ST LUKE EVANGELIST; FEAST DAY 18th OCTOBER

ST LUKE, THE EVANGELIST;

FEAST DAY 18th OCTOBER

St Luke is famous as the close friend of Our Lady, one who never was an Apostle of Jesus, but who was a faithful follower and companion of St Paul in his travels, who called him, "the beloved physician". He was a doctor and is known as the artist who painted early icons of Our Lady. Luke’s Gospel was not the first to be written – his was the third and, as the follower of St Paul, Apostle to the gentiles, he is seen as the Evangelist to the gentiles.

There have been recent popular books by which the Gospels are presented as naïve histories, the content of which are degraded by reason that they are lacking the evidential controls which a skeptic would consider fundamental to attesting their veracity. These popular books focus on the foundation of the Christian belief - a challenge to our perception of the word of God.

Brant Pitre, in his Book, “The Case for Jesus; the Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ” *addressed the challenges to the authenticity of the Gospels and their authorship. In summary, there are a number of theories that have been put forward in recent popular publishing.

First:

* The Gospels were written at the end of the first century AD, (one proposition), or hundreds of years after the death of Christ, (another proposition), and are thereby remote from the historical events of the time: The date of writing is an important aspect to address in analyzing the Gospels – that is, proximity in time is fundamental to confidence in the veracity of the content.

Dr Pitre quotes the words of Synoptic experts EP Saunders and Margaret Davies:

“‘There is no material in Mark which must be dated after AD 70’. Along similar lines, in one recent study of the date of Mark’s Gospel, James Crossley concludes that the Gospel could have been written ‘Any time between the thirties CE and 70CE.’”

Claims that the Gospels were written near the end of the first century AD are shown by Dr Pitre to be based upon spurious evidence. That is, the sole basis of such claims, on his analysis, is that Christ’s prediction of the destruction of the Temple in 70AD must have been written up by his believers afterwards, as such a statement was something that would have been considered outrageous, or that a prophecy of that kind was somehow beyond the capacity of Christ and must have been fabricated later by His followers. Dr Pitre illustrates that the Temple had previously been destroyed, as mentioned in the Old Testament in 586 BC.

He points out that Christ’s followers, as Disciples, were His students, as the word “Disciple” did not merely mean believer, but one who gave up their life to follow and dedicate their lives to Him. As such, they were people who all, with the exception of John, died for their faith, (for the “Risen Christ”, as stated by Paul).

Secondly:

* The authorship of the Gospels is not reliable and is of later attribution – the Gospels were written after many years of repeated oral communication, (necessarily involving tainting of the content). Alternatively, they were anonymous and authorship was a later attribution.

As to the notion of the anonymous Gospels, Dr Pitre says:

“There are simply no anonymous manuscripts of the four Gospels ....The second major problem with the theory of the anonymous Gospels is the utter implausibility that a book circulating around the Roman Empire without a title for almost a hundred years could somehow at some point be attributed to exactly the same author by scribes throughout the world and yet leave no trace of disagreement in any manuscripts. And, by the way, that is supposed to have happened not just once, but with each of the four Gospels.”

*ibid., at p. 16.

There are early versions of the Gospels from Papyrus 4 onwards, (from 2nd century AD), each of which have attribution to the relevant Evangelist, be it Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. This is the same for the many hundreds of hand-written copies that were distributed throughout the world in an era before modern communication and means of travel, by which each word of the Gospel is true to each other copy and by which each author is consistently attributed. It is inconceivable that there would be versions of the Gospels distributed throughout the world all of which at some later date, suddenly and accurately bear the same authorship. Dr Pitre observes:

“The Gospels are not the memories of just anybody – they contain the memories of Jesus’ students, (Gospels of Matthew and John), or are based on the memories of Jesus’ students that are passed on to their followers, (such as Mark’s record of Peter’s preaching). Even Luke’s Gospel, (who did not know Jesus), claims to be based on the testimony of those who were ‘eyewitnesses from the beginning.’ [He was the disciple of Paul as well, who was an Apostle after the time of Christ].

There were uncontrolled stories of Jesus circulating, (mentioned in the Gospel of Luke 4;37). However, that’s not what the four Gospels claim to be. They are not the last links in a long chain of anonymous rumours and stories. They are ancient biographies and authoritative accounts of the life of Jesus based on the testimony of his students. As such, they function in part precisely as controls over what was being said about Jesus.”

Ibid., at p. 87.

The early Church Fathers attested to the authorship of the Gospels. As such their attestation is also a testament to the accuracy of the content of each Gospel. The provenance of their acceptance of the Gospels is based upon their own succession – deriving specifically from a line of first-hand witnesses to Christ Himself. Thus;

Papias, a disciple of Apostle John, attests to Matthew – his authorship, but in doing so, the contents of his Gospel. Ireneaus of Lyon, a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John, also attests to the Gospel of Matthew.

Irenaus says of Luke:

“Luke who was a follower of Paul, put down in a book the gospel which was preached to him”.

Origen validated the content of Luke’s Gospel by the “praise of Paul”:

“And thirdly, that according to Luke, who wrote, for those who from the Gentiles [came to believe] the Gospel that was praised by Paul.” (Origen of Alexandria)

St Jerome 4th century AD observed:

“Luke, a physician from Antioch, indicated in his writings that he knew Greek and that he was a follower of the Apostle Paul and the companion of all his journeying: he wrote a gospel about which the same Paul says: ‘We have sent with him a brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches’.” (2 Corinthians 8:18)

(St Jerome Lives of Illustrious Men, 7)

Brant Pitre, ibid., at p. 84.

**Image, New York, 2016