His teaching in the one scarcely presents a trace of the strong and clearly defined doctrines of the other, and the character and conduct of the Paul of Acts are altogether different from those of Paul of the Epistles. According to Paul himself (Gal. i. 16—18), after his conversion, he communicated not with flesh and blood, neither went up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before him, but immediately went away into Arabia, and returned to Damascus, and only after three years he went up to Jerusalem to visit Kephas, and abode with him fifteen days, during which visit none other of the Apostles did he see "save James, the brother of the Lord." If assurance of the correctness of these details were required, Paul gives it by adding (v. 20): "Now the things which I am writing to you, behold before God I lie not." According to Acts (ix. 19—30), however, the facts are quite different. Paul immediately begins to preach in Damascus, does not visit Arabia at all, but, on the contrary, goes to Jerusalem, where, under the protection of Barnabas (v. 26, 27), he is introduced to the Apostles, and "was with them going in and out." According to Paul (Gal. i. 22), his face was after that unknown unto the churches of Judaea, whereas, according to Acts, not only was he "going in and out" at Jerusalem with the Apostles, but (ix. 29) preached boldly in the name of the Lord, and (Acts xxvi. 20) "in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judaea," he urged to repentance. According to Paul (Gal. ii. 1 ff.), after fourteen years he went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus,
"according to a revelation," and "privately" communicated his Gospel "to those who seemed to be something," as, with some irony, he calls the Apostles. In words still breathing irritation and determined independence, Paul relates to the Galatians the particulars of that visit—how great pressure had been exerted to compel Titus, though a Greek, to be circumcised, "that they might bring us into bondage," to whom, "not even for an hour did we yield the required subjection." He protests, with proud independence, that the Gospel which he preaches was not received from man (Gal. i. 11, 12), but revealed to him by God (verses 15, 16); and during this visit (ii. 6, 7) "from those seeming to be something [———], whatsoever they were it maketh no matter to me—God accepteth not man's person—for to me those who seemed [———] communicated nothing additional." According to Acts, after his conversion, Paul is taught by a man named Ananias what he must do (ix. 6, xxii. 10); he makes visits to Jerusalem (xi. 30, xii. 25, &c), which are excluded by Paul's own explicit statements; and a widely different report is given (xv. 1 ff.) of the second visit. Paul does not go, "according to a revelation," but is deputed by the Church of Antioch, with Barnabas, in consequence of disputes regarding the circumcision of Gentiles, to lay the case before the Apostles and elders at Jerusalem. It is almost impossible in the account here given of proceedings characterised throughout by perfect harmony, forbearance, and unanimity of views, to recognize the visit described by Paul. Instead of being private, the scene is a general council of the Church. The fiery independence of Paul is transformed into meekness and submission. There is not a word of the
endeavour to compel him to have Titus circumcised—all is peace and undisturbed good-will. Peter pleads the cause of Paul, and is more Pauline in his sentiments than Paul himself, and, in the very presence of Paul, claims to have been selected by God to be Apostle of the Gentiles (xv. 7—11). Not a syllable is said of the scene at Antioch shortly after (Gal. ii. 11 ff.), so singularly at variance with the proceedings of the council, when Paul withstood Cephas to the face. Then, who would recognize the Paul of the Epistles in the Paul of Acts, who makes such repeated journeys to Jerusalem to attend Jewish feasts (xviii. 21,1 xix. 21, xx. 16, xxiv. 11, 17, 18); who, in his journeys, halts on the days when a Jew may not travel (xx. 5, 6); who shaves his head at Cenchrea because of a vow (xviii. 18); who, at the recommendation of the Apostles, performs that astonishing act of Nazariteship in the Temple (xxi. 23), and afterwards follows it up by a defence of such "excellent dissembling" [———]; who circumcises Timothy, the son of a Greek and of a Jewess, with his own hands (xvi. 1—3, cf. Gal. v. 2); and who is so little the apostle of the uncircumcision that he only tardily goes to the Gentiles when rejected by the Jews (cf. xviii. (J). Paul is not only robbed of the honour of being the first Apostle of the Gentiles, which is conferred upon Peter, but the writer seems to avoid even calling him an apostle at all,(2) the only occasions upon which he does so being indirect (xiv. 4, 14); and the title equally applied to Barnabas, whose claim to it is more than doubted. The
passages in which this occurs, moreover, are not above suspicion, "the Apostles" being omitted in Cod. D. (Bezae) from xiv. 14. The former verse in that codex has important variations from other MSS.
If we cannot believe that the representation actually given of Paul in the Acts could proceed from a friend or companion of the Apostle, it is equally impossible that such a person could have written his history with so many extraordinary imperfections and omissions. We have already pointed out that between chs. ix.—xiv. are compressed the events of seventeen of the most active years of the Apostle's life, and also that a long period is comprised within the [———] sections, during which such minute details of the daily itinerary are given. The incidents reported, however, are quite disproportionate to those which are omitted. We have no record, for instance, of his visit to Arabia at so interesting a portion of his career (Gal. i. 17), although the particulars of his conversion are repeated with singular variations no less than three times (ix. xxii. xxvi.); nor of his preaching in Illyria (Rom. xv. 19); nor of the incident referred to in Rom. xvi. 3, 4. The momentous adventures in the cause of the Gospel spoken of in 2 Cor. xi. 23 ff. receive scarcely any illustration in Acts, nor is any notice taken of his fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus (1 Cor. xv. 32), which would have formed an episode full of serious interest. What, again, was "the affliction which happened in Asia," which so overburdened even so energetic a nature as that of the Apostle that "he despaired even of life?" (2 Cor. ii. 8 f.) Some light upon these points might reasonably have been expected from a companion of Paul. Then, xvii. 14—16, xviii. 5 contradict 1 Thess. iii. 1, 2, in a way scarcely possible in such a
