Luke begins with earlier facts of John the Baptist's and of our Lord's history than Matthew and Mark, he writes methodically and in more chronological Order. Ancient testimony assures us that Paul's teaching formed the substratum of Luke's Gospel (the Muratorian Fragment; Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 1,14; Tertullian, Marcion iv. 2; Origen, Eusebius, H. E. vi. 25; Jerome, Vir. Illustr. 7). Compare as to the special revelation to Paul 1Co 11:23; 1Co 15:3; Gal 1:1; Gal 1:11-12. Paul was an "eye-witness" (1Co 9:1; Act 22:14-15); his expression "according to my gospel" implies the independency of his witness; he quotes words of Christ revealed to him, and not found in the four Gospels (Act 20:35). Thus, besides Matthew and Mark, to whose Gospels the "many" as well as Luke had access, Paul is the chief "eye witness" to whom Luke refers in the preface. Luke and Paul alone record Jesus' appearing to Peter first of the apostles (Luk 24:34; 1Co 15:5).

Luke's account of the Lord's Supper, making an interval between His giving the bread and the cup to the disciples, accords most with Paul's in 1Co 11:23, which that apostle says he received directly from the Lord Jesus. Luke (Luk 22:43) records the appearance of an angel unto Jesus during His agony; as no one else is mentioned as having seen the vision, (indeed the disciples were sleeping for sorrow), it must have been especially revealed by the Lord after His resurrection. Who so likely a person to have communicated it to Luke as Paul, who "received the gospel, not of man but by the revelation of Jesus Christ"? The selection of gospel materials in Luke, exhibiting forgiveness for the vilest, grace, and justification, is such as accords with Paul's large views as to the Gentiles and free justification by faith (Luk 18:14).

Alford rejects ancient testimony that Paul's teaching constitutes the substance of Luke's Gospel, on the grounds that the evangelist asserts that his Gospel is drawn from those who "from the beginning" were eye witnesses of Christ's ministry, among whom Paul cannot be reckoned. But Luke's drawing information from persons who had been with the Lord from the begining is quite consistent with Paul's revelations (Eph 3:3; 1Co 9:1; 1Co 11:23) forming a prominent part of the substance of Luke's Gospel. Paul's words correspond with Luke's (Luk 10:7 with 1Co 10:27; Luk 17:27-29; Luk 21:34-35; with 1Th 5:2-3; 1Th 5:6-7). Luke's choice of materials accords with the new light in which "the apostle of the Gentiles" was inspired to set gospel facts, e.g. the parable of the prodigal son, the tracing of Christ's genealogy up to Adam the common parent of Jew and Gentile, not only to Abraham, as Matthew. Also Luk 2:32, "a ... Light to lighten the Gentiles"; Luk 4:25, Christ's reference to Elijah's mission to the Gentile widow of Sarepta; Luk 9:52; Luk 10:30, the good Samaritan; Luk 17:18, the only grateful one of the ten cleansed lepers, a Samaritan; the mission of the seventy, a number typical of the nations, as the twelve represent the twelve tribes of Israel.

Theophilus, to whom he writes, was a Gentile believer, as appears from the geographical and other explanations given of many things, which would have been needless had he been a Jew (Luk 1:26, Nazareth; Luk 4:31, Capernaum; Luk 23:51, Arimathea; Luk 24:13, Emmaus; Act 1:12, Olivet). In the inscription over the cross the Greek and Latin are put before the Hebrew, in John the Hebrew is first. Matthew refers to Old Testament as what "Moses said," Luke as what "is written." The name Theophilus ("friend of God") is Greek Matthew calls Jerusalem" the holy city" and its temple "the temple of God"; but Mark and Luke omit these titles, doubtless because they were writing to Gentiles, after Jerusalem by continual persecutions of the church had sunk in the esteem of Christians, and when the temple made without hands, "the temple of the Holy Spirit," the church, was fully understood to have superseded the temple of stone.

CANONICITY. The oldest reliable testimony to the Gospel according to Luke is Marcion, whose Gospel so called (A.D. 130) is Luke's, abridged and mutilated. Therefore, Luke's Gospel was in common use A.D. 120. The appendix to Tertullian (Praescr. adv. Haer) says his teacher Cerdon received the Gospel of Luke alone. Justin Martyr often quotes it. Celsus attacks it as a book of the Christians (Origen contra Celsus ii. 32). Tatian includes it in his Harmony.

Luke is fullest of the evangelists in describing our Lord's private prayers. There are eight such instances: Luk 3:21, "Jesus praying, the heaven was opened" at His baptism; Luk 5:16, "in the wilderness"; Luk 6:12, "continued all night in prayer to God before ordaining the twelve; Luk 9:18, as He was alone praying, His disciples were with Him, and He asked whom say the people that I am?" Luk 9:28 Luk 9:29, at the transfiguration, "He went up into a mountain to pray, and as He prayed the fashion of His countenance was altered;" Luk 11:1, "as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased one of His disciples said (struck with the holy earnestness of His tone, words, and gestures), Lord teach us to pray" (Luk 22:32; Luk 22:41-42; Luk 22:44-46; Luk 23:46).

CONNECTION WITH PAUL. Luke may have first become connected with Paul in tending him in the sickness which detained him in Phrygia and Galatia (Gal 4:13, "because of an infirmity of my flesh I preached," owing to his detention by sickness, (contrary to his original intention he preached there). This probably was early in the journey wherein Luke first appears in Paul's company, that apostle's second missionary journey (Act 16:9-10). Thus Paul's allusion to Luke's being a "physician" is appropriate in writing to the Colossians as they were in Phrygia, the quarter wherein Luke ministered to his sickness. Luke, after being left behind at Luk 17:1, where the third person is resumed, went again with Paul to Asia (Luk 20:6) and to Jerusalem (Luk 21:15), and was with him in his captivity at Caesarea (Luk 24:23) and at Rome (Luk 28:16). Tertullian (adv. Marcion, iv. 2) ascribes the conversion of Luke to Paul.

DATE OF THE GOSPEL. The Book of Acts which was written before it (Act 1:1) ends with Paul's two years' modified imprisonment at Rome, "dwelling in his own hired house, and receiving all that came in unto him" (Act 28:30-31). Abruptly it closes without informing us of the result of his appeal to Caesar, doubtless because when he wrote no event subsequent to the two years had transpired; this was A.D.63. "The former treatise," i.e. the Gospel, was probably written at Caesarea during Paul's imprisonment there, A.D. 58-60 (Thiersch).

OBJECT. "That Theophilus might know the certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed" (Luk 1:4). The epithet "most excellent" prefixed shows that Theophilus was not an imaginary but a real person.