Colossians 4:14
Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.
Luke, the beloved physician,.... Luke the Evangelist, though some doubt it, is here intended, who was a constant companion of the apostle in his troubles, and went with him to Rome, as the Acts of the Apostles wrote by him show, and as from 2 Timothy 4:11 it appears; so Jerom {n} calls the Evangelist Luke, the physician of Antioch, for from thence he was; and being converted by the Apostle Paul, as is very probable, though some make him to be one of the seventy disciples, he became of a physician of bodies, a physician of souls: some say {o} he was a scholar of Galen, the famous physician, and others that he was his sister's son; who having heard of Christ's miracles, set out with his master Galen for Judea, to know the truth of them, of which they doubted; Galen died by the way, Luke came to Christ, and being taught by him, became one of the seventy disciples. The apostle calls him "beloved", not on account of his profession, in which he might be useful to many, but as he was a brother in Christ, a minister of the Gospel, and a fellow labourer of his. This is the same person as Lucas, mentioned along with Demas, and others, as here, in Philemon 1:24. The name perhaps is Roman, but was, however, well known among the Jews; for they say {p}, the
"witnesses that sign a divorce, and their names are as the names of strangers, what is to be done with it? there is none comes into our hands (is received) but owqwl "Lukus" and "Lus", and we allow it to be right:''
upon which the gloss says, because these were famous names:
and Demas greet you; the same who, through the love of the present world, forsook the apostle, 2 Timothy 4:10 which he did either after the writing of this epistle, or if before it, he was now returned again to him: his name seems to be the same with the Roman Dama, unless it should be a contraction of Demetrius, or rather of Demarchos; though the Jews make frequent mention of R. ymyd, "Dimi", or "Demi", in their writings {q}, which perhaps is the same name with this.
{n} Catalog. Script. Eccles. p. 91. Vid. Nicephor. Hist. l. 2. c. 43.
{o} Vid. Castell. Lex. Polyglott. col. 1894.
{p} T. Bab. Gittin, fol. 11. 2.
{q} T. Bab. Gittin, fol. 19. 2. Nazir, fol. 36. 1. Sota, fol. 43. 2. Bava Kama, fol. 43.