Father Koch: Luke, our first historian, grounds our faith in time and place
January 24, 2025 at 4:17 p.m.
Of the evangelists, it is Luke alone who presents his work within the framework of historical research. Perhaps Luke’s most important gift to the Church can be seen in the line: “so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.” Today many attempt to destroy the integrity and message of faith. They want to deny the historicity of what we both know and believe. Luke was the first line of defense against that movement in the ancient world and he ought to stand as the credible response to that tendency now. Luke is our first historian, offering us a reliable testimony of the events of the life and ministry of Jesus.
Whether or not this Gospel and its companion piece the Acts of the Apostles was produced for a man named Theophilus or merely addressed to all of the friends of God, they both provide us a context for understanding Jesus, his mission, and the life of the early Church.
When one comes to the end of the Acts the reader is left hanging as it seems to end abruptly and unfinished. This is a demonstration of the on-going work of the Holy Spirit in the proclamation of the Good News and the mission of the Church.
At the beginning of the fourth century, during the tumultuous time of the conversion of Constantine and the inclusion of Christianity as an accepted religious practice in the Roman empire, Eusebius of Caesarea, composed the first history of the early Church. Here he recounts the events of the persecutions, the lives of the apostles, and the growth in the Church. This was a necessary reflection, as it continued to ground the life of the Church in place and time.
During that same period the formation of the Creed at the Council of Nicaea (325) also included very specific historical references, notably the mention of the Crucifixion of Jesus during the reign of Pontius Pilate. We are reminded that this is an historical event, not one that was formed through myth or the legendary explanation of other phenomena.
Recently, Pope Francis reflected on the importance of the study of history in formation for priests. But there he also included all of the faithful. He wrote:
“The avoidance of history very often appears as a form of blindness that drives us to waste our energies on a world that does not exist, raising false problems and veering towards inadequate solutions. Some of these interpretations may prove useful to small groups but certainly not to humanity and the Christian community as a whole.
“Hence the urgent need for a greater sense of history at a moment when we see a tendency to dismiss the memory of the past or to invent one suited to the requirements of dominant ideologies. Faced with the cancellation of past history or with clearly biased historical narratives, the work of historians, together with knowledge and dissemination of their work, can act as a curb on misrepresentations, partisan efforts at revisionism, and their use to justify wars, persecutions, the production, sale, and utilization of weapons and any number of other evils.
“Nowadays we are flooded with ‘memories’, often false, artificial and even mendacious, and at the same time an absence of history and historical awareness in civil society and even in our Christian communities. Matters become even worse if we think of carefully and covertly prefabricated histories that serve to construct ad hoc memories, identity-based memories and exclusionary memories. The work of historians and knowledge of their findings are of decisive importance today and can serve as an antidote to this lethal regime of hatred that rests on ignorance and prejudice.”
We owe our sense of history to the very work of Luke the evangelist. During this liturgical cycle, as we hear from Luke’s Gospel, we know that we are listening to a carefully crafted and researched work, designed to guarantee the true transmission of the events in the life of Jesus and the early Church, safeguarding the work of evangelization to the world.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.
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Of the evangelists, it is Luke alone who presents his work within the framework of historical research. Perhaps Luke’s most important gift to the Church can be seen in the line: “so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.” Today many attempt to destroy the integrity and message of faith. They want to deny the historicity of what we both know and believe. Luke was the first line of defense against that movement in the ancient world and he ought to stand as the credible response to that tendency now. Luke is our first historian, offering us a reliable testimony of the events of the life and ministry of Jesus.
Whether or not this Gospel and its companion piece the Acts of the Apostles was produced for a man named Theophilus or merely addressed to all of the friends of God, they both provide us a context for understanding Jesus, his mission, and the life of the early Church.
When one comes to the end of the Acts the reader is left hanging as it seems to end abruptly and unfinished. This is a demonstration of the on-going work of the Holy Spirit in the proclamation of the Good News and the mission of the Church.
At the beginning of the fourth century, during the tumultuous time of the conversion of Constantine and the inclusion of Christianity as an accepted religious practice in the Roman empire, Eusebius of Caesarea, composed the first history of the early Church. Here he recounts the events of the persecutions, the lives of the apostles, and the growth in the Church. This was a necessary reflection, as it continued to ground the life of the Church in place and time.
During that same period the formation of the Creed at the Council of Nicaea (325) also included very specific historical references, notably the mention of the Crucifixion of Jesus during the reign of Pontius Pilate. We are reminded that this is an historical event, not one that was formed through myth or the legendary explanation of other phenomena.
Recently, Pope Francis reflected on the importance of the study of history in formation for priests. But there he also included all of the faithful. He wrote:
“The avoidance of history very often appears as a form of blindness that drives us to waste our energies on a world that does not exist, raising false problems and veering towards inadequate solutions. Some of these interpretations may prove useful to small groups but certainly not to humanity and the Christian community as a whole.
“Hence the urgent need for a greater sense of history at a moment when we see a tendency to dismiss the memory of the past or to invent one suited to the requirements of dominant ideologies. Faced with the cancellation of past history or with clearly biased historical narratives, the work of historians, together with knowledge and dissemination of their work, can act as a curb on misrepresentations, partisan efforts at revisionism, and their use to justify wars, persecutions, the production, sale, and utilization of weapons and any number of other evils.
“Nowadays we are flooded with ‘memories’, often false, artificial and even mendacious, and at the same time an absence of history and historical awareness in civil society and even in our Christian communities. Matters become even worse if we think of carefully and covertly prefabricated histories that serve to construct ad hoc memories, identity-based memories and exclusionary memories. The work of historians and knowledge of their findings are of decisive importance today and can serve as an antidote to this lethal regime of hatred that rests on ignorance and prejudice.”
We owe our sense of history to the very work of Luke the evangelist. During this liturgical cycle, as we hear from Luke’s Gospel, we know that we are listening to a carefully crafted and researched work, designed to guarantee the true transmission of the events in the life of Jesus and the early Church, safeguarding the work of evangelization to the world.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.