Further, when we compare Luke with other authorities in their treatment of the same subject, we see how much more careful he is than they in bringing out the relations in which Christianity stood to the Imperial government. In the Third Gospel, Luke alone among the four historians records formally the attempt made by the Jews to implicate Jesus in criminal practices against the Roman Empire, l and the emphatic, thrice 2 repeated statement of Pilate acquitting Him of all fault (XXIII 2, 4, 14, 22) before the law.
We must conclude, then, that the large space devoted to the trial of Paul in its various stages before the Roman Imperial tribunals is connected with a strongly marked interest and a clear purpose running through the two books of this history ; and it follows that Luke conceived the trial to be a critical and supremely important stage in the development of the Church.
The next question that faces us is whether Luke is justified as a historian in attaching such importance to this stage in the development of Christianity. Perhaps
1 Less formally, John XVIII 30. *John XVIII 38 ; Matth. XXVII 24.
308 The Voyage to Jerusalem. Chap. XIII.
the question may be best answered by quoting some words used in a different connection and for a different purpose. "It is both justifiable and necessary to lay great stress on the trial of Paul. With the legal con- structiveness and obedience to precedent that charac- terised the Romans, this case tried before the supreme court must have been regarded as a test case and a binding precedent, until some act of the supreme Imperial authority occurred to override it If such a case came for trial before the highest tribunal in Rome, there must have been given an authoritative and, for the time, final judgment on the issues involved."
But, further, it is obvious that the importance of the trial for Luke is intelligible only if Paul was acquitted. That he was acquitted follows from the Pastoral Epistles with certainty for all who admit their genuineness ; while even they who deny their Pauline origin must allow that they imply an early belief in historical details which are not consistent with Paul's journeys before his trial, and must either be pure inventions or events that occurred on later journeys. I have elsewhere argued that the subsequent policy of Nero towards the Church is far more readily intelligible if Paul was acquitted. But, if he was acquitted, the issue of the trial was a formal decision by the supreme court of the Empire that it was permissible to preach Christianity : the trial, therefore, was really a charter of religious liberty, and therein lies its immense importance. It was, indeed, overturned by later decisions of the supreme court ; but its existence was a highly important fact for the Christiana
The importance of the preliminary stages of the
Sec 7. The Crisis in the fate of Paul. 309
trial lies in its issue ; and it is obviously absurd to relate these at great length, and wholly omit the final result which gives them intelligibility and purpose. It there- fore follows that a sequel was contemplated by the author, in which should be related the final stages of the trial, the acquittal of Paul, the active use which he made of his permission to preach, the organisation of the Church in new provinces, and the second trial occurring at the worst and most detested period of Nero's rule. That sequel demands a book to itself; and we have seen that the natural implication of Luke's expression in Acts I 1, if he wrote as correct Greek as Paul wrote, is that his work was planned to contain, a least, three books.
This view of Luke's historical plan suits well the period at which he wrote. It is argued in Ch. XVII § 2 that he was engaged in composing this book under Domitian, a period of persecution, when Christians had come to be treated as outlaws or brigands, and the mere confession of the name was recognised as a capital offence. The book was not an apology for Christianity : it was an appeal to the truth of history against the immoral and ruinous policy of the reigning Emperor ; a temperate and solemn record, by one who had played a great part in them, of the real facts regarding the formation of the Church, its steady and unswerving loyalty in the past, its firm resolve to accept the facts of Imperial government, its friendly reception by many Romans, and its triumphant vindication in the first great trial at Rome. It was the work of one who had been trained by Paul to look forward to Christianity becoming the religion of the Empire and of the world