Companion of Paul

Luke never names himself in his two volumes, but in four passages of Acts the narrative slips silently from “they” into “we” — and on these “we” passages rests the classic case that the author was a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul. Three letters of Paul name a Luke at his side, and Irenaeus and the Muratorian Canon identify that companion as the Evangelist. This file states the core of that case and marks honestly where the critics dissent.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle and Evangelist)

The “We” Passages

The book of Acts is told, for the most part, in the third person: Paul and his companions do this and go there. But at four points the narration changes pronoun without warning or explanation, and the narrator includes himself in the action. These are the famous “we” passages, and they are the load-bearing evidence for Luke’s identity. The first begins abruptly at Troas, when Paul receives the vision of the man of Macedonia: “And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia” — and the narrator travels with Paul across to Philippi (Acts 16:10–17). The “we” then disappears, as if the narrator has been left behind at Philippi, and resumes years later when Paul passes back through: “we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and… came to them at Troas” (Acts 20:5–15). It continues through the journey up to Jerusalem (Acts 21:1–18), and reappears for the last and longest stretch — the voyage to Rome, including the storm and the shipwreck on Malta: “And when it was decided that we should sail for Italy…” (Acts 27:1–28:16).

The classic inference is the simplest one: the narrator wrote “we” because he was there. The author of Acts, on this reading, joined Paul at Troas, accompanied him to Philippi, rejoined him there on the return journey, went up with him to Jerusalem, and sailed with him as a prisoner to Rome (Fitzmyer 1981, 1:35–36; Hemer 1989). The detail of the sea-voyage in Acts 27 — its nautical precision, its anchors and soundings and the run before the wind — has long been taken as the report of a participant (Hemer 1989). The “we” sections, in short, present the author as Paul’s companion on precisely the journeys they describe (on Acts as history, see The Acts of the Apostles).

The Three Pauline Notices

If the “we” passages show that the author was a companion of Paul, the letters of Paul supply the name. Luke is mentioned by Paul exactly three times, and each notice fits the picture Acts draws. The first is the one already considered: “Luke the beloved physician” sends greetings from Paul’s imprisonment (Colossians 4:14; see The Physician of Antioch). The second is the most poignant, from what tradition holds to be Paul’s last letter, written as the end approached: “Only Luke is with me” (2 Timothy 4:11) — every other companion having departed or been sent away, Luke alone remains. The third places him among Paul’s “fellow workers”: at the close of the letter to Philemon, Paul sends greetings from “Epaphras… Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers” (Philemon 23–24).

Taken together, the three notices show a Luke who is with Paul during the Roman imprisonment (Colossians, Philemon) and who stays with him to the very last (2 Timothy) — exactly the companion the final “we” passage delivers to Rome (Acts 27:1–28:16). The convergence of the “we” of Acts with the named Luke of the letters is the substance of the traditional identification: the unnamed narrator and “the beloved physician” are one man (Fitzmyer 1981, 1:47–51; on Paul himself, see St. Apostle Paul).

The Patristic Identification

The early Church made the identification explicit and unhesitating. Irenaeus of Lyons, writing about 180, twice names Luke as the author of the third Gospel and ties him to Paul. “Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1; trans. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1). And, drawing his argument precisely from the “we” passages, Irenaeus calls Luke “inseparable from Paul, and his fellow-labourer in the Gospel,” noting that Luke himself “has made this plain” — that the apostle’s companion “was not merely a follower, but a fellow-labourer of the apostles, and especially of Paul” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.14.1; trans. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1). Irenaeus even rehearses the “we” sections one by one as proof. The same identification stands in the Muratorian Canon, the earliest surviving list of New Testament books (commonly dated late second century), which describes “the third book of the Gospel, that according to Luke,” written by “Luke the physician” whom Paul had taken with him “as one studious of right,” and notes that Luke had not himself seen the Lord in the flesh (Muratorian Canon, lines 2–8; Metzger 1987). Irenaeus stands within the chain of tradition reaching back through Polycarp to the apostles (see St. Irenaeus of Lyons and St. Polycarp of Smyrna; on the Fathers as witnesses, The Church Fathers).

What the “We” Passages Prove — and the Critical Dispute

The traditional argument is strong, but it should be stated for what it is — an inference, and the point on which it all turns is the meaning of the “we.” Here the Church’s reading meets a genuine scholarly dispute, and honesty requires naming both sides. [Disputed: the traditional view holds that the "we" sections of Acts are the natural mark of an eyewitness, so that the author was a companion of Paul who shared the journeys he narrates (so Fitzmyer 1981 and Hemer 1989, who weigh the nautical detail of Acts 27 as a participant's report); the critical alternative holds that the "we" need not imply participation — Vielhauer (1950/1966) argued from theological divergences between Acts and the genuine Pauline letters that the author cannot have been Paul's close companion, while Haenchen (1965) and others read the "we" as a literary convention of sea-voyage narratives or as a relic of a source or itinerary the author took over, so that the "we" tells us about his materials rather than his biography.] The dispute is real and is not settled here. What can be said is that the convergence of three independent lines — the “we” of Acts, the three Pauline notices, and the unanimous second-century identification — gives the traditional view a coherence its rivals must work hard to dissolve, and that no early source proposes any author for these books other than Luke.

The fuller adjudication of this question — the strength and weakness of each position, and the implications for dating — belongs to its own treatment and is not pre-empted here (sections 07 and 09 of this collection treat the dating and the authorship question respectively). For the foundations, the core is this: from the apostolic age the Church has confessed Luke as the companion of Paul who set down the gospel Paul preached, and the New Testament’s own “we” and Paul’s own “only Luke is with me” are the ground of that confession.

See Also

• The Physician of Antioch — the other half of Luke’s identity, including the “beloved physician” of Colossians 4:14
• The Acts of the Apostles — the book whose “we” passages are the load-bearing evidence treated here
• The Gospel of Luke — the companion volume Luke set down from Paul’s preaching
• Authorship and History — the full critical treatment of authorship, with The Dating of Luke–Acts for the dating
• St. Apostle Paul — the apostle whose preaching Luke recorded and whose journeys he shared
• St. Irenaeus of Lyons — the earliest named witness to Luke’s authorship and his bond with Paul

References

• The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version. Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–15; 21:1–18; 27:1–28:16; Colossians 4:14; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 23–24.
• Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies 3.1.1; 3.14.1. Trans. in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. Buffalo: Christian Literature Company, 1885. (Luke the companion of Paul who recorded the gospel Paul preached; “inseparable from Paul.”)
• The Muratorian Canon, lines 2–8. Text and discussion in Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. (Luke the physician, Paul’s companion, who had not seen the Lord.)
• Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Gospel According to Luke I–IX. Anchor Bible 28. Garden City: Doubleday, 1981. (The “we” passages and Pauline notices as evidence for Lukan authorship, vol. 1, pp. 35–53.)
• Hemer, Colin J. The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1989. (The “we” passages and Acts 27 as a participant’s report.)
• Haenchen, Ernst. The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary. Trans. from the German. Oxford: Blackwell, 1971 (German 1965). (The “we” as a literary or source-derived feature, not proof of participation.)
• Vielhauer, Philipp. “On the ‘Paulinism’ of Acts.” In Studies in Luke–Acts, ed. L. E. Keck and J. L. Martyn. Nashville: Abingdon, 1966 (German essay 1950). (Theological divergence of Acts from the Pauline letters.)