St., the Evangelist. His Greek name Λουκᾶς is a contraction of Αὐκούσιος, Λουκᾶνος, and indicates that Luke was descended from heathen ancestors, and that he was either a slave or a freedman. Respecting the place and time of his birth we have no certain information. According to ecclesiastical tradition, the author of the Gospel is the same Luke who is mentioned in Paul's epistles (Phil. iv. 2; 2 Tim. iv. 11; Coloss. iv. 14), and who is called, in the last-mentioned passage, "the physician." This tradition is confirmed by the Acts of the Apostles, according to which the author of that work accompanied the apostle Paul in his journeys (Acts xvi. 10 sq.; xx. 5-13); (Acts xxi. 1-17; xxvii. 28). The profession of a physician harmonizes also with the condition of a freedman, indicated by the form of the name.

To those who excuse their disbelief of the miracles recorded in the Gospels by the assertion that their authors were ill-informed Jews, greedy of the marvellous, it must appear of some importance to meet in Luke a well-informed Greek, skilled even in the medical sciences. The higher degree of his education is further proved by the classical style in which the proemium to his Gospel, and the latter portion of the Acts, are written; and also by the explicit and learned details which he gives in the Acts on various antiquarian, historical, and geographical subjects. The classical, connected, periodic, and sustained style of the introduction to the Gospel of St Luke differs so strikingly from the Hellenistic Greek of the history itself, that we clearly perceive that he made use of written documents. He did not, however, transcribe verbatim from them, nor did he merely write down verbal traditions; for we find the same characteristic phraseology which belongs to St Luke's individual style both in the Gospel and in the Acts.

It appears to be doubtful whether Luke had the Gospel of Matthew before his eyes, since in the history of the birth of Jesus he seems to have made use of documents referring to the family of Mary, while the accounts given by Matthew refer more to the family of Joseph. This is also confirmed by the aphoristic mode in which he reports the Sermon on the Mount. The Gospel of St Luke contains exceedingly valuable accounts, not extant in the books of the other evangelists; for instance, those concerning the childhood of Jesus, the admirable parables in chapters xv. and xvi., the narration respecting the disciples at Emmaus, the section from chap. ix. 51 to xix. 27, which contains particulars mostly wanting in the other evangelists.

The statement of Luke at the beginning of his Gospel must dispose us favourably with regard to its historical credibility. He states that he had accurately investigated the truth of the accounts communicated, and that, following the example of the ἀπόλοντες, he had made use of the statements of eye-witnesses. Luke had frequent opportunity of meeting these eye-witnesses when he travelled with Paul. He himself reports, in Acts xxii. 18, that he met James. He gives also, with greater accuracy than the other evangelists, some chronological notices, such as those at the beginning of chapters ii. and iii., and in Acts v. 37. As to the statements of the ancients concerning the date or time when the Gospel of St Luke was written, we find in Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. iii. 1), that Mark and Luke wrote after Matthew. According to Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. vi. 28), Origen stated that Luke wrote after Matthew and Mark; but Clemens Alexandrinus, according to the same writer (Hist. Eccles. vi. 14), asserted, on the authority of "the tradition of the earlier elders," that the Gospels containing the genealogies were written before the others. Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. iii. 24), in reference to the Gospel of John, says:—"John properly passed over in silence the genealogy according to the flesh of our Saviour, which was detailed by Matthew and Luke." De Wette, in his Introduction to the New Testament, endeavours to infer from the definiteness with which the destruction of Jerusalem is predicted, &c., that this Gospel was written some time after the destruction of the city had taken place. On this we merely observe that a petitio principii runs through the whole train of the argument, since it sets out with assuming the impossibility of detailed predictions. From the circumstance that the book of Acts leaves St Paul a captive, without relating the result of his captivity, most critics have, with considerable probability, inferred that Luke accompanied St Paul to Rome, that he employed his leisure while there in composing the Acts, and that he left off writing before the fate of Paul was decided. Now, since the Gospel of St Luke was written before the Acts, it seems to follow that it was written a considerable time before the destruction of Jerusalem. The most ancient testimonies in behalf of Luke's Gospel are those of Marcion, at the beginning of the second century, and of Irenaeus, in the latter half of that century. A good separate commentary on the Gospel of Luke is still a desideratum. Kuinoel's Commentarius in Evangelicum Lucae (1843) is not quite satisfactory; nor Bornemann's Scholia in Lucam (1830); much less Baumgarten-Crusius (1845).

Besides the Gospel which bears his name, Luke wrote the Acts of the Apostles. In those portions of the Acts in which Luke speaks as the companion of Paul, and consequently as an eye-witness, his Greek style is more classical than in the rest of the work. This circumstance supports the opinion that Luke followed some written documents in the earlier part of the Acts, as well as in the Gospel. Compare Riehm, De fontibus Act. Apost. Traj. 1825; and Kling, Studien und Kritiken, 1837, Heft 2.

That the accounts of Luke are authentic may be perceived more especially from a close examination of the inserted discourses and letters. The characteristic marks of authenticity in the oration of the Roman lawyer Tertullus, in ch. xxiv., and in the official letters in ch. xxiii. 26, sq.; xv. 23, sq.; can scarcely be overlooked. The address of Paul to the elders of the Ephesian church is characteristically Pauline, and even so full of definite allusions and of similarity to the Epistle to the Ephesians, that it furnishes a confirmation of the authenticity of that letter which has sometimes been questioned. Respecting these allusions, see an essay of Tholuck in the Studien und Kritiken, 1839, p. 306, sq. As for the testimonies in behalf of the authenticity of the Acts, they are the same as for Luke's Gospel. Clemens Alexandrinus, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, expressly mention the Acts, and Eusebius reckons them among the Homologoumena. The most complete commentaries on the Acts are those of Kuinoel and Baumgarten; but equally valuable are Neander's Planting and Training, Schaff's Apostolic History, and Wieseler's Chronologie der Apostolischen Zeitalter.