Anchoring by the stern was unusual ; but in their situa- tion it had great advantages. Had they anchored by the bow, the ship would have swung round from the wind ; and, when afterwards they wished to run her ashore, it would have been far harder to manage her when lying with her prow pointing to the wind and away from the shore. But, as they were, they had merely to cut the cables, un- lash the rudders, and put up a little foresail (v. 40) ; and they had the ship at once under command to beach her at any spot they might select.
As the ship was now lying at anchor near some land, the sailors were about to save themselves by the boat and abandon the ship to its fate without enough skilled
1 1. Resonare Gig. Compared with irpoa-ax*tv B, as Prof. Rendel Harris suggests to me, this implies an early Greek reading npoarjxfiv
336 The Voyage to Rome. Chap. XIV.
hands to work it ; but Paul, vigilant ever, detected their design, and prevented it Then, in order that the com- pany might have strength for the hard work that awaited them at daybreak, he encouraged them once more with the assurance of safety, urged them to eat with a view thereto, and himself set the example. There is perhaps an intention in v. 35 to represent Paul as acting like Jesus at the last Passover ; and the resem- blance is more pointed if the words added in one MS. and some versions are original, " giving also to us ". But it would be necessary to understand " us " to mean only Luke and Aristarchus (as Dr. Blass agrees) ; and this is harsh after the word has been so often used in a much wider sense. It is characteristic of Christianity in all periods to seek after resemblances between the Founder and any great hero of the faith at some crisis of his- tory ; and this addition seems a later touch to bring out the resemblance.
7. PAUL'S ACTION ON THE SHIP. The account of the voyage as a whole is commonly accepted by critics as the most trustworthy part of Acts and as " one of the most instructive documents for the knowledge of ancient seamanship," (Holtzmann on XXVII 4, p. 421). But in it many critics detect the style of the later hand, the supposed second-century writer that made the work out of good and early documents, and addressed his com- pilation to Theophilus. Many hold that this writer inserted w. 21-26, and some assign to him also vv. 33-35, because the character there attributed to Paul is quite different from his character in the genuine old docu- ment, especially vv. 10 and 31 ; in the original parts Paul is represented as a simple passenger, cautious to a
Skc. 7. PauFs Action on the Ship. 337
degree, suffering from hunger, apprehensive of the future, keenly alive to prospective danger, and anxious to pro- vide against it : on the other hand, in vv. 21-26 he knows that their safety is assured ; he speaks as the prophet, not the anxious passenger ; he occupies a posi- tion apart from, and on a higher plane than human.
This is a fair hypothesis, and deserves fair and dis- passionate consideration ; no one whose mind is not already definitely made up on all questions can pass it by; and only those who feel that they understand the entire narrative in every turn and phrase and allu- sion would willingly pass it by, for every real student knows how frequently his knowledge is increased by chang- ing his point of view.
We may at once grant that the narrative would go on without any obvious awkwardness if 21-26 were omitted, which is of course true of many a paragraph describing some special incident in a historical work.
But it is half-hearted and useless to cut out 21-26 as an interpolation without cutting out 33-38 ; there, too, Paul is represented as the prophet and the consoler on a higher plane, though he is also the mere passenger suffering from hunger, and alive to the fact that the safety of all depends on their taking food and being fit for active exertion in the morning. Some critics go so far as to cut out vv. 33-35. But it is not possible to cut these out alone ; there is an obvious want of sequence between 32 and 36, and Holtzmann therefore seems to accept 33-35. But if they are accepted I fail to see any reason for rejecting 21-26; these two passages are so closely akin in purport and bearing on the context that they must go together ; and all the mischief attri-