[216] Mark 14. 51.
And St. Luke, as we shall see in the next chapter, was a doctor, who says he got his information from eye-witnesses. And if he was the companion of Cleopas, as is perhaps probable (for such a graphic narrative must have come from one who was present, yet the language is thoroughly that of St. Luke), he would also have had some slight knowledge of Christ himself.[217] And in similar cases where St. John speaks of two disciples, but gives the name of only one, it is practically certain that he himself was the other.[218] Moreover St. Luke says that his Gospel, which only goes as far as the Ascension, was about those matters which have been fulfilled among us[219] (i.e., which have occurred among us), and this implies that it was written in Palestine at a very early date, and that St. Luke himself was there during at least part of the time referred to.
[217] Luke 24. 18; Expositor, Feb., 1904.
[218] John 1. 40; 18. 15.
[219] Luke 1. 1. (R.V.). A short paper on Fulfilled among us, by the present writer, appeared in the Churchman, Aug. 1914.
All three must thus have been well-educated men, and quite in a position to write Gospels if they wanted to. While as none of them seem to have taken a prominent part in the founding of Christianity, there was no reason for ascribing the Gospels to them, rather than to such great men as St. Peter and St. Paul, unless they actually wrote them.
(B.) The Fourth Gospel.
We pass on now to the Fourth Gospel, and will first examine the internal arguments as to its authorship, which are strongly in favour of its being the work of St. John; and then the two arguments on the opposite side, said to be derived from its connection with the other Gospels, and the Book of Revelation.