historical conditions. Peter’s function in relation to the Gentiles belongs to the early Palestinian conditions, before Paul’s distinctive mission had taken shape. Once Paul’s apostolate—a personal one, parallel with the more collective apostolate of “the Twelve”—has proved itself by tokens of Divine approval, Peter and his colleagues frankly recognize the distinction of the two missions, and are anxious only to arrange that the two shall not fall apart by religiously and morally incompatible usages (Acts xv.). Paul, on his side, clearly implies that Peter felt with him that the Law could not justify (Gal. ii. 15 ff.), and argues that it could not now be made obligatory in principle (cf. “a yoke,” Acts xv. 10); yet for Jews it might continue for the time (pending the Parousia) to be seemly and expedient, especially for the sake of non-believing Judaism. To this he conformed his own conduct as a Jew, so far as his Gentile apostolate was not involved (1 Cor. ix. 19 ff.). There is no reason to doubt that Peter largely agreed with him, since he acted in this spirit in Gal. ii. 11 f., until coerced by Jerusalem sentiment to draw back for expediency’s sake. This incident it simply did not fall within the scope of Acts (see below) to narrate, since it had no abiding effect on the Church’s extension. As to Paul’s submission of the issue in Acts xv. to the Jerusalem conference, Acts does not imply that Paul would have accepted a decision in favour of the Judaizers, though he saw the value of getting a decision for his own policy in the quarter to which they were most likely to defer. If the view that he already had an understanding with the “Pillar” Apostles, as recorded in Gal. ii. 1-10 (see further Paul), be correct, it gives the best of reasons why he was ready to enter the later public Conference of Acts xv. Paul’s own “free” attitude to the Law, when on Gentile soil, is just what is implied by the hostile rumours as to his conduct in Acts xxi. 21, which he would be glad to disprove as at least exaggerated (ib. 24 and 26). What is clear is that such lack of formal accord as here exists between Acts and the Epistles, tells against its author’s dependence on the latter, and so favours his having been a comrade of Paul himself.
The speeches in Acts deserve special notice. Did its author follow the plan adopted by all historians of his age, or is he an exception? Ancient historians (like many of modern times) used the liberty of working up in their own language the speeches recorded by them. They did not dream of verbal fidelity; even when they had more exact reports before Speeches.them, they preferred to mould a speaker’s thoughts to their own methods of presentation. Besides this, some did not hesitate to give to the characters of their history speeches which were never uttered. The method of direct speech, so useful in producing a vivid idea of what is supposed to have passed through the mind of the speaker, was used to give force to the narrative. Now how far has the author of Acts followed the practice of his contemporaries? Some of his speeches are evidently but summaries of thoughts which occurred to individuals or multitudes. Others claim to be reports of speeches really delivered. But all these speeches have to a large extent the same style, the style also of the narrative. They have been passed though one editorial mind, and some mutual assimilation in phraseology and idea may well have resulted. They are, moreover, all of them, the merest abstracts. The speech of Paul at Athens, as given by Luke, would not occupy more than a minute or two in delivery. But these circumstances, while inconsistent with verbal accuracy, do not destroy authenticity; and in most of the speeches (e.g. xiv. 15-17) there is a varied appropriateness as well as an allusiveness, pointing to good information (see under Sources). There is no evidence that any speech in Acts is the free composition of its author, without either written or oral basis; and in general he seems more conscientious than most ancient historians touching the essentials of historical accuracy, even as now understood.
Objections to the trustworthiness of Acts on the ground of its miracles require to be stated more discriminately than has sometimes been the case. Particularly is this so as regards the question of authorship. As Harnack observes (Lukas der Arzt, p. 24), the “miraculous” or supernormal element is hardly, if at all, less marked in the “we” sections, which Miracles.are substantially the witness of a companion of Paul (and where efforts to dissect out the miracles are fruitless), than in the rest of the work. The scientific method, then, is to consider each “miracle” on its own merits, according as we find reason to suppose that it has reached our author more or less directly. But the record of miracle as such cannot prejudice the question of authorship. Even the form in which the gift of Tongues at Pentecost is conceived does not tell against a companion of Paul, since it may have stood in his source, and the first outpouring of the Messianic Spirit may soon have come to be thought of as unique in some respects, parallel in fact to the Rabbinic tradition as to the inauguration of the Old Covenant at Sinai (cf. Philo, De decem oraculis, 9, 11, and the Midrash on Ps. lxviii. 11).
Finally as to such historical difficulties in Acts as still perplex the student of the Apostolic age, one must remember the possibilities of mistake intervening between the facts and the accounts reaching its author, at second or even third hand. Yet it must be strongly emphasized, that recent historical research at the hands of experts in classical antiquity has tended steadily to verify such parts of the narrative as it can test, especially those connected with Paul’s missions in the Roman Empire. That is no new result; but it has come to light in greater degree of recent years, notably through Sir W. M. Ramsay’s researches. The proofs of trustworthiness extend also to the theological sphere. What was said above of the Christology of the Petrine speeches applies to the whole conception of Messianic salvation, the eschatology, the idea of Jesus as equipped by the Holy Spirit for His Messianic work, found in these speeches, as also to titles like “Jesus the Nazarene” and “the Righteous One” both in and beyond the Petrine speeches. These and other cases in which we are led to discern very primitive witness behind Acts, do not indeed give to such witness the value of shorthand notes or even of abstracts based thereon. But they do support the theory that our author meant to give an unvarnished account of such words and deeds as had come to his knowledge. The perspective of the whole is no doubt his own; and as his witnesses probably furnished but few hints for a continuous narrative, this perspective, especially in things chronological, may sometimes be faulty. Yet when one remembers that by 70–80 A.D. it must have been a matter of small interest by what tentative stages the Messianic salvation first extended to the Gentiles, it is surely surprising that Acts enters into such detail on the subject, and is not content with a summary account of the matter such as the mere logic of the subject would naturally suggest. In any case, the very difference of the perspective of Acts and of Galatians, in recording the same epochs in Paul’s history, argues such an independence in the former as is compatible only with an early date.
Quellenkritik, then, a distinctive feature of recent research upon Acts, solves many difficulties in the way of treating it as an honest narrative by a companion of Paul. In addition, we may also count among recent gains a juster method of judging such a book. For among the results of the Tübingen criticism was what Dr W. Sanday calls “an unreal and artificial standard, the standard of the 19th century rather than the 1st, of Germany rather than Palestine, of the lamp and the study rather than of active life.” This has a bearing, for instance, on the differences between the three accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts. In the recovery of a more real standard, we owe much to men like Mommsen, Ramsay, Blass and Harnack, trained amid other methods and traditions than those which had brought the constructive study of Acts almost to a deadlock.
5. Date.—External evidence now points to the existence of Acts at least as early as the opening years of the 2nd century. As evidence for the Third Gospel holds equally for Acts, its existence in Marcion’s day (120–140) is now assured. Further, the traces of it in Polycarp[1] and Ignatius,[2] when taken together, are highly probable; and it is even widely admitted that the resemblance of Acts xiii. 22, and 1 Ciem. xviii. 1, in features not
