Interpretation of the Gospel of Luke

Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 The Personality of the Gospel Writer Origin of the Gospel of Luke Reason and purpose, place and time of writing the Gospel On the Authenticity and Integrity of the Gospel of Luke Sources and aids for studying the Gospel of Luke Evangelist Luke, according to legends preserved by some ancient church writers (Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabene, etc.), was born in Antioch. His name is most likely a contraction of the Roman name Lucilius. Was he a Jew or a pagan by birth? This question is answered by the passage from the Epistle to the Colossians, where the Apostle Paul distinguishes Luke from the circumcised ( Col. 4:11–14 ) and, therefore, testifies that Luke was a pagan by birth. It is safe to assume that before joining the Church of Christ, Luke was a Jewish proselyte, since he was very familiar with Jewish customs. By his civilian profession, Luke was a doctor (Col. 4:14), and church tradition, although quite later, says that he was also engaged in painting (Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos. “Church History”). When and how he turned to Christ is unknown. Tradition says that he belonged to the 70 apostles of Christ (Epiphanius. Adversus haereses, LI, 12, etc.), cannot be considered trustworthy in view of the clear statement of Luke himself, who does not include himself among the witnesses of the life of Christ (Luke 1:1 et seq.). He acts for the first time as a companion and assistant to the Apostle Paul during Paul's second missionary journey. This took place in Troas, where Luke may have lived before (Acts 16:8 et seq.). Then he was with Paul in Macedonia (Acts 16:10 et seq.) and, during the third journey, in Troas, Miletus and other places (Acts 24:23; Col. 4:14; Phil. 1:24). He accompanied Paul to Rome (Acts 27:1–28; cf. 2 Timothy 4:10). Then information about him ceases in the Scriptures of the New Testament and only a relatively later tradition (Gregory the Theologian) reports his martyrdom; his relics, according to the testimony of Jerome (“De viris illustribus”, VII), under the emperor Constantius were transferred from Achaea to Constantinople. According to the evangelist himself (Luke 1:1-4), he compiled his Gospel on the basis of the tradition of eyewitnesses and the study of written experiences in presenting this tradition, trying to give a relatively detailed and correctly ordered account of the events of the gospel history. Those works that the Evangelist Luke used were compiled on the basis of the apostolic tradition, but, nevertheless, they seemed to him insufficient for the purpose that he had when compiling his Gospel. One of these sources, perhaps even the main source, was the Gospel of Mark for the Evangelist Luke. They even say that a huge part of the Gospel of Luke is literary dependent on the Gospel of Mark (this is precisely what Weiss proved in his work on the Gospel of Mark by comparing the texts of these two Gospels). Some critics also tried to make the Gospel of Luke dependent on the Gospel of Matthew, but these attempts were extremely unsuccessful and are now almost never repeated. If anything can be said with certainty, it is that in some places the Evangelist Luke uses a source that agrees with the Gospel of Matthew. This must be said primarily about the history of the childhood of Jesus Christ. The nature of the presentation of this story, the very speech of the Gospel in this section, which is very reminiscent of works of Jewish writing, suggest that Luke here used a Jewish source, which was quite close to the story of the childhood of Jesus Christ as set out in the Gospel of Matthew. Finally, even in ancient times, it was suggested that the Evangelist Luke, as a companion of the Apostle Paul, expounded the “Gospel” of this particular apostle (Irenaeus. Adversus haereses, III, 1, 7; Eusebius of Caesarea, “Church History”, II, 22, 5). Although this assumption is very likely and consistent with the nature of Luke's Gospel, which, apparently, deliberately chose such narratives that could prove the general and main idea of ​​​​Paul's Gospel about the salvation of the Gentiles, nevertheless, the evangelist's own statement (Luke 1: 1 et seq.) does not indicate this source. The Gospel of Luke (and the book of Acts) was written for a certain Theophilus to enable him to ensure that the Christian teaching he was taught rested on solid foundations. Many assumptions have been made about the origin, profession and place of residence of this Theophilus, but all these assumptions do not have sufficient grounds. One can only say that Theophilus was a noble man, since Luke calls him “venerable” (κράτιστε [Luke 1:3] literally means “the strongest.” - Ed.), and from the nature of the Gospel, which is close to the nature of the teaching of the Apostle Paul, it is natural to draw the conclusion that Theophilus was converted to Christianity by the Apostle Paul and, probably, had previously been pagan. One can also accept the testimony of the “Meetings” (a work attributed to Clement of Rome X, 71) that Theophilus was a resident of Antioch. Finally, from the fact that in the book of Acts, written for the same Theophilus, Luke does not explain the places mentioned in the history of the Apostle Paul’s journey to Rome (Acts 28:12–13, 15), we can conclude that Theophilus was well acquainted with the named areas and probably traveled to Rome himself several times. But there is no doubt that Luke wrote the Gospel not for Theophilus alone, but for all Christians, for whom it was important to become familiar with the history of the life of Christ in such a systematic and verified form as this story is in Luke’s Gospel. That the Gospel of Luke, in any case, was written for a Christian, or, more correctly, for pagan Christians, is clearly evident from the fact that the evangelist nowhere presents Jesus Christ as the Messiah expected by the Jews and does not strive to indicate the fulfillment of Messianic prophecies in the activity and teaching of Christ. Instead, we find in the third Gospel repeated indications that Christ is the Redeemer of the entire human race and that the Gospel is intended for all nations. This idea was already expressed by the righteous elder Simeon (II, 31 et seq.), and then passes through the genealogy of Christ, which the Evangelist Luke brought to Adam, the ancestor of all humanity, and which, therefore, shows that Christ belongs not to just the Jewish people, but to all humanity. Then, beginning to depict the Galilean activity of Christ, the Evangelist Luke puts in the foreground the rejection of Christ by His fellow citizens - the inhabitants of Nazareth, in which the Lord indicated a feature that characterizes the attitude of the Jews towards the prophets in general - the attitude by virtue of which the prophets left the Jewish land for the pagans or showed their favor to the pagans (Elijah and Elisha - Luke 4: 25-27). In the Conversation on the Mount, the evangelist Luke does not cite Christ’s sayings about His attitude to the law (Luke 6:20–49) and Pharisaic righteousness, and in his instructions to the apostles he omits the prohibition for the apostles to preach to the pagans and Samaritans (Luke 9:1–6). On the contrary, he alone talks about the grateful Samaritan, about the merciful Samaritan, about Christ’s disapproval of the disciples’ immoderate irritation against the Samaritans who did not accept Christ. This should also include various parables and sayings of Christ, in which there is great similarity with the teaching about righteousness by faith, which the Apostle Paul proclaimed in his Epistles, written to churches composed primarily of pagans. The influence of the Apostle Paul and the desire to explain the universality of salvation brought by Christ undoubtedly had a great influence on the choice of material for the composition of the Gospel of Luke. However, there is not the slightest reason to assume that the writer pursued purely subjective views in his work and deviated from historical truth. On the contrary, we see that he gives place in his Gospel to such narratives that undoubtedly developed in the Judeo-Christian circle (the story of Christ’s childhood). In vain, therefore, they attribute to him the desire to adapt Jewish ideas about the Messiah to the views of the Apostle Paul (Zeller) or the desire to elevate Paul above the twelve apostles and Paul’s teaching before Judeo-Christianity (Baur, Hilgenfeld). This assumption is contradicted by the content of the Gospel, in which there are many sections that run counter to this supposed desire of Luke (this is, firstly, the story of the birth of Christ and His childhood, and then Luke 4:16-30, 5:39, 10:22, 12:6 et seq., Luke 13:1-5, 16:17, 19:18-46, etc.). To reconcile his assumption with the existence of such sections in the Gospel of Luke, Baur had to resort to a new assumption that in its present form the Gospel of Luke is the work of some later person (editor). Holsten, who sees in the Gospel of Luke a combination of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, believes that Luke intended to unite the Judeo-Christian and Pauline views, highlighting from them the Judaistic and extremely Pauline. The same view of the Gospel of Luke, as a work pursuing purely conciliatory goals of two directions that fought in the primal Church, continues to exist in the latest criticism of the apostolic writings. Yogi. Weiss, in his preface to the interpretation of the Gospel of Luke (2nd ed. 1907), comes to the conclusion that this Gospel cannot in any way be recognized as pursuing the goal of exalting Paulinism. Luke shows his complete “non-partisanship,” and if he has frequent coincidences in thoughts and expressions with the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, this can only be explained by the fact that by the time Luke wrote his Gospel, these Epistles were already widespread in all churches. The love of Christ for sinners, the manifestations of which the Evangelist Luke so often dwells on, is not something particularly characterizing Paul’s idea of ​​Christ; on the contrary, the entire Christian tradition presented Christ exactly like that, loving sinners... Some ancient writers dated the time of writing the Gospel of Luke to a very early period in the history of Christianity - even to the time of the activity of the Apostle Paul, and the newest interpreters in most cases claim that the Gospel of Luke was written shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem: at the time when the two-year stay of the Apostle Paul in Roman imprisonment ended. There is, however, an opinion, supported by fairly authoritative scholars (for example, B. Weiss), that the Gospel of Luke was written after the year 70, i.e. after the destruction of Jerusalem. This opinion tries to find a basis for itself, mainly in the 21st chapter of the Gospel of Luke (Luke 21:24 et seq.), where the destruction of Jerusalem is supposed to be an already accomplished fact. The idea that Luke has about the position of the Christian Church, as being in a very oppressed state, seems to agree with this (cf. Luke 6:20 et seq.). However, according to the conviction of the same Weiss, it is impossible to date the origin of the Gospel further than the 70s (as, for example, Baur and Zeller do, putting the origin of the Gospel of Luke in 110-130, or as Hilgenfeld, Keim, Volkmar - in 100). Regarding this opinion of Weiss, it can be said that it does not contain anything incredible and even, perhaps, can find a basis for itself in the testimony of St. Irenaeus, who says that the Gospel of Luke was written after the death of the apostles Peter and Paul (“Against Heresies”, III, 1). Where the Gospel of Luke is written - nothing definite is known about this from tradition. According to some, the place of writing was Achaea, according to others - Alexandria or Caesarea. Some point to Corinth, others to Rome, as the place where the Gospel was written, but all these are just assumptions. The writer of the Gospel does not call himself by name, but the ancient tradition of the Church unanimously names the Apostle Luke as the writer of the third Gospel (Irenaeus, “Against Heresies”, III, 1, 1; Origen in Eusebius, “Ecclesiastical History”, VI, 25, etc. See also the Muratorian canon). There is nothing in the Gospel itself that would prevent us from accepting this testimony of tradition. If opponents of authenticity point out that the apostolic men do not cite passages from it at all, then this circumstance can be explained by the fact that under the apostolic men it was customary to be guided more by the oral tradition about the life of Christ than by the records about Him. In addition, the Gospel of Luke, as having, judging by the inscription, primarily a private purpose, could have been considered by the apostolic men as a private document. Only later did it acquire the significance of a generally binding guide for the study of Gospel history. The newest criticism still does not agree with the testimony of tradition and does not recognize Luke as the writer of the Gospel. The basis for doubting the authenticity of the Gospel of Luke is for critics (for example, for Johann Weiss) the fact that the author of the Gospel must be recognized as the one who compiled the book of the Acts of the Apostles: this is evidenced not only by the inscription of the book of Acts (Acts 1:1), but also by the style of both books. Meanwhile, criticism claims that the book of Acts was not written by Luke himself or not at all by the companion of the Apostle Paul, but by a person who lived much later, who only in the second part of the book uses the notes that remained from the companion of the Apostle Paul (see, for example, Acts 16:10: we...). Obviously, this assumption expressed by Weiss arises with the question of the authenticity of the book of the Acts of the Apostles and therefore cannot be discussed here. As for the integrity of the Gospel of Luke, critics have long expressed the idea that not all of Luke's Gospel originated from this writer, but that there are sections inserted into it by a later hand. Therefore, they tried to highlight the so-called “first-Luke” (Scholten). But most new interpreters defend the position that the Gospel of Luke, in its entirety, is the work of Luke. The objections that Johann Weiss expresses in his commentary on the Gospel of Luke can hardly shake a sane person’s confidence that the Gospel of Luke in all sections is a completely integral work of one author. (Some of these objections will be dealt with in the interpretation of Luke's Gospel.) In relation to the choice and order of the Gospel events, the Evangelist Luke, like Matthew and Mark, divides these events into two groups, one of which embraces the Galilean activity of Christ, and the other – His activity in Jerusalem. At the same time, Luke greatly abridges some of the stories contained in the first two Gospels, but gives many stories that are not at all found in those Gospels. Finally, he groups and modifies those stories in his Gospel that are a reproduction of what is in the first two Gospels in his own way. Like the evangelist Matthew, Luke begins his Gospel with the very first moments of New Testament revelation. In the first three chapters he depicts: a) foretelling of the birth of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus Christ, as well as the birth and circumcision of John the Baptist and the circumstances surrounding them (Luke 1); b) the story of the birth, circumcision and bringing of Christ to the church, and then the appearance of Christ in the church when He was a 12-year-old boy (Luke 2); c) the appearance of John the Baptist as the Forerunner of the Messiah, the descent of the Spirit of God on Christ during His baptism, the age of Christ, what He was at that time, and His genealogy (Luke 3). The depiction of Christ's messianic activity in the Gospel of Luke is also quite clearly divided into three parts. The first part covers the work of Christ in Galilee (Luke 4:1–9:50), the second contains the speeches and miracles of Christ during His long journey to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51–19:27), and the third contains the story of the completion of Christ's messianic ministry in Jerusalem (Luke 19:28–24:53). In the first part, where the Evangelist Luke follows the Evangelist Mark both in the choice and in the sequence of events, several omissions are made from Mark's narrative. Specifically omitted: Mark 3:20–30 – malicious judgments of the Pharisees about Christ’s casting out of demons; Mark 6:17–29 - the news of the capture and killing of the Baptist and then everything that is given in Mark (as well as in Matthew) from the history of Christ’s activity in Northern Galilee and Perea (Mark 6:44–8:27 et seq.). The miracle of the feeding of the people (Luke 9:10–17) is directly accompanied by the story of Peter’s confession and the Lord’s first prediction about His suffering (Luke 9:18 et seq.). On the other hand, the evangelist Luke, instead of the section about the calling of Simon and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee to follow Christ (Mark 1:16–20; cf. Matt. 4:18–22), reports a story about a miraculous fishing trip, as a result of which Peter and his comrades abandoned their occupation in order to constantly follow Christ (Luke 5:1–11), and instead of a story about the rejection of Christ in Nazareth ( Mark 6:1–6; cf. Matt. 13:54–58) he places a story of the same content when describing the first visit of Christ as the Messiah to His fatherly city (Luke 4:16–30). Further, after the calling of the 12 apostles, Luke places in his Gospel the following sections, not found in the Gospel of Mark: the Sermon on the Mount (Luke 6:20–49), but in a more concise form than it is presented in the Gospel of Matthew, the question of the Baptist to the Lord about His messiahship (Luke 7:18–35) and the story inserted between these two parts about the resurrection of the Nain youth ( Luke 7:11–17), then the story of the anointing of Christ at a dinner in the house of the Pharisee Simon (Luke 7:36–50) and the names of the Galilean women who served Christ with their property (Luke 8:1–3). This closeness of Luke's Gospel to Mark's Gospel is undoubtedly explained by the fact that both evangelists wrote their Gospels for pagan Christians. Both evangelists also show a desire to depict the gospel events not in their exact chronological sequence, but to give as complete and clear an idea as possible of Christ as the founder of the Messianic Kingdom. Luke’s departures from Mark can be explained by his desire to give more space to those stories that Luke borrows from tradition, as well as the desire to group together the facts reported to Luke by eyewitnesses, so that his Gospel would present not only the image of Christ, His life and works, but also His teaching about the Kingdom of God, expressed in His speeches and conversations with both disciples and opponents. In order to systematically implement this intention, the Evangelist Luke places between both, predominantly historical parts of his Gospel - the first and third - a middle part (Luke 9:51-19:27), in which conversations and speeches predominate, and in this part he cites speeches and events that, according to other Gospels, took place at other times. Some interpreters (for example, Meyer, Godet) see in this section an accurate chronological presentation of events, based on the words of the Evangelist Luke himself, who promised to present everything “in order” (καθ´ ἑξῆς - Luke 1:3). But such an assumption is hardly valid. Although the Evangelist Luke says that he wants to write “in order,” this does not mean that in his Gospel he wants to give only a chronicle of the life of Christ. On the contrary, his purpose was to give Theophilus, through an accurate presentation of the gospel history, complete confidence in the truth of the doctrines in which he was instructed. The Evangelist Luke preserved the general sequential order of events: his gospel story begins with the birth of Christ and even with the birth of His Forerunner, then there is a depiction of the public ministry of Christ, and the moments of the revelation of Christ’s teaching about Himself as the Messiah are indicated, and, finally, the whole story ends with a presentation of the events of the last days of Christ’s stay on earth. There was no need to list in sequential order everything that was accomplished by Christ from baptism to ascension - for the purpose that Luke had, it was enough to convey the events of the gospel history in a certain group. This intention of the Evangelist Luke is also evidenced by the fact that most sections of the second part are interconnected not by exact chronological indications, but by simple transitional formulas: “it happened” (Luke 11:1, 14:1), “it came to pass” (Luke 10:38, 11:27), “and behold” (Luke 10:25), “he said” (Luke 12:54) and etc., or simple connectives: “a, but” (δέ – Luke 11:29, 12:10). These transitions were made, obviously, not in order to determine the time of events, but only their setting. It is also impossible not to point out that the evangelist here describes events that took place either in Samaria (Luke 9:52), then in Bethany, not far from Jerusalem (Luke 10:38), then again somewhere far from Jerusalem (Luke 13:31), in Galilee - in a word, these are events of different times, and not just those that happened during Christ’s last journey to Jerusalem on the Passover of Passion 1. Finally, in the third section (Luke 19:28–24:53), the evangelist Luke sometimes deviates from the chronological order of events in the interests of his grouping of facts (for example, he places the denial of Peter before the trial of Christ before the high priest). Here the Evangelist Luke again clings to the Gospel of Mark as the source of his narratives, supplementing his story with information drawn from another, unknown source 2. In accordance with his intended goal - to provide a basis for faith in the teaching that had already been taught to Theophilus, the Evangelist Luke planned the entire content of his Gospel in such a way that it really leads the reader to the conviction that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished the salvation of all mankind, that He fulfilled all the promises of the Old Testament about the Messiah as the Savior not only of the Jewish people, but of all nations. Naturally, in order to achieve his goal, the Evangelist Luke did not need to give his Gospel the appearance of a chronicle of the Gospel events, but rather, he needed to group all the events so that the narrative made the desired impression on the reader. The evangelist's plan is already evident in the introduction to the history of the messianic ministry of Christ (Luke 1–3). In the narrative of the conception and birth of Christ, it is mentioned that an Angel announced to the Blessed Virgin the birth of a Son, whom She would conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit and who would therefore be the Son of God, and in the flesh the Son of David, who would forever occupy the throne of His father, David. The birth of Christ, as the birth of the promised Redeemer, is announced through the Angel to the shepherds. When bringing the Child Christ to the church, the inspired elder Simeon and the prophetess Anna testify to His high dignity. Jesus Himself, still a 12-year-old boy, already declares that He should be in the church as in the house of His Father. At Christ's baptism in the Jordan, He receives heavenly testimony that He is the beloved Son of God, having received the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit for His messianic ministry. Finally, His genealogy given in chapter 3, going back to Adam and God, testifies that He is the founder of a new humanity, born of God through the Holy Spirit. Then, in the first part of the Gospel, an image is given of the messianic ministry of Christ, which is accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling Christ (Luke 4:1). By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ defeats the devil in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13), and then appears in this “power of the Spirit” in Galilee, and in Nazareth, His hometown, declares Himself the Anointed One and the Redeemer, about whom the prophets of the Old Testament predicted. Not finding faith in Himself here, He reminds His unbelieving fellow citizens that God, even in the Old Testament, prepared for the reception of prophets among the pagans (Luke 4:14–30). After this, which had a predictive significance for the future attitude towards Christ on the part of the Jews, there follows a series of deeds performed by Christ in Capernaum and its environs: the healing of a demoniac by the power of the word of Christ in the synagogue, the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law and other sick and demoniacs who were brought and brought to Christ (Luke 4:31-44), miraculous fishing, healing of a leper. All of this is depicted as events that entailed the spread of fame about Christ and the arrival to Christ of entire masses of people who came to listen to the teachings of Christ and brought with them their sick in the hope that Christ would heal them (Luke 5:1-16). Then follows a group of incidents that aroused opposition to Christ on the part of the Pharisees and scribes: the forgiveness of the sins of the healed paralytic (Luke 5:17–26), the announcement at a dinner at the publican’s that Christ came to save not the righteous, but sinners (Luke 5:27–32), the justification of Christ’s disciples for not keeping fasts, based on the fact that the Bridegroom-Messiah is with them ( Luke 5:33–39), and in the violation of the Sabbath, based on the fact that Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath, and, moreover, confirmed by the miracle that Christ performed on the Sabbath over the withered man (Luke 6:1–11). But while these deeds and statements of Christ irritated His opponents to the point that they began to think about how to seize Him, He chose 12 from among His disciples as apostles (Luke 6:12-16), proclaimed from the mountain in the hearing of all the people who followed Him the main provisions on which the Kingdom of God, which He founded, should be built (Luke 6:17-49), and, after descending from the mountain, not only fulfilled the request of the pagan centurion to heal his servant, because the centurion showed such faith in Christ, which Christ did not find in Israel (Luke 7:1-10), but also raised the son of the widow of Nain, after which he was glorified by all the people accompanying the funeral procession as a prophet sent by God to the chosen people (Luke 7:11-17). The embassy from John the Baptist to Christ with the question whether He is the Messiah prompted Christ to point to His deeds as evidence of His Messianic dignity and at the same time reproach the people for their lack of trust in John the Baptist and in Him, Christ. At the same time, Christ makes a distinction between those listeners who long to hear from Him an indication of the path to salvation, and between those, of whom there are a huge mass and who do not believe in Him (Luke 7:18-35). The subsequent sections, in accordance with the intention of the evangelist to show the difference between the Jews who listened to Christ, report a number of facts that illustrate such a division among the people and together the attitude of Christ towards the people, towards its different parts, consistent with their attitude towards Christ, namely: the anointing of Christ by a repentant sinner and the behavior of the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50), the mention of the Galilean women who served Christ with their property ( Luke 8:1–3), a parable about the various qualities of a field in which sowing is carried out indicating the bitterness of the people (Luke 8:4–18), the attitude of Christ towards His relatives (Luke 8:19–21), the crossing into the country of the Gadarenes, during which the lack of faith of the disciples was revealed, and the healing of a demoniac, and the contrast is noted between the stupid indifference that the Gadarenes showed to the miracle performed by Christ, and by the gratitude of the one healed (Luke 8:22–39), the healing of the bleeding woman and the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, because both the woman and Jairus showed their faith in Christ (Luke 8:40–56). What follows are the events recounted in the 9th chapter, which were intended to strengthen the disciples of Christ in the faith: endowing the disciples with the power to drive out and heal the sick, along with instructions on how they should act during their preaching journey (Luke 9:1-6), and it is indicated, as the tetrarch Herod understood the activity of Jesus (Luke 9:7-9), the feeding of five thousand, by which Christ showed the apostles returning from the journey His power to provide help in any way. need (Luke 9:10-17), the question of Christ, for whom do the people consider Him to be and for whom do the disciples, and Peter’s confession on behalf of all the apostles is given: “You are the Christ of God,” and then Christ’s prediction of His rejection by the representatives of the people and His death and resurrection, as well as an exhortation addressed to the disciples so that they imitate Him in self-sacrifice, for which He will reward them at His second glorious coming (Luke 9:18-27), the transfiguration of Christ, which allowed His disciples to penetrate with their gaze into His future glorification (Luke 9:28-36), the healing of a demon-possessed lunatic youth - whom Christ's disciples could not heal due to the weakness of their faith - which resulted in enthusiastic glorification by the people of God. At the same time, however, Christ once again pointed out to His disciples the fate awaiting Him, and they turned out to be incomprehensible in relation to such a clear statement made by Christ (Luke 9:37-45). This inability of the disciples, despite their confession of the Messiahship of Christ, to understand His prophecy about His death and resurrection, had its basis in the fact that they were still in those ideas about the Kingdom of the Messiah that had developed among the Jewish scribes, who understood the Messianic Kingdom as an earthly, political kingdom, and at the same time testified to how weak their knowledge was still about the nature of the Kingdom of God and its spiritual benefits. Therefore, according to the Gospel of Luke, Christ devoted the rest of the time before His triumphal entry into Jerusalem to teaching His disciples precisely these most important truths about the nature of the Kingdom of God, about its form and expansion (second part), about what is needed to achieve eternal life, and warnings not to be carried away by the teachings of the Pharisees and the views of His enemies, whom He will eventually come to judge as the King of this Kingdom of God (Luke 9:51–19:27 ). Finally, in the third part, the evangelist shows how Christ, by His suffering, death and resurrection, proved that He is truly the promised Savior and the King of the Kingdom of God anointed by the Holy Spirit. Depicting the solemn entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, the evangelist Luke speaks not only about the rapture of the people, which is also reported by other evangelists, but also about the fact that Christ announced His judgment over the city that disobeyed Him (Luke 19:28–44) and then, in agreement with Mark and Matthew, about how He put His enemies to shame in the church (Luke 20:1–47), and then, pointing out the superiority Alms for the church of the poor widow before the contributions of the rich, He foretold to His disciples the fate of Jerusalem and His followers (Luke 21:1-36). In the description of the suffering and death of Christ (Luke 22–23), it is exposed that Satan prompted Judas to betray Christ (Luke 22:3), and then Christ’s confidence is put forward that He will eat supper with His disciples in the Kingdom of God and that the Old Testament Passover must henceforth be replaced by the Eucharist established by Him (Luke 22:15–23). The evangelist also mentions that Christ at the Last Supper, calling his disciples to service, and not to domination, nevertheless promised them dominion in His Kingdom (Luke 22:24–30). Then follows a story about three moments of the last hours of Christ: Christ’s promise to pray for Peter, given in view of his imminent fall (Luke 22:31–34), the call of the disciples to fight temptations (Luke 22:35–38) and the prayer of Christ in Gethsemane, during which an Angel from heaven strengthened Him (Luke 22:39–46). Then the evangelist speaks about the taking of Christ and Christ’s healing of the servant wounded by Peter (Luke 22:51) and about His denunciation of the high priests who came with the soldiers (Luke 22:53). All these particulars clearly show that Christ went to suffering and death voluntarily, in the consciousness of their necessity so that the salvation of mankind could be accomplished. In the depiction of the suffering of Christ itself, Peter’s denial is presented by the Evangelist Luke as evidence that even during His own suffering, Christ pitied His weak disciple (Luke 22:54–62). Then follows an account of Christ's great sufferings in the following three parts: 1) denial of the high dignity of Christ partly by the soldiers who mocked Christ in the court of the high priest (Luke 22:63–65), and mainly by members of the Sanhedrin (Luke 22:66–71), 2) recognition of Christ as a dreamer at the trial of Pilate and Herod (Luke 23:1–12) and 3) the people’s preference for Barabbas, the thief, over Christ, and the condemnation of Christ to death by crucifixion (Luke 23:13–25). After depicting the depth of Christ’s suffering, the evangelist notes such features of this suffering that clearly testified that Christ, even in His torment, remained the King of the Kingdom of God. The Evangelist reports that the Convict: 1) as a judge, he addressed the women who wept for Him (Luke 23:26–31) and asked the Father for His enemies, who committed crimes against Him unknowingly (Luke 23:32–34); 2) gave a place in paradise to the repentant thief, as having the right to do so (Luke 23:35–43); 3) realized that, dying, He betrays His spirit Himself to the Father (Luke 23:44–46); 4) was recognized as righteous by the centurion and by His death aroused repentance among the people (Luke 23:47–48) and 5) was honored with a particularly solemn burial (Luke 23:49–56). Finally, in the history of the resurrection of Christ, the evangelist brings to light events that clearly proved the greatness of Christ and served to clarify the work of salvation accomplished by Him. Namely: the testimony of the Angels that Christ conquered death, according to His prophecies about this (Luke 24:1-12), then the appearance of Christ himself to the Emmaus travelers, to whom Christ showed from Scripture the necessity of His suffering in order for Him to enter His glory (Luke 24:13-35), the appearance of Christ to all the apostles, to whom He also explained the prophecies that spoke about Him, and commissioned in His name to preach the message of forgiveness sins to all the nations of the earth, while promising the apostles to send down the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:36–49). Finally, having briefly depicted the ascension of Christ into heaven (Luke 24:50–53), the evangelist Luke ended his Gospel, which really was a confirmation of everything taught to Theophilus and other pagan Christians of Christian teaching: Christ is truly depicted here as the promised Messiah, as the Son of God and the King of the Kingdom of God. Of the patristic interpretations of the Gospel of Luke, the most thorough are the works of Blessed Theophylact and Euthymius Zigaben. Of our Russian commentators, in the first place we must put Bishop Michael (Explanatory Gospel), who then compiled a textbook for reading the Four Gospels by D. P. Bogolepov; B.I. Gladkov, who wrote the “Explanatory Gospel”, and professor of the Kazan Theological Academy M. Bogoslovsky, who compiled the books: 1) The Childhood of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Forerunner, according to the Gospels of St. apostles Matthew and Luke. Kazan, 1893 and 2) The public ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the legends of the holy evangelists. Vol. first. Kazan, 1908. Of the works on the Gospel of Luke, we have only the dissertation of Fr. Polotebnova “The Holy Gospel of Luke. Orthodox critical-exegetical study against F.X. Baura." Moscow, 1873. From foreign commentaries we mention interpretations: Keil (1879), Meyer as edited by B. Weiss (1885), Jog. Weiss (1907), Trench. “Interpretation of the parables of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1888, in Russian) and “Miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1883, in Russian) and Merckx (1905). The following works are also quoted: Geikie “The Life and Teachings of Christ”, trans. St. M. Fiveysky, 1894; Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, trans. St. M. Fiveysky. T. I, 1900; Reville A. “Jesus the Nazarene”, trans. Zelinsky T. I-II, 1909, and some articles from spiritual magazines. Some interpreters, in order to maintain chronological order in this section, tried to find in it indications of two journeys of Christ to Jerusalem - the feast of renewal and the feast of the last Easter (Schleiermacher, Olshausen, Neander) or even the three mentioned by John in his Gospel (Wieseler). But, not to mention the fact that there is no definite allusion to various journeys, the passage in Luke’s Gospel clearly speaks against such an assumption, where it is definitely said that the evangelist wants to describe in this section only the last journey of the Lord to Jerusalem - on the Passover of Passion. Luke 9:51 says: “When the days of His taking out of the world drew near, He desired to go to Jerusalem.” See comments to chapter 9 Thus, Luke alone has stories about the publican Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1–10), about the dispute between the disciples during the celebration of the Eucharist (Luke 22:24–30), about the trial of Christ by Herod (Luke 23:4–12), about the women who mourned Christ during His procession to Golgotha (Luke 23:27–31), and a conversation with the thief on the cross ( Luke 23:39–43), the appearance to the Emmaus travelers (Luke 24:13–35) and some other messages that are additions to the stories of the Evangelist Mark. You might be interested in: