St. Luke the Evangelist

Christian tradition identifies Luke, a companion of Paul, as the author of the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. These books connect the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus with the beginnings and spread of the Christian community. The Gospel's opening describes the author's effort to draw on earlier testimony.

The two works attributed to Luke form a connected narrative: the Gospel moves toward Jerusalem, while Acts follows the proclamation outward through the apostolic community. The reference to earlier witnesses in the Gospel's prologue helps explain its character as an ordered account based on received testimony.

Luke's Gospel gives particular attention to mercy, prayer, poor people, and women in Jesus' ministry. It preserves such distinctive passages as the Good Samaritan and the father welcoming his lost son. Although later traditions supply additional biographical details, his precise birthplace and death are not securely established. His Western feast is October 18.

The identification with Paul's companion rests on ancient Christian tradition and readings of New Testament references. The books themselves do not give a conventional author biography. Later portrayals of Luke as a painter or detailed accounts of his final travels should therefore be distinguished from the literary evidence of the Gospel and Acts.

The prologue of Luke addresses Theophilus as someone who has already received instruction. The ordered narrative is intended to give assurance about that teaching. This stated purpose places the Gospel within the formation of readers, not simply the preservation of isolated memorable episodes.

The New American Bible introduction also emphasizes Luke's practice of locating the Christian story amid named political rulers and events. His presentation joins God's promises to Israel with the extension of salvation to the nations. Those literary choices are accessible evidence for the evangelist's work even when his personal movements or later death cannot be reconstructed securely.