Luke the Evangelist, M.D. (15? - 99?)

Here, once again, the Physician and Surgeon’s Almanac for October 18^th.

Today we celebrate the Greek physician, Luke the Evangelist, who practiced medicine in the Greek city of Antioch, Syria, and later became a disciple and companion to Paul the Apostle, the most influential of the Bible’s New Testament writers.

Luke did some writing of his own; a historical account of the life of Jesus that found its way into the Christian Bible as “The Gospel According to Luke”, also known as “The Book of Luke”, or just “Luke”.

Usually ordered as the third of the four Gospels, the Book of Luke was probably written based on material from the Book of Matthew, the first Gospel in the Bible, and the Book of Mark, the second Gospel and the oldest of the four. Unique to the Book of Luke, the stories of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan.

Luke borrowed heavily from Mark, often word for word, in his chronology of the life of Jesus. It is believed that Luke also used other documents and oral histories about the life, ministry and resurrection of Jesus, to write his Gospel and was likely not an eyewitness to any of the events himself. Several scholars believe Luke was the only writer in the Bible who was not Jewish.

The writing style and vocabulary of the Book of Luke and the Book of Acts leads many to believe that they were written by the same highly educated author, a writer who was likely a historian of the Greek tradition. Many biblical scholars believe Luke be that writer, as his stands out among the four Gospels.

Whereas Matthew, Mark and John begin their books with 16 verses listing Jesus’ ancestors (Matthew), the words of a messianic prophet (Mark) or proclaiming the coming of God in the Flesh (John), Luke is the only writer who begins his Gospel in a more scholarly fashion…with an introduction; verses explaining what he is going to write about and why he’s writing.

Not much is written on the medical practice of Luke, venerated as Saint Luke, patron saint of artists, physicians, surgeons, students and butchers; who is referred to as a “physician” by others in the Bible. He’s also believed to be the first to paint icons, like Black Madonna of Częstochowa, which is attributed to him.

He died at the age of 84 and his tomb is located in Thebes, Greece but it is believed that his relics are scattered. The skull at a church in Prague, while the remainder of the body in Padua, Italy.

In September 1998, 436 years after they were placed in Saint Justina's Basilica in

Padua, a skeleton was found in a sacred tomb, missing the cranium. According to an analytic study, the bones are those of a man who died between 70 and 85 years of age, was 5’4” tall, and likely individual of Syrian descent who died between 72 and 416 A.D.

Saint Luke, whose feast day is October18th, symbolized by the winged bull and the author of "The Gospel According to Luke", in which Jesus famously says:

“Physician, heal thyself.”