St. Luke (OCt 18)
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Luke. Early Christian tradition tells us that St. Luke, the physician and companion of St. Paul in his missionary journeys, was the author of both the Gospel attributed to him, and also of the Acts of the Apostles. He was thus not only an evangelist alongside St. Matthew, St. Mark and St. John, but also, as the author of the Acts of the Apostles, the first great Christian historian.
St. Luke describes his purpose in writing his Gospel in his preface. It is addressed to Theophilus (the name means “lover of God”). He states that many have undertaken to draw up an account of the events that happened among us, following the traditions handed on by the original eyewitnesses and servants of the Word. He then states that it is now his turn, as one who has gone over the whole course of these events in detail, to write a connected narrative, so that Theophilus (to whom the work is addressed) may have an authentic knowledge about the matters about which he has been instructed. It was a literary convention at the time to introduce an historical work in this matter, and this shows that St. Luke intended his Gospel to be taken as a serious historical writing alongside the writings of other historians in the ancient world. It is clear that he was acquainted with both traditions handed on by eyewitnesses as well as written narratives based upon them. He claims to have undertaken an independent investigation, dealing with both oral tradition and with documentary sources and to have made a connected narrative from his findings. He did not himself claim to be an eyewitness of the earthly life of Jesus, but he did claim that his Gospel was based on accounts, both oral and written, of those who were.
The nature of the documentary sources on which he drew can never be known with certainty. He may have drawn upon St. Matthew’s Gospel (attributed to the Apostle of that name and traditionally held to be the first Gospel to be written) and also on St. Mark’s Gospel (attributed to St. Mark and enshrining the testimony of St. Peter). Alternatively, he may have not drawn on either of St. Matthew or St. Mark’s Gospel as we have them today, but rather on many of the same traditions that underlay them. He also drew upon traditions which are not found in either St. Mark or St. Matthew. All this backs up his claim to have made a thorough and independent investigation into the earliest sources for the life of Jesus and written a Gospel on the basis of this testimony. Unlike St. Matthew (which is essentially a work designed for catechesis) or St. Mark (which enshrines the testimony of St. Peter) or St. John (which is based on the witness of St. John, the Beloved disciple), St. Luke is essentially a work designed for the interested enquirer into Christianity. It is to such an enquirer, Theophilus, that his Gospel is addressed.
Whereas he made no claim to be an eyewitness in writing the Gospel, the situation is different over the ground covered in the Acts of the Apostles, which recounts the first few decades of early Christian history to the imprisonment of St. Paul in Rome. Many of the passages in the latter part of this narrative such as St. Paul’s trial in Jerusalem, his imprisonment at Caesarea and subsequent journey to Rome are recounted by St. Luke using the plural “we”. It is therefore inferred that these were narratives of occasions when St. Luke was himself present and was therefore an eyewitness of the events he was recording. It is noteworthy that these narratives have far more detailed precision than many of the other narratives, whether in the Gospel or in the earlier chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. It is therefore reasonable to infer that the detailed precision in the “we” passages is due to the fact that St. Luke was himself present. This includes the two years during which St. Paul was imprisoned at Caesarea. It may be therefore inferred that St. Luke occupied this period in gathering information for the writing of his Gospel and for the early history of the Church in the Acts of the Apostles. For example, he presumably derived the information about Philip the evangelist from the fact that Philip resided at Caesarea with his four daughters. Information about the earliest years of the Church in Jerusalem could also have been acquired during this period.
The narrative of the Acts of the Apostles ends with St. Paul in Rome awaiting trial. Nothing is said about the subsequent martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome. It may therefore be reasonably inferred that the Acts of the Apostles was completed by St. Luke in Rome at the point where the narrative ends. Having said this, it must also be admitted that many scholars see St. Luke as writing later in the first century and ending with St. Paul awaiting trial in Rome to show how the Gospel had spread from Jerusalem to Rome. However, it seems most reasonable to infer that St. Luke completed his work where the narrative ends with St. Paul in Rome, and says nothing further about the deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome because he was writing before the persecution of Christians after the fire of Rome under Nero. Complete certainty in this matter can probably never be obtained, but what matters is that the Acts of the Apostles is an historical work of great value, not only for Christians, but also for ancient historians.
Perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from the work of St. Luke today is that he locates the Gospel very clearly in the public realm. The events of the life of Jesus and the history of the early Church are presented in a clear chronological framework that can be related to the history of Roman Empire. This is very important to remember today when so many people, including many modern Christians, see faith as a purely private and personal thing that concerns individual experience rather than the world of public affairs. By contrast, St. Luke sees the history of the early Church as about the proclamation of the Gospel in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. The Gospel is a public proclamation of the events of salvation history, not simply a private message about personal existential encounter unrelated to the public realm.
The speeches in the narratives about the early Church in Jerusalem in the Acts of the Apostles are summaries of the earliest Christian preaching. The Apostles, in the person of their leader St. Peter, are represented as declaring that in Jesus of Nazareth the prophecies given in the earlier history of Israel have been fulfilled. A new age has now dawned and a new Israel has come into existence. Forgiveness is now offered for the past, the coming of the Holy Spirit in the present, and fresh hope for the future. It has come through Jesus of Nazareth, recently crucified, now raised from the dead and enthroned at the right hand of God, and who will come again in glory at the end of the age when God’s kingdom will finally come on earth as it is in heaven. This is the proclamation of the Gospel, which is presupposed in the rest of the New Testament, for it is the foundation of the faith of the Church. It is the basis of the writings of St. Paul and St. John, of St. Peter, St. James and St. Jude. Without it there would have been no Church and no Gospels at all.
Herein lies the great value of St. Luke. He was not an original theologian like St. Paul and St. John, but it is precisely because his was not an original mind that he so faithfully records the tradition of the earliest Christian preaching that was handed down to him. When we read the early speeches in the Acts of the Apostles we are brought into contact with that earliest Christian proclamation of the Gospel. For, as St. Paul put it to the Corinthians, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so we have believed. This is the common proclamation of the Gospel, of the apostles preaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and of prayer, on which the Church rests. What was true then is still true now.
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