Not one of the passages just examined seems to the writer to contain anything incompatible with the reference of the Gospel to an early date, and all the arguments appear to rest on a very pre- carious basis. Another passage (215+ 83) has been
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thought to imply that, by leaving out the words ἐπὶ θύραις found in the parallel passages of St. Matthew and St. Mark,—érap ἴδητε ταῦτα γιγνόμενα, γινώσκετε ὅτι ἔγγυς ἐστιν ἐπὶ Ovpais,—St. Luke has emphasized a distinction between the fall of Jeru- salem and the end of the world which they have not, and is therefore later. The next verse, stat- ing that ‘this generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled,’ has, on the other hand, been used (eg. by Weiss, Introduction to the NT, ii. 313) as a proof that because it is im- plied that the ‘second coming of Christ w expected by the first generation of Christians,’ therefore the words would not have been allowed to stand in this form after about A.D. 80.
More weight may perhaps be attached to the evidence afforded by the theological terms used in this Gospel—as, for example, the expression ὁ κύριος of our Lord (cf. Hv. Pet.)—some of which point to a date later than that of St. Matthew or St. Mark. Another proof of a similar kind is to be found in the points of contact which have been noticed between this Gospel and that of St. John (see below, p. 167).
These arguments, and that based on the lapse of time required by the circumstances presupposed in the preface, seem to preclude a very early date, and there is little or no evidence to require a late date. We may accept, perhaps, some date about the year 80, that is, the beginning rather than the end of the period (A.D. 78-93) within which it is placed by Harnack (Chronologie, p. 246 ff.).
(Ὁ) Place.—In regard to the place at which the Gospel was written, the data are too vague or too late to give a certain conclusion. We have seen above (p. 162) that St. Luke’s sphere of preaching was associated with Greece, and so Jerome tells us that ‘in Achaice Beothiwque (var. lec. Bithynie) partibus volumen condidit’ (Vulgate, ed. Wordsworth, i. p. 12), and within this district Godet selects Corinth. Another tradition con- nects St. Luke with Egypt, and accordingly a catalogue of NT books ascribed to Ebed Jesu (14th cent.) assigns the writing of the Gospel to Alexandria. The address to Theophilus, and the mention of St. Luke as St. Paul’s companion at Rome, have led Keim, Holtzmann, and others to place it at Rome, but we have no evidence to prove this. Other scholars (as Michaelis, Thiersch, and Blass) have fixed on Czsarea, others again (e.g. Hilgenfeld) have suggested Asia Minor. Many of these places and also others will be found mentioned in the subscriptions to the Gospel found in MSS of the Greek and of the versions (Tischendorf, NT, i. 738). We cannot attempt, in the absence of data, to decide finally between the many various alternative suggestions just mentioned, and may agree with Weiss (Jntroduc- tion, Eng. tr. ii. 314) that ‘all conjectures as to the place of composition are quite visionary, and have no value whatever.’
5. TRANSMISSION OF THE TEXT.—It is neces- sary to devote a separate section to this point, because of the questions suggested by the ‘ West- ern’ readings in St. Luke’s Gospel. Blass began by basing on the ‘ Western’ readings in the Acts (which see) a theory that they preserve for us another and earlier edition than that with which we are familiar, and in his Acta Apostolorum secundum formam que videtur Romanam (Leipzig, 1896) he attempted a reproduction of this. Since then he has extended his theory to the Gospel (Leipzig, 1897), but with this important difference, that while the Western text of the Acts gives us the earlier of the two editions, the same text of the Gospel is in his opinion the Jater and revised edition. Some explanation is necessary of
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Western text in the two books, for in the Acts these consist largely of additions to the ordinary text, while in the Gospel they are, for the most part, omissions, and Blass’s view (Philol. of the Gospels, pp. 108, 104) is that the second edition would in each case be shorter, for the author would be naturally ‘disposed to omit many un- essential circumstances and details.’ This is one of several ‘a priori arguments,’ as Blass himself calls them (1.6. p. 102), for a theory, which is an extension of a view tenable and accepted by many in regard to the Acts, but in the Gospel not estab- lished by the facts.
As far as the Acts is concerned, the theory of two editions goes back to J. le Clere (Clericus), i.e. to the middle of the 17th cent. Lightfoot (Fresh Revision, p. 29) seems not unfavourable to the view that in the Gospel also ‘the evangelist may have issued two separate editions.’ It is only within the last few years, however, that this theory has seriously challenged the attention of textual critics. What, then, are the facts as far as the Gospel is concerned? The most striking are the series of omissions which we meet with chiefly in the later, but also more sparsely in the earlier, chapters. In these cases the omissions are made by the same authorities for the most part, sometimes with the support of a MS or version not necessarily ‘ Western.’ As _illustra- tions of such omissions may be quoted the leaving out in 24% of the words καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς Εἰρήνη ὑμῖν, in 244° of the words καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἔδειξεν αὐτοῖς τὰς χεῖρας καὶ τοὺς πόδας, and in 9451 of the words καὶ ἀνεφέρετο εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν. From other parts of the Gospel we may quote ΟῚ], where μεριμνᾷς καὶ θορυ- βάζῃ περὶ πολλά is shortened into θορυβάζῃ, and the first part of the next verse is omitted, or 12% where (in the parable of the Rich Fool) the words ἔχεις πολλὰ ἀγαθὰ κείμενα εἰς ἔτη πολλά, ἀναπαύου, φάγε, πίε, εὐφραίνου, are reduced to ἔχεις πολλὰ ἀγαθά, ἀναπαύου. ‘These passages sufficiently illustrate the nature of the omissions. We find also some additions, but they are very few. As an instance may be quoted the long addition in regard to the man working on the Sabbath day, which we find in D after 64. Of course Blass has to give some explanation as to why in a second draft these omissions or additions were made. Thus, of the insertion at 64, he says (1.6. p. 164) that it was probably omitted by St. Luke as likely to give offence to Christian or other Jews who would form a ‘considerable part’ of the Oriental con- gregations. Of the omission of the account of the Ascension in 24°! the explanation given is that it was (1.6. p. 140) ‘to fit the close of the Gospel (Western text) to the beginning of the Acts (West- ern text),’ or that it ‘might be not without some degree of probability ascribed to some reader of Luke who was offended by the repetition in Ac 1’ (1.6. p. 142). These will illustrate the explanations by which the position is maintained, and in regard to the last it will be noticed that the theory of revision by St. Luke is so far modified that it is referred to ‘some reader.’