Luke, the Christian physician of Antioch.

  • Harnack, Adolf von, 1851-1930.
Date:
[1893]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Luke, the Christian physician of Antioch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    LUKE, THE CHRISTIAN PHYSICIAN OF ANTIOCH. [Translated from Prof. A. Harnactts Medicinisches am der dltesten Kirchengeschichte, Leipzig, 1892.] In the Apostle Paul's Epistle to the Colossians (iv, 14), we read: Luke, the beloved Physician, greets you. In the epistle to Philemon (verse 24), written from Rome at the same time, the Apostle calls him his fellow-labourer; and in the last writing of Paul's which we possess, he says: Only Luke is with me (2 Tim., iv, 11). Luke, the first physician whom we know to have been a Christian, took a prominent part as Paul's fellow-labourer in the spread of the Gospel. Church tradition ascribes to him the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, and much may be alleged in favour of this report. Both these books, which form a considerable part of the New Testament, have undoubtedly been written by a highly cultured Greek, by one who worked with the greatest accuracy as regards the sources from which he derived his information, who thoroughly understood the rules of the science of history, and who wrote in an excellent style. There are also to be found in both works passages which would seem, both from the interest and the knowledge which they display as regards medicine, to point to a physician as their author; * indeed, it has even been asserted that the preface to the Third Gospel is formed after the pattern of the preface to the Materia Medica of Dioscorides.-f- It is certain, at any rate, that in no other * Eusebius says in his Church History, iii, 4 : Luke, a scientific physician, bequeathed to us two books in demonstration of the science of soul-healing which he had learned from the Apostles. t Lagarde, Psalterium iuxta Hebr. Hieron., p. 165; compare also Mittheil. Ill, S. 355. [The following is a translation of the first sentence referred to. Dioscorides is assigned to the first or second century a.d. Following many others, including not merely ancient, but recent authors also, who have written concerning the preparation of medicines, and their powers, and their use, we also, O dearest Areus, will try to show to thee that this matter has been taken up by us after due consideration and with no small amount of study : because some of them have not thoroughly elucidated the subject, and others of them have treated it merely historically.]