in the prophet's vision to the four evangelists, assigned the ox or calf to St. Luke. 5. His history of the apostolical acts was written no doubt at Rome, at the end of St. Paul's two years' imprisonment there, with which he concludes his story; it contains the actions, and sometimes the sufferings of some principal apostles, especially St. Paul; for, besides that his activity in the cause of Christ made him bear a greater part both in doing and suffering, St. Luke was his constant attendant, an eye-witness of the whole carriage of his life, and privy to his most intimate transactions, and therefore capable of giving a more full and satisfactory account and relation of them; seeing no evidence or testimony in matters of fact can be more rational and convictive, than his who reports nothing but what he has heard and seen. Among other things, he gives us a particular account of those great miracles which the apostles did for the confirmation of their doctrine. And this (as St. Chrysostom informs us1) was the reason why, in the primitive times, the book of the Acts, though containing those actions of the apostles that were done after Pentecost, was yet usually read in the church before it, in the space between that and Easter, when, as at all other times, those parts of the gospel were read which were proper to the season; it was (says he) because the apostles' miracles being the grand confirmation of the truth of Christ's resurrection, and those miracles recorded in that book; it was therefore thought most proper to be read next to the feast of the resurrection. In both these books his way and manner of writing is Serm. 73, Cur Act. App. legantur in Pentec. tom. v. exact and accurate; his style polite and elegant, sublime and lofty, and yet clear and perspicuous, flowing with an easy and natural grace and sweetness, admirably accommodate to an historical design, all along expressing himself in a vein of purer Greek, than is to be found in the other writers of the holy story. Indeed being born and bred at Antioch, (than which no place more famous for oratory and eloquence,) he could not but carry away a great share of the native genius of that place, though his style is sometimes alloyed with a touch of the Syriac and Hebrew dialect. It was observed of old, (as Jerome tells us,') that his skill was greater in Greek than Hebrew, that therefore he always makes use of the Septuagint translation, and refuses sometimes to render words, when the propriety of the Greek tongue will not bear it. In short, as an historian, he was faithful in his relations, elegant in his writings; as a minister, careful and diligent for the good of souls; as a Christian, devout and pious: and he crowned all the rest with the laying down of his life for the testimony of that gospel, which he had both preached and published to the world. 1 Comm. in. c. 6, Esai. p. 30, tom v.; ibid. in c. 28, p. 118; Epist. ad Damas. p. 124, tom. iii. |