ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

1. The title

2. The author

3. The contents

4. The style

5. The date

6. The sources

7. The purpose

8. The historical value

9. The religious value

10. The chronology

11. The church and the book

1. The title. The accepted title of the fifth book of the NT, The Acts of the Apostles, appears to date from the end of the 2nd cent. Its Gr. form, Praxeis Apostolôn, is tr. into Lat. as Acta Apostolorum and Actus Apostolorum, “actus” being the term for the acts of a drama and not noticed by Lewis and Short’s Latin Dictionary in its NT use. There are few significant variations. Acts, the common abbreviation, is found in ancient times as well as expansion into The Acts of the Holy Apostles.

It has been commonly realized that the title is not an exact description of the contents of the book. The preaching, journeys, and adventures of ten of the apostles are by-passed, and significant “acts” of preachers without apostolic rank and distinction are mentioned. Judas, John, and James, from the original Twelve, have incidental mention. The Twelve are listed in the first ch. and have collective reference in such contexts as that of the Jerusalem congress. Properly, the book is The Acts of Peter and of Paul, and the two themes divide the book with some precision. In fact, there is an Acts 1 and an Acts 2, divided at 15:35. The first section traverses the emergence of the global Gospel and the reception of the Gentile Christians into an emancipated Church. The second section traces the expansion of the Church to the capital of the Rom. empire.

The first section could be described as The Acts of the Church, the second, The Acts of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Neither title is inclusive, and to accept the suggestion that the book be called The Acts of the Holy Spirit ignores the fact that the book is primarily a document of history and can be read as such. The Acts of the Apostles must, therefore, retain its title, and if it be pleaded that the story merges into the biography of one great man, Ralph Waldo Emerson can be quoted cogently. “There is properly no history; only biography.”

2. The author. No specific claim to authorship is contained in the text of the book itself. Tradition, however, is clear, ancient, and consistent. Tradition is supported by the internal evidence of style and subject matter. It will be convenient to examine the question under the following heads:

a. As early as the middle of the 2nd cent. the Church appears to have believed unanimously that Acts was written by Luke, the physician, the friend and fellow traveler of Paul. The evidence for this is strong. The Muratorian Canon, a document mutilated somewhat at its beginning and end, but listing in its eighty-five lines of bad Lat. most of the books of the NT, names the third gospel and Acts as the work of Luke the physician. Patristic evidence agrees. Irenaeus (c. a.d. 133-c. 200), Clement of Alexandria (c. a.d. 150-c. 215), Tertullian (c. a.d. 160-c. 200), and Origen (c. a.d. 185-c. 254) may be quoted in support of the Canon. It might be urged that this evidence is not cumulative, but merely the repetition of an original conjecture. On the other hand, a living tradition can span a cent., and if leading Christian scholars in the latter half of the 2nd cent. believed that a document frequently quoted throughout the whole of the cent. was of a certain authorship, there is strong supposition that their belief was soundly based and not the mere repetition of conjecture. And negatively, had the Church in the 2nd cent. been forced back upon conjecture concerning a document of such importance, why, unless strong tradition supported the fact, should Luke have been the favored choice?

b. If the 2nd cent. tradition arose from the compulsion of the internal evidence, the fact demonstrates the strength and clarity of that evidence. It leads to the following conclusions: (1) It is manifest that whoever wrote the third gospel also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. The preface of the second book refers to an earlier and related composition. Both books open with a formal prologue in the established style of Gr. historiography. The dedication to Theophilus links the two, and the end of the first book dovetails with the beginning of the second. The style and language point inevitably to one author, as does also the form of composition, for both books move similarly to a climax. It is clear that the writer of the second book had the form of the first in mind as he pictured Paul, his face “set steadfastly” toward Jerusalem and a betrayal, a passion, and a trial at the hands of those who wrought the death of Christ. Gentile sympathies, the heroism, worth, and ministrations of women, and a polemic and apologetic emphasis mark both works as the conception of the same mind and pen. (2) A habit of expression and choice of vocabulary common to both books make it highly probable that the author was acquainted with the Gr. medical writers. Linguistic evidence so occasional would not in itself finally prove that their common author was a physician, but in support of the tradition that “Luke, the beloved physician” (Col 4:14) was that author, the phenomenon is of evidential value. (3) A plain reading of the text of the second book makes it quite clear that the writer was a companion of Paul and a partner of his work in certain defined sections of his travels and endeavors. In four passages of varied length he introduces the first person pl. It is “we” instead of “they.” The sections are 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16, fr om which the following pattern of events is apparent. The author joined Paul, Silas, and Timothy at Troas. He could, indeed, have been “the Macedonian” (16:9) who was seen in a dream. At any rate, the author accompanied the party to Philippi, a city with which he appears to have been familiar, and stayed there when the others moved on. He was still at Philippi, or again there, when, at the close of his third journey, Paul was moving back in the direction of Jerusalem with the money he had collected from the Gentile churches. The author accompanied Paul on this tragic journey, did his best to persuade him to abandon the project, and was at hand two years later to accompany Paul to Rome. The period of Paul’s imprisonment was the ideal opportunity for a companion so circumstanced to carry out the fundamental research and to seek the interviews which were so patent a prerequisite for the writing of the two integrated and associated narratives, and so obviously their background and inspiration. These passages in the third person cannot, on the grounds of style, language, or the integrity of the narrative, be dissociated from the rest of the book. The two books were, therefore, written by a friend and companion of Paul who shared with the apostle certain portions of the experiences he details. (4) Could it be other than Luke? Timothy is excluded by events (20:5, 6). Neither Titus nor Silas accompanied Paul to Rome, nor were they there in his company. Other companions of the apostle from time to time were Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Tychicus, and Trophimus. None of them can be seriously considered as the writer of the gospel and its sequel. The epistles written during the period of Paul’s house confinement in Rome provide a clue. Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, almost beyond doubt, are documents of this period. Two of these letters mention Luke’s presence in Rome (Col 4:14; Philem 24). The case, therefore, seems proven. The 2nd cent. tradition of Lucan authorship is supported by the weight of internal evidence.

c. Little is known of Luke himself. He was a writer not given to revealing himself in his work. Perhaps there is a glimpse of the man’s self-effacing personality in his deliberate turning from the artificial and cultured language of his prologues to the plain vernacular with which he begins, continues, and ends his narrative. He sought not the creation of a literary masterpiece, but the plain effectiveness of his message. He was content to set forth Christ in his first composition, his friend in the second. Tradition has it that Luke was an Antiochene, and some stress has already been laid upon the sturdiness of tradition in this historical context. On the other hand, a careful reading of the Philippian sections seems to show that Luke, if not a native, was at least a sojourner of the Macedonian town. There is no reason why Philippi and Antioch should be exclusive. A Macedonian could easily count as a migrant Antiochene, or a man of Antioch could spend significant years in Philippi. Philippi had some standing as a medical center, and, in the close-knit Mediterranean world of the Rom. peace, movement was free, safe, and common. The movements of Aquila and Priscilla, of Apollos, and of Paul himself are evidence enough of such journeyings.

Luke’s character shows here and there. Paul’s adjective “beloved” says much. His style, mentioned above, is self-effacing and avoids all striving for effect. Tradition mentions that he was an artist, and the artist’s touch is evident in his words. His one aim was simplicity and the truth which accompanies it. Loyalty, a virtue allied to simplicity, was a shining mark of Luke’s character. He accepted Paul’s leadership without questioning, even after the apostle’s rejection of advice which circumstances certainly proved sound. Luke’s intellectual capacity is reflected in all his work. The gospel and its sequel are the writing of a first-rank historian and a man of exact and careful mind, painstaking in his research, accurate in his detail, and with a flair for the poetic and the dramatic.

3. The contents. The story overlaps the last scenes of the gospels and shows the risen Christ commissioning His apostles for a world-wide task, and their enabling for its performance by the gift of the Holy Spirit. It describes the first assault upon the world at Pentecost, with the scattered followers of Christ confident, united, and clear-cut in their message, proclaiming fearlessly in Jerusalem the truth committed to their care. It recounts their confrontation with the guilty hierarchy and the beginning of priestly and political persecution directed equally against the activities and the preaching of two distinct groups, those represented by Peter and the apostles on the one hand, and those represented by Stephen and the Hel. Jews on the other. The early appearance of the latter group in the internal and external activities of the Church is not without relevance in its careful pattern.

The brief but lucid outlines of Peter’s sermons and the long defense of Stephen before the Sanhedrin on the day of his martyrdom reveal the similarities and the differences of the twin movements of evangelism. Both are clear that Christianity is a consummation, that the risen Christ is the authentication of the Gospel, and that the Gospel finds its point and purpose in a proclamation of repentance. Peter stressed the OT preparation. Stephen, equally insistent on the outworking processes of history, had a wider world in view than the land of Israel and found historic precedent, as well as prophecy, in the OT. He was the predecessor of Paul and, at this point in the story, saw further than Peter.

The book is, in fact, early preoccupied to show the emergence of a new dynamic witness. Stephen, Philip, Paul is its sequence; Peter, at first the representative of a more exclusive and orthodox Jewry, is shown with subtle art adapting himself to a broader proclamation and merging his activities with those of the vigorous groups of Hel. Jews who claimed and won a part and place in the Church, and soon were thrust to the forefront of its testimony. Peter was found significantly in the home of a tanner at Joppa, when the historic call to Caesarea came to him.

It was primarily the enthusiasm and effectiveness of the Hel. Jews which precipitated major persecution and insured the expansion of Christianity beyond urban, parochial, or provincial limits. The Christian Diaspora found a rallying point in Syrian Antioch, which became the second capital of the Church. Through these early chapters the attentive reader will note the interweaving of the theme, a feature of the book’s style and pattern. Overlap, anticipatory reference, swift brevity, sudden expansiveness, and deliberate repetition reveal Luke’s own appraisal of the contents and his sense of the outworking theme.

From the call of the Gentiles to their formal acceptance by the Church at large is a span of six chs. With firm insistence the book shows that Peter, the champion of orthodoxy, opened the door. Peter is advisedly prominent in this section, though Paul has already appeared after the overlapping fashion of the book, arrested in his career of persecution on the Damascus road. The story of Paul’s missionary incursions into the Gentile world overlaps in similar fashion with the developing theme of Gentile-Jewish relations in the Church. A world is visibly opening as the reader turns the pages. Asia Minor is listening and eager. Neither Jerusalem nor Antioch could resist the evidence that something novel was afoot, a movement requiring decisions, vast reappraisement, and a wisdom in organization beyond anything envisaged in those first phases of the community’s life, which were described with cameo vividness in the opening chs.

The decisions of the Jerusalem congress bisect the book and officially and formally open the door to the Gentile convert. Christianity is obviously universal and not to be regarded as a reformed sect of Judaism or as a protest movement against corrupt religion, such as that which produced the Qumran community. With this vital question settled, the great man, who emerged as leader, adopted his final apostolic role. Paul (no longer Saul) moved along the trade routes to plant his Christian communities in the key cities of the world. It is possible to see the vision of the empire won for Christ forming in his mind. From Antioch of Pisidia to Rome itself, that pattern is visible in Paul’s evangelism.

The synagogues of the Dispersion were the stepping stones and the first point of contact. Paul was as clear as Peter that Christianity was a consummation and Judaism a preparation. But the blindness and archaism of Jerusalem is as evident abroad as in the metropolis. The readier acceptance, first evident among the Hel. Jews of Pal., is similarly a feature of the wider world. The book keeps this theme vividly in view.

The story moved from Asia to Europe, patiently analyzed the nature of opposition and persecution, and described the first attitudes of secular authority toward the Church. Neither the Areopagus in Athens nor Gallio’s court in Corinth saw aught pernicious or seditious in the new movement. The governor of Cyprus and the Asiarchs of Ephesus were also well-disposed. Two Rom. procurators of Judea and a puppet monarch, the best of the Herod family, failed to see any basis for legal or penal action against Paul, when metropolitan Jewry cornered its archenemy.

Out of such events came an appeal to Caesar, when the Rom. citizen from Tarsus, who was also an accomplished Hellenist and a superbly educated Jew, exercised his civic right. With a memorable tale of shipwreck to mark the course of the narrative, and with Paul moved to Rome by way of Crete and Malta, the story concluded indecisively with the apostle to the Gentiles under house arrest amid the densest concentration of Gentiles in the ancient world, imperial Rome herself.

Obviously the theme has followed one movement of history, and its reason for doing so will be analyzed in a later section. In the process it has become unwittingly a document of Rom. history, revealing life and government in the towns and cities of the empire, glimpsing the provincial proletariat, revealing the form and fashion of travel in that unified and well-policed world, and showing the unmistakable signs of the growing tension which reached breaking point in a.d. 66 with the Great Rebellion and Rome’s four years of grim disastrous war in Pal. Apart from the gospels, few other ancient texts show the empire in action so vividly and from so unusual an angle.

Manifestly, there were “acts” of other apostles and ministries like those of Stephen and Philip. Apollos of Alexandria was of their order. Who took Christianity to the great Egyp. city of the Nile delta? Who were the disturbing visitors “from Syria,” mentioned by Claudius in an imperial communication to the Alexandrians in a.d. 42? There were Christians in Rome awaiting Paul’s coming. Of their number were the much traveled Aquila and Priscilla, Paul’s hosts in Corinth. They had been expelled from Rome with the whole Jewish ghetto in a.d. 49 following disturbances, if Suetonius is read correctly, arising from the first preaching of Christianity in the capital city of the empire. But, by whom?

Similarly, the message passed unrecorded down other lines of communication and trade. The bearers are mentioned only in tenuous traditions. Was it Thomas who took Christianity to India? The trade routes were wide open, and the Italian seamen had found the secret of the monsoons. Did Matthew die in Persia or in Ethiopia? Who evangelized Bithynia from which Paul was turned aside? In the first decade of the 2nd cent., Pliny, the Rom. governor, found the area strongly Christian. The Acts of the Apostles has nothing to say about these parallel and divergent streams of activity and testimony. It remains a fascinating and often allusive story of one great drive of Christian expansion, one aspect of thirty years of church history. The writer clearly had his purpose and plan and was not to be diverted from it. He set out to use one roll of papyrus and used it well.

4. The style. Acts is written in clear and competent Gr., with a command of language and expression which marks the writer as an educated man seeking without self-conscious art to communicate efficiently with literate men. He wrote lucidly in the common dialect which was the lingua franca of the Eastern Mediterranean and its second language. At the same time there is found in all Luke’s writing more of the flavor of classical Gr. than anywhere else in the NT. His language matched his ability as a historian, and that was high. The simplicity of sincerity, conviction, and first hand reporting shows through, producing some memorable passages of descriptive narrative. The stories of the riot at Ephesus and the wreck of the big grain ship on the Malta beach merit a place in any anthology of ancient descriptive prose. As vivid, if more brief, are the stories of Peter’s release from prison, the noontide adventure on Simon’s roof where Peter dozed at Joppa, the debacle at Lystra, and the riot and rescue at Jerusalem.

Efficient reporting in brief is a feature of the book. Peter’s group of sermons and speeches of defense, the astonishing précis of the Areopagus address, with its allusiveness and evocation of atmosphere, and the communication to the Ephesian elders on the beach at Miletus are examples. The longer speeches of Stephen, Peter, and Paul are similarly vivid and efficiently interwoven with the theme. The book is in the full tradition of Gr. historiography, which uses speeches to evoke a background and to analyze meaning and motive, as well as to report. The speeches are not, however, fictional, but based on reliable report, sometimes at firsthand. They reveal some of the art of the writer for they are manifestly in character. Not only do Peter, Stephen, and Paul emerge in their reported words in sharp characterization, but even such minor characters as Gamaliel, the incisive town clerk of Ephesus, and the rhetorical Tertullus stand out clearly and individually.

The book, in short, is the writing of one who had command of his material, who knew what he wished most to say, who could stress with patience and repetition his most significant reports, and could cut and abbreviate ruthlessly when his main purpose was not directly furthered by the narrative. Such decisiveness requires a clarity of mind and a literary ability of no mean order.

5. The date. The date of publication is to some extent decided by its authorship. If Luke wrote the book, a 2nd cent. date is forthwith excluded on this ground alone. The date of Luke’s death would determine the narrower limits, and on this there is no information. Luke was with Paul during his last imprisonment, perhaps in a.d. 66 or 67 (2 Tim 4:11), and there is a strong presumption that he did not long survive his friend. A historian so diligent and accomplished would surely not have neglected the great and obvious duty which confronted him—to continue the story beyond its inconclusive ending in his second treatise. The trial before Nero, Paul’s further adventures, the arrest, and the end would have made a third book of surpassing interest and power. The fact that there is not even a tradition of such a book surely means that Paul’s chronicler did not survive long enough to write it. The Lucan authorship, therefore, if that is established, also precludes a late 1st cent. date. The allegation that Luke was familiar with the Antiquities of Flavius Josephus, published in a.d. 93, is no impediment. The allegation is quite ill-founded, and it might equally, and perhaps no more cogently, be urged in the contrary direction, that the writer of Acts was unfamiliar with the letters of Paul, which appear to have been collected and made generally available about a.d. 90. The date, late or early, must be determined on stronger grounds than this.

The argument for a Lucan authorship thus confines conjecture to the brief span of years between Paul’s first arrival in Rome and Luke’s death or incapacity, in other words to the seventh decade of the cent. It is possible on other evidence to press the matter a little more closely than this and to argue that the date was prob. early in the decade. The main points may be set forth as follows:

a. The book represents a view of Rome and the imperial power free from the fierce hostility which marks the Apocalypse, demonstrating a benevolent attitude which could hardly have survived the savage personal assault of Nero upon the Church in July, a.d. 64. It most certainly could not have been maintained after the same persecution had been broadened, written into law, and had claimed Paul as one of its victims. When the book was written, apparently there was still reason to hope that a proper presentation of Christianity might convince authority that the new movement was beneficent and certainly not politically disruptive or disloyal. Much less could the book have been written from such a hopeful angle after Domitian (a.d. 81-96) staged his empire-wide attack upon the Church.

b. Consonant with this date is the writer’s narrative of events. He writes as an eyewitness or as one in direct touch with eyewitnesses. His account, for example, of the procurator’s deference to Agrippa II is vividly true to life and to the facts of history, at a time when Rome was eager to conciliate influential opinion in an area obviously heading for major rebellion. Felix is a portrait true to life and consistent with Tacitus’ scorn. The sensible Gallio, brother of Seneca, appears in character. None of these accounts could have been written at a time too remote from the occurrences of the incidents described. References to titles, details of administration, life and government under Rom. rule, exact in varied nomenclature and true in atmosphere, similarly fit a 1st cent. context in a manner hardly to be achieved by other than a contemporary.

c. The evocation of atmosphere may be further stressed, for it points with some cogency to the date here advocated. The writer obviously knew Pal. when the heat and pressure of Jewish nationalism was building up for the great explosion of a.d. 66. He was also aware of the closely-knit character of world-wide Jewry, where sympathetic passions were rife. The fact that Jewish sedition was a wider and more serious imperial problem than even the costly and perilous revolt in Pal. has been adequately appreciated among historians only recently. It has been suggested that the absence of any reference to the grim climax of the war, the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, also points to a date for the book earlier than a.d. 70, the fatal year, but too much weight cannot be given to this. Luke was a competent historian and knew what to exclude. His focus was upon ten years earlier, and he reflected the spirit of that time with exactitude.

d. Also consonant with an early date is the simplicity of the theology evident in the book. The Resurrection is a prominent theme, and it might be supposed that this was the first and most relevant Christian emphasis. Later, mainly owing to the work and elaboration of Paul in his epistles, the doctrine naturally and salutarily took its place in the developed corpus of Christian truth. The primitive organization of the Church is described as if it were recent and relevant experience. The question of Gentile acceptance had a similar prominence and is stressed in a manner which would hardly have been necessary a generation later after the blow received by Jewry in the destruction of its home and center, together with the world-wide repercussions which must have followed.

6. The sources. This theme is one of comparative simplicity and may be set forth as follows.

a. Major portions of the second half of the book are the report of an eyewitness and a participant in events. The account of the visit to Philippi in ch. 16 and that of the two voyages in chs. 20, 21, 27, and 28 read like a personal diary. The use of the first person pronoun claims this authenticity, and the style and detail of the narrative in no way impugn the claim.

b. Events between chs. 21 and 27, where no personal participation is implied or claimed, nevertheless took place while Luke was in contact with the situation and are recounted with detail and a sureness of touch which mark them either as the work of an eyewitness or one in immediate contact with reliable witnesses. As for the speeches, Paul was a highly educated man and moved in a literate society. It would be quite surprising if he had retained no written outline of his major pronouncements. This applies to earlier speeches as well as the elaborate apologies of the later chs., and notably the Areopagus address.

c. Events falling between chs. 16 and 20 took place not far outside the orbit of Luke’s personal knowledge. He remained at Philippi when Paul, and later the rest of the party, moved on to Athens and Corinth, which was civilized territory with well-developed roads. There is no reason why a resident of Philippi who crossed to Troas to meet Paul should not have visted him in the course of ministries or sojourns in Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, and even Ephesus. Some of the events in these places are described with peculiar vividness.

d. Apart from personal knowledge, there was abundant opportunity to consult with eyewitnesses and participants. There was much coming and going among the apostolic community. Silas, for example, Titus, Timothy, Apollos, and Aristarchus seemed to have traveled extensively. It was not a world of rigid frontiers, and although the footpad haunted the more remote mountain roads and constituted one of the trials of Paul’s arduous journeying (2 Cor 11:26), travel on the main routes was easy and comparatively safe. Lydia of Thyatira conducted her business in Philippi. Apollos moved from Alexandria to Ephesus and thence to Corinth. Aquila had been born in Pontus, traveled to Italy where he met and married Prisca (or Priscilla, to use the diminutive and more familiar form), and then under Claudius’ ban, moved to Corinth. Timothy came from Lystra and Barnabas from Cyprus. Luke would have had rich opportunity to collect information from reliable and experienced witnesses, whose active memories extended back over two generations. Consider the following inferences: (1) If Luke was an Antiochene though he may have later moved to Philippi, he could have first met and appraised Paul in his earlier ministry and heard from him personally the story of Stephen, the Damascus road, and its sequel (Acts 7, 8, 9). The account of the first missionary journey (chs. 13, 14) could have been heard on the same occasion. It may have existed as a written report in the archives of the Church. It was a common Gr. habit to record details of travel and adventure. Xenophon’s Anabasis was more than four centuries old; biographical material in Herodotus, the historian and traveler, was older still. At Antioch (13:1) Luke could have met Barnabas, Simeon Niger, Lucius, and Manaen, the sources of information recorded and condensed in Acts 4:36, 37; 9:26-36; 11:20; 12:20-23; 25:13. (2) He would hear in Philippi the condensed account of the Asian section of the second journey, briefly outlined in 16:1-11, from Paul himself. The continuation of that journey and the stirring events of Paul’s ministry and travel up to the reunion at Philippi (20:5) would again find basis in Paul’s personal narrative. He and Luke were frequently together. There were others in the party (20:4) who were also in a position to supply vital information. (3) A vivid account of Philip’s early ministry is interpolated in ch. 8, significantly linked with the story of Stephen. Again the source is personal and firsthand. Philip resided at Caesarea and was Luke’s host (21:8) as the party passed that way on the journey to Jerusalem, and no doubt frequently again during Paul’s two-year incarceration in the garrison city. (4) During this same period, Luke had opportunity for a good deal of travel and interviewing. The early chs. of his gospel reveal his diligence in research and suggest a worthwhile contact with Mary. During the same period he may have met Peter and Peter’s protégé, John Mark. Mark was in Rome at a date a little later than this, and it is not known when he went there, but Luke was with him (Col 4:10, 14). Peter and Mark could be the authorities for the events of Acts 10 and 12, which Luke vividly recorded. (5) Mnason (Acts 21:16), an original disciple, no doubt possessed valuable information and was conveniently at hand for the historian. It is manifest, therefore, that Luke had full facilities for the collection of material on the two themes of his writing, and that his claim to have carefully sought out firsthand material (Luke 1:2) is one which the two books appear to justify, and known circumstances to have amply facilitated.

e. Nor is it impossible that there were written records. Luke, at the beginning of his gospel, speaks of many written accounts of Christ’s ministry, and these narratives are likely to have covered the events of the opening ch. or chs. of the Acts of the Apostles, which follow in natural sequence on the closing chs. of the “former treatise.” A certain episodic character in the first five chs. of the book could be accounted for by the supposition of written accounts. R. B. Rackham (Introd. xliii) goes so far as to suggest that John was the first historian of the Church, and supports his suggestion by an analysis of style and language which is not without effectiveness. Such fragments of narrative as the story of the woman taken in adultery, found in John 8, though apparently by another hand than his, suggest a habit of recording and a disposition to grant authority to such records and to accept them on their merits. Luke may have had access to collections of such memoranda. It is again emphasized that it was a literate age. The Jerusalem council of ch. 15 would not have adjourned without something in the nature of minutes and a record of the debate which preceded the final decision. What were Paul’s treasured “parchments” (2 Tim 4:13)? The possibility already mentioned that Paul’s speeches, and perhaps Peter’s also, existed in written form, in full text or in précis, is also strong. The early Christians became rapidly aware that they were part of a great movement of history. It is the natural instinct of such people to record.

This account of the book’s sources presupposes both Lucan authorship and the essential unity of the document. It has, therefore, by-passed the many suggestions of source and origin which arise from, or are invented to justify, sundry theories of authorship, date, and composition which a determined rejection of tradition and authority have inspired. Extravagance and audacity in theorizing and conjecture, which scarcely would be tolerated in other spheres of literary study, have been too frequent a feature of Biblical scholarship for almost a cent. and Acts has not escaped such destructive attention. Those interested in the major curiosities of this criticism will find a brief but documented summary in D. Guthrie’s competent New Testament Introduction (Gospels and Acts), 330-344.

7. The purpose. Every writer has his reasons and his motives, a point of view to urge upon his readers, a message to communicate, and vital information to set down and transmit. He is measured by the power of his persuasion, by the art with which he marshals and balances his facts, by the worth of what he has to say, and by the value of the history which he preserves and records. The writer’s purpose can be multiple, and to compass successfully more ends than one in a piece of historical writing is a heavy demand upon intelligence and conviction. Such success is the mark of Luke’s ability. More than one aim and purpose have been attributed to him by sympathetic commentators. They are not exclusive. Three views that Luke had in mind may be considered.

a. He sought, like any historian, to give permanence to extraordinary events and to record the birth of a movement which he sensed would change the course of history, and in which he himself was a privileged participant. His aim, in short, was that of the most austere of the great Gr. historians, Thucydides of Athens. The Great War which determined the future shape of Greece, and ended the Golden Age of Athens, had broken out between Thucydides’ Athens and the grim state of Sparta. The young historian, for Thucydides was no more than thirty years of age, set to work, “believing it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any which had preceded it....” Indeed it was, he believed, likely to be “the greatest movement yet known in history....” Luke might have had these words in mind when he penned the prologue to the gospel, of which the Acts of the Apostles is its necessary sequel.

The Great Commission spoke of expanding areas of witness from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Luke’s book interprets the words. The gospel had set out to record with historical exactitude all that Jesus “began to do and to teach.” The word “began” is significant because the first book was a beginning; the second recorded the next phase of the vast movement, with Christ’s power operative in the lives of His men. Six sections of the book seem to record the outward surge of the apostolic witness. Each ends with a general statement and comment upon the process. The first section is Acts 1:1 to 6:3, with the conclusion: “And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.” The Hel. evangelism begins with 6:8, and the story runs to 9:31, concluding with a clear reference to the Great Commission: “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace.” The next section begins with Peter’s momentous incursion into the Philistine coast and continues to 12:24: “But the word of God grew and multiplied.” From 12:25 to 16:5 runs the account of a great movement of Gentile evangelism. It concludes: “So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily”—“churches” now, not simply members. From 16:6 to 19:20 Paul’s progress is traced to its climax in Ephesus: “So the word of the Lord grew and prevailed mightily.” The final section takes the whole book to a logical conclusion. The scene has moved from Jerusalem to mighty Rome. The concluding words are general comment similar to the five vv. already quoted.

The divisions thus marked seem clear in the writer’s purpose, but refraining from punctuating the theme, the reader cannot fail to see the expanding purpose and the emerging dynamic Christian community, zealous, aggressive, experimenting, organizing with widening aim, vision, and endeavor. It is an honest picture. The abortive experiment in a community of possessions is shown for the failure it was, without unnecessary comment. Luke similarly recorded without comment the premature attempt to fill Judas’ place. He mentioned with frankness the tension between the Hel. and metropolitan Jews in the charitable ministrations of the Church (6:1). He told in full the somber story of Ananias and Sapphira. In spite of the common hostility of the Jewish establishment against the Church, Luke recorded with consistent fidelity every favorable Jewish reaction (Acts 5:34; 6:7; 17:11; 28:24). The picture of the primitive Church, its personalities and problems and the major movement of its Gentile witness, is sharp and clear. If Luke had no other purpose, he had this, and fulfilled it well.

b. A second purpose, necessarily interwoven with the first, is to set forth the universality of Christianity. Luke had only to tell with sympathy and understanding the story of Paul’s progress from Antioch and Jerusalem to Rome, to write simultaneously a commentary on Paul’s own contention: “There can not be Greek and Jew...slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all” (Col 3:11). He is careful to show that the liberal policy of Paul antedated the apostle and was no exotic invention of the scholar from Tarsus imposed upon a new movement of Judaistic reform. Philip went to the Samaritans and found acceptance among them. Stephen died for a wider gospel. Peter, not Paul, persuaded the Church to open its doors to the non-Jewish world after his adventure at Caesarea. Luke stressed the Gentile membership of the church at Antioch, where the Christians first found their name and where, perhaps, he himself first became interested in Christianity and first met the man who was to be the greatest influence in his life.

c. A second apologetic purpose is also clear. The allegations and insinuations of the hostile Jewish hierarchy, beginning with the trial of Christ Himself and reflected in the attitudes of many synagogues, made it relevant and urgent to stress the fact that Christianity was neither seditious nor disruptive. Apart from Jewish slander and intrigue, anyone who read aright the significance of such outbursts of hostility as the riot at Ephesus might have seen the urgency of such apology. Persecution was based in the proletariat. When the proletariat sickened of his cruelty, Nero himself was forced to call off the torment and murder of the Christians of Rome (Tac. Ann. 15. 44). Pliny, the governor of Bithynia, at the end of the first decade of the 2nd cent. was forced, at the insistence of the guild of the butchers, to commence formal suppression of Christianity in his province (Pliny, Letters 10. 56, 97). The shadows were gathering. Paul’s great vision of the empire for Christ was to be lost in their murk. Luke’s endeavor to show by repeated incidents that competent authorities had seen the Church in action, had heard the allegations against it, and had cleared it of all disloyalty, malice, or sedition was a highly relevant action. He did this effectively in a manner arising from the development of his theme. It is, in fact, an emphasis carried consistently forward from the gospel, where neither the procurator, Pilate, nor Herod Antipas found substance in the charges brought against the prisoner, and a Rom. centurion paid his tribute at the scene of death.

Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus, was convinced of the claims of Christianity. In Philippi, the Rom. colony and military bastion of northern Greece, the magistrates panicked when they found they had illegally assaulted and confined a Rom. citizen (Acts 16:35c.). In Corinth Gallio pompously swept the case from the order paper as one with which a Rom. court had no valid concern or jurisdiction (18:12ff.). The Asiarchs of Ephesus were manifestly well-disposed (19:31). The commandant of the Jerusalem garrison was respectful and had no reproach to make in his careful report to Caesarea (23:29). Festus saw no cause for punishment in the case as it was presented to him (5:24ff.). Agrippa II, a cultured and well-informed Jew, agreed.

It has even been suggested, in the light of this consistent stress, that Luke looked upon his book as a brief of Paul’s defense before the imperial tribunal in Rome. No doubt the book supplied sufficient detailed information for such a purpose, but Luke looked to a wider audience than the judge or judges of Paul’s appeal. Moreover, the apologetic theme is interwoven and not to be disassociated from the narrative as a whole. Luke told his story, doubtless with these emphases, but the events of significance which he underlined were meaningful in the same manner in the context of their occurrence, and at the time of their happening. Rome was a very real goal in Paul’s evangelism. It ranked with educated Jewry. To Rome, in the wide pattern of its imperialism, and to the devout Jews of his own Pharisaic caste, Paul sought with passion to bring the enlightening truth which he had received. That he failed in both objects, within the narrower span of his life’s effectiveness, does not diminish the value of a ministry which still influences history. Luke saw Jewry at large turn its back. At the time of Paul’s stay in Rome, the object of winning the empire, or at least winning freedom to preach and teach without let or hindrance wherever the writ of the empire ran, was still a real and attainable goal, canvassed in conversation and watchfully observed in its progress. That the apologetic thread should be visible and prominent in the whole woven skein of the book was inevitable and a tribute to the writer’s art.

8. The historical value. This theme has been touched at various angles under earlier headings, but it will be convenient to summarize and introduce a few other matters of importance.

a. If the Acts of the Apostles was written by Luke before a.d. 64, it was a contemporary document, both of the Early Church and the 1st cent. of the Rom. peace, of paramount importance. It portrayed life in the provinces of the empire from the point of view of the alien, underlined problems and difficulties of government, revealed the machinery of imperialism in varied action, and provided vivid glimpses into the daily life of the cities of the eastern Mediterranean not to be matched elsewhere. Roman history, for the period from Tiberius’ closing years to the principate of Nero, is dependent upon literary sources which were Rome-centered, and epigraphical sources which were impersonal and often problematical. Luke’s narrative fills in some of the gaps in this one-sided and fragmentary record.

b. It is fortunate that such a work was that of a trained mind and of a historian dedicated to accuracy and truth. The unity of the book has already been stressed. It builds to a climax and welds a complex variety of material together, omitting but never suppressing, emphasizing but never exaggerating, in a manner which demonstrates consistently the writer’s clarity of purpose and complete honesty of mind. The frank revelation of the shortcomings of the early Christians is matched by the plain report of the “sharp contention” (Acts 15:39) between Paul and Barnabas, and the obvious disapproval with which Luke viewed Paul’s last journey to Jerusalem. Paul had Luke’s unstinted admiration and strongest loyalty, but neither quality quenched Luke’s independence of mind and pursuit of historical truth. He wrote down what he judged worthy of transmission.

c. Authenticity may be tried at various points. Luke’s narrative traverses an immense tract of scene and circumstance and provides varied opportunity for that acid test of all historical writing—truth to life and veracity of detail. Paul went to Lystra and found himself for the first time in a Gentile environment, both alien and primitive. He and Barnabas became the center of an embarrassing experience, were mistaken for Hermes and Zeus in human form, and almost became the objects of worship and sacrifice (14:6-19). It is curious to find the Rom. poet Ovid writing half a cent. before and detailing the story of Philemon and Baucis, which explains the local cult of Zeus and Hermes and accounts for the mistake of the rustic Lycaonians (Met. 8. 620-724). Let the story be probed a little more deeply in detail. Paul was the speaker, and thus he filled the role of Hermes, the gods’ interpreter. Barnabas, more silent and withdrawn, was called Zeus. The population prepared to sacrifice “before the city.” Archeologists have uncovered at Isauria, not far away, an altar to “Zeus before the gate.” An inscr. from Lystra dedicates an altar to the same two deities. The consistency of the evidence is striking.

Other localities are the scene of experiences just as revealing. With the ready adaptability which was the product of his Hellenism, Paul proceeded to Athens and forthwith adopted the manner and method of a Socrates. He argued and taught in the agora (Acts 17:17) with any who would talk and listen, and the scene might be duplicated from more than one Platonic dialogue. The Areopagus Court, which appears to have held some jurisdiction over who should teach in Athens, invited Paul to explain himself. Addressing himself rather to the Stoics with whom he had some points of contact, both in basic theology and by virtue of his Cilician origin, Paul spoke in a manner superbly adapted to the occasion and with a relevance and understanding of his audience which no one acquainted with Athenian thought and Athenian lit. could possibly miss.

Was it not the same Paul in an utterly different context, but betraying the same rhetorical technique, who addressed himself to the Pharisaic section of the Sanhedrin, with whom he had some intellectual contact, disregarding the Sadducees as he disregarded the Epicureans? And was it not the writer who thus briefly but surely depicted the same mind in action, simultaneously passing a stringent test of historiography? Ephesus is equally instructive. In smaller compass is the scene on the storm-driven galley, replete with details of ship and navigation and vivid in its stark reporting.

d. With similar surety Luke moved through the ramifications of imperial administration. Detail again provided a test. In 22 b.c., for example, Augustus made Cyprus a senatorial province. In the disguised autocracy called the empire, provincial administration was divided between the emperor and the now largely impotent Senate. Senatorial provinces continued to be governed by proconsuls—the deputy of Acts 13:7 being an officer of this order. In a ch. further on (14:6), it is implied that in passing from Iconium to Lystra, Paul and Barnabas crossed an administrative frontier. Literary evidence from the 1st cent. appeared to contradict this assumption, and Luke seemed convicted of geographical error. Local inscrs., obviously the final proof, show that Luke, and not two eminent Rom. writers, was correct. (F. F. Bruce assembles the material in his Acts of the Apostles, 289.)

Luke’s accuracy in the terminology of magistracy was mentioned in connection with the proconsul of Cyprus. It may be similarly tested in Gr. political contexts. In Philippi, for example, the officials are called “strategoi,” the Gr. equivalent of praetors (16:20, 35). It can be demonstrated from epigraphical evidence that this was a courtesy title for the “duumviri” of a Rom. colony. Cicero speaks a little ironically of the practice (De Leg. Agr. 2. 93).

In the following ch. where Luke mentioned the magistrates of Thessalonica (Acts 17:6, 8), the term “politarch” is used, a title not found elsewhere in extant lit. It was once dismissed as ignorance on Luke’s, or the writer’s, part. Sixteen epigraphical examples have since come to light from the area to prove that it was a Macedonian term. Epigraphy similarly confirms Luke’s title for “the first man” of Malta.

These tests of detail support the contention that Luke’s book must be treated with deep respect by all historians, not only ecclesiastical but also classical, a fact not sufficiently recognized by the latter class.

9. The religious value. There must be a certain overlapping of theme, for Christianity is historically based, and the religious value of the Acts of the Apostles is interwoven with its significance and worth as a document of Early Church history, its evangelism and teaching. Luke wrote as a historian, but as a Christian historian.

a. The book reveals the emergence of the Christian Church as a separate entity. It is clear that at the beginning the first Christians had no thought of disassociating themselves from Judaism in which they had been bred. They continued to use the Temple as their center and rallyingpoint (2:46; 3:1, 11; 5:21, 42), just as Christ Himself had done, and the faithful remnant before Him (Luke 2:37). The priests, from whom numerous converts were drawn (Acts 6:7), no doubt continued in their formal duties. It is true that the Church in those first days had the coherence of any protest movement, but that was no uncommon situation. The Qumran sect had sought the desert, in deliberate separation from urban Jewry and its manifest corruption. It was an old instinct of Israel to seek the desert and the old pure sources of undefiled devotion. Urban religion, ever prone to apostasy of one sort and another, was never safe from the sudden irruption of an Elijah, an Amos, or a John the Baptist with a fearless challenge and a call to repentance.

Christianity itself had been preceded by a wilderness movement of unprecedented proportions, but the first Christian groups sensed no call to withdraw or to separate. They remained where they were, predominantly in the cities, it appears, in confrontation with the Judaism they sought to enlighten and reform. But all societies demand a measure of organization, and it rapidly became clear that the Church, conscious of the apostles’ leadership, and increasingly aware that it was a society apart from both hierarchy and synagogue, needed some framework of authority, hence, the appointment of the deacons (6:1-6).

It was the scattering occasioned by persecution (8:1) which accelerated the process of self-awareness. Driven from Jerusalem, and finding a second headquarters in Antioch, the Christian community which separated from the apostles’ authority seems to have developed a democratic organization on the model of the Gr. political “ecclesia” (11:29; 13:1-3), which assumed responsibility for the dispatch of missionaries (13:2) and relief of the poor (11:29). The primacy of the Jerusalem community was recognized, both because of the presence of the apostles and because of the ancient sanctity of the Holy City. This preeminence was to pass with the destruction of Jerusalem in the Great Revolt (a.d. 66-70). There are indications that this tragedy was for the health of the Church, for Jerusalem was clearly the home of the Pharisaic wing of the Church, more rigid in its Judaism than the task of world evangelism warranted and aloof from Gentile participation. The scattering of the Jerusalem church members relieved Christians at large from the embarrassment felt by Paul and James before the intransigence of this group (21:17-26).

Luke described frankly enough this potential schism, but was more impressed by the emerging unity of the Church than by any of its divisions or differences. Paul is revealed as the model of all church statesmen, strong in controversy (15:2), conciliatory, as his world-wide collection for the poor of the Judean church pathetically demonstrated, clear-cut in his doctrine, and unwavering in the drive to his goal. The whole attitude of the Church, as the book reveals it, was a zeal for expansion and extension, a sense of mission, which has inspired the missionary effort of all the centuries. The book is “the great handbook of Christian missionary enthusiasm” (A. W. Blunt).

b. The book records the content of the first Christian preaching, and the first formulation of doctrine. In the first five chs. there is reference to four sermons or speeches of Peter (2:14-40; 3:12-26; 4:8-12; 5:30-32). The outline is brief, but Luke is something of a master in the art of précis, and the account of what was said was prob. direct from Peter himself. An examination of these four short statements is enough to establish certain significant facts. It is clear that Paul’s Christology was not the elaborate invention of the apostle to the Gentiles. It is visible in its fundamentals in Peter’s doctrine. The approach is invariably an appeal to the OT with full acceptance of its authority. Christ was the promised Messiah, whose coming, death, and resurrection were foretold in prophecy. The bodily historical resurrection is given prominence. This, it should be noted, took place in Jerusalem, where the verification of the empty tomb was a simple matter. In short, Luke’s revelation of the first forms of Christian doctrine give no manner of encouragement or excuse to any modification or corruption of Christianity which diminishes the authority of the Heb. Scriptures, denies the full messiahship of Christ, or questions the historicity of the resurrection. It must be noted that Peter in his earlier pronouncements, like Paul after him (17:30, 31), preached for decision and pointed his appeal with a strong call to repent. Little is said in these early speeches of the life and ethical teaching of Christ, but the context of the utterances accounts for this omission. The Church was first in confrontation with the world. These were not directions to Christian communities anxious to interpret their Christian faith in daily behavior and social attitudes.

Stephen’s long statement before the hostile Sanhedrin is revealing as the utterance of a Hel. Jew and a spiritual and intellectual predecessor of Paul. He began with OT Scriptures, showing on a broader scale than Peter how the whole history of Israel and the message of its prophets found fulfillment and meaning only in Christ. To Him he ascribed a Messianic title, “Righteous One” (7:52). The speech was interrupted by tumult, and it is clear enough that the end is hurried and abbreviated. In Acts 7:56, however, there is the clearest declaration of the Resurrection.

It is interesting to set the first reported sermon of Paul alongside the statements of Peter and Stephen. The four elements noted earlier are all present: the Deity of the crucified Christ, the witness to the Resurrection, the confirmation of the OT, and the call to repent.

It is the same with the addresses to Gentile audiences, of which there are two interesting examples. All the elements noted are present except that of OT confirmation, irrelevant in such a context. Paul resorted to natural theology in the case of the sermon at Lystra, and to philosophic, theistic speculation in the case of the more sophisticated approach to the Areopagus Court in Athens. The whole speech was a brilliantly interwoven structure of Hebraic and Hellenic thought.

A complete Christology can therefore be constructed from the Acts of the Apostles alone. That He “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, descended to the Unseen World, rose again on the third day” can be taken phrase by phrase, like the rest of the Creed, and illustrated and documented by quotation from the book. The doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ is implicit. He bears Messianic titles. The Atonement is implied in the call to repentance and faith, and baptism for the forgiveness of sins. The Holy Spirit is a fact of daily experience, enabling, guiding, enlightening.

A. W. Blunt summarizes well in the Clarendon Bible: “The impression which Acts gives is of a society with an astonishing power and vigour, of a common life which has not yet learnt or tried fully to define the conditions of its own existence, but which understands enough to acknowledge in Jesus Christ, exalted at God’s right hand, the source from which it flows, and to rely on the Spirit of Christ as its permanent principle of vitality. Interpretation and formulation were necessary stages, and soon followed; but this was the first and originative phase in the story of the doctrinal development of Christianity.”

To underline then, in conclusion of this section, a point already made: without Luke’s narrative of this first generation of the preaching and endeavor of the Church, the epistles of the NT would have stood apart from the gospels as mature but isolated statements of doctrine. Since so large a portion of their corpus is from the fertile pen of Paul, it would have been more possible than it now is to disassociate the teaching of Christ and the teaching of Paul. The attempt has been made with persistence and ingenuity enough. The narrative of Luke denies the likelihood or possibility. This is the supreme religious contribution of the book to Christian theology.

10. The chronology. In view of Luke’s undoubted carefulness in chronology, it is disappointing to find some quite intractable problems in his second book, for which he is hardly to blame. It was his rejection of all conjecture concerning dates which led to the use of vague phrases such as “in those days” or “after certain days,” in the earlier part of the book. On this point Luke reflected the uncertainty of his authorities, the men and women of the