Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/141

Rh ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 125 solely on the revelation given to himself. He had neither required nor obtained sanction from the other apostles. He was an apostle, not sent forth from men nor through men, but through Jesus and God. When we turn to the Acts, we find that no mention is made of the journey to Arabia. He stays some days at Damascus, and then begins to preach the gospel. He continues at this work a considerable time; and then, in consequence of the plots of the Jews, he secretly withdraws from Damascus and proceeds to Jerusalem. The brethren there are suspicious in regard to him, and their fears are not quieted until Barnabas takes him to the apostles; and after this intro duction he goes in and out amongst them, and holds dis cussions with the Hellenists. Finally, when the Hellenists attempt to kill him, the brethren send him to Tarsus. In the Epistle to the Galatians St Paul does everything for him self, instigated by his inward feelings. In the Acts he is forced out of Antioch, and sent by the brethren to Tarsus. In the Galatians St Paul stays only a fortnight, and sees only St Peter and St James of the apostles, and was unknown by face to the churches of Judea. In the Acts Barnabas takes him to the apostles, and he continues evidently for a period much longer than a fortnight, going in and out amongst them. Then in chap. xi. 30, he goes up a second time to Jerusalem, a visit which seems inconsistent with the narra tive in the Epistle to the Galatians. And finally, when he goes up to Jerusalem, the Acts does not represent him going up by an independent revelation, but as being sent up; and it says nothing of his taking an independent part, but represents him as submitting to the apostles. This, however, leads us to the treatment of the character of St Paul by the writer of the Acts. Some of the Tubingen critics assert that the writer shows ill-will to St Paul, but they are evidently wrong. On the contrary, the character of the apostle as given in the Acts is full of grand and noble traits. Yet still there are some singular pheno mena in the Acts. St Paul claimed to be an apostle by the will of God. He had as good a right to be an apostle as St Peter or St James. Yet the writer of the Acts never calls him an apostle in the strict sense of the term. He is twice called an apostle, namely, in Acts xiv. 4 and 14. On both occasions his fellow-apostle is Barnabas; but Barnabas was not one of the twelve, and not an apostle in the strict sense of the term. And even in these verses the reading is doubtful. The Codex Bezos omits the word apostle in the 14th verse, and makes the 4th liable to suspicion by inserting an addition to it. St Luke also brings prominently forward as the proper mark of an apostle, that he should have companied with the Lord from his baptism to his ascension, and describes the filling up of the number of the twelve by the election of Matthias. And if St Luke s narrative of St Paul s conversion be minutely examined, it will be perceived that not only does he not mention that St Paul saw Jesus, but the circumstances as related scarcely permitted St Paul to see Jesus. He was at once dazzled by the light, and fell to the ground. In this prostrate condition, with his eyes shut, he heard the voice; but at first he did not know whose it was. And when he opened his eyes, he found that he was blind. The words of Ananias imply that St Paul really did see Jesus, but St Luke abstains from any such statement. And St Paul is not treated by the Jewish Christians in the Acts as an^independent apostle. He is evidently under submission to the apostles at Jerusalem. Furthermore, the point on which St Paul specially insists in the Epistle to the Galatians is, that he was appointed the apostle to the Gentiles as St Peter was to the circumcision, and that circumcision and the observance of the Jewish law were of no importance to the Christian. St Paul s words on this point in all his letters are strong and decided. But in the Acts it is St Peter that opens up the way for the Gentiles. In St Peter s mouth occurs the strongest language in regard to the intolerable nature of the law. Not a word is said cf the quarrel between St Peter and St Paul. The brethren in Antioch send St Paul and Barnabas up to Jerusalem to ask the opinion of the apostles and elders. St Paul awaits the decision of the apostles, and St Paul and Barnabas carry back the decision to Antioch. And throughout the whole of the Acts St Paul never stands forth as the champion of the Gentiles. He seems continually anxious to reconcile the Jewish Christians to himself, by observing the law of Moses. He circumcises Timothy, and he performs his vows in the temple. And he is particularly careful in his speeches to show how deep his respect for the law of Moses is. In this regard the letters of St Paul are very different from his speeches as given in the Acts. In the Epistle to the Galatians he claims perfect freedom for him self and the Gentiles from the observance of the law; and neither in it nor in the Epistle to the Corinthians does he take any notice of the decision to which the apostles are said to have come in their meeting at Jerusalem. And yet the narrative of St Luke implies a different state of affairs from that which it actually states in words ; for why should the Jews hate St Paul so much more than the other apostles if there was nothing special in his attitude to wards them 1 We may add to this, that while St Luke gives a rather minute account of the sufferings of St Peter and the church in Jerusalem, he has not brought prominently forward the perils of St Paul. St Paul enumerates some of his suffer ings in the second Epistle to the Corinthians (chap. xi. 23-28). St Luke has omitted a great number of these. Thus, for instance, St Paul mentions that he was thrice shipwrecked. St Luke does not notice one of these ship wrecks, that recorded in the Acts having taken place after the Epistles to the Corinthians were written. Some also think that St Luke details several occurrences which are scarcely in harmony with the character of St Paul. They say that the dismissal of John Mark, as recorded in the Acts, is a harsh act. St Paul s remark, &quot; I wist not that he is the high priest&quot; (xxiii. 5), they regard as doubtful in point of honesty. And the way by which he gained the Pharisees to his side, in opposition to the Sadducees, they describe as an expedient unworthy the character of this fearless apostle (xxiii. 6). St Luke occasionally alludes, in the Acts, to events which took place outside of the church. We can test his accu racy in recording these events by comparing his narrative with the narratives of historians who treat of the same period. These historians are Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Now, here again we find that the accounts in the Acts generally agree. Indeed, Holtzmann has noticed that all the external events mentioned in the Acts are also to be found in Josephus. We may therefore omit Tacitus and Suetonius, and confine ourselves to Josephus. Three narratives deserve minute examination. The first is the death of Herod Agrippa. Josephus says (Ant. xix. 8, 2) that Herod was at Caesarea celebrating a festival in honour of the Caesar. On the second day of the spectacle, the king put on a robe made entirely of silver, and entered the theatre early in the day. The sun s rays fell upon the silver, and a strong impression was produced on the people, so that his flatterers called out that he was a god. He did not check their impiety, but soon, on looking up he saw an owl perched above his head on a rope. He at once recognised in the bird the harbinger of evil. Imme diately he was attacked by violent pains in the bowels, and after five days illness died. The Acts says that Herod was addressing a deputation of Tyrians and Sidonians in Caesarea, seated on the tribunal and arrayed in a royal