H 32.G v

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
BOOK EVER WRITTEN
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

e^BY
D° A. HAYES
A >*\
Professor of New Testament Interpretation in the Graduate
School of Theology, Garrett Biblical Institute

NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM

rr\/o H 32L&vw

Copyright, 1913, by
D. A. HAYES

TO
JAMES HAYES
A PHYSICIAN BELOVED BY MANY
HELPED IN BOTH BODY AND SOUL

CONTENTS
PART ONE: THE AUTHOR PAGE
I. The New Testament Data  3
II. The Name "Luke"  6
III. Luke, the Companion of Paul  12
IV. Luke, the Physician  19
V. Luke, the Musician  28
VI. Luke, the Artist  37
VII. Luke, the Gentile  40
VIII. Luke, of Antioch  42
IX. Luke, the Freedman  46
X. Luke in Later Tradition  49
XI. An Outline Biography  50
PART TWO: THE GOSPEL
I. Sources of the Gospel  57
II. Date of the Gospel  63
III. Place of Writing  66
IV. The Gospel for the Gentiles  68
V. The Gospel of an Educated Man  87
VI. The Gospel of the Physician  102
VII. The Gospel of Childhood  113
VIII. The Gospel of Womanhood  115
IX. The Gospel for the Poor  127
X. The Gospel for the Outcasts  142
XI. The Pauline Gospel  147
XII. The Gospel of Jesus, Our Brother-Man  160
XIII. The Gospel of Praise  176
XIV. The Gospel and the Man Luke  182
v

FOREWORD
Luke is one of the most lovable characters
in all church history. The Gospel accord
ing to Luke is one of the most attractive
books in the world's literature. The truth
of these two facts and the connection be
tween them ought to be apparent in these
pages. .
Reader, have you thought that you knew
the evangelist Luke? Look into these pages
and see if there is not more in the man than
you ever suspected. Have you thought you
were acquainted with the Gospel according
to Luke? Look through these pages and
see whether there are not some beauties and
some riches in it which you never had
noticed. Then, if you come to love the
man and the book a little more than you
ever did before, we shall have our reward.

vii

BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. Introductions to the New Testament by Weiss,
Moffatt, Dods, Bacon, Salmon, Adeney, Pullan,
and others ; The Books of the Bible ; Book by Book ;
The Teachings of the Books; Farrar, The Mes
sages of the Books; McClymont, The New Testa
ment and Its Writers; SchafF, History of the
Christian Church, Vol. I; Weizsacker, The Apos
tolic Age.
II. Commentaries on the Third Gospel by Plum-
mer, in the International Critical Commentary
series; Bruce, in the Expositor's Greek Testament
series; Godet; Farrar, in the Cambridge Greek
Testament series; Adeney, in the Century Bible;
Garvie, in the Westminster New Testament; Bur
ton, in the Expositor's Bible.
III. Special Studies by Selwyn, Luke the
Prophet; Harnack, Luke the Physician; Ramsay,
Saint Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen,
and, Was Christ Born in Bethlehem ? ; Hobart, The
Medical Language of Saint Luke.

PART ONE: THE AUTHOR

THE AUTHOR
I. The New Testament Data
There are three synoptic Gospels: the
Gospel according to Mark, the Gospel
according to Matthew, and the Gospel
according to Luke. The third of these has
been said by Renan to be "the most beau
tiful book ever written."1 A beautiful
book is in all probability the product of a
beautiful soul. The most beautiful book
ever written, especially since it deals with
spiritual themes and is the story of The
Perfect Life, must have had an author
worthy of our most intimate acquaintance,
a man of noble soul and adequate training,
interesting to us in every detail of his
career and in every phase of his character.
We would like to know all about Homer
and all about Shakespeare, or at least as
1 Renan, Les Evangiles, p. 283, "C'est le plus beau livre qu'il y ait."
3

4 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
much as we know about Martin Luther
and John Wesley; but the multitude of
details concerning the private and the
public life of Luther and Wesley utterly
fail us when we come to these greatest
geniuses of our literature. We know com
paratively little about the personal life of
Homer or of Shakespeare, and we know
comparatively little about the author of
this "most beautiful book ever written."
Jesus we know, and Peter we know, and
John we know, and Paul we know, and we
know something of most of the twelve
apostles and of many of the deacons and
evangelists of the early church; and we
owe most of our knowledge of these men
to the evangelist Luke. We owe more of
it to him than to any other man who ever
lived or wrote about them. But Luke
tells us little or nothing about himself.
He never mentions his own name either
in the Gospel or in the book of Acts. He
makes one reference to himself in the use
of the personal pronoun in the preface to
the Gospel, "It seemed good to me also to

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 5
write,"1 and the use of the plural pro
nouns "we" and "us" in the book of Acts
has been generally supposed to indicate
the entrance of Luke himself upon the
scene. Luke's name, however, appears only three
times in the New Testament: in Philem.
24, "Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke,
my fellow workers" salute you; Col. 4. 14,
"Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas
salute you," and 2 Tim. 4. 10, 11, where
after declaring, "Demas forsook me, hav
ing loved this present world," Paul adds,
"Only Luke is with me." We notice that
in each of these three passages Luke and
Demas are mentioned together, Demas
being a fellow worker in the first two pas
sages, but having forsaken Paul in the
last of them, while Luke alone remained
faithful and present with him. It is also
worth noticing that in the immediate con
text of each of these passages the name
of the other evangelist and author of a
Gospel narrative who was not an apostle
! Luke 1, 3.

6 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
occurs. Mark is mentioned in Philem. 24;
Col. 4. 10; and 2 Tim. 4. 11.
Upon the basis of these three passages
in which his name occurs what facts may
we glean concerning the author of the
most beautiful book in all literature ?
II. The Name "Luke"
We begin with the name itself. 1 . "Luke,"
in the Greek Aovkbc, is a very uncommon
name. We are told that it is not to be
found in the writings of any classical author
or upon any Greek or Latin inscription, and
that it does not occur before New Testament
times. It is a peculiar name, distinctive by
its very strangeness and infrequency. It
seems to be a contracted or shortened form
of "Lucanus," in the Greek Xavicavoc (which
is found in inscriptions), as "Apollos" was
a shortened form of "Apollonius," and
"Silas" of "Silvanus." These three men,
Lucas, Apollos, and Silas, were all friends
of the apostle Paul, and in their ministry
with him they must have been thrown
into intimate association with each other;

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 7
and they all had nicknames, or, rather,
shortened and abbreviated names by which
they were called in preference to the full
name, which was too long for common or
familiar use.1 In the earliest copies of the
Latin Bible the name "Lucanus" frequently
occurs in the title of the Gospel, "Cata
Lucanum." 2. Dean Plumptre has called attention to
the fact that the only other noted man of
this immediate period in history who bore
the name "Lucanus" was the Latin poet,
the author of the "Pharsalia," the epic
poem which set forth the struggle between
Julius Csesar and Pompey for the supreme
power at Rome.2 Now, this Lucanus was
born in the year A. D. 39, and therefore
he was probably thirty or forty years
younger than our Luke, the author of the
third Gospel. Dean Plumptre has made
this further most interesting suggestion:
1 Other examples are: "Amplias" for "Ampliatus" (Rom: 16. 8), "Olym-
pas" for "Olympiodorus" (Rom. 16. 15), "Demas" for "Demetrius"
(Col. 4. 14), "Epaphras" for "Epaphroditus" (Col. 4. 12), "Zenas"
for "Zenodorus" (Titus 3. 13), "Antipas" for "Antipatris" (Rev. 2. 13),
"Stephanas" for "Stephanephorus" (1 Cor. 16. 15). See Dictionary
of Christ and the Gospels, ii, p. 83.
* Books of the Bible. New Testament, pp. 74, 75.

8 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
that it is just possible that the poet Lu
canus was named after the physician Luke.
If Luke were a beloved physician in the
family when the boy Lucanus was born,
the father and mother may have decided
to show their appreciation of him and his
services by naming the child after him.
Every physician is likely to have name
sakes, given him in just this way.
Is there any good reason for supposing
that there was any personal relation be
tween these two Lukes in this period of
history ? Yes, for if Luke the physician
and Lucanus the poet were lifelong friends,
and the physician was on intimate and
trusted terms of familiarity with the poet's
family, then Luke would be sure to make
them acquainted with his beloved master,
Paul, and through Luke they would be
sure to hear about and to become more
or less interested in Paul's preaching
and Paul's apostolic career. Have we any
indications of any such acquaintanceship
with or interest in Paul on the part of
any members of the family of Lucanus ?

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 9
(1) In the eighteenth chapter of Acts we
read that the Jews in Corinth seized the
apostle Paul and brought him before the
proconsul of Achaia, whose name was
Gallio, and charged him with persuading
men to worship God contrary to the law.
When Paul was about to make answer to
that charge Gallio interrupted him and
told the Jews that if Paul had been guilty
of any criminal behavior, he would try
him, but if he were simply preaching a new
form of Jewish doctrine, that was a matter
upon which he did not choose to sit in
judgment. Then he drove them from the
judgment seat, and they were a most dis
appointed and angry set of men.1 They
had expected Gallio to put Paul in prison
or to stop his evangelistic work in one way
or another. They found him seemingly
favorable to the prisoner and indisposed to
interfere in any way with his mission and
teaching. What was the explanation of
this indifference to the complaints of the
Jews and this willingness to befriend their
» .1- . -
i Acta 18. 12-17.

10 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
prisoner, Paul ? This Gallio was the uncle
of Lucanus the poet. Had Luke the
evangelist told Luke the poet all about
Paul and his work, and had Luke the poet
told his uncle Gallio enough of these things
to prejudice him in Paul's faVor ? That
would seem to be possible at least.
(2) Then in the time of Augustine and
Jerome fourteen letters were extant which
were supposed to have passed between the
Latin philosopher Seneca and the apostle
Paul. Those which have come down to
our day have been pronounced spurious,
but at that time they were believed to be
genuine, and that very belief bore witness
to the fact that there was a widespread
tradition in the early church that there
had been some personal acquaintance and
intercourse between Seneca and Paul.
Seneca was an official in the court of
Nero while Paul was a prisoner at Rome.
We read that Paul's Gospel became known
through the whole Praetorian guard,1 and
that certain members of Caesar's household
i Phil. 1. 13.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 11
were converted,1 and it is altogether prob
able that Seneca would hear about these
things and would be interested to talk
with such a man as Paul had proved him
self to be.
Bishop Lightfoot has written an essay on
Saint Paul and Seneca,2 in which he has
made a most interesting collection of the
coincidences in thought and in language to
be found in the extant and genuine writings
of these two men; and if these coincidences
are not sufficient to prove that the two
men knew each other and were acquainted
with each other's views, they go very far,
at least, toward making that supposition
probable. Now, Seneca was another uncle
of Lucanus the poet. If Luke the evan
gelist was on terms of intimacy with the
members of this family, we could find in
that fact an explanation of the actual
friendliness of Gallio and of the traditional
friendship of Seneca for the apostle Paul.
The name of the evangelist Luke, then,
uncommon as it is, and having only one
1 Phil. i. 22. ! Commentary on PhUippians, pp. 270-333.

12 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
parallel in the history of this time, may
furnish a suggestive link with the family
of the poet Lucanus and so help us to
explain the recorded and traditional rela
tions between certain members of this
family and the apostle Paul.
III. Luke, the Companion of Paul
We turn back to the three passages in
which Luke's name occurs and we find
that they all bear witness to another fact
concerning him, namely, that he was for a
part of his life, at least, the close com
panion of the apostle Paul. 1. We have
noticed that at certain points in the nar
rative of the book of Acts the pronoun
"we" occurs. It is understood usually
that this pronoun marks the entrance of
Luke himself upon the scene. If so, Paul
finds Luke at Troas and takes him, with
Timothy and Silas, into Macedonia on the
first foreign missionary journey from the
continent of Asia into the continent of
Europe.1 Here Paul seems to have left
» Acts 16, 10.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 13
Luke in charge of the church at Philippi,
since the pronoun "they" takes the place
of the pronoun "we" in Acts 17. 1 and the
narrative following. This was in A. D. 51.
Seven years later, in A. D. 58, Paul finds
Luke again here at Philippi,1 and Luke
goes with Paul on his journey to Jerusa
lem.2 He was with Paul at the time of his
arrest and went with him to Caesarea. He
remained with him during the two years
of the Caesarean imprisonment and accom
panied him on the voyage to Rome. At
the close of the narrative of the book of
Acts Luke is still with Paul; and from
2 Tim. 4. 11 we learn that he was Paul's
sole remaining companion at the time of
the writing of that epistle. He probably
stayed at his master's side to the day of
Paul's martyrdom.
Are there any other Scriptures, except
these passages in which his name occurs
or the pronoun "we" discloses his pres
ence, in which we may have any glimpse of
Luke's ministry ? 2. It has been suggested
1 Acts 20. 5, 6. ' Acts 21. 15-18.

14 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
by Epiphanius that Luke was one of the
seventy sent out by our Lord as the fore
runners in his village ministry.1 Probably
the only reason for such a suggestion is
that Luke is the only one of the synoptics
who has made any extended record of this
evangelistic tour.
3. Theophylact thought that Luke was
the unnamed companion of Cleopas in his
walk to Emmaus on the resurrection day.
This narrative too is peculiar to the third
Gospel; but if Luke were a Gentile, as we
shall have reason to conclude, that fact
would rule out either of these possibilities.
The seventy were, of course, all Jews; and
the companion of Cleopas and resident of
his home was a Jewess or a Jew.
4. It has been conjectured that Luke was
one of the Greeks who asked to be intro
duced to Jesus at the time of the last feast
in Jerusalem,2 but even this suggestion does
not seem to come within the realm of possi
bility, for Luke declares in the preface to
his Gospel that he is about to record what
1 Luke 10. 1-20. * John 12. 20.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 15
eyewitnesses had reported to him, and thus
clearly places himself among those who
were wholly dependent upon tradition for
what they knew of the gospel story. If he
had been an eyewitness himself at any
point, he surely would have claimed first
hand authority for his narrative in that
place. He makes no such claim. We
conclude, therefore, that he belonged to
the second generation of believers and
that he himself never saw Jesus.
5. However, in 2 Cor. 8. 18, 19, Paul
speaks of some brother whose praise in
the gospel was spread through all the
churches and who had been appointed by
the churches to travel with him, collecting
money for the poor saints in Jerusalem.
This unnamed brother may have been
Luke. He traveled with Paul on so many
other occasions, and he went with Paul
when this collection was finally carried to
Jerusalem. If he had labored in its gath
ering, he deserved to have some share in
its distribution; or he may have been in
trusted to see it safely to its destination.

16 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Anyway, we are sure from our Scriptures
that Luke was the close and congenial
companion of the apostle Paul.
They must have liked each other, be
cause they were like spirits. They were
both educated men, with scholarly habits
and with literary and cultured tastes.
They were great-hearted, liberal-minded,
broad-spirited. They must have influenced
and strengthened each other in the de
velopment of their natural tendencies.
They were probably about the same age,
and they must have been drawn to each
other from their first meeting, and their
continued and lifelong friendship proved
their perfect congeniality. Philip Sehaff
thinks that they were foreordained to be
comrades,1 and he points out other notable
friendships in church history, at the time
of the Reformation between Luther and
Melanchthon, Zwingli and (Ecolampadius,
Calvin and Beza, Cranmer, Latimer, and
Ridley; and in the eighteenth century be
tween the two Wesleys and Whitefield;
1 History of the Christian Church, vol. i, p. 649.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 17
and then in this same apostolic period
between Peter and Mark. The Master
sent out the apostles in the beginning
two by two; and this recognized neces
sity for companionship and encourage
ment in the formative period of the
church has manifested itself in all the
great creative periods in church history
since that time.
No one will ever be able to estimate how
much service in the cause of Christ these
congenial companionships between Chris
tian colaborers have been. It may be that
we owe to them the very existence of two
of our four Gospels. Two of these Gos
pels were written by apostles — that accord
ing to Matthew and that according to
John. The other two were written by the
two congenial companions of the two
greatest apostles, Peter and Paul. It is
usually supposed that Mark's record of
the life of Jesus was the first to be written,
and that it was in some sense a summary
of the teaching and preaching of Peter,
whose interpreter and companion and

18 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
"son" in the gospel Mark was.1 Peter and
Mark were both men of sanguine tempera
ment. They were both men of restless
energy, ready to jump at conclusions rather
than to take time to reason them out.
They were both liable to make mistakes,
and they were both ready to repent as
soon as they realized that a mistake had
been made. Paul could never have en
dured steady companionship with a man
like John Mark. He would rather part
company with Barnabas than keep com
pany with him.2 But Peter and Mark
were a congenial pair, and the Gospel
record written by Mark represents these
two men in its general characteristics, brief,
energetic, full of action, and unliterary as
it is. On the contrary, the Gospel written
by Luke is the longest and the most
literary of the Gospels. It was the prod
uct of the cultured and congenial com
panion of the apostle Paul. Possibly,
however, there was a still better or more
imperative reason than mere personal
1 1 Pet. 5. 13. : Aots 15. 37-40.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 19
pleasure in comradeship to account for
the close connection existing for years be
tween the apostle Paul and his traveling
companion, Luke.
IV. Luke, the Physician
We turn again to Col. 4. 14 and we find
that Paul not only calls Luke "beloved,"
but his "beloved physician," and we recall
that just before Luke joined Paul at Troas
in that first missionary advance into the
continent of Europe Paul had been suffer
ing from some infirmity of the flesh in
Galatia,1 and it may well have been that
he was dreading a recurrence of that ex
perience and asked Luke to go along with
him to help to ward it off or to care for
him if he were again disabled by it. We
recall also that when Luke rejoins Paul at
Philippi and accompanies him on the last
voyage to Jerusalem it is just after Paul
has been suffering again from an affliction
in which he had even despaired of his life.2
From this time on Luke remains con-

•Gal. 4. 13. 2 2 Cor. 1. 9.

20 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
stantly at his side. Paul doubtless needed
the continuous attention of a physician
during these closing years of his life.
Luke was an attendant physician, but,
more than that, he was Paul's beloved
companion and friend. That fact throws a
deal of light upon his character and goes
far to make him a model for all men in his
profession. Luke must have been thor
oughly competent, or Paul would not have
trusted him. We want the men into whose
hands we put the preservation of our lives
to have the best education that the schools
can furnish them and plenty of practical
experience before they begin to make any
experiments upon us. Now, the best med
ical education in Paul's day was to be
found among the Greeks, and all of the
great medical authorities among the Greeks
whose works are extant were Greeks of
Asia Minor. Hippocrates can scarcely be
called an exception, for he was born and
lived on the island of Cos, off the coast of
Caria. Galen came from Pergamus in
Mysia, Dioscorides from Anazarba in Ci-

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 21
licia, and Aretaeus from Cappadocia. These
were the great masters in the medical
profession, and they were all Asiatic
Greeks. The great university in Asia Minor in
Luke's day was situated at Tarsus, which
was the home of Paul. There was no
other place in Asia Minor or in the world
of that day where Luke could get as good
a medical education as he could at Tarsus.
If he went to school there, he may have
met Paul either in the university or on the
streets of that city; and if they became
schoolboy friends and discovered their con
geniality of spirit in those early days be
fore either of them had been converted to
the Christian faith, it would go far to
explain their immediate union of fortunes
and communion of interests when they
met in after years at Troas. Paul knew
that Luke was a thoroughly educated and
competent physician and was willing to
trust the treatment of his case in his hands
without any hesitation. If he had known
Luke in Tarsus in early youth, and had

22 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
known all about his university training
there, at Troas he would learn all about
Luke's experience as a physician in the
long years that had elapsed since those
university days.
It has been suggested that Luke must
have practiced medicine, for a time at
least, on one of the vessels plying up and
down the Mediterranean, since he shows
such an accurate acquaintance with tech
nical nautical terms in his description of
the voyage and the shipwreck in the
twenty-seventh chapter of the book of
Acts. We have already found reason to
suppose that he may have been the trusted
physician in the family of Lucanus the
poet, and so have come into contact with
such men as Gallio and Seneca. He may
have been the physician as well as the
friend of Theophilus, the man for whom
he wrote his two volumes of history; and
this Theophilus must have been a man of
influence and prominence in the Christian
Church of the early days. We shall see
later that Luke may have had confidential

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 23
relations as physician with certain mem
bers of the royal court in Palestine. All
the indications agree in leading us to the
conclusion that Luke had had a varied
and an unusually successful career as a
physician after leaving school and before
joining Paul at Troas.
He had had most excellent training in
the beginning, and now he had years of
experience behind him. He was no longer
young and untried. Paul was more ready
to trust him on that account. A young
physician is always at a disadvantage as
compared with a young lawyer or a young
preacher. Theoretical knowledge may sat
isfy people in theology and law; and to the
young man who knows nothing but what he
has learned from his books they seem will
ing to intrust without much hesitation the
care of their property and of their souls.
But with their bodies they usually are
more cautious. Their physician must have
theoretical knowledge, to be sure; but to
this knowledge he must have added prac
tical experience before they feel safe in his

24 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
hands. So the young physician must wait
until the wrinkles settle like weary-winged
birds on his forehead and his brow and until
his hair begins to be sprinkled with gray
before everybody will be willing to trust
him in therapeutics and surgery. Luke
had served his apprenticeship successfully,
and now he was trusted as a man of much
experience, as well as of adequate pre
liminary training. But many a physician
is trusted who is not beloved. Luke was
both a trusted and a beloved physician.
He must have had a sunny, cheerful, at
tractive disposition. He was a model in
this respect to all in his profession.
The medical profession was born among
the Greeks, like so many other good
things. According to the Greeks, it was
divine in its origin. Apollo, the sun -god,
was the healer among the Greek divinities.
The sun is the great healer now. The sun
bath is the most healthful treatment, not
only for tuberculosis, but for other human
ills. The Greeks said that iEsculapius,
the first physician, was the son of Apollo,

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 25
the sun-god. Every physician ought to
have a sunny face and disposition. A
dyspeptic doctor is worse than the quinine
he gives. A sour breath, a sour face, a
cross word ought all of them to be on the
interdicted list with him. Luke was a
Greek, of the race of ^Esculapius and Hip
pocrates. He had the Greek gift of a
joyous disposition, a pleasant manner, a
lovable personality. He was the beloved
physician because of his personal character.
Paul loved him, however, not only be
cause he was a trained and trusted and
agreeable physician, but also because he
was a Christian, a missionary, an evan
gelist. A family physician need be second
to no man in gaining the affections of those
whom he serves. A Christian physician
can get at the hearts of those whom he
serves better than the Christian lawyer
can, or the Christian business man, or the
Christian minister. One need have no
hesitancy in making a statement of that
kind. The physician comes to know all
the secrets of the household. The skeleton

26 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
in the closet may be hidden very easily
from the minister, the business man, and
even from the lawyer; but the physician finds
it out, and as he keeps these secrets of his
profession sacred he comes to be trusted
and honored and revered.
In the sick-room, in the crisis moments
of the disease, in the hours preceding the
final death struggle, the physician finds a
leverage power for the preaching of the
gospel of Christ that the Sunday pulpit
has never known and that cannot be
found by any other professional man in
the direct line of his professional work.
If a man does not like what a preacher
says in his pulpit or his private ministra
tions, he can get up and go away and he
need not come again unless he desire to do
so; but if his physician choose to talk
religion to him on his sick-bed, he cannot
get up and go away; he must perforce lie
on his back and listen. A judicious Chris
tian physician, improving every favorable
opportunity to speak a word for his Master,
may be the most successful evangelist in

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 27
any community. We have known the
most successful and the most trusted and
the most beloved physician in a given
church community who brought more peo
ple into church membership, and had more
converts as a direct result of his personal
labors and appeals, than the preacher had
for year after year of their joint ministry
to that people. That was an exceptional
case; but why might it not be an ordinary
one ?
The sick-room may become a sanctuary,
devoted to serious meditation upon reli
gious themes. As the body weakens the
soul oftentimes suddenly expands. It be
comes insistent that its claims shall be
heard. It therefore follows that the phy
sician often finds that ear attentive which
has been deaf to the appeal of the pulpit,
or anything that may have been said on
the street in busy healthful life. Luke was
both a physician and an evangelist. His
praise was in all the churches for his good
work in both these fields. He was beloved
for his medical skill and for his ever-

28 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
aggressive and ever-attractive Christianity.
He might well be a model for all in the
medical profession. There is a Latin stanza
which appraises his worth in this twofold
capacity as follows:
Lucas, Evangelii et medicinse munera pandens;
Artibus hinc, illinc religione, valet:
Utilis ille labor, per quem vixere tot regri;
Utilior, per quem tot didicere mori!1
V. Luke, the Musician
Have we now the complete picture of
Luke the beloved physician as far as the
Scriptures can help us to form one ? Are
there any other personal characteristics
of which they make us reasonably sure ?
When we turn to Luke's own writings I
think they will testify to at least one more
feature of Luke's equipment as a physician
and as an evangelist.
He was a man who was fond of music.
He is the first great Christian hymnologist.
He has preserved for us five great hymns
of the early church. He is the only evan
gelist who has done that. His gospel nar-
1 Sehaff, op. cit., p. 648.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 29
rative begins with hymns and ends with
praises. Now, music and medicine always
go well together and singing and salvation
always have gone hand in hand. Music
will help the physician to drive out the
devil of disease, and music will help the
evangelist to drive out the devil of sin.
The devil does not like music, and villainy
has no natural affiliation with harmony.
"The righteous doth sing and rejoice."1
As far as we can gather from any good
authority on the subject, there is no music
in hell. The Scriptures surely make no
mention of any. There is weeping there,
and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, but
not a single song, not a musical note, no
concord, no harmony. And as far as we
can gather from all good authorities on the
subject, when the old things have passed
away and all things have become new,
music will find its eternal home in heaven.
There are harps of gold and songs of re
joicing, and all the courts of the king will
resound forever with music and glad-
i Prov. 29. 6.

30 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
ness and all sorrow and sighing will flee
away. We remember what Shakespeare has
said: The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.1
Such a man must be a villain, like "that
spare Cassius" who reads much, seldom
smiles, "hears no music."2
What is true of Shakespeare's ideal vil
lain is true of villainy incarnate, the Evil
One, as well. Burton in his Anatomy of
Melancholy not only prescribes music as a
sovereign remedy against that malady, but
in the same breath declares that it is a
remedy that "will drive away the devil
himself." Luther in his Table-Talk is
recorded as saying, "The devil is a sa
turnine spirit, and music is hateful to him,
and drives him far from it." The Bible

i Merchant of Venice, Act v. So. 1. 2 Julius Csesar, Act i. Sc. 2.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 31
bears its testimony to the truthfulness of
the statement. When the three kings had
made Elisha the prophet mad, and for a
moment the devil had taken possession of
him, he cried, "Bring me a minstrel!" and
under the soothing strains of the min
strelsy his rage was abated, his spirit was
calmed, his soul was uplifted till the Spirit
of the Lord came upon him and he broke
out into the prophecy of blessing.1 Music
had driven the devil away.
Messengers went from Saul the monarch
to the shepherd lad tending his flocks out
on the hills. They told David, "His
Majesty is afflicted beyond measure; at
intervals he seems to be devil-possessed;
and when the fury seizes him neither
physician nor priest can do any good; and
he has been told that your harp would help
to make him well." So David went to the
king's relief; and it came to pass when the
evil spirit was upon Saul, that David took
an harp and played with his hand. So
Saul was refreshed and was well and the
i 2 Kings 3. 13-20.

32 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
evil spirit departed from him.1 Secular
history furnishes instances of a similar sort.
Farinelli sang the perturbed spirit out of
King Philip the Fifth. Charles the Great
of France found no peace of soul until
Orlando di Lasso brought to Paris the
music that exorcised the evil spirit within
him. Walter Scott has pictured his Highlander,
Allan McAulay, whose frenzy was often
soothed by the harp of Annot Lyle. In
the Cloister and the Hearth, Clement be
thinks himself in his despair that possibly
King Saul's music may afford him some re
lief, but he conceives his case most des
perate. "Saul had a saint to play to him.
He was not alone with the spirits of dark
ness; but here is no sweet bard of Israel
to play to me: I, lonely, with crushed
heart, on which a black fiend sitteth,
mountain-high, must make the music to
uplift that heart to heaven." Could it be
hoped that music would accomplish such
a task ? Hear how Robert Browning sings:
1 1 Sam. 16. 14-23.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 33
My heart! they loose my heart, those simple words;
Its darkness passes, which naught else could touch,
Like some dank snake that force may not expel,
Which glideth out to music sweet and low.
It was an ancient fable that the music
of Orpheus could subdue the wildest of
the beasts and could draw after him even
the trees and the stones and the floods;
but to music has been given this greater
power over the snake and over that old
serpent, the devil. When he had taken
possession of earth God sent Music, his
angel of mercy, to keep alive in man's
heart the memory of heaven's harmony
and to shield him from Satan's severest
assaults. There is no harmony in hell; that helps
to make it what it is. The devil hates
music; that is part of his curse. The
snake never sings; neither does the vulture;
nor any bird or beast of prey. Neither
does the burglar, nor murderer, nor the
villainous among men. It is only the
happy and the innocent, the lark and the lin
net: it is the righteous who sing and rejoice.

34 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
The Old Testament was full of singing
and it has a hymn book in its heart. Luke
believed that those Old Testament hymns
could be adapted to Christian uses. He
carries the hymnology of the Old Testa
ment church over into the New. He is
the father and the founder of Christian
hymnology. Bishop Keble says of Luke:
Thou hast an ear for angel songs,
A breath the gospel trump to fill,
And taught by thee the church prolongs,
Her hymns of high thanksgiving still.
He shows us how the very beginning of
the Christian era was ushered in with
songs, and how the Christian Church sang
its way through its earliest triumphs.
When Paul and Silas had been cast into
the inner prison and their feet were made
fast in the stocks, at midnight they sang
praises unto God until an earthquake
opened their prison doors and everyone's
bands were loosed. I have often won
dered if those hymns which Paul and Silas
sang were not composed by Luke. Tim
othy and Luke were with Paul and Silas

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 35
there at Philippi. They may have been
keeping their midnight vigil just outside
the prison walls, and when they heard the
prisoners singing some of Luke's gospel
hymns they knew that imprisonment had
not daunted the spirits of those apostles
of God's grace.
They were like David, who was a hunted
outlaw, and had to hide himself in dens
and caves of the earth, and who yet sang
psalms and rejoiced. They were like
David's greater Son, who had finished his
last supper with his disciples and was
facing toward betrayal and denial and
death, and who yet sang a hymn with
them before they went out to Gethsemane.
They were like Paul Gerhardt, who while
in deep distress composed that famous
song beginning, Give to the winds thy fears,
Hope and be undismayed.
They were like Martin Luther, who had
heard bad news, very bad news, and who
said, "Come, let us sing a psalm, and
spite the devil."

36 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
They were like Bunyan's Pilgrim, who
sang at the very beginning of his pil
grimage toward the Celestial City, sang
upon the Hill of Difficulty, sang in the
Chamber of Peace, sang after his duel with
Apollyon, and sang after his sight of the
Delectable Mountains. They were like
those pilgrims in the second part of Pil
grim's Progress who broke out into singing
and so went on into the Land of Beulah,
where the sun shineth evermore. They
believed that the best way to get ready for
heaven was to have psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs filling their hearts all their
time on earth. They believed that music
and song were divine gifts and the Chris
tian's peculiar heritage.
We believe that Luke was personally and
largely influential in fastening this faith on
the Christian Church. He had the Greek
love for melody. He was full of music
himself. He collected and recorded the
first Christian hymns. He gave Paul
medicine when he needed it, and when all
medicines had failed, like another David

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 37
before another Saul, he ministered to him
in melody until his physical ills and his
spiritual wounds were all healed. He must
have been a versatile genius, this man
Luke, ready to serve and able to serve
according to any man's need. No wonder
that he was beloved by all, and his praise
was in all the churches.
VI. Luke, the Abtist
From church tradition we may add
another accomplishment to this many-
sided man. Dante Gabriel Rossetti has
put this church tradition into his lines:
Give honor unto Luke, evangelist,
For he it was, the ancient legends say,
Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray.1
Luke was said to have painted the portrait
of the Virgin.2 The oldest witness to this
fact is Theodorus Lector, who was reader
in the Church of Constantinople in the
sixth century. He tells us that the Em
press Eudoxia found at Jerusalem a picture
1 Sonnet Ixxiv. In the House of Life.
• Plummer, International Critical Commentary on Luke, p. xxii.

38 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
of the God-Mother painted by Luke the
apostle and she presented it to her
daughter, Pulcheria, the wife of Theo-
dosius II. In the Capella Paolina, in the
Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, at
Rome, a very ancient picture is preserved,
a portrait of the Virgin ascribed to Luke.
It can be traced back to A. D. 847, and it
may be much older than that.
In the catacombs there is an inscription
referring to a rude painting of the Virgin
as "one of seven painted by Luca." This
inscription may be the source of the later
traditions. Or they may all have sprung
from the fact that, as Plummer says:
"Luke has had a great influence upon
Christian art, of which in a real sense he.
may be called the founder. 'The Shepherd
with the Lost Sheep on His Shoulder,' one
of the earliest representations of Christ,
comes from Luke 15; and both mediaeval
and modern artists have been specially
fond of representing those scenes which are
described by Luke alone: the annunciation,
the visit of Mary to Elisabeth, the shep-

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 39
herds, the manger, the presentation in the
temple, Simeon and Anna, Christ with the
doctors, the woman at the supper of
Simon the Pharisee, Christ weeping over
Jerusalem, the walk to Emmaus, the good
Samaritan, the prodigal son. Many other
scenes which are favorites with painters
might be added from the Acts."1 Luke, says
Philip Sehaff, "is the painter of Christus
Salvator and Christus Consolator."2
He may not have been an artist with his
brush, but we know that he was an artist
with his pen. He composed a book which
a competent critic declares to be the most
beautiful book ever written. In it he has
portrayed the Virgin Mary and her Sinless
Son and many other characters most beau
tiful and rare. He had an artist's soul. He
loved the good and beautiful and true.
He may have used the artist's tools. It
would make him a very versatile genius
indeed, if he were a competent physician
and an accomplished musician and a
painter of pictures besides. But we have
• Plummer, op. at., p. xxii. * Sehaff, op. tit., p. 660.

40 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
known just such versatile men again and
again in the course of the centuries. Luke
may have been one of them. We know
that he was an extraordinary man in
many respects; and we know that if he
never put any portraits on canvas, he has
put them on his written page with such
artistic excellence that he may safely be
said to be the founder of Christian art.
VII. Luke, the Gentile
We have suggested that Luke was in all
probability a Gentile. Our reasons for so
concluding are not absolutely compelling
ones. They seem to establish the dominant
probability in the case. They are as
follows: 1. Luke's name is Greek.
2. His style is more like that of a Greek
than a Jew. Philip Sehaff declares that his
writing is admirably suited to the Greek
taste, and that the prologue to the Gospel
would at once captivate the refined Hel
lenic ear by its classic construction. He
compares it with the prologues of Hero
dotus and Thucydides and concludes that

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 41
Luke's prologue is unsurpassed for brevity,
modesty, and dignity.1 Of no other writer
in the New Testament could such state
ments be made; and the easy conclusion is
that Luke could write so much better
Greek because he was himself a Greek.
3. In Col. 4. 10-14 Paul sends the saluta
tions of Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus Jus
tus to the Colossians; and he says of them,
"These are of the circumcision." Then
he goes on to send the salutations of
Epaphras, Luke, and Demas, as if these
were not included among those of the
circumcision whose salutations he sent first.
If we could be sure that there was an in
tentional distinction here, as there cer
tainly seems to be, it would settle the
matter that Luke was indeed a Gentile by
birth. If we so conclude, we have in Luke
the only Gentile among the writers of the
New Testament books. It would be inter
esting if we could decide not only that
Luke was a Gentile, but also to what part
of the Gentile world he belonged.
'Sehaff, op. at., pp. 656, 664.

42 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
VIII. Luke, of Antioch
All indications seem to point to Antioch
of Syria as his home. We list a few of
these: 1. Eusebius1 says that Luke belonged
to an Antiochian family.
2. Jerome2 tells us explicitly that Luke
was a physician of Antioch, and a preface
to the Gospel, written, as Harnack thinks,
in the third century, says that Luke was by
nation a Syrian of Antioch.
3. In the book of Acts Luke names the
seven deacons appointed over the church of
Jerusalem and locates only one of them,
and he is "Nicolas of Antioch."3 Why was
Nicolas given this location? Was it be
cause Luke had known him at Antioch and
was proud of the fact that one of his fel
low citizens had been appointed to such
an office, and therefore considered it well
worth his recording ? James Smith points
out the coincidence that of eight accounts
of the Russian campaign of 1812, three
written by Frenchmen and three written by
Englishmen never mention the fact that
" Ecclesiastical History, iii, 4, 7. 2 De Viris Illustribus, vii. » Acts 6. 8.'

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 43
the Russian General Barclay de Tolly was
of Scotch extraction; but the two accounts
of that campaign written by the two
Scotchmen, Scott and Alison, both men
tion it. It was of more importance to
them; at least it was of sufficient im
portance to seem to them to be well worth
chronicling. 4. Luke seems to be well acquainted with
the history of the church at Antioch and
gives us an unusually full account of its
pastors and teachers and their enterprises
and their trials. He makes the church at
Antioch the mother of all the Gentile
churches; and he says that the Christians
were first called by that name in Antioch.
Luke seems to be well acquainted with all
the controversies in the church in this
city. It is to Antioch that Barnabas
summons Saul, and in their labors together
in the synagogues of Antioch they are made
ready for their advance upon the Gentile
world. It is from Antioch that Barnabas
and Saul are sent forth to their great mis
sionary campaigns; and it is to Antioch

44 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
that they return to make their reports.
Such records as we find in Acts 11. 19-30,
and 13. 1-3, and 15. 1-3, 30-40 lead us to
suppose that Luke must have been resi
dent in Antioch and that he was personally
acquainted with the events which he has
narrated at such comparatively unusual
length. 5. There is a reading peculiar to Codex
Bezse, which was known to Augustine, and
which was accepted by him as genuine
and of good authority, and which would go
far to settle this probability of Luke's
residence in Antioch if we adopted it, for
it would represent the first occurrence of
the pronoun "we" in the narrative and
would locate the narrator in Antioch. After
Acts 11. 27, which reads, "Now in these
days there came down prophets from Jeru
salem unto Antioch," Codex Bezse has the
following statement: "And there was great
rejoicing; and when we were gathered to
gether one of them named Agabus stood
up," and so on. According to this reading,
Luke was a member of the church at An-

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 45
tioch at this time. If so, Luke was prob
ably among the very first Gentile converts
to Christianity in Antioch. It may have
been the preaching or the personal influence
of his former school friend, Saul, that
brought him into the Christian Church.
At any rate, their association in Christian
work would have begun at this time and
place. 6. There is still another indication of
Luke's connection with Antioch. He dedi
cates both his books to the "most hon
orable Theophilus." Now, the Clemen
tines tell us that Theophilus was a wealthy
citizen of Antioch. He probably held some
official position there. The title which
Luke gives him is the title given to the
governors Felix and Festus in the book of
Acts,1 and it may be reserved for those
who are employed in the government
service, and for these alone. Then the
better translation of the title would be,
"most honorable" or "most noble." This
Theophilus was a wealthy man and a
'Acts 23. 26; 24. 3; 26. 25.

46 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Christian man, and it may be that he was
Luke's literary patron and furnished him
the leisure and the financial backing neces
sary for the publication of his two volumes
of history. IX. Luke, the Freedman
Some have thought that Luke was a
freedman. The reasons suggested for such
a conclusion are: 1. It was a custom among
both the Greeks and the Romans to educate
some one of their domestic slaves in the
medical profession, and if he proved ex
pert in it, it was not an unusual thing for
them to grant him his freedom in return
for his services. A large number of the
physicians of that day are said to have
belonged to this class.
2. Such names as Luke's, contractions in
as, as "Lucas" for "Lucanus," we are told,
were peculiarly common in the names of
slaves. Luke was a man of broad sym
pathies for all the down-trodden and the
poor, as his writings well show. Did he
learn this sympathy for all the wretched

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 47
ones when he was a slave, and in all his
after life of freedom did he never lose his
memory of their need ? And was it there
fore one of his chief delights in the gospel
that in his conception of it its first and
chief mission was to preach good tidings to
the poor, to proclaim release to the cap
tives, and to set at liberty them that are
bruised?1 If Luke began life as a slave, he must
have made the most of all the opportuni
ties offered him, and very early in life he
must have proved himself worthy of free
dom; and in his later life, with his scientific
and professional training, he was a worthy
and beloved associate of those other uni
versity graduates, Paul and Apollos, and
possibly Barnabas. Of all the first
preachers of the gospel these alone would
seem to have had the advantages of the
schools, and most naturally they drifted
together and found the greatest pleasure in
each other's congenial companionship. Col
lege men are birds of a feather, and, unless
i Luke i. IS.

48 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
there be some personal reason to the con
trary, they are sure to flock together; and
if they do so, their service to any cause
they may espouse is usually found to be
the most efficient service it can muster.
Barnabas was the great reconciler in the
infant church. Apollos was the great ora
tor; and if he wrote the Epistle to the
Hebrews, he added the finest literary com
position to the books of the New Testa
ment. Paul was the church organizer and
pioneer missionary and systematic theolo
gian without a peer. Luke was the author
of the most beautiful book ever written
and the incomparable historian of the early
church. It would seem that Christianity
could not have gotten along very well in
the beginning without these four college
men, as it has not been able to get along
very well at any time since without the
leadership of men of the highest education.
Three of these men, Barnabas, Paul, and
Luke, possibly met each other for the first
time in the University of Tarsus; and their
friendship formed in college may have had

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 49
much to do with the shaping of their future
lives. Apollos came from the rival school
at Alexandria; but when he became a
Christian he was admitted to their circle
without question as a man of culture and
refinement, and therefore sure to furnish
serviceable and congenial companionship.
X. Luke in Later Tradition
The later church traditions concerning
Luke do not date farther back than the
fourth century, A. D. Epiphanius tells us
that after Paul's death Luke preached in
Italy and in Gaul and in Dalmatia and in
Macedonia.1 We are told that he lived to
the age of eighty-four. One account says
that he was finally crucified in the Pelo
ponnesus, at Eleaea, on an olive tree.
Another account says that he died a
natural death in Bithynia. Later we read
that his bones were brought from Patras
in Achaia by the order of the emperor
Constantine and were buried in the Church
of the Apostles in Constantinople.
> Haer. 51.

50 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
XI. An Outline Biography
We have now before us all the facts and
all the inferences and traditions out of
which it might be possible to construct an
ideal biography of the evangelist Luke.
Shall we make the attempt to outline his
career upon the basis of these ?
1. He was born a slave boy in the house
hold of Theophilus, a wealthy government
official in Antioch. He grew up into most
engaging appearance and most attractive
personality. He was of a peculiarly acute
intellect and of a most obliging disposition.
He won his master's confidence and then
his personal liking. Theophilus decided to
educate the boy at his own expense and at
the best university in the land. So it was
that the second capital event in the life of
Luke was his matriculation at Tarsus.
2. Here he studied medicine, where the
great masters in that profession, Aretseus,
Dioscorides, and Athenseus, had been edu
cated. Just a few miles away at iEgae
stood the great Temple of iEsculapius,
which furnished the nearest approach to

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 51
the modern hospital to be found in the
ancient world. From the university lec
tures Luke got the theory of medicine; in
the Temple of ^Esculapius he got the
practice and experience he needed. He
made the acquaintance of Barnabas and
Saul here, and laid the foundations for a
lifelong friendship with these men.
3. His education completed, he returned
to Antioch and rendered faithful and most
successful service in his master's family.
Then the gospel was preached at Antioch,
and Luke was among the first to hear it and
to accept it. He told his master, Theo
philus, about it, and Theophilus himself
became interested and at last converted.
Then about the first thing Theophilus did
as a Christian was to give Luke his
freedom. 4. The first impulse of the freedman
Luke was to get away from all the scenes
of his servitude and to test his new-found
liberty by wandering far and wide at his
own sweet will. He shipped as a physician
upon one of the vessels plying up and down

52 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
the Mediterranean, and there he had mani
fold experiences. His outlook was broad
ened as he saw more of the world. He was
of service to many people and he made
many friends.
5. On one of his voyages he met some
members of the family of Lucanus, the
poet, and they persuaded him to accom
pany them to their home in Corduba in
Spain. Luke was there when the poet was
born, and the baby boy was named after
him. In this household he became ac
quainted with Gallio and Seneca and many
other notable men. The slave boy had
risen to a considerable height, for his
natural ability and his excellent education
and his goodness of heart enabled him to
converse with the best of men as their
equal, and as a freedman and physician he
was admitted to terms of intimacy which
otherwise would have been impossible.
6. In due time he came back to Antioch
and was resident there when many of the
stirring events which he narrates in the
history of its Christian Church took place.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 53
7. Later he removed to Troas and set
tled there, where Paul found him on his
second missionary journey. He went with
Paul to Philippi, and was left in charge of
that church for seven years.
8. He left Philippi with Paul in A. D. 58,
and remained with Paul thereafter until
the apostle's martyrdom.
9. Some time after this event he wrote
the third Gospel and the book of Acts for
Theophilus, and he fully intended to write
a third volume continuing the history, but
he was swept away into the tide of Chris
tian evangelism and never found the leisure
to do it.
10. He labored as an evangelist in many
lands, and in a ripe old age he fell on sleep
and was buried somewhere in Greece.
11. Luke was one of the most respected
and best-beloved members of the early
church. His praise was in all the churches.
All women liked him and all men honored
him. Apollos and he were the most ac
complished writers, and Paul and he were
the most prolific writers of the New Tes-

54 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
tament times. Take the writings of Luke
and Paul out of the New Testament and
it would be less than half its present size;
and of the larger half of the present con
tents of the New Testament Luke wrote
more than Paul. He was a most versa
tile man — a physician, a musician, a painter,
a poet, a preacher, a prolific author, an
intrepid missionary — a man with many
gifts and many friends and manifold ac
complishment. His biography was a ro
mance. His books are invaluable. Both
he and they are worth our knowing and
knowing well.

PART TWO: THE GOSPEL

55

THE GOSPEL
I. Sources of the Gospel
Luke was not an eyewitness of the
events in the gospel history. Where did
he get his information concerning these
things he has recorded ? We turn to the
beginning words of the Gospel to find what
he himself has to say about it. He tells us
that he wrote of his own accord, and the
only credential he presents for the trust
worthiness of his narrative is that of
painstaking investigation of all the sources
of information at his command. He certi
fies, however, that the result of this in
vestigation is a fuller, more accurate, and
more orderly account of the life of Jesus
than any of which he knew.
He divides the chief sources of the facts
he has written into documentary material
and oral testimony. There had been many
57

58 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
attempts at narrative of which in their
manuscript form he was able to avail him
self and upon which he hoped to improve.
There were also many eyewitnesses still
living whom he was able to interview and
who delivered to him their first-hand in
formation concerning many things. Upon
the basis of his documents and the careful
recording of apostolic tradition as given to
himself Luke assures Theophilus that he
may rely upon the certainty of the things
he here finds recorded.1 1. We ask, What
were Luke's documents ?
We think we can distinguish a few of
them. (1) After the introduction explain
ing the authority and the aims of the book,
the first two chapters of the third Gospel
are full of Hebraic expressions and differ
so widely in style and general character
from the remainder of the Gospel that
almost all scholars have concluded that
they are translations from the Aramaic,
and probably represent two or three
written sources. We may find the con-
iLuke 1. 1-4.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 59
elusions of these fragments at 1. 80; 2. 40;
and 2. 52.
(2) The genealogy in 3. 23-38 must
have been taken, of course, from some
legal or tribal or temple document.
(3) It does not seem probable that Luke
was acquainted with our Gospel according
to Matthew either in the Greek or in the
Hebrew. It is possible that he did not
know the Gospel according to Mark in its
present form. We know, however, that
Mark was at Rome with Paul in A. D. 64,
according to Col. 4. 10 and Philem. 24.
We know, further, that Luke was there at
the same time.1 When we notice, there
fore, that there are certain portions of
Luke's narrative which are paralleled in
Mark's account and which are not to be
found in the Gospel according to Matthew,
the most natural and adequate explana
tion of these parallels between Mark and
Luke would be found in the personal
association of these two men at Rome,
where they could compare notes of ma-
i Col. 4. 14.

60 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
terial already collected. Of these passages
in Luke, not to be found in Matthew, but
paralleled in Mark and possibly derived
from manuscript notes made by Mark
himself, we may mention the story of the
demoniac healed in the synagogue on the
Sabbath,1 the journey through Galilee,2 the
prayer of the demoniac,3 the complaint of
John against the man who would not
follow with them, but who would persist
in casting out devils, nevertheless,4 and
the women bringing spices to the
sepulcher.5 2. Among the eyewitnesses and minis
ters of the Word from whom Luke could
have obtained some information we may
be sure of some, at least. (1) As a physi
cian Luke would come into confidential
relations with many women, and as the
women who ministered to Jesus and had
had personal experiences with him during
the course of his ministry came to know
Luke and to like him and trust him they
could tell him some of these things con-
' Luke 4. 33-37. » 4. 43, 44. '8.38. «9. 49. '24.1.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 61
cerning women and their relation to Jesus
which Luke alone has preserved for us.
Such facts as we find in Luke 7. 36-50;
8. 2, 3; 10. 38-42; 11. 27; 23. 27-29, 49, 56
must have come from the women
themselves. (2) Luke seems to have had some special
source of information concerning matters
pertaining to the court of Herod. The
information given us in such passages as
8. 3; 13. 32; 23. 5-12 is to be found in
Luke's narrative alone. We read in Acts
13. 1 that Paul and his companions, among
whom Luke may have been one, were
associated with Manaen, the foster brother
of Herod. It is easy to conclude that all
inside information concerning Herod and
his court came to Paul or to Luke through
him. (3) In Acts 21. 16 we are told that Luke
lodged while at Jerusalem with Mnason of
Cyprus, who had been a disciple from the
beginning. Here, then, was another who
could give him original information con
cerning many things.

62 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
(4) There must have been many other
early disciples whom Luke met at various
times. He may have met Peter and Barna
bas at Antioch. He would surely meet
James and the elders of the church when
he came with Paul to Jerusalem.
(5) During the two years of Paul's im
prisonment in Caesarea Luke became ac
quainted with Philip the evangelist and
his daughters. All they knew as to the
facts of Christ's life they would gladly
share with Luke.
(6) At Csesarea Luke was only fifty miles
from Jerusalem, and there was a good
road between the two cities; and he was
only two days' journey from the shores of
Lake Gennesaret. A man bent upon trac
ing accurately from the first the course of
events in the life of the Lord hardly could
have failed to visit these places, and, ex
ploring among them and on into Peraea,
Luke could have picked up such items of
information as we find in 7. 11-17; 24.
13-35 and many things in the Persean minis
try which we find recorded nowhere else.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 63
We do not know what Luke was doing
during the two years of Paul's imprison
ment at Caesarea, but we may be sure
that he was employing his time well; and
what more congenial employment could he
have found than the gathering of materials
for a narrative of the things which had
been fulfilled in that vicinity in the found
ing of the Christian Church ? He could
interview any number of eyewitnesses and
he could trace the course of all things ac
curately from the first in personal investi
gation. Did he write the Gospel at this
time ? II. Date of the Gospel
There are those who think that Luke
must have written the third Gospel either
during Paul's imprisonment at Caesarea or
the immediately succeeding imprisonment
at Rome. The following authorities agree
that the narrative as we have it was
written before or about A. D. 63: Alford,
Ebrard, Farrar, Gloag, Godet, Hofmann,
Hug, Keil, Lange, Lumby, Sehaff, Tholuck,
Wieseler, and others. They say: 1. The

64 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Gospel according to Luke must have been
written before the book of Acts, and the
book of Acts does not say anything about
the death of Paul, and the close of its nar-
native seems to coincide with the date of
Luke's writing. Therefore both the Gospel
and the book of Acts were written before
the date of Paul's martyrdom^, 2. When
Luke tells us about the prophecy of the
famine made by Agabus in Acts 11. 28 he
is careful to add that the prophecy was
fulfilled in the days of Claudius; but when
he tells us about the prophecy of the de
struction of Jerusalem made by Jesus, in
Luke 21. 5-36, he does not say that that
prophecy was fulfilled. He surely would
have done so if he had been writing later
than A. D. 70. He does not do so because
the destruction of the capital city had not
yet taken place.
However, many other authorities think
that we must decide upon a later date for
the composition of the third Gospel. They
point out the following facts: 1. We must
allow time for a large number of people to

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 65
draw up narratives concerning the sayings
and doings of Jesus.
2. Twice in the Gospel1 Luke puts the
name of John before that of his brother
James in naming the two together. Mat
thew and Mark never do that. They
always put James first. This seems to be
an indication that Luke wrote at a later
period than the other two synoptists, and
at a time when James had died or when
for some other reason John was being
recognized as the more prominent or in
fluential of the two.
3. The prophecies concerning the de
struction of Jerusalem as recorded in Luke
are much more definite than the parallel
prophecies in Matthew and Mark. Even
though Luke does not say that these
prophecies had been fulfilled, their greater
definiteness bears witness to that fact.
After the event the details of the sayings
of Jesus concerning it were remembered
more vividly and recorded more accurately.
4. In the midst of these prophecies in
i 8. 51 and 9. 28.

66 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Matthew and Mark the evangelists have
inserted a note of warning to their readers
— "Let him that readeth understand."1
Luke omits this clause, the time for such
warning having gone by.
5. The designation of Jesus as "Lord,"
not found at all in Mark and only occa
sionally in Matthew, is more frequent in
Luke. This seems to be a mark of later
date, when this title was becoming more
common among the disciples. Among
those who believe that the Gospel was
written after the death of Paul and after
the destruction of Jerusalem and in the
later old age of Luke, we may mention
Beyschlag, Bleek, Cook, Credner, De Wette,
Ewald, Julicher, Plummer, Ramsay, Renan,
Reuss, Sanday, Schenkel, and Weiss.
III. Place of Writing
Jerome says that Luke wrote the Gospel
in Achaia and Boeotia. Godet selects the
city of Corinth as the most likely place.
Holtzmann, Hug, Keim, and Zeller guess
i Matt. 24. 15; Mark 13. 14.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 67
that the Gospel was written at Rome,
Michaelis and Tholuck at Caesarea, Hilgen-
feld in Asia Minor, and Kostlin at Ephesus.
Plummer says there is no evidence for or
against any of these places. Weiss adds
that "all conjectures as to the place of
composition are quite visionary and have
no value whatever." Under these cir
cumstances may we not conjecture that it
was at Caesarea in the days of Paul's im
prisonment that the first considerable gath
ering of material for this Gospel narrative
was made, and that Luke continued his
work as opportunity offered during the
later imprisonment at Rome, and that in
the after days in the moments of leisure
he may have snatched from his missionary
labors he completed the book, giving it
its final touches in some village retreat in
Greece, and writing last of all the preface
dedicating it to Theophilus some time be
tween A. D. 70 and 80? This gradual gath
ering and shaping of the material in hand
would leave room to account for all the
phenomena involved in the text, and the

68 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
final finishing in the intervals of an itin
erant missionary village visitation in Greece
would meet the requirement of Jerome's
suggestion that it was composed in places
in both Achaia and Boeotia. In various
humble village homes by the light of a
dim-burning olive-oil wick we see the be
loved evangelist completing the most beau
tiful book ever written.
IV. The Gospel for the Gentiles
When we turn to the study of the book,
the first thing we notice is that it is written
from a Gentile point of view, and that
makes it noteworthy at once. It is the
only book in the New Testament of which
that can be said, except the book of Acts,
also written by Luke.
All the other books in our Bible, both in
the Old Testament and in the New Testa
ment, were written by Jews. Our Bible is
a Jewish book from beginning to end, as
far as authorship is concerned. Its writers
were Jews or Christian Jews, but they
"were all of the Hebrew race, and they all

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 69
had more or less of the Hebrew prejudice
and point of view. Jesus was a Jew. All
of the twelve apostles were Jews. All of
the first churches were composed wholly of
Jews. Even Paul, the champion of the
Gentiles, was himself a Jew, and he never
wholly freed himself from the results of his
rabbinical training and thought. If Luke
had not written these books, all of Gentile
Christendom would have been dependent
forever upon Jewish sources for the whole
of its record of the revelation of God unto
men. But in these two books we see how
the life of Jesus and the fortunes of the
early Christian Church appear from a
Gentile point of view. The Gospel accord
ing to Matthew gives us a Jewish point of
view. The Gospel according to Mark
gives us a Jew's account, adapted to the
use of Gentiles. Now Luke, a Gentile,
will write for Gentiles, and our New Tes
tament will have a Gentile Gospel, a Gospel
written for us and by one of ourselves."1
How do we know that Luke is writing
1 Hayes, The Synoptic Problem, p. 80.

70 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
for us rather than for the Jews? 1. Be
cause of his explanations of things with
which the Jews were perfectly familiar, but
of which Gentiles might be supposed to be
ignorant. He tells us that Nazareth was a
city of Galilee.1 He gives us the same
information concerning Capernaum.2 He
says that the feast of unleavened bread
was called the passover.3 All Jews knew
these things without being told. Luke
wrote them down for the benefit of those
who were not acquainted with the geog
raphy of Palestine or with the feasts of
the Jewish ritual. However, it is when we
turn from such small details to consider the
general spirit of the book that its Gentile
point of view becomes most apparent.
2. Of the three synoptic Gospels this is
by far the most catholic in its sympathies
and universalistic in its outlook. (1) It
has a genealogy of Jesus, even as Matthew
had, but the genealogy of Matthew was a
Jewish genealogy. It gave the generation
of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son
n. 26. '4. 31. »22. 1.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 71
of Abraham.1 Abraham was the father of
the Jews, and Matthew was content to
show that Jesus was a descendant of Abra
ham, a genuine Jew by race. Luke is not
content with that genealogy, and therefore
he writes another one, and he carries the
line of ancestors back of David and back of
Abraham and up to Adam, the father of
the human race. Then he says of Adam
that he was the son of God.2 Was Jesus a
Jew and a son of Abraham, and did he
therefore belong to the Jewish race? Yes,
that was all true, but it was not the whole
of the truth. Jesus was a Jew, but he was
more than that: he was a man, and he
belonged to all mankind.
That was the first thing that this Gen
tile Gospel would make perfectly clear to
the world. Our Lord is a son of Adam, as
we are sons of Adam. He is flesh of our
flesh and bone of our bone. He is our
brother-man. He is not far from every one
of us. Our God hath made of one blood all
nations of men; and if any man will seek
i Matt. 1. 1. 2 3. 38.

72 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
for our Lord, he will find that he is of one
blood with himself, a son of Adam, a son
of God. Jesus is the last Adam. He be
longs to humanity. He is the Kinsman-
Redeemer of the race. Matthew gave us
the Jewish genealogy. Luke makes it a
Gentile genealogy by carrying it beyond
Abraham the father of the Jews to Adam
the father of the race. Jesus belongs to
the Jews, but he belongs to us as well as
to them. He is the Saviour of all men.
He is the Head of all humanity.
(2) We look into Matthew's narrative,
and we find the story of the wise men
coming from the East with their question,
"Where is he who is born King of the
Jews?"1 We turn to Luke's account of
the birth of Jesus and we find no such
question, but an angel makes announce
ment from the open sky, "I bring you good
tidings of great joy which shall be to all
the 'people."2 The Jesus of whom Luke
writes is to be, not only the King of the
Jews, but also the Saviour of all men.
> Matt. 2. 2. ' 2. 10.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 73
(3) Matthew tells us that Isaiah spoke of
John the Baptist and called him
The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Make ye ready the way of the Lord,
Make his paths straight.1
Luke tells us about the ministry of John
the Baptist, and he quotes the prophecy of
Isaiah as fulfilled in him; but he is not
willing to stop where Matthew did in that
quotation. He carries it on until he makes
of it a prophecy of comfort to the Gentiles.
He says: "Listen! These are the words
with which Isaiah continues his prophecy,
Every valley shall be filled,
And every mountain and hill shall be brought low;
And the crooked shall become straight,
And the rough ways smooth;
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God."*
It surely was worth while to add that
sentence, for it shows that this Jewish
prophecy is of interest to all mankind.
Gentiles as well as Jews are to see the
salvation of God.

» Matt. 3. 3. - Luke 3. 5, 6.

74 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
(4) Did Jesus confine practically the
whole of his own ministry to the Jews ?
Yes, but Luke is careful to tell us what
no one of the other evangelists had re
corded for us, that in his ministry to the
Jews Jesus reminded them again and again
that the providence of God had been dis
played in behalf of the Gentiles as well as
in behalf of themselves. In the beginning
of his ministry, in the synagogue at Naza
reth, Jesus said: "There were many Jewish
widows in the time of Elijah, but Elijah
passed them all by and his miraculous help
was given to a heathen widow in Sidon.
And there were many Jewish lepers in the
time of Elisha, but the prophet did not
heal any of them. He healed the Syrian
heathen Naaman instead."1 The Jews
were filled with wrath at these sayings and
cast Jesus out of their city. That was
just the difference between Jesus and his
fellow countrymen, Luke seems to say.
They were exclusive and intolerant; he
was sympathetic with all. They wanted
1 Luke 4. 25-30.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 75
all good things for themselves; he shared
all his good things with all who asked for
them and all who needed them, Samaritans
or Galileans, Gentiles or Jews.
(5) Possibly the most characteristic para
bles of the gospel which Jesus preached are
to be found in the fifteenth chapter of the
Gospel according to Luke. Those three
parables, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and
the lost son, sum up all the good news of
certain salvation to sinful men, and two of
them, the lost coin and the lost son, are re
corded only by Luke. The three parables
surely would rank among the most precious
of all the sayings of Jesus. They teach the
Father's uncalculating and unceasing sacri
fice and search until the last lost sheep is
found. They teach the Father's loving il
lumination and diligent labor until the last
coin with his image and superscription
upon it has been restored. They teach the
Father's warm welcome for every prodigal
who turns his face toward home. His
grace is free to all, and it never fails. We
could spare any other parable better than

76 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
the parable of the prodigal son. We owe
its preservation to the Gentile Luke.
(6) We are not surprised to find that the
words, "grace," "Saviour," "salvation,"
and "evangelize" are found in this Gospel
more often than in any other. Luke him
self was an evangelist. He tells us that
the angels are evangelists,1 and John the
Baptist was an evangelist,2 and Jesus was
an evangelist,3 and the twelve apostles
were evangelists.4 Ten times in this book
that verb, "to evangelize," occurs. The
whole of the Gospel has to do with good
news for all.
"In that first sermon in the synagogue at
Nazareth Jesus read for his text from the
prophet Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to
the poor:
He hath sent me to proclaim release to the cap
tives,
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised,
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
1 1. 19 and 2. 10. "3. 18. >4. 18, 43; 7. 22; 8. 1; 16. 16; 20. 1. «9. 6.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 77
There Jesus closed the book and gave it
back to the attendant. It was a strange
place to quit in his reading. It was right
in the middle of a sentence. Jesus did not
read the whole of the prophecy. He did
not even finish the paragraph. He did not
even read to a period. There was much
of comfort and of good news in the re
mainder of the sentence and of the para
graph and of the prophecy. Jesus stops
short at this point. Surely, it must have
been with conscious intention. Surely, it
must have been with some good reason.
We look for that reason and we find that
the next following words were, 'And to
proclaim the day of vengeance of our
God.' When the eyes of Jesus fell upon
those words he closed the book. He would
not read them. His message was a message
of grace and not a proclamation of ven
geance. He would rather leave the sen
tence unfinished than to leave any doubt
in any mind as to that fact. He went on
to preach his good tidings, and we read
that all bare him witness, and wondered at

78 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
the words of grace which proceeded out of
his mouth.1
"Luke does not wonder. He seems to
think that only words of grace would be
natural to Jesus. He pictures the Master
as the gracious Redeemer, gracious both in
matter of speech and in manner of life.
Over against the ungraciousness of Simon
the Pharisee Luke sets in contrast the
graciousness of Jesus to the woman who
was a sinner. He was a perfect gentleman
even to her. She had heard him talk of
the grace of God. She was willing to put it
to the test for herself. Jesus did not fail
her in the moment of trial. His gracious
ness included all. It recognized no barrier
of social distinctions. The courtesy which
Simon had failed to show to his guest she
more than made up with her love. Jesus
could not be outdone in courtesy by any
one. He was even more gracious to her
than she was grateful to him.2
"Was the grace of God ever set forth with
such pathetic impressiveness as in that
> 4. 22. 2 7. 48.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 79
pearl of all the parables, where we read
that while the returning prodigal was yet
a long way off his father saw him and ran
to meet him, and then celebrated his re
turn with the best robe and a fitting feast
and music and dancing ? The grace of the
dancers was only the faintest symbol of the
grace in that father's heart. No gracious
act of earth can do more than typify the
heavenly Father's exhaustless grace. Can
we imagine the grace in the manner of Jesus
and in his tone as he spoke that parable?
"How gracious he was to the ten lepers,
although one of them was an alien Samari
tan! How gracious he was to Zacchaeus,
promising salvation to his house, although
he had been a defrauding and despicable
publican, as little and mean in his spirit
as he was little and mean in his stature.
How gracious he was to Mary when
Martha's short temper had snapped and
she was ready to ask the Master to join
her in scolding the remissness of the
younger girl! Jesus was as gracious to her
as her sister was indignant with her.

80 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
"How gracious he was to that dying
thief! The malefactor was suffering his
just deserts. He had been a robber, and
in all probability a murderer, and he was
receiving the penalty due for his crimes.
His fellow malefactor prayed to Jesus for
salvation, 'Save thyself and us,' but it was
in words of mockery and not of devotion;
and Jesus paid no heed to him. Possibly
he was the only one who ever asked Jesus
for salvation and found his cry for help
unheeded. The other dying thief recog
nized the innocence of Jesus and rebuked
his fellow sufferer for his failure in courtesy
to such a character. He did not ask for
salvation from the cross or from death.
He asked Jesus only to remember him when
the kingdom preached had come. It was
the most sublime faith chronicled in our
New Testament. He believed in the char
acter of Jesus and in the coming of his
kingdom, despite all contrary evidence.
All of the disciples of Jesus had forsaken
him and fled away. They had seen Jesus
raise the dead and yet their faith had

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 81
failed them in that hour. The thief upon
the cross sees Jesus dying upon the cross
at his side, and yet has faith in him!
"Now see with what graciousness Jesus
makes response to such faith. 'Verily —
there is no doubt about it. I am not
stating to you a mere possibility, but a
most certain truth; for where I am there
shall also my servants be with me; there
fore, — I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou
be with me in Paradise.'1 Bossuet com
ments upon this promise as follows:
"To-day — what speed! — with me — what
companionship! — in Paradise — what rest!'
Jesus had consorted with all classes of
people here upon the earth. He had been
no respecter of persons during his ministry.
He went into paradise hand in hand with
a crucified thief. His graciousness will be
his characteristic through all eternity to
come. As it was manifest to all alike in
the days of his ministry it will be manifest
to all alike for evermore."2
(7) At three crisis points in his narrative
• 23. 43. 2 Compare Hayes, The Synoptic Problem, pp. 80-84.

82 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Luke shows us how Jesus was rejected by
the Galilaeans,1 and by the Samaritans,2
and by the Judaeans and the assembled
nation of the Jews at the passover feast.3
The significant inference is that the gos
pel must look beyond all of these for its
greatest future growth, and in the book
of Acts Luke shows how that actually
came to pass.
(8) We note that in the beginning of the
Gospel Luke is the only one of the evan
gelists who tells us the story of Simeon,
and the only one to record the song of that
aged saint:
Now lettest thou thy servant depart, Lord,
According to thy word, in peace;
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all
peoples;
A light for revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of thy people Israel.4
Luke sets that phrase, "a revelation to the
Gentiles," in the very forefront of his
Gospel.
1 4. 29. 2 9. 53. » 23. 23. « 2. 29-32.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 83
Then we turn to the middle of the Gospel
and in the tenth chapter we find a fuller
account of the sending out of the seventy
than any other evangelist has given us;
and the commentators tell us that the
Jews reckoned the Gentile nations to be
seventy in number, and as the twelve
apostles represented the twelve tribes of
Israel the seventy evangelists by their
very number represented the world-wide
destination of the gospel.
In the tenth chapter of the book of
Genesis there is an enumeration of seventy
nations, and the Jews believed that these
nations represented the whole human race.
Therefore, in the Talmud we find it re
corded that at the feast of tabernacles the
Jews offered seventy bullocks for the
seventy nations, that the rain may fall
on the fields of all the world.1
Then we turn to the end of the Gospel,
and in its closing words we hear the resur
rected Lord commissioning his church to
preach repentance and remission of sins
1 Lightfoot's Hor. Talm., John 7. 2.

84 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
unto all the nations, beginning from Jeru
salem.1 In the beginning and the middle
and the end of his Gospel Luke makes it
clear that this revelation of good news is
for all the nations of men.
(9) When Matthew records the choice of
the twelve apostles, and lists their names,
he proceeds at once to give the charge
which Jesus laid upon them before he sent
them forth, and the very first command
ment laid upon them was this: "Go not
into any way of the Gentiles, and enter
not into any city of the Samaritans: but
go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.2 Luke tells us of the sending out
of the twelve and of the charge given them
by the Master, but he omits any refusal of
the gospel to the Gentiles or any limitation
of their ministry to the Jews.3 In the next
chapter he gives a much longer and fuller
account of the sending out of the seventy,
and no limitations are suggested for their
evangelism, while their number suggested
that they might go into all the world.
' 24. 47. 2 Matt. 10. 5, 6. » 9. 1-6.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 86
(10) Luke was the first church historian.
Mark and Matthew wrote memoirs. John
wrote a philosophy of religion. No other
writers in the New Testament devoted
themselves to narration. Luke the Gentile
set himself to write a historical gospel,
following Gentile models at certain points
and connecting his account with Gentile
history throughout. He seems to have
seen clearly from the very first that the
interests of Christianity were bound up
with the interests of world history and
that the birth of Jesus was an event of
importance to the whole Roman empire.
He is the only writer in the New Testament
who mentions a Roman emperor by name.
He joins the name of Jesus with that of
the governor Quirinius and Caesar Augus
tus.1 He unites the baptism of John and
the beginning ministry of Jesus with the
reign of Caesar Tiberius and the rule of
Pilate and Herod and Philip and Lysanias,
as well as the high-priesthood of Annas and
Caiaphas.2
'2. 1, 2. =3. 1, 2.

86 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Almost all the connecting links between
the gospel history and contemporary Gen
tile history are furnished us by Luke. He
begins at Bethlehem, but he ends at Rome.
He opens his narrative with the vision of
Zacharias in the seclusion of the temple
at Jerusalem, but he closes it with the
preaching of the apostle Paul in the world
capital. From beginning to end he is bent
on showing that the gospel is a gospel for a
world empire, for all nations of men, and for
all the future ages of time. Van Oosterzee
was right when he said, "As Paul led the
people of the Lord out of the bondage to
the law into the enjoyment of gospel
liberty, so did Luke raise sacred history
from the standpoint of the Israelitish
nationality to the higher and holier ground
of universal humanity."1 We owe that to
this Gentile writer. His explanations for
Gentile readers, his allusions to Gentile
rulers and contemporary Gentile history,
his characteristic additions of Gentile
prophecies and promises and parables com-
1 Quoted by Sehaff, op. cit., p. 659.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 87
bine to make this the Gentile Gospel; and,
surely, we Gentiles can never be grateful
enough that so much of our New Testa
ment was written from a Gentile point of
view. As Paul is the apostle to the Gen
tiles, Luke is the evangelist for the Gen
tiles. The Gospel according to Luke and
the book of Acts are written by a Gentile
for the Gentile world.
V. The Gospel of an Educated Man
Luke is the only one of the four evan
gelists who had a scientific training. We
would expect to see the results of that
training in his writings. We think that it
is apparent in his Gospel in at least four
particulars: 1. In his accuracy. He tells
Theophilus that he has traced the course
of events accurately from the first, and
that therefore Theophilus may rest assured
of the certainty of these things which he
finds here recorded.1 Something of the
scholar's exactness is included in the
ideal of Luke, and he seems to have
1 1. 3, 4.

88 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
attained his ideal in a rather remarkable
degree. Modern criticism again and again has
attacked the correctness of his statements,
but it never has been successful in proving
any serious mistake. Luke said, in Acts
17. 6, that the magistrates in Thessalonica
were called politarchs, or rulers of the city.
It was pointed out for many years that
this title is not to be found anywhere in
Greek literature, and therefore it was con
fidently claimed that Luke had made a
mistake in using it. Yet all the while an
arch was spanning the main street of the
city with an inscription upon it containing
the names of the seven politarchs who had
erected it. When the arch was destroyed
during a riot there in the last century the
British consul obtained possession of its
broken fragments and they are in the
British Museum to-day.
Luke calls the governor of Malta the
Primus, or chief man.1 The scholars could
not find this name anywhere, and so they

' Acts 28. 7.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 89
were sure that Luke had made another
mistake. However, an ancient inscription
has been dug up in Malta with this title
upon it; and Luke's accuracy has been
vindicated at this point. Luke describes
Philippi as a chief city of the meris of
Macedonia.1 Here was a new name for a
district or province, and even Westcott
and Hort concluded that Luke was in
error in using it, and they have marked it
as a doubtful reading in their text. How
ever, since their death some ancient Mace
donian coins have been discovered with
this word upon them.
It is dangerous to accuse Luke of inac
curacy in anything. Time and new
discoveries have proven him right and his
critics wrong again and again. Illustrations
could be multiplied. Such eminent modern
authorities as Harnack and Ramsay rank
Luke "in the first class of historians, both
for trustworthiness in his details, and in
his judgment for selecting the subjects
which are of the first importance and must
i Acts 16. 12.

90 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
be treated fully. . . . We may feel confident
that he showed at least the same scrupu
lous accuracy in reporting Christ's teach
ings as he did in speaking of slight secular
details."1 Luke has tolerated no carelessness in re
search or in composition. He seems to be
dissatisfied with the unchronological ar
rangement of material in the previous
gospel narratives, for he assures Theophilus
that he will write events in order.2 It is
probably with this intent that he concludes
the account of the ministry of John the
Baptist before he begins the account of the
ministry of Jesus.3 We find a chronologi
cal arrangement throughout. First, we
have preliminary and introductory ma
terial (1. 1 to 4. 13). Then follows the
ministry of Jesus in Galilee (4. 14 to 9. 50).
Then we read of the wider ministry outside
of Galilee (9. 51 to 19. 28). Then come the
closing scenes in Jerusalem (19. 29 to 24. 53).
This division is altogether according to time.

1 Wilson, Origins and Aims of the Four Gospels, pp. 62-3.
2 1. 3. 3 3. 18-20.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 91
Luke is careful to insert the proper dates
upon occasion.1 The Greek word for
"year," Ito?, is found in the writings
of Luke twenty-six times and in all the
other books of the New Testament only
twenty-three times. The Greek word for
"month," ar\v, is found in Luke's writ
ings ten times and in all the rest of the
New Testament only eight times. The
more frequent occurrence of these words in
his writings is an indication of Luke's de
sire to be more accurate in his designations
of time.
2. Another result of Luke's university
training is evident in his versatility. Plum
mer says: "The author of the third Gospel
and of the Acts is the most versatile of all
the New Testament writers. He can be as
Hebraistic as the seventy, and as free from
Hebraisms as Plutarch. And, in the main,
whether intentionally or not, he is Hebraistic
in describing Hebrew society, and Greek in
describing Greek society."2 It demands

> 1. 5; 2. 1, 2; 2. 21, 22; 2. 42; 3. 1, 2; 3. 23.
3 Plummer, op. cit., p. xlix.

92 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
something of both talent and training to
make such transitions of style possible.
3. To accuracy and versatility we may
add fluency as another evidence of higher
education and broader culture. An un
trained man may be very prolix in verbal
statement of facts, but if he is set to write
them down he is apt to make very short
work of it. He is unaccustomed to the
task of composition, and he finds it very
difficult for him, and he confines himself to
the recording of the barest outline or the
main essentials. Other things being equal,
facility of expression comes with practice,
and an educated man will have had that
practice and therefore will take more
pleasure in literary composition. He will
be ready to fill out the more meager out
line and to add interesting details to the
essential features of the narrative. He
will give us a fuller and more symmetrical
account. When we compare the Gospel
according to Luke with the other synop
tics we find these things to be true of it.
(1) It is a more comprehensive account.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 93
It begins with the birth of the Forerunner
and all the interesting events connected
therewith. The contents of the first two
chapters are peculiar to Luke. Mark
began with the active ministry of John
the Baptist. Matthew told us about the
birth of Jesus. Luke goes back of these
events to find the beginning of the new
dispensation in the prophecy of the birth
of John. Then Luke carries his narrative
beyond that of any of the other Gospels.
He is the only one who gives us any ac
count of the ascension of Jesus, which
would surely seem to be the only fitting
end for such a career as that of the In
carnate One. In the middle of his Gospel
Luke has given us a large section — 9. 45
to 18. 30 — the most of the material in
which is peculiar to him. The other
Gospels pass these events over in silence,
and yet some of them are among the most
remarkable in our Lord's ministry. This
section is usually called "the greater in
sertion" in the gospel narrative. Schleier
macher called it "the journey account."

94 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Others have named it the "Gnomology."
Altogether, about one third of the con
tents of Luke is not to be found in the
other Gospels.
(2) As the most comprehensive account,
the Gospel according to Luke is the longest
of the four Gospels. It has been calculated
that when the contents of the synoptic
Gospels have been divided into one hun
dred and seventy-two sections Luke has
one hundred and twenty-seven, or about
three fourths of these; Matthew has one
hundred and fourteen, or about two thirds;
and Mark has eighty-four, or about one
half; and of these one hundred and seventy-
two sections Luke has forty-eight, or about
two sevenths peculiar to himself; Matthew
has twenty-two, or about one eighth; and
Mark has five, or about one thirty-seventh.
(3) There are twenty miracles recorded in
this Gospel, and six of these are peculiar to
Luke. These are: The miraculous draught
of fishes,1 the raising of the widow's son at
Nain,2 the healing of the woman bowed
> 5. 4-11. » 7. 11-17.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 95
together,1 the cure of the dropsical man,2
the cleansing of the ten lepers3, the re
storation of Malchus's ear.4 Over against
these six miracles peculiar to Luke, Mat
thew has only three peculiar to himself,
and Mark has only two. Luke, therefore,
has more than Matthew and Mark
combined. (4) There are twenty-three parables re
corded in this Gospel, and of these eighteen
are peculiar to Luke. These are: The two
debtors,5 the good Samaritan,6 the im
portunate friend,7 the rich fool,8 the watch
ful servants,9 the barren fig tree,10 the
chief seats,11 the great supper,12 the rash
builder,13 the rash king,14 the lost coin,15
the lost son,16 the unrighteous steward,17
the rich man and Lazarus,18 the unprofita
ble servants,19 the unjust judge,20 the
Pharisee and publican,21 the pounds.22 Over
against these eighteen parables peculiar to

> 13. 10-17.

» 14. 1-7.

'17.

11-19.

«22.

50, 51.

6 7. 41-13.

« 10. 25-37.

7 11.

5-8.

8 12.

16-21.

» 12. 35-48.

'"13. 6-9.

"14.

7-11.

12 14.

16-24.

'» 14. 28-30.

»14. 31,32.

15 15.

3-10.

"15.

11-32.

"16. 1-13.

18 16. 19-31.

1»17.

7-10.

2»18.

1-8.

a 18. 10-14.

22 19. 11-27.

96 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Luke, Matthew has only ten and Mark
has only one. Therefore Luke has over a
third more than Matthew and Mark
combined. These parables seem to be of quite a
different character from those in the other
synoptics. The parables in the first Gospel
had to do chiefly with the kingdom and its
laws. The parables in the Gospel accord
ing to Luke have an individual and purely
human interest. They are more personal
and more concrete. They do not seem so
much like types of spiritual phenomena as
they do like transcripts from actual life.
They are not so much concerned with
analogies from nature as they are with ac
curate accounts of human nature. They do
not idealize human nature. They represent
it as it actually is. They are more like
snapshots at contemporary occurrences.
They are stories based on fact. They
have to do with real men and women and
the common things of daily life.
What testimony they bear to the fresh
ness and originality of the conversation of

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 97
Jesus! Some of these parables are spoken
spontaneously in answer to some question
put at him unexpectedly. He must have
had a very ready wit and very unusual
powers of observation to produce such apt
illustrations of his truth at a moment's
notice. No wonder the common people
heard him gladly. He talked about
things that they knew, and showed them
hidden depths of wisdom where they had
seen only the utterly commonplace. These
parables would go home to the hearts of
all. They showed the way of salvation
from the materials close at hand. The
truth embodied in these tales could be
appreciated by anyone. Their simplicity
was their chief charm. Their homeliness
was one element of their power.
(5) Of the interesting narratives peculiar
to Luke we may mention as examples the
events connected with the birth of John
the Baptist and of Jesus, including the
annunciation, the story of the shepherds,
the meeting with Simeon and with Anna,1
1 1. 5 to 2. 40.

98 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
the temple visit at the age of twelve,1 the
scene in the synagogue at Nazareth,2 the
feast in the home of Simon the Pharisee,3
the intolerance of James and John,4 the
story of Martha and Mary,5 the story of
Zacchaeus,6 the story of the penitent thief,7
and the story of the walk to Emmaus.8
The mere mention of these narratives and
miracles and parables makes it evident at
once that the greater length of the third
Gospel is not due to any mere padding or
prolixity; for these things belong to the
most precious portions of the record of
the life and teaching of our Lord. Yet the
longest Gospel might have been due to a
greater abundance of material on hand or
to a greater abundance of leisure for writ
ing. The final and crowning test of an edu
cated man's composition will be found in
his literary style. To accuracy, versatility,
fluency does Luke add beauty of literary
style ?
4. Renan says that this is "the most

1 2. 41-52. 2 4. 16-30. » 7. 36-50. * 9. 49-54.
» 10. 38-42. • 19.U-10. 7 23. 40-43. 8 24. 13-35.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 99
literary of the Gospels," and he adds that
it is "a beautiful narrative, well contrived,
at once Hebraic and Hellenic, uniting the
emotion of the drama with the serenity of
the idyl."1
Notice (1) the language Luke employs.
It is the most beautiful Greek in the New
Testament, with the possible exception of
that found in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Luke is less Hebraic than the other evan
gelists. His first two chapters have a
stronger Hebraic coloring than any other
portion of the New Testament, and this
is a proof either of Luke's personal versa
tility or of his faithful reproduction of
some Hebraic original of this part of his
narrative. When he is Hebraic he is
thoroughly so; but when he writes Greek
it is better Greek than the other evan
gelists could command; and where he is
most independent of all previous effort, as
in the preface to his own narrative, his
Greek is of the finest quality and merits
comparison with the best of the classical
i Renan, op. tit, p. 282.

100 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
models. Taking the Gospel as a whole,
its Greek will be found to stand about
midway between the classical perfection of
the ancients and the common, or Hel
lenistic, Greek of Luke's day. It is the
Greek of an educated man as distinguished
from the current Greek of ordinary use.
Notice (2) that Luke has the richest vo
cabulary of any of the gospel writers. The
words peculiar to Luke in the New Testa
ment are variously estimated, according to
various readings of the text, from seven
hundred and fifty to eight hundred and
fifty-one; and in the Gospel from two
hundred and sixty-one to three hundred
and twelve of these occur. The richness of
a man's vocabulary is usually a very fair
measure of the degree of his culture. The
uneducated man has a very limited fund
of words at his command. The well-read
and well-trained man is continually adding
to his supply.
Notice (3) the very effective contrasts
which are characteristic of Luke's grouping
of his material. All through the Gospel

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 101
we find two opposing characters set side by
side, that we may see them together and
mark the difference between them. There
are the two annunciations in the beginning,
to Zacharias slow to believe and to Mary
the instantly obedient. Then follow such
contrasts as those offered by Simon and
the sinful woman, Martha and Mary, the
ungrateful Jewish lepers and the grateful
Samaritan, the unneighborly Levite and
priest and the neighborly Samaritan, the
Pharisee and the publican, the rich man
and Lazarus, the prodigal and his elder
brother, the sleepy and surly friend and
the sleepless and gracious God, the unjust
judge and the loving Father of all, the
hostile priesthood and the hearkening peo
ple, the work of Jesus and the work of the
devil, and the blessings and the woes of
the Sermon on the Plain.
Sanday says that Luke has more literary
ambition than his fellows.1 Ramsay de
clares that he "brings to the treatment of
his subjects genius, literary skill, and sym-
i Book by Book, p. 401.

102 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
pathetic historical insight." Plummer says :
"He possesses the art of composition. He
knows not only how to tell a tale truth
fully, but how to tell it with effect. . . .
As the fine literary taste of Renan affirms,
it is the most beautiful book in the world."1
VI. The Gospel of the Physician
If Paul had not told us that Luke was a
physician we could have been assured of it
from the internal evidence afforded in his
writing. 1. This is apparent in his fre
quent references to the healing work of
Jesus.2 2. Luke is the only one of the evangelists
to record the surgical miracle of the heal
ing of Malchus's ear.3
3. Of the six miracles recorded by Luke
alone, five are miracles of healing, if we
include among them the raising of the
widow's son at Nain.4 The four others
are, the healing of the woman who had
a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years,6

i Plummer, op. tit., zlvi. 24. ig; 9. i; 9. 2; 9. 6; 10. 9.
1 22. 51. « 7. 11-17. » 13. 10-17.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 103
and of the man afflicted with the dropsy,1
the cleansing of the ten lepers,2 and the
restoration of Malchus's mutilated ear.8
4. Luke alone quotes the proverb from
the lips of Jesus, "Physician, heal thy
self";4 and he tells us that Jesus declared
that this title of "Physician" would be
popularly applied to him in his work.
5. Luke is more circumstantial in his
description of diseases than any other
writer in the New Testament, as in Luke
4. 8; 5. 12; 22. 44; Acts 3. 7; 9. 18; 10. 9, 10;
12. 23; 28. 8.
6. Luke frequently gives us the symp
toms of disease and the duration of the
sickness, and marks for us the stages of
the patient's recovery. He seems to dis
tinguish between cases of possession and
ordinary forms of physical infirmity, as in
6. 17, 18.
7. It has been noted that the Gospel of
the physician is also the Gospel of the
psychologist. Where Mark tells us only
about outward actions and looks, Luke
i 14. 1-6. 2 17, H_19. « 22. 51. «4. 23.

104 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
makes some comment concerning the men
tal attitude involved, as in 3. 15; 6. 11;
7. 39. A skillful physician will look beyond
external symptoms to the mental phe
nomena. It is characteristic of our own
age that more attention than formerly
was believed necessary is now given to the
state of the mind in the treatment of all
disease. But all first-class physicians have
always been more or less interested in
psychology as an aid in their work; and
Luke appears to have belonged in this
class. Strange and unexpected touches occur in
Luke's narrative, corresponding to the as
tonishing and inexplicable psychological ex
periences of ordinary life. Peter is amazed
at the wonder-working power displayed by
the Lord in the miraculous draught of
fishes, and he is never more determined to
cleave to this new Master through sun
shine and storm. Yet what does he do ?
The most foolish and inexplicable thing.
He falls at the knees of Jesus and cries,
"Depart from me; for I am a sinful man,

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 105
O Lord."1 How could Jesus depart from
him ? They were in a boat, out on the
water. It was not convenient for anyone
to leave that boat just at that moment.
Moreover, Peter did not wish for Jesus to
depart anyway. It would have been
more becoming for him to go away, if any
body had to leave, than for him to order
the Master to depart from him. It was
all utterly foolish and inexcusable, just as
the psychological processes of such a mind
as Peter's so often are.
The risen Lord appeared among his dis
ciples, and showed them his hands and his
feet, that they might be convinced of his
identity. It is Luke who puts down that
extraordinary statement at that point.
"They yet believed not for joy."2 What
a natural touch that was! They believed
it, and yet it was too good to be true.
The Lord had ascended into heaven, and
the disciples were to see him no more.
Luke makes that statement of fact and
then en.ds the book with the astonishing
1 5. 8,^9. ' 24. 41.

106 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
comment that the disciples "worshiped
him, and returned to Jerusalem with great
joy: and were continually in the temple,
blessing God."1 No loud lamentation, no
rending of their garments, no forty-day
period of mourning; nothing but praise and
joy! 8. There is an indication that the writer
of the third Gospel and the book of Acts
is a physician which is all-sufficient in
itself, and which has seemed to most
people to be altogether conclusive in the
matter. These books are filled with tech
nical medical terms, such as can be paral
leled only in the writings of men in the
medical profession itself. The Rev. W. K.
Hobart has written a volume of more than
three hundred pages entitled The Medical
Language of Luke, in which he has made a
list of some four hundred terms used more
frequently by Luke than by others, or
used by Luke alone among the writers of
the New Testament, and found also in the
Greek medical writers. Some of these are

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 107
purely technical terms, not likely to be
in use anywhere except in professional cir
cles.1 In 18. 25, where Mark and Matthew
have the more common word for "needle,"
pa<t>ig, Luke uses the word for the surgical
needle, peXovrj. In Acts 13. 11 Luke uses
a word for a disease of the eye, occurring
frequently in Galen, but found nowhere
else in our New Testament or the Septua
gint, &xM>c.
Of course, all people are apt to use med
ical phraseology sometimes. The apostle
Paul has many medical metaphors in his
epistles. It has been an interesting subject
for discussion and investigation as to how
far Paul's companionship with Luke the
physician may have been responsible for
these medical terms in his usage. How
ever, no one is apt to use these medical
terms and phrases continually except a
medical man. Such a man will use them,
not only in the technical description of
disease, but even in reference to the affairs
of ordinary life. Now, the abundance of
14. 38, 39; 16. 19-26.

108 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
the medical terms in the third Gospel
distinguishes it from all the others as the
work of a physician, and nearly one hun
dred of these terms are such as only a
physician might be expected to use.
Harnack gives pages of evidence on this
subject which he sums up in these words:
"When a physician writes a historical work
it does not necessarily follow that his pro
fession shows itself in his writing; yet it
is only natural for one to look for traces
of the author's medical profession in such
a work. These traces may be of different
kinds: (1) the whole character of the nar
rative may be determined by points of
view, aims, and ideals which are more or
less medical (disease and its treatment);
(2) marked preference may be shown for
stories concerning the healing of diseases,
which stories may be given in great number
and detail; (3) the language may be col
ored by the language of physicians (medical
technical terms, metaphors of medical char
acter, etc.). All these three groups of
characteristic signs are found in the his-

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 109
torical work which bears the name of
Luke. Here, however, it may be objected
that the subject-matter itself is responsible
for these traits, so that their evidence is
not decisive for the medical calling of the
author. Jesus appeared as a great physi
cian and healer. All the evangelists say
this of him; hence it is not surprising that
one of them has set this phase of his min
istry in the foreground, and has regarded
it as the most important. Our evangelist
need not, therefore, have been a physician,
especially if he were a Greek, seeing that in
those days Greeks with religious interests
were disposed to regard religion mainly
under the category of healing and salva
tion. This is true; yet such a combination
of characteristic signs will compel us to
believe that the author was a physician if
(4) the description of the particular cases
of disease shows distinct traces of medical
diagnosis and scientific knowledge; (5) if
the language, even where questions of
medicine or of healing are not touched
upon, is colored by medical phraseology;

110 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
and (6) if in those passages where the author
speaks as an eyewitness medical traits
are especially and prominently apparent.
These three kinds of tokens are also found
in the historical work of our author. It is,
accordingly, proved that it proceeds from
the pen of a physician."1 This puts the
truth as clearly as it may be stated. Those
who are interested in the proof in detail
will find it in the pages of Hobart and
Harnack. 9. With these facts in mind it is interest
ing to notice one difference between Mark's
account and Luke's account of the woman
who was healed by touching the hem of
the garment of Jesus. Mark tells us that
"she had suffered many things of many
physicians, and had spent all that she had,
and was nothing bettered, but rather grew
worse."2 That, surely, is a bad showing for
the medical profession. Would Luke be
likely to write down such an indictment of
his own calling in life ? We turn to his ac
count3 and we find that in the Vatican
i Harnack, Luke the Physician, pp. 175, 176. 2 5. 25, 26. » 8. 43.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 111
manuscript and the Westcott and Hort
text and the margin of the Revised Ver
sion Luke omits all these severe reflections
upon the physicians and contents himself
with the simple statement, "She was not
able to be healed by any." This is hardly
an adequate translation. What Luke really
means to say is that the woman lacked all
vital energy in herself, so that she seemed
to be beyond the hope of any favorable
response to medical treatment. It was a
case of chronic debility so pronounced that
nothing seemed to be left for a physician to
build upon. It was not the fault of the
physicians that she could not be cured. It
was her own condition that seemed in
curable. Luke, the physician, would not
have been likely to write any of those
things recorded by Mark. Some of the
old manuscripts retain the clause in the
text of Luke, "and she had spent all her
living upon physicians," but it is better to
omit it, as Westcott and Hort have done.
10. We notice in closing this list of the
evidences in the writings of Luke that they

112 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
are the product of one who represents the
point of view of the medical profession,
that almost the last words Luke has
written at the close of the book of Acts
consist of a quotation from Isaiah ending
with the words, "and I will heal them."1
It is the healing power of Jehovah
upon which he lays emphasis last. Here,
then, we have a list of ten of the direct
evidences of his professional calling to be
found in the writings of Luke. They are
cumulative in effect, and, taking them all
together, we are disposed to be exceedingly
glad that one of our Gospels was written
by a Gentile, and that he was an educated
man and that his profession was that of a
physician. When we turn from the direct evidences
to those which are more indirect we find
this feeling enhanced. A physician, like
an evangelist or any true minister of the
gospel, must be no respecter of persons.
He must be interested in all classes alike,
and must devote himself to the helping and
128.27.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 113
healing of all. But there is one class in
which the physician as a professional man
is more interested than the lawyer or the
preacher or any other servant of society.
That is the class of the very young.
The physician ought to be expert in the
diseases of infancy. It is a part of his duty
to help the little ones through the period of
their greatest helplessness and infirmity
into good health and vigorous physical life.
The sympathy and love of the physician's
heart goes out continually to the innocent
and helpless lambs of the flock. Now, it
surely is characteristic of the third Gospel
that more than the others it is interested
in the little folks.
VII. The Gospel of Childhood
1. Luke alone tells us about the birth
and infancy of John the Baptist, and all
the marvels connected with it, the annun
ciation to Zacharias in the temple, the
paralysis of the tongue of that unbeliever,
the miraculous quickening of Elisabeth in
her old age, the restoration of the power of

114 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
speech to Zacharias at the time of the
birth of his son, and the use he made of it
in singing a psalm of praise to God. This
birth in old age, this temporary dumb
ness, and this loosening of a paralyzed
tongue are all of interest to the physician
as well as to the writer of the gospel his
tory. 2. Matthew tells us something about the
birth of Jesus, but Luke adds the story
of the annunciation to Mary, the visit to
Elisabeth, the singing of the Magnificat,
the heralding of the heavenly host, the
visit of the shepherds, the circumcision,
the purification, the meeting with Simeon
and Anna, the child's growth in wisdom
and stature and grace, and the twelve-
year-old boy's interest in the temple and
its teachers of the law.
3. Mark and Matthew told us how they
brought little children to Jesus, but Luke
tells us that these little ones were babes,
to, fipetpr]. They were innocent, helpless,
clinging, dependent, trustful infants in
their mothers' arms of whom Jesus said,

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 115
"To such belongeth the kingdom of God."1
The first two chapters of the third Gospel
will always be the chapters we will most
delight to read to the children and the
chapters which the children will be most
delighted to hear. They will always love
best the Gospel with the story of the shep
herds and the angels, the Gospel which
tells how Jesus allowed the mothers to
bring their babies to him, the Gospel
written by the beloved physician who
loved the little folks and so thought it
worth while to write a part of his story
for them.
VIII. The Gospel of Womanhood
A physician because of his profession is
brought into more confidential relations
with women than any other professional
man is likely to be. A lawyer probably
will deal most of the time with men. A
minister ought to be interested equally in
the men and the women of his community.
But since, apart from helpless infancy,
l Luke 18. 15-17.

116 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
woman physically is the weaker vessel, a
physician is apt to find that the most of
his time and attention is occupied with the
care of women and children; and if he is of
a naturally kindly disposition he will find
his sympathies going out to these in large
measure, and as he becomes beloved and
trusted, he will find that their confidence
is given to him as to no other professional
man. The third Gospel has many items of
intimate information concerning women
which may have come to Luke in this
way. There is such a number of these
that the third Gospel has come to be called
the "Gospel of Womanhood." We note
some of the reasons for giving it this title.
1. Luke tells us more about women than
the other synoptics combined. The word
ywf), "woman," occurs in Mark and Mat
thew forty-nine times, and in Luke alone
forty-three times, almost as many times as
in the two others put together. The pages
of this Gospel are filled with the figures of
women, and some of them are not to be
found in the other Gospels at all.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 117
2. We are indebted to Luke alone for
much of our information concerning the
Virgin Mary. The old tradition which de
clared that Luke was a painter, and that
he had painted the portrait of the Virgin
Mary, was not so far wrong after all, for it
is from the pages of Luke that we are able
to reproduce any satisfying portrait of the
Virgin Mary to-day. Mark mentioned her
name, and Matthew told us something
about the trouble she had with Joseph,
who was minded to put her away; but it is
in Luke's narrative alone that we are per
mitted to see the events circling about
the birth of the God-Man from the stand
point of the human mother involved in the
great mystery. Luke alone tells us about
the annunciation to Mary, and we have a
glimpse of that moment of transcendent
revelation to the Virgin who was to bear a
Child, some inkling of the profound per
plexity into which she was inevitably
thrown, some conception of the absolute
sublimity of self-surrender to that sword
which was to pierce her soul and to that

118 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
exaltation over all womankind forever-
more. Luke has pictured for us Mary the maid
and Mary the mother as the type of per
fect womanhood. She has been worshiped
by multitudes of Christians, and she has
been reverenced by all the disciples of
Jesus as the pure Virgin who bore our
Lord and the saintly mother who trained
the Child in the ways of righteousness in
the Nazareth home. In Luke we see Mary
hastening away to her kinswoman, Elisa
beth, that she may pour into the ear of
that older and trusted friend all her tale
of high favor and great grief. In Luke we
hear Mary singing the Magnificat, that
spontaneous outburst of the maiden's over
flowing thanksgiving to God:
My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath looked upon the low estate of his
handmaid:
For behold, from henceforth all generations shall
call me blessed.1
>1. 46-48.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 119
In Luke alone we have a glimpse of the
mother laying the Child in the manger
and receiving the shepherds with modest
dignity and listening to their tale of angel
messages and songs, and then treasuring
these things in her heart through all the
long days and years. In Luke we see her
in the temple, bringing the appointed sac
rifice of the poor, and meeting Simeon and
Anna, and hearing the prophecy of her
own woe and the redemption to be accom
plished through her son. In Luke we read
of Mary searching through the caravan
and then through the sacred city for the
twelve-year-old Boy who had strangely
disappeared, but who told her when he
had been discovered that the temple was
the only place in which they need have
looked for him. Then we read again that
Mary kept all these sayings in her heart.
Tradition said that Luke painted the
portrait of Mary and carried it with him
in his evangelistic labors, and that miracles
were wrought by means of it, and that it
greatly helped him in his preaching. It

120 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
has been an aid to gospel preaching through
all the centuries that Luke has given us in
this book the picture of this maid and
mother who serves as a type of model
womanhood. But there are other women in
these pages besides this mother of our Lord.
3. Luke tells us all that we know about
the cousin of the Virgin Mary, the saintly
Elisabeth, the one to whom the Virgin
turned first for confidence and consolation
in the hour of her great trouble and joy.
4. Luke tells us about the saintly proph
etess Anna, one of the quiet of the land,
worshiping and fasting and praying night
and day in the temple and waiting for the
coming of the Lord. There they stand in
those first two chapters: the saintly Virgin,
the saintly wife, and the saintly widow —
Mary, Elisabeth, Anna — bearing their wit
ness that now a new gospel to saintly
womanhood had come into the world.
5. Luke tells us of that company of
women who ministered of their substance
to the twelve and their Master, because
they had been healed of evil spirits and

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 121
infirmities — Mary of Magdala, Joanna, Su
sanna, and many others.1 It is Luke
alone who gives us this picture of Jesus,
"accompanied in his mission journeys — not
by warriors like David, not by elders like
Moses, not by kings and princes like the
Herods — but by a most humble band of
ministering women."2 "The Teacher who
included in his church the humble, the dis
tressed, and the repentant, is attended by
the weak and loving rather than by a
council of elders, a band of warriors, or a
school of prophets."3 "The scribes and
Pharisees gathered up their robes in the
streets and the synagogues, lest they should
touch a woman, and held it a crime to look
on an unveiled woman in public; our
Lord suffered a woman to minister to him
out of whom he had cast seven devils."4
6. Luke has given us that picture of the
visit of Jesus to the home of Martha and
Mary, and a glimpse at the typically differ
ent characters of those two sister disciples.5

1 8. 2, 3. 2 Farrar, Messages of the Books, p. 81.
» Bishop Westcott. * Sehaff, op. tit., p. 663. s 10. 38-42.

122 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
7. Luke tells us of the widow of Nain
and how the coming of Jesus turned her
mourning into joy. The Lord had com
passion upon her and said to her, "Weep
not."1 8. The evangelist Luke has recorded the
parable of the importunate widow and the
unjust judge.2 These three widows — Anna,
praying in the temple; the weeping widow
at Nain; the impatient, persistent, pestif
erous widow of the parable — appear in the
third Gospel alone and are in themselves
sufficient to make this "Gospel of Woman
hood" a "Gospel of Widowhood" as well.
A worshiping widow, a weeping widow, a
wrangling widow; a saintly widow, a sor
rowing widow, an insufferable widow; a
widow eighty-four years in saintly and
patient expectation of the coming of her
Lord, an unfortunate widow mourning the
loss of her only son, an importunate widow
in as full contrast with the quiet and
patient saints of the Lord as the unjust
judge is in contrast with the loving and
17.11-15. 2 18.1-8.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 123
patient Father of all. We owe the pictures
of these three widows to Luke alone.
9. Luke tells us of the healing of that
daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had
bound for eighteen years.1 The ruler of
the synagogue was moved with great in
dignation that day, but Jesus lifted the
burden from that woman's shoulders, loos
ened the bonds that had bowed her to
gether for years, and permitted her to
stand straight and glorify God before
them all. The miracle might be taken as
a parable of the change Christianity has
wrought in the condition of womanhood
in the world. Woman is no longer bound
and bowed; at the word of Jesus she stands
straight. Wherever the ministry of Jesus
has come she has been made to glorify
God. 10. Luke has given us that story of the
anointing of Jesus by the woman who had
been a sinner, at the feast in the house of
Simon the Pharisee.2 Could we lose out
of the gospel story the parable of the two
1 13. 10-17. » 7. 36-60.

124 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
debtors and this whole picture of the rela
tion between our compassionate Lord and
all truly repentant souls ? This woman had
sinned, but her love had won forgiveness;
she had sinned, but his love had made her
clean. He accepted the sacrifice her affec
tion was so willing to make; he did not
repulse her before the throng; he acknowl
edged their previous relationship; he prom
ised her that she might go in peace. There
is all the union of purity and compassion,
of dignity and genuine affection which we
would expect to find in the loving Saviour
of men. Luke alone has given us this
narrative.1 11. In the other Gospels we read how
Jesus defended himself against the blas
phemous charge of the Pharisees that he
was in league with Beelzebub, but it is
Luke alone who records the fact that at
the close of that defense some warm
hearted woman in the throng lifted up her
voice impulsively in defiance of his ene-

¦ For the reasons for concluding that this narrative has no parallel in the
other Gospels, see Andrews, The Life of Our Lord, pp. 281-286.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 125
mies and in utter loyalty to him, saying,
"Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and
the breasts which thou didst suck."1 It
was a blessing pronounced upon Mary the
mother, but it was a woman's tribute to
the greatness and the goodness of Mary's
Son. 12. Luke tells us that on the way to the
cross a multitude of women followed him,
weeping and lamenting his fate; but Jesus
turned to them and said, "Daughters of
Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for
yourselves and your children."2 His com
passion for the women and for the little
ones was dominant within him to the very
last. 13. Epiphanius tells us that in Marcion's
version of the Gospel according to Luke he
had inserted as a part of the charge made
by the Jews against Jesus in the trial be
fore Pilate, "This man perverts the women
and the children." The insertion bears
its witness to the attraction which the
personality of Jesus must have always had
¦11.27. 2 23.27,28.

126 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
for these more dependent classes of so
ciety. The children loved him and followed
him. The women ministered to him gladly
of their substance. Doubtless there were
some of the Jews who thought it would be
better for their wives to stay at home and
to learn from their husbands in silence and
seclusion and subjection there rather than
to be running about the country after this
new teacher and squandering their means
in the support of him and his able-bodied
but idle attendants. Doubtless there were
some fathers who wondered why their chil
dren did not run to them so gladly and
listen to them so eagerly as they did to
this stranger; and it must have seemed to
them that their families were being per
verted, and it would be just as well for this
man to be put out of the way. They were
right in thinking that a revolution was
impending in those days. They were
wrong in thinking that the death of Jesus
would put an end to it.
The rights of childhood had been recog
nized once for all. The emancipation of

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 127
womanhood had been proclaimed for all
time to come. The Saviour of the world
was to be the Saviour of women and the
Saviour of the little ones. Henceforth they
would follow him into the kingdom of God.
The beloved physician has given us in his
Gospel this picture of the compassionate
Christ, interested like himself in these
weaker and more helpless members of
society, and beloved like himself by those
to whom he gave his ceaseless sympathy
and service. IX. The Gospel for the Poor
A good physician is ready to respond to
any cry of need. His professional knowl
edge is at the service of all. He can be no
respecter of persons in his practice. He
must give as much attention to the needs
of his poor patients as he does to the rich.
A beloved physician will be a philanthro
pist, a lover of man as man. The physician
who works only for fat fees and who goes
only when summoned by the well-to-do
may make his fortune, but he will miss

128 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
his greatest professional opportunity in the
service of the poor. The poor people are
in the majority, and when they are sick
their need of a good physician is greater
than that of the comfortably rich. With
unskillful nursing and unsanitary surround
ings and unwholesome food all the resources
of the physician are taxed to the utmost to
save the life; and a good physician finds
that his sympathies are poured out in the
effort to help the needy poor.
Luke was such a good physician. He lived
and died a poor man, and he gave the most
of his service to the poor. He is naturally
interested to show that the gospel news he
has to record is of immediate concern to
the most needy classes, and among these
to the humble and the poor. He says so
much about these that this third Gospel
has been called the Gospel of the Ebion-
ites, the Ebionites deriving their name
from the Hebrew word Ebion, "poor."
Let us notice a few of the facts which lead
to such a conclusion.
1. The angel Gabriel is sent to make the

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 129
annunciation of the Messiah's birth, not
to any royal palace, not to any mansion of
the rich, but to a plainly furnished and
poverty-stricken peasant's home. There to
a humble maiden of the multitude of the
poor in the~ land was his message given
that the Messias would come. Luke alone
has recorded that scene.1
2. Mary went to see her kinswoman,
Elisabeth, and there she sang her Mag
nificat: He hath put down princes from their thrones,
And hath exalted them of low degree.
The hungry he hath filled with good things;
And the rich he hath sent empty away.2
Luke alone has recorded the song.
3. Luke alone tells us how this mar
velous birth took place. He says that
the Saviour was born in a stable. He
says that the Messias was laid in a
manger. He says that the Incarnate God
could find no room in the inn.3 Was this
the way for the King of kings and the Lord
of lords to enter upon his inheritance ?
» 1. 26-38. ' 1. 52, 53. .' • 2. 7.

130 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
On the fifth of September, 1639, a son
was born to Louis XIII, king of France.
The birth took place at the castle of Saint
Germain, where Anne of Austria, queen of
France, then resided. For weeks before
the neighboring town had been crowded
with the noble and the great, who were
impatiently waiting the wished-for event.
Every avenue up to the palace was
thronged with the anxious and interested
people. On that day, the fifth of Septem
ber, the king summoned into his private
apartment the princes and the princesses
of the blood royal. In the next room the
bishops of Lisieux, Meaux, and Beauvais
were stationed. Across the hallway were the
officers of state and ladies of rank sufficient
to give them the right of entrance to the
royal palace. At last the nurse appeared
with the newborn son, afterward Louis the
XlVth of France. The father took the
infant child and held it up at the window
where the waiting crowd might see. They
shouted aloud their joy while the happy
king carried the baby prince into the room

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 131
where the bishops were offering up
prayers, and the boy was baptized by the
Bishop of Meaux in the presence of all
the great dignitaries of the kingdom. The
news was at once dispatched to the city
of Paris, and the great capital celebrated
the event with magnificent festivities. In
due time there arrived a nuncio extraor
dinary from the Pope, with swaddling
clothes blessed by "His Holiness" there at
Rome and sent to the Dauphin of France
as one of the elder sons of the church.
Those swaddling clothes were laid in two
chests of red velvet and were sparkling
with silver and gold. A sovereign prince
had been born, the heir to one of Europe's
foremost thrones, and round about this
royal birth were gathered the pomp and
pageantry, the imposing ceremony and
regal luxury that befitted the welcoming
of him who was to be the king.
Luke alone has told us how the world
welcomed the coming of him who was to
be the King of kings on that night of his
birth in Bethlehem. Bethlehem took no

132 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
notice; it was interested in far different
things. The capital city, Jerusalem, knew
nothing about it and did not care. The
ecclesiastical authorities were busied about
other matters. The noble and the great,
the wealthy and the influential, were sound
asleep and utterly unconscious of any great
event. The people in the inn were making
the best of their crowded quarters and were
snoring their satisfaction that they could
get lodgings at such a time as this.
There was nobody out in the stable
except that poor maid who had come too
late or who was too poor to procure any
room in the inn. There among the stable
smells Jesus was born, and they laid him
to rest in the manger, a little nest of a bed
having been hollowed out for him in the
cattle straw. There were no swaddling
clothes there, blessed by high dignitaries
and sparkling with jewels. His swaddling
clothes were such as that poor mother
could furnish in the hour of her need.
Matthew tells about the coming of Wise
Men from the East, bringing rich presents

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 133
of gold and frankincense and myrrh and
offering the homage that was due to a
King. There is nothing of that sort in
Luke's narrative. The only courtiers here
are the cattle. Jesus is born in the extrem-
est poverty of surroundings. It has been
said that the shortest biography of Jesus
ever written was that in which the apostle
Paul expressed the bald fact and the whole
astonishing truth of the incarnation in one
word, iTTT&xsvoev, He became poor.1 It is
Luke who has given us the historical setting
for this assertion in his story of the Saviour's
birth. 4. In Matthew's story the Magi appear
in Jerusalem and make inquiry of the
king in his palace and of the scribes who
were the masters of the law. The news is
thus given in the capital and to the chief
rulers of the nation. In Luke no such
public proclamation takes place. The only
people who are told about this transcendent
mystery of the incarnation are some shep
herd lads, keeping watch by night over
¦ 2 Cor. 8. 9.

134 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
their flocks on the Bethlehem hills. Those
poor fellows had no gifts to bring to Mary
or to Jesus, but they heard the good news
of great joy which should be to all people
and they spread that news among the poor
people everywhere.1
5. According to Luke, who has made the
only record of them, later revelations were
accorded to some quiet and obscure peo
ple, Simeon and Anna,2 not to Augustus at
Rome, nor to Annas, the high priest at
Jerusalem. 6. Luke is careful to tell us that when
the days of purification were ended, and
the parents made their sacrifice in the
temple, they offered a pair of turtledoves,
or two young pigeons, the sacrifice of the
very poor.3
7. Luke alone tells us that when John
the Baptist came preaching he said to the
multitudes, "He that hath two coats, let
him impart to him that hath none; and he
that hath food, let him do likewise."4 John
the Baptist believed that the sharing of
•2.8-20. « 2. 25-38. » 2. 22-24. «8. 11.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 135
superfluities in practical philanthropy
would solve the problem of the poor, or,
at least, it would help to solve the prob
lem of the equitable distribution of
wealth. 8. When Jesus was ready to begin his
ministry Luke records his first sermon in
the synagogue at Nazareth, and he says that
the first words that Jesus uttered were these :
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.1
According to Luke, the gospel of Jesus is
a gospel to the poor. That text from
Isaiah was the fitting motto for the be
ginning and the middle and the end of his
ministry. It summarized the whole of his
mission to men.
9. In Luke 14. 33 we find Jesus saying,
"Whosoever he be of you that renounceth
not all that he hath, he cannot be my
disciple"; and Luke alone has recorded the
fact that when Jesus called Peter and
Andrew and James and John and Matthew
1 4. 18.

136 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
into his service they all of them left all
and followed him.1
10. Where Matthew has written the
Beatitude of our Lord, "Blessed are the
poor in spirit," Luke has it, "Blessed are
ye poor";2 and where Matthew has writ
ten, "Blessed are they that hunger and
thirst after righteousness," Luke has it,
"Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye
shall be filled."3 Where Matthew has only
Beatitudes, Luke adds some "Woes" —
"Woe unto you that are rich!"4 and, "Woe
unto you, ye that are full now ! for ye shall
hunger."5 11. Luke records the parable of Dives
and Lazarus, in which the poor beggar has
the advantage at last.6
12. Luke has the parable of the rich fool,
who labored long and gained much and
lost everything in one night, including his
soul.7 Was there ever such a vivid picture
of utter selfishness put into so brief a form ?
Look at the possessive pronouns, "my

i 5. 11, 28. 2 6. 20. » 6. 21. * 6. 24.
s 6. 25. • 16. 19-31. 1 12. 16-21.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 137
fruits, my barns, my grain, my goods, my
soul." No one of those things belonged to
him, least of all his soul. That was taken
away from him in one night, and then to
whom did all the other things belong ?
Look at the personal pronouns, "What
shall I do? This will I do. Then I will
say to my soul." He will say, will he?
There are seven of these future tenses in
the Greek, all showing how happy he is
going to be in some future day. They are
followed by six present tenses, all utterly
selfish, but all postponed to that future
day which never dawned. "I will say, Eat,
drink, rest, rejoice"; but he never lived to
say it, much less really to do any of these
things. 13. Luke also has that parable about the
chief seats at the feast, closing with the
promise, "He that humbleth himself shall
be exalted."1
14. Luke tells us of that great supper to
which the "poor and maimed and blind
and lame" were invited.2 It is a symbol of
1 14. 7-11. 3 14, 21.

138 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
the gospel feast set forth in all these pages
written by Luke. It is all for the poor and
for the poorest of the poor. Luke is ready
to go out into the highways and the hedges
and constrain these impoverished and neg
lected ones to come in. By way of con
trast, remember what Voltaire said to
D'Alembert: "We have never pretended
to enlighten the cobblers and the maid
servants. We leave that for the apostles."
That is the work in which Paul delighted.
That is the work to which Luke devoted
himself. Jesus was anointed to preach the
gospel to the poor. The gospel of his
anointed ones will be, like this Gospel
according to Luke, a gospel of comfort and
encouragement and salvation to the poor.
It may be well to suggest, before leaving
this subject, that while Luke evidently had
an overflowing sympathy for the poor, his
book does not lead us to think that he
had any prejudice against wealth as such,
any more than Jesus had. Riches never
harmed a man unless he tried to find his
happiness in them. If he allowed them to

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 139
stand between him and the kingdom, they
made him infinitely poor. That seemed to
be the case with the rich young ruler. He
would not follow Jesus if he must for
sake his wealth. He preferred earthly sub
stance to his soul's salvation. That was a
fatal choice. He trusted to his riches for
his supreme satisfaction and he went away
sorrowful rather than satisfied.
It was not because he was rich that he
could not be saved. It was because he
trusted in riches more than in a Redeemer.
A poor man can do that as well as a rich
man. A poor man can feel sure that if
he had riches he could take care of himself,
and if he trusts in riches to that extent the
wealth he has not can keep him out of the
kingdom. Jesus said, "Children, how hard
is it for them that trust in riches to enter into
the kingdom of God!" And that warning
was as applicable to those poor disciples as
to any others. They, too, must put their
trust in God rather than in mammon, in
order to be saved. Wealth never saved a
man, and wealth just as surely never

140 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
damned a man. It is the use of wealth
that determines its relation to a man's
character. 1. In the parable Abraham is in bliss,
and Abraham presumably was just as rich
a man upon earth as the rich man whom
the parable shows us in torments. The
difference between Abraham and Dives was
not one of wealth, but one of character.
2. Luke alone tells us about Zacchaeus,
and we learn that Zacchseus was a very
wealthy man; and when he decides to keep
half of his possessions there is no hint
that either Jesus or Luke thought that he
ought to have given up all.
3. In the various discussions throughout
the Gospel concerning masters and servants
there is no suggestion that it is wrong to
have servants, and in one passage the
Master plainly says that he who sits at
meat is superior to him who serves,1 but
it is a kind of superiority which he himself
does not desire.
4. Possibly Luke is more insistent than
¦ 22. 27.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 141
either Matthew or Mark upon the fact
that Joseph of Arimathaea, while a rich
man and a man of high rank, was also a
good and righteous man, and one who was
looking for the kingdom of God.1
These indications are sufficient to show
that wealth turned to good uses was ap
preciated to the full by Luke and by his
Lord. They were both of them glad
enough that there were some women who
were well-to-do and able to minister of
their substance to the Master and his
apostles in the days of their need. They
preferred to preach and be poor themselves,
but they had no prejudice against those
who made money if they made good use of
their money when made. They loved the
poor and served the poor, but they had no
objection to being served by the rich if
the rich offered to share any portion of
their possessions with them. They were
not anarchists or socialists. They were
preachers of the gospel to the poor, a gospel
whose message was of equal importance
¦ 23. 50, 51.

142 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
and value to the rich and to which the rich
were equally welcome if they would hear.
X. The Gospel for the Outcasts
There is still another class with which
the physician must perforce come into pro
fessional contact, and with which the
preacher and the lawyer often have little
to do. That is the class of the social out
casts. It is surely characteristic of this
Gospel according to Luke that its sym
pathy reaches even to these. Luke 6. 35,
in the margin of the Revised Version, reads,
Jesus despaired "of no man." That might
be made the text of the entire narrative.
Luke was like his Master again at this
point. The brand of public infamy has no
weight for him. His sympathies went out
to all who were in need, even as the sympa
thies of Jesus always had been manifested
most to those who needed them most.
In the Acts of Paul and Thecla we read
that Paul said of Jesus that he was the
only one who sympathized with a world
gone astray. In the Epistle to the Hebrews

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 143
we read that Jesus is our great High Priest,
being able to sympathize with the ignorant
and the erring. It is this compassionate
Christ whom Luke sets before us in his
pages. He is not seeking the self-satisfied,
but the self-despairing. It was the sickest
who had greatest need. It was those whom
all others had deserted who most needed a
friend. Jesus in this Gospel is the Good
Shepherd seeking for the outcast in the
farthest mountains of social ostracism or
willful sin. Jesus was a Jew. He had had a
Jewish training. He lived always in a Jew
ish environment. He never had the ad
vantage of foreign travel and he never came
under the broadening influence of residence
among the many races of men. Yet he
never displays any Jewish narrowness or
prejudice. He is interested in all men alike.
No man, of whatever nationality or of what
ever previous spiritual condition, is beyond
his sympathy or the ready proffer of his help.
1. This is the Gospel in which we read of
the prodigal son who wastes all his living
on harlots and yet is not beyond reclama-

144 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
tion, and who comes back at last to the
father's home and to the unhesitating and
undiminished love of the father's heart.1
2. This is the Gospel of the publican
Zacchaeus, generally regarded as a sinner
with whom no respectable people ought to
have any social dealings, but with whom
Jesus went to lodge, and whom Jesus
acknowledged as a son of Abraham.2
3. This is the Gospel of the sinful woman
with whom Simon the Pharisee would have
been ashamed to show any personal ac
quaintance in public, but whom Jesus
recognized and whose service he gladly ac
cepted and whose sins he freely forgave.3
4. This is the Gospel in which the cruci
fied criminal, a coarse bandit who was
given up by the state as a hopeless case,
and was paying the penalty of his many
crimes, walked straight into paradise with
the sinless Lord.4
In this Gospel the harlot and the crim
inal, the prodigal and the social pariah, of
whatever class or condition, are freely of-
1 15. 11-32. a 19. 2-10. » 7. 36-50, « 23. 40-43.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 145
fered the society and the service of the
purest and the best. Do the preachers of
to-day associate with these classes ? Are
they on terms of familiar acquaintance with
them ? Are they continually finding con
verts among them ? Are they continually
proving that they who are forgiven most
love most, and that from these classes the
most devoted saints may come ? If they
are not, their gospel must be somewhat
different from the gospel of Luke and his
Lord; or, if they have the same gospel,
their ministration of it must be somewhat
different. Does not this Gospel according to Luke
suggest that every Christian preacher to
day ought to know every saloon keeper in
his neighborhood and every inmate of
every house of ill fame, and that a part of
his ministry ought to be given to these, and
that some of the chief triumphs of his
ministry ought to be found among these ?
Surely, conditions have not so changed that
we need to despair of any man or of any
woman now, or that we ought to recog-

146 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
nize any social outcasts now, to whom it
is not our duty to carry the good news of
salvation. The Gospel according to Luke is the
gospel of the children, the gospel of woman
hood, the gospel of the poor, and the gospel
of the outcast and forsaken. Of course,
the other synoptics have some suggestions
of these things, but they are so numerous
in the third Gospel and they are so fre
quently found in the portions peculiar to it
that they become characteristic of the nar
rative written by Luke. They might be
accounted for altogether by his knowledge
of and his sympathy with the character of
Jesus, who was the friend of the little ones
and the women and the poor and the pub
licans and sinners in all his ministry. They
might be accounted for altogether by
Luke's personal character and by his over
flowing sympathy for all the helpless and
oppressed. We have endeavored to show
that in addition to these things his pro
fession as a physician must have influenced
him largely in his choice of materials for

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 147
his gospel history. The sign-manual of
the physician is written large over the
pages of his narrative and is apparent also
in his peculiar and characteristic interest in
certain classes — the women and children,
the outcast and the poor. We might con
tinue our classification of the general char
acteristics of the Gospel according to Luke
under this general head, but we prefer to
turn now from Luke the physician to Luke
the companion of Paul.
XI. The Pauline Gospel
Much more nearly than the other two
synoptics, the Gospel according to Luke is
the Gospel according to Paul. It is but
natural that the Gentile Gospel should
reflect most largely the theology of the
apostle to the Gentiles. Luke's close per
sonal association with the apostle Paul
must have influenced him greatly in his
conceptions of the scope, the content, and
the aim of the gospel message and truth.
Paul was more nearly a systematic theo
logian than any other of the New Testa-

148 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
ment writers. Luke has managed to get
much more doctrine into his Gospel nar
rative than the other synoptics; and the
doctrine of Luke is substantially the doc
trine of Paul.
Three times in his epistles Paul speaks of
"my gospel."1 Origen, Eusebius,2 and Je
rome3 thought that Paul meant by this
phrase the Gospel according to Luke. That
was his gospel because it represented his
point of view throughout. Irenaeus4 had
written still earlier, "Luke, the companion
of Paul, committed to writing the gospel
preached by the latter." There is so much
in common between the Gospel written by
Luke and the gospel preached by Paul
that we can readily believe that Paul's
influence is manifest in Luke's writing, but
we do not believe that Paul ever called the
third Gospel his own in the sense that he
claimed any personal responsibility for its
composition. When he spoke of "my gos
pel" he meant only the revelation made to
¦Rom. 2. 16; Rom. 16. 25; 2 Tim. 2. 8. 2 Ecclesiastical History, iii, 4. 8.
* De Viris Illustribus, vii. 4 Adversus Haereses, iii, 1. 1.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 149
himself and proclaimed in his preaching.
We have no reason to believe that the
word "gospel" was used as a proper name
in any of the New Testament writings or
was applied at any time to any of the books
we now call by such title.
The truth behind this tradition of Paul's
personal appropriation of the third Gospel
is, as Plummer says, the fact that "Paul
was the illuminator of Luke (Tert. iv, 2):
he enlightened him as to the essential
character of the gospel. Luke, as his fellow
worker, would teach what the apostle
taught, and would learn to give promi
nence to those elements in the gospel narra
tive of which he made most frequent use."
The old Latin proverb said, Noscitur a
sociis, "A man is known by the company
he keeps." No one could be a close com
panion with the apostle Paul without
being influenced by him in both life and
thought. We have already seen that Luke
was not only a companion, but a beloved
physician and a congenial friend. Cole
ridge used to say that no one was fit to be

150 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
a commentator upon the Epistles of Paul
except Martin Luther, and Luther failed
because he was not such a gentleman as
Paul. Now, Luke was a gentleman. He
had something of the innate courtesy that
characterized the great apostle, and in this
Gospel we find the general impress made
by the character and the creed of the
apostle upon such a man.
Having thus determined the nature of
Luke's indebtedness to Paul, we will now
look for the more specific proofs of such
relationship in the writings of these two
men. 1. We notice some remarkable parallel
isms of expression at several points. (1) In
the account of the Lord's Supper neither
Matthew nor Mark tells us that the Lord
said, "Do this in remembrance of me."
Luke, in 22. 19, and Paul, in 1 Cor. 11. 24,
are the only ones to record it. Matthew
and Mark say that the Lord said, "This
is my blood of the covenant," while
Paul and Luke record the words as,
"This cup is the new covenant in my

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 151
blood."1 Matthew and Mark connect the
Eucharist, or thanksgiving, with the cup;
Paul and Luke connect it with the bread.
These striking differences from the other
accounts and close similarities between Paul
and Luke would be sufficient in themselves
to suggest that these two men had been
associated many a time in the administra
tion of this sacrament, and had so come to
adopt the same formulation in the account
of it.
(2) In 1 Cor. 15. 5 Paul tells us that the
risen Lord appeared to Cephas. The only
other mention of this resurrection appear
ance in the New Testament is to be found
in Luke 24. 34: "The Lord is risen indeed,
and hath appeared to Simon." Paul and
Luke seem to have regarded this as one of
the important appearances, or at least
worthy of mention in any account of them.
All our other authorities are utterly silent
concerning it.
(3) Some have thought that a threefold
classification of ideas is characteristic of

•Luke 22. 20; 1 Cor. 11. 25.

152 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
both Paul and Luke. We recall such pas
sages in the Epistles of Paul, as 1 Cor. 13.
13, "Now abideth faith, hope, love, these
three," and that other enumeration of the
essential elements in the unity of the
Spirit set forth in Eph. 4. 4-6, falling into
three groups of three: one body, one Spirit,
one hope; one Lord, one faith, one bap
tism; one God and Father of all, tran
scendent, omnipresent, immanent, over all,
through all, in all. When we turn to Luke
we find him recording the three parables
of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the
lost son together, while Matthew has the
parable of the lost sheep alone.1 Luke
tells us of three would-be disciples who are
turned away by our Lord, and in the
parallel passage in Matthew2 we find
mention of only two. Compare also the
loaf, fish, and egg of Luke 11. 11, 12 with
the bread and fish of Matt. 7. 9, 10.
(4) There are many phrases common to
Paul and Luke and not to be met anywhere
else in the New Testament. Long lists of
1 18. 12. 2 8. 19-22.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 153
these have been prepared by many authori
ties. We suggest a few samples only
among them. Compare Luke 4. 22 with
Col. 4. 6, and Luke 8. 15 with Col. 1. 10, 11,
and Luke 6. 39 with Rom. 2. 19, and Luke
10. 8 with 1 Cor. 10. 27, and Luke 21. 36
with Eph. 6. 18.
2. To these parallelisms in expression we
add, in the second place, a remarkable
similarity in the use of single terms. For
example: (1) The double title "Lord Jesus" is found
nearly a hundred times in the Epistles of
Paul. It is found only once in the synoptic
Gospels — in Luke 24. 3.
(2) The name "Lord" is applied to Jesus
again and again by Paul. It is never so
used in the Gospel according to Mark ex
cept by the heathen Syrophcenician woman
in 7. 28. The title occurs fourteen times
in Luke, and so makes another con
necting link between his usage and that of
Paul. (3) The proper name "Satan" is used by
Paul ten times, by Luke seven times, by

154 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Mark six times, by Matthew four times,
and by John only once.
(4) The word "Saviour" is not found in
Matthew or Mark. It occurs twice in
Luke, once in John, and a multitude of
times in Paul.
(5) The word "salvation" is not found in
Matthew or Mark. It occurs four times
in Luke, once in John, on page after page
in the writings of Paul.
(6) The word "grace" is characteristic of
Paul's most frequent and emphatic usage.
It is never found in Matthew and Mark. It
occurs eight times in Luke and three times
in John. It is found one hundred and
forty-six times in the New Testament, but
only twenty-one times outside the writings
of Luke and Paul.
(7) "Faith" is another keyword in Paul's
theology. It is found in Luke eleven times,
in Matthew eight, in Mark five, and in
John not at all. In the book of Acts the
word occurs sixteen times. It is found in
the New Testament two hundred and
forty-three times, but only fifty-three

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 155
times outside the writings of Luke and
Paul. (8) Repentance is joined with faith in
the usage of Paul as one of the essentials
to salvation. The word "repentance,"
uerdvoia, is found in Luke five times, in
Matthew two, in Mark only once, and in
John not at all. It occurs in the book of
Acts six times.
(9) Paul joins mercy with grace and
peace in some of his salutations. The
word "mercy," eXsog, is found in Luke
six times, in Matthew three, and in Mark
and John and the book of Acts not at all.
To Luke all the perfection of God would
seem to be summed up in his quality of
mercy. In the Sermon on the Mount, as
reported by Matthew, the climax of com
mand is found in the words, "Be ye there
fore perfect, even as your Father in
heaven is perfect,"1 but Luke chronicles the
corresponding command in his Sermon on
the Plain in these words, "Be ye therefore
merciful, as your Father is also merciful."2
iMatt. 5. 48. 2 6. 36.

156 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
He who attains this height will find nothing
beyond him.
We may say, in general, that Luke's
vocabulary is much more Pauline than that
of the other gospel writers. Luke has one
hundred and one words in common with
Paul which are not to be found in any
other writers of the New Testament books.
Matthew has only thirty-two and Mark
twenty -two and John twenty-one.
3. However, it is when we come to the
doctrinal features they have in common
that the relationship between the writings
of Luke and Paul becomes most apparent.
(1) The third Gospel furnishes the histori
cal background for just such teaching and
preaching as that of the great apostle of
the Gentiles, Paul. In its narrative Israel
is rejected and the way is opened for the
reception of the Gentiles into the kingdom
of God just as clearly as in the ninth, tenth,
and eleventh chapters of the Epistle to the
Romans, a. In the first sermon in the
ministry of Jesus he made it apparent to
his fellow townsmen in Nazareth that the

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 157
heathen might enjoy the blessings they
were ready to despise.1 b. In the middle
of his ministry Jesus answers the question,
"Are there few that be saved?" by de
claring, "They shall come from the east
and west, and from the north and south,
and shall sit down in the kingdom of God;
but ye yourselves shall be cast forth with
out."2 c. At the close of his ministry Jesus
told his disciples that it was written that
repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in his name unto all the nations.3
From the beginning to the end the Gentiles
are included within the scope of the gospel
salvation. (2) In thorough consistency with this
fundamental position we find a spirit of
wide-reaching and all-inclusive tolerance
characterizing this Gospel even as it did
the preaching of Paul. See how this is
apparent in the attitude of Jesus as pic
tured here toward the Samaritans. The
Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.
They considered them even worse than
1 4. 24-27. ' 13. 23-29. ' 24. 47.

158 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Gentile dogs. a. When the Samaritan vil
lagers showed themselves inhospitable
James and John were ready to call down
fire from heaven upon them, in the spirit
of Elijah. But Jesus declared that the
intolerant spirit of Elijah was not the
spirit of the gospel he had come to preach.
That gospel would include and in due time
would win the Samaritans as well as the
Jews.1 b. Again, when ten lepers were
healed and only one returned to give
thanks unto God both Jesus and the evan
gelist call attention to the fact that the
one grateful man was a Samaritan
stranger.2 c. Again, in the Master's par
able of the one who proved himself neigh
bor to the man who fell among thieves he
chose as the hero of that tale no Jewish
priest or Levite, but a good Samaritan.3 It
is in the third Gospel alone that we find
these three references to the Samaritans,
and they all breathe the same spirit of toler
ance and friendliness that was to charac
terize a gospel preached to and for all men.
i 9. 52-55. 2 17. 11-19. » 10. 30-37.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 159
(3) The emphatic and persistent presen
tation of the personality of the Holy Spirit
is characteristic of both Luke and Paul.
Where Matthew reads, "If ye then, being
evil, know how to give good gifts unto
your children, how much more shall your
Father who is in heaven give good things
to them that ask him?"1 Luke sums up all
good things in that one greatest gift of the
Father to men and says, "How much more
shall your heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to them that ask him ?"2 In the
third Gospel we find eighteen references to
the Holy Spirit, thirteen of them in four
chapters; and in the whole of Matthew
there are only twelve, and in Mark only
six. Luke therefore has as many as Mat
thew and Mark combined.
If we were to name the three features in
which the doctrinal teaching of Luke and
of Paul are most alike, we would mention:
1. The universal scope of the gospel, because
of the marvelous grace and all-inclusive love
shown by God to men. 2. The importance of
iMatt. 7. 11. 2 Luke 11. 13.

160 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
the work of the Holy Spirit. 3. The em
phasis laid upon the real humanity of Jesus.
We turn next to consider this characteristic
of the Gospel according to Luke.
It is the Gospel of the real humanity of
Jesus. It is the Gospel of Jesus as our
Brother-Man. It is the Gospel of the
Kinsman-Redeemer of the race. Here for
the first time in the New Testament we
meet the word "redemption" — "He hath
visited and wrought redemption for his
people," Zacharias sings.1 We are told
that Anna spoke of Jesus to all them that
looked for redemption in Jerusalem.2 The
two disheartened disciples on their way to
Emmaus said, "We trusted that it had
been he which should have redeemed Is
rael."3 Redemption by a genuine incarna
tion — that is the great theme of this Gospel.
XII. The Gospel of Jesus, Our
Brother-Man
1. In early life. It begins by showing
that the birth and infancy and childhood
1 1. 68. 2 2. 38. » 24. 21.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 161
of Jesus were those of any normal human
life. (1) Luke alone tells us about the
poverty of the surroundings into which the
baby boy came, born of a woman, bone of
our bone, and flesh of our flesh, wrapped in
the swaddling clothes and laid in the stable
straw.1 (2) Luke tells us that he was circum
cised like every other Jewish boy.2 It
was the first shedding of redeeming blood.
It was his first external identification with
the religious life of his race.
(3) Luke also tells us about his presen
tation in the temple.3 Born under the law,
it became him to fulfill all righteousness.
(4) Luke records the fact that the child
Jesus grew as every other child grew, in
creasing in size and increasing in strength,
and correspondingly increasing in wisdom
as the days and the years went by.4 The
boy Jesus is neither omniscient nor om
nipotent, but just a normal, natural,
healthy, and growing boy, according to
this passage in Luke.
i 2. 4-7. ' 2. 21. « 2. 22. « 2. 40.

162 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
(5) Luke tells us how Jesus went up to
Jerusalem to celebrate his first passover as
a son of the Law, and how he sat in the
temple in the midst of the teachers, both
hearing them, and asking them questions.1
(6) Luke adds that through all his mi
nority in the home at Nazareth Jesus was
subject to his parents, as any lad would be
expected to be.2
(7) Then, lest anyone should think that
the youth of Jesus was not like his child
hood or like the youth of any other lad in
its gradual development of all its powers,
Luke tells us again that Jesus advanced in
wisdom and stature, and in favor with
God and men.3 It is Luke alone who has
given us this information concerning the
babe and the boy and the youth, and he
has shown us that Jesus was just like us
in his human birth and growth, glorifying
babyhood and obedient childhood by en
tering fully into their estate.
2. At the close of life. When we turn to
the close of the narrative we find that
1 2. 42-46. 2 2. 51 > 2. 52.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 163
Luke is very careful to show us that Jesus
is very human at every point. (1) Luke
tells us that when Jesus wept over Jeru
salem he wept audibly, sobbing aloud in
his profound grief, genuinely human and
pitiful.1 He wept at the grave of Lazarus,
but there he wept silently. John has re
corded that weeping,2 but neither John nor
Luke nor any other evangelist has ever
recorded the fact that Jesus laughed. He
was a "man of sorrows, and acquainted
with grief"; but he must have had some
moments of relaxation. We feel sure that
he must have smiled many and many a
time, and it would be strange indeed if
there were not occasions when he was
provoked into hearty laughter. He en
tered so thoroughly into sympathy with
the joys as well as the sorrows of those
who were his friends that he must have
laughed with them sometimes. The pic
ture of normal boyhood which Luke pre
sents in this Gospel would be incomplete if
we were not allowed to imagine in it cer-
U9.41-44. "John 11. 35.

164 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
tain moments of unrestrained merriment in
the enjoyment of innocent fun. We think
that he would have been more likely to
pipe and dance and laugh with the other
children of Nazareth in their games in
the market place than to join in any
funeral performances or mock mourning.
His youth was a happy one, but he be
came a Man of sorrows, and as he treads
the thorny path to the cross with suffering
and tears Luke shows us that he was very
man at every step.
(2) Luke records that an angel appeared
to him in Gethsemane, strengthening him.1
Truly man, he needed heavenly aid.
(3) Luke alone tells us of the extremity
of human weakness and physical agony
through which Jesus passed in Geth
semane, in which "his sweat became as it
were great drops of blood falling down
upon the ground."2
(4) Luke alone tells us that in that
Gethsemane arrest Jesus called himself
again by his favorite title by means of
• 22. 43. 2 22. 44.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 165
which he so continually identified himself
with the human race and proclaimed his
brotherhood with all other men, for he
said, "Judas, betrayest thou the Son of
man with a kiss ?'n
(5) Luke has the record that in utter
human dependence upon the Father in the
hour and article of death he said, "Father,
into thy hands I commend my spirit."2
(6) Luke alone tells us that the cen
turion who stood by and saw him suffer
and die was so impressed that "he glorified
God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous
man."3 (7) Luke tells us that after his resurrec
tion, in the appearance to the assembled
disciples on that first Easter eve, Jesus
sought to convince them that his incarnate
humanity had survived death and the
grave, and that his human identity was
unimpaired. He said to them, "See my
hands and my feet, that it is I myself:
handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not
flesh and bones, as ye behold me having."
i 22. 48. 2 23. 46. ' 23. 47.

166 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
Then he took a piece of broiled fish "and
ate before them."1 As at the beginning of
his life, so at the close of his life, Luke
insists upon the Lord's real humanity.
There is no human weakness or limitation
in which Jesus does not share. He is one
with us in everything but sin; and he was
one with us after the resurrection and in
the ascension as well.
In his birth and early life Luke has
shown us that the Lord was really and
truly man. Through the closing days and
in his death Luke has made it equally
clear that Jesus was genuinely human to
the last. How about the years of his ac
tive ministry? To us there is no better
proof of the real and genuine humanity of
Jesus than his prayers afford us; and no
one of the evangelists has emphasized the
Lord's need and practice of prayer as Luke
has. Through all his ministry he shows us
the man Jesus continually exercising the
grace of true spiritual dependence. Luke
repeatedly tells us that Jesus was praying
1 24. 39-43.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 167
when the other evangelists say nothing
about it.
3. In the life of prayer. (1) We read in
the other Gospels about the baptism of
Jesus in the Jordan, but Luke alone tells
us that it was as Jesus was being baptized
and praying that the heaven was opened
for the descent of the Holy Spirit and the
witness of the heavenly Voice.1
(2) We read in some of the other Gospels
about the cleansing of the leper and the
immediately succeeding collision with the
religious authorities. Luke only tells us
that between these two events Jesus
withdrew himself into the deserts and
prayed? (3) We read in the other Gospels of the
choice of the twelve. Luke tells us that
that choice was made in the early morning,
after Jesus had continued in prayer all
night long upon the mountain alone.3
(4) Luke tells us that it was after Jesus
had been praying apart that Peter made
the great confession, and Jesus answered it
1 3. 21. « 5. 16. ' 6. 12, 13.

168 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
with his first prediction of his own future
suffering and certain murder.1
(5) Others tell us about the transfigura
tion experience, but Luke alone informs us
that Jesus had gone up into that mountain
to pray, and that as he was praying the
fashion of his countenance was altered,
and he was transfigured before the disciples'
eyes.2 (6) Matthew records the prayer pre
scribed for the disciples, "Our Father who
art in heaven, hallowed be thy name," as
a part of the Sermon on the Mount. Luke
alone tells us that that Prayer was first
given when Jesus had been praying in a
certain place, and when he ceased one of
his disciples had asked him, Lord, wilt
thou teach us to pray ?3
(7) Luke tells us that Jesus said to
Peter, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked
to have you, that he might sift you as
wheat: but I made supplication for thee,
that thy faith fail not."4
(8) Luke records that Jesus prayed on
19. 18-22. 29. 28, 29. » 11. 1-4. * 22. 31, 32.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 169
the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they
know not what they do."1
(9) Luke adds that Jesus made his last
breath a breath of prayer. He cried with
a loud voice, "Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit: and having said this,
he gave up the ghost."2
Jesus needed to pray just as much as we
need to pray. He prayed to God for
strength because he needed strength. He
prayed to God for guidance because he
needed guidance. He prayed to God for
knowledge because he needed enlighten
ment. He prayed for miracle-working
power, and it was granted him in answer
to his holy prayer. He asked for the Holy
Spirit, and by his aid he lived a holy life.
He is our perfect Pattern in prayer. He is
our Prince of faith. Luke has emphasized
this fact as no other New Testament writer
has. We are not surprised, therefore, that
he not only has given us the example
of Jesus in the practice of the prayer life,
but he also has preserved for us some
123. 34. 2 23. 46,

170 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
additional instructions given by Jesus con
cerning prayer.
(1) Luke alone tells us that Jesus spoke
a parable to the end that men ought always
to pray and not to faint.1
(2) He tells us that Jesus in that parable
declared that the elect of God cry to him
day and night.2
(3) Luke alone gives us those three
prayer parables of Jesus, the importunate
friend,3 the importunate widow,4 and the
pompously praying Pharisee and the
piously praying publican.5 They all teach
by contrast. You do not need to pray like
the importunate friend, for you pray to a
Father in heaven who is not asleep in bed
and who is more ready to give than you
are to ask. You do not need to behave like
that importunate widow, for you do not
pray to an unjust judge, but to a loving
Father who will avenge you speedily. You
must not pray like that self-announcing
Pharisee, but like the self-denouncing and
self-renouncing publican.
1 18. 1. 2 18. 7. > 11. 5-9. * 18. 1-8. « 18. 9-14.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 171
(4) Matthew 25. 13 and Mark 13. 33 tell
us that the Lord exhorted the disciples to
"watch" in view of the coming perils and
trials of the church; but Luke adds "at every
season, making supplication, that ye may
prevail."1 (5) Luke alone tells us that when they had
come to the garden of Gethsemane Jesus
exhorted the disciple band, "Pray that ye en
ter not into temptation."2 It was only after
having given this final warning and com
mand that he went on into his own spiritual
wrestling and final victory through prayer.
If the disciples of Jesus had learned to
pray as their Master prayed, their victory
would have been as sure and as continuous
as his own. He was their Master in the
practice and the precept of prayer, as in
everything else. Luke recognizes him as
such. That title "Master," imor&Tw, is
peculiar to Luke in the New Testament.
He alone records the fact that the disciples
gave this name to Jesus; and in the third
Gospel we find it seven times.3
i 21. 36. 222. 40. s 5. 5; 8. 24; 8. 45; 9. 33; 9. 49; 17. 13.

172 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
4. In social life. It is characteristic of
the third Gospel that it pictures Jesus as
entering into all the social relations of life.
Much more frequently than the other evan
gelists Luke tells us how Jesus was enter
tained in private homes, was invited to
dinners, and sat at meat with various hosts
and sometimes with many guests; and
much of the teaching which Matthew
represents Jesus as giving in public dis
courses we find Luke recording in connec
tion with these social events.
(1) Luke tells us that a certain Simon, a
Pharisee, invited Jesus to eat with him, but
neglected to show him the usual courtesies
offered to guests, and when Jesus was
anointed by the sinful woman Simon was
told the parable of the two debtors, and
was thus gently rebuked.1
(2) Luke tells us of the reception in
the house of Martha and Mary, and of
Martha's ministration to the bodily needs
of the company while Mary ministered to
the Master's wearied soul.2
i 7. 36-50. 2 10. 38-42.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 173
(3) Luke tells us how another Pharisee
asked Jesus to dine with him, and while
they were sitting at the table Jesus uttered
that scathing rebuke of Pharisaical hy
pocrisy and sin.1 Evidently Jesus did not
consider the acceptance of any man's hos
pitality a sufficient reason for blinking any
man's sin.
(4) Luke alone tells us that on a certain
Sabbath Jesus was dining in the house of
one of the rulers of the Pharisees, and it
was there that the cure of the dropsical
man took place.2 When he saw those who
were bidden choosing the chief seats he
rebuked their selfishness.3 He told his
host that he ought not to invite such
people to dinner, but he would be blessed
if he would invite only the poor, the
maimed, the lame, and the blind.4 Then
he spoke the parable of the great supper,
the invitation to which was slighted by the
guests first bidden, and to which the people
filling the highways and the hedges were
constrained to come.5

111.37-52. 2 14.1-6. '14.7-11. * 14. 12-14. '14.15-24.

174 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
(5) By Luke only we are told of the joy
ful hospitality given to Jesus in the home
of Zacchaeus and the glad issue in salva
tion to that house.1
(6) By Luke alone we are told of his
breaking bread in the home of the two
disciples at Emmaus, and of their recog
nition of him in the familiar manner of his
doing it.2 The table manners of Jesus
must have been well known in many a
humble home in Palestine.
In all the instances we have mentioned
Luke alone has preserved the picture of
the entertainment of Jesus by private per
sons in their homes. We learn from these
narratives that Jesus did not refuse an in
vitation to dinner upon the Sabbath day,
but, on the contrary, on that day and every
day he seems to have accepted without
hesitation the proffered hospitality of rich
and poor, of friends and foes. We learn,
too, that he was just as faithful to his
ministry on these social occasions as he
was in the synagogues or at any other
1 19. 6-9. 2 24. 30, 31.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 175
place. People had their sins forgiven while
he sat at dinner. Salvation came to the
home in which he was entertained. Some
of his most stinging rebukes were ad
ministered to those who sat at meat with
him. Some of his most precious parables
and teachings were first given on these
social occasions.
(7) In the parables peculiar to the third
Gospel there are many glimpses of home
life, showing how our Lord had been ob
servant of many domestic experiences. The
master of the house who rises up and shuts
to the door and makes all safe for the night,
the neighbor who comes knocking loudly
at midnight and asking to borrow a few
loaves of bread, the woman raising a great
dust and upsetting the whole house until
she finds the lost coin, the great banquet
with music and dancing to celebrate the
prodigal's return — all these things Luke
lets us know that the Lord had seen and
had made note of for use in his preaching.
In the parable of the mustard seed Mark
says that the seed was sown in the

176 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
earth,1 and Matthew says in the field,2 but
Luke says that a man sowed it in his own
garden.3 XIII. The Gospel of Praise
We close this list of the characteristics of
the third Gospel by noting some of the
things that recall the personality of the
author with his sunny disposition that
made him beloved by all and caused his
praise to be sung in all the churches.
1. The narrative begins and it ends with
worship in the temple. The first picture
we see is that of the multitude of the peo
ple praying at the hour of incense,4 and
the last picture shown us is that of the
band of disciples, spending their time con
tinually in the temple praising God.5
2. The first chapters are filled with
hymns of praise. We find there the Mag
nificat, the song of Mary6; the Benedictus,
the song of Zacharias7; the Ave Maria, the
angel's salutation8; the Gloria in Excelsis,
the song of the angels9; and the Nunc
1 4. 31. > 13. 31. • 13. 19. * 1. 10. » 24. 53.
¦ 1. 46-55, 1 1. 68-79. s J. 28-33. » 2. 14.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 177
Dimittis, the song of Simeon.1 Sehaff says
of these: "They are the last of Hebrew
psalms, as well as the first of Christian
hymns. They can be literally translated
back into the Hebrew without losing their
beauty."2 They evidently belong to just this border
line between the two dispensations. They
are much more like the ancient psalms
than the later Christian hymns are wont
to be. They have just enough of the
dawning light of the new order to distin
guish them from the songs written before
the Dayspring from on high had visited
God's people. The Jewish forms and fig
ures are used to express a new hope and a
new joy. The promise made to Abraham
is fulfilled. It is the house of David which
is to be blessed. It is the glory of the
house of Israel which is revealed. But
redemption is wrought; salvation has come;
the day has dawned; the whole heaven is
lit up with hope; the whole heart is filled
with peace. These are Christian hymns,
1 2. 29-32. ¦ Sehaff, op. tit., p. 665.

178 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
but there is an indefiniteness about them
that marks them as belonging to the very
beginning. There is no redemption by
blood. There is no forecasting of the
cross. These things came in later. They
do not belong here in the first joy that
light has shined upon those who sat in
darkness and the shadow of death.
This Gospel begins with songs and ends
with songs, and there is singing and re
joicing all the way along. The Gospel ac
cording to Matthew began with the wail
ing at Bethlehem for the children who were
no more and it ended with sevenfold
"Woes" upon the Pharisees who would not
be saved. In the Gospel according to Luke
the saints are singing from the beginning to
the close. Bishop Alexander said of the
Magnificat: "It is the highest specimen of
the subtle influence of the song of purity,
so exquisitely described by Browning. It
is the Pippa Passes among the liturgies of
the world."1 What he has said of Mary's
song we might well say of the entire Gos-
> Alexander, The Leading Ideas ol the Gospels, p. 114.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 179
pel. It is a message whose melody has
transformed the hearts of men.
3. More often than in any other Gospel
we are told that those who received special
benefits glorified God for them. Matthew
and Mark note this fact occasionally, but
Luke notes it again and again.1 Plummer
calls our attention further to the fact that
the expression "praising God"2 is almost pe
culiar to Luke in the New Testament. The
phrase "blessing God" found in Luke 1. 64;
2. 28 occurs elsewhere in the New Testament
only in James 3. 9. The phrase, "to give
praise to God," is found only in Luke 18. 43.
4. In the two books of Matthew and
Mark the noun "joy" occurs seven times,
while in Luke and Acts it is found thirteen
times. In Matthew and Mark the verb
"to rejoice" occurs eight times, while in
Luke and Acts it is found nineteen times.
Do not these facts suggest that Luke was
about twice as joyful as the ordinary man,
and that he was praising God and glorify-

i 2. 20; 5. 25, 26; 7. 16; 13. 13; 17. 15; 18. 43.
» 2. 13; 2. 20; 19. 37; 24. 53; and Acts 2. 47; 3. 8; 3. 9.

180 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
ing God so continually that it seemed to
him to be the natural thing to do ?
5. The ministry of angels to Jesus and to
the disciples is emphasized more frequently
in the third Gospel than in any of the
others; and angels are mentioned twenty-
two times in the book of Acts. The angel
Gabriel stands at the entrance to this
Gospel, as the messenger of God to both
Zacharias and Mary, foretelling the birth of
both John the Forerunner and Jesus the
Messiah. An angel appears to the shep
herds with the good news of the Saviour's
birth and then a whole choir of the heav
enly host sing for great joy. At the time
of the great confession Jesus promised that
the Son of man would come "in his own
glory, and the glory of the Father, and of
the holy angels."1 He told his disciples,
"Every one who shall confess me before men,
him shall the Son of man also confess before
the angels of God: but he that denieth me
in the presence of men shall be denied in
the presence of the angels of God."2
1 9. 26. 2 12. 8 g.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 181
He told the disciples about the woman
who found the lost coin and then added,
"Even so, I say into you, there is joy in
the presence of the angels of God over one
sinner that repenteth.1 He declared that
those who attain to the resurrection from
the dead are equal to the angels, and die
no more.2 In the wilderness of temptation
the devil quoted the promise of the psalm
to Jesus: "He shall give his angels charge
concerning thee, to guard thee,"3 and in
the garden of agony that promise was ful
filled, for Luke records that "there ap
peared to him an angel from heaven,
strengthening him."4 However, the pas
sage is of somewhat doubtful authenticity.
As the Virgin had had her angelic vision
in the beginning, so the holy women have
their vision of angels at the tomb.5 Here
and there throughout the Gospel we hear
echoes of angel songs and catch glimpses
of angel wings. The whole narrative is
brightened with their presence and their
praise.
1 15. 10. 2 20. 36. « 4. 10. * 22. 43. * 24. 23.

182 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
XIV. The Gospel and the Man Luke
Our knowledge of the man helps us in
our study of the Gospel, for we find that
the characteristics of the man are the
characteristics of the book. Some men
may have the power of concealing their
own personality in their writings, as
Shakespeare had. We can learn little or
nothing about Shakespeare himself by
reading his plays. Most men, however,
write their own characters into the pro
ductions of their pen. Charles Lamb put
his own genial disposition into the Essays
of Elia. Thomas Carlyle put his own
crabbed self into his pamphlets and criti
cisms and histories and prophecies. As we
read them we know what sort of a man
wrote them. They are self-revealing. Car
lyle could not write another man's biog
raphy without writing his autobiography
between the lines. No more could Luke.
He writes the biography of the Perfect
Life, but he writes it out of a heart in per
fect sympathy with that transcendent Life.

BOOK EVER WRITTEN 183
He has a most beautiful subject with which
to deal, but the subject alone would never
have enabled him to make the most beau
tiful book ever written. That Life Beauti
ful had to be written into a Book Beautiful
by a soul beautiful as they.
Therefore we shall never cease to be
thankful that, although many others had
taken in hand to write a narrative of these
matters before him, Luke felt constrained
to say, "It seemed good to me also, most
excellent Theophilus, to write these things
for thee accurately and in order." The
personality revealed in that phrase, "me
also," finds explicit mention in that first
sentence of preface and dedication alone;
but the influence of that personality is ap
parent to all who have eyes to see, and
who will take the trouble to look for it, in
every following page of the Gospel. Dante
called Luke "the writer of the story of the
gentleness of Christ,"1 and only a gentle and
lovable spirit could have written a story so
beautiful in style and in content as this.
> De Mooarchia, i, 16.

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