Apostle would thus arrive in Rome in the spring of 57, and his release follows in 59. (O. Holtzmann from other data places the arrival of Festus in Palestine in the summer of 55, and both he and McGiffert place Paul’s arrival in Rome in 56, and his imprisonment 56-58.)
This chronology has been severely criticised by Wendt, Apostel- geschichte, p. 57 (1899), and it fails to commend itself to Ramsay, Expositor, March, 1897, as also more recently to Zahn, Einleitung, ii, p. 626. It has been objected to it, inter alia, that its supporters, or at all events Harnack and O. Holtzmann, place the conversion of Paul so soon after the death of our Lord that it is doubtful whether sufficient time is allowed for the events recorded in Acts i.-vi. (cf. xxvi. 10), although Holtzmann, p. 133, sees no difficulty in placing the conversion in 29, the date of the death of Jesus, as the events in Acts i.-viii. in his view follow quickly upon one another. (Ramsay thinks that the interval before Stephen’s murder was short, but he allows two and a half or three years for the event after the great Pentecost ; see notes in commentary for the difficulties con- nected with the martyrdom.) Harnack places the date of the con- version in 30, {.ε., according to him, either in the year following, or in the year of, the death of Jesus. On the other hand the chronology in question allows some considerable time for Paul’s release from his first captivity (a release admitted by Harnack and Spitta, as earlier by Renan), and for his subsequent journeys east and west, if Mr. Turner, ‘‘Chronology,” Hastings’ B.D., i., 420, is right in placing the death of both Peter and Paul in 64-65 (Harnack placing the death of St. Paul in 64 and of St. Peter in 67, Eusebius, however (so Blass), from whom Harnack here departs, placing the former event in 67 (68)). The received chronology, making 60, 61, the date for the arrival of Festus in Judza, allows but little interval between the close of St. Paul’s first imprisonment and his death, if his martyrdom was in 64. The difficulty is met by Mr. Turner, wu. s., p. 421, by assigning 58 (Ramsay 59) as the precise year for the accession of Festus to office, placing the close of the Acts, after the two years’ captivity in Rome, early in 61, and so allowing an interval of three years between St. Paul’s first and second imprisonment. Unfortunately it must be admitted that we cannot positively fix ,58 as the year for the event in question, and this uncertainty sadly interferes with the adoption of any precise chronology for Acts, although on all sides the importance of the date of Festus’ arrival is recognised—* the crucial date,” Mr. Turner calls it; all depends upon ascertaining it, says Harnack (cf. also Wendt, wu. s., p. 56;