The Truthfulness of the Acts.
The book of Acts is, indeed, like every impartial history, an Irenicum, but a truthful Irenicum, conceived in the very spirit of the Conference at Jerusalem and the concordat concluded by the leading apostles, according to Paul's own testimony in the polemical Epistle to the Galatians. The principle of selection required, of course, the omission of a large number of facts and incidents. But the selection was made with fairness and justice to all sides. The impartiality and truthfulness of Luke is very manifest in his honest record of the imperfections of the apostolic church. He does not conceal the hypocrisy and mean selfishness of Ananias and Sapphira, which threatened to poison Christianity in its cradle (Acts 5:1 sqq.); he informs us that the institution of the diaconate arose from a complaint of the Grecian Jews against their Hebrew brethren for neglecting their widows in the daily ministration (61 sqq.) he represents Paul and Barnabas as "men of like passions" with other men (14:15), and gives us some specimens of weak human nature in Mark when he became discouraged by the hardship of missionary life and returned to his mother in Jerusalem (13:13), and in Paul and Barnabas when they fell out for a season on account of this very Mark, who was a cousin of Barnabas (15:39); nor does he pass in silence the outburst of Paul's violent temper when in righteous indignation he called the high-priest a "whited wall" (23:3); and he speaks of serious controversies and compromises even among the apostles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit--all for our humiliation and warning as well as comfort and encouragement.
Examine and compare the secular historians from Herodotus to Macaulay, and the church historians from Eusebius to Neander, and Luke need not fear a comparison. No history of thirty years has ever been written so truthful and impartial, so important and interesting, so healthy in tone and hopeful in spirit, so aggressive and yet so genial, so cheering and inspiring, so replete with lessons of wisdom and encouragement for work in spreading the gospel of truth and peace, and yet withal so simple and modest, as the Acts of the Apostles. It is the best as well as the first manual of church history.
[1096] See the conclusive proof in Zeller, pp. 414-452 (Engl. transl. by Dare, vol. II. 213-254). Holtzmann (Syn. Evang., p. 875): "Als ausgemacht darf man heutzutage wohl annehmen, dass der Verfasser der Apostelgeschichte und des dritten Evangeliums ein und dieselbePerson sind."Renan speaks in the same confident tone (Les Apôtres, pp. x. and xi. .): "Une chose hors de doute, c'est que les Actes ont eut le méme auteur que le troisiéme évangile et sont une continuation de cet évangile ... La parfaite ressemblance du style et des idées fournissent à cet égard d'abondantes démonstrations .... Les deux livres réunis font un ensemble absolument du mime style, présentant les mémes locutions favorites et la méme façon de citer l'écriture."Scholten dissents from this view and vainly tries to show that while both books originated in the school of Paul, the third evangelist elevates Paulinism above Jewish Christianity, and the author of Acts recommends Paul to the Jewish-Christian party. The Gospel is polemical, the Acts apologetic. Das Paulinische Evangelium, etc., transl. from the Dutch by Redepenning, Elberf., 1881, p. 315.
[1097] The history of the Reformation furnishes a parallel; namely, the further progress of Christianity from Rome (the Christian Jerusalem) to Wittenberg, Geneva, Oxford and Edinburgh, through the labors of Luther, Calvin, Cranmer and Knox.
[1098] Ewald, in his Commentary on Acts (1872), pp. 35 sqq., infers from the use of the little word we and its connection with the other portions that the whole work is from one and the same author, who is none other than Luke of Antioch, the "beloved" friend and colaborer of Paul. Renan says (La apôtres, p. xiv.): "Je persiste à croire que le dernier rédacteur des Acts est bien le disciple de Paul qui dit 'nous'aux derniers chapitres,"but he puts the composition down to a.d. 71 or 72 (p. xx.), and in his Les Évangiles, ch. xix., pp. 435 sqq., still later, to the age of Domitian.
[1099] First published in 1790, and often since. See also the list of parallel passages in Dr. Plumptre's Com. on Acts, pp. x. and xi.
[1100] Ant. XX. 5, § 1.
[1101] Ant. XVII. 10.
[1102] See above, p. 122.
[1103] Ant. XVIII. 1; XX. 5, § 2; War, II. 8, § 1. In the first passage Josephus calls Judas a Gaulonite (i.e., from the country east of Galilee), but in the other passage he is described as a Galilaean. He may have been a native of Gaulonitis and a resident of Galilee.
[1104] Strabo, XVII., p. 820; comp. Pliny IV. 35; Dion Cass., LIV. 5.
[1105] Josephus, Ant. XX. 5; comp, Tacitus, Ann. XII. 43; Sueton., Claud. 28.
[1106] Ant. XVIII. 8.
[1107] Strabo, XIV., at the close.
[1108] Dio Cassius, LIII. 12.
[1109] Akerman, Numismatic Illustrations, pp. 39-42.
[1110] TON EPI - PAULOU - [ANTh]UPATOU. See Louis Palma di Cesnola's Cyprus: Its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples, New York, 1878, p. 424 sq. He says: "The Proconsul Paulus may be the Sergius Paulus of the Acts of the Apostles 13, as instances of the suppression of one or two names are not rare." Bishop Lightfoot ("Cont. Review" for 1876, p. 290 sq.) satisfactorily accounts for the omission of Sergius, and identifies also the name Sergius Paulus from the elder Pliny, who mentions him twice as a Latin author in the first book of his Natural History and as his chief authority for the facts in the second and eighteenth books, two of these facts being especially connected with Cyprus. The Consul L. Sergius Paulus, whom Galen the physician met at Rome a.d. 151, and whom he mentions repeatedly, first under his full name and then simply as Paulus, may have been a descendant of the convert of the apostle.
[1111] Tacitus, Ann. I. 76; Sueton., Claudius, c. 25.
[1112] Metam., VIII. 625-724.
[1113] Dion Cass., LI. 4; Pliny, Nat. Hist. IV.11.
[1114] Strabo, XIII. 4, § 14. Inscriptions found in the place attest the existence of a guild of purple-dealers, with which Lydia was probably connected.
[1115] tous politarchas , i.e.,tous archontas ton politon, praefectos civitatis, the rulers of the city. Grimm says: "Usitatius Graecis erat, poliarchos "
[1116] The Thessalonian inscription in Greek letters is given by Boeckh. Leake, and Howson (in Conybeare and Howson's Life and Letters of St. Paul, ch. IX., large Lond. ed., I. 860). Three of the names are identical, with those of Paul's friends in that region-Sopater of Beraea (Acts 20:4), Gaius of Macedonia (19:29), and Secundus of Thessalonica (20:4). I will only give the first line: POLEITARChOUNTON SOSIPATROU TOU KLEO.
[1117] See the commentaries on Acts 17:16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 28. The singular theo in 17:23 creates some difficulty; for Pausanias (I. 1-4) mentions "altars to unknown gods" which were set up in the harbor and streets of Athens; and Diogenes Laërtius (Epimen., c. 3) speaks of "altars without name" in many parts of Athens. It is supposed that Paul meant one of these altars, or that he ingeniously adapted the polytheistic inscription to his argument. In the dialogue Philopatris which is erroneously ascribed to Lucian, one of the speakers swears "by the unknown god of Athens."
[1118] See Wood:Discoveries at Ephesus, and Lightfoot's article above quoted, p. 295. Lightfoot aided Mr. Wood in explaining the inscriptions.
[1119] Comp. § 82 of this vol., and myCompanion to the Greek Test., p. 61.
[1120] This view was first broached by Baur (1836, 1838, and 1845), then carried out by Schneckenburger (1841), more fully by Zeller (1854), and by Hilgenfeld (1872, and in his Einleitung, 1875). Renan also presents substantially the same view, though somewhat modified. "Les Actes"(Les Apôtres, p. xxix.) "sont une histoire dogmatique, arrangée pour appuyer les doctrines orthodoxes du temps ou inculquer les idées qui souriaíent le plus à la pieté de l'auteur."He thinks, it could not be otherwise, as we know the history of religions only from the reports of believers; "i il n'y a que le sceptique qui écrive l'histoire ad narrandum."