Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell

I had heard of this book a long time ago, but had never read anything by Taylor Caldwell. Here are my thoughts on the novel, it was not what I expected.  I have returned the book to the library, so I am writing from memory. I apologize for any errors.  The copy I checked out of the library was published by St. Ignatius Press.

Taylar Caldwell writes that she began drafting a novel about Saint Luke when she was about 12 years old.  So it  took her about 40 years to write this book, first published in the late 1950s.

The book begins with Luke as a young boy, the son of two former Greek slaves.  They were freed by the family of his father's current employer, a wealthy Roman soldier and Tribune.  The Roman Tribune was a friend of Tiberius Caesar, but a severe critic of the turn that Roman politics has taken.  The Tribune grew up in love with Luke's mother as the two were playmates and she was quite beautiful.  However, he could not marry her because Roman rules about marriage.   The Roman Tribune is so impressed by the young Luke that he promises to send him to the university in Alexandria to study medicine. 

The very young Luke is presented as someone chosen by God and he already has great love for what the Greeks call "the unknown God".  He even sees the star on Christmas eve and learns of the birth of this unknown God while still a youngster.  However, Luke's love for God and men comes under attack as he sees a girl he loves  (the daughter of the Tribune)  suffer and die.  He becomes bitter wondering how God can be good if he allows this innocent girl to suffer and die.  Nevertheless he still wants to study medicine and relieve the suffering that the cruel God of the universe allows to happen.

After Luke finishes his studies he becomes a travelling physician, taking jobs on ships.  He carefully cares for the sick on ships and provides the same care for slaves and freemen alike.  He seems to have a mystical power to cure serious diseases such as leprosy.  Because the Tribune had adopted him, he is very wealthy, so he never charges the poor for his services and refuses to treat anyone rich unless their case otherwise would be hopeless.  Nevertheless he maintains his bitterness against God and cannot really love anyone.  In many ways he is a lonely man.

But by the time he is in his forties, as a result of his travels in the Mediterranean,  Luke begins to hear stories about the life of Jesus, His Crucifixion and His resurrection.  At this point the reader begins to see the point of the novel.  Through learning about the life of Christ and how He interacted with sinful and suffering men and women, Luke's life is transformed from the bitter man he had become to one who allows charity (the love of God) to guide his life. He finds salvation and the faith in the "unknown God" he had as child returns to him.  This is the first point of the novel, how learning about the life and teaching's of Jesus Christ can transform a man's soul.

The second point of the book is to offer an explanation about how Luke came to write his Gospel.  Luke is presented as a multi-talented man, someone quite naturally good at everything.  That is, God has endowed him with many graces including the grace to seek knowledge of the unknown (and true) God and the ability to write well.  Hence, as Luke hears stories of Jesus--the rich young man who fails to give up all he had to follow Jesus, the centurion whose servant is healed, and many others--he decides to write them down so that he might be able to share them with others.

Finally, he decides to travel to Palestine to meet some of the disciples of Jesus and to find the Blessed Virgin Mary.  During these travels he learns of the glorious birth of Jesus, Mary's Magnificant, the nunc dimittis and the birth of John the Baptist among other events in the life of Christ. Hence, Taylor Caldwell offers a reasonable explanation for how Saint Luke was able to compile his Gospel.  In my opinion this makes the book very valuable.  At the end of the novel Luke departs from Nazareth to seek out St. Paul. How he came to write the Acts of the Apostles, therefore, is not part of the story.

Although there are many historical flaws in the book--for example the book has Luke drinking whiskey which did not exist for over a thousand years after the birth of Christ--they do not detract from the story.  The heroic characters in the book clearly would be supportive of traditional morality if living today and blame our current political problems on the decline of morality broadly defined.  She also goes out of her way to be very critical of slavery.

I enjoyed the book very much until Luke travels to Palestine.  There he even stays with Pontius Pilate and is responsible for the lifting the Roman persecution of the Church. At this point the book begins to drag.  Hence it took me longer the read the last 50 pages than the first 300.  Nevertheless I enjoyed most of the book and would recommend it to adult readers.  There is a somewhat mild description of a Roman orgy thrown by the wife of Tiberius Caesar and Luke's escape from it. Hence, this part should be skipped by younger readers.