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‘Luke the Antiochene’ and Acts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Richard Glover
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Type
Short Studies
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New Testament Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , October 1964 , pp. 97 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1964

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References

page 98 note 1 Studies in the Gospels and Epistles, edited by Black, M., with a foreword by Rowley, H. H. (Manchester, 1961); p. 51.Google Scholar

page 100 note 1 But an obvious question arises here; if there really was a Mission of the Seventy, and if Barnabas was indeed one of those seventy, why are the facts not mentioned in the gospel of Mark who was Barnabas' own nephew? Sheer want of information makes it impossible to give a satisfactory answer. One may, however, note:

(a) That, in spite of Acts, early church tradition remembered Mark as the companion of Peter, rather than of Barnabas; and

(b) when Mark reappears in Paul's story in Col. iv. 10, and Philemon 24, he is no longer in Barnabas' company; hence,

(c) his last recorded association with Barnabas is on this second trip to Cyprus, which cannot be later than A.D. 50; but

(d) he did not write his gospel till after Peter's death in A.D. 65 or late in A.D. 64. It may well be, therefore, that there were a number of years in which what Mark learnt from his uncle was overlaid by what he heard from Peter; also no one can deny him excellent reason if he gave priority to Peter's story; and, further, any ancient writer, who had to get his story into a papyrus scroll, had to take the tasks of compression and selection (which means omission) seriously—witness, for example, the silence of all our gospels on the mighty works Jesus did in Bethsaida and Chorazin (Matt. xi. 21; Luke x. 23), and that although Bethsaida was the home of Peter, Andrew and Philip (John i. 44).

page 101 note 1 Here one faces another obvious question—why should not the trial before Herod, if it really occurred, have been mentioned by John? This is not a question calculated to trouble those who hold John the author to have been the son of Zebedee; we may safely assume that John to have been in full flight with the other Galileans who ‘stood afar off beholding’ while Christ was crucified. It is, however, a real problem for those who, like myself, would identify the author with a beloved disciple whose acquaintance with the High Priest both stamps him as a man of Jerusalem and enabled him fearlessly to enter the High Priest's courtyard and equally fearlessly to stand at the foot of the Cross beside Jesus' mother. Here I can only reply that this riddle is a mere part of a larger riddle—why does the author of the fourth gospel never at any time, even when referring to the imprisonment of John the Baptist (iii. 4), so much as mention the name of Herod? It may be a fair answer to say, first, that the omission is not significant in the work of an author who confesses so many omissions as this author confesses (John xxi. 25); second, that none of the slighter contacts which Luke records between Jesus and Herod are of a kind that could be profitably fitted into a ‘book of signs’; and, third, that even the meeting of Jesus and Herod on the day of the crucifixion is an event too dwarfed in importance by the confrontation of Jesus with the Roman Empire in the person of Pilate, and with the religious leaders of Judaism, to be interesting to a writer who did not hail from Herod's little Galilean tetrarchy; and again the matter of economy of space must be remembered.

page 105 note 1 The grounds for supposing that II Tim. iv, Colossians and Philemon were written by Paul at Caesarea are, of course, the following:

(a) II Tim. iv was written when Paul had recently completed a journey from Troas (iv. 13) to Miletus (iv. 20) and then on from Miletus; this is precisely the route he had followed in Acts xx. 6–16, on his way to Caesarea, Jerusalem and back to Caesarea.

(b) In II Tim. iv Paul has had a first hearing of his case and is gloomily awaiting a second; in Acts xxiii–xxiv Paul has two hearings within a week, one at Jerusalem, the other at Caesarea; and one marks how neatly this fragment of II Timothy fits in between them.

(c) ‘Only Luke is with me’, says II Tim. iv. i i. Yes; and since Acts xxi. 16 left Luke staying at Jerusalem with ‘one Mnason of Cyprus, an old disciple’, he could easily have been the first of Paul's companions to join him in Caesarea.

(d) But II Tim. summons more companions to join Paul; and those summoned in II Tim. are the very ones found present in Col. and Philemon, namely Mark and Timothy.

(e) In Col. iv. 14 and Philemon 24 Demas is also present. Observe how naturally Demas, coming from Thessalonica (II Tim. iv. 13), would travel by the very route prescribed for Timothy and Mark, namely, via Troas, which was also on Paul's route from Macedonia to Caesarea.

(f) In Col., Philemon and II Tim. Paul still has companions with the actual names of members of the party that joined him at Troas expressly for this journey to Palestine (Acts xx. 4)—namely, Aristarchus (Col. iv. 10 and Philemon 24) and Tychicus. There can hardly be a doubt that the same Tychicus is.meant in all places for he is described as ‘of Asia’ in Acts, and as returning to Ephesus in II Tim. iv. 12 with a visit to Colossae prescribed in Col. iv. 17. To these may be added Trophimus (Acts xx. 4 and II Tim. iv. 20).

(g) Observe the Roman names in II Tim. iv. 21—Pudens, Linus and Claudia. Significantly, these are not listed among the members of the Roman church in Rom. xvi; but the seat of the Roman governor at Caesarea is a very natural place at which to find them.

(h) No real difficulty is caused by the conflicting roles of Demas, the deserter of II Tim. iv. 9 and fellow worker of Col. iv. 14, and Philemon, if we do but suppose Paul capable of reconciliation.

The real snag to my suggestion is, of course, that while II Tim. iv. 20 states that Trophimus dropped out, sick, at Miletus, Acts xxi. 29 says that his appearance in Jerusalem caused the attack on Paul there by Jews from Asia. Is it possible that Luke can have here written Trophimus when he really meant Tychicus? The latter, like Trophimus, came from Asia and should have been known to Asian Jews. If it can be conceded that Luke was capable of thus confusing two Ephesians, each with a three-syllable name beginning with T, my suggestion would seem supported by an impressive chain of coincidence.

page 105 note 2 I am aware that a case has lately been made for Philippians being written from some other place than Rome, where I here suppose it to have been written, but I do not as yet feel convinced that the difficulties involved in this interesting new suggestion have been overcome.