(.3) The tradition of the Church from the end of the second centurj' is that the author was Luke, a companion of St. Paul ; and this exactly corre- •sponds with the circumstances already described. St. Luke is the only companion of St. Paul, so far as our knowledge goes, who fulfils the conditions. The Acts could not have been written by Timothy, for Timothy was a companion during an interval when the 'we' sections cease (Ac 17"); nor by Titus, for we know from Gat 2'' that he was with St. P.aul earlier ; nor by .Sila.s, who was at the council (Ac Ib'^). St. Luke is never mentioned in any of the earlier Kpistles, but he is in the later. Corroborative evidence of the Lucan authorship has been found in the medical terms used (Col 4'*, Lk 8'», Ac 28» etc.).
(4) The argument ir. favour of the Lucan author- ship of both the (iospel and Acts, based on a chain of coincidences, has been ))ut very .strongly by Bp. Lightfoot. (n) Tradition gives to the Gospel the name of St. Luke, a companion of .St. Paul. (h) Internal but unobtrusive evidence shows its Pauline character. It dwells particularly on the universality and freedom of the gos]iel ; and it refers to less obvious incidents in our Lord's life mentioned by St. I'aul (1 Co \V-» = Lk 22'», 1 Co 1b'> - Lk 24*'). (c) The Acts of the Apostles was certainly written by the same person as the Gospel, (rf) All independent line of argument shows that it was written by a companion of St. Paul, (c) It, too, is I'aul ine in its character (so far as we are at liberty to use that word). It represents the same universality and freedom of the gospel, and the
30
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
same idea of the Christian Cliurch, but more in the concrete (see Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 124-128).
(5) The balance of argument is clearly, then, in favour of St. Luke as author of the Acts. There is, however, still room for doubt as to the time when It was written. (a) One theory places it almost immediately after the close of the narrative, and just before the outbreak of the Neronian peree- ciuion. The book, it is urged, comes to an abrupt conclusion, and the only explanation is that it is unfinished. As has been pointed out above, there is no real rea.son for saying the book is unfinished. The arrival of St. I'anl in Rome formed a .suitable conclusion, and the ending is similar in character to the ending of the Gospel. In the extreme form this argument is untenable, but it is still quite possible to hold that the narrative concluded here, because not many more events had occurred. More- over, it might be held that the tone in relation to the empire represented the period before rather than after the Neronian persecution. The early date is still held by Blass, and the arguments against it are not very strong.
(fe) The argument for a later date is generally based on Lk 21-<> as compared with Mt 24'^, Mk l:i". It is stated that the form of the prophecy there recorded has been nrndified by the knowledge of what happened at the siege of Jerusalem. The Gospel therefore was written after that event, and the Acts somewhat later, under the Flavians. The criticism of Blass, however, has very considerable weight, that there is little in the prophecies re- corded by St. Luke which goes much beyond the language of V)n 9* ; and the reason given for a late date can hardly be considered demonstrative. Neither can that of Ramsay, who thinks that the Gospel must have been written just after Titus was associated in the empire with his father, so as to explain the incorrect date of Tiberius (Lk 3'). No arguments are certain, and the language of Lk 21-' would in any ca.se be quite compatible with a date some time before .v. I). 70 ; but perhaps on the whole the amount of perspective contained in the book is hardly compatible with the earlier date, just as the relation of the third Gospel to the other two suggests the later date, and a period shortly after 70 is the most probable. Whether we can, as Ram.say suggests, press the rpuTOf of l', and argue that a third treatise was in contemplation, is very doubtful.
Tht' fnllowini; are dates suj?£re,<ite(l by various writers, and are for the most part taken from lloltztiiann : — 64-70 (Hug, A. Maier, SclitRH-kenburtjer, Hitzitr, (»rau, Nosgen, Blass), c. SO (Kwald, I.ei-hler, iileek, Kenan, Mever, Weiss, Kamsav), 75-100 (Wendt, Spltuil, 110 (Kostlin, .Mant'old), 9.") (Hil^enfeldl'. c. 100 ( Volkmarl, 110-1-20 (I'Heiderer), Trajan and Ila^lriao (Schwepler. Zeller, Overbeck, Davidson, Kelm. llausrath), 125-150 (Straatman, Meiibo4)m, van .\Ianen>,
The artrnments for a later date are plven most ftiUy atnonp recent writers by Holtzmann {EinUitnnfj,* 1S92, p. 405) as follows:— (1) Ac<juaintanco with the Panline Epistles (IJom, Gal. Cor. Kph, Thess, and Heb), also with .Tosephus. (2) DelibtT- ate correction of the narrative of (lal l>t-« in Ac 9""**, of (lal oi-io In i..,i-33, of (ial 2" in Ac l,"j»"=. (3) ITnhlstorical acc4>nnt of speakinir with toncnes (Ac 2*-'*), of St. Paul's relations with the law, atid legendary narratives such as that of tlie death of .\(jrippa. 12*3. (4) Thc'writer is contemporary in time with the literary activity of Plutarch as shown by "the parallel lives; and of .\rrian and Pausanias (narratives i>f .lourney). also of the nepioSot of dirterent apostles. (5) Atmo- sphere of tlie Catholic Cliurch ; parallelism of St. Peter and St. Paul ; traces of the hierarchical view of the Church and esp. the sacramental theory of layintj on of hands, (fi) Ile.«em. blances with the Pastoral Kpis'tles. (7) Importance assigned to tile political side of Christianity ; the Koinan Empire always represented as favourable tt> ChristiaiUty.