Saint Luke, the evangelist and physician (Colossians 4:14), is, according to Eastern tradition, one of the seventy disciples mentioned in chapter 10 of his Gospel. He accompanied Peter and Paul and recorded their acts. It is also said that he was a painter and painted several icons of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God; according to written and oral tradition, one of these icons is kept at the Patriarchal Monastery of Our Lady of Saidnaya in Syria.
According to the tradition preserved in the synaxarion, after the deaths of Peter and Paul, Saint Luke stayed on to preach in the region of Rome. The pagans and some of the Jews joined together and went to the Emperor Nero, accusing Luke of having drawn many people to his teaching by sorcery. Nero ordered him to be brought in. When Saint Luke learned of this, he gave his books to a fisherman and said to him: “Keep these with you; they will benefit you and show you the way of God.” When he stood before Nero, the emperor said to him: “How long will you lead people astray?” The saint answered: “I am not a sorcerer, but an apostle of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Nero ordered his right forearm to be cut off, saying: “Cut off this hand that used to teach.” The saint said to him: “We do not fear death or departing from this world.” And so that the emperor might know the power of his Lord, he took his severed hand and put it back in its place, and it was joined again; then he separated it, and it came apart. Those present were amazed.
At this the minister and his wife came to believe, along with a large crowd, said to number two hundred and seventy-six. The emperor condemned them and ordered them to be beheaded together with the apostle Luke. So their martyrdom was accomplished. The saint’s body was put into a sack of hair and thrown into the sea, but by God’s providence the waves cast it onto an island, where a believer found it, wrapped it in a shroud and buried it.
Saint Luke wrote the Gospel that bears his name and the Acts of the Apostles, addressing them to his disciple Theophilus, who was a Gentile.
The Church celebrates his feast on 18 October.
Prepared by Rita of the Sawt el Rab team.
