Heidegger's Bible Handbook: Luke: Title

1. The inscription of the book. Which is not by Luke, but by the Church.

The inscription of the Book, according to the accurate edition of Henricus Stephanus in the year 1576, is this: Τὸ κατὰ Λουκᾶν Εὐαγγέλιον, The Gospel according to Luke. Nevertheless, Greek exemplars copied to Manuscript Codices, and also printed, vary. For the article τὸ is omitted in the editions of Hagenau,[1] Basel,[2] Robertus Stephanus, and Plantin.[3]In the illustrious Complutensian edition[4] and others ἅγιον/holy is added.For, thus in it the title is: Τὸ κατὰ Λουκᾶν ἅγιον Εὐαγγέλιον, The Holy Gospel according to Luke.Also in the Syriac edition is extant a different title of this sort:אונגליון קדישא סברתא דלוקוס מפברנא, The Holy Gospel, the proclamation of Luke the Evangelist, which he spoke and announced in Greek in great Alexandria. It is also different in the Arabic and Persic. From which variety of title, separate from the work itself, it is evident enough that titles of this sort were prefixed to the books, not by the Evangelist himself, but by the Church in later times.

[1] An edition of Erasmus’ 1519 Greek New Testament was printed at Hagenau, France, in 1521. [2] This is the second edition of Thomas Platter (1499-1582), a Swiss humanist, educator, and printer. This edition is substantially that of Erasmus’ third. [3] Christophe Plantin (c. 1520-1589) was a French humanist and printer, working in Antwerp, Belgium. The Plantin Polyglot (also known as the Biblia Regia, having been financed by Philip II of Spain; printed between from 1568 to 1573) included five languages, Hebrew, Greek, Chaldean, Syriac, and Latin, and was produced under the editorial supervision of Benedict Arias Montanus. [4] The Complutensian Polyglot (taking its name from the university in Alcalá [Complutum, in Latin]; 1514) contained the first printed edition of the Septuagint, Jerome’s Vulgate, the Hebrew Text, Targum Onkelos with a Latin translation, and the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament. The labor of the scholars was superintended by Cardinal Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros (1436-1517).