Chapter VIII.—Of Luke’s Gospel, and Specially of the Harmony Between Its Commence-
ment and the Beginning of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles.
9. Next in succession, therefore, let us now go over the Gospel of Luke in regular order.
We shall omit, however, those passages which he has in common with Matthew and Mark.
For all these have been already handled. Luke, then, begins his narrative in the following
fashion: “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of these
things which have been fulfilled1618 among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which
from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me
also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee
in order,1619 most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those
things, wherein thou hast been instructed.”1620 This beginning does not pertain immediately
to the narrative presented in the Gospel. But it suggests to us to be cognizant of the fact,
that this same Luke is also the writer of the other book which bears the name of the Acts of
the Apostles. Our ground for holding this opinion is not merely the circumstance that the
name of Theophilus occurs there as well as here. For it might quite well happen that there
was a second person with the name of Theophilus; and even if it was one and the same
person that was referred to in both cases, still another composition might have been addressed
to him by a different individual, just as the Gospel was written in his behoof by Luke. We
base our view of the identity of authorship, however, on the fact that this second book
commences in the following strain: “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all
that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He,1621 through the Holy
Ghost, gave commandment unto the apostles whom He chose to preach the gospel.”1622
This statement gives us to understand that, previous to this, he had written one of those
four books of the gospel which are held in the loftiest authority in the Church. At the same
time, when he tells us that he had composed a treatise of all that Jesus began both to do and
teach until the day in which He gave commandment to the apostles, we are not to take this
to mean that he actually has given us a full account in his Gospel of all that Jesus did and
said when He lived with His apostles on earth. For that would be contrary to what John af-
firms when he says that there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they
should be written every one, the world itself could not contain the books.1623 And besides,
1618 Completæ sunt. [So Revised Version.—R.]
1619 [Et mihi assecuto a principio omnibus (some mss. have omnia) diligenter ex ordine tibi scribere. Comp.
Revised Version and Augustin’s explanation below.—R.]
1620 Luke i. 1–4.
1621 Usque in diem quo apostolis quos elegit, etc. Some editions read quo apostolos elegit = on which He chose
the apostles, giving them commandment, etc.
1622 Acts i. 1, 2.
1623 John xxi. 25.
Of Luke’s Gospel, and Specially of the Harmony Between Its Commencement and the Beginning of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles.
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Of Luke’s Gospel, and Specially of the Harmony Between Its Commencement…