St. Luke and Lucius of Cyrene. by the REVEREND R

219 St. Luke and Lucius of Cyrene. BY THE REVEREND R. C. FORD, M.A., B.D., GRIMSBY. THE suggestion has been made that St. Luke and he met Joanna at Antioch, and we have found an Lucius of Cyrene are the same person. If that adequate solution of the problem. Is there any could be proved it would help to solve the problem evidence to connect St. Luke with Cyrene? of the special source’ of the third Gospel. There Certainly he displays great interest in that region. are scholars who identify them as two names of He notes that at Pentecost there were dwelling in one are the of person, though the majority quite opposed I Jerusalem devout men from parts Libya to the idea. Z6ckler dismisses it as ‘ quite absurd’; which are about Cyrene’; that amongst those who Headlam says that it has nothing in its favour ; II/ disputed with Stephen were certain of them that Plummer admits that it is not impossible, but says were of the synagogue of the Libertines, and of that there is no evidence. One objection strongly the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians’; that expressed is that while Lucas is an abbreviation, when the disciples were dispersed by the persecu- it is not an abbreviation of Lucius. Its full form tion on the martyrdom of Stephen some of them may be Lucanus, or Lucilius, or Lucianus ; but it travelled ’as far as Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and is very unlikely to be Lucius. But since Plummer Antioch, speaking the word to none save only to wrote, Professor Ramsay has found in the inscrip- Jews. But there were some of them, men of tions of Pisidian Antioch the name Lucas as a pet Cyprus and Cyrene, who when they were come to form of the Latin Lucius. With this discovery it Antioch, spake unto the Greeks also.’ St. Luke also is not possible any longer to say that there is no shows intimate knowledge of the coast and harbours evidence in favour of the identification. of Crete directly opposite Cyrene, and is well According to Ac 13~, certain prophets and aware of the dangers to navigation in that perilous teachers were at work in the Church at Antioch. region. Was St. Luke one of those men of Their names are given as Barnabas, Symeon that Cyrene who came to Antioch and spoke unto was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen the the Greeks ? foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. Tradition associates St. Luke with Antioch. This company, in the midst of which Lucius was Early Vulgate MSS. of the Gospels have prefaces found, is an interesting one. Who is ‘-Symeon attached to the books giving particulars of their that was called Niger’?i’ He must have been an authors. These are probably as early as the third African. There is a Simon of Cyrene named century. That prefixed to the third Gospel says in Mt 27 and Mk i 5. Symeon the African that ‘ Luke, by nation a Syrian of Antioch, a might well be Simon of Cyrene. If St. Luke be disciple of the apostles, and afterwards a follower Lucius of Cyrene he would probably be well of St. Paul, served his Master blamelessly till his acquainted with Simon of the same city. Another confession’ ; while Eusebius (H.E. iii. 4) speaks significant member of the group is Manaen, the of ’Luke who was born at Antioch, by profession foster-brother of Herod. Holdsworth and Sanday a physician, etc.’ Thus while tradition connects have independently reached the conclusion that St. Luke with Antioch, Scripture connects Lucius among the special sources from which St. Luke with the same city. Possibly when the tradition draws his peculiar material Joanna, wife of Chuza, was formed sufficient was known to identify Lucius Herod’s steward, counts as chief. Luke manifests and St. Luke; or the tradition may have been marked sympathy with women, and an intimate founded on the known fact that Lucius was at acquaintance with the court of Herod, such as Antioch. But that could not have happened might have been obtained from Joanna. unless it had been known that Lucas was an But where did St. Luke meet with Joanna? abbreviation of Lucius. Now Ramsay tells us Harnack, Streeter, Bartlet, and Hawkins prefer to that it was such an abbreviation. think that the special source is to be sought in Turning to the Gospel, we find St. Luke saying Philip the Evangelist and his daughters. But in his prefatory dedication that certain things have once more, if St. Luke be Lucius of Cyrene, then been fulfilled among us,’ and that eye-witnesses 220 ‘ delivered them unto its.’ He identifies himself St. Luke?i’ There was a large Jewish community with those to whom they were delivered and in the city, constituting, according to Josephus, a amongst whom they were fulfilled. This does at quarter of the population. They enjoyed equal least imply a residence in Palestine, and probably rights of citizenship with the Greek inhabitants in in Jerusalem. He may have been a member of the time of Alexander the Great. Many evidences that synagogue of the Cyrenians which was in I of culture were to be found there, including not Jerusalem, and so have known these eye-witnesses. only a philosophical school but also a medical It does not seem at all difficult to suppose that he school, where the beloved physician’ may have had taken part in that dispute between Stephen qualified, or at least have received that instruction and the Cyrenians, and that the words of Stephen which made him so helpful to St. Paul in his times followed by his martyrdom had been the chief of need. In such matters certainty is unlikely to influence which brought about his conversion. be obtained ; but when so many facts converge on When the rest fled to Antioch to escape their one conclusion, and so many problems would be hostile fellow-countrymen it is quite likely that he solved by it, surely such a conclusion is not to be would flee there with them. dismissed so curtly as is done when it is said that Where could a more likely home be found for ’there is nothing in its favour,’ ’ there is no one who was to occupy the important position of evidence,’ or that ‘it is quite absurd.’ In the Study. ~irgini$u6 (~uerigque. You must have heard the fable of the chicken who, finding a diamond, exclaimed, ‘ ~Yould it were a ‘ I wonder.’ , corn-grain !’ And there is a story of an African ’They were all amazed at the mighty power of God.’ whose bones were found in the desert ’ princess -Lk 9~a.. beside a bag of pearls. She had written an account You all know what it is to wonder. You have of how food had failed her, until at the last she looked up into the starry sky, and the vastness of had crushed pearls to dust, and tried with that to it has made you almost afraid. Then, have you satisfy the deadly craving-‘ but, alas ! they were ever been amongst great mountains and felt the only pearls, and so I died.’ silence and loneliness of them? And do you 3..Sometimes what is learnt at school or at the remember the first time you gazed at the ocean ? University dulls the sense of wonder. The science You could not understand how anything so great, professor gives reasons for things that seem in- so immense, could be kept in its place; it was a explicable. You have class-books that tell you mystery ; you wondered. about the stars, and you may have been allowed to i. You do not all wonder at the same sort of look through a great telescope that seemed to thing. As you know, the child of the country has bring the moon so near that the thought passed a very different idea of the world from the boy or through your mind, perhaps people may one day girl who has been born and brought up in a be able to explore it.’ Then the beauty of the crowded city. But whatever be the outlook, the rainbow has been explained away from the minds sense of wonder is one of the things that bind boys of many boys and girls. The poet Wordsworth and girls together, and the ‘grown-up’ who has used to love to gaze at it when he was a child, and it and keeps it remains a child to the end of he did so to the end of his life. his life. So be it when I shall grow old, 2. If we ceased to wonder at we as things might Or let me die. well be done with this life altogether. A man or woman who has no thought of anything but how to 4. There are those who never cease to wonder make money is one for whom we can only be sorry, at the wild flowers that some of you consider of for money is of no use when one comes to die. little account. You crush them under foot in utter.

Load more