LUKE, a New Testament evangelist. In Col. iv: 14, he is called "Luke the be loved physician." In Philemon he is called Lucas, and described as one of St. Paul's fellow-laborers, and when "Paul was ready to be offered" (II Tim. iv: 6), he adds, "Only Luke is with me." Iden tifying him with the writer of the Acts of the Apostles, his use of the pronoun "we," commencing with xvi : 10, shows that he joined Paul at Troas and accom panied him to Philippi (11-17). The re sumption of the pronouns "he" and "they" (xvi: 19, xvii: 1, 17, etc.) shows that he remained at Philippi till the return of the apostle thither (xx: 6). He accom panied him on his subsequent missionary journeys (xx: 13-15, xxi: 1, etc.), was with him in his shipwreck (xxvii: 3, 27, xxviii: 2, 10), and his subsequent voyage to Rome (13-16). There is no trustworthy information as to the remainder of St. Luke's life.
The Gospel according to St. Luke, in the New Testament canon, the third Gos pel. The writer had his information from those who "from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" (Luke i: 2), implying that he was not himself an eyewitness of the events that he records.
There exists, or rather, is recoverable from the writings of Justin Martyr, Irenmus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius, a Gospel issued by the celebrated Gnostic, Marcion, so related to that of St. Luke, that Marcion's Gospel must have been an abridgment of St. Luke's, or Luke's an expansion of Marcion's.
Marcion is believed to have begun to teach in Rome about A. D. 139 to 142 (Sanday), or 138 (Volkmar), or 130 (Tischendorf). "At that time St. Luke's Gospel had been so long published that various readings of it had already arisen." The incidents recorded are not in chronological order. There is a marked Superiority to Jewish caste-prejudice or to ceremonial bondage. It is the Gospel that tells of the Prodigal Son (xv: 11 32), the Good Samaritan (x: 30-37), the Pharisee and the Publican (xviii: 10 14). The third Gospel is exactly such a work as, under Divine inspiration, might be supposed to emanate from the com panion of St. Paul.