direct witness of those events.

Butler, but not by John Wenham, who instead explained the similar structure by arguing simply that Mark used both his recollection of his instruction from the Gospel of Matthew and his memory of the preaching of Peter to pen his own synthesis.

[39] An unusual modern scholar who supported the notion that the Synoptic Gospels were of an early date, specifically before 70, was John Robinson.