Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 5.djvu/342

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
316
IRENÆUS AGAINST HERESIES.
[Book iii.

truth of the gospel might continue with you." If, then, any one shall, from the Acts of the Apostles, carefully scrutinize the time concerning which it is written that he went up to Jerusalem on account of the forementioned question, he will find those years mentioned by Paul coinciding with it. Thus the statement of Paul harmonizes with, and is, as it were, identical with, the testimony of Luke regarding the apostles.


Chap. xiv.If Paul had known any mysteries unrevealed to the other apostles, Luke, his constant companion and fellow-traveller, could not have been ignorant of them; neither could the truth have possibly lain hid from him, through whom alone we learn many and most important particulars of the gospel history.

1. But that this Luke was inseparable from Paul, and his fellow-labourer in the gospel, he himself clearly evinces, not as a matter of boasting, but as bound to do so by the truth itself. For he says that when Barnabas, and John who was called Mark, had parted company from Paul, and sailed to Cyprus, "we came to Troas;"[1] and when Paul had beheld in a dream a man of Macedonia, saying, "Come into Macedonia, Paul, and help us," "immediately," he says, "we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, understanding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel unto them. Therefore, sailing from Troas, we directed our ship's course towards Samothracia." And then he carefully indicates all the rest of their journey as far as Philippi, and how they delivered their first address: "for, sitting down," he says, "we spake unto the women who had assembled;"[2] and certain believed, even a great many. And again does he say, "But we sailed from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came to Troas, where we abode seven days."[3] And all the remaining

    text. Jerome says that there was as much variation in the copies of Scripture in his day with regard to the passage,—some retaining, others rejecting the negative. Tertullian argues for the removal of the negative (Adv. Marc. v. 3).

  1. Acts xvi. 8, etc.
  2. Acts xvi. 13.
  3. Acts xx. 5, 6.