Luke 1:4

Indicates the practical aim: to give certainty in regard to matters of Christian belief. περὶ ὧν κ. λόγων : an attraction, to be thus resolved: περὶ τῶν λόγων οὓς κατηχήθης. λόγων is best taken = matters (πραγμάτων, Luke 1:1), histories (Weizsäcker), not doctrines. Doubtless this is a Hebraistic sense, but that is no objection, for after all Lk. is a Hellenist and no pure Greek, and even in this preface, whose pure Greek has been so often praised, he is a Hellenist to a large extent. (So Hahn, Einleitung, p. 6.) The subject of instruction for young Christians in those early years was the teaching, the acts, and the experience of Jesus: their “catechism” historic not doctrinal. κατηχήθης : is this word used here in a technical sense = formally and systematically instructed, or in the general sense of “have been informed more or less correctly”? (So Kypke.) The former is more probable. The verb (from κατὰ, ἠχέω) is mainly Hellenistic in usage, rare in profane authors, not found in O. T. The N. T. usage, confined to Lk. and Paul, points to regular instruction (vide Romans 2:18).

This preface gives a lively picture of the intense, universal interest felt by the early Church in the story of the Lord Jesus: Apostles constantly telling what they had seen and heard; many of their hearers taking notes of what they said for the benefit of tnemselves and others: through these gospelets acquaintance with the evangelic history circulating among believers, creating a thirst for more and yet more; imposing on such a man as Luke the task of preparing a Gospel as full, correct, and well arranged as possible through the use of all available means previous writings or oral testimony of surviving eye-witnesses.