The Independent Works of Luke: Further Evidence on the Early Christian Reception of Luke and Acts

Abstract

Literary and rhetorical analysis has led scholars to approach the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts as a two-volume work, often referred to as Luke-Acts. In response to increased attention to Luke-Acts, there is renewed interest in the early reception history of these books. Research has focused primarily on the second century ce and yielded little to support the assumption that early recipients consistently read these books together. This lack of evidence for the unified reading of Luke-Acts, heightened by Acts’ own varied reception, has enlivened the discussion of how one should approach the study of Luke and Acts today. This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion by examining early Christian prologues to Luke’s writings, ranging from the second century to the sixth century ce. The prologues will be examined in light of three questions: (1) How do the prologues describe the author of Luke and Acts? (2) How do they engage with Luke’s own prefaces to the books? (3) How do they frame Luke and Acts in light of other literature? What emerges from these texts is that early readers were aware of a connection between Luke and Acts, but such a connection was overshadowed by other associations.