The man to whom both of Luke's volumes are addressed (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1) — and the reason they are read as one work. The name means 'friend of God' or 'loved by God', which has always left room for the suggestion that it is a way of addressing any reader who loves God; against that stands the title Luke gives him in the Gospel, kratistos, 'most excellent', a form of address for a man of rank that Luke otherwise reserves for the governors Felix and Festus. The likeliest reading is the ordinary one: a real person of standing, possibly the book's patron, who had already been catechised in the faith and was owed 'the certainty' of it.