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A D A B A Z A R —A D A L I A
Guided by such an objective criterion, and safeguarded in things chronological, may sometimes be faulty. Yet by growing insight into the author’s plastic aim, we need when one remembers that by 80 a.d. it must have been not despair of reaching large agreement as to the main a matter of small interest by what tentative stages the scope of the sources lying behind the first half of Acts. Messianic salvation first extended to the Gentiles, it is In the second or strictly Pauline half we are confronted surely surprising that Acts enters into such detail on the by the so-called “we” passages. Of these two main subject, and is not content with a summary account of the theories are possible j that which sees in them traces of an matter such as the mere “logic” of the subject would earlier document—whether entries in a travel-diary, or naturally suggest. In any case the very difference of a more or less consecutive narrative written later; and the perspective of Acts and of Galatians, in recording the that which would regard the “ we ” as due to the author’s same epochs in Paul’s history, argues such an independence breaking instinctively into the first person plural at those in the former as is compatible, in the case of an admirer points in the history at which he himself had been present. of the apostle, only with an early date, when as yet On the former hypothesis, it is still in debate whether the Galatians might easily be unknown beyond the district to “ we ” document does or does not lie behind more of the which it was addressed.2 narrative than is definitely indicated by the formula in QuettenkritiJc, then, a distinctive feature of recent requestion {e.g., cc. xiii.-xv., xxi. 19-xxvi.) search upon Acts, is a solvent of many difficulties in the Authorship.—Was the author of the “we” passages, way of treating Acts as an honest narrative by a comin any form, also the author of Acts as it now stands ? panion of Paul. It will account, for instance, for such And if so, was that author’s name Luke, as ecclesiastical discrepancies as lie on the surface of the three accounts of tradition has steadily affirmed from the time when its Saul’s conversion; while the fidelity with which our voice first reaches us? Few deny that Luke, i.e., Paul’s author uses his materials is shown by his not assimilating companion of that name, was the author of the “we” the accounts in Paul’s speeches to the earlier narrative in passages. The tradition connecting him with Acts is too chapter ix. In addition to Quellenhritik, we may also early and unanimous to be mistaken, especially seeing that count among recent gains a juster method of judging such his name was not prominent enough to account for such a book. For among the results of the Tubingen criticism an ascription by “ spontaneous generation.” Hence those was what Dr Sanday calls “an unreal and artificial who would see in the “ we ” passages traces of an earlier standard, the standard of the 19th century rather than travel-document written by Timothy or Silas, seem bound the 1st, of Germany rather than Palestine [may we not in a special degree to make Luke the author of Acts as a add Antioch or Rome ?], of the lamp and the study rather whole. In this case, however, they have yet to explain than of active life.” In the recovery of a more real how so skilled a writer, one elsewhere master of his sources standard, we owe much to men like Mommsen, Ramsay, as to literary form, could leave these sections couched in and Blass, trained amid other methods and traditions than the first person of the eye-witness. And it may fairly be those which had brought the constructive study of Acts said that, if the weight of expert opinion is against the almost to a deadlock. theory of literary negligence, it inclines also against the would take too much space to give an account theory of pious fraud—the retention of the first person of Literature.—It the extensive and varied literature that gathered round Acts with intent to deceive. The net result is, that unity of during the last quarter of the 19th century. It may he found in authorship between the “we” passages and the rest of two recent and representative commentaries, viz., Wendt’s last Acts seems the one tenable view; and this involves the edition of Meyer (1899), and that by R. J. Knowding in The y £^ Lucan authorship of both.1 As to such historical diffi- Expositor’s Greek Testament, vol. ii. 1900. culties in Acts^as at present perplex the student of the Adabazdr, an important commercial town in Asia apostolic age, :one must remember in most cases the Minor, situated on the old military road from Constantinople possibilities of mistake intervening between the facts and to the east, and 5| miles distant from a station of the the accounts reaching its author at second or even third same name on the Anatolian railway. It was founded in hand. Yet it must be strongly emphasized that recent 1540 and enlarged in 1608 by the settlement in it of an historical research at the hands of experts in classical Armenian colony. There are silk and linen industries, antiquity has tended steadily to verify such parts of the and an export of tobacco, walnut-wood, cocoons, and narrative as it can test. That is no new result; but it vegetables for the Constantinople market. Imports are has come to light in greater degree of recent years, and valued at ,£80,000, and exports at £480,000. Populanotably during the last decade. The proofs of our author’s tion, 18,000 (Moslems, 10,000; Christians, 8000). trustworthiness extend also to the theological sphere. Ad&li&y or Antalia, classical Attaleia, mediaeval What was said above of the Christology of the Petrine speeches, applies also to the whole conception of Messianic Sat alia, the chief town and seaport of a sanjak of the salvation, the eschatology, the idea of Jesus as equipped Konia vilayet in Asia Minor. It is situated at a re-entering by the Holy Spirit for His Messianic work, found in angle, in a flat limestone terrace which terminates seaward these speeches, as also to titles like “Jesus the Nazarene” in a cliff about 120 feet high, and had an inner and outer and “ the Righteous One ” both in and beyond the Petrine harbour. The town lies partly within and partly without speeches. Hiese and other cases in which we are led the old walls, in which may still be seen the Perga Gate, to discern Judsean witness behind Acts, do not indeed give built by Hadrian, a tower erected by the Empress Julia, to such witness the value of shorthand notes or even of and many Greek and Latin inscriptions. There are several abstracts based thereon. But they do support the theory mosques and medresses (or schools) built by the Seljuk that our author meant to give an unvarnished account sultans of Rum, and a few remains of Roman and Byzanof such words and deeds as had come to his knowledge. tine buildings. Attaleia was founded, 159-138 b.c., to facilitate trade between The perspective of the whole is no doubt his own; and the Pergamene kingdom and Syria and Egypt. Under the Romans as his witnesses probably furnished but few hints for a it was an important town, connected by highways with Laodicea continuous historical narrative, this perspective, especially 2 1 should one forget the numerous but subtle agreements between This accords excellently with the reference in Col. iv 14 to ActsNor and Galatians which Ramsay has shown to be involved in the Luke as a physician. For a good account of the argument from the now victorious “South Galatian” theory, that sees in St Paul’s medical language of Acts, see Knowling, Expositor's Greek Testament “ Galatians ” the members of the churches whose foundation is described vol. ii. 9-11. in Acts xiii. xiv.
