Bible Commentaries
Luke

Watson - Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark

INTRODUCTION

THE author of this gospel was the companion of St. Paul in his evangelical labours, accompanied him to Rome after he had appealed unto Cesar, and there continued with him. He is generally supposed to be “the beloved physician” mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians. His name does not occur in the gospels; but it has been a matter of dispute whether he was not one of the seventy disciples. Some have thought him a Syrian early proselyted to the Jewish religion, with which he shows a perfect familiarity; others, that he was a Jew born at Antioch. The notion that St. Luke descended from Gentile parents is grounded upon his being spoken of in Colossians 4:14, distinctly from other friends and fellow labourers of St. Paul, who are characterized as of the circumcision; but the argument from this is far from being conclusive. He is supposed, after the termination of St. Paul’s imprisonment at Rome, to have returned to Greece.

St. Luke’s qualifications for his great work of writing his gospel were first and chiefly that inspiration which he, as well as the apostles, received; for the special gifts of the Holy Spirit were not, at their effusion on the day of pentecost, confined to the apostles; and by them they were afterward conferred upon others not then present. The strong probability is, that St. Luke, who professes an accurate acquaintance with the facts of his history, was among the disciples of our Lord during his life, and was present at the first great effusion of the Spirit. Of his inspiration, however, there can be no doubt. From their first publication, both the gospels of Mark and Luke, though the writers were not apostles, were received as of equal authority with those of Matthew and John; and they were thus distinguished from all others of those numerous accounts of the same events, which, we know, from the introduction of St. Luke’s gospel, were in existence and circulation; some of which, at least, were, as far as they went, correct relations. It is true that Mark’s gospel might derive authority from the general belief that it was written under the eye of St. Peter himself; but St. Luke’s gospel could have no such recommendation; for though he was the companion of St. Paul, yet that apostle had not been an eye witness of the events of our Lord’s life. Certainly the intercourse which St. Luke must have had with several apostles would give a powerful sanction to his history, which was published during their lifetime; but several of those who had written gospels which have long perished, and those early ones, against whose truth nothing was alleged, had intercourse also with apostles, and derived, no doubt, in many instances, their information from them, while yet their writings were never received in the primitive Church as having authority, nor, like the four gospels, were ever read in Christian assemblies, as portions of HOLY SCRIPTURE. This seems a sufficient answer to those who, like Michaelis, hesitate to place the gospels of Mark and Luke on a level with those of Matthew and John, under the notion that inspiration was confined to apostles only, which is a gratuitous assumption. If the writings of Mark and Luke were not recognized as inspired writings by the apostles, in whose lifetime they were published, it is utterly impossible to account for that sanction under which they were received in the earliest times, to the exclusion of so many other writings of the same kind. Only as being accounted INSPIRED writings could they have obtained the authority they had in the primitive Church, and on that point that Church had the best, nay, infallible means of judging. The gifts of the Holy Spirit were in it; and those who possessed them could “try” all other “spirits, whether they were of God.”

The testimonies of the earlier fathers to this gospel are as follows: — IRENÆUS asserts “that Luke, the companion of Paul, put down in a book the gospel preached by him.” Again he says, “Luke was not only a companion, but a fellow labourer of the apostles, especially of Paul.” He calls him “a disciple and fellow labourer of the apostles.” “The apostles,” says he, “envying none, plainly delivered to all, the things which they had heard from the Lord. So likewise Luke, envying no man, has delivered to us what he learned from them, as he says, ‘Even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eye witnesses and ministers of his word.’” EUSEBIUS informs us that CLEMENT of Alexandria bore a large testimony to this, as well as to the other gospels; and he mentions a tradition concerning the order of the gospels, which Clement had received from presbyters of more ancient times, — “that the gospels containing the genealogies were written first.” TERTULLIAN speaks of Matthew and John as disciples of Christ; of Mark and Luke as disciples of the apostles; however, he ascribes the same authority to the gospels written by them as to the others. “The gospel,” says he, “which Mark published, may be said to be Peter’s, whose interpreter Mark was: and Luke’s digest is often ascribed to Paul. And indeed it is easy to take that for the master’s which the disciples published.” Again: “Moreover, Luke was not an apostle, but an apostolic man; not a master, but a disciple: certainly less than his master; certainly so much later, as he is a follower of Paul, the last of the apostles.” ORIGEN mentions the gospels in the order commonly received. “The third,” says he, “is that according to Luke, the gospel commended by Paul, published for the sake of the Gentile converts.” In his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, which we now have in a Latin version only, he writes, “Some say Lucius is Lucas, the evangelist, as indeed it is not uncommon to write names, sometimes according to the original form, sometimes according to the Greek and Roman termination.”

EUSEBIUS has left us the following testimony concerning Luke the evangelist: “And Luke, who was of Antioch, and by profession a physician, for the most part a companion of Paul, who had, likewise, more than a slight acquaintance with the other apostles, has left us, in two books, divinely inspired, evidences of the art of healing souls, which he had learned from them. One of them is the gospel which he professeth to have written as they delivered it to him, who from the beginning were eye witnesses and ministers of his word;” with all whom, he says, he had been perfectly acquainted from the first. And in another place, he adds, “Luke hath delivered in his gospel a certain account of such things as he had been assured of by his intimate acquaintance and familiarity with Paul, and his conversation with the other apostles.” In the Synopsis ascribed to ATHANASIUS, it is said “that the gospel of Luke was dictated by the Apostle Paul, and written and published by the blessed apostle and physician Luke.” GREGORY NAZIANZEN says “that Luke wrote for the Greeks;” and GREGORY NYSSEN, “that Luke was as much a physician for the soul as the body.” The testimony of JEROME concerning Luke is as follows: “Luke, who was of Antioch, and by profession a physician, not unskilful in the Greek language, a disciple of the Apostle Paul, and the constant companion of his travels, wrote a gospel and another excellent volume, entitled, The Acts of the Apostles. It is supposed that Luke did not learn his gospel from the Apostle Paul only, who had not conversed with the Lord in the flesh, but also from other apostles; which likewise he owns at the beginning of his volume, saying ‘Even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eye witnesses and ministers of the word.’ Therefore he wrote the gospel from the information of others; but the Acts he composed from his own knowledge.” The same writer, in the preface to his Commentary on St. Matthew, says, “The third evangelist is Luke, the physician, a Syrian of Antioch, who was a disciple of the Apostle Paul, and published his gospel in the countries of Achaia and Bœotia.” In another place he observes “that some said that Luke had been a proselyte to Judaism, before his conversion to Christianity.” CHRYSOSTOM, in his first Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, has this remark: “Luke had the fluency of Paul, Mark the conciseness of Peter, both learning of their masters.”

The style of St. Luke is more classical than that of the other evangelists, but still strongly impressed, like theirs, with the Hebrew idiom. The majority of critics assign the date to A.D. 63, some earlier. Whether St. Luke wrote before or subsequently to St. Mark has been largely disputed; but nothing of consequence seems to depend upon the determination of the question, especially as it cannot be proved that any of the three first evangelists saw each other’s gospels previously to the composition of their own. St. Luke clearly wrote for the benefit of the Gentile converts. This appears from internal evidence, as well as from the unanimous voice of antiquity. Though he has many things in common with the other gospels his additions are numerous, and of the most weighty and interesting character. He has, however, less regard to chronological order than Matthew and Mark, and rather classifies the events, than narrates them in a series, — a method of composing history not uncommon with the writers of antiquity. He commences his work with an elegant preface, in which he briefly sets forth his motives for writing it, and inscribes it to Theophilus, who was probably a Greek convert of eminence.