LinCB
425
LUSK
the Third Gospel and Acts, he was no more prominent
than Aristarchus and Epaphras; and he is mentioned
only in three places in the whole of the New Testa-
ment. If a false name were substituted for the true
author, some more prominent individual would have
b€«n selected.
III. Intbgritt op the Gospel. — ^Marcion rejected the first two chapters and some shorter passages of the Gospel; and it was at one time maintained by rational- istic writers that his was the ori^al Gospel of which ours is a later expansion. This is now universally re- jected by scholars. St. IrensBUS, Tertullian, and Epiphamus charged him with mutilating the Gospel; and it is known that the reasons for his rejection of those portions were doctrinal. He cut oilt the ac- count of ihe infancy and the genealosy, because he denied the human birth of Christ. As he rejected the Old Testament all reference to it had to be excluded. That the parts rejected by Marcion belong to the Gospel is clear from their unity of style with the re- mainder of the book. The characteristics of St. Luke'sistyle run through the whole work, but are more frequent in the first two chapters than an3rwhere else; and they are present in the other portions omitted by Marcion. No writer in those days was capable of suc- cessfully forging such additions. The first two chap- ters, etc.y are contained in all the MSS. and versions, and were known to Justin Martyr and other compe- tent witnesses. On the authenticity of the verses on the Bloody Sweat, see Agont of Christ.
IV. Purpose and Contents. — ^The Gospel was written, as is gathered from the prologue (i, 1-4), for the purpose of giving Theophilus (and othei:s like him) increased confidence in the unshakable firmness of the Christian truths in which he had been instructed, or
- ' catechized" — ^the latter word being used, according
to Hamack, in its technical sense. The Gospel natur- ally falls into four divisions; (1) Gospel of the infancy, roughljr covered by the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary (ch. i, li); (2) miiustrjr in Galilee, from the preaching of John the Baptist (iii, 1, to ix, 50); (3) joumeyings towards Jerusalem (ix, 61-xix, 27); (4) Holy Week: preaching in and near Jerusalem, Passion, and Resur- rection (xix, 28, to end of xxi v). We owe a great deal to the industry of St. Luke. Out of twenty miracles which he records six are not foimd in the other Gos- pels: draught of fishes, widow "?!'**} with dropsy, ten lepers, Malc?*"®^ firmity. He alone has the foUo^^l^, ^.^.-w^.* ^.^«,v^^. good Samaritan, friend at mid^i^^, rich fool, servants watching, two debtors, barrA fig-tree, chief seats, great supper, rash builder, rash king, lost groat, prodi- gal son, unjust steward, rich man and Laxarus. unprofitable servants, imjust judge, Pharisee ana publican, pounds. The account of the loumeys towards Jerusalem (ix, 51-xix, 27) is found onlv in St. Luke; and he gives special prominence to the duty of prayer.
V. Sources op the Gospel; Synoptic Problem. — The best information as to his sources is given by St. Luke, in the beginning of his Gospel. As many had written accoimte as they heard them from "eye- witnesses and ministers of the word", it seemed ^ood to him also, having diligently attained to all tmngs from the beginning, to write an ordered narrative. He had two sources of information, then, eyewitnesses (including Apostles) and written documents taken down from the words of eyewitnesses. The accuracy of these documents he was in a position to test by his knowledge of the character of the writers, and by com- paring them with the actual words of the Apostles and other eyewitnesses.
That he used written documents seems evident on comparing his Gospel with the other two Synoptic Gos- pels, Matthew and Mark. All three frequently agree even in minute details; but in other respects there is often a remarkable divergence, and to explain these
's
ik»t^
phenomena is the S^^noptic Problem. St. Matthew
and St. Luke alone give an account of the infancy of
Christ; both accounts are independent. But when
they begin the public preaching they describe it in
the same wav, here agreeing with St. Mark. When
St. Mark ends, the two others again diverge. They
a^pree in the main both in matter and arrangement
within the limits covered by St. Mark, whose order
they generally follow. Frequently all agree in the
order of the narrative, but, where two agree, Mark
and Luke agree against the order of Biatthew, or Mark
and Matthew agree against the order of Luke; Mark
is always in the majority, and it is not proved that
the other two ever agree against the order followed
by him. Within the umits of the ground covered by
St. Mark, the two other Gospels have several sections
in common not foimd in St. Mark, consisting for the
most part of discourses, and there is a closer resem-
blance between them than between any two Gospels
where the three go over the same ground. The whole
of St. Mark is practically contained in the other two.
St. Matthew and St. Luke have large sections peculiar
to themselves, such as the different accoimts of the
infancy, and the joume3rs towards Jerusalem in St.
Luke. The jMurallel records have remarkable verbal
coincidences. Sometimes the Greek phrases are
identical, sometimes but slightly different, and again
more divergent. There are various theories to ex-
plain the fact of the matter and language common to
the Evangelists. Some hold that it is due to the oral
teaching of the Apostles, which soon became stereo-
typed hom. constant repetition. Others hold that
it IS due to written sources, taken down from siioh
teaching. Others, again, strongly maintain that Mat*
thew and Luke used Mark or a written source ex-
tremelv like it. In that case, we have evidence how
very closely they kept to the original. The agree-
ment between the discourses given by St. Luke and
St. Matthew is accounted for. by some authors, by
saying that both embodied the discourses of Christ
that had been collected and originally written in
Aramaic by St. Matthew. The long narratives of
St. Luke not found in these two documents are, it is
said, accoimted for by his employment of what he
knew to be other reliable sources, either oral or writ-
ten. (The question is concisely but clearly stated by
Peake "A Critical Introduction to the New Testa-
ment". London, 1909, 101. Several other works on
the suDJect are given in the literature at the end of
this article.)
VI. Saint Lttke's Accuracy. — ^Very few writers have ever had their accuracy put to such a severe test as St. Luke, on account of the wide field covered by his writings, and the consequent liabihty (humanly speaking) of making mistakes; and on account of the fierce attacks to which he has been subjected.
It was the fashion, during the nineteenth century, with German rationalists and their imitators, to ridicule the "blunders" of Luke; but that is all beinjg rapidly changed by the recent progress of archsologi- cal research. Hamack does not hesitate to say that these attacks were shameful, and calculated to bring discredit, not on the Evangelist, but upon his critics; and Ramsay is but voicing the opinion of the best modern scholars when he cans St. Luke a great and accurate historian. Very few have done so much as this latter writer, in his numerous works and in his articles in "The Expositor", to vindicate the extreme accuracv of St. Luke. Wherever archsBology has afforded the means of testing St. Luke's statements, they have been found to be correct; and this gives confidence that he is equally reliable where no such corroboration is as yet available. For some of the details see Acts of the Apostles, where a very full bibliography is given.
For the sake of illustration, one or two examples may here be given: — (1) Sergius Paulus, Proconsul
