only be extended to a few instances such as the healing of the lame man by Peter at Jerusalem, iii. 2, and by Paul at Lystra, xiv. 8, but there is no real ground for the institution of a parallel between the worship paid to Peter by Cornelius, x. 25, and by the inhabitants of Lystra to St. Paul, xiv. 11, or between the judgment inflicted on Ananias and Sapphira by Peter, v. 1, and on Elymas by St. Paul, xiii. 6. The position thus advocated by Clemen is taken up by B. Weiss, Einleitung, p. 540, 3rd edit., 1897, no less than by earlier writers like Lekebusch and Nésgen (cf. too Sanday, Bampton Lec- tures, p. 327, and Salmon, Introduction, p. 310). But whether we consider that the parallel was instituted to place Paul on an equality with Peter, or, as Van Manen has recently urged, Paulus I.: De handelingen der Apostelen, p. 126, 1890, that the writer wished to represent Peter in accordance with the delineation of Paul, there is one fact fatal to both points of view, v7z., that if either of these pur- poses had been in the mind of the author of Acts, we cannot account for his omission of the crowning point to the parallel between the two Apostles, viz., their martyrdom in the same city, and in the same persecution. An already discredited theory can scarcely survive the ridicule of Dr. Blass, Proleg., p. 8, and of Dr. Salmon, µ. s., pp. 310, 311: in all true history we may expect to find parallelisms, and these parallels exist in the lives of nations no less than of individuals. When we consider the various attempts which have been made to describe the aim of Acts, it is something to find that a critic who does not hesitate to regard the book as written to some extent with an idealising and harmonising purpose, should nevertheless be constrained to reckon it, on account of its many trustworthy traditions, as an historical work of invaluable worth, see Wendt, A postelgeschichte, p. 33, 1899.
Sources. If St. Luke is acknowledged as the writer of Acts, we can understand the remark of Blass that in this case the question of sources for the greater part of the book need not be raised, Blass, Acta Apost., Proleg., p. 10; cf. Zahn, η. s., pp. 404, 412; Knabenbauer, Actus Apostolorum, p. 8, 1899. It is plain from the narrative that a man in St. Luke’s position would be brought into contact with many persons from whom he could have obtained rich and varied information, and in many cases the details of his narrative point unmistakably to the origin of the information. A good example may be seen in chap. xii. (see commentary), in which the vivid and circumstantial details of St. Peter’s escape from prison are best accounted for on the supposition that the narrative comes from John Mark: to the house of the mother of Mark St. Peter makes his