His plan leads him to concentrate attention on the critical steps. Hence he often passes lightly over a long period of gradual development marked by no striking incident; and from his bad chronological sense he gives no measure of the lapse of time implied in a sentence, a clause, or even a word. He dismisses ten years in a breathe and devotes a chapter to a single incident. His character as an historian, therefore, depends on his selection of topics. Does he show the true historian’s power of seizing the great facts, and marking dearly the stages in the development of his subject? Now, what impresses me is the sense of proportion in Acts, and the skill with which a complex and difficult subject is grouped to bring out the historical development from the primitive Church (ch. I-V) through the successive steps associated with four great names, Stephen, Philip,
SEC 3. Working Hypothesis of the Investigation.
Peter, Paul. Where the author passes rapidly over a period or a journey, we shall find reason to believe that it was marked by no striking feature and no new foundation. The axiom from which we start must be that which is assumed in all literary investigations—preference is to be given to the interpretation which restores order, lucidity, and sanity to the work. All that we ask in this place is the admission of that axiom, and a patient hearing, and especially that the reader, before condemning our first steps as not in harmony with other incidents, will wait to see how we can interpret those incidents.
The dominant interpretation rests avowedly on the principle that Acts is full of gaps, and that “nothing is more striking than the want of proportion”. Those unfortunate words of Bishop Lightfoot are worked out by some of his successors with that “illogical consistency” which often leads the weaker disciples of a great teacher to choose his errors for loving imitation and emphasis. With such a theory no historical absurdity is too gross to be imputed to Luke. But our hypothesis is that Luke’s silence about an incident or person should always be investigated as a piece of evidence, on the principle that he had some reason for his silence; and in the course of this study we shall in several cases find that omission is a distinct element in the effect of his narrative.
There is a contrast between the early chapters of Acts and the later. In the later chapters there are few sentences that do not afford some test of their accuracy by mentioning external facts of life, history, and antiquities. But the earlier chapters contain comparatively few such details; the subject in them is handled in a vaguer way, with a less vigorous and nervous grasp; the facts are
The Acts of the Apostles CHAP. I
rarely given in their local and historical surroundings, and sometimes seem to float in air rather than to stand on solid ground.
This fundamental difference in handling must be acknowledged; but it can be fairly attributed to difference of information and of local knowledge. The writer shows himself in his later narrative to be a stranger to the Levant and familiar with the Ægean; he could not stand with the same confidence on the soil of Syria and Palestine, as on that of Asia Minor or Greece. Moreover, he was dealing with an earlier period; and he had not the advantage of formal historical narratives, such as he mentions for the period described in his First Book (the Gospel). Luke was dependent on various informants in the earlier chapters of Acts (among them Paul and Philip); and he put together their information, in many cases reproducing it almost verbatim. Sometimes the form of his record gives a clue to the circumstances in which he learned it. That line of investigation is liable to become subjective and fanciful; but modern historical investigation always tries to get behind the actual record and to investigate the ultimate sources of statements.
4. THE AUTHOR OF ACTS AND HIS HERO. It is rare to find a narrative so simple and so little forced as that of Acts. It is a mere uncoloured recital of the important facts in the briefest possible terms. The narrator’s individuality and his personal feelings and preferences are almost wholly suppressed. He is entirely absorbed in his work; and he writes with the single aim to state the facts as he has learned them. It would be difficult in the whole range of literature to find a work where there is less attempt at pointing a moral or drawing
SEC 4. The Author of Acts and his Hero
a lesson from the facts. The narrator is persuaded that the facts themselves in their barest form are a perfect lesson and a complete instruction, and he feels that it would be an impertinence and even an impiety to intrude his individual views into the narrative.
It is, however, impossible for an author to hide himself completely. Even in the selection of details, his personality shows itself. So in Acts, the author shows the true Greek feeling for the sea. He hardly ever omits to name the harbors which Paul sailed from or arrived at, even though little or nothing in the way of incident occurred in them. But on land journeys he confines himself to missionary facts, and gives no purely geographical information; where any statements of a geographical character occur, they serve a distinct purpose in the narrative, and the reader who accepts them as mere geographical specifications has failed to catch the author’s purpose (see p. 205 f.).
Under the surface of the narrative, there moves a current of strong personal affection and enthusiastic admiration for Paul. Paul is the author’s hero; his general aim is to describe the development of the Church; but his affection and his interest turn to Paul; and after a time his narrative groups itself round Paul. He is keenly concerned to show that Paul was in perfect accord with the leaders among the older Apostles, but so also was Paul himself in his letters. That is the point of view of a personal friend and disciple, full of affection, and jealous of Paul’s honour and reputation.
The characterisation of Paul in Acts is so detailed and individualised as to prove the author’s personal acquaint- ance. Moreover, the Paul of Acts is the Paul that appears to us in his own letters, in his ways and his thoughts, in his educated tone of polished courtesy, in his quick and
The Acts of the Apostles CHAP. I
vehement temper, in the extraordinary versatility and adapt- ability which made him at home in every society, moving at ease in all surroundings, and everywhere the centre of interest, whether he is the Socratic dialectician in the agora of Athens, or the rhetorician in its University, or conversing with kings and proconsuls, or advising in the council on shipboard, or cheering a broken-spirited crew to make one more effort for life. Wherever Paul is, no one present has eyes for any but him.
Such a view could not have been taken by a second century author. The Church in the second century had passed into new circumstances and was interested in quite different questions. The catastrophe of the persecution of Domitian, and the effect produced for the time on the attitude of the Church by the deliberate attempt to suppress and destroy it on the part of the imperial government, made a great gulf between the first century and the second century of Christian history.1 Though the policy of the great emperors of the second century came back to somewhat milder measures, the Church could not recover the same feeling that Paul had, so long as Christianity continued to be a proscribed religion, and a Christian was in theory at least an outlaw and a rebel. Many questions that were evidently vital to the author of Acts were buried in oblivion during the persecution of Domitian, and could not have been present in the mind of a later author. Our view classes Acts with 1 Peter, intermediate between the Pauline letters and the literature of the last decade of the century (such as Revelation). Luke shows the same attitude as Paul, but he aims at proving what Paul feels.
1 Church in R. E., Ch. XIII.
SEC 4. The Author of Acts and his Hero
The question must be fairly considered whether Luke had completed his history. There is one piece of evidence from his own hand that he had not completed it, but contemplated a third book at least. His work is divided into two books, the Gospel and the Acts, but in the opening line of the Acts he refers to the Gospel as the First discourse