By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Our Church today sets aside the appointed sequence of readings, both the Gospel and the Apostolic reading, in order to turn its attention to Saint Luke the Evangelist, the Apostle and physician, a companion especially of the Apostle Paul, and, according to Tradition, the painter of the first icons of the Most Holy Theotokos. It does so by presenting texts associated with him. His personality and his contribution to the evangelization of mankind, both through preaching and through writing, are so great and significant that the Church does not wish to pass him by with only a few hymns. Saint Luke was not only an Apostle but also the author of the Gospel bearing his name in the New Testament, as well as the Acts of the Apostles. The Apostle Paul's reference to Luke as his beloved helper in the Apostolic reading emphatically confirms this.
1. FIRST, WE SHOULD NOTE that there is some disagreement among historians as to whether Saint Luke knew the Lord Jesus Christ during His earthly life. Some maintain that Luke knew Him, served Him, saw Him risen in the village of Emmaus, witnessed His Ascension, and received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Others hold that Luke came to know the Lord only later, after believing the preaching of the Apostle Paul. This disagreement is also reflected in the present text: the Synaxarion follows the latter view, according to which Luke came to know the Lord through the Apostle Paul, while the hymnography follows the former. We follow the material as it appears in the Church's Menaion, preserving the disagreement between the Synaxarion and the hymns.
2. IT IS NATURAL AND UNDERSTANDABLE that the hymns of our Church focus our attention on the work of Saint Luke the Apostle and Evangelist that has endured through the ages and continues to do so: his Holy Gospel, on the one hand, and the Acts of the Apostles, on the other. Along with the other three Evangelists, he preserved the account of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, especially His Passion and Resurrection, having first investigated and cross-checked the evidence. He also recorded the Acts of the Apostles, particularly those of his first and great teacher, the Apostle Paul. His connection with Paul was so close that the hymnographer describes him as “a follower of Paul, the chosen vessel, and also his imitator,” and as his “fellow traveler.” His Gospel is therefore regarded as presenting the Apostle Paul's teaching concerning Jesus Christ. The hymnographer wishes to emphasize this, as does the Synaxarion, going so far as to say, by way of exaggeration, that “the Apostle Paul dictated the Gospel to him.”
3. THE EXAGGERATION BECOMES APPARENT from the fact that the hymnographer continually proclaims his conviction that the Lord and the Holy Spirit illumined Luke's mind so that he could write his divinely inspired texts. His mouth thus became a vessel of divine wisdom. As one hymn declares: “All know, O wise one, that your mouth is a divine vessel of the highest wisdom.” Another says: “Christ initiated you into heavenly mysteries and opened to you the divinely inspired Scriptures, O Apostle Luke.” In other words, Christ initiated Luke into the heavenly mysteries and opened the divinely inspired Scriptures to him. A further hymn declares: “The grace of the Comforter found you to be its dwelling place and poured forth abundantly upon your lips.”
1. FIRST, WE SHOULD NOTE that there is some disagreement among historians as to whether Saint Luke knew the Lord Jesus Christ during His earthly life. Some maintain that Luke knew Him, served Him, saw Him risen in the village of Emmaus, witnessed His Ascension, and received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Others hold that Luke came to know the Lord only later, after believing the preaching of the Apostle Paul. This disagreement is also reflected in the present text: the Synaxarion follows the latter view, according to which Luke came to know the Lord through the Apostle Paul, while the hymnography follows the former. We follow the material as it appears in the Church's Menaion, preserving the disagreement between the Synaxarion and the hymns.
2. IT IS NATURAL AND UNDERSTANDABLE that the hymns of our Church focus our attention on the work of Saint Luke the Apostle and Evangelist that has endured through the ages and continues to do so: his Holy Gospel, on the one hand, and the Acts of the Apostles, on the other. Along with the other three Evangelists, he preserved the account of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, especially His Passion and Resurrection, having first investigated and cross-checked the evidence. He also recorded the Acts of the Apostles, particularly those of his first and great teacher, the Apostle Paul. His connection with Paul was so close that the hymnographer describes him as “a follower of Paul, the chosen vessel, and also his imitator,” and as his “fellow traveler.” His Gospel is therefore regarded as presenting the Apostle Paul's teaching concerning Jesus Christ. The hymnographer wishes to emphasize this, as does the Synaxarion, going so far as to say, by way of exaggeration, that “the Apostle Paul dictated the Gospel to him.”
3. THE EXAGGERATION BECOMES APPARENT from the fact that the hymnographer continually proclaims his conviction that the Lord and the Holy Spirit illumined Luke's mind so that he could write his divinely inspired texts. His mouth thus became a vessel of divine wisdom. As one hymn declares: “All know, O wise one, that your mouth is a divine vessel of the highest wisdom.” Another says: “Christ initiated you into heavenly mysteries and opened to you the divinely inspired Scriptures, O Apostle Luke.” In other words, Christ initiated Luke into the heavenly mysteries and opened the divinely inspired Scriptures to him. A further hymn declares: “The grace of the Comforter found you to be its dwelling place and poured forth abundantly upon your lips.”
From this perspective, the hymnographer does not hesitate to characterize Luke as a new Moses. Just as Moses ascended Mount Horeb to receive the divinely inspired tablets, so Luke, having ascended “the mountain of the virtues,” spoke with the One he desired and, like Moses, received two tablets inscribed by the finger of the Spirit. The hymn declares: “Having ascended the mountain of the virtues, you spoke with the One you longed for; and, like Moses, O blessed one, you received two God-inscribed tablets, written by the finger of the Spirit.” Saint Luke's writings are therefore divinely inspired, as though written by the very finger of God.
4. FOR THIS REASON, the hymns of our Church never cease to emphasize the need to study these texts so that people may be enlightened and receive the grace of God. One hymn declares: “Having received your books as tablets inscribed by God, O most blessed one, we faithfully delight in the illumination of grace.”
We should dwell on this hymn. Studying the books of Saint Luke, as though they were tablets inscribed by God, becomes a source of profound delight. It is a pleasure, and a great one at that. Just as a person who loves rich food delights in an abundant feast, so—and even more so—does the person who devotes himself to Saint Luke's writings delight in their study, precisely because he comes into contact with the very Spirit of God through these God-inscribed tablets.
The hymnographer makes another point as well: this study must be undertaken “faithfully.” One cannot approach the word of God without faith in Him. Without faith, the grace of His words becomes a consuming fire for the person who remains in the darkness of unbelief, and the fragrance of death for the person who has not loved the life of God. The hymns describe it as “a burning arrow for those who have loved the darkness” and “the fragrance of death for those who have not loved life.”
Conversely, when study is undertaken in faith, a person is enlightened and comes to know the life of God. As the hymn declares: “You were shown to be a tongue of fire, sending forth words of light to those made worthy of the light through your preaching … and a fragrance of life to those who truly desire life, as Paul declared.”
THE CONCLUSION IS OBVIOUS. For our Church, the study of the divinely inspired writings of the Evangelist Luke is regarded as essential to being a Christian. Moreover, these are the writings of an Evangelist who is ultimately regarded as equal in honor to the Apostles, since he too saw the Lord on the road to Emmaus, sat at table with Him, and received Holy Communion from Him in the village of Emmaus. He also received the flame of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
The hymnographer declares: “You too became equal in honor to the Apostles, and a minister of the incarnation of the Word. After the Resurrection, you saw Him at Emmaus, and with a burning heart you ate together with Cleopas.”
May Saint Luke fill our souls, too, with the warmth of his own love for Christ. As the final hymn prays: “Fill the souls of us who honor you with that same divine fervor.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
