It is also practically certain that he was a medical man. The evidence for this is overwhelming, but as the fact is generally admitted, we need not discuss it at length. All we need say is that 201 places have been counted in the Acts, and 252 in the Third Gospel, where words and expressions occur which are specially, and many of them exclusively, used by Greek medical writers, and which, with few exceptions, do not occur elsewhere, in the New Testament.[259] For instance, we read of the many proofs of the Resurrection; the word translated proofs being frequently used by medical writers to express the infallible symptoms of a disease, as distinct from its mere signs, which may be doubtful, and they expressly give it this meaning. And we read of the restoration of all things; the word translated restoration being the regular medical term for a complete recovery of a man's body or limb.[260]
[259] Hobart's Medical Language of St. Luke (1882); some of his examples are rather doubtful.
[260] Acts 1. 3; 3. 21.
We conclude then, from the book itself, that the writer was an intimate friend of St. Paul and a medical man; and from one of St. Paul's Epistles we learn his name, Luke the beloved physician.[261] And this is confirmed by the fact that both this Epistle and that to Philemon, where St. Paul also names Luke as his companion, appear to have been written from Rome, when, as we know, the writer of the Acts was with him. And he seems to have remained with him to the last, only Luke is with me.[262] Yet this beloved and ever-faithful friend of St. Paul is not once named in the Acts, which would be most unlikely unless he were the author.
[261] Col. 4. 14; Philemon 24.
[262] 2 Tim. 4. 11.
(C.) Its Date.
The date of the book can also be fixed with tolerable certainty. It is implied in its abrupt ending. The last thing it narrates is St. Paul's living at Rome, two years before his expected trial (A.D. 58-60).[263] It says nothing about this trial, nor of St. Paul's release, nor of his subsequent travels, nor of his second trial and martyrdom (probably under Nero, A.D. 64); though had it been written after these events, it could hardly have failed to record them. This is especially the case as the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul, which, according to early authorities, occurred together at Rome, would have formed such a suitable conclusion for a work chiefly concerned with their labours.
[263] Rackham's Commentary on the Acts, 1901, p. lxvii; many place it a year or two later, some a little earlier.
On the other hand, the abrupt ending of the book is at once accounted for if it was written at that time, about A.D. 60, by St. Luke, who did not relate anything further, because nothing further had then occurred. And it is obvious that these two years would not only have formed a most suitable period for its compilation, but that he is very likely to have sent it to his friend Theophilus just before the trial, perhaps somewhat hurriedly, not knowing whether it might not involve his own death, as well as that of St. Paul.