IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM CHAPTER 1 LUKE’S HISTORY: WHAT IT PROFESSES TO BE.

AMONG the writings which are collected in the New Testament, there is included a History of the life of Christ and of the first steps in the diffusion of his teaching through the Roman world, composed in two books. These two books have been separated from one another as if they were different works, and are ordinarily called “The Gospel according to Luke” and “The Acts of the Apostles”. It is, however, certain from their language, and it is admitted by every scholar, that the two books were composed by a single author as parts of a single historical work on. a uniform plan. After a period of independent existence, this History in two books was incorporated in the Canon, and its unity was broken up: the first book was placed among the group of four Gospels, and the second was left apart.

Professor Blass has pointed out a trace of this original independent existence in the famous manuscript which was presented by the Reformer Beza to the University of Cambridge. In that manuscript the name of John is spelt in two different ways, the form Joanes being almost invariably used in Luke and Acts, and Joannes in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John. That slight difference in orthography leads us back to the time of some old copyist, who used as his authority a manuscript of the History of Luke, in which the spelling Joanes was employed, and different manuscripts of the other Gospels containing the spelling Joannes.

Probably the spelling Joanes was that employed by the original author; and it is adopted in Westcott and Hort’s edition throughout the New Testament, except in Acts 4:6 and Revelation 22:8.

This historical work in two books is attributed by tradition to Luke, the companion and pupil of Paul. We are not here concerned with that tradition. Since all scholars are agreed that the same author wrote both books, we shall use the traditional name to indicate him merely for the sake of brevity, as it is necessary to have some name by which to designate the author; but we shall found no argument upon the authorship.

Like Professor Blass, I see no reason to doubt the tradition; but those who do not accept the tradition may treat the name Luke in these pages as a mere sign to indicate the author, whoever he may be.

The point with which we are here specially concerned is the trustworthiness of this author as a historian. Many facts are recorded by him alone, and it is a serious question whether or not they can be accepted on his sole authority.

This is a subject on which there prevails a good deal of misapprehension and even confusion of thought. There are many who seem to think that they show fairness of mind by admitting that Luke has erred in this point or in that, while they still cling to their belief in other things, which he and he alone, records, on the ground that in those cases there is no clear evidence against him. But it must be said that this way of reasoning is really mistaken and unjustifiable: it refuses to make the inference that necessarily follows from the first admission.

While human nature is fallible, and any man may make a slip in some unimportant detail, it is absolutely necessary to demand inexorably from a real historian accuracy in the essential and critical facts. We may pardon an occasional instance of bias or prejudice; for who is wholly free from it?

But we cannot pardon any positive blunder in the really important points.

If a historian is convicted of error in such a vital point, he ceases to be trustworthy on his own account; and every statement that he makes must gain credit from testimony external to him, or from general reasons and arguments, before we accept it. Especially must this be the case with the ancient historians, who as a rule hide their authorities and leave us in the dark as to the reasons and evidence that guided them to formulate their statements. There may be — there always are — many facts which the poorest chronicler records correctly; but we accept each of these, not because of the recorder’s accurate and sound judgment in selecting his facts, but because of other reasons external to him. If there is in such a historian any statement that is neither supported nor contradicted by external evidence, it remains uncertain and is treated as possibly true, but it shares in the suspicion roused by the one serious blunder.

If we claim — and I have elsewhere in the most emphatic terms claimed — a high rank for Luke as regards trustworthiness, we must look fairly and squarely at the serious errors that are charged against him. If the case is proved against him in any of these, we must fairly admit the inevitable inference. If, on the other hand, we hold that the case is not proved, it is quite justifiable and reasonable, in a period of history so obscure as the first century, to plead, as many have done, that, while we cannot in the present dearth of information solve the difficulty completely, we are obliged, in accordance with our perception of the high quality of the author’s work as a whole, to accept his statement in certain cases where he is entirely uncorroborated. These must for the present rank among the difficulties of Luke. There are difficulties in every important Greek author, and each difficulty is the scholar’s opportunity.

But it must be the aim of those who believe in the high character of Luke’s History, to discover new evidence which shall remove these difficulties and justify the controverted statements. The progress of discovery has recently placed in our hands the solution of one most serious difficulty and the justification of one much controverted statement; and the following pages are written with the intention of showing what is the bearing of this discovery on the general question as to the historical credibility of Luke.

The whole spirit and tone of modern commentaries on Luke’s writings depend on the view which the commentators take on this question. In some cases the commentator holds that no historical statement made by Luke is to be believed, unless it can be proved from authorities independent of him. The commentary on Luke then degenerates into a guerrilla warfare against him; the march of the narrative is interrupted at every step by a series of attacks in detail. Hardly any attempt is made to estimate as a whole, or to determine what is the most favorable interpretation that can be placed on any sentence in the work. There is a manifest predilection in favor of the interpretation which is discordant with external facts or with other statements in Luke. If it is possible to read into a sentence a meaning which contradicts another passage in the same author, that is at once assumed to be the one intended by him; and his incapacity and untrustworthiness are illustrated in the commentary.

But no work of literature could stand being treated after this fashion.

Imagine the greatest of pagan authors commented on in such a way; any slip of expression exaggerated or distorted; sentences strained into contradiction with other passages of the same or other authors; the commentary directed to magnify every fault, real or imaginary, but remaining silent about every excellence. There have occasionally been such commentaries written about great classical authors; and they have always been condemned by the general consent of scholars. Even where the bias of the commentator was due to a not altogether unhealthy revolt against general over-estimate of the author under discussion, the world of scholarship has always recognized that the criticism which looks only for faults is useless, misleading, unprogressive, and that. it defeats itself, when it tries to cure an evil by a much greater evil. Scholarship and learning sacrifice their vitality, and lose all that justifies their existence, when they cease to be fair and condescend to a policy of “malignity”.

In this discussion it is obviously necessary to conduct the investigation as one of pure history, to apply to it the same canons of criticism and interpretation that are employed in the study of the other ancient historians, and to regard as our subject, not “the Gospel according to Luke,” but the History composed by Luke. The former name is apt to suggest prepossession and prejudice: the latter is purely critical and dispassionate.

In estimating the character and qualities of an author we must look first of all to his opportunities. Had he good means of reaching the truth, or was his attempt to attain thorough knowledge of the facts made in the face of great difficulties? An historian ought to give us a statement of his own claims to be received as trustworthy, or an estimate of the character of the evidence which he had at his disposal.

Luke has not failed to put clearly before his readers what character he claims for his history. He has given us, in the prefatory paragraph of his Gospel, a clear statement of the intention with which he wrote his history, and of the qualifications which give him the right to be accepted as an authority. He was not an eye-witness of the remarkable events which he is proceeding to record, but was one of the second generation to whom the information had been communicated by those “who were from the beginning eye-witnesses and ministers of the word”. The simplest interpretation of his words is that he claims to have received much of his information from the mouths of eye-witnesses; and, on careful study of the preface as a whole, it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that he deliberately makes this claim. Any other interpretation, though it might be placed on one clause by itself, is negatived by the drift of the paragraph as a whole.

Thus Luke claims to have had access to authorities of the first rank, persons who had seen and heard and acted in the events which he records.

He makes no distinction as to parts of his narrative. He claims the very highest authority for it as a whole.

In the second place, Luke claims to have studied and comprehended every event in its origin and development, (parhkolouqhko>ti a]nwqen pa~sin ajkribw~v ) i .e ., to have investigated the preliminary circumstances, the genesis and growth of what he writes about. Exactness and definiteness of detail in his narrative — these are implied in the word ajkwqen : investigation and personal study implied in the word parhkolouqhko>ti : tracing of events from their causes and origin — implied in a]nwqen : such are the qualities which Luke declares to be his justification for writing a narrative, when many other narratives already were in existence; and he says emphatically that this applies to all that he narrates.

The expression used clearly implies that Luke began to write his narrative, because he was already in possession of the knowledge gained by study and investigation; as he begins, he is in the position of one who already has acquired the information needed for his purpose. This is implied in the perfect parhkolouqhko>ti . The rendering in the Authorized and the Revised Version does not bring this out quite clearly: from the English words — “it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order” — one might infer that the study and tracing of the course of events was resolved upon with the view of writing the history. But in the Greek that meaning would require the aorist participle. With the perfect participle the meaning must be “as I already possess the knowledge, it seemed good to me, like the others, to write a formal narrative for your use.”

On this point, I am glad to find myself in agreement with Professor Sanday, who refuses to assume that Luke “began with the intention of writing a history, and accumulated materials deliberately in view of this intention all through his career”. We cannot assume that, for the author, by implication, denies it. But we may safely assume that he had both the intelligent curiosity of an educated Greek, and the eager desire for knowledge about the facts of the Savior’s life, natural in a believer who rested his faith and his hopes on the life and death of Christ.

Possibly some one may say that it is assuming too much when I speak of the author as an “educated” Greek. But any one who knows Greek can gather that from the preface alone. No one who had not real education and feeling for style could have written that sentence, so well balanced, expressed in such delicately chosen terms, so concise, and so full of meaning.

In the third place, Luke declares his intention to give a comprehensive narrative of the events in order from first to last (kaqexh~v soi gra>yai ).

This does not necessarily imply a chronological order but a rational order, making things comprehensible, omitting nothing that is essential for full and proper understanding. In a narrative so arranged it stands to reason that, in general, the order will be chronological, though of course the order of logical exposition sometimes overrides simple chronological sequence (see chapter 10). Further, it is involved in the idea of a well-arranged History that the scale on which each event is narrated should be according to its importance in the general plan.

Finally the account which Luke gives is, as he emphatically declares, trustworthy and certain (i[na ejpignw~|v thleian ) His expression indubitably implies that he was not entirely satisfied with the existing narratives. He does not, it is true, say that explicitly; he utters no word of criticism on his predecessors, and he declares that they got their information from eye-witnesses. But his expression distinctly implies that he considered that some advance was still to be made, either as regards completeness, or as regards orderly exposition of the facts, or as regards accuracy. In all probability the fault in the existing narratives which Luke had especially in mind was their incompleteness. They embodied the tradition of eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word “from the beginning” (ajp j ajrch~v ), which seems to imply “the beginning of the preaching of the Word”. We have to think of narratives in the form of the Gospel of Mark, with the opening: “the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” — narratives that commence with some such stage as the baptism. In contrast to these narratives Luke claims to trace the whole series of events from their-origin, i .e ., from the higher or preliminary stage out of which they were derived (a]nwqen ).

It seems beyond doubt that, in speaking of the origin, Luke has in view the narrative which he proceeds to give of the birth and early days of the Savior. Therein lay the most serious addition that he made to the narratives of his predecessors; and for that addition in particular he claims the same high character as for the narrative as a whole: he has it from firstclass authorities — exact, complete and trustworthy (see chapter 4).

In view of the emphatic claim which Luke makes, that his whole narrative rests on the highest authority and is accurate and certain, it is obvious that we cannot agree with the attitude of those scholars, who, while accepting this whole History as the work of the real Luke, the follower and disciple and physician and intimate friend of Paul, are wont to write about the inadequacy of his authorities, the incompleteness of his information, the puzzling variation in the scale and character of his narrative according as he had good or inferior authorities to trust to. The writer of the preface would not admit that view: he claims to state throughout what is perfectly trustworthy.

It may be allowed, consistently with his own claim, that his information was not everywhere equally good and complete. Thus, for example, he would naturally have heard much more about the facts of the Savior’s life, than about the events of the few years that followed upon his death: attention would be concentrated on the former, and the latter would be much less thought about or inquired into. But this view cannot be carried far without coming into contradiction with the profession of the preface.

And, above all, those who admit that the Luke of the Epistles, the friend and companion of Paul, was the author of this History must not attempt to explain the account given by Luke of important events in Paul’s life, such as the Apostolic Council ( Acts 15), by the supposition that the author was not acquainted with Paul’s account of the facts and character of that most critical event. He who had been Paul’s companion during the stormy years following that Council, when its decision was the subject of keen debate and rival interpretations, must have known what were Paul’s views on the subject.

It is important to note that Luke in this preface distinguishes between the written accounts and the tradition of the eye-witnesses (kaqwdosan oiJ aujto>ptai ). So far as the actual word tradition, or Paradosis, goes, it might, and in many cases does, refer to written narrative; but in the present case the logic of the passage clearly implies a pointed distinction between tradition and written narrative. There existed when Luke wrote, on the one hand, oral tradition from eye-witnesses, and, on the other hand, many narratives written by those who learned from the eye-witnesses and put the tradition in literary form; but there were as yet no written narratives composed by eye-witnesses. This inference is drawn by Professor Blass, and is distinctly implied in Luke’s preface. Luke may have known Mark’s Gospel, and probably used it; but he did not know the other two Gospels.

There can only be one conclusion, when the terms of Luke’s preface are duly weighed. Either an author who begins with a declaration such as that had mixed freely with many of the eye-witnesses and actors in the events which he proceeds to record, or he is a thorough impostor, who consciously and deliberately aims at producing belief in his exceptional qualifications in order to gain credit for his History. The motive for such an imposture could hardly be mere empty desire to be considered a true narrator. The man of that age, who was deliberately outraging truth, felt no such overpowering passion for the distinction of having attained abstract truth in history. He must have sought to put on the semblance of truth and authority in order to gain some end by conciliating belief in his narrative; he must have desired to gain credit in order that his party or his opinions might triumph. They who declare that the author belonged to a later age are bound to prove that there was some such intention in his mind.

Hitherto every attempt to show that the historian had such an aim in view has ended in complete failure. With regard to Book I., the Gospel, the attempt is ludicrous; the narrative is so transparently simple and natural that hardly any amount of prepossession could read into it such aims.

With Book II., the Acts, we are not here concerned. Elsewhere I have tried to show what a single eye the author has in that book to the simple statement of facts as they actually happened; it seems to me to be almost as transparently simple and natural as the Gospel.

No rational theory, such as would for a moment be admitted in regard to an ordinary classical author, has ever been advanced to account for the supposition of deliberate imposture in the claims to credit advanced by Luke. If the author was an impostor, his work remains one of the most incomprehensible and unintelligible facts in literary history. One can imagine, for example, that Peter was written by a person who was so filled with the conviction that he was giving the views of his master, Peter the Apostle, as to express the letter in Peter’s name; the case might seem to him (from a mistaken point of view) to be not wholly unlike the expression of the old prophets, “thus saith the Lord”. That is a conceivable and rational hypothesis, though whether it be true or false we cannot say, and need not now inquire. No such rational hypothesis has yet been advanced to account for Luke’s far more elaborate, and therefore more deliberate, imposture.

But this abstract and rather intangible argument must yield to the demonstration of hard facts. So much we freely grant. Now it is asserted that the historian whom we are studying has been guilty of such serious and gross blunders, when he touches on matters of general history, that his information cannot have been so good as he pretends, and therefore he must be claiming too much when he arrogates such an authoritative character for his History. We shall feel bound to accept that argument; and, if the blunders are demonstrated, we must accept the necessary inferences and abandon our championship of his accuracy and trustworthiness. But let us first examine the demonstration.

We cannot investigate in this volume every “blunder” that is charged against Luke; but we shall treat one rather fully. If I may judge both from personal feeling, from conversation, and from many books, the “blunder” which most contributes to rouse prejudice against him as an historian, occurs at the very beginning, in that same episode on which he evidently lays such stress in his preface — the story of the Birth of Christ. In this story the enrollment or census of Palestine in the time of Quirinius is a critical point; and the doubt whether any such census as Luke describes was made, is the cause of important and far-reaching results. It is declared to be a blunder, or rather a complication of blunders; and if that be so, the entire story must be relegated to the realm of mythology, and the writer who mistakes fable for fact, and tries to prop up his mistake by an error of the grossest kind, can retain no credit as an historical authority.

In conclusion, we shall briefly refer to one or two other typical so-called “errors” in Luke.

CHAPTER - THE DESIGN AND UNITY OF LUKE’S HISTORY AS has been stated, a historian may make a slip in some detail without losing claim to be trustworthy: no man and no historian is perfect. But he must not found his reasoning upon the error. Facts that are fundamental in his argument must be free from slip or fault. There must be no mistake on a critical point.

If we consider Luke’s design, we shall see that the “error” which forms our subject affects the very life-blood of the work and the atmosphere in which the story moves. But every great work of literature like Luke’s History must be reinterpreted by each new age for itself; and it is more useful to describe what views are now held as to the plan and design of that History, than to sketch the design.

The consummate literary skill shown in Luke’s work must impress every reader, who allows free play to his sense of literary effect. We feel that in this work we have to deal with an author who handles his materials freely and with perfect mastery. The unity of style and treatment in the narrative, its dramatic character, varying according to the country and the action and the character of every speaker, so Greek in Athens, so “provincial” in the Roman colonies Lystra and Philippi, so Hebraic in Galilee or by the Jordan, and so Lukan everywhere — this character and individuality, shown in numberless ways, make it clear that the author was no clipper-up of fragments from other writers, no mere scissors-and-paste editor of scraps, no mere second-hand composer, dependent on the accidental character of his “sources,” according to the elaborate and somewhat pedantic theories that have been fashionable recently in Germany, but are already becoming discredited there. Only a person who has blinded himself to literary feeling by the strength of a fixed prejudice, could fail to perceive the literary quality of this History, and to infer from it the real unity of the work.

When a commentator on the text of Luke, observing that Luke “can be as Hebraistic as the Septuagint and as free from Hebraisms as Plutarch,” and that “he is Hebraistic in describing Hebrew society,” and Greek in describing Greek society, refrains from expressing any opinion as to whether this result is attained “intentionally or not,” that is a very proper reserve for a commentator to maintain. He is not called upon to determine in the preface to a commentary whether this varying character has been given intentionally to the work by its author, or has remained attached to it by chance, according as the character of the different documents on which Luke depended continued to exist in his completed work. But the literary judgment will not hesitate. Luke is so completely master of his materials, and handles the Greek language with such ease and power, that he must have intended to give his work the literary qualities which are observable in it. A rational criticism must always assume that an author intended to attain that delicately graduated effect which in fact he has attained.

But the interval which separated the historian from the events which he records is an important element in estimating his design. Great literary power may tell against his trustworthiness, by helping him to hide the poverty of his materials; and that view has been maintained as regards Luke by writers of the type of Baur, Zeller and Renan. They argued that Luke was an able and beautiful but not very well-informed author, who lived long after the events which he records, at a time when all actors in those events had died, and when accurate knowledge of facts was difficult to acquire. In addition to the skillful arguments by which they showed up a series of internal discrepancies and improbabilities, the apparent discordance between the narrative (especially in the second book) and the general scheme and character of Roman Imperial administration in the Eastern provinces, seemed to many to weigh heavily against the idea that the book embodied a really trustworthy account of events.

In the picture of Christian history during the first century, according to the accepted interpretation of Luke’s History, there was no apparent relation between the development of Christian influence and the existing facts of the Roman empire. The modern writers who professed to found their views upon Luke, after a few picturesque paragraphs about Roman proconsuls and armies and the march of the Roman eagles, plunged into Christian history, and the reader saw nothing more of Rome except when a Gallio or a Sergius Paullus obtruded himself on the scene with something of the air of a bad actor equipped in ill-fitting Roman dress. The life of the empire was wanting: that consisted, not in eagles and proconsuls, but in order and organization, and in the development and Romanisation of society.

Those who studied Roman history first of all, and Christian history only in a secondary degree, were inevitably driven to the conclusion that a work, upon which was founded such a lifeless and spiritless picture of part of the Roman world in the first century, could not be a product of that century, but must have originated at a later date, when the life of the time described was no longer understood.

But a most important part of Luke’s Second Book is concerned with Asia Minor and Greece; and any one who has gone through the long, slow process by which in recent years the lost history of Asia Minor has been in some degree recreated by the work of a number of scholars, and their studies Luke without prepossession, must observe, that his references to those lands have a marked and peculiar individuality — a certain matterof- fact tone — which is utterly unlike the vague style of a later author, narrating the events of a past age with the purpose of showing their bearing on the questions of his own day. One feels that, in all that concerns Asia Minor, Luke is treating real facts with thorough knowledge.

As knowledge of Asia Minor grew, one perceived that Luke’s statements explained some most obscure problems by setting in a new light the evidence that had long seemed unintelligible. Luke takes us right into the midst of the political development of central Asia Minor, when Roman organizing skill was treating one by one the successive problems of government amid a semi-Oriental population, regarding some districts as still too rude to be Romanised, and placing them under the educative care of dependent kings, treating others as already worthy of the honor of being incorporated in the Roman empire as fractions of a great province, and fostering among them a spirit of pride in the Imperial connection and contempt for the extra-provincial barbarians.

It is a difficult thing to revivify and rearrange the details of that magnificent political work; and in some respects I erred in my first attempt to recreate the picture of the Imperial scheme for Romanising the inner lands by gradually building them up into a great Roman province called Galatia. But the errors (though vexatious to myself as I gradually came to see more clearly) were not so important as to disturb materially the truth of the picture in its general effect. It had been given me, through intense longing after truth, to catch the main outlines correctly, and to understand that Luke’s brief references to the state of central Asia Minor plunged the reader into the heart of the conflict between Graeco-Roman forms of life and the amorphous barbarism of a Phrygian and Lycaonian population. In that state of the land, to be Phrygian or Lycaonian was to be unenlightened and non-Roman, to be Roman was to be a loyal member of the province Galatia. Such a state of things could not have been conceived or understood by a writer of the second century, when Rome had long been supreme over the whole of Asia Minor, and when the opposition between the contending ideas, Roman or Galatic on the one hand, native (i .e ., Phrygian, Pisidian, etc .) and non-Roman on the other, had ceased to be a real force in the country.

But if this view which opened gradually before us was correct, then we had to abandon the current, generally accepted opinion, which. admitted no Roman conceptions in the terms relating to geography and political classification in Acts, which saw, for example, in the “Galatic Territory,” not a Roman province, but the country where Attalus, King of Pergamos, had confined the Galatae or Galli about 230 B.C. We must regard Paul as a Roman, using Roman terms and forms, just as he accepted the Roman classification and system of administration.

As it happened, this implied and necessitated a radical revolution in the interpretation of the book of Acts and of early Christian history as a whole. It meant that the connection and the conflict between Christianity and the Roman State did not begin in the second century, as was the almost unanimous opinion of the greatest authorities during the halfcentury preceding 1890 (when Neumann’s book carried back the beginning to the reign of Domitian, A.D. 81-96). It meant that the conscious and recognized relations between the New Religion and the Roman Administration began when Barnabas and Saul stood before the Roman proconsul of Cyprus, when the latter, hitherto junior and subordinate to Barnabas, took the lead, and the supposed Hebrew wise man named Saul stood forth as the Greek Paul and impressed the Roman governor by declaring the principles of the new Catholic, world-wide religion. It meant that the first important step in the spreading of this Catholic religion was made, when Paul and Barnabas crossed Taurus from the secluded and unimportant Province Pamphylia, into the important Province Galatia — the province which embodied all that was Roman in Central Asia Minor, the province in which the Roman element was involved in the sharpest antagonism to the rude ignorance of an Oriental, priest-guided, ritual-loving native population — and planted their feet on the great highway of intercourse between the East and the West.

Further, it now began to grow clear that some of the discrepancies which had been the mainstay of Baur’s and Zeller’s argument, were due to the stereotyped misunderstanding of the Roman side of early Christian history, Both the general character and many details of that history were distorted, when contemplated through the medium of the dominant theory.

The life of the early Church lay in constant intercommunication between all its parts; its health and growth were dependent on the free circulation of the life-blood of common thought and feeling. Hence it was first firmly seated on the great lines of communication across the empire, leading from its origin in Jerusalem to its imperial center in Rome. It had already struck root in Rome within little more than twenty years after the crucifixion, and it had become really strong in the great city about thirty years after the apostles began to look round and out from Jerusalem. This marvelous development was possible only because the seed of the new thought floated free on the main currents of communication, which were ever sweeping back and forward between the heart of the empire and its outlying members. Paul, who mainly directed the great movement, threw himself boldly and confidently into the life of the time; he took the empire as it was, accepted its political conformation and arrangement, and sought only to touch the spiritual and moral life of the people, while he always advised them to obey the existing Government and conform to the existing laws of the State and of society, so far as they did not lead into direct conflict with Christian principles.

But the formerly accepted interpretation of the Second Book of Luke’s History carried Christianity away into eddies and backwaters of the ocean of Roman Imperial development, and placed there the scene of the first great conflict between Judaistic provincialism and the world-wide Pauline conception of Christianity. It was blind to the true character of Paul’s work, which sought to spiritualize the life and educative development of the empire by affecting the main currents of its circulation and intercommunication; and it tried to distinguish the lines along which the new thought spread from the lines along which the life of the world was throbbing.

The dominance of that interpretation produced a position, the analogue of which still exists in respect of some other questions. That theory led straight into a series of difficulties, for which no rationally satisfying solution could be found; and the scholars who treated Luke’s History were divided broadly into two classes. Some saw so clearly the unity, the power and the personal quality in the work, that they refused to be led astray by the serious difficulties in which they were involved on certain points. Others realized so strongly the difficulties, that they formed their judgment from them alone and ignored the quality of the History as a whole.

The progress of discovery is indubitably tending to show that the scholars of the former class were, on the whole, in the right; but this should not blind us to the immense service rendered by those of the other class, who kept the difficulties clear before the world’s consciousness.

Moreover, it must be admitted that the scholars who judged by literary feeling and the general quality of Luke’s History, were not always wise in their treatment of the difficulties. Instead of frankly acknowledging that the difficulties were inexplicable in our present state of knowledge, they sometimes attempted by ingenious special pleading to minimize them, and then claimed that the difficulties were solved. Their vigorous perception of the central and most important fact, viz ., the first-hand directness of Luke’s style, made them so thoroughly convinced that the difficulties must be explicable, that they were almost blinded to the strength of the arguments against them, and sometimes thought they had explained difficulties, when they had merely shut their eyes to them.

The result was that those who, like myself, had been accustomed only to classical Greek, and were too young to appreciate fully the literary quality of a writer in such an unfamiliar form of Greek, and who were determined to understand clearly and precisely every step in reasoning, were repelled by what seemed to us to be pure prejudice and unwillingness to admit reason, and were driven violently over to the opposite side; and it was a long and slow process to work back again to the side against which we had acquired such a strong prepossession.

In such a state of mind it was natural to rest for a time in a theory of double authorship, that Luke’s History was partly excellent and partly second-rate (as I was almost inclined to do while writing The Church in the Roman Empire ). One could feel that Luke’s Second Book was characterized by such singular accuracy in all details bearing on the society and the political organization of the Eastern provinces, that the author’s expression in many places could not have been framed without first-hand knowledge, and that his point of view was distinctly of the first century, or rather the pre-Domitianic type, as distinguished from that which was produced by the persecution of Domitian.

But, on the other hand, parts of the History seemed to involve insoluble difficulties and discrepancies.

Hence, while no distinct theory was stated in my treatise, yet the language used in it sometimes pointed towards a theory of dual authorship.

But such ideas were utterly inconsistent with the unity of plan, the vigorous controlling intellect which revealed itself throughout Luke’s work; and the impossibility to stand still in such a halfway position, clinging to rival and inconsistent views, became rapidly manifest. It was not possible to introduce maturer views into the book already published, even in a new edition; for the sole merit that it possessed lay in its being perfectly unprejudiced and unfettered by any theory as to the composition of Luke’s History. After forming a definite opinion about that History as a whole, it was no longer possible to write as if one had no opinion. Therefore, the book had to remain as it was, with its defect of being not self-consistent in respect of Luke, since the want of systematic unity was the guarantee of its being the unprejudiced effort of a mind groping for truth.

It became more and more clear that it is impossible to divide Luke’s History into parts, attributing to one portion the highest authority as the first-hand narrative of a competent and original authority, while regarding the rest as of quite inferior mold. If the author of one part is the real Luke, or any other person standing in similar close relations with the circle surrounding the apostles (particularly Paul), then that same person must be the author of the whole, and must have brought to bear on his whole work the same qualities which made one part so excellent. It may be that he found it more difficult to feel perfectly at home in the Palestinian part of his narrative than where the scene lies in the Aegean lands. It may be that in the parts intervening between the Resurrection or the Ascension (with which many, probably all, of his written authorities ended) and the beginning of Paul’s personal recollections, he found it harder to obtain perfectly satisfactory knowledge. But we cannot lay much stress on these causes of diversity in character. The History must stand as a whole, and be judged as a whole. If one part shows striking historical excellence, so must all; if any part shows a conspicuous historical blunder, we must be very suspicious of a theory which attributes surpassing qualities to another part.

In regard to the Second Book of Luke, my arguments are set forth elsewhere, and, while I feel conscious how imperfectly they have been stated, and how much better the work ought to have been done, I have nothing of consequence either to retract or to modify, though much might be added. After three years more of study, Luke appears more clearly than ever to me as one of the great historians.

Such a view is unfashionable; and there is in some quarters a disposition to regard it even as a crime and a personal affront to the distinguished scholars who have thought differently. It is true that I have advocated a view diametrically opposed to their judgment, and that, if I be right, they have erred in a critical question of the utmost importance and interest. But I have not sought to give the discussion this personal application. It is not a crime to differ from another scholar as to the date and quality of any of the disputed classical works; and my desire has been to proceed in regard to Luke on the same lines as in the questions of extra-Biblical scholarship.

One of the scholars whom I reverence most deeply in all Europe differs very strongly from my judgment as to the authority of the Peutinger Table , but the difference makes no change in my profound respect and admiration for him, and none in the great kindness which he has always shown to a beginner like me. Similarly there is no reason why Luke’s authority as a historian should not be treated as a justifiable subject for discussion. I entertain, and have always professed, great admiration for many scholars whose opinions I dispute on some points of Christian history, and from their learning I have gained much.

It is a more serious evil that a disposition is sometimes shown to terrorize the investigator by the array of learned opinion on the opposite side, and to treat it as the necessary mark of a reasonable scholar in this subject, that he should be always searching for and finding proofs of the late date, and inaccuracy, and composite character of Luke’s History. It is comforting to certain minds to have some one whose opinions they can accept implicitly; and it would almost appear that a few of our English scholars attribute to the German commentators on the Bible that inerrancy which our parents or grandparents attributed to the text. They set up an idol, and condemn as an impious iconoclast him that sees the idol’s feet of clay, even while he reverences the image.

But in matters of scholarship it is not safe to follow implicitly any scholar, however great he may be; and we appeal to fact and reason against the dogmatism which seeks to close the case, refuses to admit further argument, and brands as an “apologist” any defender of Luke’s character as a historian.

Not long ago it was reckoned by many as essential to a respectable scholar that he should pooh-pooh Luke as a second-century writer. Now we are permitted, on the highest German authority, to date him in the first century. We are permitted also to speak of certain parts and scenes in the Second Book of his History as showing marvelous accuracy and great power of conceiving and setting before the reader a life-like picture of what actually occurred. But we are not permitted to infer that he is a trustworthy historian, and that the presumption is in favor of his accuracy, even in cases, where no clear external evidence corroborates his statements.

We might ask whether it is a probable or possible view that the author can be so unequal to himself, that in one place he can show very high qualities as an accurate historian, and that in another place, when dealing with events equally within the range of his opportunities for acquiring knowledge, he can prove himself incompetent to distinguish between good and bad, true and false. He that shows the historic faculty in part of his work has it as a permanent possession.

The power of vivid conception and accurate description in concise, wellchosen, pregnant language, which Luke admittedly shows in some passages, proves that he could estimate correctly the comparative importance of details, select the essential points, and skillfully group them. An author fixes a standard for himself at his best, and is most unlikely to sink below it. The true critic will recognize this, and will not rest satisfied till he has traced the same qualities throughout the work.

That method of studying Luke has not yet been consistently employed in the light of modern historical, geographical and antiquarian knowledge. The attempt to carry it out consistently will be stigmatized by those who dislike its results as pedantic insistence on minute points of language and mere “Mikrologie”; but it must be made in the face of such prohibition.

On this subject there are only two alternatives. It grows more and more clear that compromise — such as is common among those by whom it is esteemed fair-minded to accept as much as possible from the results of the destructive school — is impossible. The mind that is really logical and self-consistent cannot admit part of the so-called “critical” view — what ought to be called the uncritical view — and yet on the whole cling to the belief in real Lukan authorship. Luke’s History is of such a strongly marked character what are called the “gaps” or omissions in it are so distinct, or, in other words, the proportion of the parts in it is so peculiars — the insistence upon some facts and the summary dismissal of others with a bare word forms so prominent a feature of the work — that either the author had a distinct idea of plan and purpose and comparative importance, according to which his whole narrative was ordered and guided, or he was not the real Luke.

Occasionally it is possible, with some plausible and deceptive show of reason, to maintain that the length at which some incident is narrated is due merely to the author’s possessing exceptionally good sources of information about it. Take for example, the long description of the voyage From Philippi to Caesarea. That description is given in the words of one who was present on the ships. It therefore rests on authority of the highest character; and it might plausibly be maintained that the exceptionally excellent nature of the information led the author to devote an exceptional amount of space to it.

But if a believer in the Lukan authorship of the History attempts in a consistent way to carry out that theory, he is led into hopeless contradiction. Situations at which the real Luke must have been present are dismissed in the curtest way or omitted altogether, while others in which he was not present are described at great length. If the author so carefully chronicles the progress past Chios, and Samos, and Cos, and Rhodes, and Myra, and Cyprus, for the sole reason that he was present and knew what happened, why should he, after describing so carefully and minutely the progress of the Gospel in Corinth and Ephesus, or its comparative failure in Athens, which he had not seen, sum up in a word the two years in Rome, where he was present — years which must have been so full of important events and impressive preaching? Why should he omit the two years’ residence in Caesarea, except as regards two isolated scenes, and describe so much more fully the previous twelve days’ residence there?

Why should events in which Paul and Luke were both keenly interested, and as to which they must have known each other’s views — why should such events be narrated at great length by Luke, and in a way which shows, on the accepted interpretation, utter ignorance of Paul’s views?

No answer has ever been given to these questions. In truth, he who admits that theory must., if he is logical, go on, like Professor Harnack and Professor McGiffert, to deny that the real Luke was the author.

But it is at once the special strength and the peculiar weakness of English scholarship that, even when it makes a mistake, it shrinks with a healthy and saving instinct from carrying out the mistake to extremes; it is not consistent with itself where to be consistent means to go further astray.

With its practical sense it gains the chief result — truth in the main. It returns to the right path when its course is becoming clearly divergent; and often it returns before it has erred so far from the true path as to become completely conscious of its wandering. Hence, it disapprovingly regards him that remonstrates with it for its want of consistency, on the ground that “he hunts down the statements of his opponents into what seem to him to be their consequences”. In this country we are, perhaps, too apt to think that a scholar is responsible only for what he has explicitly stated, and not for the logical consequences of his views.

On the other hand, it is at once the strength and the weakness of German scholarship that it is thoroughly and remorselessly logical, that it carries out its views with steadfast and unwavering consistency, that it works out every theory to its consequences, that it is always conscious where it has gone, and is never untrue to itself, even though it thereby sacrifices the real object of its pursuit. When it goes wrong it demonstrates its own error with absolute conclusiveness, for it never works round out of the straight line back towards the true path.

A good example of the attempt at compromise and of the illogicality of such an attempt, is found in the main subject of our investigation — Luke’s story of the birth of Christ and the first enrollment of Palestine.

The attack directed against the credibility of that episode has been strong, confident, almost triumphant in its tone. The defense has been rather timid and hesitating; the introduction of Quirinius’s name has been abandoned almost universally as a demonstrated blunder; and even the reality of the “First Enrollment” has been championed by Luke’s advocates in a very reluctant and half-hearted way.

But to make even one of these concessions is practically and logically to abandon the case, so far as Luke’s character as a historian is concerned. He who says that “Luke is in error in the name of Quirinius,” admits that, even when Luke had learned a fact from some authority, he could not keep himself free from a huge blunder in stating it.

Beyond all doubt, the suspicion entertained about Luke’s History is due to the belief that, when he touches on general history, his references are usually demonstrably false, as contrary to historical record, and are rarely or never conclusively supported by other historians. He is the only Evangelist who has attempted to place his narrative in its proper relation to contemporary history; and when he tries to do so, almost every one, even most of his defenders, admit that he cannot do it without making errors.

It is generally admitted that (as Canon Gore puts it) “the chronological data in Luke 2 and <420301> 3 were supplied by himself and not by his sources”. Luke gives us the result of his own investigations into the historical surroundings of the life of Christ. But if his investigations were of such a character that he confused the census of 8 B.C. with that of 6-7 A.D., and imagined that Christ was born “in the days of Herod the King,” during a census held about ten or eleven years after the death of Herod — when Herod was king, and yet when a Roman viceroy was organizing the new province of Palestine — of what value were his investigations, or his ideas about past history, or his evidence? What should we think of the historical qualities of a modern author who began an account of the life of Hereward the Wake by confusing between Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror? The one case would be no worse than the other.

The first attempt that the author makes to connect his subject with contemporary history shows hopeless ignorance of that history.

It is no wonder in these circumstances that Luke’s History has fallen under suspicion so strong that the case in its favor has been generally considered weaker than that in favor of any other important book in the New Testament. When I ventured, in defiance of the general verdict, to argue that Luke is a real historian — and “the first and the essential quality of the great historian is truth” — even so conservative and so friendly a scholar as Professor Sanday found that my “treatment of Luke as a historian seems too optimistic”.

But it is an essentially inconsistent position to fancy that we can accept three-fourths or nine-tenths of what Luke says as true, and reject the rest.

Destroy a historian’s credit in one critical point, and there remains naught.

The confounding of one census with another in this case would be one of the serious things, which condemn the would-be historian as hopelessly incapable of accuracy or sound historical judgment. His statements cease to have any value in themselves; we can in each case only seek for a source, and estimate the probability of the statement by the authority of the source, after subtracting the likelihood of some other blunder having been made by Luke in using his source.

To judge how seriously this blunder affects the author’s character, how inevitable are the inferences which the logical mind must deduce from the blunder, we must glance at two preliminary points which will form the subject of chapters 3. and 4.

CHAPTER - LUKE’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE ROMAN WORLD The reign of Augustus, as is well known, is enveloped in the deepest obscurity. While we are unusually well informed about the immediately preceding period of Roman history, and for part of the reign of his successor, Tiberius, we possess the elaborate and accurate, though in some respects strongly prejudiced account of Tacitus, the facts of Augustus’s reign have to be pieced together from scanty, incomplete and disjointed authorities.

Moreover, obscure events in a remote corner of the Roman world can never even in the best attested periods be expected to come within the purview of Roman history. Such events are preserved to us only by some accidental reference or some local authority; and it is unreasonable to cast doubt on the local authority, either because he relates what is not related by the Roman historians, or because he regards things from a different point of view, and sees them in different perspective, and applies to them a very different scale of importance.

The real value of these accidentally preserved local authorities is that they do not give the Roman point of view, but enable us to contemplate part of the Roman world, as it was seen by non-Roman eyes. What would we not give for a review of Caesar’s Gallic campaigns by a leading Gaulish Druid or chief, or for a criticism of Agricola by the chief bard of Boadicea or of Galgacus? Tacitus, indeed, has expressed the views of Galgacus, but we feel that it is Tacitus, not the British chief, that speaks.

We should, undoubtedly, find in the words of the Gaul or the Briton a very different view from the official justification and. Apologia for his career published by Caesar, or the panegyric composed by Tacitus. We should certainly have considerable difficulty in reconciling the opposing authorities, and in striking a balance between the discrepant judgments and statements as to facts. But it would be sheer unreason to set aside as mere invention every assertion of the Gallic or British authority, which could not be established on Roman authority.

Reasonable and sound criticism will apply the same standard to Luke’s history. It will not demand that he, a Greek of the wider Greek world, as distinguished from the narrower country of Greece proper, should look at everything through Roman spectacles, and express everything precisely as a Roman would do. It will rate his value all the higher, because he has not done that — because he shows us how Roman things were looked at by one who was not a Roman. It will be prepared to find differences of expression and description, even when the Greek and the Roman are looking at the same historical fact. To estimate Luke fairly, it will ask what was his attitude towards the Roman world. In answer to this question, one might say much; but even a brief chapter may be of some use.

On the whole, Luke’s view has in essentials a strong Paulinistic character.

He was disposed towards the Imperial government and political institutions very much as Paul was, and as the wider Greek world in general was. He accepted unreservedly the existing facts of society and organization. But there was a difference between them.

Paul, as a Roman himself, spoke from the Roman point of view. Though he was a citizen of Tarsus and from that point of view a member of the Greek world, his Roman citizenship overrode his Greek citizenship, and he had beyond all doubt been educated from infancy to understand his position as a Roman. His point of view is clearly and emphatically Roman. Those who talk of Paul as a mere Jew are blinding themselves to his real position and to the character of the Graeco-Roman world in his time.

But Luke’s point of view was not the same. Luke is throughout his work a Greek, never a Roman; and his statements must be estimated accordingly.

Before criticizing, we must make sure that we understand rightly; and we shall never understand rightly, unless we begin by sympathizing with the writer and the tone of his work.

Luke then speaks of things Roman as they appeared to a Greek. The Greeks never could quite understand Roman matters; even the mysteries of the Roman system of personal names were as puzzling to almost all Greeks as they are to a modern school boy or college student. Hence, for example, in the remarkable scene at Paphos ( Acts 13:9), it is difficult to feel any confidence whether or not Paul disclosed himself to Sergius Paullus in his Roman character. If he did so, it is clear that his Roman name ought to be given. Strictly taken, Luke’s language at this point implies that Paul showed himself only as a Greek traveler and philosopher to the Roman proconsul; and, on the whole, this seems perhaps most probable. But that must be gathered from the career of Paul as a whole; and it would not be safe to infer it from the fact that Luke gives the alternative name in its Greeks not in its Roman form. Paul did not, perhaps, develop his idea of Christianity for the Roman empire quite so early.

Luke, indeed, does not distinctly mark any further stage of development; but to Luke the great antithesis — Gentile and Jew — quite obliterated the lesser distinction between Roman citizen and Roman provincial, when the provincial was a Greek. What power lay in the Roman name, the thorough Greek never comprehended; and hence Luke has never disclosed to us the fact — which is beyond all doubt — that Paul had a Roman name. Had it been clearly present in the consciousness of all modern scholars that Paul must have been either Gaius Julius Paullus or something of that style, many things that have been said would have been better said, or left unsaid. Yet it is as certain as anything can be, that a Roman citizen necessarily had a Roman name, that Paul could not have revealed himself to the magistrates at Philippi or to Claudius Lysias, and that he could not have appealed to the emperor, except by virtue of his Roman name, which he must have stated openly.

Owing to the failure of a Greek to comprehend Roman names and their importance, we have no clear record about this important side of Paul’s career. Luke sees him only in two aspects, as “Hebrew or Graeco Roman”: he never sees him as “Greek or Roman”. As a preparation for the study of Luke’s History, one ought to become familiar with the remains of the Greek used in the cities of the wider Greece, to understand as far as possible the ideas of the people among whom Luke grew up, and to appreciate the way in which they rendered or misrendered Roman things. We shall then begin to appreciate better Luke’s meaning and his standard as a historian. It is true that he regularly uses the popular phraseology, and not the strictly and technically accurate terms for Roman things; but he is decidedly more accurate in essentials than the ordinary Greek, even the official Greek, of the Eastern cities. He never is guilty of the blunders that puzzle the epigraphist in Asian or Galatian inscriptions.

It has often been remarked that Luke wrote for a public ignorant of Palestine, its customs and its language, and familiar with the surroundings of Graeco-Roman life in the great cities of the empire. He explains to his readers Semitic names and terms; he describes the situation of Nazareth and Capernaum as cities of Galilee, of Arimathea as a city of the Jews, of the country of the Gadarenes as over against Galilee, and he even tells the distance of the Mount of Olives and of Emmaus from Jerusalem.

Now contrast with these explanations the allusions to the cities of the Greek and Italian lands. The fact that Syracuse and Puteoli and Rhegium are named without any geographical explanation might perhaps be explained from their fame and importance. Syracuse was one of the greatest Greek cities; Puteoli was the great harbor for passengers by the sea voyage to Rome from the East; and Rhegium was situated at a very striking point on the voyage. Similarly, while he explains the position of Philippi and Perga, Myra and Lystra, he assumes that the situation of Athens, of Corinth, and of Ephesus is familiar to his readers. He thinks that the coasts of the Aegean Sea need no explanation, or that the general character of the voyage sufficiently explains the position of Troas, Cos, Miletus, Caesarea and Ptolemais. The relation of Cenchreae to Corinth ( Acts 18:18) is also taken as familiar. But the most striking case occurs as the travelers approach Rome. The author assumes that the Market of Appius and the Three Taverns are familiar points on the road, which Paul must traverse between Puteoli and Rome. Instead of telling their distance from Rome, he uses them as actual measures of distance to show how far the brethren came forth from Rome to welcome Paul.

Too much stress should not be laid on reasoning so slight as this. There is not enough of evidence to justify full confidence. But, so far as it goes, it suggests that Luke wrote for an audience which knew the environs of Rome and Corinth far more intimately than the country round Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee. And, on the whole, it is on the great lines of communication leading from Syria and Asia to Rome that most knowledge is assumed.

Further, Luke sometimes adapts incidents to the comprehension of his readers by expressing them in terms which, though not a literal description of the original facts, approximate to the general sense and are more readily intelligible to the Western reader. An excellent example of this is found in Luke 5:17-20, as compared with Mark 2:1-4.

MARK 2:1-4 And when he entered again into Capernaum after some days, it was noised that he was in the house. And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room for them, no, not even about the door · and he spake the word unto them. And they come, bringing unto him a man sick of the palsy, borne oŁ four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was 6 and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed whereon the sick of the palsy lay.

LUKE 5:17-20 And it came to pass on one of those days, that he was teaching; and there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem : and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, men bring on a bed a man that was palsied’ and they sought to bring him in, and to lay him before him. And not finding by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went up to the house-top, and let him down through the tiles with his couch into the midst before Jesus.

Here it is obvious that Mark gives the incident in the more exact way. The house was a humble erection, with a flat roof of earth or other material, which was easily destroyed and as easily replaced. The bearers took advantage of this; mounting on the roof, they broke it up, and let down the couch through the hole which they thus made.

A modern writer might have explained all this to his readers. But Luke, although he interprets a single Semitic word occasionally, would not spare time and space enough for a more elaborate description of details, which were, in his estimation, unimportant. His readers were familiar with a different kind of house, covered with tiles, and having a hole (impluvium ) in the roof of the principal chamber (atrium ), where the company would be assembled. To turn aside from his proper subject and describe differences of architecture would have distracted attention from the really important facts. As has been often pointed out, Luke never describes such features, but leaves his readers to imagine for themselves from their own knowledge the surroundings amid which his story was enacted.

Accordingly, he preserves all the essential features — the dense crowd preventing access to the Master by the proper approach the taking of the bed with the sick man in it up on the roof the letting down of the bed through the roof before the Savior’s eyes. But he does not tell that the bearers broke a hole through the roof. A tiled roof, such as his readers were accustomed to, is strong; a hole cannot easily be made through it; and when it is broken, it is a long and expensive operation to repair it. It would seem unnatural that a hole should be violently made in such a roof; and Luke leaves his readers to apply their own knowledge, and to understand that the bearers let the man on his couch down through (the opening in) the tiles.

Matthew, again, regards all these details about the manner of bringing the man as unimportant, and omits them. Corresponding to Mark 2:2-4 and Luke 5:18,19, he has only these words, 9:2 :”And behold they brought him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed”. It was only the words and acts of the Master that he considered worthy of space. Luke and Mark and Matthew all say that Jesus, “seeing their faith,” told the man that his sins were forgiven. He saw that the man had the same “faith able to receive cure and salvation” as the lame man at Lystra, Acts 14.

But Luke and Mark explain how the special circumstances made evident the faith of the bearers and the man, while Matthew leaves the reader to gather from Jesus’ words, that he saw some special evidence of faith in the case before him, Matthew relates the story as one long familiar; and it would not be thoroughly intelligible to us without the proof of eager faith which Luke and Mark relate. The latter stand on an earlier stage than Matthew.

We notice that Luke’s account here is not suited to a Greek house, but only to a Roman house. The Greek house was of totally different construction from the Roman; and, if Luke had been writing primarily for a public resident in the great Greek cities of the Aegean lands, he would probably have either related the incident in its original Palestinian form, or imparted to it a turn that would suit the style of house usual in those cities. It happens, fortunately, that we can illustrate and prove this point by a series of analogous cases.

The Roman comic dramatists, Plautus and Terence, adapted Greek plays to the Roman stage, modifying the plot and incidents in some respects to suit the tastes and the knowledge of a Roman audience. When some incident in the Greek play turned on a peculiarity in the structure of a Greek house, the Roman playwright often modified the facts, so as to suit the style of house that was familiar to his audience. Thus, a Greek dramatist wrote a play called “The Braggart,” in which the relation between two lovers is discovered by a slave resident in the neighboring house. In adapting this play, Plautus describes this discovery in the form that the slave, pursuing an ape which had escaped from his master’s house, clambered over the roof of the atrium of his neighbor’s house, and in this way was able to look through the hole in the roof or impluvium into the atrium , and saw the lovers sitting side by side.

As Lorenz has observed, this could not have been the form which the incident had in the original Greek play. The Greek house had no atrium with its impluvium , nor anything corresponding to it. The ordinary house in the Greek cities contained an open court or aula , to which access was gained by a passage leading from the front door. This court was surrounded, sometimes simply by the house walls, sometimes by a narrow stoa or portico, resting on the house walls and supported inside by columns. The covered chambers of the house opened off the back of this court, and the part of the mansion which contained these chambers was usually of one or, at most, two stories and covered by a flat roof. As the houses in these Greek cities were usually built close together, divided from one another by the house wall (which was common to both), it was easy to look from the flat roof (or from the windows of the upper story) of one house into the court of the next; and thus the slave in the Greek play saw the lovers in the aula of the neighboring house. In this same way Thekla at Iconium sat at a window in the house of her mother Theokleia, and heard Paul preaching in the court of the house of Onesiphorus, her neighbor. See note 2 at the end of this chapter.

Luke uses even the Roman form of expression. The regular term for “the roof” (regarded from the outside) was in Latin “the tiles”; but in Greek the collective singular form “the tiling” was used. Luke speaks after the Roman fashion, and says that they let the sick man down “through the tiles” (dia< tw~n kera>mwn ). by which he implies the roof of Roman style.

In a similar way, Terence in the Phormio , 707, speaks of a snake as having “fallen from the tiles (i .e ., the roof) through the impluvium ,” expressing the same meaning in a fuller way.

In a review in the Theologische Litteraturzeitung , 1897, p. 534, Dr.

Johannes Weiss says: “When Mark writes ‘they uncovered the roof, and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed,’ but Luke on the other hand says ‘they let him down through the tiles,’ the former thinks of the Palestinian style of building, while the latter thinks of the roof of the Graeco-Roman house”. This expresses practically the same view which has been advocated in the preceding pages, but the word Graeco-Roman seems to require modification. Luke writes with a view to the Roman house alone; and his language would not suit the Greek style of house.

Luke must have adapted his expression to suit either a circle of readers, or more probably the single reader, Theophilus, for whose instruction he composed his History; and, in giving to his narrative the form seen in 5:20, he evidently felt that Theophilus was used to the Roman and not the Greek house architecture. Taking this in conjunction with the use made of the Market of Appius and the Three Taverns, we find a distinct probability that Theophilus was a citizen of Rome.

Moreover, Theophilus is addressed by an epithet, which, under the empire, was peculiarly appropriated to Romans of high rank, and which became during the second century a technical title indicating equestrian (as distinguished from senatorial) rank. Examples are numerous in the Imperial Greek inscriptions; and those who have made themselves familiar with the usages of Roman and provincial life under the empire, will recognize the high probability that Luke uses this adjective in 1:4, as in every other place ( Acts 23:26, 24:3, 26:25) to indicate the official (probably equestrian) rank of the person to whom he applies it.

Luke, then, was adapting the form of his narrative either to a single Roman or to a Roman circle of readers. The frequency and emphasis with which he mentions matters that are specifically Roman must impress every reader.

In regard to Roman officials of high rank, the favorable judgment which they always pass on Christ and on his followers is so marked a feature of Luke’s work, that it must have been prominent before his mind.

Luke mentions formally the charge which the Jews vainly made, that Jesus had been guilty of disloyalty and treason against the Roman emperor, 23:2. John mentions it very informally ( John 18:30). Matthew and Mark are silent about the nature of the charge. Luke records the thrice repeated judgment of Pilate acquitting Jesus of all fault before the Roman law; John mentions the acquittal once in similar terms; Matthew represents Pilate as disclaiming all responsibility for his death, but not as formally pronouncing him innocent of all fault.

In Luke’s Second Book this feature is still more marked. The Imperial officers stand between Paul and the Jews to save him from them. The Proconsul of Cyprus was almost converted to Christianity. The Proconsul of Achaia dismissed the Jews’ case against him as groundless before the law. Festus, the Procurator of Palestine, found in Paul nothing worthy of death- he had difficulty in discovering any definite charge against him, which he could report in sending him up to the supreme court of the empire. Even Felix, another Procurator, one of the worst of Roman officials, was affected by Paul’s teaching, and to some extent protected him, and did not condemn him, though to please the Jews he left him in prison.

Among inferior Roman officials, Claudius Lysias, Julius, Cornelius, even the jailer in the colony of Philippi, were friendly to the Christians, or actually joined them. In the few cases in which the magistrates of a Roman colony took action against Paul, their action is shown to have been in error (as at Philippi), or is passed over in silence and the blame is laid on the jealousy and hatred of the Jews (as at Pisidian Antioch and Lystra). The praetors of Philippi scourged Paul, but they apologized, and confessed they had been in the wrong. The magistrates of the Greek cities, like Iconium, Thessalonica and Athens, were far more severe against Paul than those of Roman colonies. Even the publicans, those hated instruments of a taxation after the and- Jewish and Romanising style, are far more kindly treated by Luke than by Matthew or Mark. Compare, for example, the “publicans and sinners” in the house of Levi or Matthew. Both Mark and Matthew designate the company by this name; but Luke calls them “publicans and others,” and confines the more opprobrious phrase to the mouth of the scribes ( Matthew 9:10; Mark 2:15; Luke 5:29, cp. 7:34). Luke alone sets the publican and the Pharisee over against one another as good and bad types, 18:10. It is true that several sayings of Christ in favor of publicans are given also by Matthew and Mark; they were too characteristic to be omitted; but Luke has more of them.

It is not unconnected with this character in his work that Luke records with special interest the acts and words of Christ implying that the Gospel was as open to the Gentiles as to the Jews. Similar examples are found in all the Gospels, because no one who gave a fair account of the teaching of Christ could omit them; but in Luke they are more numerous and more emphatic. It has been, however, pointed out, as a proof that such examples cannot be relied on, that Luke omits entirely the story of the Savior’s visit to Phoenicia, including the case of the Syrophoenician woman whose great faith was commended. But in that story occurs the saying, “I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” Matthew 15:24; and in view of such sayings as Luke — and Luke alone — records in 4:25-27 (see Luke 24:47 paralleled by Matthew 28:19, and Mark 16:15), the historian might doubt whether the incident was not likely to give a mistaken impression of the Savior’s mission. As to the passing in silence over a visit to Phoenicia, it is pointed out below, that Luke deliberately refrains from describing the journeys and movements of Christ.

It is, therefore, plain on the face of Luke’s History, that he has taken pains to connect his narrative with the general history of the empire, and that he has noted with special care the relations between the new religion and the Roman state or its officials. Elsewhere I have tried to show that Luke thought of his work, from one point of view, as “an appeal to the truth of history against the immoral and ruinous policy of the reigning emperor; a temperate and solemn record by one who had played a great part in them of the real facts regarding the formation of the Church, its steady and unswerving loyalty in the past, its firm resolve to accept the existing Imperial government, its friendly reception by many Romans, and its triumphant vindication in the first great trial at Rome. The book was the work of one who had been trained by Paul to look forward to Christianity becoming the religion of the empire and of the world, who regarded Christianity as destined not to destroy but to recreate the empire. In such circumstances it is obvious that the historian was bound to be specially careful that his references to matters of Roman history, and especially his first reference — the subject of this study — were accurate.

But the accusation which we have to meet is that it grossly misrepresented the character of Roman procedure, and was inaccurate in fact. If the accusation is right, any Roman citizen who possessed even a small knowledge of the facts of administration must have seen the gross inaccuracy at a glance. How, then, does it happen that, while the circumstances of the birth of Christ were closely scrutinized by the opponents of Christianity and subjected to much misrepresentation and many charges of falsification, no one in Roman times seems ever to have discovered the inaccuracies which many modern inquirers imagine to themselves?

NOTE Professor Blass in his welcome book, Philology of the Gospels , 1898, p. 19, declares that the epithet kra>tistov in Luke’s language, had no such force as we find in it, but was merely “the ordinary one in epistolary and oratorical style, when the person addressed was in a somewhat exalted position”. As examples, he quotes Paul’s address to Felix and Festus, who were both Roman officials of equestrian rank! These are two of the many instances on which the proof rests that the title was peculiarly appropriated at that period to Romans of rank. The same scholar refers, further, to the examples quoted by Otto in his edition of the Epistle to Diognetus , p. 79 ff. (53 ff.). I cannot consult this book, but Otto considers that Diognetus was the philosopher, the friend and teacher of Marcus Aurelius, and the emperor might well raise his teacher to equestrian rank, as Septimius Severus raised Antipater, the teacher of his sons, to the much higher dignity of the consulship; and, if Otto’s identification be accepted, we may regard the epithet as a proof that Diognetus was honored by his imperial pupil Galen addresses kra>tiste Ba>sse , also a Roman of rank. Longinus addresses Postumius Terentianus, Plutarch speaks of Fundanus, and Artemidorus of Cassius Maximus by the same epithet, in all cases undoubtedly employing it in the technical imperial sense.

Epaphroditus, to whom Josephus dedicated his Jewish Antiquities and Life , is a more doubtful case; but the dedication implies that he was a man of influence in Rome, and though obviously a freedman (on account of his name), he probably had been honored with equestrian rank by his imperial patron. The Aphrodisius whom Galen addresses as kra>tiste and fi>ltate in his Prognost . (Kuhn, vol. 19), is also uncertain; Galen, however, lived amid high society in Rome.

I have always conceded that Greeks were not invariably accurate in using Latin titles and technical terms, such as optimus (translated kra>tistov ); but the above examples show how often the technical and accurate sense is found in Greek. But Professor Blass has his mind so fixed on Greek literature, of which he is one of the first exponents in Europe, that he sometimes omits to notice Roman facts.

The usage in Theophrastus, of course, lies apart from our subject and belongs to an earlier period of society. Even Horace’s optimus , used of Octavius and Quinctius, is pre-imperial, though both men were persons of rank in Rome, and therefore conform to our rule.

NOTE In the Acts of Paul and Thekla Paul was preaching in the house of Onesiphorus ejn me>sw| th~v ejkklhsi>av (or without the last two words): is the last word a later alteration of the original aujlh~v ? In the Armenian version Paul preached in the house of Onesiphorus in a great assembly, and Thekla sat at a window which was close to their roof.

CHAPTER - IMPORTANCE IN LUKE’S HISTORY OF THE STORY OF THE BIRTH OF CHRIST IT needs no proof that Luke attached the highest importance to this part of his narrative. That Jesus was indicated from the beginning as the Messiah — though not a necessary part of his life and work, and wholly omitted by Mark and only briefly indicated in mystical language by John — was a highly interesting and important fact in itself, and could not fail to impress the historian. The elaboration and detail of the first two chapters of the Gospel form a sufficient proof that Luke recognized the importance of the central incident in them.

Further, the author must have regarded this part of his work with special interest, and been impelled to work it up with peculiar care, on account of the authority on which it rested; and he takes some pains to show his reader what was the authority.

The beautifully told story of Luke 1,2, is an episode of family history of the most private character. The facts could be known only to a very small number of persons. If Luke had the slightest trace of historical instinct, he must have satisfied himself that the narrative which he gives rested on the evidence of one of the few persons to whom the facts could be known. It is not in keeping with the ancient style that he should formally name his authority; but he does not leave it doubtful whose authority he believed himself to have. “His mother kept all these sayings hid in her heart;” “Mary kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart;” ( Luke 2:19 and 51) those two sentences would be sufficient. The historian who wrote like that believed that he had the authority of the Mother herself.

But those two sentences are not the only indications of the source whence Luke believed his information to come. Some facts intimately concerning Elizabeth are mentioned in 1:24 and 41; and the narrative carefully explains how these facts became known to Mary, 1:36 and 41 she had been told. But it is never stated that facts intimately concerning Mary were mentioned by her to Elizabeth. The narrative has the form which is natural only if Mary is understood to be the authority throughout: she simply states what concerned herself, while, in what concerned Elizabeth, she not merely states the facts, but also explains that she has first-hand authority.

Moreover, what concerned Mary is expressly said to have remained secret, known to herself alone and pondered over in her own heart. It would be a contradiction that this secret of her heart should be the property of others to tell about her. The historian, by emphasizing the silence and secrecy in which she treasured up the facts, gives the reader to understand that she is the authority.

It is a different thing when we read, 1:65 f., “these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all that heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, What then shall this child be ?” There a subject of notoriety, which deeply impressed the whole district, is referred to. What is known to many is no secret, and in fact is expressly said to have been a topic of conversation through the country.

The people in the hill country of Judea knew about the marvelous circumstances of John’s birth, and talked about it, and wondered. But at Nazareth nothing was generally known. Jesus had been born far away. His parents brought him to Nazareth after some time had elapsed. Even after Herod’s death his shadow lay heavy on the land; and the parents, being subjects of his son Antipas, were not likely to talk to their neighbors about the old king’s relations to the child and about the prophecies of Simeon and Anna apart from the consideration that the whole subject must have seemed too sacred for gossip. Mary did not herself comprehend the things that had occurred. She kept them hid in her heart, and apparently did not even tell her husband what was in her mind. This child was not to be an unalloyed delight either to her country or herself; he was “set for the falling and rising up of many in Israel, and for a sign which is spoken against”; and for herself, “a sword should pierce through her own soul”. It was a dread and vague future about which she pondered in the depths of her own mind, as “the child grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom”.

In that marvelous picture, sketched in such simple and brief terms, only he that deliberately shuts his mind against all literary feeling can fail to catch the tone of a mother’s heart.

In the description of the early days of John and of Jesus the reader notices the woman’s and the mother’s feeling, watching the growth of the two children, to whom and through whom so much had been promised. As to John, “the child grew and waxed strong and was in the wilderness (of Judah, the remote country of his birth) till the day of his showing unto Israel”. But about her own son there is an added touch of warmth, “the child grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him” ( Luke 1:80, 2:40).

No one who judges on the ordinary canons of criticism which govern the interpretation of ancient literature, can doubt that it is through design, and not by accident, that there occur in the opening chapters of Luke’s History all these little touches, indicating so delicately and so skillfully what authority he had to depend upon in the beginning of his narrative.

This is specially clear when we remember the declaration made by the author in his preface, that he had investigated from their origin the facts which he is going to narrate. After such a preface, and with all the indications in the narrative, it is plain that the historian either believed his statements to be based on the authority of the Virgin Mary herself, or has deliberately tried to create a false impression that such was the case. Is it a rational supposition, is it psychologically possible, that any man who was impressed with the sacredness of the subject which he is treating should intentionally found his narrative upon such a falsehood as this would be?

Understanding that Mary herself is the authority to whom Luke appeals, we find that the passage becomes clearer, both as to what it states and what it omits.

The origin of the narrative may possibly explain why Luke and Matthew give such different accounts of the circumstances of the birth of Christ.

Matthew gives the public account, that which was generally known during the Savior’s life and after his death; and popular belief has always some tendency to transform and adapt to moral purposes facts that are much talked about. Luke gives from knowledge gained within the family an account of facts known only to the family, and in part to the Mother alone.

It is most probable that Luke had heard the story which Matthew gives, and it would have been easy to fit this into his own narrative without disturbing either account. But they did not rest on equal authority; and Luke would not mix the two. What he had got was an account of the miraculous birth and of the circumstances which had most deeply impressed the Mother’s mind with regard to the origin and mission of her Child, while it was rather the relations of the Child to the old king that had impressed themselves on the imagination of his followers. In them Matthew read a fulfillment of prophecies about the Messiah. But they had not similarly affected Mary’s mind, and they were not among the facts which she pondered over in her heart as pledges of the great future that lay before this little Child.

Luke therefore confined himself to what he had on the highest authority.

So much he states in full detail; and the rest of the first twelve years of Jesus’ life he sums up in the brief expression, 2:40: “He was filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him”. Then came a remarkable instance of the young Boy’s awakening consciousness of his own mission.

He had been brought up by his Mother to think of Joseph as his father; but suddenly he declared to her that his Father’s business lay in a different direction. Here, again, there was something for the Mother’s heart to ponder over, while her Son went on once more in the natural development of a boy, “increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man”.

We can argue, then, with perfect confidence that Luke did not take the narrative of the birth and childhood of Christ from mere current talk and general belief: he had it in a form for which Mary herself was in his opinion the responsible authority. What, then, was this form? It must have been either written narrative or oral communication.

If it were written, the writer must have been either Mary herself or some one who recorded her story so carefully and faithfully as to leave full expression to Mary’s own feelings.

That Mary herself wrote it seems highly improbable. We should not expect that she had the literary interest or skill which might lead her to wish to perpetuate the facts in her own formal narrative: it is more probable, considering the circumstances of her position in youth, that she would lack the power of setting down a story in written expression with such rare art as to have the appearance of being perfectly natural, even though she would be able to tell it well orally in simple, natural, unstudied words. Moreover, it seems improbable that she should desire of her own self to make public the facts which she had kept so long hid in her heart. It is more natural to think that she hardly ever spoke of them, except to the rare individuals whose sympathy drew her on. The language, too, has a tone and character that do not suggest a formal autobiographical narrative.

It seems, if I may venture to express my individual opinion, to be one of those which lose from being recited in public; it is one to be read alone or in the company of some perfectly sympathetic person, but which suffers from the presence of any one who is not in perfect sympathy. It expresses the heart of Mary; but in the form in which it was expressed to a sympathetic heart, and not as prepared for publication.

It is more easily conceivable that some third person, intimate with Mary and recognizing the importance of having an authoritative narrative of these events, should have given literary form to an account coming direct from her own lips. But this account must have been either a part of a complete life of Christ one of those which Luke refers to in his preface, <420101> 1:1, “repeated according as they who were from the beginning eyewitnesses or the word delivered the tradition” — or an independent narrative, ranking with the authority of origin from Mary, and describing just so much as she was best able to tell.

The existence of such an independent narrative, and the utter oblivion into which it fell, if it ever existed, seem alike most improbable. Moreover, suppose, for example, the author who gave it literary form to have been John, in whose house she lived from the crucifixion till her death, we must suppose that her words have passed through the modifying influence of John’s mind; thereafter John’s words have passed through the modifying influence of Luke’s mind; and yet, after all this, they continue to show clear and fresh the marks of their origin. The narrative seems not to have passed through so many stages.

Further, the earliest followers of Christ seem to have been so entirely occupied with his engrossing personality that they thought little or not at all about his Mother. She hardly appears in three of the four Gospels.

Matthew tells the story of the birth of her son in such a way that Joseph is the prominent person, and Mary a mere adjunct. On the few occasions on which she appears directly or indirectly, in Matthew and in Mark “there is a sound of reproof in the words” which Christ uses to her or of her: Matthew 12:46, 13:56 f., Mark 3:31 ff., 6:3 f. They do not mention her among the women who watched in sorrow at the crucifixion.

It has been suggested that they omitted her name in this scene, because it was obvious that she would be there; but no ordinary reader of these two Gospels would gather from them that this was obvious.

The tone which John’s references to her convey depends mainly on the interpretation of 2:4. There the Savior says to her, according to the almost universal interpretation, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” (ti> ejmoi< soi>, gu>nai ) in a tone of reproof and almost (it might appear) of dislike, as is seen in the illustrative cases which are usually quoted Matthew 17:19, 2 Samuel 16:10, 1 Kings 17:18, 2 Chronicles 35:21, Judges 11:12. Is this the tone of the only information that John gives about the woman who lived in his house from the day of the crucifixion till her death? The more one thinks of it, the more one hopes that Luther was right when he desired to take the meaning, “what is that to me and to thee?” The old Egyptian poet of the fourth or fifth century, Nonnus, understood the words in that way, for he slightly varies them in his metrical paraphrase, reading ti> ejmoi>, gu>nai, hje< soi< aujth~| ; Professor Blass considers that Nonnus had before him a MS. of the fourth Gospel in which h\ was read where all now existing MSS. have kai> , and argues that we should replace h\ in the text. We should rather suppose that Nonnus (and probably the whole Asian circle for whom the fourth Gospel was primarily intended) understood the accepted text in the same sense as Luther advocated.

In all that part of Luke’s History which is parallel with the common tradition in Matthew and Mark, he mentions Mary only in the same way as they do, and gives no more information about her than they have; and like them, he does not mention her presence at the crucifixion. The only additional allusion to her that he gives in the main body of his narrative, is contained in the words of an unnamed woman, blessing her who had given birth to such a son as Jesus ( Luke 11:27) Accordingly, considering the interest which Luke shows in Mary in the beginning of the Gospel, and in Acts 1:14, where she is mentioned as being in steadfast companionship with the Apostles, it seems probable that the written authorities which he had before him told the story of the Savior without referring except in the most casual way to his Mother.

It, therefore, seems unlikely that the first two chapters of Luke depend on an older written narrative. The quality in them is too simple and natural, they give too much of the nature of Mary expressed with the art of Luke, to have passed through the mind of an intermediate writer. And it is difficult to think that any such composition either could have existed in Luke’s time, or would have disappeared without leaving a trace behind, if it had existed.

This result is diametrically opposite to the prevailing opinion. It is generally assumed as specially clear, that we have in the narrative of the birth and childhood of Jesus a translation from an Aramaic narrative or from a series of Aramaic narratives. Instead of seeing evidence of Luke’s literary power in the variations of style in different parts of his history, many scholars see only evidence of difference in documentary authority.

As if the person who wrote the preface <420101> 1:1-4 could be blind to the complete change in style between <420101> 1:4 and 1:5! Or as if he were unable to put the story into his own Greek, if he desired. It is clear as noon-day that the author deliberately aims at the contrast in style between <420101> 1:1-4 and the following verses.

But that there must be a number of separate documents underlying the narrative of 1 and 2, which Luke translated, seems an even more objectionable idea. Because there are three distinct statements about the growth of John, of the infant Jesus, and of the boy Jesus, it is assumed by some writers that these form the conclusions of separate documents. The slight but significant differences between them, in which I see evidence at once of literary art and of the natural motherly feeling of Mary, are treated as being mere tag-ends of separate narratives, which the author of this History had not art enough to hide. He was so incapable of working separate authorities into a unity, that he comes to three separate ends, because he had three separate authorities before him. “And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel,” 1:80. “And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him,” 2:40. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man,” 2:52.

But, in truth, these three sentences mark three stages in a continuous, unified narrative, written with the finest feeling and art by a single author of the loftiest literary power. They are a quite sufficient proof to one who judges on literary grounds that this is not a composite narrative, but the work of the same writer throughout.

If we are right in this view as to Luke’s authority and as to the way in which that authority reached him, viz ., by oral communication, it appears that either the Virgin was still living when Luke was in Palestine during the years 57 and 58 — which is quite a possible supposition on the almost universally accepted assumption that she was quite young when Jesus was born — or Luke had conversed with some one very intimate with her, who knew her heart and could give him what was almost as good as firsthand information. Beyond that we cannot safely go; but yet one may venture to state the impression — though it may be generally considered merely fanciful — that the in, termediary, if one existed, is more likely to have been a woman than a man. There is a womanly spirit in the whole narrative, which seems inconsistent with the transmission from man to man, and which, moreover, is an indication of Luke’s character: he had a, marked sympathy with women.

Many other facts in his History show that character. Luke alone mentions the “women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities,” who “ministered to him of their substance”; and he names them: he was interested in themselves, in their gratitude to Jesus, and in their reason for it ( Luke 8:2).

He alone tells of the woman who wet Jesus’ feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair, and kissed them, and anointed them — her to whom her many sins were forgiven, because she loved much. He does not tell her name — was it because she had been a sinner, and he would not chronicle that fact about a definite person? or was his information defective ( Luke 7:36) ?

He alone tells about the different characters of Martha and Mary of Bethany, though he left much for John to add ( Luke 10:38). Matthew and Mark do not mention their names, but allude to Mary in an obscure and almost inaccurate way.

He alone tells of the women of Jerusalem who followed him to his death, bewailing and lamenting. All three synoptics mention the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee, and stood watching the crucifixion afar off, and how some of them watched where he was laid; but Luke alone tells how they went away and prepared spices and ointments ( Luke 23:27,56).

He alone tells of the nameless woman in the crowd who blessed the mother of such a Son as Jesus; possibly one of those to whom Jesus afterwards said: “Blessed are the childless women, in those days that are coming” ( Luke 23:29 compare Luke 11:27).

Thus time after time, Luke is our only authority for the service and ministration of women. He had the tender and sympathetic feeling for women which seems to be quite in keeping with his surroundings in Macedonia (where women occupied a place of so much more honor than in Greece proper), and which makes him record so often in his second book the part played by women in the diffusion of the new religion.

In the texture of the two opening chapters we find full justification for the prominence that the preface lays upon this episode; and we conclude that both the personal character of the author and the high authority on which he claims to rest, would prompt him to lavish special loving care on this part of his narrative and to avoid defacing it by a serious blunder. If he made a blunder, as seems generally admitted, that would be a sufficient refutation of the view which I have maintained, that he was a great historian.

NOTE Probably the most reasonable explanation of the remarkable discrepancies between the four passages — Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, Luke 7:36-50, John 12:1-9 (cp. 11:2) — is that there were two distinct incidents: one occurred in the house of Simon the Pharisee, and is described by Luke; the other occurred in the house of Martha and Mary at Bethany, and is correctly described by John. Mark, and following him Matthew, mix up the two and describe the incident as occurring at Bethany in the house of Simon the Leper. They, do not name the woman, and they merely say that she poured a box of ointment over the head of Jesus. The attempts to harmonize John with Mark and Matthew fail completely. John, who says that “they made him a supper there and Martha served,” obviously places the meal in Martha’s house: it seems quite absurd to suppose that she would be serving in the house of Simon.

There is an obvious intention on John’s part to correct the current account, as seen in Matthew and Mark, and at the same time to illustrate the character of Martha as described by Luke 10:38. Similarly, inasmuch as the current account placed the incident two days before the last supper, John pointedly says it occurred “six days before the Passover”.

Probably, Mark originally fell into error from treating two separate incidents, each perhaps only reported in part to him, or in part forgotten by him, as being one and the same incident. From one incident he caught that it had occurred in Bethany, and from another that it occurred in the house of Simon: accordingly he begins “while he was in Bethany in the house of Simon the Leper, as he sat at meat”. It must remain uncertain whether Luke’s Simon the Pharisee is the same person as Mark’s Simon the Leper, or (as seems on the whole more probable) the incident narrated by Luke occurred in the north, near the Sea of Galilee, in the house of Simon the Pharisee, and Mark, connecting the incident at once with Bethany and with Simon, put it in the house of a Simon who lived in Bethany and was or had been a leper. It would be obviously impossible that the feast should be held in the house of one who was a leper; and it seems not very probable that it would be held in his house, if he had ever been a leper.

It must be confessed that there is some temptation to follow the Roman tradition, and treat the Lukan incident as the same with the Johannine.

Luke is vague as to the locality, though it is most natural to understand that it occurred in the north. But the decisive argument lies in the moral of the tale. The reason why any incident was remembered by the disciples lay in the lesson which the Master had deduced from it. The features which drew forth the lesson in Luke are precisely those which are most difficult to reconcile with John. To identify the two incidents, it becomes almost necessary to suppose that the features on which the moral hinges are errors on Luke’s part. Now I should be quite ready to admit that Luke had made mistakes about various points, provided they were not essential to the moral; but those are precisely the points that are vital, and give vitality to the whole incident. Matthew and Mark are reconciled with John by assuming that they have erred in the accompaniments; but in the vital details they agree with him. To identify Luke and John requires that the vital details are false in one or the other.