pointed out many instances of a similar kind amongst the chroniclers of the middle ages.(1) There are various ways in which the retention of the first person in these sections, supposing them to have been derived from some other written source, might be explained. The simple supposition that the author, either through carelessness or oversight, allowed the [———] to stand(2) is not excluded, and indeed some critics, although we think without reason, maintain both the third Gospel and the Acts to be composed of materials derived from various sources and put together with little care or adjustment.(3) The author might also have inserted these fragments of the diary of a fellow-traveller of Paul, and retained the original form of the document to strengthen the apparent credibility of his own narrative; or, as many critics believe, he may have allowed the first person of the original document to remain, in order himself to assume the character of eyewitness, and of companion of the Apostle.(4) As we shall see in the course of our examination of the Acts, the general procedure of the author is by no means of a character to discredit such an explanation.
We shall not enter into any discussion of the sources from which critics maintain that the author compiled his
work. It is sufficient to say that, whilst some profess to find definite traces of many documents, few if any writers deny that the writer made more or less use of earlier materials. It is quite true that the characteristics of the general author's style are found throughout the whole work.1 The Acts are no mere aggregate of scraps collected and rudely joined together, but the work of one author in the sense that whatever materials he may have used for its composition were carefully assimilated, and subjected to thorough and systematic revision to adapt them to his purpose.(2) But however completely this process was carried out, and his materials interpenetrated by his own peculiarities of style and language, he did not succeed in entirely obliterating the traces of independent written sources. Some writers maintain that there is a very apparent difference between the first twelve
chapters and the remainder of the work, and profess to detect a much more Hebraistic character in the language of the earlier portion,(1) although this is not received without demur.(2) As regards the [———] sections, whilst it is admitted that these fragments have in any case been much manipulated by the general editor, and largely contain his general characteristics of language, it is at the same time affirmed that they present distinct foreign peculiarities, which betray a borrowed document.(3) Even critics who maintain the [———] sections to be by the same writer who composed the rest of the book point out the peculiarly natural character and minute knowledge displayed in these passages, as distinguishing them from the rest of the Acts.(4) This of course they attribute to the fact that the author there relates his personal experiences; but even with this explanation it is apparent that all who maintain the traditional view do recognize peculiarities in these sections, by which they justify the ascription of them to an eye-witness. For the reasons which have been very briefly indicated, therefore, and upon other
strong grounds, some of which will be presently stated, a very large mass of the ablest critics have concluded that the [———] sections were not composed by the author of the rest of the Acts, but that they are part of the diary of some companion of the Apostle Paul, of which the Author of Acts made use for his work,(1) and that the general writer of the work, and consequently of the third Synoptic, was not Luke at all.(2)
A careful study of the contents of the Acts cannot, we think, leave any doubt that the work could not have been written by any companion or intimate friend of the Apostle Paul.(1) In here briefly indicating some of the reasons for this statement, we shall be under the necessity of anticipating, without much explanation or argument, points which will be more fully discussed farther on, and which now, stated without preparation, may not be sufficiently clear to some readers. They may hereafter seem more conclusive. It is unreasonable to suppose that a friend or companion could have written so unhistorical and defective a history of the Apostle's life and teaching. The Pauline Epistles are nowhere directly referred to, but where we can compare the narrative and representations of Acts with the statements of the Apostle, they are strikingly contradictory.(2)