In the following narrative the powers of Paul are brought into competition with those of Jewish exorcists and pagan dabblers in the black art, and his superiority to them demonstrated. Ephesus was a centre of all such magical arts and practices, and it was therefore inevitable that the new teaching should be brought in
1 In an inscription, Bulletin de Corresp. Hellen., 1887, p. 400.
272 The Church in Asia. Chap. XII.
contact with them and triumph over them. There can be no doubt that, in the conception of Luke, the measure of success lay in the extent to which Divine power and inspiration was communicated to a new Church ; and perhaps the whole description may be defended as the extremest example of that view. But it seems undeniable that, when we contrast this passage with the great scene at Paphos, or the beautiful though less powerful scene with the ventriloquist at Philippi, there is in the Ephesian description something like vulgarity of tone, together with a certain vagueness and want of individuality, very different from those other scenes. Such details, too, as are given, are not always consistent and satisfactory The seven sons in v. 14 change in an unintelligible way to two in v. 16 (except in the Bezan Text) ; and the statement that the seven were sons of a chief priest, looks more like a popular tale than a trustworthy historical statement. There is no warrant in the text for the view sometimes advocated, that Sceva was merely an impostor who pretended to be a chief priest. The money value of the books that were destroyed is another touch that is thoroughly characteristic of the oriental popular tale. The inability of the vulgar oriental mind to conceive any other aim, object, or standard in the world except money, and its utter slavery to gold, are familiar to every one who has seen the life of the people, or studied the Arabian Nights : in the West one sees nothing like the simple, childish frankness with which the ordinary oriental measures all things by gold, and can conceive of no other conscious aim except gold. So far as the oriental peasant is natural and unconscious, he is interesting and
Sec. 3. Ephesus. 273
delightful, and his complete difference of nature at once attracts and holds at a distance the man of Western thoughts ; but so far as he consciously attempts to con- ceive motives and form plans, gold is his sole standard of value.
In this Ephesian description one feels the character, not of weighed and reasoned history, but of popular fancy ; and I cannot explain it on the level of most of the narrative. The writer is here rather a picker-up of current gossip, like Herodotus, than a real historian. The puzzle becomes still more difficult when we go on to v. 23, and find ourselves again on the same level as the finest parts of Acts. If there were many such con- trasts in the book as between vv. 11-20 and 23-41, I should be a believer in the composite character of Acts. As it is, I confess the difficulty in this part ; but the existence of some unsolved difficulties is not a bar to the view maintained in the present treatise (p. 16).
4. THE CHURCH IN THE PROVINCE OF ASIA. (XIX 10) THIS CONTINUED FOR THE SPACE OF TWO YEARS, SO THAT ALL THEY THAT DWELT IN ASIA HEARD THE WORD. . . . (21) NOW AFTER THESE THINGS WERE ENDED, PAUL PURPOSED IN THE SPIRIT, WHEN HE HAD MADE A PROGRESS THROUGH MACEDONIA AND ACHAIA, TO GO TO JERUSALEM, SAYING, "AFTER I HAVE BEEN THERE, I MUST ALSO SEE ROME". (22) AND, HAVING SENT INTO MACEDONIA TWO OF THEM THAT ASSISTED HIM, TIMOTHY AND ERASTUS, HE HIM- SELF STAYED IN ASIA FOR A WHILE.
The work in Asia, which had been Paul's aim in A.D.
50 (p. 198), was now carried out. The long residence suits