To the author Paul is unquestionably the great hero of the early Church; the Church of Christ is to him essentially the Church as it was given shape and character by Paul's teaching. The Pauline Church in the Roman empire is the consummation whose Divine formation he has undertaken historically to exhibit. Of course it falls within his plan to justify the steps by which this consummation was attained as the divinely led explication of what was implicit in the Church from the beginning. This naturally gives to this history the appearance of an apology for Gentile Christianity-for the Christianity of Paul. But, naturally, he conceives himself as exhibiting this as inherent in the facts, not as imposing it on the facts.

Somewhat more remotely is what has been called the political tendency of the Book the outgrowth of its fundamental standpoint. It was not from the empire that the Church was at first in danger. A certain sympathy existed between the universalism of Rome and the universalism of Christianity by which they were constituted, in a sort, natural allies. A sense of this seems impressed on the narrative. Some stress appears to be

laid on the fact that the Church had spread through the empire without coming into serious conflict with it. Thus the Church was exhibited not as a provincial but as a world phenomenon; the Gospel was for all creation under heaven.

The Strong Artistic Instinct of the author has also left its impress on his work. By it has been, no doubt, conditioned both his selection and his use of his materials. It is clearly at work, for example, in the choice of the incidents by which in the opening chapters a vivid picture is conveyed of the formation and maturing of the mother Church, as a model Church, in the Holy

City. This is accomplished by an artistically-arranged alternating series of disturbances from without and trials from within, by which the infant Church was purified and hardened (chaps.iii.-vii.). It is at work again in the parallel that is traced to a certain very obvious extent, but by no means throughout, in the experiences of Peter and Paul, suggestive somewhat of the art of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. It is particularly visible, however, in the multitude of graphic details that are introduced, in the incorporation of the speeches delivered by the actors, and in numerous vigorous touches enlivening the whole narrative. There lies in these graphic touches, moreover, a hint of the intense personal interest with which the author prosecuted his task, and he sometimes seems, indeed, to insert details or linger over incidents chiefly because of his own lively interest in them. From a strictly æsthetic point of view this may constitute a flaw, but it adds a charming naturalness to the narrative, and gives the reader increased confidence in it as a narrative coming obviously from the heart of its writer.

As a Historical Document the Book of Acts deserves as high an appreciation as it attracts to itself as a piece of literary composition. It evinces itself by every test we can apply to be a remarkably accurate transcript of the facts with which it deals, and a thoroughly trustworthy account of the course of the events which it portrays. The geographical, historical and topographical tests for which its subject-matter affords opportunity are exceptionally numerous and varied. The result of their application is to exhibit what must be called a wonderful exactitude both of formal statement and incidental allusion. The narrative carries us into the intimate life of a multitude of com

munities throughout the whole East-Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and then to Rome. The conditions were very complicated: the circumstances of the time very changeable: but the narrative moves among them all with firm and sure step. Geographical, topographical, political, social details swarm in its pages. The author touches them all with an exact hand. The personages he introduces act thoroughly in character, and when known from other sources are recognisably themselves in his pages. The speeches he reports reproduce not only the characteristic ideas of their authors, but their very diction and linguistic peculiarities. James, Peter, Paul speak here with the same accents with which we are made familiar by their extant epistles. This is the more remarkable as there is no trace of the use of these epistles. So far as this narrative is concerned, we should not know that a single one of them was in exist. ence. Nevertheless, so far are they from being excluded by the narrative, that a comparison of their incidental allusions to events with it reveals a mass of 'undesigned coincidences,' which afford a fresh basis of confidence in its trustworthiness. In short, the ability of Acts as a literary composition is fairly matched by its value as a record of facts. Its claim to recognition as a history of the first rank is rooted no more firmly in its clear conception of its task and firm and artistic handling of its material than in its evident possession and faithful use of excellent first-hand sources of information.

The Sources of Information at the author's command are suggested to us in the first instance by the circumstance that certain passages occur in the course of the narrative which are couched in the first person, as if their author were also an actor in the

scenes described. These so-called 'we-passages' embrace sections in the narrative of Paul's second and so-called third missionary circuits, including the final journey to Jerusalem and to Rome (xvi. 10-17, xx. 5-15, xxi. 1-18, xxvii. 1-xxviii. 16). Their contents fully bear out the natural implication of the first personal pronoun. They are obviously descriptions of personal experiences written with all the vividness and detailed exactness natural to such descriptions. In these sections at least, therefore, we have autoptic testimony. But here another fact of the first importance imposes itself upon our recognition. These 'wepassages' contain cross-references to other parts of the narrative, and in manner, diction, peculiarities of style and language are of a piece with the rest of the Book and with the Gospel of Luke. It is, in a word, unreasonable to doubt that the author of the 'we-passages 'is the author of the entire work. It is therefore the author of the Book himself who comes forward in these 'wepassages' as a companion of Paul, marking by the change of person his presence at or absence from the transactions described. All the phenomena support this certainly eminently reasonable supposition.

With the recognition of this fact, however, the problem of the sources of the history takes on a new face. For a considerable portion of the work of Paul the author was himself an eyewitness. For the remainder of the work of that Apostle his long and intimate association with Paul and with others of Paul's companions supplied him with the best conceivable means of information. We learn further that the author of the 'wepassages,' who is the author also of the whole book, accompanied Paul on his last visit to Jerusalem; abode in his company 'many days' in the house of Philip at Caesarea; lodged with him

with one of the 'primitive disciples,' named Mnason, on the road to Jerusalem; was taken by Paul 'to James' and made known to 'all the elders' of the Church in the mother city of Christianity; and apparently abode with Paul in the cradle region of Christianity throughout the whole two years that yet intervened before he started for Rome. Nor must we forget the opportunities he must have enjoyed throughout his companionship with Paul for association with others such as John Mark-who were intimately acquainted with the history of the Church from the beginning. He had every opportunity, in short, to collect from the actors themselves authentic information as to the origins of the Christian Church.

The Book of Acts comes to us, therefore, from the hand of one whom we know to have been in long and intimate contact with the primary sources of information for the matters with which it deals, and who professes to have made it his business to trace the course of all things accurately from the first.' It is history at first hand. This is oddly illustrated by a fact otherwise puzzling-the fact, to wit, already incidentally alluded to, that the epistles of Paul, for example, are not put under contribution as a source for the history. Only a writer possessed of even more immediate sources of information could have ventured to neglect Paul's own letters in drawing up an account of his work in founding the churches. No late writer could have neglected them and failed to come into conflict with the data embedded in them. A phenomenon, seemingly strange in itself, receives thus its adequate explanation so soon as the real circumstances are apprehended. Paul's letters are not put under contribution by this author for the very sufficient reason that they were not needed by him. He comes forward as a co-witness with Paul's