It is
a document which comes to us second-hand. The narrative is more
mature. The words of Jesus are there, more deliberate, more
sententious. Some sentences are distorted and exaggerated.[1] Writing
outside of Palestine, and certainly after the siege of Jerusalem,[2]
the author indicates the places with less exactitude than the other
two synoptics; he has an erroneous idea of the temple, which he
represents as an oratory where people went to pay their devotions.[3]
He subdues some details in order to make the different narratives
agree;[4] he softens the passages which had become embarrassing on
account of a more exalted idea of the divinity of Christ;[5] he
exaggerates the marvellous;[6] commits errors in chronology;[7] omits
Hebraistic comments;[8] quotes no word of Jesus in this language, and
gives to all the localities their Greek names. We feel we have to do
with a compiler--with a man who has not himself seen the witnesses,
but who labors at the texts and wrests their sense to make them agree.
Luke had probably under his eyes the biographical collection of Mark,
and the _Logia_ of Matthew. But he treats them with much freedom;
sometimes he fuses two anecdotes or two parables in one;[9] sometimes
he divides one in order to make two.[10] He interprets the documents
according to his own idea; he has not the absolute impassibility of
Matthew and Mark. We might affirm certain things of his individual
tastes and tendencies; he is a very exact devotee;[11] he insists that
Jesus had performed all the Jewish rites,[12] he is a warm Ebionite
and democrat, that is to say, much opposed to property, and persuaded
that the triumph of the poor is approaching;[13] he likes especially
all the anecdotes showing prominently the conversion of sinners--the
exaltation of the humble;[14] he often modifies the ancient traditions
in order to give them this meaning;[15] he admits into his first pages
the legends about the infancy of Jesus, related with the long
amplifications, the spiritual songs, and the conventional proceedings
which form the essential features of the Apocryphal Gospels. Finally,
he has in the narrative of the last hours of Jesus some circumstances
full of tender feeling, and certain words of Jesus of delightful
beauty,[16] which are not found in more authentic accounts, and in
which we detect the presence of legend. Luke probably borrowed them
from a more recent collection, in which the principal aim was to
excite sen