Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

Saint Luke: The Gospel of Divine Mercy 19 Since Luke is a Greek physician, he should be very fluent with the Greek language. In fact, his opening statement to Theophilus in Luke 1: 1-4 uses a classical vocabulary and follows the literary construction style o f contemporary Greek historians.11 Then we should not be sur­ prised if Luke uses the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) for research and citations. The Dictionary o f Jesus and the Gospels states: The OT (i.e., the LXX) plays a very important role in this Gospel. The Evangelist not only cites specific passages and alludes to many others, he borrows its vocabulary and imitates its style.12 One o f the vocabulary words Luke borrows from the Septuagint is the Greek word used to translate the Hebrew hesed. John Paul II alludes to Luke’s adoption o f the OT meaning o f hesed in His mercy parables in Luke 15. Commenting in Dives in Misericordia the Pontiff writes: The father’s fidelity to himself—a trait already known by the Old Testament term hesed —is at the same time expressed in a manner particularly charged with affection.13 Because John Paul II’s comment includes the entire Old Testament, one might draw the conclusion that the word hesed is the word most often used in the Hebrew Scriptures for the Mercy o f God. Therefore, let us determine what Greek word is used to commonly translate hesed into the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament that St. Luke used. From an Old Testament verse quoted in the New Testament we find that the Greek word eleos ( Strong’s Concordance , 1656) is generally used to translate the Hebrew word hesed. We seem to have identified our key word. Using a good concordance we can find the verses where the Greek word eleos is used within the material unique to the Gospel o f Luke. Once we have the locations of these words they become for us a series o f dots. If we connect the dots then we should have a road map for the direction o f Luke’s use o f the word mercy as a theme o f the Messianic message. It would seem we have our answer. However, a quick review of Appendix A shows that more than 80%