not later than about the middle of the 2nd century. Though
``some at least of the alterations in Codex Bezae arose
through a gradual process, and not through the action of
an individual reviser,'' the revision in question was the
work of a single reviser, who in his changes and additions
expressed the local interpretation put upon Acts in his own
time. His aim, in suiting the text to the views of his day,
was partly to make it more intelligible to the public, and
partly to make it more complete. To this end he ``added some
touches where surviving tradition seemed to contain trustworthy
additional particulars,'' such as the statement that Paul
taught in the lecture-room of Tyrannus ``from the fifth to
the tenth hour.'' In his later work, on St Paul the Traveller
and the Roman Citizen (1895), Ramsay's views gain both in
precision and in breadth. The gain lies chiefly in seeing
beyond the Bezan text to the ``Western'' text as a whole.
Generally speaking, then, the text of Acts as printed
by Westcott and Hort, on the basis of the earliest MSS.
(alephB), seems as near the autograph as that of any
other part of the New Testament; whereas the ``Western''
text, even in its earliest traceable forms, is secondary.
This does not mean that it has no historical value of its
own. It may well contain some true supplements to the original
text, derived from local tradition or happy inference---a
few perhaps from a written source used by Luke. Certain of
these may even date from the end of the 1st century, and the
larger part of them are probably not later than the middle
of the 2nd. But its value lies mainly in the light cast on
ecclesiastical thought in certain quarters during the epoch in
question. The nature of the readings themselves, and the
distribution of the witness for them, alike point to a process
involving several stages and several originating centres of
diffusion. The classification of groups of ``Western''
witnesses has already begun. When completed, it will cast
light, not only on the origin and growth of this type of text,
but also on the exact value of the remaining witnesses to the
original text of Acts---and further on the early handling of
New Testament writings generally. Acts, from its very scope,
was least likely to be viewed as sacrosanct as regards its
text. Indeed there are signs that its undogmatic nature
caused it to be comparatively neglected at certain times
and places, as, e.g., Chrysostom explicitly witnesses.
LITERATURE.--An account of the extensive and varied literature
that has gathered round Acts may be found in two representative
commentaries, viz., H. H. Wendt's edition of Meyer (1899), and
that by R. J. Knowling in The Expositor's Greek Testament,
vol. ii. (1900), supplemented by his Testimony of St Paul
to Christ (1905). See also J. Moffatt, The Historical
New Testament (1901). 412 ff., 655 ff.: C. Clemen, Die
Apostelgesch. im Lichte der neueren Forschungen (Giessen,
1905); and A. Harnack, Die Apostelgeschichte (1908). (J. V. B.)
1 This argument, first worked out by Dr W. K. Hobart,
The Medical Language of St Luke (Dublin, 1882), but
hitherto neglected by many Continental scholars, has been
urged afresh by Harnack, Lukas der Arzt (Leipzig, 1906;
Eng. trans., London, 1907), to which reference may be made
for all matters connected with Lucan authorship; comp.
also R. J. Knowling in The Expositor's Greek Testament.
2 This view has received Harnack's support, op. cit. 89 f.
3 Apostelgeschichte (1908), p46. Harnack finds that our sense
of the trustworthiness of the book ``is enhanced by a thorough
study of the chronological procedure of its author, both where
he speaks and where he keeps silence.'' In this aspect the
book ``as a whole is according to the aims of the author and
in reality a historical work'' (p. 41; cf. pp. 1-20, 222 ff.).
4 Though this view had the support of J. B. Lightfoot, it should
be remembered that this was before the ``South Galatian'' theory
as to the date of Paul's work among the Galatians came to prevail.
5 Harnack, indeed, argues (op. cit. pp. 188 ff.) that the
Abstinences defined for Gentiles were in the original text
of Acts xv. 20 purely moral, and had no reference to Jewish
scruples as to eating blood. He regards ``what is strangled''
(pnikton) as originally a mistaken gloss, which crept into the
text. External evidence is against this, nor does it seem
demanded by the context; in fact xv. 21 rather goes against it.
6 Polyc. ad Philipp. i. 2, Acts ii. 24; ii. 1,
Acts x. 42; ii. 3, Acts xx. 35; vi. 3, Acts vii. 52.
7 Ign. ad Magn. v. 1, Acts i 25; ad Smyrn. iii. 3, Acts x. 41.
8 Der abendlandische Text der Apostelgeschichte
u. die Wir-quelle (Leipzig, 1900). See a review
in the Journal of Theol. Studies, ii. 439 ff.
ACTUARY. The name of actuarius, sc. scriba, in ancient
Rome, was given to the clerks who recorded the Acta Publica
of the senate, and also to the officers who kept the military
accounts and enforced the due fulfilment of contracts for military
supplies. In its English form the word has undergone a gradual
limitation of meaning. At first it seems to have denoted
any clerk or registrar; then more particularly the secretary
and adviser of any joint-stock company, but especially of
an insurance company; and it is now applied specifically to
one who makes those calculations as to the probabilities of
human life, on which the practice of life assurance and the
valuation of reversionary interests, deferred annuities, &c.,
are based. The first mention of the word in law is in the
Friendly Societies Act of 1819, where it is used in the vague
sense, ``actuaries, or persons skilled in calculation,'' but
it has received still further recognition in the Friendly
Societies Act of 1875 and the Life Assurance Companies Act of
1870. The word has been used with precision since the
establishment of the ``Institute of Actuaries of Great
Britain and Ireland'' in 1848. The Quarterly Journal,
Charter of Incorporation, and by-laws of this society may
be usefully consulted for particulars as to the requirements
for membership (see also ANNUITY). The registrar in the
Lower House of Convocation is also called the actuary.
ACUMINATE (from Lat. acumen, point), sharpened or pointed,
a word used principally in botany and ornithology, to denote the
narrowing or lance-shaping of a leaf or of a bird's feather into
a point, generally at the tip, though sometimes (with regard to
a leaf) at the base. The poet William Cowper used the word to
denote sharp and keen despair, but other authors, Sir T. Browne,
Bacon, Bulwer, &c., use it to explain a material pointed shape.
ACUNA, CHRISTOVAL DE (1597--c.1676), Spanish missionary
and explorer, was born at Burgos in 1597. He was admitted
a Jesuit in 1612, and afterwards sent on mission work to
Chile and Peru, where he became rector of the college of
Cuenca. In 1639 he accompanied Pedro Texiera in his second
exploration of the Amazon, in order to take scientific
observations, and dtaw up a report for the Spanish government.
The journey lasted ten months; and on the explorer's arrival in
Peru, Acuna prepared his narrative, while awaiting a ship for
Europe. The king of Spain, Philip IV., received the author
coldly, and it is said even tried to suppress his book,
fearing that the Portuguese, who had just revolted from Spain
(1640), would profit by its information. After occupying
the positions of procurator of the Jesuits at Rome and censor
(calificador) of the Inquisition at Madrid, Acuna returned
to South America, where he died, probably soon after 1675.
His Nuevo Descubrimiento del Gran Rio de las Amazonas was
published at Madrid in 1641; French and English translations
(the latter from the French, appeared in 1682 and 1698.
ACUPRESSURE (from Lat. acus, a needle, and premere, to
press), the name given to a method of restraining haemorrhage,
introduced by Sir J. Y. Simpson, the direct pressure of
a metallic needle, either alone or assisted by a loop of
wire, being used to close the vessel near the bleeding point.
ACUPUNCTURE (from Lat. acus, a needle, and pungere,
to prick), a form of surgical operation, performed
by pricking the part affected with a needle. It has
long been used by the Chinese in cases of headaches,
lethargies, convulsions, colics, &c. (See SURGERY.)
ADABAZAR, an important commercial town in the Khoja Ili
sanjak of Asia Minor, situated on the old military road from
Constantinople to the east and connected by a branch line
with the Anatolian railway. Pop. 18,000 (Moslems, 10,000;
Christians, 8000). It was founded in 1540 and enlarged in
1608 by the settlement in it of an Armenian colony. There
are silk and linen industries, and an export of tobacco,
walnut-wood, cocoons and vegetables for the Constantinople
market. Imports are valued at L. 80,000 and exports at
See V. Cuinet, Turquie d'Asie (Paris, 1890--1900).
ADAD, the name of the storm-god in the Babylonian-Assyrian
pantheon, who is also known as Ramman (``the thunderer''). The
problem involved in this double name has not yet been definitely
solved. Evidence seems to favour the view that Ramman was
the name current in Babylonia, whereas Adad was more common in
Assyria. To judge from analogous instances of a double
nomenclature, the two names revert to two different centres
for the cult of a storm-god, though it must be confessed
that up to the present it has been impossible to determine
where these centres were. A god Hadad who was a prominent
deity in ancient Syria is identical with Adad, and in view
of this it is plausible to assume---for which there is also
other evidence --that the name Adad represents an importation
into Assyria from Aramaic districts. Whether the same is
the case with Ramman, identical with Rimmon, known to us
from the Old Testament as the chief deity of Damascus, is
not certain though probable. On the other hand the cult
of a specific storm-god in ancient Babylonia is vouched
for by the occurrence of the sign Im--the ``Sumerian'' or
ideographic writing for Adad-Ramman --as an element in proper
names of the old Babylonian period. However this name may
have originally been pronounced, so much is certain,---that
through Aramaic influences in Babylonia and Assyria he was
identified with the storm-god of the western Semites, and
a trace of this influence is to be seen in the designation
Amurru, also given to this god in the religious literature of
Babylonia, which as an early name for Palestine and Syria
describes the god as belonging to the Amorite district.
The Babylonian storm-god presents two aspects in the hymns,
incantations and votive inscriptions. On the one hand he
is the god who, through bringing on the rain in due season,
causes the land to become fertile, and, on the other hand, the
storms that he sends out bring havoc and destruction. He is
pictured on monuments and seal cylinders with the lightning
and the thunderbolt, and in the hymns the sombre aspects of
the god on the whole predominate. His association with the
sun-god, Shamash, due to the natural combination of the two
deities who alternate in the control of nature, leads to
imbuing him with some of the traits belonging to a solar
deity. In Syria Hadad is hardly to be distinguished from
a solar deity. The process of assimilation did not proceed
so far in Babylonia and Assyria, but Shamash and Adad became
in combination the gods of oracles and of divination in
general. Whether the will of the gods is determined through
the inspection of the liver of the sacrificial animal, through
