I have said that in the New Testament there is an Essene and an anti-Essene Christ. Both are most conspicuous in the Gospel of St. Luke. Catholic and Protestant disputants are aware of this.
Until the days of Ferdinand Christian Baur, St. Luke had an immaculate reputation. He was believed to be the companion of St. Paul on his voyages. He was believed to have written the third gospel almost as early as the date of Paul's imprisonment. He was the reputed author of the Acts of the Apostles.
"Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you." (Col. iv. 14.)
In the Second Epistle to Timothy, and in the Epistle to Philemon, he is also mentioned.
But now all is changed.
In the first place, two out of the three epistles that name him are pronounced to be forgeries by all competent critics; and very few hold even the Epistle to the Colossians to be by the pen of St. Paul. Then it is pointed out that there is no mention of St. Luke's gospel or of the Acts of the Apostles until the date of Irenæus (A.D. 180.)
Let us give the opening verses of the gospel as amended by that eminent Greek scholar, Dr. Giles:—
"Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narrative of those things which have been brought to fulfilment in us, even as they which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word have handed down to us, it hath seemed good to me also, following all accurately from the beginning, to write unto thee, in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed."
Now, here it is plain, as Dr. Giles remarks, that the author "does not profess to have been an original writer, or to have had perfect understanding of all things from the very first," which is the erroneous rendering of our authorised version, but that he follows the accounts of others, who "were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." (Giles, "Apostolical Records," p. 34.)