INTRODUCTION. 罪 HE title, "The Acts of the Apostles" (πρážeis TŵV ȧπоσтóλшv), would be readily suggested by the contents of the work. IIpágeis is the Greek term commonly employed for res gesta: thus, πрážeis Kúpov, "the actions of Cyrus" (Xen. Cyr. i. 2, 16). Whether this title proceeded from the author himself is doubtful; but it is certainly very ancient, and occurs in the earliest notices of this book. The work is so called in the Muratorian Canon, and by Clemens Alexandrinus and Tertullian. There is some variation in the readings of the title in the different manuscripts. Four uncial manuscripts (A, E, G, and H) have πράξεις τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων, the reading adopted by the textus receptus. The Codex Bezæ (D) has πρâķis ȧπоστόλων. The Vatican Ms. (Β) has πράξεις ἀποστόλων, the reading adopted by Tischendorf, Lachmann, Bornemann, Meyer, Wordsworth, and Alford, as being the most simple, and probably the most ancient. Several critics (De Wette, Ebrard) have challenged the appropriateness of this title as an indication of the contents. and design of the work. It has been asserted that it is at once too narrow and too comprehensive: too narrow, as the work contains the actions of teachers who were not apostles, as the proto-martyr Stephen, and Philip the evangelist; and too comprehensive, as of the apostles only Peter and Paul are prominently brought forward; and John, James his brother, and James the son of Alpheus (if indeed James, the Lord's brother, is to be regarded as the apostle of that name), are only incidentally mentioned. And yet it would VOL. I. A be difficult to invent a more appropriate title. Kuincel supposes that arróσтоλo is employed in a wide sense, to denote the teachers of the Christian religion generally, even although they were not apostles strictly so called. But such a latitude of meaning is unnecessary; for, as Meyer observes, the title sufficiently indicates the nature of the work, inasmuch as the development and diffusion of the Christian. church-the general contents of the book-were effected chiefly by the apostles, particularly by Peter, the apostle of the circumcision, and by Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles. I. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE ACTS. The author is not named, but it is the almost universal opinion that this was Luke, the author of the third Gospel. The proofs of this are very strong, amounting almost to a demonstration. They may be arranged under two distinct heads the testimony of the Christian Fathers, and the relation of the Acts to the third Gospel. We have the explicit testimony of the Christian Fathers. The allusions to the Acts by the apostolic Fathers are not numerous, and are somewhat vague. Their extant writings are few, and they seldom refer directly to the books of Scripture. The most definite allusion is in the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians (A.D. 108), where we find the words, "Whom God hath raised, having loosed the pains of death” (ὅν ἔγειρεν ὁ Θεὸς λύσας τὰς ὠδινᾶς τοῦ ᾅδου), highly probable allusion to Acts ii. 24. The Acts was known to the author of the Clementine Recognitions (A.D. 175), as is evident from the nature of the references in that work to Simon Magus and Gamaliel.1 The first direct quotation occurs in the Epistle of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne (A.D. 177), where we have these words: "They prayed for those who were so bitter in their hostility, like Stephen, that perfect martyr, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge' (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v. 2). The first Father, so far as is known, who mentions Luke as the author of the Acts, is Irenæus 1 See Zeller's Apostelgeschichte, pp. 60–62. (A.D. 178). "That Luke," he observes, "was inseparable from Paul, and his fellow-worker in the gospel, he himself shows; not indeed boasting of it, but impelled by truth itself. 'For,' he says, 'when Barnabas and John, who is surnamed Mark, separated from Paul, and had sailed to Cyprus, we came to Troas; and when Paul had seen in a dream a man of Macedonia, saying, Come over to Macedonia, and help us, immediately,' says he, 'we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them"" (adv. Hær. iii. 14, 1). The Muratorian Canon (A.D. 1701) also ascribes the Acts to Luke: "The acts of all the apostles are written in one book. Luke relates the events of which he was an eye-witness to Theophilus." Clemens Alexandrinus (A.D. 190) makes the same statement: "As Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, records Paul to have said, 'Ye men of Athens, I perceive that ye are in all things too superstitious"" (Stromata v.). Tertullian (A.D. 200) frequently quotes the Acts, and once expressly ascribes its authorship to Luke (de Jejuniis, ch. x.). Origen (A.D. 230), commenting on the Epistle to the Hebrews, says: "Some suppose that it was written by Clement, who was Bishop of Rome, and others by Luke, who wrote the Gospel and the Acts" (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. vi. 26). And Eusebius (A.D. 325) places the Acts among those books which were universally acknowledged; and as to its authorship he observes: "Luke, who was born at Antioch, and by profession a physician, being for the most part connected with Paul, and familiarly acquainted with the rest of the apostles, has left us two inspired books, the institutes of that spiritual healing which he obtained from them. One of these is his Gospel, in which he testifies that he has recorded as those who were from the beginning eye-witnesses and ministers of the word delivered to him; whom also, he says, he has in all things followed. The other is his Acts of the Apostles, which he composed not from what he had heard. 1 According to Tischendorf, the Muratorian Canon was written a little after the age of Pius I. (A.D. 142-157), about A.D. 170. See Westcott on the Canon, p. 186. from others, but from what he had seen himself" (Hist. Eccl. iii. 4).1 This general testimony of the Christian Fathers was called in question by the early heretics, and that not on historical grounds, but from purely dogmatical reasons, because the contents of the Acts did not agree with their opinions. Thus the Ebionites rejected it, because it taught the reception of the Gentiles without circumcision into the Christian church; the Marcionites, for an opposite reason, because they could not endure its doctrine concerning the connection of Judaism and Christianity; the Severians, because their ascetic principles were incompatible with the teaching of Paul recorded in the Acts; and the Manichæans, on account of the history of the descent of the Holy Ghost. Not until the time of Photius, in the ninth century, was any mention made of another author: "Some," he says, "believed the writer to be Clement of Rome, others Barnabas, and others Luke the evangelist," — an assertion unsupported by the Christian Fathers, and which seems merely to be the arbitrary opinion of individuals. Photius himself concurred in the general opinion of the church as to the authorship of Luke. Chrysostom, in his homilies on the Acts, makes the strange statement, that " many Christians were unacquainted with the existence of the book, and with the name of the author" (Hom. i.),—a statement which is evidently a rhetorical exaggeration, because in his time this book was regularly read in the Greek Church between Easter and Whitsuntide. There might, however, have been circumstances which then led to the comparative neglect of the Acts, and to a preference being given to the Gospels and the Epistles. Another and distinct line of argument is derived from the relation of the Acts to the third Gospel. The Acts professes 1 See, for other testimonies from the Fathers, Lardner's Works; Davidson's Introduction to the New Testament, vol. ii. pp. 1-3; Westcott on the Canon of the New Testament, and similar works. To the above testimonies have also to be added the Syriac and Latin versions, which our best critics agree were made about the middle of the second century. Meyer's Apostelgeschichte, p. 3. 2 |