Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 25 - A-AUS.pdf/78

 58

ACTS

OF

THE

(which he styles the a text), are due to the author’s own hand. Further, that the former is the more original of the two, being related to the latter as fuller first draft to severely pruned copy. But even in its latest form, that “ /3 stands nearer the Grundschrift than a, but yet is, like a, a copy from it,” the theory is really untenable. In sober contrast to Blass’ sweeping theory stand the views of Prof. W. M. Bamsay. Already in The Church in the Roman Empire (1893) he held that the Codex Bezae rested on a recension made in Asia Minor (somewhere between Ephesus and S. Galatia), not later than about the middle of the 2nd century. Though “ some at least of the alterations in Codex Bezoe 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. But when he writes that, “wherever the Bezan text is confirmed by old versions and by certain Greek MSS., it seems to me to deserve very earnest consideration, as at least pointing in the direction of an original reading subjected to widespread corruption,” he goes beyond the mark. Such agreement need not mean more than that the reading is a gloss belonging to the “ Western ” text, as it arose under conditions which Ramsay himself excellently describes. On the whole, then, the text of Acts as printed by Westcott and Hort, on the basis of the earliest MSS. (xB), seems as near the autograph as that in 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; 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 the ecclesiastical tradition 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. Plan and Object of Acts.—Here the Tubingen school did its chief work in putting the needful question, not in returning the correct answer. Their answer could not be correct, because, as Ritschl shows, their premises were wrong. Still the attitude created by the Tubingen theory largely persists as a biassing element in much that is written about Acts. On the whole, however, there is a disposition to look at the book more objectively, and to follow up the hints as to its aim given by the author in his opening verses. Thus (1) his second narrative is the natural sequel to his first. As the earlier one set forth in orderly sequence (/catfe^q?) the providential stages by which Jesus was led, “in the power of the Spirit,” to begin the establishment of the consummated Kingdom of

APOSTLES

God; so the later work aims at setting forth on similar principles its extension by means of His chosen representatives or apostles. This involves emphasis on the identity of the power, i.e., divine and not merely human power, expressed in the great series of facts from first to last, and so upon (2) the Holy Spirit, as directing and energizing throughout the whole struggle with the powers of evil to be overcome in either ministry, of Master or disciples. But (3) the continuity is more than similarity of activity, resting on the same divine energy. The working of the energy in the disciples is conditioned by the continued life and volition of their Master at His Father’s right hand in heaven. The living link between Master and disciples is the Holy Spirit, “ the Spirit of Jesus.” Hence the pains taken to exhibit afresh (i. 2, 4 f. 8, ii. 1 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 as gathered 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) Further, 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 thought explains the large space devoted to the tribulations of the witnesses, and their constancy amid them, after the type and sample of their victorious Lord. It forms one side of the virtual apologia for the absence of that outward 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— 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 our author’s main motifs. They make up an account fairly adequate to the manifoldness of the book; and yet they all run up into one central idea, viz., the divine character of the Christian religion, as evinced by the manner of its extension in the eTnpire. 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 addressed to men of pagan birth in the first instance, it is to them as inquirers or even recent converts, such as “ Theophilus,” that the appeal is made. In spite of all difficulties, this religion is worthy of personal belief and acceptance. Such is the moral of our author’s work. Yet among the conditioning features of the occasion, which impressed him with the need of such an appeal, was doubtless the existence of persecution now actually carried out by the Roman authorities, sometimes perhaps of their own motion. To meet this special perplexity our author holds up the picture of early days, when the great protagonists of the Gospel constantly enjoyed protection at the hands of Roman justice. It is implied that the present distress was but a passing phase, resting on some misunderstanding ; meantime, the spectacle of apostolic constancy should yield strong consolation to the tried. From this standpoint Acts no longer seems to end abruptly. Whether as exhibiting marvellous divine leading and aid, or as recording the impartial and even kindly attitude of the Roman state towards the Christians, the