But who now is the . I inline and Sa\ionr accredited by the resurrection ? It is very characteristic of our author that in those passages where for the most part it is himself that speaks, e.g. in the speeches put into the mouth of St. Paul before Agrippa or Felix or Festus (chs. 22. 23), we scarcely hear of the earthly Jesus but of the heavenly Lord. The appearance of the Exalted One near Damascus is the great matter which St. Paul has to com- municate to his countrymen and to the Jemsh
king. It is the heavenly Lord that permeates tlie life of His Church and His apostles, the Kiptos on whom Christians believe, 'fhis Divine name is very often applied in the Acts to God, but not infrequently also to Christ. Thus the Exalted Clirist, working miracles from heaven by His name (9**), accredited by the miracle of the resurrection, and destined to come again with judgment and salvation, occupies the central point of the faith of our author.
But it would be a mistake to suppose that our author had no interest in the earthly Jesus of Nazareth. As the heavenly Christ says to Saul, ' I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou jiersecutest ' (22*), so to the writer of the Acts ' the Christ' and ' Jesus ' constitute an inseparable unity. He inter- changes freely such e.xpressions as ' proclaimed unto tlieni the Christ' (8°) and ' preached unto him Jesus' (v. 25) ; cf. 5" 'to preach Christ Jesus' (RV 'Jesus [as] the Christ'), ff-" 'proclaimed Jesus that he is tie Sou of Cod,' 18* 'testifjring to the Jews that .Ie~u^ w as the Christ.' And as our author in his Gos|>el narrative already calls Jesus ' Lord,' it is always of the Exalted One that he thinks even when communicating what he knows of the earthly life of Jesus. More than once he defines the con- tents of the Apostolic preaching as ' the things concerning Jesus' (18-5) or 'the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ' (28*'), and this concise formula embraces far more tlian one might infer from the meagre sketches of St. Paul's address in 1324-30 or St. Peter's in 10*'-«. We must keep in mind that the first readers of the Acts, Tlieophilus in particular, when this work came into their hands, were already acquainted with the Third Gospel, and would thus, by means of the full details supplied in it, unconsciously clothe with meaning the brief forniulie in ciuestion. Still more varied was the knowledge which our author possessed of the life of Jesus, for he was acquainted not only with St. Mark's Gospel, but with other writings which he utilized merely for extracts ; and how manifold may have been the oral tradition current at the .same time, which he made use of in an eclectic fashion ! The whole of this copious tradi- tion we must tliink of as forming the background of the Acts if we are to appreciate rightly its picture of Christ.
A special charm of the Lukan writings arises from the fact that the author, with all his culture and Greek sympathies, has had the good taste to retain in lai^e measure the peculiar, un-Greek, popular Palestinian character of his sources, and that both in language and contents. Some scholars, indeed, are of opinion tliat lie himself deliberately produced the colouring appropriate to place and time, as in the case of an artificial patina. But this view is untenable. The more thoroughly the Third Gospel and the Acts are ex- amined, the deeper becomes the conviction that the author worked upon a very ancient tradition which he has preserved in his own style. As in the early narratives of his Gospel he preserves almost unim- paired the colouring and tone of Jewish-Christian piety without any admixture of Gr^co-Gentile- Chnstian elements, so also in the Acts, especially in the first part of the book, he has succeeded in presenting the original picture of the religious con- ceptions and the piety of the earliest Christian community in Jerusalem. We are far from be- lieving that everything here related is ' historical ' in the strict sense. For instance, it is in the highest degree improbable that the actual speeches of St. Peter have been preserved verbatim ; all we assert is that these chapters are a true representa- tion of the spirit of early Jewish Christianity. Very specially is this the case with the Christology. For such a doctrine of Christ as is represented by
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
27
the Petrine discourses was scarcely to be found in the Church after the time of St. Paul and at the time when the Fourth Gospel was written. After the kcnosis doctrine of St. Paul had been pro- pounded, and then, as its counterpart, the Johannine picture of Christ, in which also the earthly Jesus wears the 'form of God,' had taken hold of men's minds, a Christology such as the first part of the Acts exhibits could not have been devised. But we are grateful to the autlior for having pre- served to us a picture of that earliest mode of thought. Let us examine its main features.
We may use as a collateral witness the words of the disciples on the way to Emmaus (Lk 24'^), for it is a mere accident, so to speak, that this story is found in the Gospel and not in the Acts : ' Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet {durip TpotpriTv^), mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.' So also He is described by St. Peter : 'Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you by mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you' (Ac 2--). The peculiarity of this last statement is that the wonders and signs are not attributed to Jesus Himself : God wrought them through Him ; He was simply God's organ or instrument. The same thing is expressed in another passage (10^*), where it is declared that in His going about and in His deeds God was toith Him. In both instances the conception comes out clearly that Jesus was a man chosen and specially favoured of God. There is not a word in all these discourses of a Divine birth, no word of a coming down from heaven or of a ' Son of God ' in a physical or supernatural sense. On the contrary, Jesus is called more than once ' the Servant of God ' (3"- -'' 4=^). This designation suggests a prophet, and as a matter of fact Jesus is directly characterized as a prophet when in 4^ the words of Dt IS'''- '*'• are applied to Him. At the same time He is no ordinary prophet, but the pro- phet like unto Moses ; He is tlie second Moses pre- dicted by Moses himself.