SEC 1. Trustworthiness
that an unknown person came to Auburn from New York, and you wished to find out whether he was an impostor or not. In our country we are exposed to frequent attempts at imposition, which can often be detected by a few questions; and you would probably ask him about his experiences on his journey from New York to Auburn. Now suppose you had been informed that he had come not along the direct road, but by a long detour through Boston, Montreal, and Toronto, and had thus arrived at Auburn; and suppose that you by questioning elicited from him various facts which suited only a route through Schenectady and Utica, you would condemn the man as an impostor, because he did not know the road which he pretended to have travelled. But suppose further that it was pointed out by some third party that this stranger had really travelled along the direct road, and that you had been misinformed when you supposed him to have come by the round-about way, your opinion as to the stranger’s truthfulness would be instantly affected. Precisely similar is the case of Acts as a record of travel; generations and centuries have been attempting to apply it to the wrong countries. I must speak on this point confidently and uncompromisingly, for the facts stand out so clear and bold and simple that to affect to hesitate or to profess any doubt as to one’s judgment would be a betrayal of truth.
I know the difficulties of this attempt to understand rightly a book so difficult, so familiar, and so much mis- understood as Acts. It is probable that I have missed the right turn or not grasped the full meaning in some cases. I am well aware that I leave some difficulties unexplained, sometimes from inability, sometimes from mere omission.
The Acts of the Apostles CHAP. I
But I am sustained by the firm belief that I am on the right path, and by the hope that enough of difficulties have been cleared away to justify a dispassionate historical criticism in placing this great writer on the high pedestal that belongs to him.
2. DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN CRITICISM ON ACTS. With regard to the trustworthiness of Acts as a record of events, a change is perceptible in the tendency of recent criticism. Setting aside various exceptional cases, and also leaving out of sight the strictly “orthodox” view, which accepts Acts as truth without seeking to compare or to criticise (a view which in its simplicity and completeness needs neither defence nor examination), we may say that for a time the general drift of criticism was to conceive the book as a work composed in the second century with the intention of so representing (or rather misrepresenting) the facts as to suit the writer’s opinion about the Church questions of his own time. All theories of this class imply that the atmosphere and surroundings of the work are of the second-century type; and such theories have to be rounded on a proof that the details are represented in an inaccurate way and coloured by second-century ideas. The efforts of that earlier school of critics were directed to give the required proof; and in the attempt they displayed a misapprehension of the real character of ancient life and Roman history which is often astonishing, and which has been decisively disproved in the progress of Roman historical investigation. All such theories belong to the pre-Mommsenian epoch of Roman history: they are now impossible for a rational and educated critic; and they hardly survive except in popular magazines and novels for the semi-religious order.
SEC 2. Development of Modern Criticism on Acts.
But while one is occasionally tempted to judge harshly the assumption of knowledge made by the older critics where knowledge was at the time difficult or impossible, it is only fair also to emphatically acknowledge the debt we owe them for practising in a fearless and independent spirit the right and much needed task of investigating the nature and origin of the book.
Warned by the failure of the older theories, many recent critics take the line that Acts consists of various first century scraps put together in the book as we have it by a second-century Redactor. The obvious signs of vivid accuracy in many of the details oblige these critics to assume that the Redactor incorporated the older scraps with no change except such as results from different surroundings and occasional wrong collocation. Some hold that the Redactor made considerable additions in order to make a proper setting for the older scraps. Others reduce the Redactor’s action to a minimum; Spitta is the most remarkable example of this class. In the latter form the Redaction-theory is the diametrical opposite of the old tendency theories; the latter supposed that the second century author coloured the whole narrative and put his own views into every paragraph, while, according to Spitta, the Redactor added nothing of consequence to his first century materials except some blunders of arrangement. The older theories were rounded on the proof of a uniformity of later style and purpose throughout the book; the later theories depend on the proof of differences of style between the different parts. The old critics were impressed by the literary skill of the author, while the later critics can see no literary power or activity in him. Any argument in favour of the one class of theories tells
The Acts of the Apostles CHAP. I
against the other; and, if we. admit (as I think we must admit), that each view is rounded on a correct but one-sided perception of certain qualities in this remarkable book, we may fairly say that each disproves the other.
Certain theorists, and especially Clemen in his extraordinarily ingenious and bold work Chronologie der Paulinischen Briefe, see clearly that such a bald scissors-and-paste theory as Spitta’s is quite inadequate to explain the many-sided character of this history. Dr. Clemen supposes that three older documents, a history of the Hellenistic Jews, a history of Peter, and a history of Paul, were worked into one work by a Judaist Redactor, who inserted many little touches and even passages of considerable length to give a tone favourable to the Judaising type of Christianity; and that this completed book was again worked over by an anti-Judaist Redactor II, who inserted other parts to give a tone unfavourable to the Judaising type of Christianity, but left the Judaistic insertions. Finally, a Redactor III of neutral tone incorporated anew document (VI 1-6), and gave the whole its present form by a number of small touches. When a theory becomes so complicated as Clemen’s, the humble scholar who has been trained only in philological and historical method finds himself unable to keep pace, and toils in vain behind this daring flight. We shall not at present stop to argue from examples in ancient and modern literature, that a dissection of this elaborate kind cannot be carried out. Style is seen in the whole rather than in single sentences, still less in parts of sentences; and a partition between six authors, clause by clause, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, of a work that seemed even to bold and revolutionary critics like Zeller
SEC 2. Development of Modern Criticism on Acts.
and Baur in Germany and Renan in France to be a model of unity and individuality in style, is simply impossible. Moreover, the plan of this study is not to argue against other theories, but to set forth a plain and simple interpretation of the text, and appeal to the recognised principle of criticism that, where a simple theory of origin can be shown to hold together properly, complicated theories must give way to it.
One feature in Dr. Clemen’s theory shows true insight. No simple theory of gluing together can exhaust the varied character of the Acts: a very complex system of junctures