Saint Luke the Evangelist — Painter

A Gentile physician who joined Paul

Luke was born in Antioch to a pagan family and worked as a physician — a Gentile Greek from Syria who never personally met Jesus. After hearing Saint Paul speak about Christ, Luke embraced the faith and never left Paul's side again, following him even to his martyrdom in Rome around 67 AD. The Epistle to the Colossians calls him "the beloved physician," a title that has stayed attached to his name ever since.

The longest Gospel, and the story that follows it

Luke is the author of the Gospel that bears his name — the longest of the four Gospels — and of the Book of Acts, which recounts the earliest years of the Christian community after Jesus's ascension. Together, the two works form the largest single contribution to the New Testament by any one author, written by a man who had to rely entirely on the testimony of others for events he had not personally witnessed.

A painter, according to a much later tradition

Luke is also venerated today as the patron saint of painters and artists, physicians, and several other professions. According to tradition, he was the first person to paint the face of Mary — but this artistic reputation was only acknowledged starting in the sixth century, and by some accounts as late as the eighth, well after his own lifetime. In Eastern Orthodoxy especially, the tradition of Luke as an icon-painter of Mary and Jesus became deeply embedded in devotional art and practice.

A legacy carried across centuries and cities

Tradition holds that Luke died at the age of eighty-four and was buried in Thebes. His remains were later moved to Constantinople, and eventually to the Basilica of Santa Giustina in Padua, where they remain today. Both the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches venerate him with a feast day on October 18, honoring a physician turned historian turned, by later legend, painter.