Luke

Chapters

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6
7. 7
8. 8
9. 9
10. 10
11. 11
12. 12
13. 13
14. 14
15. 15
16. 16
17. 17
18. 18
19. 19
20. 20
21. 21
22. 22
23. 23
24. 24

In the maps

• Luke 1:27

  Gabriel is sent to a virgin who is already betrothed to Joseph. Pitre explains that in Jewish law betrothal was binding marriage, so Mary is effectively Joseph's wife when the angel arrives. That is what makes her question in verse 34 so telling: a betrothed woman expecting normal married life would simply assume the child would come in due course.

• Luke 1:28

  Gabriel greets Mary as one already 'graced' and tells her the Lord is with her. Pitre notes the force of the Greek but deliberately does not rest the Immaculate Conception on this phrase alone; he grounds it in the New Eve typology the Fathers drew from Genesis 3:15. Read in that light, the greeting is what one would expect said to the sinless Woman of the new creation.

• Luke 1:31

  Gabriel promises a future conception. Pitre points out that the angel says only that Mary 'will' conceive, not that she already has (pp 93–94). A betrothed woman told she would have a son would assume it would come after the marriage was consummated — which is exactly what Mary does not assume. Her 'How shall this be?' therefore implies she did not intend ordinary married life.

• Luke 1:32

  Gabriel promises Mary that her son will receive the throne of David and reign for ever. Pitre's queen-mother argument is a syllogism that starts here: Jesus is the Davidic king; every Davidic king had a queen mother enthroned beside him; therefore the mother of Jesus is the queen mother of his kingdom. Elizabeth's 'mother of my Lord' and Revelation's crowned Woman confirm the office.

• Luke 1:34

  Mary, a betrothed woman, asks how she will conceive since she does not know man. Pitre's first evidence for a vow of virginity is that the question makes no sense for a bride expecting ordinary married life; it makes sense only if she intended to remain a virgin. Augustine and many others read it the same way, and the present tense of the Greek supports a settled resolve.

• Luke 1:35

  The power of the Most High will 'overshadow' Mary. Pitre's central New Ark argument turns on this one verb: it is the word for the cloud of glory settling on the tabernacle. Luke is saying that what happened to the sanctuary in the wilderness now happens to Mary — she becomes the dwelling place of God, the new tabernacle and ark.

• Luke 1:36

  Elizabeth is Mary's older kinswoman. Pitre draws out the social meaning of the Visitation (pp 76–77): for an older relative to honour a younger one as Elizabeth honours Mary was unheard of — unless the younger person was royalty. 'The mother of my Lord' is a royal title. The word for 'cousin' also matters in chapter 5, where Jesus uses its cognate for his 'brothers' (p 107).

• Luke 1:39

  Mary arises and goes into the hill country of Judah, exactly as David did to fetch the ark. This is the first of Pitre's four Visitation parallels with 2 Samuel 6. Luke is composing the scene so that a reader who knows the Scriptures sees the ark of the covenant being carried once more into Judah.

• Luke 1:41

  John leaps in his mother's womb and Elizabeth cries out with a loud voice. Pitre's third parallel with the ark procession: David leaped before the ark, and Israel brought it up with shouting. The unborn prophet and his mother greet the new ark exactly as David and Israel greeted the old.

• Luke 1:42

  Elizabeth cries out with a great cry that Mary is blessed among women. Pitre's Visitation table pairs the 'loud cry' with the shouting that accompanied the Ark up to Jerusalem (pp 55–56), and in chapter 6 he quotes Ephrem, who reasoned from 'blessed among women' that the New Eve was spared the curse of Genesis 3:16 at Bethlehem (p 135).

• Luke 1:43

  Elizabeth asks why the mother of her Lord should come to her. Pitre finds two of the book's themes in one line. The sentence mirrors David's awestruck question before the ark, so Mary is the new ark; and 'mother of my Lord' is the title of the queen mother, so Mary is the gebirah of the Davidic Messiah. Because 'Lord' is the divine name, the Fathers also heard here the root of 'Mother of God.'

• Luke 1:44

  Elizabeth explains that the child leaped for joy at Mary's greeting. Pitre notes that most readers take this as the main point of the Visitation, and then shows it is one strand of a larger design (p 54): John leaps as David leaped before the Ark (2 Samuel 6:16), because Mary carries the presence of God as the Ark once did.

• Luke 1:47

  Mary rejoices in 'God my Saviour' — the most common objection to her sinlessness, since one who needs a Saviour must have sinned. Pitre answers with Pius IX's definition (p 40): Mary was preserved from sin 'by a singular grace' and 'in view of the merits of Jesus Christ.' She is saved by Christ like everyone else, but in advance, by prevention rather than cure; that is why she of all people can call God her Saviour.

• Luke 1:48

  Mary prophesies that every generation will call her blessed. Pitre opens with this verse as Scripture's own answer to the claim that honouring Mary is unbiblical: the Bible expects her to be praised by all generations. Every belief about Mary, he insists, rests on a belief about Jesus, and this praise begins with what God has done for her.

• Luke 1:52

  God has cast the mighty down from their thrones and exalted the lowly. Pitre reads the Magnificat as throne language (pp 77–78): Mary, who has just called herself God's lowly handmaid, is the first of the lowly exalted; when the mighty are put down from thrones, others take their place; and 'all generations will call me blessed' echoes what Psalm 45:17 says of the king. Mother and Son are being seated on the thrones of the Davidic king and queen mother.

• Luke 1:56

  Mary stays with Elizabeth about three months and then returns home. Pitre's fourth Visitation parallel: the ark remained three months in a house in Judah and blessed the household. The detail seems incidental until it is set beside 2 Samuel 6, where it completes Luke's portrait of Mary as the ark of the new covenant.

• Luke 2:34

  Simeon blesses the couple and then speaks to Mary alone, telling her that her son will be a sign spoken against and that a sword will pierce her own soul (v. 35). Pitre reads Simeon's oracle as binding Mary to her Son's rejection and passion. The sorrow foretold here is the New Rachel's sorrow, through which she will bear a second son at the cross.

• Luke 2:35

  A sword will pass through Mary's own soul. Pitre connects this with Rachel, whose soul departed as she bore her second son, Benjamin, 'son of my sorrow.' At the cross Mary undergoes a death of the soul and in that sorrow receives a second son, the beloved disciple — the new Benjamin born of the New Rachel.

• Luke 2:36

  Anna, widowed young, has spent decades in the temple in fasting and prayer rather than remarrying. Pitre offers her as proof that consecrated celibacy existed within first-century Judaism and was honoured by Luke. A vowed virgin such as Mary would not have been unthinkable in that world.

• Luke 3:23

  Jesus begins his ministry at about thirty. Pitre's Joseph–Jesus chart pairs this with Genesis 41:46, where Joseph is thirty when he stands before Pharaoh (p 140). The numerical match is one of eight parallels that make Joseph a type of Jesus and Rachel a type of Mary.

• Luke 9:30

  At the Transfiguration Moses and Elijah speak of the 'exodus' Jesus will accomplish at Jerusalem. Pitre uses the word to define the shape of Luke's Gospel (pp 43, 65): Jesus is the new Moses, but his exodus runs not from Egypt to the promised land but from Jerusalem to heaven, ending when he is 'carried up into heaven' (24:51). For Jesus the earthly promised land is the point of departure — and that is what makes the Assumption of the new Ark fitting.

• Luke 18:28

  Peter says the disciples have left 'their own' (house, parents, brothers, wife, children) to follow Jesus. Pitre cites the verse with John 1:11 to show the range of ta idia (p 162): it means one's own household and people. So the disciple who took Mary 'to his own' after the cross received her into his family as his own mother, and Acts 1:14 later shows her among the disciples.

• Luke 20:34

  Jesus teaches that in the resurrection people neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels. Pitre uses this to explain why virginity was valued: it anticipates the life of the age to come and lives it now. Mary's perpetual virginity is not a deficiency but a sign of the resurrection, which is also why Jesus could entrust her to a disciple rather than to a son.

• Luke 23:39

  Of the two criminals crucified with Jesus, one is forgiven and promised paradise. Pitre's chart sets this beside Joseph in prison with the butler and the baker, one of whom is restored to life (p 140). The pattern — the innocent sufferer between two condemned men, one of whom is saved — is one more sign that Joseph prefigures Jesus.

• Luke 24:10

  Luke names 'Mary the mother of James' among the women at the tomb. Pitre cites Richard Bauckham: in the early Church only one James could be named without qualification, 'James the Lord's brother' (Galatians 1:19; Acts 12:17; 1 Corinthians 15:7) (p 106). So the mother of the Lord's 'brother' is a living Mary other than the mother of Jesus — which is what the cousin reading requires.

• Luke 24:50

  Jesus blesses the disciples and is carried up into heaven. Pitre marks this as the terminus of the new exodus (p 43): Moses led Israel to Canaan, but Jesus leads the way to heaven. If the new Moses' journey ends in the heavenly sanctuary, then the new Ark — his mother — is brought there too.