under the "we" of a great portion of the Acts, which is but a continuation of the third Gospel.^988 He
is honorably and affectionately mentioned three times by Paul during his imprisonment, as "the
beloved physician" (Col. 4:14), as one of his "fellow-laborers" (Philem. 24), and as the most faithful
friend who remained with him when friend after friend had deserted him (2 Tim. 4:11). His medical
profession, although carried on frequently by superior slaves, implies some degree of education
and accounts for the accuracy of his medical terms and description of diseases.^989 It gave him access
to many families of social position, especially in the East, where physicians are rare. It made him
all the more useful to Paul in the infirmities of his flesh and his exhausting labors.^990
He was a Gentile by birth,^991 though he may have become a proselyte of the gate. His
nationality and antecedents are unknown. He was probably a Syrian of Antioch, and one of the
earliest converts in that mother church of Gentile Christianity.^992 This conjecture is confirmed by
the fact that he gives us much information about the church in Antioch (Acts 11:19–30; 13:1–3;
15:1–3, 22–35), that he traces the origin of the name "Christians" to that city (11:19), and that in
enumerating the seven deacons of Jerusalem he informs us of the Antiochian origin of Nicolas
(Acts 6:5), without mentioning the nationality of any of the others.^993
We meet Luke first as a companion of Paul at Troas, when, after the Macedonian call,
"Come over and help us," he was about to carry the gospel to Greece on his second great missionary
tour. For from that important epoch Luke uses the first personal pronoun in the plural: "When he
[Paul] had seen the vision, straightway we sought to go forth into Macedonia, concluding that God
had called us to preach the gospel unto them" (Acts 16:10). He accompanied him to Philippi and
seems to have remained there after the departure of Paul and Silas for Corinth (a.d. 51), in charge
of the infant church; for the "we" is suddenly replaced by "they" (17:1). Seven years later (a.d. 58)
he joined the apostle again, when he passed through Philippi on his last journey to Jerusalem,
stopping a week at Troas (Acts 20:5, 6); for from that moment Luke resumes the "we" of the
narrative. He was with Paul or near him at Jerusalem and two years at Caesarea, accompanied him
on his perilous voyage to Rome, of which he gives a most accurate account, and remained with
him to the end of his first Roman captivity, with which he closes his record (a.d. 63). He may
however, have been temporarily absent on mission work during the four years of Paul’s
imprisonment. Whether he accompanied him on his intended visit to Spain and to the East, after(^988) The name Λουκᾶς,Lucas, is abridged from λυκανός .Lucanus or Lucilius (as Apollos from Apollonius, Silas from Silvanus).
It is not to be confounded with Lucius, Acts 13:1; Rom. 16:21. The name was not common, but contractions in as were frequent
in the names of slaves, as Lobeck observes. Dr. Plumptre (in his Com.)ingeniously conjectures that Luke was from the region
of Lucania in Southern Italy, and called after the famous poet, M. Annaeus Lucanus, as his freedman. In this way be accounts
for Luke’s familiarity with Italian localities (Acts 28:13-15), the favor of the uncle of Lucanus, J. Annaeus Gallic, shown to Paul
(18:14-17), the tradition of the friendship between Paul and Seneca (a brother of Gallio), and the intended journey of Paul to
Spain (Rom. 15:28), where Seneca and Lucanus were born (at Corduba). But the chronology is against this hypothesis. Lucanus
was born a.d. 39, when Luke must have been already about thirty years of age, as he cannot have been much younger than Paul.
(^989) Jerome (Ep. ad Paulinum) says of Luke "Fuit medicus, et pariter omnia verba illius animae languentis sunt medicinae."
(^990) Comp. Gal. 4:13; 2 Cor. 1:9; 4:10, 12, 16; 12:7.
(^991) He is distinguished from "those of the circumcision," Col. 4:14; comp. 4:11.
(^992) Eusebius, III. 4: Λουκᾶς τὸ μὲν γένος ὥν τῶν ἀπ ̔ Ἀντιοχείας, τὴν ἐπιστήμην δὲ ἰατρός , κ. τ. λ. Jerome, De vir. ill, 7: "Lucas
medicus Antiochensis ... sectator apostoli Pauli, et omnis peregrinationis ejus comes.
(^993) James Smith (l.c., p. 4) illustrates the argumentative bearing of this notice by the fact that of eight accounts of the Russian
campaign of 1812, three by French, three by English, and two by scotch authors (Scott and Alison), the last two only make
mention of the Scotch extraction of the Russian General Barclay de Tolly.
A.D. 1-100.