Luke wrote to Rome – a Suggestion Luke addresses his Gospel and Acts of the Apostles to one and the same person, Theophilus (1). Many arguments support the opinion that the two Lucan works are intended to be read as one story (2) by Theophilus, the first part or volume dealing with the life of Jesus, the second with the witnessing to and from him. In broad strokes we can say that the two works are a reflection on historical matter, organized structurally according to time and place, i.e. chronology and geography. As he will often notice, the reader moves ever onward, from the time of Jesus in Nazareth through Jerusalem, ultimately to a time defined by Paul’s imprisonment in Rome, about 61-63AD (3). The time span of the Lucan presentation is some ninety years (with the actual writing of Luke pegged at about 85AD) and the span of geography reaches from Israel to Rome. 1. Our Problem: the end of Acts As one reflects on the Lucan decision to end his storytelling in Rome and about 61AD, one wonders why he did not bring his history through to his own time and place, i.e. the time and place of his writing. Specifically, why the gap between 61AD when the history stops, and 85AD when the writing takes place? And why did the geography of Luke’s story finish with Rome and not to ‘the end of the earth’? (Or perhaps with the place from which Luke writes?) This double question — why stop the story at 61AD and why stop the story in Rome — has traditionally been answered by saying that, once Luke (1) By Theophilus is meant, not an idealized Christian, ‘beloved of God’, but a real person. By that name we understand, too, that the Lucan work was directed not just to one person, but to a community of Christians. Moreover, the individual Theophilus lives in Rome, perhaps is a Roman official of some sort, and is interested in Luke’s work, not because he needs Christianity to be justified to him, but because he is a Christian believer who, in Luke’s words, values ‘certitude’ or ‘reliability’ regarding the things he has been taught. We certainly hold that he is not a Jewish priest and Sadducee, not the High Priest to succeed Caiaphas. Most of these points have been discussed in Richard H. ANDERSON, “Theophilus: A Proposal”, Evangelical Quarterly, 69:3 (1997) 195-215; W.G. KUMMEL, Introduction to the New Testament (London 1965) 102-105. For the purposes of this essay, it does not matter whether or not Theophilus and his community are Jewish or Gentile Christians (or a mix of the two), though the immense references, implicit and explicit, to the Old Testament presume more likely Jews who know their religious books well. (2) Cf. E. HAENCHEN, Die Apostegeschichte (Göttingen 1959) 105: “Die Apg beginnt als zweites Buch eines grossen Geschichtswerkes…”; J. FITZMYER, The Acts of the Apostles (AB 31; New York 1998) 55: “Barrett has rightly seen that the Third Gospel was composed as a preface to Acts…Acts, then, is the continuation of the Lucan Gospel…”; further “Luke’s stated purpose is found in the prologue to his Gospel, which, despite the protestations of Haenchen, is usually regarded today as the prface to his two-volume work”, 59. “The Gospel of Luke is the first volume of a single two volume writing”, T. JOHNSON, Luke (SP 3; Collegeville 1991) 1; contra, H. SCHÜRMANN, Das Lukasevangelium (Freiburg 1969) 17: “…ergibt noch nicht eine literarische Einheit”. (3) Henceforth, this date will be reduced to 61AD for convenience sake.