From his dedicating, however, those works to Theophilus, we are by no means to conclude, that Luke originally drew up either the Gospel or the Acts with any partial view to the benefit of an individual, however eminent he might be. No doubt, those works were so far connected with his personal instruction, that before all others he might first enjoy the perusal, perhaps confidentially know of the composition, while in each case it was going on. Beyond this, all appropriation of either history to the enlightening of the mind of one person (whether Jew or Greek) is as improbable, à priori, as it is void of support from any intimation which internal evidence can bestow.

The entire history of Christianity, from the birth of Christ to a remarkable era in the labours of his most illustrious apostle, was a work divinely vouchsafed and secured as a blessing for all countries of the world. And naturally, therefore, at that day Luke, writing as a Greek for Greek readers generally, has given the least information where in general it was least required, in respect of Asia, Greece, Italy, and the most where it would most be wanted, in respect of Galilee, for instance, and Judea.

The prefixing, therefore, of such a name, whether to the Gospel or to the Acts, must be considered in a far more serious aspect than that of a personal compliment. Such an inscription, if we are right in conjecturing that Theophilus in Judea, after once being high priest, had professed himself a believer in Jesus as the Messiah, would give to God's holy gospel especially, to that light for lightening the Gentiles, the highest advantage of immediate authority with his people Israel, which any dedication to man could possibly confer. And we may well believe the name of Theophilus to have been

so prefixed by the direction of the Holy Spirit for the accomplishment of that very end.

Finally, then, after the fullest consideration carefully bestowed on the subject, I feel no hesitation in declaring myself inclined to propose, not indeed as now capable of demonstration, but as possessing the only claim to rational preference on intelligible grounds, the distinct answer here given to the question: Where was Luke when he wrote the Gospel? and to the second question equally interesting, Where was he when he wrote the book of Acts?

Let me, of course, be understood not only willingly, but with much gratitude and delight, to acknowledge my deep sense of obligation to Theodore Hase. To him, in the report of Michaelis, u. s., I am entirely indebted for the first suggestion respecting the Gospel : from that bright and happy conjecture, I have borrowed the light which is here transferred, to discover the locality of composition for the Acts also. At the same time, let me candidly avow, that this second hypothesis, whether it be altogether mine or it has been forestalled, does more than merely harmonise with the first, which gave birth to it: it appears to me to lend to its parent in return no small confirmation besides, from the strength of its own separate rationality.

The plain point at issue, if taken on its early grounds and independently of any later traditions, seems to stand thus:

Paul, in writing from Corinth to the ROMANS, xv. 24. 28., expresses his design or hope to visit Rome, on his way then projected to visit Spain: this declaration he makes, when on the eve of setting off for Jerusalem.

But when he arrives at Jerusalem, Acтs xxi. 17., which city he reaches (xx. 16.) in time for the feast of Pentecost, he is there violently apprehended, and there detained two years a prisoner at Cesarea, under Jewish persecution.

After a long and dangerous voyage, and when three years or more had elapsed from his leaving Corinth, he reaches Rome as a prisoner, and is there detained two years more.

On his deliverance, then, at the close of that time, and after that length of various imprisonments, it is gravely proposed as a matter for us to believe, and as an event altogether necessary to take place, that Paul should immediately set about to realise an intention. five years before announced, not, be it remarked, to any

Jews settled on the eastern coast of Spain, who then might have some reason, perhaps, to expect his coming, and would otherwise be disappointed: not so, but to accomplish a contingent purpose, intimated to the brethren generally at Rome, and that, after the lapse of several years, under a total change, too, of all the circumstances, under which it was contemplated.

Had St. Paul, indeed, after visiting Jerusalem at the feast of Pentecost, and delivering the charitable contributions there, been left quite at liberty to pursue his own preconcerted plans, especially after his declaration at Ephesus, which, as preceding the Epistle to the Romans, shows the early date of that his solemn purpose, A. xix. 21. After I have been at Jerusalem, I must also see Rome :

On this supposition, we can hardly doubt, but that he might have let even Antioch for once go unvisited at the close of that his third progress, and have sailed away to Rome by the very earliest opportunity. And if that course of events had really taken place, then, we must allow, a visit to the coast of Spain would have been so far antecedently probable, that if, in the records of a year or more, any hiatus of time and action (otherwise unaccounted for) could have made room for it, the execution of that design might have had some right to claim admission into the vacant interval of history.

But, taking the actual state of things as here collected from the Epistles, we find in every fact a clear tendency to the opposite conclusion. Instead of seeking new converts in a land of the farther West unknown, he naturally turns his thoughts from Rome to those faithful brethren in the East, from whom he had been so long cruelly separated. To the COLOSSIANS and PHILIPPIANS, and to their churches, the object of his just affection and anxiety, not long before his deliver

ance he promises, in the event of his liberation, as early a visit, as he can afterwards by any means make good. In the Epistles, 1 TIM. and TITUS, which, on our calculation, come next after those alluded to, we find him actually to have been not long ago in Crete, afterwards at Ephesus, and now at Philippi, on the eve of an expedition to the N. W. of Greece, intending to winter at Nicopolis.

In perfect consistency at all points with these and other movements, when again from Rome and towards the fatal close of his second imprisonment, he writes, the second time, to Timothy, then probably as we have seen at Philippi; every particular reference either to person or place concurs with the supposition, that his anxieties were all turned to that eastern province which he had recently visited. And thus, by positive indications, it is shown, how the interval between the two imprisonments had been sufficiently occupied; while, by his total silence in regard to Spain, ever since he wrote Roм. xv. 24. 28., it clearly appears, that the project to visit its coasts had long been entirely given

up.

The remainder of this dissertation, as of necessity running into matters of critical remark, is here presented in a different form. The general reader may pass it over; the scholar, it is hoped, will find himself rewarded in the perusal.

NOTE I.

And here, I confess, were it purely a question to be decided on direct historical grounds alone, I should without scruple have taken my stand, and regarded the point as fairly