I 7. LITERATURl!I OF THIil AoTs o:r THE APOSTLIIB. To those who desire to stndy serionely this charming and invaluable history, it may be useful to indicate a few books which will assist them to do so. PoJey'e ' Hom, Paulinm ' still holds its ground ae an original argu. ment, ingeniously worked ont, and capable of constant extension, by which the Epistles of St. Paul and the Acts of the Apostles are shown to confirm each other, and are made to shed light each upon the other in a way to disarm suspicion of collusion, and to stamp both with an unmistakable stamp of truth. The great work of Conybeare and Howson (' Life and Epistles of St. Paul ') ; the contemporary work of Mr. Lewin, bearing the same title; Canon Farrar'e 'Life and Work of St. Panl; ' Renan's ' Les Ap6tres,' and his ' St. Paul ; ' give in different ways all that can be desired in the way of historical and geographical illnetration to bring ont into foll light the work, the character, the times, of the apostle, and to display the veracity, the accuracy, and the simplicity, of his biographer. For direct commentaries, it may be snfficient to name those of St. Chrysostom, of Dr. John Lightfoot, of Kninoel (in Latin), of Meyer (translated from the German), of Olshaneen and Lange (also translated into English), of Bishop Wordsworth and Dean Alford, of Dean Plumptre (in the 'New Testament Commentary for English Readers,' edited by the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol), of Bishop Jacobson (in the 'Speaker's Co=entary '), of Ca.non Cook; to which, of course, very many more might be added. Much additional information bearing upon the Acts may also be gathered from commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles, among which may be mentioned those of Bishop Ellicott and those of Bishop Lightfoot. And, again, such smaller works as Dean Howson's ' Bohlen Lectures,' Smith of Jordanhill on' Tho Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul,' Hoba.rt's 'Medical Language of St. Luke,' elncidate particular portions or particular aspects of the book. Those who desire to know e.11 that can be said by hostile criticism against the credibility or authenticity of the Acts, and the trnthfnJness and trust- worthiness of the author, may search the writings of Baur, Schrader, Schwegler, Credner, Overbeck, Zeller, and many othem.
§ 8. CHRONOLOGY. u The ohronology of the Acts is involved in great diffioulties," mys Ca.non Cook (Introduction, p. xxx::i.); and the different conclusions which men of equal learning and cape.city have arrived at is a sufficient evidem:e of these diffioulties. There a.re, however, two or three fixed points whiclt restrain the intermediate divergences within oomparatively narrow limits, and several other coincidences of persons and things which fix the time of the narraliive witain the oompass of three or four years at most. But, on the othw bud, we have no certainty as to the year in which our history begins. ).JI INTRODUCTION TO
The ex1tCt, da.te of the Crucifixion, in spite of the careful statement of Luke iii. 1, 2, is uncertain to the extent of four or five years. Some place the Feast of Pentecost mentioned in eh. ii. in the year A.D. 28; some A.D. 80; a.nd eome age.in A.D. 33. And thie ie necessarily a cause of uncertainty as to the de,te of BtJ.bsequent events, till we come to A.D. 44.1 In that year Herod Agrippa died, soon after the death of James (eh. xii.), and in the same yea.r we l.-now that Saul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem with the alms of the Antiochia.n Church for the relief of the poor Jews suffering from the famine (eh. :ri. 30 ; :rii. 25). Those who think that this visit of St. Paul is the one alluded to in Gal. ii. 1, natnmlly reckon back fourteen yoars from A.D. 44, and so get A.D. 80 as the yea.r of St. Paul's conversion; and throw back the Pentecost of Aots ii. to the earliest possible date, viz. A.D. 28. But those who think the visit to Jerusalem spoken of in Gal. ii. 1 is that which is related in eh. xv., are not so hampered. Allowing five or six, or even seven years for St. Paul's ministry at Antioch after hie return from Jerusalem, for hie first missionary journey, and his long abode at Antioch after his return (eh. xiv. 28), they place the visit to Jerusalem in A.D. 49, 50, 51, or 52, and so get from the year A.D. 35 to A.D. 38 for the visit of Gal. i. 18, 19 ; and from A.D. 32 to A.D. 85 as the year of Saul's conversion; thus leaving three or four years for the events recorded in the first six or seven chapters of the Acts, even if the year .LD. 80 or 31 is adopted for the Pentecost which followed the Ascension. There is, however, yet another doubt as t.o the reckoning of the fourteen years. It is not at all clear whether they are to be counted from the con- version mentioned in Gal. i. 15, 16, or from the visit to Peter which took place three years after the conversion ; in other words, whether we a.re to reckon fmvrteen yea.re or BBfJenteen backwards from A.D. 44 to find the date of St. Paul's conversion. Nor, age.in, is there absolute certainty that the visit t.o Jerusalem of eh. :xv. a.nd that of Gal. ii. 1 are one and the same. Lewin, for instance, identifies the visit just glanced at in eh. xviii. 22 with that of Gal. ii. 1 (vol. i. 802). Others, as we have seen, identify with it the visit recorded in eh. xi 80 and xii. 25. So that there is uncertainty on every side. The next date on which we may, though with lees certainty, rely is tha.t of St. Paul's first visit t.o Corinth (eh. xviii.), which followed olosely on the expulsion of the Jewe from Rome by Claudius. This latter event took place (a.Im.oat certainly) in A.D. 52, and, therefore, St. Paul's arrival at Corinth happened either in the same year or A.D. 53. The arrival of Festus at Cmsarea as Procurator of Juda,e., again, is by nearly universal coDBent of modem chronologists, placed in A.D. 60,.whence we gather, with certainty, the time of St. Paul's removal to Rome a.nd of his two yea.re' imprisonment u from .LD. 61 to A.D. 63. Lees exa.ct mdicatioDS of time may be gathered from the presence of Gama.liel in the Sanhedrim (eh. v. 84); from the mention of "Aretas the 1 "La senle date be dea A.oietl des .Apbtres" (Rena.n, • Les Ap6tres,' p. :irn:iii.), THE AO'l'S m• THE APOSTLES. xiii