ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. - Book of the New Testament, placed after the Gospels, which presents itself as the continuation of the Gospel of Luke.
I. THE SUBJECT
The title best attested in the Greek codices (πρᾶξει ἀποστόλων "acts, or deeds, of apostles") indicates that the book does not speak of all the apostles nor of the apostles in general, but of some of them. In reality, it deals especially with two: up to chapter 12 Peter predominates, from chapter 13 to the end, Paul.
The most obvious division of the parts seems to us the following:
1. Connection with the Third Gospel (1:1-11). Prologue with dedication to Theophilus and reference to the Ascension of Christ (cf. Lk. 1:1-4 and 24:44-53).
2. Beginnings of the Church of Jerusalem (1:12-8:3). Election of Matthias in place of Judas, descent of the Holy Spirit and first discourse of St. Peter. The healing of a lame man worked by Peter provokes a trial before the sanhedrin, in which the good sense of Gamaliel triumphs, obtaining the release of Peter and John. Within the community (where goods were freely held in common), the tragic end of Ananias and Sapphira, guilty of imposture and fraud, serves as a salutary warning. To assist the apostles in the care of the Hellenist widows and orphans, seven deacons with Greek names are ordained. The first of these, Stephen, seals his preaching with his blood: Saul guards the garments of the stoners.
3. Development of the Church in Judea and Samaria (8:4-11:18). The faithful, scattered by persecution, widen the field of evangelization: the deacon Philip preaches Christ in Samaria, where the apostles Peter and John, by imposing hands, confer on the neophytes the Holy Spirit who manifests his presence with prodigies; Simon Magus, who wants to buy such power, is rebuffed by Peter. Philip meanwhile converts and baptizes an Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza. Saul the persecutor is miraculously converted on the road to Damascus. Peter carries out conversions and miracles at Lydda and Joppa, at Caesarea converts and baptizes the centurion Cornelius, opening the doors of the Church to the Gentiles, without making them pass through Jewish circumcision.
4. The Church extends to Antioch (11:19-13:3). where Barnabas and Saul accept Jews and Gentiles indiscriminately, and the faithful are called "Christians." Barnabas and Saul bring the collection of the Antiochenes to the brethren of Jerusalem, where persecution was added to famine. Herod (Agrippa I, king from 37 [41] to 44) had had the apostle James the Greater killed and held Peter prisoner. The latter, miraculously freed, "went to another place" (12:17: Rome?). Herod dies tragically; Barnabas and Saul return to Antioch where they are consecrated with the imposition of hands.
5. First missionary journey of Paul (13:4-15:35). From Antioch to Seleucia, then to Cyprus where he converts the proconsul Sergius Paulus: from this point (13:9) Saul is called Paul. At Perga Mark withdraws. Paul and Barnabas continue evangelizing Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, which on the return they visit again, appointing presbyters there. From Syrian Antioch they go to Jerusalem to report on the conversion of the Gentiles to the assembly of the Apostles which sanctions freedom from the "Law" for converted Gentiles.
6. Second missionary journey of Paul (15:36-18:22). From Antioch Paul, having separated from Barnabas because of Mark, returns with Silas to visit the communities founded in Asia Minor. At Lystra he takes Timothy with him. Having crossed Phrygia, the Galatian region and Mysia, they go down to Troas. At this point the narrative proceeds in the first person plural up to the stop at Philippi (16:10-17). The mission continues to Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, where Paul remains 18 months and meets the proconsul Gallio (year 51 or 52). On the return the itinerary follows Ephesus (Jerusalem?) - Antioch.
7. Third missionary journey of Paul (18:23-21:18). From Antioch Paul traverses the Galatian region and Phrygia, stops at Ephesus for almost three years, continues to Greece where he remains three months. In the account of the return through Macedonia the first person plural reappears and continues in the itinerary through Troas, Miletus, Tyre, Ptolemais, Caesarea up to the arrival at Jerusalem (20:5; 21:18).
8. Paul at Jerusalem and at Caesarea as a prisoner (21:19-26:32). Arrested in the Temple under the accusation of having profaned it, Paul defends himself before the people, has himself respected as a Roman citizen by the tribune Lysias who wants to have him flogged, defends himself before the sanhedrin, then is sent with a strong escort to Caesarea by the procurator Felix. There he remains a prisoner for two years until the arrival of the procurator Festus (year 60), from whose tribunal he appeals to Caesar (Nero).
9. Journey of Paul as a prisoner to Rome (27:1-28:31). This account too is in the first person plural: the Apostle as a prisoner, accompanied by the centurion Julius, on an Adramyttian ship touches Sidon, Cyprus, Myra of Lycia, then (transferred to an Alexandrian ship) Cnidus and some ports of Crete. Against Paul's advice the crew continues the voyage and the ship, battered by the storm, breaks up, without harm to the persons, near the island of Malta. Having passed the winter, with an Alexandrian ship the voyage continues to Syracuse, Rhegium, Puteoli; then, by land, on the Appian Way, to Rome, where Paul remains in custody for two years.
II. THE AUTHOR
Ancient and modern writers agree in attributing the Acts to the same author as the Third Gospel.
Clear proof of this is the similarity of vocabulary and style, of medical technique, of narrative method, as well as the connection between the prologues of the two books (lógos). Since it is proven that Luke (v.), a physician and disciple of Paul, is the author of the Third Gospel, the Lucan origin of the Acts is implicitly demonstrated. To this conclusion, confirmed by the explicit attestations of tradition, which from the 2nd century onward is uninterrupted and unanimous, there adhere, besides Catholics, moderate Protestants (Blass, Zahn, Plummer) and many rationalists (with Renan, Harnack).
The systematic denial of the Lucan origin of the Acts began with the rationalist Tübingen school of C. F. Baur (v.), which sought to see in it a tendentious work composed in a late period (2nd century), in order to demonstrate that there was no disagreement between the Petrine (Jewish-Christian) current and the Pauline (universalist) one. This system, more or less modified by the various followers of the school, was refuted within the non-Catholic camp itself by the conservative current of Ritschl and by the ultra-radical one of B. Bauer and the Dutch school (cf. A. Omodeo, in Enc. Ital., V [1930], pp. 268-71). Other systems, under the influence of Wellhausenian criticism (J. Wellhausen, Kritische Analyse der Apostelgeschichte, Berlin 1914), attempted to distinguish the sources of the book. Many maintain that the work derived from the fusion of two sources of different value: one Jewish-Christian or Petrine, the other Gentile-Christian or Pauline. These systems, which destroy one another, often founded on arbitrary hypotheses concerning the origin of the Church and of the hierarchy, are treated at length by E. Jacquier (Les Actes des Ap., pp. xv-iv).
Let us mention the principal among the most ancient testimonies of tradition. The anti-Marcionite prologue of the 2nd century (in Lucam) attests: «Et tamen postremo scripsit idem Lucas Actus Apostolorum» (text of d. de Bruyne, in Revue Bénédic., 40 [1928], p. 197). The Muratorian Canon (2nd century), according to the best reconstruction, writes: «Acta autem omnium apostolorum sub uno libro scripta sunt. Lucas optimo Theophilo comprehendiit quae sub praesentia eius singula gerebantur etc.» (lines 34-39). St. Irenaeus reports many passages ascribing them to Luke, cites the discourses of Peter, of Paul, of James as they are read in the Acts (Adv. Haereses, III, 12: PG 7, 892 ff.; etc.). Tertullian: «Porro cum in eodem commentario Lucae et tertia hora orationis demonstretur...» (De Ieiunio, 2, 10, cf. Act. 2, 15). Clement of Alexandria cites Act. 17, 23, «as Luke in the Acts of the Apostles recalls» (Stromata, 5, 12, 82: PG 9, 124). Origen: «Luke who wrote the Gospel and the Acts» (in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., VI, 25: PG 20, 585). Eusebius lists the Acts among the books ὁμολογούμενοι, whose authenticity and canonicity were never controverted (Hist. Eccl., III, 25: PG 20, 268).
Already from the 1st century and the beginning of the 2nd, implicit testimonies abound in the Didaché, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius Martyr, St. Polycarp, St. Justin (E. Jacquier, op. cit., pp. cci-cciv).
The unity of the book, written by a single author, follows from the fact that in all its parts one notes the same use of characteristic words and phrases, the same method of composition. The differences of style observed in certain passages, especially in the first chapters where Semitisms abound, are easily explained by taking into account the different sources, oral or written, consulted.
The sections composed in the first person plural ("we") bear the original imprint of a diary: the author, without naming himself, thus indicates to the reader the episodes of which he was an eyewitness. Identical characteristics of style are noted both in the "we" sections and in the rest of the work. From these sections it follows that the author is a companion of St. Paul, distinct from Silas and from Timothy, who accompanied the Apostle to Rome and was with him during the first Roman imprisonment. Such a disciple, remembered by Paul as present at Rome in the letters of the imprisonment, can be none other than the «most dear physician Luke» (Col. 4, 14; Philem. 24), not named in the Acts, yet present, belonging to the educated class, a faithful collaborator of Paul.
III. THE PURPOSE
The work begins with the prophetic words of Jesus: "You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit which will come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (1:8). And the author intends to prove that the Apostles were truly witnesses of Jesus first in Jerusalem, then in Samaria and the rest of Judea, then in other regions, as far as the capital of the empire, always under the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit.
Besides this primary purpose, which emerges from the way the material is presented in the A., St. Luke must have had other secondary purposes: that of confirming Theophilus and the readers in the faith (cf. Lk. 1:4), of showing Paul's innocence in the face of the accusations of the Jews, and also of emphasizing the doctrinal agreement between the two great Apostles Peter and Paul (cf. 9:27; 14:4-14; 21:18).
IV. THE DATE OF COMPOSITION
The last chronological indication, contained in the abrupt close of the book, allows us to glimpse the date on which the work was published: "Paul dwelt two whole years in a house he had rented" (28, 30-31). Once that biennium of the first Roman imprisonment had ended with Paul's release (the year 63), Luke delivered his work in two books (Gospel and Acts) to the faithful, composed during his stay in Rome.
If the Acts had been written later, for example after the martyrdom of Paul (the year 67), the author, who intended to prove that the Apostles were witnesses of Christ, would have had to speak of this supreme testimony of the Apostle; after Paul's last journey to the East (II Tim. 4, 13, 20), the words he spoke to the Ephesian presbyters on his return from the third missionary journey would not have been left without explanation: "I know that you all will see my face no more" (20, 25). Nor is there the slightest allusion to the destruction of Jerusalem (the year 70) or to the beginning of the Jewish war (the year 66); there is not even a trace of the persecution of Nero that broke out in the summer of 64; on the contrary, throughout the work a certain optimism shines through with regard to the emperor and his magistrates.
All these data converge to fix the date of the book at 63. St. Luke must have left it to the Romans as a remembrance of Paul, who was preparing to carry the testimony of Christ "to the ends of the earth" (to Spain?).
The thesis of certain exegetes (with Zahn) therefore seems untenable, namely that when Luke wrote the prologue to the Acts, calling his Gospel πρῶτον λόγον ("primum sermonem", not πρότερον: priorem, the first of two), he still had at his disposal so much material as to compose a third book. Such an argument is flawed at its root, because in Hellenistic Greek the superlative πρῶτος is used with the sense of the comparative πρότερος.
V. THE SOURCES
If Luke is the author of the Acts, he had excellent sources at his disposal. He learned many facts de visu in the Apostle's company. These are the ones contained in the sections with "we." If, as is probable, Luke was a member of the Church of Antioch, he was also able to know personally the history of this community traced in his book: the "Western" text has a section with "we" at Antioch as well (11:28, Codex Bezae D). From St. Paul he was able to learn the salient features of his biography; much information he was able to draw from the companions of Paul's journeys (Silas, Timothy, Erastus, Gaius, Aristarchus, etc.). Information about the Church of Jerusalem and about the activity of St. Peter and of the deacons he may have drawn from Mark, with whom he found himself in Rome, from James the head of the Church of Jerusalem, from Philip the deacon with whom he found himself in Caesarea (21:8-10).
Luke (presented as "iuris studiosus" by the Muratorian Fragment) must also have been interested in the archival documents containing the records of Paul's trials. It is not improbable that he used a written source for the first part of the Acts. Some believe they can identify the author of this source as Mark. The literary resemblance between this part and the Gospel of Mark, who wrote down the preaching of Peter, is symptomatic (L. Dieu, Marc source des Actes I-XV, in Revue Biblique, 29 [1920], pp. 555-569 and 30 [1921], pp. 86-96).
The hypothesis of Krenkel, Wendt and others, who incline toward the late date of the Acts, that the author depends on the writings of Flavius Josephus composed toward the end of the 1st century, must be excluded. The coincidences concerning the tomb of David, the Beautiful Gate, the famine in the time of Claudius, are easily explained: both writers had good sources at their disposal; nor are there lacking divergences, concerning Theudas and Judas (5:36 and Ant. Iud., XX, 5, 1 ff.).
VI. THE HISTORICAL VALUE
Once it has been proved that Luke is the author of the A. and that he had excellent sources at his disposal, it remains demonstrated that his historical work deserves credence. In confirmation one may note its agreement with pagan, Jewish and Christian sources.
The author knows that in Cyprus there is a proconsul (ἀνθύπτος) named Sergius Paulus (13, 7), that Philippi "is the chief city of that part of Macedonia and is a Roman colony" governed by strategoi (16, 22), while Thessalonica is ruled by politarchs (17, 16), Ephesus by asiarchs as well as by a proconsul and a grammateus (19), Malta by a prōtos (28, 7): institutions attested by secular historians and by archaeological discoveries. The episode of chapter 19 (the silversmith and the Ephesian Artemis) is illustrated by the inscriptions and documents of the time, which present Artemis as "fallen from heaven," Ephesus as a "neocóros" city, servant of the temple (E. Ceroni, Grande Artemide degli Efesini!, in Scuola Cattolica, 60 [1932, II], pp. 121-42, 203-26).
The Jewish sources confirm the notices concerning Herod Antipas, the two Agrippas, Berenice and Drusilla. The author shows himself well informed about the Jewish priests (Annas, Caiaphas, Ananias), about the hierarchy of the Sanhedrin and its attributions, about the Jewish sects, about the Roman political-military regime in Palestine: he knows that the Roman procurators (Felix and Festus) normally reside at Caesarea, where there is a garrison with centurions and cohorts.
The Christian sources, especially the Pauline Epistles, highlight the historical character of our book. The A. and the Epistles agree in presenting Paul as a Pharisee, son of Pharisees (26, 5; cf. Phil. 3, 4), as a persecutor marvelously transformed into an apostle of Christ, who escaped from Damascus in a basket (II Cor. 11, 32 f.), persecuted at Antioch, Iconium, Lystra (II Tim. 3, 10). In the A. and in the Epistles Paul's doctrine concerning Judaism coincides, both in the principle that faith and not the Mosaic law justifies, and in the practice that permitted Jewish Christians the observance of the legal rites.
The verification of these and many other historical and doctrinal traits of the A. provides the full demonstration of the historical truthfulness of the book, both as a whole and in its details.
The genuineness of the discourses (no fewer than 27), reported in direct form, which constitute the fourth part of the A. (255 verses out of 1003), has been called into question. We are evidently in the presence of summaries: even the longest can be delivered in a few minutes. The "independent" critics regard them as invented according to the literary taste of the Greek-Roman historians; but it is certain that the A. reproduce exactly at least the thought of those who take the floor in them.
Luke gave great importance especially to the discourses that fixed the Christian catechesis. In the prologue to his Gospel (1, 1-4) he says he writes "that thou mayest know the certainty concerning the discourses in which thou hast been instructed" and assures the reader of the goodness of his sources, indicating among his informants the eyewitnesses and the "ministers of the word." He has therefore drawn from the sure sources he had at his disposal (witnesses, archives) the content of the missionary and apologetic discourses of Peter, Stephen, Paul. He must have consulted written sources, especially for the first part of the A. (L. Cerfaux, La composition de la première partie du livre des Actes, in Ephém. theol. locan., 13 [1936], pp. 667-691). The Jewish informants, moreover, consulted by St. Luke, were accustomed to preserving by memory the words of their teachers.
A notable confirmation of the historical veracity of the discourses is had in the fact that in the summaries of St. Peter's discourses several traces are noted of the Petrine style, as it results from his Epistles; and analogously, in the summaries of St. Paul's discourses, several of the Pauline style (P. De Ambroggi, I discorsi di s. Pietro negli A.: Realtà storica o finzione letteraria?, in Scuola Cattolica, 55 [1928, I], pp. 81-97, 161-86, 243-64).
VII. THE SO-CALLED "WESTERN" TEXT OF THE A. — Among the families of codices and citations that have transmitted the text to us, there stands out, in the writings of Luke, the one called "Western," because it is represented predominantly by witnesses coming from the West. It is found in the Greek-Latin codex of Beza (symbol D) of the 6th century, in the ancient Latin versions, usually in the citations of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine. The label "Western," however, is not exact, because the ancient Syriac versions also connect in part with this family. It presents strange variants in comparison with the text of other families, especially of that represented by the codices of the 4th century, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.
Besides the section with the "we" at Antioch (11, 28), there are various additions: for example, "seven steps" outside the door of St. Peter's prison (12, 7). Above all, the form of the decree of the Apostolic Council (15, 20, 29) is quite different. Other notable variants: 16, 11, 35; 18, 19, 27; etc.
To explain such differences, some critics (with Blass and Zahn) hold that Luke composed two editions of his writings, one longer and less polished at Rome (of Western type), the other shorter and more elegant dedicated to Theophilus (of Eastern or Antiochene type). Against this hypothesis it suffices to observe that the twofold redaction of the apostolic decree (15, 20, 29) cannot derive from the same author. The "Western" form (D), in which the "strangled" is not forbidden and the golden rule of charity is prescribed, reveals itself as composed when the Judaizing controversy was by then overcome. Therefore this form, at this point, cannot have been drafted by Luke. Many variants of this family are explanatory additions: some might derive from an ancient witness and reproduce a good tradition. But they cannot be traced back to the same author of the A. Probably the intentional corrections are due to a non-Western, but Eastern redactor (perhaps Egyptian, thinks M.-J. Lagrange) who retouched Luke's text toward the end of the 1st century or at the beginning of the 2nd.
VIII. THE DECREE OF THE BIBLICAL COMMISSION
As a conclusion to the objective results of literary criticism concerning the Acts, let us summarize the directives contained in six responses issued by the Pontifical Biblical Commission on June 12, 1913.
1. Luke the Evangelist is the author of the book entitled Acts of the Apostles. Proofs: the unanimous tradition going back to the early Church, the internal criteria, the similarity between the Third Gospel and the Acts, especially the connection between the two prologues.
2. The author of the Acts is one only. Proofs: the language, the style, the manner of narrating, the unity of purpose and doctrine in all its parts.
3. The unity of authorship is not contradicted, but confirmed, by the sections written in the first person plural.
4. The date of composition is not much later than the two years of St. Paul's first Roman imprisonment. It cannot be deduced from the abrupt ending of the book that the author wished to write or did write another lost volume.
5. Its historical value is confirmed by the fact that Luke had at his disposal and consulted excellent sources, such as the founders of the Palestinian Church and St. Paul; further confirmation is given by its agreement with the letters of St. Paul and with historical documents.
6. Its historical value holds, notwithstanding that the book contains accounts of supernatural events, summarized discourses that seem adapted to the circumstances, apparent divergences from some historical document, biblical or profane, or from other assertions of the same book or of other sacred books (AAS, 5 [1913], p. 291; L. Méchineau, Gli A. degli Apostoli e le epistole pastorali, Rome 1914; L. Pirot, Les Actes des Ap. et la Commission Biblique, Paris 1919).