the pains taken to exhibit (i. 2, 4 f. 8, ii. I ff.,
cf. Luke xxiv. 49) the fact of such spiritual solidarity,
whereby their activity means His continued action in the
world. And (4) the scope of this action is nothing less than
humanity (ii. 5 ff.), especially within the Roman empire.
It was foreordained that Messiah's witnesses should be borne
by Divine power through all obstacles and to ever-widening
circles, until they reached and occupied Rome itself for the God
of Israel--now manifest (as foretold by Israel's own prophets)
as the one God of the one race of mankind. (5) Finally, as
we gather from the parallel account in Luke xxiv.46-48, the
divinely appointed method of victory is through suffering
(Acts xiv. 22). This explains the large space devoted to the
tribulations of the witnesses, and their constancy amid them,
after the type of their Lord Himself. It forms one side of the
virtual apologia for the absence of that earthly prosperity
in which the pagan mind was apt to see the token of Divine
approval. Another side is the recurring exhibition of the
fact that these witnesses were persecuted only by those whose
action should create no bias against the persecuted. Their
foes were chiefly Jews, whose opposition was due partly to
a stiff-necked disinclination to bow to the wider reading
of their own religion --to which the Holy Spirit had from of
old been pointing (cf. the prominence given to this idea in
Stephen's long speech)--and partly to jealousy of those who,
by preaching the wider Messianic Evangel, were winning over the
Gentiles, and particularly proselytes, in such great numbers.
Such, then, seem to be the author's main motifs. They make
up an account fairly adequate to the manifoldness of the
book; yet they may be summed up in three ideas, together
constituting the moral which this history of the expansion
of Christianity aims at bringing home to its readers. These
are the universality of the Gospel, the jealousy of
national Judaism, and the Divine initiative manifest
in the gradual stages by which men of Jewish birth were
led to recognize the Divine will in the setting aside of
national restrictions, alien to the universal destiny of the
Church. The practical moral is the Divine character of the
Christian religion, as evinced by the manner of its extension
in the empire, no less than by its original embodiment
in the Founder's life and death. Thus both parts of the
author's work alike tend to produce assured conviction of
Christianity as of Divine origin (Luke i. 1, 4; Acts i. 1 f.).
This view has the merit of giving the book a practical religious
aim--a sine qua non to any theory of an early Christian
writing. though meant for men of pagan birth in the first
instance, it is to them as inquirers or even converts, such
as ``Theophilus,'' that the argument is addressed. In spite
of all difficulties, this religion is worthy of personal
belief, even though it mean opposition and suffering. Among
the features of the occasion which suggested the need of such
an appeal was doubtless the existence of persecution by the
Roman authorites, perhaps largely at the instigation of local
Judaism. To meet this special perplexity, the author holds
up the picture of early days, when the great protagonist of
the Gospel constantly enjoyed protection at the hands of Roman
justice. It is implied that the present distress is but a
passing phase, resting on some misunderstanding; meantime,
the example of apostolic constancy should yield strong
reassurance. The Acts of the Apostles is in fact an Apology
for the Church as distinct from Judaism, the breach with
which is accordingly traced with great fulness and care.
From this standpoint Acts no longer seems to end
abruptly. Whether as exhibiting the Divine leading and
aid, or as recording the impartial and even kindly attitude
of the Roman State towards the Christians, the writer has
reached a climax. ``He wished,'' as Harnack well remarks,
``to point out the might of the Holy Spirit in the apostles,
Christ's witnesses; and to show how this might carried the
Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome and gained for it entrance
into the pagan world, whilst the Jews in growing degree
incurred rejection. In keeping with this, verses 26-28
of chapter xxviii. are the solemn closing verses of the
work. But verses 30, 31 are an appended observation.''
Yet the writer is, in fact, ending up most fitly on one
of his keynotes, in that he leaves Paul preaching in Rome
itself, ``unmolested.'' ``Paulus Romae, apex Evangelii.''
The full force of this is missed by those who, while rejecting
the idea that the author had in reserve enough Pauline history
to furnish another work, yet hold that Paul was freed from the
imprisonment amid which Acts leaves him (see PAUL). But for
those, on the other hand, who see in the writer's own words in
xx. 38, uncontradicted by anything in the sequel, a broad hint
that Paul never saw his Ephesian friends again, the natural
view is open that the sequel to the two years' preaching was
too well known to call for explicit record. Nor would such
silence touching Paul's speedy martyrdom be disingenuous, any
more than on the theory that martyrdom overtook him several years
later. The writer views Paul's death (like the horrors of
Nero's Vatican Gardens in 64) as a mere exception to the rule
of Roman policy heretofore illustrated. Not even by the Roman
authorities were some of Nero's acts regarded as precedents.
2. Authorship.--External evidence, which is relatively
early and widespread (e.g. Muratorian Canon, Irenaeus,
Tertullian,Clement and Origen), all points to Luke, the
companion and fellow-worker of Paul (Philem. 24), who probably
accompanied him as physician also (Col. iv. 14). It must be
noted too that evidence for his authorship of the third Gospel
counts also for Acts. This carries us back at least to the
second quarter of the 2nd century (Justin, Dial. 103, and
most probably Marcion), when Loukan no doubt stood at the
head of the Gospel, especially where it was used side by side
with the others. We have every reason to trust the Church's
tradition at this time, particularly as Luke was not prominent
enough as an associate of Paul to suggest the theory as a
guess. Nor does Eusebius, who knew the ante-Nicene literature
intimately, seem to know of any other view ever having been
held. If, then, the traditional Lucan authorship is to be
doubted, it must be on internal evidence only. The form of
the book, however, in all respects favours Luke, who was of
non-Jewish birth (see Col. iv. 12-14 compared with 10 f.), and
as a physician presumably a man of culture. The medical cast
of much of its language, which is often of a highly technical
nature, points strongly the same way;1 while the early tradition
that Luke was born in the Syrian Antioch admirably suits the
fulness with which the origin of the Antiochene Church and
its place in the further extension of the Gospel are described
(see LUKE). Again, the attitude of Acts towards the Roman
Empire is just what would be expected from a close comrade of
Paul (cf. Sir W. M. Ramsay, St Paul the Traveller and Roman
Citizen, 1895), but was hardly likely to be shared by one of
the next generation, reared in an atmosphere of resentment,
first at Nero's conduct and then at the persecuting policy
of the Flavian Caesars (see REVELATION). Finally, the
book itself seems to claim to be written by a companion of
Paul. In chap. xvi. 10 the writer, without any previous
warning, passes from the third person to the first. Paul
had reached Troas. There he saw a vision inviting him to
go to Macedonia. ``But when he saw the vision, straightway
we sought to go forth into Macedonia.'' Thenceforth ``we''
re-emerges at certain points in the narrative until Rome is
reached. Irenaeus (iii. 14. 1) quotes these passages as proof
that Luke, the author, was a companion of the apostle. The
minute character of the narrative, the accurate description
of the various journeyings, the unimportance of some of the
details, especially some of the incidents of the shipwreck,
are strong reasons for believing that the narrative is that
of an eyewitness. If so, we can scarcely help coming to the
conclusion that this eye-witness was the author of the work;
for the style of this eye-witness is exactly the style of the
writer who composed the previous portions (see Harnack, op.
cit., reinforcing the argument as already worked out by B.
Weiss, 1893, and especially by Sir J. C. Hawkins in Horae
Synopticae, 1899, pp. 143-147). Most scholars admit that
the ``we'' narrative is that of a personal companion of
Paul, who was probably none other than Luke, in view of his
traditional authorship of Acts. But many suppose that the
tradition arose from confused remembrance of the use by a
later author of Luke's ``we'' document or travel-diary. This
supposition would compel us to believe either that the skilful
writer of Acts was so careless as to incorporate a document
without altering its form, or that ``we'' is introduced
intentionally. In the latter case we must suppose either that
the writer was an eye-witness, or that he wished to be thought an
eye-witness. E. Zeller, a follower of Baur, adopted this latter
alternative, and P. W. Schmiedel adheres to it. Indeed it
is hard to see how it can be avoided on the theory that the
author of Acts used a travel-document by another hand (see
below, Sources). On the whole, then, the most tenable theory
is that the writer of the ``we'' sections was also the author
of Acts; and that he was Luke, Paul's companion during most
of his later ministry, and also his ``counterpart,'' ``as a
Hellene, who yet had personal sympathy with Jewish primitive
Christianity'' (Harnack, op. cit. p. 103; see also LUKE).
3. Sources.--So far from the recognition of a plan in Acts
being inimical to a quest after the materials used in its
composition, one may say that it points the way thereto, while
it keeps the literary analysis within scientific limits.
The more one realizes the standpoint of the mind pervading
the book as a whole, the more one feels that the speeches in
the first part of Acts (e.g. that of Stephen)---and indeed
elsewhere, too--are not ``free compositions'' of our author,
the mere outcome of dramatic idealization such as ancient
historians like Thucydides or Polybius allowed themselves.
The Christology, for instance of the early Petrine speeches
is such as a Gentile Christian writing c. 80 A.D. simply
could not have imagined. Thus we are forced to assume the
use of a certain amount of early Judaeo-Christian material,
akin to that implied also in the special parts of the Third
Gospel. Paul Feine (Eine vorkanonische Ueberlieferung des
Lukas, 1891) suggested that a single document explains this
material in both works, as far as Acts xii. Others maintain
that at any rate two sources underlie Acts i.-xii., or even
i.-xv. (see A. Harnack, Die Apostelgeschichte, p. 131
ff.). In particular we can recognize a source embodying the
traditions of the largely Hellenistic Church of Antioch, a
secondary gloss from which may survive in the Bezan addition
to xi. 27, ``when we were assembled.'' Further, if our
author was a careful inquirer (Luke i. 3), especially if
he was in the habit of taking down in writing what he heard
from different witnesses, this may explain some of the
phenomena. Such a man as Luke would have rare faculties
for collecting Palestinian materials, varying no doubt in
accuracy, but all relatively primitive, whether in Antioch or
in Caesarea, where he probably resided for some two years in
