Introduction 9

the Church, would seém to be quite plain, but Dr. McGiffert declines to draw it, and falls back upon the belief that some other person named Luke was the writer of the third Gospel and Acts, p. 433. But if there had been such a person there would have been no need for tradition to identify him with Luke the beloved physician, since his own intrinsic merits as an author and historian would have been amply sufficient to secure him an undying recognition. Here comes in the value of the argument from the medical language employed in the third Gospel and the Acts. The Church in identifying the writer with St. Paul’s beloved friend was not following some fanciful or unreliable tradition, but a tradition amply supported by an examination of the language of the books in question; language which not only witnesses to the truth of the tradition, but also to the unity of Acts, since this medical phraseology may be traced in every part, and not in the “We” sections alone. The present Introduction, which must of necessity be brief, does not allow of any lengthy examination of this important subject (to which the writer hopes to return), but in a large number of passages in the commentary notes are given with special reference to indi- cations of medical phraseology. But one or two remarks may be added here. In the first place, it is well to bear in mind that St. Luke’s medical phraseology was fully recognised before Dr. Hobart’s interesting and valuable book, The Medical Language of St. Luke, 1882 (cf, e.g., Dr. Belcher’s Our Lord’s Miracles of Healing, 1st edit., with Preface by Archbishop Trench, 1871, 2nd edit., 1890). The Gentleman’s Magazine, June, 1841, containing a short article of some two and a half pages, pp. 585-587, is often referred to as a kind of starting-point for this inquiry, but it should not be forgotten that the great names of Wetstein and Bengel may be quoted as fully recognising the hand of a medical writer; thus in commenting not only on Luke xiv. 2, but also on Acts xxviii. 8, Wetstein makes the same remark: ‘‘ Lucas qui medicus fuerat morbos accuratius de- scribere solet,” cf. Bengel on Acts iii. 7, “ Proprie locutus est medicus Lucas,” and Luke viii. 43, where the disputed reading does not interfere with the force of the comment: “ Lucas medicus ingenue scribit . Indeed it is not too much to say that the main position taken up by Hobart has been abundantly recognised both in France and Germany, and not always in quarters where such a recognition might have been anticipated, cf, e.g., Renan, Saint Paul, p. 133, 12th edit.; J. Weiss, Evangelium des Lukas, 1892, with reference to Dr. Hobart’s book, and with quotations from it, although with the qualification that many of the instances require careful sifting,