Saint Luke, Evangelist. Feast 18 October

Saint Luke, Evangelist. Feast 18 October 2007

Criticism or Appreciation.

St. Luke is a writer’s writer, at least that is what I have come to think since doing the community Chronicle. Luke observed with an interest and love all the lives he came to know as physician, historian, author, painter and friend.
The noted archaeologist, Sir William Ramsey was greatly influenced by the famous liberal German historical schools in the mid-nineteenth century. Known for its scholarship, this school taught that the New Testament was not a historical document.
The canny Scot, Ramsey, investigated biblical claims the New Testament and specifically the Gospel of Luke. Then something amazing happened to him. He changed his conclusions completely. He wrote, "Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense . . . in short, this author should be placed along with the greatest of historians".
It can take long years of study and fail to take the New Testament writers at their word.
Another name for ‘criticism’ is ‘appreciation’. There is negative criticism and there is positive criticism, appreciation. It may be that this appreciation, and intimacy with the taxt is particularly with among Church Fathers and Biblical Scholars who were familiar with the actual place, Palestine.
There are at least three ‘stand alone’, specialist, Catholic Biblical Universities, the Biblicum in Rome, the Pontifical Institute of the Jesuits in Jerusalem, and the Ecole Biblique of the Dominicans in Jerusalem. If it were not for the political situation in Israel, the Ecole Bibliqque would be the leading Catholic Biblical University. Among leading exegetes of the New Testament two Domincans stand out among those who had this special love of St. Luke, uniting academic dedication with affectionate regard for the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Pere Louis Lagrange (1855-1938), founder of the Ecole Biblique, whose Cause for Beatification is going forward, is the author of a Commentary to St. Luke.
During my short months in the Holy Land, 2003-04, Pere Emile Boismard (1916-2004) was dying. One of the monks at Latroun Abbey made his doctoral thesis under Pere Boismard, whose magisterial work is in several volumes. Life in the Holy Land at the Dominican community of St. Stephen seems to have given these friars a sense of closeness and affection with their subject. The biographical note on Emile Boismard by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor is to be found on the Ecole Biblique Website. "It took five long years (1978-83) for Boismard and Lamouille to solve the textual problem of Acts. The fruit of their labours appeared in 1985 under a title which reflected the focus of their research, Le texte occidental des Actes des Apôtres. Reconstitution et réhabilitation. This massive two-volume work was remarkable in many respects, not least because the camera-ready copy was prepared by Boismard himself. He was the first member of the faculty, after Marcel Sigrist, to recognize the value of the computer and to exploit its potentialities".
I used to think that St. Luke’s ‘Chronicle’ of the ACTS of the Apostles, as a travelogue, that it was too simple. Having passed the Oxford and Cambridge Leaving Certificate, on that year’s choice of Scripture text, I had the great illusion that I had ‘done the Acts’.
Knowing a little better, I can now appreciate just how St. Luke, in his Gospel and in Acts,

is a master of the BLOG & COMMENT technique. From the start of his Gospel, his narrative promptly turns for comment on the Incarnation by no one less than the Mother of Jesus. His collectiion of COMMENT, on the Prodigal, the Good Samaritan, the Shrewd Steward are hotspots in the story. I wonder if he later found the two friends who met the Risen Lord at Emaus to record their every word.
Affection for the writings of Saint Luke surfaced in a special way in the spirit of the writer of the Reading of the Night Office this morning". Robert the Deacon wrote, "The whole burden of St. Luke’s teaching seems to be nothing other than a medicine for ailing souls". St. Luke addressed the Acts of the Apostles to Theophilus, the beloved of God. And that is a very apt way to speak of "us as well, whoever you may be, for if you love God the Gospel is written for you. And if it is written for you then accept the most precious pearl, a gift of the evangelist, THIS PLEDGE OF A FRIEND".
More than the plaudits of St. Luke’s teaching as a ‘masterpiece of sound and reliable historical accuracy, itself a a literary masterpiece of the highest order‘, Robert the Deacon’s descriptions of it as ‘Pledge of a friend’, just about sums up the impression one gets of Luke in all his guises as raconteur and ready friend.
"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 yu may know the truth. . ." (Luke 1:3-4).