By virtue of that Divine grace, "many wonders and signs were done by the Apostles," v. 43, during the following time. But it is vital to Luke's method not to rest contented with that general statement, but to give one special, clear example of the power communicated to the Apostles and to the Church of which they were the leaders. It would be waste of time to regret that he passes over so much that we should like to know, and devotes so much space to a marvel that is to us a difficulty : our present aim is to understand the purpose of what he does say, not to long after what he omits.
The example is given in III ; the subsequent events of the same day are narrated IV 1-4; and the following day is described IV 5-31, when Peter and John, in whom the proof of Divine grace had been shown forth, were ex-
366 Chronology of Early Church History. Chap. XVI.
amined before a meeting of " the rulers and elders and scribes ". These are represented as realising now for the first time, v. 13, the change that had come over Peter and John, who from " unlearned and ignorant men " had been transformed into bold and eloquent preachers. Evidently the historian conceives that this transformation, wrought at Pentecost, was now beginning to be generally felt ; and therefore he is still (as we have said) describing the im- mediate issue of Pentecost. Thereafter comes a second general statement of the state and character of the primitive Church, startlingly similar to II 43-47.
Thus the whole passage II 43-IV 35 hangs very closely together, and describes the Church in the period imme- diately succeeding May 26, A.D. 30. Two episodes of this period, exemplifying the conduct of the true and the false convert, are described IV 36-V 11 ; and then comes a third general description of the state of the Church in this period V 12-16, followed by a statement of the attempt made by the Jewish leaders to coerce the Apostles into silence V 17-41.
That at least two accounts by two different authorities underlie Luke's narrative, and have been worked up by him with little change, seems clear. It is, of course, obvious that he was entirely dependent for this period of his history on the authority of other persons ; and we see in the Third Gospel how much he was influenced by the very language of his authorities, and how little change he made on their words.1
1 Thus the particle pev ovv, so common in Acts, occurs only once in the Third Gospel, in a passage peculiar to Luke, III 18. In XXII 56 he added the little touch anvltraira to the narrative as used by Matthew and Mark, see p. 39.
Sec. 2. Trustworthiness of the Narrative, I- V. 367
2. TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE NARRATIVE, Acts I-V. It is obvious that the trustworthiness of this part of Acts stands on quite a different footing from that of the Pauline narrative, which we have hitherto discussed. The author had means of knowing the later events with perfect accuracy (so far as perfection can be attained in history) ; but the means which helped him there fail in I-V, and the scene and surroundings were to him strange and remote (p. 19 f.). He was here dependent entirely on others, and it was more difficult for him to control and make himself master of the evolution of events. We discern the same guiding hand and mind, the same clear historical insight seizing the great and critical steps, in the early chapters, as in the later ; but the description of the primitive Church wants precision in the outline and colour in the details. It seems clear that the authorities on which Luke depended were not equally good ; and here second-rate incidents are admitted along with first-rate in a way that has done his reputation serious injury in the estimation of those who begin to study Acts from this, its necessarily weakest part. One or two examples will bring out our meaning. First we take an incident related also by Matthew.