Paul Left at Athens Alone.
17:16. Now while Paul waited for them [Silas and Timothy] at Athens.
1 Thess. 3:1 We thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone, and sent Timothy, etc. Comp 3:7.
Paul Working at his Trade.
18:3. And because he [Aquila] was of the same trade, he abode with them, and they wrought; for by their trade they were tent makers. Comp. 20:34.
1 Thess. 2:9. Ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail: working night and day, that we might not burden any of you. Comp. 1 Cor. 4:11, 12.
Paul's Two Visits to Corinth.
18:1; 20:2.
1 Cor. 2:1; 4:19; 16:5.
Work of Apollos at Corinth.
18:27, 28.
1 Cor. 1:12; 3:6.
Paul Becoming a Jew to the Jews.
16:3; 18:18 21:23-26.
1 Cor. 9:20.
Baptism of Crispus and Gaius.
18:8.
1 Cor. 1:14-17.
Collection for the Poor Brethren.
28:23.
1 Cor. 16:1.
Paul's Last Journey to Jerusalem.
20 ;6; 24:17
Rom. 15:25, 26
His Desire to Visit Rome.
19:21
Rom. 1:13;15:23
Paul an Ambassador in Bonds.
28:16-20
Eph. 6:19, 20
The Acts and Secular History.
The Acts brings Christianity in contact with the surrounding world and makes many allusions to various places, secular persons and events, though only incidentally and as far as its object required it. These allusions are--with a single exception, that of Theudas--in full harmony with the history of the age as known from Josephus and heathen writers, and establish Luke's claim to be considered a well-informed, honest, and credible historian. Bishop Lightfoot asserts that no ancient work affords so many tests of veracity, because no other has such numerous points of contact in all directions with contemporary history, politics, and typography, whether Jewish or Greek or Roman. The description of persons introduced in the Acts such as Gamaliel, Herod, Agrippa I., Bernice, Felix, Festus, Gallio, agrees as far as it goes entirely with what we know from contemporary sources. The allusions to countries, cities, islands, in Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy are without exception correct and reveal an experienced traveller. We mention the chief points, some of which are crucial tests.
1. The rebellion of Theudas, Acts 5:36, alluded to in the speech of Gamaliel, which was delivered about a.d. 33. Here is, apparently, a conflict with Josephus, who places this event in the reign of Claudius, and under the procuratorship of Cuspius Fadus, a.d. 44, ten or twelve years after Gamaliel's speech. [1100] But he mentions no less than three insurrections which took place shortly after the death of Herod the Great, one under the lead of Judas (who may have been Theudas or Thaddaeus, the two names being interchangeable, comp. Matt. 10:3; Luke 6:16), and he adds that besides these there were many highway robbers and murderers who pretended to the name of king. [1101] At all events, we should hesitate to charge Luke with an anachronism. He was as well informed as Josephus, and more credible. This is the only case of a conflict between the two, except the case of the census in Luke 2:2, and here the discovery of a double governorship of Quirinius has brought the chronological difficulty within the reach of solution. [1102]
2. The rebellion of Judas of Galilee, mentioned in the same speech, Acts 5:37, as having occurred in the days of the enrolment (the census of Quirinius), is confirmed by Josephus. [1103] The insurrection of this Judas was the most vigorous attempt to throw off the Roman yoke before the great war.
3. Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, 8:27. Strabo mentions a queen of Meroè in Ethiopia, under that name, which was probably, like Pharaoh, a dynastic title. [1104]
4. The famine under Claudius, 11:28. This reign (a.d. 41-54) was disturbed by frequent famines, one of which, according to Josephus, severely affected Judaea and Syria, and caused great distress in Jerusalem under the procuratorship of Cuspius Fadus, a.d. 45. [1105]
5. The death of King Herod Agrippa I. (grandson of Herod the Great), 12:20-23. Josephus says nothing about the preceding persecution of the church, but reports in substantial agreement with Luke that the king died of a loathsome disease in the seventh year of his reign (a.d. 44), five days after he had received, at the theatre of Caesarea, divine honors, being hailed, in heathen fashion, as a god by his courtiers. [1106]
6. The proconsular (as distinct from the propraetorian) status of Cyprus, under Sergius Paulus, 13:7 (sun to anthupato Sergio Paulo). Here Luke was for a long time considered inaccurate, even by Grotius, but has been strikingly confirmed by modern research. When Augustus assumed the supreme power (b.c. 27), he divided the government of the provinces with the Senate, and called the ruler of the imperatorial provinces, which needed direct military control under the emperor as commander of the legions, propraetor (antistrategos) or legate (presbutes), the ruler of a senatorial province, proconsul (anthupatos). Formerly these terms had signified that the holder of the office had previously been praetor (strategosor hegemon) or consul (hupatos); now they signified the administrative heads of the provinces. But this subdivision underwent frequent changes, so that only a well-informed person could tell the distinction at any time. Cyprus was in the original distribution (b.c. 27) assigned to the emperor, [1107] but since b.c. 22, and at the time of Paul's visit under Claudius, it was a senatorial province; [1108] and hence Sergius Paulus is rightly called proconsul. Coins have been found from the reign of Claudius which confirm this statement. [1109] Yea, the very name of (Sergius) Paulus has been discovered by General di Cesnola at Soli (which, next to Salamis, was the most important city of the island), in a mutilated inscription, which reads: "in the proconsulship of Paulus." [1110] Under Hadrian the island was governed by a propraetor; under Severus, again by a proconsul.
7. The proconsular status of Achaia under Gallio, 18:12 (Gallionos anthupatou ontos tes Achaias). Achaia, which included the whole of Greece lying south of Macedonia, was originally a senatorial province, then an imperatorial province under Tiberius, and again a senatorial province under Claudius. [1111] In the year 53-54, when Paul was at Corinth, M. Annaeus Novatus Gallio, the brother of the philosopher L. Annaeus Seneca, was proconsul of Achaia, and popularly esteemed for his mild temper as "dulcis Gallio."
8. Paul and Barnabas mistaken for Zeus and Hermes in Lycaonia, 14:11. According to the myth described by Ovid, [1112] the gods Jupiter and Mercury (Zeus and Hermes) had appeared to the Lycaonians in the likeness of men, and been received by Baucis and Philemon, to whom they left tokens of that favor. The place where they had dwelt was visited by devout pilgrims and adorned with votive offerings. How natural, therefore, was it for these idolaters, astonished by the miracle, to mistake the eloquent Paul for Hermes, and Barnabas who may have been of a more imposing figure, for Zeus.
9. The colonial dignity of the city of Philippi, in Macedonia, 16:12 ("a Roman colony," kolonia; comp. 16:21, "being Romans"). Augustus had sent a colony to the famous battlefield where Brutus and the Republic expired, and conferred on the place new importance and the privileges of Italian or Roman citizenship (jus Italicum). [1113]
10. "Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira," 16:14. Thyatira (now Akhissar), in the valley of Lycus in Asia Minor, was famous for its dying works, especially for purple or crimson. [1114]
11. The "politarchs" of Thessalonica, 17:6, 8. [1115] This was a very rare title for magistrates, and might easily be confounded with the more usual designation "poliarchs." But Luke's accuracy has been confirmed by an inscription still legible on an archway in Thessalonica, giving the names of seven "politarchs" who governed before the visit of Paul. [1116]
12. The description of Athens, the Areopagus, the schools of philosophy, the idle curiosity and inquisitiveness of the Athenians (mentioned also by Demosthenes), the altar of an unknown God, and the quotation from Aratus or Cleanthes, in Acts 17, are fully borne out by classical authorities. [1117]
13. The account of Ephesus in the nineteenth chapter has been verified as minutely accurate by the remarkable discoveries of John T. Wood, made between 1863 and 1874, with the aid of the English Government. The excessive worship of Diana, "the great goddess of Artemis," the temple-warden, the theatre (capable of holding twenty-five thousand people) often used for public assemblies, the distinct officers of the city, the Roman proconsul (anthupatos), the recorder or "town-clerk" (grammateus), and the Asiarchs (Asiarchai) or presidents of the games and the religious ceremonials, have all reappeared in ruins and on inscriptions, which may now be studied in the British Museum. "With these facts in view," says Lightfoot, "we are justified in saying that ancient literature has preserved no picture of the Ephesus of imperial times--the Ephesus which has been unearthed by the sagacity and perseverance of Mr. Wood--comparable for its life-like truthfulness to the narrative of St. Paul's sojourn there in the Acts." [1118]
14. The voyage and shipwreck of Paul in Acts 27. This chapter contains more information about ancient navigation than any work of Greek or Roman literature, and betrays the minute accuracy of an intelligent eye-witness, who, though not a professional seaman, was very familiar with nautical terms from close observation. He uses no less than sixteen technical terms, some of them rare, to describe the motion and management of a ship, and all of them most appropriately; and he is strictly correct in the description of the localities at Crete, Salmone, Fair Havens, Cauda, Lasea and Phoenix (two small places recently identified), and Melita (Malta), as well as the motions and effects of the tempestuous northeast wind called Euraquilo (A. V. Euroclydon) in the Mediterranean. All this has been thoroughly tested by an expert seaman and scholar, James Smith, of Scotland, who has published the results of his examination in the classical monograph already mentioned. [1119] Monumental and scientific evidence outweighs critical conjectures, and is an irresistible vindication of the historical accuracy and credibility of Luke.
The Acts an Irenicum.
But some critics have charged the Acts with an intentional falsification of history in the interest of peace between the Petrine and Pauline sections of the church. The work is said to be a Catholic Irenicum, based probably on a narrative of Luke, but not completed before the close of the first century, for the purpose of harmonizing the Jewish and Gentile sections of the church by conforming the two leading apostles, i.e., by raising Peter to the Pauline and lowering Paul to the Petrine Plane, and thus making both subservient to a compromise between Judaizing bigotry and Gentile freedom. [1120]
The chief arguments on which this hypothesis is based are the suppression of the collision between Paul and Peter at Antioch, and the friendly relation into which Paul is brought to James, especially at the last interview. Acts 15 is supposed to be in irreconcilable conflict with Galatian. But a reaction has taken place in the Tübingen school, and it is admitted now by some of the ablest critics that the antagonism between Paulinism and Petrinism has been greatly exaggerated by Baur, and that Acts is a far more trustworthy account than he was willing to admit. The Epistle to the Galatians itself is the best vindication of the Acts, for it expressly speaks of a cordial agreement between Paul and the Jewish pillar-apostles. As to the omission of the collision between Peter and Paul at Antioch, it was merely a passing incident, perhaps unknown to Luke, or omitted because it had no bearing on the course of events recorded by him. On the other hand, he mentions the "sharp contention" between Paul and Barnabas, because it resulted in a division of the missionary work, Paul and Silas going to Syria and Cilicia, Barnabas and Mark sailing away to Cyprus (15:39-41). Of this Paul says nothing, because it had no bearing on his argument with the Galatians. Paul's conciliatory course toward James and the Jews, as represented in the Acts, is confirmed by his own Epistles, in which he says that he became a Jew to the Jews, as well as a Gentile to the Gentiles, in order to gain them both, and expresses his readiness to make the greatest possible sacrifice for the salvation of his brethren after the flesh (1 Cor. 9:20; Rom. 9:3).