It is not so much a religious or a theological as a literary instinct that makes the present writer distrust the critical method of handling this book.
He does not believe that books worth jui'serving were ever made in tliis way. Nor does he believe that they were so easily altered. There is a rever- ence which a completed book inspires ; and the idea that there was no conscience abont this in ancient times or in the land of Jnd;ca is one with nothing to justify it ; on the contrary, as reganls the Jews, cf. Jose|>hus, c. vl»to>i. i. 8. Besides, the Acts must very soon have begun to be read in the assemblies of the Christians, and this would be a protection. It may, indeed, be said that this book IS an unfortunate one about which to make such a stand, seeing that it has undoubtedly e.xiicrienced considerable alteration in the Bezan text. ]>ut the explanation of this phenomenon may be the simple one that the author had made two copies of his own book, and permitted himself a natural liberty in writing the second of them.
(i) Plan. — The plan of Acts is iiulicated in 1^ : 'But ye shall receive power, wlien the Holy Ghost is come upon you : and ye shall be my witnesses botli in Jerusalem, and in all Jud;ea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth ' ; and the book divides itself as follows : — I'-G", in Jeru- salem ; 6*-9"", in Palestine (including Samaria) ; 9^-- 1'2-^, from Judiva to Antioch ; l'J^-16^, in Asia Minor ; IG^-IQ'", in Europe ; 19'-'-2S»>', from Achaia to Konie. Tlie author is fond of summarizing a period, before setting out on a new stage, and such resting-places will be found at the end of the above divisions, viz. in 6' 9" \'2-* 16» 19=» 2S»'. St. Paul first makes his appearance in 7^*, but it is not till 13' tliat he becomes the hero of the book, the story thenceforward being merely an account of his missionary travels and other fortunes. The author nan'ates with extraordinary conciseness, a striking instance being where the name 'Saul' is exchanged for ' Paul ' without a word of explana- tion (13'^) ; and, when the traveller duplicates a journey, the second notice is of the briefest possible description. Yet the style is marked by ease and freedom, scene following scene with the variety and lifelikeness of painting. Indeed, there is a tradi- tion that the author was a painter as well as a physician, this being at least a tribute to the picturesqueness of his narrative. The speeches attributed to St. Paul are often said to be free com- positions of St. Luke ; because ancient historians, especially Thucydides, took this liberty. But why should St. Luke have done so, when he had the speaker himself to consult, not to mention his own recollection or the conversations of those about St. Paul, wliicb mustoftenhave turned on the great sermons of their hero ? Ramsay is of opinion that the first verse of the book imjilies that the writer intended to pen a third volume, similar in bulk to the Gospel and the Acts ; and this would account for the narrative breaking off where it does, with a brief notice of the two years of imprisonment which followed the arrival at Rome. This would, however, be still more naturally ac- counted for if the book was written about the date to which it brings the history down ; and the present writer knows nothing which renders this impossible. The chief objection to this early date for Acts is that it must have been written before the Gospel of St. Luke, which, it is assumed, was not written till after the destruction of Jerusalem. The reasons, however, for assuming this date for the Gospel are less cogent than those for believing the Acts to have been penned before the trial at Rome ; so that the alternative is between allowing a highly argumentative dating of the Gospel to fix a late date fur the Acts and making a clearly indi- cated date of the Acts determine for the Gospel an earlier date than it has been usual to assign to it. Cf. A. Harnack, The Date of the Acts and of the Synoptic Gospels, 'Kn^. tr., 191 1, Liiki the Physician,
Eng. tr., 1911, and The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. tr., 1909.
Moll'att's ex])Ianation of the sudden breaking oil of the narrative in the Acts is that the purpose of the book was to relate the progress of Christianitj' from Jerusalem to Rome ; J. AVeiss, in Das Urchris- tciithutii, 1914, makes the suggestion that Acts was written for Roman Christians, who did not reciuire to be informed of what had become of the hero ; and Clemen actually brings in as an expla- nation Horace's rule, in Ars I'ucllca, ISof., about not slaughtering the characters of a tragedy in the sight of the audience, forgetting that, in the be- ginning of this book, an immortal scene is con- structed out of the martyrdom of St. Stephen. If, as many now assume, St. Paul's trial ended in con- demnation and execution, it is easy to understand with what elt'ect St. Luke could have used this as the winding-up of his story; and it is incredible that, knowing so pathetic and significant an event to have immediately followed the point to which he bad brought his narrative down, he could have omitted to mention it. (On a supposed de|)endcnce on Josepbus, throwing the composition of Acts late, see the remarks of J. 'Vernon Bartlet in Ccvtiiry Bi/dc, 'Acts,' 1901, pp. 19, 181, 251, 340; also R. J. Knowling, EGT, 'Acts,' 1900, p. 30 f.