LUKE
(NT gr. “Loukas”, prob. a diminutive of lat. “Lucanus” or “Lucius”).
Doctor and evangelist, friend and companion of the apostle Paul; he joins his greetings to those of the apostle in the epistles written from Rome to the church at Colossae (Col. 4:14) and to Philemon (Phil. 24).
Paul, addressing the Colossians, designates Luke as “the beloved physician”; In the letter to Philemon he puts his name among his “laborers.”
Luke was again with Paul in Rome when he wrote the Second Epistle to Timothy; In it Paul gives a moving testimony: “Luke only is with me” (2 Tim. 4:11).
The NT only mentions Luke’s name in these three passages. There is the question of who the Lucius of Acts was. 13:1 and Rom. 16:21.
The author of the third Gospel and Acts. Since the second century, tradition attributes these two works to Luke, of which he is indisputably the author (Acts 1: 1).
In Acts it is revealed to us that Luke participated at least in part in Paul’s last travels, since he uses the second person plural, “we”, etc. (Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-21:18; 27:1-28:16).
These passages show that Luke accompanied Paul on his journey to Troas during the second missionary journey, and that he accompanied him to Philippi. After leaving for the third journey, Luke met Paul at Philippi and followed them to Jerusalem.
During Paul’s two years of imprisonment in Caesarea, it is possible that Luke remained in Palestine, because he embarked with Paul from Caesarea to Rome when the apostle was sent to present his cause before Caesar (see ACTS). The apostle establishes a distinction between his companions who emerged from Judaism and Luke (Col. 4:11; cf. V. 14), who came from Gentiles.
A very ancient and plausible tradition makes it originate from Antioch of Syria. In any case, Luke knew the church of Antioch thoroughly, and took a particular interest in it (Acts 6:5; 11:19-27; 13:1-3; 14:26-28; 15:1- 2, 30-40; 18:22, 23).
Neither the date nor the circumstances of his death are known.