RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Luke
pal outlines. His historical investigations therefore were limited in extent and need have lasted scarcely a year. Indeed, the ensemble of the Lucan Gospel is rather that of a narrative produced under the influence of the Marcan Gospel with the many additions, already noted, of events which seemed fully guaranteed, and which appeared, in accordance with the writer's scheme, to demand a place in the story. It presents also such omissions and transpositions as were necessary, in the plan conceived, to produce in new form a well-ordered history of the life of Jesus, such as would be adapted to the situation of the reader for whom it was ostensibly designed. So far as the preface is concerned, therefore, the Gospel might have proceeded from the pen of the historic Luke.
Or does the pretended circumstance that the Gospel contains vague recollections or statements in conflict with certified fact compel one to suppose that the author or editor of sources lived at a later period? It may be admitted that in this or that one may think of legendary recasting
4. Bearing or adornment. Such material many Upon find in the Gospel of the Infancy and
Author- in other details. But these are practiship. cally paralleled in the Gospels of Mark
and Matthew, which are rightly regarded as belonging to apostolic times, and failure has met the attempts to set the point at which these elements enter. So far as disagreement with other reports is concerned, it has first to be discovered which reports are correct, whether indeed reconciliation is not possible. Here is to be noted the relationship of Luke's history of the glorification of Jesus to I Cor. xv. 5 sqq., since the narrative of Luke has so little in common with the enumeration of Paul, though even here there are points which agree, and explanation of Lucan omissions is easy. On the whole, the Gospel would thus occupy an excellent position were it not that the Acts of the Apostles seems, under the methods of criticism, to draw it into the vortex of unreliability.
The Acts of the Apostles appears as a continuation of the Gospel. The occasion calling it forth must have been something different from that which educed the Gospel, whether Theophilus had
become a Christian or not. Christian-
5. Charac- ity might have seemed to some an unter of the justified break with the past, an illy
Acts of the ordered revolutionary movement des- Apostles. tined to fail. The Acts sets forth the development of the later from the primitive apostolic Christianity, its extension into the world of the heathen, especially by the instrumentality of Paul, whose figure is soon introduced into the picture. The purpose of the book seems to agree with that expressed in the preface to the Gospel. The old view that there is a paralleling of the fortunes of Peter and Paul, and the other exposition that the purposes of these two are harmonized, are no longer maintained. That Paul could in his epistles speak otherwise than he does in the speeches of the Acts goes without saying, whether the speeches reported in the Acts be actual reports or assumed addresses made up after the pattern of Greek historiography. There is no a priori rea-
son why Peter should not early have found the way toward universalism, and it would be difficult to show that Paul could not have made use in the synagogues of the privileges of a born Jew (I Cor. ix. 19 sqq.).
The difficulty really lies where Luke has to do with Pauline accounts. The locus classicus is Acts xv. 1 sqq., compared with Gal. ii. 1 sqq. Earlier and later attempts to harmonize these passages upon the basis of another journey to Jerusalem must be rejected. The most frequent 6. Histori- method of lightening the difficulty is cal Diffi- to show that according to Luke's reculties of port the decree was applicable to the Acts xv. original community, that it was not an ordinance for converts from heathenism to which they were bound for the sake of salvation, that in general it involved nothing new so far as the general duty of Christians was concerned, and that therefore it was not necessary for Paul to mention it either to the Galatians or, indeed, later to make it a matter of injunction. This does not do away with the necessity for further attempts at enlightenment, and in view of the fact that the issuance of the decree can not be doubted while only the question of the occasion is in dispute, and further, since it is given by an author whose intention to be trustworthy appears from Luke i. 3, it is a duty not only of harmonistic interest but of historical exposition to attempt the solution of the problem. A beginning is to be made with a question of textual criticism. The olg ovde of Gal. ii. 5 has usually been regarded as relating the sentence to the circumcision of Titus. But in fact it may have been that this construction of the sentence influenced the introduction of those two words and that they are to be stricken out- (so Ambrosiaster, Tertullian, Victorinus, Ireraeus, Pelagius, and the codices D, d, and e). Verse 5 then may refer to the recognition on the part of Paul and Barnabas of the decree known to the Galatians. Paul is dealing with the calumnies uttered against him to the effect that he was a time-server (Gal. i. 10). He relates, therefore, the history of the events in his life which led up to the decree, states his independence as an apostle, tells of his exposition of his teaching before the authorities in Jerusalem, affirms that he had not yielded to the subjection of the " false brethren " (Gal. ii. 4) so far as Titus was concerned though he had yielded a point elsewhere; while so far as the meeting with Peter in Antioch was concerned, Peter had received the blame. When compared with Acts xv. this narrative seemed to be obscure, and relief was sought by the addition of the olf ovSe in question in order to reconcile Paul and Luke. Paul was able to give adhesion to the decree so far as he did in permitting it to be sent to his congregations, indeed in personally imparting it to them (Acts xvi. 4), but he did not obligate himself to apply it to his mission field, though he was not personally opposed to it. While James could not disavow his own proposal (Acts xxi. 25), he could recognize that Paul was not bound to advance the matter and might have been ready to protect Paul in the latter's position. Finally Luke may have had an interest in informing Theophilus,
Luke Lully