ranges himself on the same platform with these earlioretudente and writeni of the Divine story. The truth probably was that these writings to whioh he refers were inoomplete portions rather than a whole. To BUm up, when St. Luke undertook hie great work there wae probably current, in the Churches in which he lived and worked, a general oral authoritative gospel, whioh had grown up in the apoetolio cirole in very early days, in the months and years which followed the first Pentecost, muoh in the way we have sketched out above. In different Ohurohee, we may with all reverenoe assume, existed separate and distinot memoirs and faithful oral traditions-memoirs a.nd traditions written and proserved by men and women, eye-witneesee of the eoenee and hearers of the words so preserved; suoh a memoir, for instance. as that evidently Aramaio frag- ment which treats of the birth a.nd infanoy and childhood of the Redeemer woven into the tapestry of the first two chapters of St. Luke. It is of suoh pieces as these that St. Luke, no doubt, was thinking when he wrote the first veree of his Gospel Of the three synoptical Gospels, the first and third are olearly compila- tions, arranged with a definite aim, constructed out of materials before the writer. The second. as we have already ·affirmed, is the simplest, as it is the shortest. It probably represents, if not the very first, at least a very early presentment of the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ. With the first and second we are not just now concerned. The third, the Gospel of St. Luke, is the most carefully composed of the three divinely inspired stories of the Redeemer. It is the reply to question- ings which would naturally present themselves to a thoughtful, cultured man who had heard, a.nd after hearing had been impressed with the strange beauty and the intense reality of, the story of the cross. There were, to such a. man, many things, apart from the simple narrative which formed the groundwork of the preaching of the first days, which called for explanation. Who was this strange, marvellous Being, whose love for men ~ love passing understanding-had led him to die for men who only repaid his love with <.he bitterest hate? " The very God I think, Abib ; dost thou think P So the All-great were the All-loving too; So through the thunder oomea a human voice, Saying, • 0 heart I me.de, a heart beats here I Fa.oe my hands flU!hioned, see it in myself! Thou hast no power, nor mayest conceive of mine: Bnt love I gave thee, with myself to love; A..ud thou must love me, who have died for thee I' The madman saith. He said ao ; it is strange I " (R. Browning,' An Epistle of Karehish, the Ara.b Physician.')
Whence came he ? How and tehen and in tehat guise did he first appear among men ? Where did he spend the finit thirty years of his life? What wu his earthly home, Who was that honoured and mighty forerunner, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. :Ii
lhat John, whom Herod had foully murdered ? What was the meaning of lhe eicclusion of Israel, the ohoeen people, from his Church? All these questionings would naturally occur to a cultured listener, who longed to embrace the promises of Jesus, about A.D. 60-70, when the Church was growing into a great and widespread company, and the " story" was being repeated at seoond and third hand in many a city far away from the Holy Land. "No one could understand better than St. Paul the need of an exhaus- tive reply to such questionings, the need of an authoritative history, where an account of the rise and progress of the gospel of Jesus Christ was related with accurate and careful detail. And if Paul, among the helpers who surrounded him, had an evangelist distinguished for his gifts and oulture-and we know from 2 Cor. viii. 18, 19 that there was really one of this description-how could he help casting his eyes upon him, and encour- aging him to undertake so excellent a work? Such is the task which Luke has discharged" (Godet). We have said this Third Goepel was most carefully composed, with the view of satisfying the requiremente of a thoughtful, cultured man, such as was probably that "most excellent Theophilus" to whom the Gospel was addressed. First, it contained, with its sequel the Acts, not a few historical notices, such as the census of Quirinius, under the decree of Augustus (oh.ii. 1-3) ; the contemporary Roman and Jewish rulers in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cresar ( oh. iii. 1, 2); Pilate's and Herod's jurisdictions ( oh. mii. 1, 12); with allusions by name to public persons, such as Cornelius, centurion of the Italian band ( Acts x. 1) ; Herod ( Acts xii. 1, etc. ; xiii. 1) ; Sergi us Paulus (Acts xiii. 7); the Emperor Clandius's decree (Acts xviii. 2); Gallio the deputy of Achaia (Acts xviii. 12-16); Claudius Lysias, Felix the Roman governor (Acts xxiii. 26); Porcine Festns (Acts xxiv. 27); King A,,orippa and Bernice (Acts xxv.); the appeal to Cresar (Acts xxvi. 32). Secondly, it embodied in its narrative that beautiful and interesting account of the nativity and the events which preceded it and immediately succeeded it, with a few notices of the boyhood of the Lord. These details, as we have suggested in the Exposition, were evidently procured from information communicated to St. Luke (or St. Paul) by eye-witnesses, many of the details probably by the virgin-mother herself. These two first chapters would answer many a question which would naturally suggest itself to reverent inquirers who had listened to the simple gospel message as first delivered, and had enrolled themselves among the followers of Jeaus Christ. Thirdly, the pioture of the gradual development of the Church of Jesus Christ is drawn with extraordinary skill and oare by St. Luke-its develop- ment from Bethlehem and Naz1ueth to Jerusalem and Rome. On the morning of the nativity, in tho opening chapters of St. Luke, the Churoh is confined to Joseph, Mary, and the holy Dabe. To these, juist the few shopherds of xii UM'RODUCTION TO