2. The Preface to the Gospel
It indicates that the Gospel
is
written
for a man of high position who has
some certain knowledge of Christianity without necessarily being more than
a catechumen,
if
even that. The Evangelist implies
that Theophilus was not averse to such knowledge
but was ready to receive further information. This
knowledge
was not to be of the dogmatic order,
but rather historical and "accurate"
(Luke i. 3),
and by " accurate " was meant not simply " in
chronological order " but rather the narration of
events in their many-sided
relationships. So far,
there is nothing antagonistic to Luc,, authorship.
And no objection to such authorship is to be seen
in the reference to previous writers of Gospel history in
Luke i. 1,
since enough material is known
to justify the expression "many." The very
growth of such a literature would emphasise for
Luke its necessity not only for believing
Christians
to whom the oral importation of the news was becoming increasingly rare, nor only for Jews and
Jewish Christians to whom the Messianic consciousness of Jesus was of importance, but also for the
heathen to whom Theophilus had belonged. It is
continually becoming more completely established
that the second Gospel, essentially in its present
form, lay before the author of the third and was
used by him. But comparison of the two Gospels
shows marked differences in plan and conception.
Thus Mark sets the story of Jesus in two great
groups of events-Jesus' work in Galilee and the
events between his departure from Galilee and
Easter morning; Luke uses the same two groups
but prefixes to the first the Gospel of the Infancy,
inserts between them the account of the journey
given in
Luke ix. 51-xviu.
14, and adds to the
second his account of the resurrection. Moreover,
while Luke follows Mark in the main in the order
of the events in the two groups, he
effects transpositions and makes noteworthy omissions. Further,
outside of the three great additions already indicated, the third Gospel makes single additions, such
as the sermon on the mount, the story of Zaccheus,
and very many others. All this indicates a special
plan subordinated to a purpose different from that
which the author of the second Gospel had before
him and suited to a man whose antecedents were
heathen, as were those of Theophilus.
But does this purpose, expressed in the preface,
and its execution in the Gospel, agree with what
is known of Luke? A difficulty raised here is that
a man who stood as near to the events as did Luke,
and had such opportunities to meet
3. The eye-witnesses, in his departures from
Character the narrative of Mark took so little the
of the direction of the Fourth Gospel. This
Gospel troubles little one who deals with
the historicity of the Fourth Gospel,
but the difficulty
increases the more one deals with
that historicity, and threatens to become fatal to
the claim of Lucsn authorship if, as many suppose,
a long period of historical study
(Luke i. 3)
is involved. It may be conceded that the Lucan narrative contains parts tinged with Johannine coloring.
But when the omission is noted of events given in
the Fourth Gospel which are essential to the narrative
of
one who proposes to "trace the course of all
things accurately from the first"
(Luke i. 3),
when
it is remembered that the occurrences of John i.iv., the visits to the feasts in Jerusalem of John v.,
vii., and x., and the Lazarus episode do not -appear
in
the Lucan narrative, the authorship by the
apostolic companion Luke seems impossible. For
many of those events are not of a nature that permits their omission by one who proposes to give a
rdsum6 of the life of Jesus. Upon close observation
the case seems otherwise. Luke did not know the
Johannine material, but he considered that Mark
really preserved the historical scheme in its priaci-
pal outlines. His historical investigations therefore were limited in extent and need have lasted
scarcely a, year. Indeed, the enaerroble of the Lucas
Gospel is rather that of a narrative produced
under
the influence of the Marten Gospel with the many
additions, already noted, of events which seemed
fully guaranteed, and which appeared, in accordance with the writer's scheme, to demand a place
in the story. It presents also such omissions and
transpositions as were necessary, in the plan conceived, to produce in new form a well-ordered history of the life of Jesus, such as would be adapted
to the situation of the reader for whom it was ostensibly designed. So far as the preface is concerned, therefore, the Gospel might have proceeded
from the pen of the historic Luke.
