Gospel of St. Luke

256 Pages·1963·17.202 MB·English

by  G. B. Caird

Saint Luke
G. B. Caird
The Pelican New Testament Commentaries
PELICAN BOOKS
THE PELICAN NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARIES
EDITED BY D. B. NINEHAM
THE GOSPEL OF ST LUKE
George Bradford Caird was born in London in 1917
and was educated at King Edward's School, Binning
h3m, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he took a
'Double First' in classics. After obtaining a D.Phil. at
Mansfield College, Oxford, he became Minister of
Highgate Congregational Church, London, from 1943
to 1946, when he went to Edmonton, Alberta, as
Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature.
From 1950 to 1959 he held the chair of New Testa
ment at McGill University, Montreal, where during
the last four years of his stay he was also Principal of
the United Theological College. He was appointed
Senior Tutor at Mansfield College, Oxford, in 1959,
and Principal in 1970. From 1961 to 1965 he was
Grinfield Lecturer in the Septuagint, and since 1969
has been Reader in Biblical Studies at Oxford. He was
elected a Fellow of the Br;itish Academy in 1973.
George Caird, who is a D.D. of Oxford and an Hon.
D.D. of Aberdeen University and of two Canadian
colleges, was a member of the Apocrypha Translation
Panel of the New English Bible and an official Ob
server at the Second Vatican Council. His publications
include: The Truth of the Gospel, The Apostolic Age.
of
Principalities and Powers, The Revelation St John the.
Divine and Our Dialogue with Rome (1967).

Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
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Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R IB4
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
First published 1963
Reprinted 1965, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1985
Copyright © G. B. Caird, 1963
All rights reserved
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading
Set in Monotype Bembo
The Bible text in this publication is from the
RI'I'isl'd Star,dard Versi"" of the Bible, copyright 1946 and 1952
by the Division of Christian Education,
National Council of Churches, and used by permission.
Except in the Umted States of America,
this book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior consent in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser
CONIUGI DILECTISSIMAE ET AMANTISSIMAB
Contents
EDITORIAL FOREWORD 9
MAP II
INTRODUCTION I3
COMMENTARY 41
INDEX OF REFERENCES 263
INDEX OF AUTHORS 269
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 271
Editorial Foreword
Biblical commentaries are of various kinds. Some are intended
$ole1y for the specialistj others are devotional commentaries meant
simply to help the Christian believer in his prayer and meditation.
The commentaries in this series belong to neither class. Though
they are based on full scholarly study and deal with technical
points wherever necessary, the aim throughout has been to bring
out the meaning the Evangelists intended to convey to their
original readers. Since that meaning was religious, it is hoped that
the commentaries, while being ofi nterest to readers ofa ny religious
persuasion or none, and giving a fair indication of the current
position in Gospel study, will help Christian readers to a deeper
of
and more informed appreciation the Gospels.
Technical terms have been avoided wherever possible; where
used they have been fully explained in the Introductions, and
readers are advised to read the Introduction to each volume before
beginning on the commentary proper. The extended introduction
to the volume on Mark is in some degree intended as an introduc
tion to the series as a whole.
p..g Tetra rchy of
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Introduction
THE PURPOSE OF THE GOSPEL
On the night of 18 July A.D. 64, a fire broke out in Rome which
burnt for a week and destroyed half the city. Rumour, spreading like
the fire itself, laid the blame at the door of the Emperor Nero; and he,
to divert suspicion from himself, looked for a scapegoat. His choice
fell on the Christians, because, as Tacitus tells us in his account of the
fire (Annals, xv, 44), they were already' detested for their outrageous
practices'. During the legal inquiries which followed, the Roman
government learnt for the first time to distinguish Christianity from
Judaism. Hitherto Christians had been officially regarded as a Jewish
sect and therefore had benefited from the exceptional tolerance with
which Rome had treated the Jews since the time of Julius Caesar.
Christians had been harried by the Jews; they had incurred the
resentment of their pagan neighbours on the grounds that their
religion made them antisocial and different; like many another un
popular minority they had been suspected of nameless atrocities: but
they had not been outlawed. The fire of Rome led not merely to a
grim persecution of the Church in that city, but to a permanent
change of legal status for all Christians throughout the empire.
Roman law recognized only national religion. Religion, to a Roman,
was largely a matter of public ceremony, and it was part of a man's
loyalty to his country that he should join in the worship of his coun
try's gods. Officially non-conforn1ity was treason or 'atheism', and
the penalty was death. In practice this law could not be rigorously
enforced. Every city of the empire had a cosmopolitan population,
and where there were foreigners there would be foreign religions.
The policy adopted by Rome was that foreign religions, though
illegal, might be tolerated, provided that they did not cause a breach
of the peace or interfere with the official cult. Any violations "f this
privilege were dealt with, not in the regular .criminal courts, but by
13
INTRODUCTION
police procedure, in the administration of which the authorities had
wide discretionary powers. As a general rule, however, a magistrate
would take no action on a religious charge unless he felt that either
public opinion or national safety compelled him to do so.
Once the initial persecution of the Church by Nero had come to an
end, Christians fOWld themselves in a precarious, though by no means
a hopeless, situation. Their legal security had gone, for their faith was
now regarded as a new, and therefore illegal, religion. Their one
chance of survival lay in avoiding the unfavourable notice of the civil
authorities, and this in turn depended on their ability to retain the
goodwill of their neighbours, most of whom considered the Christian
religion to be a barbarous superstition and associated it with all
manner of depravities.
While the Church was adapting its life to this abiding menace, the
first great apologia for the Christian faith was written - a two-volume
work which we know as the Gospel according to St Luke and the
Acts of the Apostles. That these two books belong together is proved
by their common dedication to Theophilus and by a remarkable
homogeneity of vocabulary and style. All the other books of the New
Testament were written for use within the Christian community.
The formal dedication of this work to Theophilus, whose title ('Your
Excellency') shows that he held high office in the Roman govern
ment, strongly suggests that it was intended for publication and was
therefore directed primarily to the outside world. The author's pur
pose was to supply Theophilus and others like him with the solid
truth about this caluqmiated movement. Have Christians been con
demned as the felonious followers of an executed felon? He will show
that Christ and his disciples have justly been pronoWlced innocent by
the representatives of Roman law. Is Christianity despised as an
eccentric, foreign superstition? He will prove that it is the true fulfil
ment of the religious aspirations of the Old Testament, deserving all
the tolerance that Rome has shown to the Jews, and that, unlike the
nationalistic creed of the Jews, it is a world religion, adequate to meet
the spiritual needs ofa world empire. Have Christians been denoWlced
as revolutionaries who are turning the Roman world upside down?
His story will tell how Christ turned his back on political revolution
in order to accomplish a profoWlder revolution in the realm of ideas
and values. Are Christians suspected of antisocial behaviour? He will
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