5 - Concluding remarks on the political perspective of St Luke

Summary

This investigation of Luke–Acts has led us to turn ‘upside-down’ (borrowing a phrase from Acts 17:6) the traditional interpretation of Luke's political apologetic. Far from supporting the view that Luke was defending the church to a Roman magistrate, the evidence points us in the other direction. Throughout his writings Luke has carefully, consistently, and consciously presented an apologia pro imperio to his church. Where he found anti-Roman innuendos in his sources he has done his best to neutralize such material and to emphasize the positive aspects of Roman involvement in the history of the church. Like Philo and Josephus, Luke has seen governmental intervention in the affairs of his religion, and yet he continues to affirm that the positive benefits of the empire far outweigh the occasional intrusiveness of an errant emperor.

A final question naturally comes to mind. John's apocalypse, Clement's letter, and Tacitus' history suggest that the first-century church had suffered the pangs of state-supported persecution. Would Luke, writing in such an oppressive context, have held a positive view of the empire? This question implies, with Conzelmann, that ‘ecclesia pressa’ is an apt description of Luke's ‘time of the Church.’ According to Conzelmann, this time, in which the church looks back to the earthly ministry of Jesus and forward to the parousia, is a time of political persecution. Yet it is practically impossible to know with certainty the nature of the political relationship between church and state during Luke's time.