The presence of the author's hand in the speeches cannot be denied. Their literary form is due to him. He may possibly have summed up in a typical speech the characteristics of St. Paul's preaching before certain clas.ses of hearers. Some details or illustrations may be due to him, such as the mention of Theudas in Gamaliel's speech, or that of Judas in Peter's first speech. But no theory which does not admit the possession of good evidence, and the acquaintance of the author with the events and persons that he is describing, is con.sistent with the phenomena of the speeches. They are too lifelike, real, varied, and adapted to their circumstances to be mere unsubstantial rhe- torical exercises.
X. SotTEcKS OF THE ACTS. — Until recently, critics seem to have contented themselves with either vague indications of the .sources of the .\cts, or a complete denial of the possibility of discovering them, at any rate in the earlier portions (Weiz- sacker, Holtzmann, Beyschlag, Prteiderer, Baur, Schwesler). Recently, however, the problem has been attacked by a number of scholars, mostly of inferior rank, who do not seem to have attained any succe.ss, and whose method is not likely to lead to any substantial results. Of these, Sorof considers that Timothy, the writer of the ' we ' sections, has combined a genuine writing by St. Luke and a St. Peter .source. According to Peine there was an original Jerusalem Christian source, which was used in the Gospels and extended to ch. 12 of the Acts, but which knew notliing of the missionary jour- neys of St. Paul. I'he latter portion is partly due to the Redactor (II), partly to other sources. Spitta distinguishes an A source, the work of Luke, which contiiins about two-tliirds of the Acts, and is also used in tlie Gospel, and a B source of Jewish- Christian origin, which runs parallel witli tlie first through the whole of the Acts. Van Manen distinguishes a third document, which conUiined, however, only the ' we ' sections, and these very much edited, a Paul biography, and a Peter bio- graphy. The most elaborate theory is that of C. Clemen. He distinguishes an ' Urchristliche Predigt,' an ' Krste Gemeindege.schichte,' and ' Zweite Gemeindegeschiclite,' and Historia Hclleni-
starum, which has been worked into an Historia Petri ; this was combined with an Historia Pauli which included the ' we ' sections (Itinerarium Pauli) by a K who was free from party bias, then came a Judaising R, and then an anti- .Judaising R. Jiingst distinguishes an A source, apparently the work of St. Luke ; a B source, the work of an anti-Judaiser and a R. It may be added, that both Clemen and .Jiingst consider that the original sources have been very much rearranged by the different redactors, and the true sequence of events destroyed.
A very few words are necessaiy concerning these theories. The statement of them is really a suffi- cient condemnation. There is no harmony in the results obtained ; and the method is so a priori and unscientific that no result could be obtained. The unity of style of the book and its artistic completeness make any theory impossible which considers that it arose from piecing together bits of earlier writings. Somewhat more on right lines are the attempts of B. Weiss and Hilgenfeld, in the fact that they do not consider that more than one source is used in any separate passage. Weiss thinks there was one early history which contained an account of the early community, of Stephen, of Philip, of the journeys of Peter, of the council. Hilgenfeld has three sources, A Ac l'=-5*- O-"-"* 12i--^3_ B Ac 6-8", C 91-3" iiiT-29. and both profess to be able to distinguish what is due to the source and what to the author, the method being for the most part absolutely arbitrary.
A study of St. Luke's Gospel shows us that the work is quite certainly a literary whole pro- ceeding from one author, that this author made use of materials partly written, partly probably oral, and that he reproduced them probably largely in his own style. If we compare a section from this Gospel with the parallel one from St. Mark, which clearly represents very nearly the original source, we shall find that the difference, although one not affecting the main sense, is of a character which would make it quite impossible to arrive at one document from the other. We may notice, again, that although there is a certain uniform- ity of style running through the whole Gospel, yet the character of the source used seems to a certain, although undefined, extent to have modi- fied it.
Now, in the Acts there is admittedly a certain difference in style between the earlier chapters and the later. The later, like the prologue to the Gospel and Acts and the ' we ' sections, being written in a purer (ireek style, the earlier being more Aramaic in character. Stated vaguely anil generally, this is true, although no investigations have yet made it definite. The utmost it is at present safe to assert, is that there appears to be a difference in style in the earlier chapters, which suggests a written source.
Starting from the conclusion that the author was St. Luke, we must ascribe to him the conception of the history as a whole, and presumably, there- fore, all the framework which is part of that conception, the object of the author being to mark the stages in the progress of Christianity. For the whole of the last section, from 20^ onwards, the author was either an eye-witness or in close con- tact with those who were such ; as also in the sec- tion lO'J-*', and here we have the fullest and most detailed account. For all the remaining portions of St. Paul's journeys he could clearly have access to the very best inform.ation ; and it is to be noticed here that generally, although not invariably, the information is perfectly accurate, so far as it can be tested, but not so full as in the later sections. For the stories concerning Philip in the first part of the book it is not necessary to go beyond