Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

LUKE

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 118 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

LUKE , the traditional author of the third See also:

Gospel and of the See also:Book of Acts, and the most See also:literary among the writers of the New Testament. He alone, too, was of non-Jewish origin (See also:Col. iv. 11, 14), a fact of See also:great See also:interest in relation to his writings. His name, a more See also:familiar See also:form of Lucanus (cf. See also:Silas for See also:Silvanus, Acts xvii. 4, 1 Thess. i. 1, and see Encycl. Bibl. s.v., for instances of Lovxas on See also:Egyptian See also:inscriptions), taken together with his profession of physician (Col. iv. 14), suggests that he was son of a See also:Greek freedman possibly connected with Lucania in See also:south See also:Italy; and as See also:Julius See also:Caesar gave See also:Roman citizenship to all physicians in See also:Rome (Sueton. Jul. 42), Luke may even have inherited this status from his See also:father. But in any See also:case such a See also:man would have the attitude to things Roman which appears in the See also:works attributed to Luke.

He was a See also:

fellow-worker of See also:Paul's when in Rome (See also:Philemon 24), where he seems to have remained in See also:constant attendance on his See also:leader, as physician as well as attached friend (Col. iv. 14; 2 Tim. iv. II). That Luke, before he became a See also:Christian, was an adherent of the See also:synagogue—not a full See also:proselyte, but one of those " worshippers " of See also:God to whom Acts makes frequent reference—is fairly certain from the familiarity with the See also:Septuagint indicated in Acts, as well as from its sympathy with the Hellenistic type of piety as distinct from specific Paulinism, of which there is but little trace. The earliest extra-biblical reference to him is perhaps in the Muratonian See also:Canon, which implies that his name already stood in See also:MSS. of both Gospel (probably so even in See also:Marcion's See also:day) and Acts, and says that Paul took him for his See also:companion quasi ut See also:juris studiosum (" as being a student of See also:law "). Here juris is almost certainly corrupt; and whether we take the sense to have been " as being devoted to travel " (ut juris = itineris) or " as skilled in disease " (vbaou passing into vbµou in the Greek See also:original), it is probably a See also:mere inference from biblical data. Beyond references in See also:Irenaeus, See also:Clement of See also:Alexandria (cf. See also:HEBREws) and See also:Tertullian, which add nothing to our knowledge, we have the belief to which See also:Origen (Hom. i. in Lucam) witnesses as existing in his day, that Luke was the " See also:brother " of 2 See also:Cor. viii. 18, " whose praise in the Gospel " (as preached) was " throughout all the churches." Though the basis of the See also:identification be a See also:mistake, yet that this " brother," " who was also appointed by the churches (See also:note the generality of this) to travel with us in the See also:matter of the charity," was none other than Paul's constant companion Luke is quite likely; e.g. he seems to have been almost the only non-Macedonian (as demanded by 2 Cor. ix. 2-4) of Paul's circle available' at the See also:time (see Acts xx. 4). Our next See also:witness, a See also:prologue to the See also:Lucan writings (originally in Greek, now known only in Latin, see Nov.

Test. Latine (See also:

Oxford), I. iii., II. i.), perhaps preserves a genuine tradition in stating that Luke died in See also:Bithynia at the See also:age of seventy-four. It is hard to see why this should be fiction, which usually took the form of martyrdom, as in a later tradition touching his end. The same prologue, and indeed all See also:early tradition, connects him originally with See also:Antioch (see Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iii. 4, 6, possibly after Julius See also:Africanus in the first See also:half of the 3rd See also:century). That he was actually a native of Antioch is as doubtful as the statement that he was a Syrian by See also:race (Prologue). But See also:internal See also:evidence bears out the view that he practised his profession in Antioch, where (or in See also:Tarsus) he probably first met Paul. Whether any of his See also:information in Acts as to the Gospel in Antioch (xi. 19 if., xii1. I if., )(iv.

26-xv. 35) was due to an Antiochene• document used by him (cf. A. See also:

Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, 245 ff.) or not, this knowledge in any case suggests Luke's connexion with that See also:church. He shows, too, See also:local knowledge on points unlikely to have stood in any such source (e.g. it was in Antioch that the name " Christians " was first coined, xi. 26), which points to his See also:share in early Church See also:life there. The Bezan See also:reading in Acts xi. 27, " when we.were assembled," may imply memory of this. But while Luke probably met Paul in Antioch, and thence started with him on his second great missionary enterprise (xv. 36 ff.), partly at least as his medical attendant (cf. Gal. iv. 13), it is possible that he had also some See also:special connexion with the See also:north-eastern See also:part of the See also:Aegean.

See also:

Sir W. M. See also:Ramsay and others See also:fancy that Luke's original See also:home was See also:Philippi, and that in fact he may have been the " certain Macedonian " seen in See also:vision by Paul at Troas, inviting help for his countrymen (xvi. 9 f.). But this is as See also:precarious as the view that, because "we" ceases at Philippi in xvi. 17, and then re-emerges in xx. 6, Luke must have resided there during all the See also:interval. The use and disuse of the first See also:person plural, identifying Paul and his party, has probably a more subtle and psychological' meaning (see Acts). The local connexion in question may have been subsequent to that with Antioch, dating from his See also:work with Paul in the See also:province of See also:Asia, and being resumed after Paul's martyrdom. This accords at once with Harnack's See also:argument that Luke wrote Acts in Asia' (Luke the Physician, p. 149 ff.), and with the early tradition, above cited, that he died in Bithynia at the age of seventy-four, without ever having married (this See also:touch may be due to an ascetic feeling current already in the 2nd century). The later traditions about Luke's life are based on fanciful inference or misunderstanding, e.g. that he was one of the Seventy (Adamantius See also:Dial. de recta fide, 4th century), or the See also:story (in See also:Theodorus See also:Lector, 6th century) that he painted a portrait of the Virgin See also:Mother.

But a See also:

good See also:deal can still be gathered by sympathetic study of his writings as to the manner of man he was. It was a beautiful soul from which came " the most beautiful book " ever written, as See also:Renan styled his Gospel. The selection of stories which he gives us—especially in the See also:section mainly See also:peculiar to himself (ix. 51-xviii. 14)—reflects his own See also:character as well as that of the source he mainly follows. His was indeed a religio See also:medici in its pity for frail and suffering 'humanity, and in its sympathy with the See also:triumph of the Divine " healing See also:art " upon the bodies and souls of men (cf. Harnack, The Acts, Excursus, iii.). His was also a humane' spirit, a spirit so ' Tychicus may be the other " brother," in viii. 22. z So also A. See also:Hilgenfeld, Zeit. f. theol. Wissenschaft (1907), p.

214, argues that " we " marks the author's wish to give his narrative more vividness at great turning-points of the story—the passage from Asia to See also:

Europe, and again the real beginning of the See also:solemn progress of Paul towards the crisis in See also:Jerusalem, as yet later towards Rome, See also:xxvii. i if. ' Note that Luke is at pains t'o explain why Paul passed by Asia and Bithynia in the first instance (xvi. 6 f.). 'Compare what A. W. Verrall has said of the poet See also:Statius and " the See also:gentle See also:doctrine of humanity " on Hellenic See also:soil, as embodied in his description of The See also:Altar of See also:Mercy at See also:Athens (Oxford and See also:Cambridge See also:Review, i. See also:lot ff.).See also:tender that it saw further than almost any See also:save the See also:Master himself into the soul of womanhood. In this, as in his joyousness, See also:united with a feeling for the poor and suffering, he was an early See also:Francis of See also:Assisi. Luke, " the physician, the beloved physician," that was Paul's characterization of him; and it is the impression which his writings have See also:left on humanity. How great his contribution to See also:Christianity has been, in virtue of what he alone preserved of the See also:historical Jesus and of the embodiment of his Gospel in his earliest followers, who can measure? Harnack even maintains (The Acts, p. 301) that his story of the Apostolic age was the indispensable See also:condition for the See also:incorporation of the Pauline epistles in the Church's canon of New Testament scriptures. Certainly his conception of the Gospel, viz. a Christian Hellenistic universalism (with some slight infusion of Pauline thought) passed through a Graeco-Roman mind, proved more easy of assimilation, and so more directly influential for the See also:ancient Church, than Paul's own distinctive teaching (ib.

281 ff. ; cf. Luke the Physician, pp. 139-145).

End of Article: LUKE

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
LUINI, BERNARDINO (?1465-?154o) 		[next]
LUKE, GOSPEL OF ST

Site © 2006 - Net Industries