Saint Luke — in Greek Loukas — is the author of the third Gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles: two books which together are about as long as the fourteen epistles of Saint Paul.[1] A physician by profession, Greek by culture, a native of Antioch in Syria according to the oldest tradition,[2] he is very probably the only non-Jewish author of Holy Scripture.[3] Saint Paul, whose faithful companion he was, describes him with a word that has remained famous: "Luke, the beloved physician".[4]
Luke did not see Christ with his own eyes. He made himself the historian of the eyewitnesses: after having "followed all things closely from the beginning", he wrote for Theophilus "an orderly account".[5] From this inquiry was born the Gospel of mercy: the Gospel of the Good Samaritan, of the Prodigal Son, of the Good Thief and of Zacchaeus; of the poor, of women and of forgiven sinners; of prayer, of the Holy Spirit and of joy.[6]
It is also through Luke that we know the infancy of the Saviour — the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple — and the canticles the Church sings every day, the Benedictus, the Magnificat and the Nunc dimittis, while the song of the angels of Bethlehem opens the hymn of the Gloria.[7] Because he gathered what Mary "kept faithfully in her heart", a tradition attested as early as the sixth century saw in him the first painter of the Virgin.[8]
Represented by the winged ox and celebrated on 18 October, Saint Luke died, according to an ancient prologue of his Gospel, at eighty-four years of age, "full of the Holy Spirit", in Boeotia.[9] His body rests at Padua, where a scientific inquiry conducted from 1998 to 2001 found nothing to contradict the tradition.[10] Dante designated him with a phrase that has remained attached to his name: "the scribe of the gentleness of Christ".[11]
Who is Saint Luke the Evangelist ?
Loukas: a Greek name and a physician
The name of the evangelist, Loukas, is Greek: it is probably an abbreviation of Lucanus, just as Demas abbreviates Demetrius and Apollos abbreviates Apollonius.[12] It already says the essential: Luke belongs to the Hellenistic world, not to Palestinian Judaism. Saint Paul names him three times, in the letters to the Colossians, to Philemon and to Timothy, and each time alongside Mark, the other evangelist who was not an apostle.[13] The first of these mentions specifies his trade:
"Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas." — Letter to the Colossians 4, 14[14]
This is the only place in Scripture that names the trade of an evangelist. The trade presupposed a liberal education, and its trace has been sought in Luke's language. In 1882, the Irishman William Kirk Hobart collected in the Gospel and the Acts a great number of words and turns of phrase shared with the Greek physicians Hippocrates, Aretaeus, Galen and Dioscorides.[15] The great Protestant historian Adolf von Harnack, a leading figure of German liberal exegesis, concurred with this conclusion:
"It is as good as certain from the subject-matter, and more especially from the style, of this great work that the author was a physician by profession." — Adolf von Harnack, Lukas der Arzt (Luke the Physician), 1906[16]
In 1920, the American Henry J. Cadbury challenged the scope of these parallels, showing that many of the terms collected are also found in other cultivated authors.[17] But the argument, as Alfred Plummer already observed, is cumulative: two or three coincidences with the language of physicians may be fortuitous, but their great number is not. And Luke's profession does not depend on this debate: Saint Paul himself attests to it. Moreover, Luke writes, together with the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the most polished Greek of the New Testament.[18]
The only non-Jewish author of the New Testament?
A discreet but decisive clue places Luke among the Christians come from paganism. In the letter to the Colossians, Paul first passes on the greetings of Aristarchus, Mark and Jesus called Justus: "These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God." He then names, separately, Epaphras, Luke and Demas.[19] By this break, the Apostle ranks Luke among the uncircumcised.
Hence a widely received conviction: Luke would be the only non-Jewish author of the whole Bible. Saint Jerome explained his knowledge of the Septuagint and of Jewish customs by Luke's passage through Judaism as a proselyte before his conversion to Christ.[20] This origin sheds light on his work. He who comes from the nations writes for the nations: he traces the genealogy of Jesus back not to Abraham, father of Israel, but to Adam, father of all men (Lk 3, 38); his Gospel opens and closes at the Temple of Jerusalem, but the Acts lead the Word as far as Rome, capital of the world. Luke is the evangelist of the universality of salvation.
A native of Antioch in Syria
The oldest tradition makes Luke a native of Antioch in Syria, the great metropolis where, according to the Acts, "it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians" (Acts 11, 26). Eusebius of Caesarea affirms it at the beginning of the fourth century:
"Luke, who was by birth of Antioch and by profession a physician, was for the most part a companion of Paul, and associated with the rest of the apostles less closely. He has left us a proof of the soul-healing that he learned from them in two books inspired by God." — Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, III, 4, 6[21]
Saint Jerome in turn calls him a "physician of Antioch",[22] and the ancient prologue of his Gospel makes him a "Syrian of Antioch".[23] The Codex Bezae, a very ancient Greek and Latin manuscript of the Gospels and Acts, goes so far as to bring Luke into the narrative from the Church of Antioch onwards, placing a "we" at Acts 11, 28: the reading is not original, but it reflects a very ancient tradition.[24] That the evangelist of universality should have been born in the city where the Church opened herself to the pagans and received her name is not a matter of indifference: Antioch is the cradle of the mission, and Luke would be its historian.
Luke, companion of the apostle Paul
The echo of Paul's preaching
Luke is not one of the Twelve, nor a witness of the public life of Jesus. He enters sacred history as the companion of Saint Paul, to whom the Church attaches him indissolubly. The Muratorian Fragment, a list of the sacred books generally dated to the second half of the second century, says it in a few lines:
"The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke. Luke, the physician, after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had taken him with him as a companion of his journey, wrote it in his own name, in accordance with what he had learned — for he too had not seen the Lord in the flesh — and, as far as he could ascertain, he thus begins his narrative from the birth of John." — Muratorian Fragment, lines 2 to 9[25]
Around 180, Saint Irenaeus makes Luke the memory of the preaching of the Apostle to the nations:
"Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by him." — Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, III, 1, 1[26]
This dependence does not lower Luke: it raises him. As Saint Mark is the interpreter of Peter, Luke is the faithful echo of Paul. His Gospel and his Acts bear the mark of Pauline preaching: grace offered to all, mercy preceding the Law, the salvation of the pagans.
The "we" passages of the Acts
The most striking internal proof of Luke's presence at Paul's side is found in the Acts of the Apostles. At Troas, in chapter 16, the narrative, hitherto in the third person, abruptly shifts to the first person plural: "Immediately after he had seen the vision, we sought to go on into Macedonia" (Acts 16, 10).[27] These passages — the "we-sections" — return during the journey to Jerusalem, then throughout the transfer of Paul as a prisoner to Rome, the shipwreck at Malta included, until the arrival: "And so we came to Rome…" (Acts 28, 16).
Since antiquity, these have been recognised as the logbook of an eyewitness: the author of the Acts was at Paul's side, and antiquity attributes this book to Luke with one unanimous voice.[28] These "we" passages are the rare moments when the evangelist, usually self-effacing, lets his own presence show through. Eusebius already noted it: Luke composed the Gospel from those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, but the Acts "not from hearsay, but from what he had seen with his own eyes".[29]
Faithful to the end: "Luke alone is with me"
Mark had for a time left Paul and Barnabas in Pamphylia (Acts 13, 13; 15, 38); Luke, for his part, embodies constant faithfulness. He accompanies Paul on his journeys, stands at his side during his captivity, when the Apostle writes to the Colossians and to Philemon, and remains near him at the darkest hour. In his last letter, written from prison shortly before his martyrdom, while other companions have left him, Paul writes:
"Luke alone is with me." — Second Letter to Timothy 4, 11[30]
This verse is the spiritual portrait of Luke in a word: faithful presence. Where others scatter, he remains. The letter to Philemon already counted him among Paul's "fellow workers".[31] Tradition extends this faithfulness beyond the death of the Apostle: according to the ancient prologue of his Gospel, Luke served the Lord unremittingly, without wife or child, and wrote his Gospel in Achaia, that is, in Greece.[32]
The work of Saint Luke: a Gospel and the Acts
A work in two volumes dedicated to Theophilus
Luke's originality in the New Testament is to have written not one book but two volumes of a single work: the Gospel, which runs from the announcement made to Zechariah to the Ascension, and the Acts of the Apostles, which run from the Ascension to Paul a prisoner at Rome. Both books are addressed to the same recipient, Theophilus ("friend of God"): the Gospel calls him "most excellent Theophilus", a title the Acts also give to the governors Felix and Festus (Acts 23, 26; 26, 25), and the Acts open thus: "In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach" (Acts 1, 1).[33]
This construction makes Luke the first historian of the Church. Before him, no one had told the story of the passage from Christ to the apostles, from Jerusalem to Rome, from the synagogue to the nations. The Acts are a unique book: without them, we would know almost nothing of Pentecost or of the first martyr Stephen, and we could follow Paul's journeys only in fragments, through his letters.
The historian's prologue
The Gospel of Luke opens with a sentence that has no equivalent in the other three: a genuine historian's prologue, in highly polished Greek, in which the author sets out his method.
"Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 1, 1-4[34]
This prologue is decisive: it refutes the idea that the Gospels are late, anonymous constructions. Luke claims an inquiry, sources, eyewitnesses, and a precise aim — to give the reader certainty (asphaleia) about what he has received. His rigour has been put to the test: wherever archaeology has made it possible to verify his statements, they have proved exact.[35] The Scottish archaeologist William Mitchell Ramsay, who confronted the Acts with the inscriptions and sites of Asia Minor in many works, drew this conclusion from it:
"Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy; he is possessed of the true historical sense […] In short, this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians." — Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 1915[36]
The Gospel is not a myth: it is the fruit of historical research, conducted by a man who questioned the survivors of the first generation.
The Gospel of mercy
If the Gospel of Luke had to be summed up in one word, it would be: mercy. No evangelist has shown so tenderly a Saviour bending over sinners, the despised, the excluded — hence the title Dante gives him, scriba mansuetudinis Christi, the scribe of the gentleness of Christ.[37]
It is Luke alone who reports the promise made to the Good Thief on the cross; he alone preserves the prayer "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"; he alone tells of the sinful woman forgiven at Simon's house, and of the conversion of Zacchaeus the publican.[38] The whole Gospel of Luke tends towards this programmatic saying:
"For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 19, 10[39]
The parables proper to Saint Luke
A great many of Christ's most beloved parables have come down to us only through Luke: the Catholic Encyclopedia counts eighteen that are proper to him, as well as six of the twenty miracles he recounts.[40] Without him, we would not know the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Lost Coin, the Pharisee and the Publican, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Importunate Friend or the Unjust Judge. In chapter 15, Luke gathers the three parables of mercy: the Lost Sheep, which Matthew also reports, then the Lost Coin and the Prodigal Son, which belong to him alone.[41]
"But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 15, 20, parable of the Prodigal Son[42]
"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers […]. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 10, 30.33, parable of the Good Samaritan[43]
The Gospel of the poor and the lowly
Luke is also the evangelist of the poor. Where Matthew writes "Blessed are the poor in spirit", Luke's Beatitudes say: "Blessed are you poor", adding: "But woe to you that are rich!"[44] It is he who reports the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Mary's song celebrating the God who "has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree", and the constant warning against money that closes the heart.
This preference for the lowly — the shepherds of Bethlehem, the publicans, the despised Samaritans, the lepers — makes Luke's Gospel the book par excellence of God's tenderness for the downtrodden. There, salvation always comes from below.
The Gospel of women
No evangelist gives women a place comparable to Luke's. He alone names Elizabeth, Anna the prophetess, Joanna and Susanna; he alone tells of the widow of Nain, of the women who provided for Jesus out of their means, and of the Lord's welcome at the home of Martha and Mary, two sisters whom Saint John also knows.[45] And above all, it is Luke who hands down to us the face of Mary: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Magnificat, the Presentation, the childhood of Jesus, whose mother "kept all these things in her heart".[46]
Luke also places women among the first witnesses of the faith: it is they who, on Easter morning, find the empty tomb and announce it to the Eleven (Lk 24, 1-10). This attention is not a modern feminism projected onto the text: it is the reflection of Christ's own gaze, which the evangelist of mercy knew how to gather better than any other.
The Gospel of the Holy Spirit, of prayer and of joy
Three further traits complete the portrait of Luke's book. It is the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, who comes upon Mary, fills Elizabeth and Zechariah, rests upon Simeon, and whom Jesus promises to his own — the Spirit who will burst forth at Pentecost at the beginning of the Acts. It is the Gospel of prayer: Luke shows Jesus praying at the great turning points of his life, and he alone gives the parable of the Importunate Friend and that of the Unjust Judge on persevering prayer. Finally, it is the Gospel of joy: it begins and ends in gladness, and Jesus himself there "rejoiced in the Holy Spirit".[47]
The Gospel of the infancy and the canticles
Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity
Only Saint Matthew and Saint Luke tell of Christ's infancy, each independently.[48] But it is to Luke that the Church owes the announcement to Zechariah, the Annunciation to Mary by the angel Gabriel, the Visitation to Elizabeth, the Nativity at Bethlehem with the Child lying in a manger, the announcement to the shepherds, the Presentation in the Temple, and Jesus found among the doctors at twelve years of age. The Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary follow this narrative almost step by step, and the Angelus takes up its scene of the Annunciation.[49]
"Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word!" — Gospel according to Saint Luke 1, 38, Mary's answer to the angel[50]
The four great canticles of the Church
The Gospel of the infancy contains four canticles which the Church's prayer takes up unceasingly:
- the Magnificat of Mary (Lk 1, 46-55), sung every evening at Vespers;
- the Benedictus of Zechariah (Lk 1, 68-79), sung every morning at Lauds;
- the Gloria in excelsis Deo of the angels (Lk 2, 14), which opens the hymn of the Gloria, sung at Mass on Sundays outside Advent and Lent, on solemnities and feasts;
- the Nunc dimittis of Simeon (Lk 2, 29-32), sung every evening at Compline.
The Church asks that the three evangelical canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours be surrounded with the same solemnity as the proclamation of the Gospel.[51]
"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. […] He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree." — Magnificat, Gospel according to Saint Luke 1, 46-48.52[52]
Where did Luke get the infancy narratives?
How could Luke, who did not know Jesus, hand down what no one else reported of the Saviour's infancy and of his Mother's most intimate thoughts? Twice, the evangelist himself seems to disclose the source:
"But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 2, 19[53]
The same refrain returns after the finding of Jesus in the Temple: "and his mother kept all these things in her heart" (Lk 2, 51). No one but Mary could have known what she thus pondered: these verses discreetly point to the Virgin's memory, or to that of her immediate circle in the Church of Jerusalem, as the source of the infancy narratives. From this will be born the loveliest of traditions about Saint Luke — that of the painter of the Virgin.
Saint Luke, first iconographer
The tradition of the painter of the Virgin
An ancient tradition, attested as early as the sixth century and rooted in East as in West, makes Saint Luke the first painter of icons: he is said to have painted, in the Virgin's own lifetime, her portrait with the Child Jesus. The Byzantine historian Theodore the Reader reports, at the beginning of the sixth century, that the Empress Eudocia sent from Jerusalem to Constantinople an icon of the Mother of God painted by Luke; the Menologion of Emperor Basil II, around 980, then Nicephorus Callistus, in the fourteenth century, call him a painter.[54]
This tradition is not a decorative legend. It expresses a profound truth: of all the evangelists, it is Luke who painted Mary with words, his Gospel being the only one to give us her inner face. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes it, following the Anglican exegete Alfred Plummer: it is certain that Luke was an artist, at least in the sense that his descriptions of the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the shepherds, the Presentation or the Lost Sheep have become the favourite themes of Christian painters.[55]
Salus Populi Romani, Hodegetria and the Madonnas of Saint Luke
Several of the most famous Marian images of Christendom are, by tradition, attributed to Saint Luke's brush: the Salus Populi Romani of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome, the Hodegetria of Constantinople ("She who shows the way"), and the Black Madonna of Częstochowa in Poland. The Roman icon, attested since 847, is held to be a copy of the image spoken of by Theodore the Reader.[56] Historians date these works to centuries after apostolic times: the Częstochowa icon, for example, to the Byzantine era, in the sixth or seventh century.[57] But the attribution to Luke expresses the conviction that Mary's true image goes back to the evangelist.
That is why Saint Luke became, through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the patron of painters and artists. At Antwerp, painters, sculptors, glassmakers, embroiderers and goldsmiths gathered as early as 1382 in a Guild of Saint Luke.[58] Painters loved to depict the evangelist at work before the Virgin: in Rogier van der Weyden's Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin, around 1435-1440, Luke's face may even be a self-portrait of the painter.[59]
The spirituality of Saint Luke
The physician of souls
Luke's profession is not a biographical detail: it has become a spiritual key. Eusebius already speaks of the "art of healing souls" which Luke had learned from the apostles.[60] The physician of the body made himself the evangelist of inner healing: his book is full of outstretched hands, of dressed wounds — the oil and wine of the Good Samaritan —, of raised hearts. Luke reports the saying in which Jesus presents himself as a physician: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Lk 5, 31-32).
Saint Luke thus teaches that mercy is not a vague sentiment but a concrete care: bending over the wounded man at the roadside, setting him on one's own beast, paying for him. As early as the third century, Origen reported the reading of an elder for whom the wounded man figures Adam, Jericho the world, and the Samaritan Christ; the inn, open to all who wish to enter it, is the Church.[61]
The singer of joy and thanksgiving
Luke's spirituality is shot through with joy and thanksgiving. His Gospel opens with John the Baptist leaping in Elizabeth's womb, bursts forth in the Magnificat, sings with the angels of Bethlehem, and closes with the disciples returning to Jerusalem "with great joy", "continually in the temple blessing God" (Lk 24, 52-53).
This joy is not naive: it is born at the very heart of poverty, of the Cross and of forgiveness. Luke shows that true Christian joy is that of the sinner found again, of the justified publican, of the thief saved at the last moment: "there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance" (Lk 15, 7).
The self-effacement of the faithful witness
Like Mark, Luke left neither personal doctrine nor any grand discourse about himself. He effaces himself behind the witnesses he questions, behind Paul whom he accompanies, behind Mary whose memories he keeps. The rare "we" passages of the Acts are the only moments when he consents to appear. All his greatness lies there: to have made audible the voice of others, and first of all that of Christ and of his Mother.
This is the model for every servant of the Word and every Christian: not to put oneself forward, but faithfully to hand on what one has received, "that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed" (Lk 1, 4).
The cult of Saint Luke
The winged ox: why Luke is an ox
Of all the symbols of the evangelists, Luke's is the ox (or calf), one of the four Living Creatures of the tetramorph — man, lion, ox, eagle — described by Ezekiel and the Apocalypse, which the Fathers related to the four evangelists. Saint Irenaeus, around 180, already saw in the calf the image of Luke, because his Gospel begins with the priesthood and sacrifice of the priest Zechariah; Saint Jerome fixed in 398 the distribution the Church has retained: the man for Matthew, the lion for Mark, the ox for Luke, the eagle for John.[62]
The ox is, in the Old Law, the animal of sacrifice. It thus evokes the priesthood and the offering of Christ, which Luke intimates from the very first page: his book opens in the Temple, with the incense offered by Zechariah, and closes in the Temple, where the disciples praise God. His whole narrative climbs towards Jerusalem and towards the Passion, as towards the sacrifice par excellence.
Where and how did Saint Luke die?
After Paul's death, Luke is said to have continued his preaching in Greece. The ancient prologue of his Gospel, whose first part probably goes back to the second half of the second century, reports his death in these terms:
"Having served the Lord without ceasing, without wife or child, he fell asleep at eighty-four years of age in Boeotia, full of the Holy Spirit." — So-called anti-Marcionite prologue of the Gospel of Luke[63]
Another ancient Latin preface to the Gospel gives seventy-four years and Bithynia, a reading the Catholic Encyclopedia holds to be a copyist's error for Boeotia; yet it is Bithynia that the traditional Roman Martyrology retained.[64] The Greek tradition places at Thebes, the principal city of Boeotia, the evangelist's first tomb.[65] The manner of his death is less certain than its place: the prologue suggests a peaceful end, while the Martyrology says he had "suffered much for the name of Christ"; the question of a martyrdom properly so called remains debated.[66]
Was Saint Luke canonised?
Saint Luke was never the object of a canonisation process, and he had no need of one. Like the apostles and the martyrs of the first centuries, he belongs to the saints whose cult precedes all procedure: in the early Church, the public honour paid to saints was established by the usage of the Churches, with the agreement of their bishops. From the end of the eleventh century, the popes regulated this practice: Alexander III (1159-1181) forbade venerating as a saint anyone without the authority of the Roman Church, and Urban VIII reserved in 1634 to the Holy See alone both canonisation and beatification.[67] For Luke, the title of saint rests on Scripture itself, which shows him in the service of the Gospel, and on an uninterrupted cult since antiquity.
The traditional Roman Martyrology announced him thus on 18 October: "In Bithynia, the heavenly birthday of blessed Luke the Evangelist, who, after suffering much for the name of Christ, died full of the Holy Spirit. His bones were afterwards translated to Constantinople, and from there carried to Padua." On the same day, the same book specifies for Saint Paul of the Cross and for Saint Peter of Alcantara the name of the pope who enrolled them among the saints; for the evangelist, nothing of the kind: his holiness has been received from all time.[68]
The body of Saint Luke: from Thebes to Constantinople, Padua and Prague
The fate of Saint Luke's relics is among the best documented of Christian antiquity. First buried at Thebes in Boeotia, his body was translated to Constantinople in 357, under the Emperor Constantius II, and laid in the Church of the Holy Apostles, with the relics of Saint Andrew. Saint Jerome testifies to it:
"He was buried at Constantinople, to which city, in the twentieth year of Constantius, his bones were translated with the remains of the apostle Andrew." — Saint Jerome, On Illustrious Men, chapter 7[69]
The body then reached Italy at an unknown date, before 1177 — perhaps under Julian the Apostate, perhaps during the iconoclast crisis — and has since rested at Padua, in the Benedictine abbey church of Santa Giustina.[70] In 1354, the Emperor Charles IV had the skull detached from it; it is now venerated at Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague. On 17 September 2000, the Bishop of Padua handed to the Orthodox Metropolitan Hieronymos of Thebes a rib of the evangelist, laid in the empty tomb at Thebes: a gesture intended as a sign of reconciliation between Catholics and Orthodox.[71]
The 1998 scientific inquiry on the tomb at Padua
The request of the Metropolitan of Thebes, addressed in 1992 to the Bishop of Padua, Mgr Antonio Mattiazzo, posed a simple question: are the bones of Santa Giustina really those of Saint Luke? The sarcophagus was opened on 17 September 1998 by a commission chaired by Vito Terribile Wiel Marin, professor at the University of Padua; some thirty specialists worked on it until 6 June 2001.[72] The lead coffin, whose dimensions fit the tomb at Thebes, contained the almost complete skeleton of a man who died at seventy years of age at least; traces of larvae on the bones and on the lead suggest the body decomposed in this very coffin.[73] The skull brought from Prague fitted exactly onto the skeleton's first vertebra.[74]
Two laboratories, at Tucson and Oxford, dated the bones by radiocarbon: death falls between 72 and 416 AD, a range that includes the end of the first century. Mitochondrial DNA extracted from a tooth was compared with present-day populations of Syria, Greece and Anatolia.[75] The geneticists concluded:
"Genetic data indicate that replacement of the body of the evangelist Luke with the body of a Greek individual is unlikely." — Cristiano Vernesi, Guido Barbujani et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2001[76]
A Syrian origin is the most probable — the very one asserted by the Antioch tradition; an Anatolian origin, which could betray a substitution at Constantinople, is not excluded.[77] None of these data proves the identity of Saint Luke by itself; but none contradicts the tradition, and several match it strikingly. The Diocese of Padua recalled it in 2025: the results did not disprove the tradition that the remains kept at Santa Giustina are indeed those of the author of the third Gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles.[78]
Liturgical feast and patronages
The Latin Church celebrates Saint Luke on 18 October, as does the Orthodox Church, which keeps him on the same day as apostle and evangelist.[79] The prayer of his feast, in the Liturgy of the Hours, sums up his whole mission:
"O God, who chose Saint Luke to reveal, by his word and his writings, the mystery of your love for the poor, grant to those who claim your name to be of one heart and one soul, and to all the peoples of the world the grace to see your salvation." — Liturgy of the Hours, collect of the feast of Saint Luke, 18 October[80]
Saint Luke is the patron of physicians, by reason of his profession; of artists, and of iconographers in particular, by reason of the tradition of the painter of the Virgin; and of catechists, he who wrote so that Theophilus might measure the certainty of the teachings he had received.[81] Depicted as an evangelist writing, accompanied by the winged ox, or as a painter before the portrait of the Virgin, he remains one of the most beloved figures of Christianity: the one through whom we know the infancy of Christ, the tenderness of the Father for sinners, and the heart of Mary, who "kept all these things faithfully".
To go further
- Saint Paul — the Apostle to the nations, whose faithful companion Luke was, and whose echo he is in the Gospel and the Acts.
- Saint Mark — the other evangelist who was not an apostle, interpreter of Peter as Luke was the echo of Paul.
- Saint Matthew — the evangelist of the winged man, who also tells of Christ's infancy.
- Saint Stephen — the protomartyr, whose death only the book of the Acts, written by Luke, has handed down to us.
- Saint Andrew the Apostle — whose relics were translated to Constantinople together with Luke's.
- Saint Jerome — who fixed the distribution of the four symbols and testifies to the translation of the relics.
- Saint Irenaeus of Lyons — the earliest witness of the link between Luke and Paul's preaching.
Notes and References
Cornelius Aherne, "Gospel of Saint Luke", The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9, New York, Robert Appleton Company, 1910 (full text on New Advent: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09420a.htm). Reference notice for the etymology of the name (Lucanus), Luke's Antiochene origin and his Gentile status (Col 4), Saint Jerome's hypothesis of a former proselyte, the three Pauline mentions always associated with Mark, the scale of the work ("his two books are about as long as the fourteen epistles of St. Paul"), a style superior to anything in the New Testament except the Epistle to the Hebrews, the we of the Codex Bezae at Acts 11, 28, the eighteen parables proper to Luke and the place he gives to prayer, the exactness archaeology recognises in his narratives, Plummer's observation on Luke the artist, and the Latin preface which has him die at seventy-four years of age in Bithynia, "probably a copyist's error for Boeotia"; the notice also notes that his martyrdom is disputed.
1 12 13 18 20 24 35 40 55 64Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, III, 4, 6 (c. 325). English translation: "Luke, who was by birth of Antioch and by profession a physician, was for the most part a companion of Paul, and associated with the rest of the apostles less closely. He has left us a proof of the soul-healing that he learned from them in two books inspired by God." The passage continues: Luke composed the Gospel from those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, then the Acts of the Apostles, "not from hearsay, but from what he had seen with his own eyes". (French edition cited in the French article: trans. Émile Grapin, Eusèbe. Histoire ecclésiastique, livres I-IV, Paris, Alphonse Picard et fils, 1911.)
2 21 29 60Letter to the Colossians 4, 10-14: after Aristarchus, Mark and Jesus called Justus, "these are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God" (v. 11); Paul then passes on the greetings of Epaphras, Luke and Demas (vv. 12-14). On the argument, see Aherne, Catholic Encyclopedia, "Gospel of Saint Luke".
3 19Letter to the Colossians 4, 14: "Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas." This is the only explicit mention, in the New Testament, of an evangelist's trade.
4 14Gospel according to Saint Luke 1, 1-4, and Acts of the Apostles 1, 1: the prologue addressed to "most excellent Theophilus", and the opening of the Acts referring to the "first book".
5 33 34Narratives proper to Luke: the Good Thief (Lk 23, 39-43), the prayer "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Lk 23, 34), the sinful woman forgiven at Simon's house (Lk 7, 36-50), Zacchaeus (Lk 19, 1-10), the Good Samaritan (Lk 10, 30-37) and the Prodigal Son (Lk 15, 11-32).
6 38The canticles of the Gospel of the infancy: Magnificat (Lk 1, 46-55), Benedictus (Lk 1, 68-79), Gloria in excelsis Deo (Lk 2, 14), Nunc dimittis (Lk 2, 29-32). General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, no. 50 (the Benedictus at Lauds and the Magnificat at Vespers, canticles in use for centuries in the Roman Church), no. 89 (the evangelical canticle of Compline, summit of that Hour) and no. 138 (the Benedictus, the Magnificat and the Nunc dimittis receive the same solemnity and dignity as the hearing of the Gospel); General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2002), no. 53: the Gloria is sung or said on Sundays outside Advent and Lent, on solemnities, feasts and more solemn celebrations.
7 51On the tradition of Saint Luke painter of the Virgin: Theodore the Reader, Ecclesiastical History (early sixth century), reports that the Empress Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II, sent from Jerusalem to Constantinople the icon of the Mother of God painted by the apostle Luke; the Menologion of Basil II (c. 980) and Nicephorus Callistus (fourteenth century) call him a painter. The icon of Saint Mary Major, attested since 847, is held to be a copy of the image spoken of by Theodore. See Aherne, Catholic Encyclopedia, "Gospel of Saint Luke", referring to the Acta Sanctorum (18 October).
8 54 56So-called anti-Marcionite prologue of the Gospel of Luke, Greek text: "ὁ Λουκᾶς Ἀντιοχεὺς Σύρος, ἰατρὸς τῇ τέχνῃ, μαθητὴς ἀποστόλων γενόμενος καὶ ὕστερον Παύλῳ παρακολουθήσας μέχρις τοῦ μαρτυρίου αὐτοῦ, δουλεύσας τῷ Κυρίῳ ἀπερισπάστως, ἀγύναιος, ἄτεκνος, ἐτῶν ὀγδοήκοντα τεσσάρων ἐκοιμήθη ἐν τῇ Βοιωτίᾳ, πλήρης πνεύματος ἁγίου". The text then states that he wrote his Gospel in the region of Achaia. Latin version edited by Donatien De Bruyne, Revue bénédictine, 40, 1928, p. 193 ff. On the dating of its first part to the second half of the second century: Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels. Their History and Development, London and Philadelphia, SCM Press and Trinity Press International, 1990, p. 335.
9 23 32 63Diocese of Padua, press release no. 137/2025, 16 October 2025: Saint Luke is "patron of physicians, of artists (iconographers in particular) and of catechists"; the release recalls the international congress devoted to the evangelist at Padua from 16 to 21 October 2000, where the results of the recognition were presented — data which "did not disprove the tradition" that the remains kept at Santa Giustina are those of the author of the third Gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles.
10 78 81Dante Alighieri, Monarchia, book I, chap. XVI, § 2: "hoc etiam scriba mansuetudinis Cristi testari dignatus est" — "this the scribe of the gentleness of Christ himself deigned to attest", concerning the universal peace reigning under Augustus at Christ's birth (Lk 2, 1). Latin text on Latin Wikisource.
11 37William Kirk Hobart, The Medical Language of St. Luke, Dublin, 1882; Adolf von Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, Leipzig, J. C. Hinrichs, 1906, translated into English as Luke the Physician, 1907, p. 13: "It is as good as certain from the subject-matter, and more especially from the style, of this great work that the author was a physician by profession"; Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to S. Luke, Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1896, introduction, on the cumulative character of the argument. Passages collected by Aherne, Catholic Encyclopedia, "Gospel of Saint Luke". The objection: Henry J. Cadbury, The Style and Literary Method of Luke, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Harvard University Press, 1920.
15 16 17Saint Jerome, On Illustrious Men (De viris illustribus), chap. 7, "Luke" (c. 392-393): Luke, physician of Antioch, skilled in the Greek tongue, companion of all Paul's journeys, author of a Gospel and of the Acts. Latin text of the final sentence, cited by Aherne, Catholic Encyclopedia: "Sepultus est Constantinopoli, ad quam urbem vigesimo Constantii anno, ossa ejus cum reliquiis Andreae apostoli translata sunt." English translation on New Advent: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2708.htm.
22 69Muratorian Fragment, list of the books received in the Church, generally dated to the second half of the second century, preserved in a manuscript of the Ambrosian Library in Milan and published by Ludovico Antonio Muratori in 1740; lines 2 to 9, restored Latin text: "tertium euangelii librum secundum Lucam. Lucas iste medicus post ascensum Christi cum eum Paulus quasi itineris sui socium secum adsumsisset nomine suo ex opinione conscripsit — Dominum tamen nec ipse uidit in carne — et idem prout assequi potuit : ita et a nativitate Iohannis incepit dicere." The manuscript reads, instead of "quasi itineris sui socium", the corrupt reading "quasi ut iuris studiosum".
25Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, III, 1, 1 (c. 180), Latin text: "Lucas autem sectator Pauli, quod ab illo praedicabatur Evangelium, in libro condidit." In III, 14, 1, Irenaeus stresses that Luke was inseparable from Paul and his fellow worker in the Gospel.
26The "we" passages of the Acts of the Apostles: 16, 10-17; 20, 5-15; 21, 1-18; 27, 1 – 28, 16. Aherne, Catholic Encyclopedia, "Gospel of Saint Luke", recalls that the attribution of the Acts to Paul's companion Luke is "the unanimous voice of antiquity".
27 28Second Letter to Timothy 4, 11: "Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you; for he is very useful in serving me."
30Letter to Philemon, v. 24: Paul passes on the greetings of Epaphras, "and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers".
31Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1915, p. 222. Original text: "Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy; he is possessed of the true historical sense […] In short, this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians."
36Gospel according to Saint Luke 19, 10: concluding saying of the Zacchaeus episode.
39Gospel according to Saint Luke 15, 20. Chapter 15 gathers the three parables of mercy: the Lost Sheep, which Matthew also reports (Mt 18, 12-14), then the Lost Coin and the Prodigal Son, proper to Luke.
41 42Gospel according to Saint Luke 10, 30-33: parable of the Good Samaritan, proper to Luke.
43Gospel according to Saint Luke 6, 20 and 6, 24; Gospel according to Saint Matthew 5, 3: "Blessed are the poor in spirit".
44Feminine figures proper to Luke: Elizabeth (Lk 1), Anna the prophetess (Lk 2, 36-38), the widow of Nain (Lk 7, 11-17), Joanna and Susanna among the women who provided for Jesus out of their means (Lk 8, 1-3), Jesus welcomed at the home of Martha and Mary (Lk 10, 38-42). Mary Magdalene is named by all four Gospels; Martha and Mary also by Saint John (Jn 11-12).
45Gospel according to Saint Luke 2, 19 and 2, 51: "But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart"; "and his mother kept all these things in her heart."
46 53Gospel according to Saint Luke 10, 21: "In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit". Parables of prayer proper to Luke: the Importunate Friend (Lk 11, 5-8) and the Unjust Judge (Lk 18, 1-8). Aherne, Catholic Encyclopedia, stresses the particular place Luke gives to the duty of prayer.
47Gospel according to Saint Luke 1-2. Aherne, Catholic Encyclopedia, "Gospel of Saint Luke", notes that only Matthew and Luke tell of Christ's infancy, independently, and that the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary cover roughly the first two chapters of Luke. See also Saint Matthew.
48 49Gospel according to Saint Luke 1, 38.
50Gospel according to Saint Luke 1, 46-48 and 1, 52: the Magnificat, Mary's canticle at the Visitation.
52"Częstochowa", New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Detroit, Thomson Gale, 2003 (on encyclopedia.com): the most widespread legend attributes the painting to Saint Luke, said to have executed it on wood from the Holy Family's table; historians date it to the Byzantine era, in the sixth or seventh century.
57Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), "History" page: in 1382, the painters, sculptors, glassmakers, embroiderers and goldsmiths of Antwerp gathered in the Guild of Saint Luke, dissolved in 1773.
58Rogier van der Weyden, Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin, c. 1435-1440, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts (inv. 93.153): X-rays show the care given to Luke's features, which may be a self-portrait of the painter.
59Origen, Homilies on Saint Luke, homily XXXIV (Latin translation by Saint Jerome), ed. Henri Crouzel, François Fournier and Pierre Périchon, Sources chrétiennes 87, Paris, Cerf, 1962: Origen there reports the interpretation of an elder, for whom the wounded man figures Adam, Jerusalem paradise, Jericho the world, the robbers the hostile powers, the Samaritan Christ, the mount the Lord's body and the inn, open to all, the Church.
61On the tetramorph: vision of the four Living Creatures in Ezekiel 1, 10 and Revelation 4, 7; Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, III, 11, 8 (c. 180), attributing the calf to Luke because his Gospel begins with the priesthood and sacrifice of Zechariah; Saint Jerome, prologue of the Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (398), fixing the distribution retained by the Church. See Aherne, Catholic Encyclopedia, "Gospel of Saint Luke".
62Renzo Allegri, "Saint Luke's Bones", Messenger of Saint Anthony, Padua, 24 June 2005, interview with Fr Giulio Pagnoni, Benedictine of Santa Giustina Abbey, who followed the entire recognition: sarcophagus at Thebes held by Eastern tradition to be Luke's first tomb; translation to Constantinople in 357; request of Metropolitan Hieronymos of Thebes to Mgr Antonio Mattiazzo in 1992; skull detached in 1354 by order of Emperor Charles IV and kept at Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague; tomb opened on 17 September 1998; commission chaired by Vito Terribile Wiel Marin; Prague skull fitting the first vertebra; recognition closed on 6 June 2001, after 86 sessions and the work of at least thirty specialists; rib handed to the metropolitan on 17 September 2000 and laid in the tomb at Thebes.
65 71 72 74Traditional Roman Martyrology, on 18 October: "In Bithýnia natális beáti Lucæ Evangelístæ, qui, multa passus pro Christi nómine, óbiit Spíritu Sancto plenus. Ipsíus autem ossa póstea Constantinópolim transláta sunt, et inde Patávium deláta." In the language of the ancient martyrologies, beatus designates a saint. On the same day, the Martyrology names Saint Paul of the Cross, whom "Pius Papa Nonus fastis Sanctorum adjunxit", and Saint Peter of Alcantara, whom "Clemens Nonus Sanctorum numero adscripsit". Latin text in the online Divinum Officium edition. On the question of martyrdom, see also Aherne, Catholic Encyclopedia, "Gospel of Saint Luke".
66 68Camillo Beccari, "Beatification and Canonization", The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 2, New York, Robert Appleton Company, 1907 (https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364b.htm): in the first centuries, the public cult of martyrs and saints was granted locally by bishops; at the end of the eleventh century, the popes restricted this authority; Alexander III (1159-1181) forbade venerating anyone as a saint without the authority of the Roman Church; Urban VIII, in 1634, reserved canonisation and beatification to the Holy See.
67Cristiano Vernesi, Giulietta Di Benedetto, David Caramelli, Erica Secchieri, Lucia Simoni, Emile Katti, Patrizia Malaspina, Andrea Novelletto, Vito Terribile Wiel Marin and Guido Barbujani, "Genetic characterization of the body attributed to the evangelist Luke", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, vol. 98, no. 23, 2001, pp. 13460-13463, doi:10.1073/pnas.211540498. The paper recalls the translation to Padua at an unknown date before 1177, perhaps under Julian the Apostate or during the iconoclast crisis, and describes the opening of the sarcophagus on 17 September 1998, the lead coffin whose size matches the tomb at Thebes, the age at death ("70 years or more"), radiocarbon dating by the Tucson and Oxford laboratories (72-416 AD, 95% confidence interval) and the mitochondrial DNA analysis. Original wording of the conclusion: "genetic data indicate that replacement of the body of the evangelist Luke with the body of a Greek individual is unlikely"; the authors add that a Syrian origin is the most probable, but that a replacement of the body at Constantinople cannot be excluded.
70 73 75 76 77Orthodox Church in America, liturgical calendar, 18 October: memory of "the apostle and evangelist Luke".
79Liturgy of the Hours, feast of Saint Luke, evangelist (18 October), collect of Lauds. English rendering of the French liturgical translation (AELF, aelf.org) used in the French article.
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