word "Rabbi" as a form of address. He adds the word "unclean"
before the word "devil" (iv. 33), as the Greeks believed that some
devils were good and kind, while the Jews believed all devils to be
evil. He also substitutes the word "lawyer" for "scribe." But while
the preface is written in what is perhaps the best Greek in the New
Testament, the evangelist allows his language to be penetrated by his
visions of Jewish scenes. Partly from his study of the Old Testament,
partly from his knowledge of the books and the lives in which he found
a testimony to Jesus, he acquired the art of breathing into his Greek
the simple manner and the sweet tone of a Hebrew story. There is
nothing in all literature more perfectly told than the story of the
walk to Emmaus. Nothing can be better than the delineation of
character which is suggested to us in the story of Zacharias, or of
Anna, or of Zacchaeus. There is always a freshness to remind us that
the Gospel is "good tidings of great joy" (ii. 10), and the Magnificat
(i. 46-55), the Benedictus (i. 68-79), the Gloria in Excelsis (ii. 14),
and the Nunc Dimittis (ii. 29-32), have become for ever part of the
praises of the Christian Church. More often than in any other Gospel
we find such expressions as "glorifying God," "praising God," "blessing
God." Again, St. Luke, in choosing incidents from the life of home,
and more especially in choosing incidents in which women are prominent,
gives a new solemnity to a life which men had hitherto despised. We
always think of the Blessed Virgin as "highly favoured," of Martha
"cumbered about much serving" (x. 40), of the widow with the two mites,
of the daughters of Jerusalem weeping on the way of the cross (xxiii.
28), of the double joy of Elisabeth {70} to bear a son in her old age
and to be visited by the mother of her Lord (i. 43); and we think all
this because St. Luke has told us their story. These passages with
their smiles and tears, their simplicity and their depth, are a divine
contrast to the grotesque passage in the Jewish liturgy, where the men
thank God that they are not women.

The last point in St. Luke's literary style is his use of phrases which
resemble phrases in St. Paul's Epistles. He writes as a man who has
lived in familiar intercourse with St. Paul. There is a striking
similarity between the words attributed to our Lord in _the institution
of the Eucharist_ (xxii. 19, 20) and those in 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25, a
simila