St. Luke was no idealist. He had a^literal, matter-of-fact mind, which blurted out facts' without ~^gloss1ng~ttrem. We have seen how he records without reservation the command to part with our possessions, as St. Barnabas and others in their first love did (Ac 4'>''-""). Being a physician, he nevertheless had the strongest belief in the truth of demoniacal possession, understanding literally what was originally given as a burst of insanity (Mk ft'' with parallels). He stands alone in affirming that our Lord, after His resurrection, ate a piece of broiled fish before His disciples (24-*'-*''). To this he refers, probably in Ac 1*, cer- tainly in Ac 10*1. Many persons in modern times have felt some difficulty in reconciling this with the general Scripture account of the nature of our Lord's resurrection body. It may be one side of the truth which is apt in these days to be ignored ; in a coarser age it was the only side that was accepted. Ignatius supports it in the saying which he preserves : ' I am not an incorporeal demon ' {Smyr. iii. 1).
V. Date of "Writing. — St. Luke's Gospel is not, like St. Mark's, a bare record of our Lord's deeds and words, but, to a considerable extent, a theological exposition of their meaning. St. Luke, like his master St. Paul, has reflected on them, and is anxious to impress on the reader his own ideas about them. Such action demands time. In spite of 1 Ti o^*, we cannot admit that St, Luke wrote before St. Paul's death.
Again, if we observe the treatment in his pages of the destruction of Jerusalem, contrasting his precise language (21-°) with the vague predictions in St. Mark (13i'*), we can hardly doubt that he wrote after the event, and edited the word- ing accordingly. The end of the world was not with him, as it was with the redactor of St. Matthew, synchronous with the burning of the Temple. He carefully puts our Lord's teaching about the last days into a separate conflation, which he prefaces with a remarkable saying which warns us against a literal interpretation: 'The kingdom of God is within you ' (17'-^i).
But there are no 2nd cent, ideas in the Gospel, nor anything to throw doubt upon the unanimous and early tradition of St. Luke's authorship. Nor would so obscure a member of the Church have been selected as author if there had not been good ground for the belief. Probably his name stood on the original title-page.
We are, therefore, probably right in assigning the date to about 80 a.d.
LiTKKATiKE.— Plummer'sCoininentary (T. &T. Clark; is good on the ling-uistic side. Tlie Couimentaiies of Meyer (German) and of Godet (P'rencli) liave been publislied in ICnglisli by T. & T. Clark, but the later German editions of Meyer, edited by B. and J. Weiss, are preferable. In the A'xponitor'it Greek Testn- vieiit the Synoptic (Jospels are treated from the side of the hiplier criticism by A. 15. Bruce, but unfortunately the TU is u^ed. Wellhausen has translated the Gospel into German with a few critical notes. For comparative study Wright's St. Luke and his Synupnia may be used. In Ilorm Syiiopticoi Sir .J. C. Hawkins has collected statistics of great value. Ilobart's Medical Ltniguuye of Si. Luke needs some weeding out, but has never been refuted. A. Kesch, in Dae KindheitH-Eran- gelium, as in his other writings, collects an immense quantity of illustrative matter, but the critical standjioint which he ado[its is not generally acceptable. IJamsay ( Wax Chrixt born, at Beth/ehetn f) successfully defends St. Luke as an historian of high rank, but insists too much on his accuracy in editorial details. Blass, in his edition of St. Luke's Gosiiel and ol the Acts, follows Lightfoot in suggesting that St, Luke published two editions of his works — one for Theophiltis and another for use by the Church. In this way he accounts for the Western readings, which, however, are found in other books of the NT.
A. Wright. LUNATIC—
Introduction. i. Difficulty of classifying NT cases.
1. From the medical side.
2. From the Biblical side.
ii. Leading cases reported in Gospels.
1. Capernaum lunatic.
2. Case at foot of Mt. of Transfiguration.
3. Gerasene victim.
4. Other cases.
iii. Question as to possession by evil spirits. Prevalent mis- conceptions. Truer conception.
iv. Our Lord's method of restoration. Kinship with modern medical treatment.
Literature.
The word ' lunatic ' in the AY of NT is the tr. of o-eXijj'tdfecr^at (from aeXriv-rj, 'tliemoon') which occurs in Mt 4'^* 1715, and nowhere else in the NT or in classical or Biblical Greek. Literally its meaning is ' to be moonstruck.' The Vulgate translates it lunaticus, and in Mt IT^^ lunaticus est., where Tindale gives ' is frantick,' and other versions practically follow the Vulgate. Sir John Cheke (1550) has the expression ' is moond ' as the equiva- lent of 'lunatic,' putting into plain English the ancient thought expressed by the word. The influence of the moon on persons was believed to be injurious, and to be able to cause them to become moonstruck (Ps 121"), an idea which has been widely prevalent and still persists. The fact that certain forms of insanity are periodical, no doubt gave rise in part to the idea. Dr. Menzies Alexander says : ' The popular idea that there is some connexion between the moon and epilepsy is partly due to the confusion of epilep.sy with epi- leptic insanity. The bright moonlight of the Orient has a curious stimulating effect on such creatures as crows and dogs, making them restless and noisy. It has an exciting effect also on those afflicted with epileptic insanity. In both cases darkness acts as a sedative.'