Haydock Commentary
THE HOLY GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST, ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE.
PREFACE.
St. Luke was a physician, a native of Antioch, the metropolis of Syria, and well skilled in the Greek language, as his writings sufficiently evince. In some ancient manuscripts, he is called Lucius, and Lucanus. Some conjecture that he was at first a Gentile and a pagan, and was converted by the preaching of St. Paul, at Antioch; others, that he was originally a Jew, and one of the seventy-two disciples. Sts. Hippolitus and Epiphanius say, that hearing from our Lord these words, he that eateth not my flesh, and drinketh not my blood, is not worthy of me, he withdrew, and quitted our Saviour, but returned to the faith at the preaching of St. Paul. But, to leave what is uncertain, St. Luke was the disciple, travelling companion, and fellow-labourer of St. Paul. Of him St. Paul is supposed to speak: (2 Corinthians viii. 18.) We have sent also with him (Titus) the brother, whose praise is in the gospel, through all churches: and again, Luke, the most dear physician, saluteth you: (Colossians iv.) and, only Luke is with me. (2 Timothy iv.) Some are of opinion that as often as St. Paul, in his Epistles, says according to my gospel, he speaks of the Gospel of St. Luke. This evangelist did not learn his gospel from St. Paul only, (who had never been with our Lord in the flesh) but from the other apostles also, as himself informs us in the beginning of his gospel, when he says, according as they have delivered them unto us; who, from the beginning, were eye-witnesses, (Greek: autoptai) and ministers of the word. His gospel, therefore, he wrote as he heard it; but the Acts of the Apostles, from his own observations; and both, as some believe, about the same time in which his history of the Acts finishes, towards the year of Christ 63. But the received opinion now is, that St. Luke wrote his gospel in Achaia, in the year 53, ten years previously to his writing of the Acts, purposely to counteract the fabulous relations concerning Jesus Christ, which several persons had endeavoured to palm upon the world. It does not appear, as Calmet observes, that he had ever read the gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark. … He chiefly insists in his gospel, upon what relates to Christ’s priestly office; hence the ancients gave, of the four symbolical representations, mentioned in Ezechiel, that of the ox, or calf, to St. Luke, as an emblem of sacrifices. He lived 84 years in the state of celibacy, was crucified at Elœa, in Peloponnesus, near Achaia, and was buried in the church of the apostles, at Constantinople, to which city his remains were translated, together with those of St. Andrew and St. Timothy, in the year 357, by order of the emperor Constantius. When this church was repaired, by an order of Justinian, the masons found three wooden chests, in which the bodies of these saints were interred. Baronius mentions, that the head of St. Luke was brought by St. Gregory from Constantinople to Rome, in the year of Christ 586. St. Luke writes purer Greek than any of the other hagiographers; yet many Syriac words, and turns of expressions, occur in both his gospel and Acts of the Apostles; some also that imitate the genius of the Latin tongue. He cites Scripture according to the Septuagint, and not after the Hebrew text. St. Paul, in his Epistles, generally quotes the gospel in a manner the most conformable to St. Luke, as may be seen in the following instances; 1 Corinthians xi. 23. and 24. chap. xv. 5. The Marcionites would only receive the gospel of St. Luke, and from this they retrenched the first two chapters, with regard the birth of Jesus Christ, and only admitted ten of St. Paul’s Epistles, as Tertullian and St. Epiphanius have remarked. Marcion embraced the errors of Cerdon: to these he added others, the offspring of his own brain. He began to disseminate his novel opinions at Rome, about the year of Christ 144. He could not bring himself to believe how a spirit, such as the human soul, could be shut up in a body, be subject to ignorance, to weakness, to pain; nor in what manner, or for what end, the great and good Lord, the Creator of spirits, could have thus degraded them. Revelation, which teaches us the fall of the first man, did not appear to the Marcionites, to solve the difficulty, since the first man was composed of a spiritual soul and a terrestrial body; they, moreover, imagined that an all-good, an all-powerful God, ought to have prevented the fall of man. No wonder then, that they refused to adopt the first two chapters of St. Luke, which contain the miraculous births of Jesus and his precursor [John the Baptist]; as also sundry texts of the very scanty portions of holy Scriptures which their party chose to retain. But what does this shew? that tradition, in the first instance, must be admitted, to inform us what is authentic scripture; and, secondly, an infallible Church-authority, to inform us what is the genuine interpretation of the genuine text. Without the assistance of apostolical tradition and Church-authority, could any Seeker (even with the assistance of Brown’s Self-interpreting Bible, in 2 vols. 4to.) rest secure, that he properly understood the disputed points of holy writ; that his, and no other interpretation, was the genuine sense of these mysterious words, when he was informed that by far the greater part of learned societies, and learned individuals, gave a widely different interpretation to the same texts. This freedom of expounding Scripture, by unassisted reason and private spirit, was the first germ of the daily increasing spread of sects and heresies; this is the nucleus, which, after enveloping itself like the comet, in much nebulous obscurity, terminates in a fiery tail, of portentous magnitude, the ruinous effects of which can only be prevented by a speedy return to first principles, apostolical tradition, and Church-authority.
The Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide
INTRODUCTION.
THE Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to S. Luke, that is, the Holy Evangelical History of the words and acts of Jesus, as described by S. Luke. The Arabic says, “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God, the Gospel of the Excellent Father, Luke the Evangelist, the laying open of the glorious Gospel.” The Syraic, “In the name of the Lord and our God, we Jeschua Mescicho, sign the Gospel, the holy message of Luke the Evangelist, which he spoke and proclaimed in Greek, in Alexandria.” From this diversity, it is clear that the above title or inscription was prefixed to the Gospel, not by S. Luke himself, but by the Church which, in like manner, inscribed one Gospel “According to S. Matthew,” one “According to S. John,” and another “According to S. Mark.” Nay, as regards the faith of the future, this title would have been added to no purpose by S. Luke himself, unless the Church had declared his Gospel to be genuine and not supposititious, and had handed it down as such. This speaks for Tradition against the heretics, for why is the Gospel, bearing the name of S. Luke, to be received as truly his, whilst that with the title of “Matthew and Thomas” is not to be considered theirs? Or again, why is the Gospel of S. Luke more canonical than that of Apelles or Basilides? No other reason can be given but the proof, declaration, and tradition of the Church. For we accept it, not because it is written in the sacred books, but because it has been so handed down by the Church. For instance, we believe this to be the Gospel of S. Luke and canonical, not because he wrote it, but because the Church so delivers and teaches. For although its own authority pertains to this Gospel, as to the others, yet this authority would not be plain to us, but for the declaration of the Church. The same is, a pari, to be said of the sense of Scripture. For the true sense of Scripture is not what appears to you or me, for this would be uncertain and doubtful, for Calvin affirms one sense to be the true one, Luther another, and others another, but that which is taught and received by the Church, whose office it is to deliver as well what is the true Scripture as what is its true meaning. For Holy Scripture consists not in the bark (cortice) of letters or words, but in their genuine meaning. So the Fourth Session of the Council of Trent, and the Fathers everywhere, especially Tertullian (B. iv. cap. 5 against Marcion). See what I have said on S. Matthew i. 1.
Observe: I. S. Matthew was the first in order of the Evangelists. He wrote in Hebrew to the Jews in Judæa. S. Mark was the second. He wrote in Greek and Latin to the Romans in Italy; then S. Luke wrote to the Greeks in Greek; and S. John last of all, also in Greek; but S. Luke wrote the more elegantly, because he was the more perfect master of Greek. Hear S. Jerome (Ep. 84 to Paulinus): “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the quadriga of the Lord, and true Cherubim (which is interpreted, the ‘multitude of knowledge’), through their whole body they are ‘full of eyes,’ sparks shine from them, lightnings flash forth, their feet are ‘straight,’ and point upwards, their backs are winged, and they fly hither and thither. They hold themselves mutually one with another, and are ‘enfolded’ with one another, and are rolled together, like a wheel, and they go wherever the influence of the Holy Spirit directs them.” See Ezekiel i. 9, x. 12; Revelation iv. 6-8.
Moreover, among the faces or forms of the four Cherubim, the third, that of the ox, is ascribed to S. Luke, as well because he begins from the priesthood of Zachariah, whose chief sacrifice was an ox, as because he underwent the labours of an ox in the Gospel, and bore about continually in his own body the mortification of the Cross for the honour of the name of Christ, as the Church sings of him. See what has been said on Revelation iv. 7, and Ezekiel i. 10.
II. S. Luke wrote his Gospel against certain gaping, ignorant, perhaps even false Evangelists, who had written, in Syria or Greece, an imperfect, it may be a lying Gospel, as S. Luke himself signifies in the beginning of his work. So say Origen, S. Ambrose, Theophylact, and S. Epiphanius (Her. l. i), who, however, when he adds that S. Luke wrote against Cerinthus and Meritus, does not seem to speak correctly. For these two, and especially Basilides, were later than S. Luke, as is clear from Eusebius (Hist. B. iii. ch. 32). Theophylact and Bede think, with more truth, that S. Luke wrote against the Apocryphal Gospels of others, such as pass under the names of “Thomas, Matthew, and the Twelve Apostles.”
III. S. Luke was not one of the seventy-two disciples of Christ, as Euthymius and S. Gregory in his preface on Job, chap. i. think, on the authority of Origen; for S. Luke never saw Christ in the flesh, but he wrote what he had heard of Him from the Apostles, as he says himself, i. 2. Hence the Fathers call S. Luke “the disciple of the Apostles,” and S. Paul mentions him by name, as his “fellow-labourer.” So S. Jerome, on the 65th chapter of Isaiah, and preface to S. Matthew; where he says, “The third” (evangelist) is Luke the physician, by nation a Syrian, of Antioch, whose praise is in the Gospel (2 Cor. viii. 18 and 22), who himself was a disciple of S. Paul. He wrote his Gospel in the neighbourhood of Achaia and Bœotia, relating some things from the beginning, as he says himself, and describing rather what he heard than what he saw. St. Irenæus says the same, i. 20; Theodoret, on the Lives of the holy Fathers; Baronius, and others. Tertullian, also (Book iv. against Marcion, chap. 5), thinks this Gospel not so much S. Luke’s as S. Paul’s, because S. Luke wrote from the dictation of S. Paul, as S. Mark from that of S. Peter. For he says, “what S. Mark wrote may be ascribed to S. Peter, whose interpreter S. Mark was. And so the Gospel of S. Luke is generally given to S. Paul, for the productions of the disciples began to be ascribed to the masters.”
S. Jerome also states that “S. Luke, in the Gospel and Acts, performed the duties of a physician of souls, as he had before done of bodies” (Ep. 103 to Paulinus); and again (in that to Philom). “Luke the physician left in his Gospel, and the book of the Acts of the Apostles to the Churches, how the Apostles from fishers of fish became fishers of men, and from the bodies of men became concerned with their souls, whose Gospel, as often as it is read in the churches, fails not of its medicine.”
IV. Baronius thinks that S. Luke wrote in the companionship of S. Paul, anno 58, because S. Jerome says that he wrote his Gospel that year in Achaia and Bœotia, where S. Paul was. Others, however, are of opinion that S. Luke wrote earlier, as we must certainly admit, if we agree with S. Jerome (Lib. de Scrip. Eccl. in Luc.), Tertullian (Book iv. against Marcion, c. 5), Primasius, Anselm, and others, on 2 Cor. viii 18, that by, “the brother whose praise is in the Gospel” S. Paul meant S. Luke—as S. Ignatius, his fellow-citizen and contemporary, plainly asserts in his letter to the Ephesians: “As Luke bears witness, whose praise is in the Gospel.” For the Second Epistle of S. Paul to the Corinthians was written in the year 58, so that if the praise of S. Luke was in the Gospel at that time, we must necessarily say that it (the Gospel) had been published previously. Hence Euthymius, and Theophylact in his Preface to S. Luke, say that he wrote fifteen years after the ascension of Christ, that is, about the year 49. But S. Luke had not then joined S. Paul, for he came to him in the Troad in the year 51, as Baronius rightly concludes from Acts xvi. 10. It appears, therefore, that S. Luke wrote subsequently to the year 51, but some years before 58, for, as S. Paul says, in that year he was well known and celebrated.
V. S. Luke, after he had joined S. Paul, passed some time away from him, having been sent by him to other places (as I have shown on Acts xvi. 10), until S. Paul, when he had passed through other countries, came to Greece, thence to Syria, and so to Rome. Acts xx. 3, 4. For S. Paul, with other companions of his voyage, who are named in that verse, took S. Luke also, as S Luke himself states, verses 5, 15. From that time S. Luke became the “diligent” companion of S. Paul, even up to the time of S. Paul’s first imprisonment, which was in the second year of Nero, when S. Luke finished the Acts of the Apostles, and, especially, those of S. Paul. Then, as S. Epiphanius says, S. Luke left S. Paul in prison, and went into Dalmatia, Gaul, Italy, and Macedonia, and preached the gospel everywhere till he came to Patara, a city of Achaia, where, in his eighty-fourth year, he was crowned with a glorious martyrdom in the year of Christ 61, the fifth of Nero, and the seventeenth of the session of S. Peter at Rome. So Baronius says, from S. Gregory Nazianzen, Paulinus, Gaudentius, Glyca, Nicephorus and others.
Lastly, who S. Luke was—of what rank and ability, I have described at length in the Book of Acts, where I have said that he appears to be the same as Lucius, whom S. Paul calls his kinsman, Rom xvi. 21. But he seems different to Lucius of Cyrene, mentioned in Acts xiii. 3. For S. Luke was of Antioch, not Cyrene. Again, the Roman Martyrology, on April 22, says that Lucius was among the first disciples of Christ, which cannot be said of S. Luke.
VI. The reason of S. Luke’s having written a Gospel after SS. Matthew and Mark, was twofold. 1. To confute the false gospels that were then being published in Syria and Greece, as I have said before. 2. To write at length those words and acts of Christ which had been passed over by the other Evangelists, and especially His Infancy and Childhood, the Annunciation of His forerunner John the Baptist, His Conception, Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, Presence among the Doctors, the Conversion of St. Mary Magdalene, Zacchæus, the thief on the cross, the appearance to the two Disciples at Emmaus, the Parables of the Pharisee and Publican, the Good Samaritan, the Strayed Sheep, the Lost Piece of Money, the Prodigal Son, Lazarus and the Rich Glutton, and others; which show the mercy and pity of Christ to sinners and the miserable. See S. Irenæus, iii. 4, who recounts each. S. Luke also relates, more fully than the others, the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension.
Lastly, S. Peter Damianus, in his Sermon on S. Matthew, says, “S. Luke observes the proper method and order when he describes the priestly stock of the Lord and His Person, and, with this object and intent, proceeds to describe at length every part of the Temple and the priests, to the end of the history. For, as the Mediator between God and man in His human nature, He pleased to be King and Priest in one, that through His kingly power He might rule, and, by His office of Priest, atone for us. These two “Personæ” of Christ are especially praised by the Fathers, for to Him principally and by singular prerogative God gave the seat of His Father David, that there might be no end of His Kingdom, and that He might be a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedek.”
S. Anselm again, on Colos. iv., gives two reasons why S. Luke, more than the others, should speak of the mercy of Christ. 1. S. Luke was a physician of bodies; then, when he turned to Christ, he was made a physician of souls. Hence he speaks, more than the other Evangelists, of the mercies of the Redeemer, by which the weaknesses of sins are driven away. 2. In Christ, he describes the person of a Priest, making intercession for the sins of the whole world
Lastly, our own John de la Haye, in his Oparat. Evangel. chap. 68, recounts the twenty-five privileges granted to S. Luke, where, among other things, from S. Jerome, Bede, and Ado, he says that S. Luke never committed mortal sin, but passed a strict life of continual mortification; that he also preserved his virginity to the end, and was therefore beloved by the Blessed Virgin especially and before all others.
S. Ambrose and Titus of Bostra have commented especially on S. Luke. And Tertullian, in his whole work against Marcion (who had declared the Gospel of S. Luke, though adulterated, to be his own), treats of and explains many passages of this Gospel. Cardinal Toletus, also, wrote at length, and with exactness, on the first twelve chapters.
The Catena Aurea of St Thomas Aquinas
Prooemium ——————— Prologue
Induam caelos tenebris, et saccum ponam operimentum eorum. Dominus dedit mihi linguam eruditam, ut sciam sustentare eum qui lapsus est verbo. Erigit mane, mane erigit mihi aurem, ut audiam quasi magistrum. (Isaias 50:3-4)
I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and place a sack as their covering. The Lord gave me an erudite tongue, so that I can sustain the fallen by my word. He awakens me in the morning; in the morning he awakens my ear, that I may hear him as my teacher.
Glossa: Inter cetera incarnationis Christi mysteria, quae Isaias propheta diligenter et aperte praenuntiat, dicit induam caelos tenebris etc., ex quibus verbis accipere possumus Evangelii secundum Lucam materiam, modum scribendi, finem et conditionem scriptoris.
Gloss: Among the mysteries of the incarnation of Christ, which Isaiah diligently and openly foretold, he says: “I will clothe the heavens” etc. From these words we can gather, for the Gospel according to Luke, the matter, the manner of writing, the purpose and the condition of the writer.
Augustinus de Cons. Evang: Lucas enim circa sacerdotalem domini stirpem atque personam magis occupatus videtur, unde per vitulum significatus est, propter maximam victimam sacerdotis.
Augustine, On the consistency of the Gospel: For Luke seems preoccupied with the royal lineage and person of the Lord. Therefore he is typified by the bull, because it is the chief victim of the priest.
Ambrosius in Luc: Vitulus enim sacerdotalis est victima, unde bene congruit vitulo hic Evangelii liber, qui a sacerdotibus inchoavit et consummavit in vitulo, qui omnium peccata suscipiens pro totius mundi vita est immolatus; et ipsam vituli immolationem Lucas stylo quodam pleniore diffudit.
Ambrose, on Luke: For the priestly boois is the victim; therefore this Gospel book fits the bull well, because it starts from priests and vinishes in the book who took the sins of all and was sacrificed for the life of the world. And Luke gave a fuller treatment to the immolation of the bull.
Glossa: Quia igitur passionem Christi principaliter exponere Lucas intendit, huius Evangelii materia significari potest in eo quod dicitur induam caelos tenebris, et saccum ponam operimentum eorum; nam ad litteram in passione Christi tenebrae factae sunt, et in discipulis fides obscurata est.
Gloss: Because Luke principally intended to treat of the passion of Christ, the matter of this Gospel can be represented by the statement: “I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and place a sack as their covering,” for in the passion of Christ darkness literally took pllace, and the faith of the disciples was darkened.
Hieronymus super Isaiam: Et Christus despectus erat et ignobilis quando pendebat in cruce; et absconditus est vultus eius atque despectus, ut humano corpore divina potentia celaretur.
Jerome, on Isaiah: Christ was despised and without honor when he hung on the cross. His face was hidden and despised, so that the divine power would be hidden by a human body.
Hieronymus de viris illustribusSermo autem Lucae tam in Evangelio quam in actibus apostolorum comptior est et saeculari redolet eloquentia. Unde subditur dominus dedit mihi linguam eruditam.
Jerome, on illustrious men: Luke’s narration, both in the Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles, is refined and full of secular eloquence. Therefore Isaiah adds: “The Lord gave me an eloquent tongue.”
Ambrosius in Luc: Nam licet Scriptura divina mundanae evacuet sapientiae disciplinam, quod maiore fucata verborum ambitu quam rerum ratione subnixa sit; tamen si quis in Scripturis divinis etiam illa quae imitanda illi putant, quaerat, inveniet. Sanctus enim Lucas velut quemdam historicum ordinem tenuit, et plura nobis gestorum domini miracula revelavit; ita tamen ut omnes sapientiae virtutes Evangelii ipsius complecteretur historia. Quid enim praecellentius ad sapientiam naturalem, quam quod spiritum sanctum creatorem etiam dominicae incarnationis extitisse reseravit? Docet moralia in eodem libro, quemadmodum scilicet amare inimicum debeam; docet etiam rationalia, cum lego quoniam qui fidelis est in minimo, et in magno fidelis est.
Ambrose, on Luke: Although Scripture defeats human wisdom, which relies more on a rich vocabulary than on reality, nevertheless, if anyone looks in divine Scripture for what they think should be imitated, he will find it. For St. Luke held to an historical order, and made known to us very many miracles worked by the Lord. At the same time the historical narration of this Gospel embraces all the powers of wisdom. For what could surpass natural wisdom more than that he brought into play the Holy Creator Spirit also for the Lord’s incarnation. He teaches morals in the same book, such as that I must love my enemy. He also teaches reasonable things, as when I read that he who is faithful in little things, will be faithful in great things.
Eusebius in Eccles. HistIs ergo genere quidem Antiochenus, arte medicus, secundum hanc medicinam quam ex apostolorum vel societate vel traditione susceperat, duos nobis medicinales libros, quibus non corpora sed animae curentur explicuit. Unde sequitur ut sciam sustentare eum qui lapsus est verbo.
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History: From Antiochene stock, he was a medical practitioner, according to the medicine that he learned from the company of the apostles or from tradtion. He left us two medical books, where he explained how not bodies, but souls are cured. Therefore, Isaiah continues: “so that I can sustain the fallen by my word.”
Hieronymus super Isaiam: Dicit enim se a domino accepisse sermonem, quomodo lapsum errantemque populum sustentet, et revocet ad salutem.
Jerome, on Isaiah: He says that he received from the Lord his account on how to raise up a falling and erring people, and call them back to salvation.
Graecus expositor: Cum autem Lucas bonae indolis esset et capacitatis strenuae, Graecorum scientiam consecutus est. Grammaticam siquidem atque poesim adeptus perfecte, rethoricam autem et persuadendi leporem assecutus ad plenum, neque philosophiae muneribus caruit; denique et medicinam acquirit, et quoniam naturae velocitate satis de humana gustaverat sapientia, ad altiorem convolat. Accelerat igitur ad Iudaeam, et visibiliter et verbo tenus Christum adit. Cumque veritatem cognosceret, verus efficitur Christi discipulus, plurimum magistro commoratus.
A Greek expositor: Since Luke was well endowed and could work hard, he acquired Greek learning. He fully mastered grammar, poetry, rhetoric and the ability to persuade, nor did he lack philosophical talent. Lastly, he acquired medical science, and since by natural precosity he tasted his full of human wisdom, he flew to a higher level. So he hurred to Judaea, and went to Christ, seeing him and hearing him. Since he knew the truth, he became a true disciple of Christ, staying with his Master for a long time.
Glossa: Unde subditur erigit mane, quasi a iuventute ad saecularem sapientiam; mane erigit mihi aurem ad divina, ut audiam quasi magistrum, scilicet ipsum Christum.
Gloss: There follows: “He awakens me in the morning,” that is, from his youth with secular wisdom. He awakens me to divine things, so that I may hear him as a Master, that is, Christ himself.
Eusebius in Eccles. Hist: Tradunt autem quod Evangelium suum ex Pauli ore conscripserit, sicut et Marcus quae ex Petri ore fuerant praedicata conscripsit.
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History: The tradition is that he wrote his Gospel from the mouth of Paul, as Mark wrote what Peter preached.
Chrysostomus super Matthaeum: Uterque autem eorum magistrum imitatus est; hic quidem Paulum super flumina fluentem, ille autem Petrum breviloquio studentem.
Chrysostom, on Matthew: Each of them imitated their master, Luke imitating Paul flowing on the rivers, Mark imitating Peter who kept to brief speech.
Augustinus de Cons. Evang: Eo autem tempore scripserunt quo non solum ab Ecclesia Christi, verum etiam ab ipsis adhuc in carne manentibus apostolis probari meruerunt.
Augustine, on the consistency of the Gospels: At that time they wrote, they received the approbation no only of the Church of Christ, but also of the apostles who were still living.
Et haec prooemialiter dicta sufficiant. And this suffices as an introduction.