This very name of Luke or Lucanus, and the medical profession practised by the so-called disciple of Paul,[I.17] fully accord with the indications which the two books furnish in regard to their author. We have already stated that the author of the third Gospel and the Acts was probably from Philippi,[I.18] a Roman colony, where the Latin tongue was in use.[I.19] Besides this, the author of the third Gospel and the Acts was but indifferently acquainted with Judaism[I.20] and the affairs of Palestine.[I.21] He knew but little of Hebrew;[I.22] he was familiar with the ideas of the heathen world,[I.23] and he wrote Greek in a tolerably correct manner. The work was composed far from Judea, for a people unfamiliar with geography, and who had respect[I.24] neither for a marked Rabbinical science nor for Hebrew names.[I.25] The dominant idea of the author is, that if the people had been free to follow their inclination, they would have embraced the faith of Jesus, and that the Jewish aristocracy prevented them from so doing.[I.26] He always imparts to the word Jew a malevolent signification, as if it were synonymous with an enemy of the Christians;[I.27] and on the other hand he is decidedly favorable towards the heretic Samaritan.[I.28] To what epoch can we refer the composition of this important work? Luke appears for the first time in the company of Paul, after the first journey of the apostle to Macedonia, about the year 52. Allowing that he was then twenty-five years old, it would have been nothing more than natural had he lived until the year 100. The narrative of the Acts closes at the year 63,[I.29] but the compiling of the work was evidently done after that of the third Gospel; and the date of the editing of this third Gospel being evidently referable to the years immediately following the fall of Jerusalem (year 70),[I.30] it is not possible the book of Acts was written earlier than the year 71 or 72.