A.D. 253 – 1871 5 witnesses
“It is plain that of one kind of knowledge, the end is in the knowledge itself, as in geometry; but of another kind, the end is counted to be in the work, as in medicine; and so it is in the word of God, and therefore having signified the knowledge by the words were themselves eyewitnesses, he points out the work by what follows, and were ministers of the word.”
“(Comm. in Act. Apost. Hom. i.) The Evangelist was so far from being content with his single testimony, that he refers the whole to the Apostles, seeking from them a confirmation of his words; and therefore he adds, as they handed them down to us, who were themselves from the beginning eyewitnesses.”
“Even as they delivered them unto us,.... By whom the evangelist means, as appears from the after description of them, the twelve apostles, and seventy disciples; who handed down to others the accounts of the birth, life, and death of Christ; and according to which the above Christians proposed to write: which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word; either of the Gospel, or rather of Christ himself, the eternal Word of God; for from the beginning of Christ's preaching the Gospel, or as soon as he entered upon his public ministry, he called his apostles, as Simon, Andrew, James, John, &c. and afterwards seventy disciples; who were eyewitnesses of him, of the truth of his incarnation, and of his ministry and miracles; saw, and conversed with him after his resurrection from the dead and beheld his ascension to heaven; and were ministers that were called, qualified, and sent out by him and waited on him, and served him. This shows, as is by some rightly observed, that Luke was not one of the seventy disciples, as some (i) have thought, and as the title of this Gospel, to the Arabic version of it, expresses; for then he would have been an eyewitness himself: nor did he take his account from the Apostle Paul; for he was not a minister of the word from the beginning, but was as one born out of due time, (i) Epiphan. contra Haeres. l. 2. Haeres. 51. Theophylact. in Argument in Luc.”
“Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses - Probably this alludes to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, which it is likely were written before St. Luke wrote his, and on the models of which he professes to write his own; and απ' αρχης, from the beginning, must mean, from the time that Christ first began to proclaim the glad tidings of the kingdom; and αυτοπται, eye-witnesses, must necessarily signify, those who had been with him from the beginning, and consequently had the best opportunities of knowing the truth of every fact. Ministers of the word - Του λογου. Some suppose that our blessed Lord is meant by this phrase; as ὁ Λογος, the Word or Logos, is his essential character in Joh 1:1, etc.; but it does not appear that any of the inspired penmen ever use the word in this sense except John himself; for here it certainly means the doctrine of Christ; and in this sense λογος is frequently used both by the evangelists and apostles.”
“from the beginning--that is, of His public ministry, as is plain from what follows.”
The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.