that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
Complimental prefaces and dedications, the language of flattery and the food and fuel of pride, are justly condemned by the wise and good; but it doth not therefore follow, that such as are useful and instructive are to be run down; such is this, in which St.
Commenting on Luke 1:1-4
That thou mightest know the certainty,.... The end the evangelist had in writing this Gospel, and sending it to Theophilus, was, that he might be more strongly assured of and more firmly established in the truths of the Gospel. The Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions render it, "that thou mightest know the truth"; that is, the certain truth of things: the truth he did...
that thou mightest know--"know thoroughly." hast been instructed--orally instructed--literally, "catechized" or "catechetically taught," at first as a catechumen or candidate for Christian baptism.