He may have been a preacher, and was certainly a warm person, much appreciated by others; there's a tradition, mentioned by Origen, that he is the `other brother' mentioned in 2 Cor 8:18 (`We are also sending another brother with Titus. He is highly praised in all the churches as a preacher of the Good News.') Since Luke's passion was for the gospel, and the application of it to the whole world, this is just the kind of description of his teaching which we might expect.

But there are other traditions about Luke which plainly can't be true (that he was one of the Seventy, or the companion of Cleopas in Lk 24:13ff) and some which are pretty unlikely (that he was a painter). One third-century record sounds plausible:

`Luke, by nation a Syrian of Antioch, a disciple of the apostles, and afterwards a follower of St Paul, served his Master blamelessly till his confession [i.e. death]. For having neither wife nor children he died in Bithynia at the age of seventy-four [some versions, 84], filled with the Holy Ghost.'

However, we can't be sure about this either. There are other claims that he died in Achaia; that he was the second bishop of Alexandria; and that he was martyred during the reign of Domitian. It wouldn't be unlikely, however, for Luke to come from a church such as Antioch; much more than Rome, Jerusalem or anywhere else, it was a cosmopolitan place open to international influences, and had a real passion for the spread of the gospel.

It was in Antioch that the missionary movement began (Acts 13); it wouldn't be unusual for an Antiochene such as Luke to become associated with Paul, or to write the most missionary of the Gospels.