to them as inquirers or even converts, such as “Theophilus,” that the argument is addressed. In spite of all difficulties, this religion is worthy of personal belief, even though it mean opposition and suffering. Among the features of the occasion which suggested the need of such an appeal was doubtless the existence of persecution by the Roman authorities, perhaps largely at the instigation of local Judaism. To meet this special perplexity, the author holds up the picture of early days, when the great protagonist of the Gospel constantly enjoyed protection at the hands of Roman justice. It is implied that the present distress is but a passing phase, resting on some misunderstanding; meantime, the example of apostolic constancy should yield strong reassurance. The Acts of the Apostles is in fact an Apology for the Church as distinct from Judaism, the breach with which is accordingly traced with great fulness and care.
From this standpoint Acts no longer seems to end abruptly. Whether as exhibiting the Divine leading and aid, or as recording the impartial and even kindly attitude of the Roman State towards the Christians, the writer has reached a climax. “He wished,” as Harnack well remarks, “to point out the might of the Holy Spirit in the apostles, Christ’s witnesses; and to show how this might carried the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome and gained for it entrance into the pagan world, whilst the Jews in growing degree incurred rejection. In keeping with this, verses 26-28 of chapter xxviii. are the solemn closing verses of the work. But verses 30, 31 are an appended observation.”
Yet the writer is, in fact, ending up most fitly on one of his keynotes, in that he leaves Paul preaching in Rome itself, “unmolested.” “Paulus Romae, apex Evangelii.”
The full force of this is missed by those who, while rejecting the idea that the author had in reserve enough Pauline history to furnish another work, yet hold that Paul was freed from the imprisonment amid which Acts leaves him (see Paul). But for those, on the other hand, who see in the writer’s own words in xx. 38, uncontradicted by anything in the sequel, a broad hint that Paul never saw his Ephesian friends again, the natural view is open that the sequel to the two years’ preaching was too well known to call for explicit record. Nor would such silence touching Paul’s speedy martyrdom be disingenuous, any more than on the theory that martyrdom overtook him several years later. The writer views Paul’s death (like the horrors of Nero’s Vatican Gardens in 64) as a mere exception to the rule of Roman policy heretofore illustrated. Not even by the Roman authorities were some of Nero’s acts regarded as precedents.
2. Authorship.—External evidence, which is relatively early and widespread (e.g. Muratorian Canon, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement and Origen), all points to Luke, the companion and fellow-worker of Paul (Philem. 24), who probably accompanied him as physician also (Col. iv. 14). It must be noted too that evidence for his authorship of the third Gospel counts also for Acts. This carries us back at least to the second quarter of the 2nd century (Justin, Dial. 103, and most probably Marcion), when Λουκᾶν no doubt stood at the head of the Gospel, especially where it was used side by side with the others. We have every reason to trust the Church’s tradition at this time, particularly as Luke was not prominent enough as an associate of Paul to suggest the theory as a guess. Nor does Eusebius, who knew the ante-Nicene literature intimately, seem to know of any other view ever having been held. If, then, the traditional Lucan authorship is to be doubted, it must be on internal evidence only. The form of the book, however, in all respects favours Luke, who was of non-Jewish birth (see Col. iv. 12-14 compared with 10 f.), and as a physician presumably a man of culture. The medical cast of much of its language, which is often of a highly technical nature, points strongly the same way;[1] while the early tradition that Luke was born in the Syrian Antioch admirably suits the fulness with which the origin of the Antiochene Church and its place in the further extension of the Gospel are described (see Luke). Again, the attitude of Acts towards the Roman Empire is just what would be expected from a close comrade of Paul (cf. Sir W. M. Ramsay, St Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen, 1895), but was hardly likely to be shared by one of the next generation, reared in an atmosphere of resentment, first at Nero’s conduct and then at the persecuting policy of the Flavian Caesars (see Revelation). Finally, the book itself seems to claim to be written by a companion of Paul. In chap. xvi. 10 the writer, without any previous warning, passes from the third person to the first. Paul had reached Troas. There he saw a vision inviting him to go to Macedonia. “But when he saw the vision, straightway we sought to go forth into Macedonia.” Thenceforth “we” re-emerges at certain points in the narrative until Rome is reached. Irenaeus (iii. 14. 1) quotes these passages as proof that Luke, the author, was a companion of the apostle. The minute character of the narrative, the accurate description of the various journeyings, the unimportance of some of the details, especially some of the incidents of the shipwreck, are strong reasons for believing that the narrative is that of an eye-witness. If so, we can scarcely help coming to the conclusion that this eye-witness was the author of the work; for the style of this eye-witness is exactly the style of the writer who composed the previous portions (see Harnack, op. cit., reinforcing the argument as already worked out by B. Weiss, 1893, and especially by Sir J. C. Hawkins in Horae Synopticae, 1899, pp. 143-147). Most scholars admit that the “we” narrative is that of a personal companion of Paul, who was probably none other than Luke, in view of his traditional authorship of Acts. But many suppose that the tradition arose from confused remembrance of the use by a later author of Luke’s “we” document or travel-diary. This supposition would compel us to believe either that the skilful writer of Acts was so careless as to incorporate a document without altering its form, or that “we” is introduced intentionally. In the latter case we must suppose either that the writer was an eye-witness, or that he wished to be thought an eye-witness. E. Zeller, a follower of Baur, adopted this latter alternative, and P. W. Schmiedel adheres to it. Indeed it is hard to see how it can be avoided on the theory that the author of Acts used a travel-document by another hand (see below, Sources). On the whole, then, the most tenable theory is that the writer of the “we” sections was also the author of Acts; and that he was Luke, Paul’s companion during most of his later ministry, and also his “counterpart,” “as a Hellene, who yet had personal sympathy with Jewish primitive Christianity” (Harnack, op. cit. p. 103; see also Luke).
3. Sources.—So far from the recognition of a plan in Acts being inimical to a quest after the materials used in its composition, one may say that it points the way thereto, while it keeps the literary analysis within scientific limits. The more one realizes the standpoint of the mind pervading the book as a whole, the more one feels that the speeches in the first part of Acts (e.g. that of Stephen)—and indeed elsewhere, too—are not “free compositions” of our author, the mere outcome of dramatic idealization such as ancient historians like Thucydides or Polybius allowed themselves. The Christology, for instance of the early Petrine speeches is such as a Gentile Christian writing c. 80 A.D. simply could not have imagined. Thus we are forced to assume the use of a certain amount of early Judaeo-Christian material, akin to that implied also in the special parts of the Third Gospel. Paul Feine (Eine vorkanonische Ueberlieferung des Lukas, 1891) suggested that a single document explains this material in both works, as far as Acts xii. Others maintain that at any rate two sources underlie Acts i.-xii., or even i.-xv. (see A. Harnack, Die Apostelgeschichte, p. 131 ff.). In particular we can recognize a source embodying the traditions of the largely Hellenistic Church of Antioch, a secondary gloss from which may survive in the Bezan addition to xi. 27, “when we were assembled.” Further, if our author was a careful inquirer (Luke i. 3), especially if he was in the habit of taking down in writing what he heard from different witnesses, this may explain
- ↑ This argument, first worked out by Dr W. K. Hobart, The Medical Language of St Luke (Dublin, 1882), but hitherto neglected by many Continental scholars, has been urged afresh by Harnack, Lukas der Arzt (Leipzig, 1906; Eng. trans., London, 1907), to which reference may be made for all matters connected with Lucan authorship; comp. also R. J. Knowling in The Expositor’s Greek Testament.
