[1] Tychicus may be the other “brother,” in viii. 22.
[2] So also A. 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 Europe, and again the real beginning of the solemn progress of Paul towards the crisis in Jerusalem, as yet later towards Rome, xxvii. 1 ff.
[3] Note that Luke is at pains to explain why Paul passed by Asia and Bithynia in the first instance (xvi. 6 f.).
[4] Compare what A. W. Verrall has said of the poet Statius and “the gentle doctrine of humanity” on Hellenic soil, as embodied in his description of The Altar of Mercy at Athens (Oxford and Cambridge Review, i. 101 ff.).
LUKE, GOSPEL OF ST, the third of the four canonical Gospels of the Christian Church.
1. Authorship and Date.—The earliest indication which we possess of the belief that the author was Luke, the companion of the Apostle Paul (Col. iv. 14; Philem. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 11), is found in Justin Martyr, who, in his Dialogue with Trypho (c. 103), when making a statement found only in our Luke, instead of referring for it simply to the “Apostolic Memoirs,” his usual formula, says that it is contained in the memoirs composed by “the Apostles and those that followed them.” But the first distinct mention of Luke as the author of the Gospel is that by Irenaeus in his famous passage about the Four Gospels (Adv. Haer. III. i. 2, c. A.D. 180).
This tradition is important in spite of the fact that it first comes clearly before us in a writer belonging to the latter part of the 2nd century, because the prominence and fame of Luke were not such as would of themselves have led to his being singled out to have a Gospel attributed to him. The question of the authorship cannot, however, be decided without considering the internal evidence, the interpretation of which in the case of the Third Gospel and the Acts (the other writing attributed to Luke) is a matter of peculiar interest. It is generally admitted that the same person is the author of both works in their present form. This is intimated at the beginning of the second of them (Acts i. 1); and both are marked, broadly speaking throughout, though in some parts much more strongly than in others, by stylistic characteristics which we may conveniently call “Lucan” without making a premature assumption as to the authorship. The writer is more versed than any other New Testament writer except the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and very much more than most of them, in the literary Greek of the period of the rise of Christianity; and he has, also, like other writers, his favourite words, turns of expression and thoughts. The variations in the degree to which these appear in different passages are in the main to be accounted for by his having before him in many cases documents or oral reports, which he reproduces with only slight alterations in the language, while at other times he is writing freely.
We have next to observe that there are four sections in Acts (xvi. 9-17, xx. 4-16, xxi. 1-17, xxvii. 1-xxviii. 16) in which the first person plural is used. Now it is again generally admitted that in these sections we have the genuine account of one who was a member of Paul’s company, who may well have been Luke. But it has been and is still held by many critics that the author of Acts is a different person, and that as in the Third Gospel he has used documents for the Life of Christ, and perhaps also in the earlier half of the Acts for the history of the beginnings of the Christian Church, so in the “we” sections, and possibly in some other portions of this narrative of Paul’s missionary life, he has used a kind of travel-diary by one who accompanied the Apostle on some of his journeys. That neither this, nor any other, companion of Paul can have been the author of the whole work is supposed to follow both from its theological temper and from discrepancies between its statements and those of the Pauline Epistles on matters of fact.
A careful examination, however, of the “we” sections shows that words and expressions characteristic of the author of the third Gospel and the Acts are found in them to an extent which is very remarkable, and that in many instances they belong to the very texture of the passages. This linguistic evidence, which is of quite unusual force, has never yet been fairly faced by those who deny Luke’s authorship of Acts. Moreover, the difficulties in the way of supposing that the author of Acts could at an earlier period of his life have been a companion of St Paul do not seem to be so serious as some critics think. Indeed it is easier to explain some of the differences between the Acts and St Paul’s Epistles on this assumption than on that of authorship by a writer who would have felt more dependent upon the information which might be gathered from those Epistles, and who would have been more likely to have had a collection of them at hand, if his work was composed c. A.D. 100, as is commonly assumed by critics who reject the authorship by Luke.