HARVARD THEOLOGICAL STUDIES I THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS BY CHARLES CUTLER TORREY PROFESSOR OF THE SEMITIC LANGUAGES IN YALE UNIVERSITY Issued as an extra number of the HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW, 1916 CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1916 *?^t 4 "' ^) HARVARD THEOLOGICAL STUDIES HARVARD THEOLOGICAL STUDIES EDITED FOR THE FACULTY OF DIVINITY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY BY GEORGE F. MOORE, JAMES H. ROPES, KIRSOPP LAKE CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON:. HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1916 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL STUDIES I THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS BY CHARLES CUTLER TORREY PROFESSOR OF THE SEMITIC LANGUAGES IN YALE UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1916 COPYRIGHT, 1916 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Issued as an extra number of the HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW, 1916 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS CHAPTER I THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 1-15 i. INTRODUCTORY THE hypothesis of a Semitic source (or sources) underlying more or less of the first half of Acts has commended itself to a few scholars. Thus Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, 1906, p. 84: " Es spricht Wichtiges dafiir, dass Lukas in der ersten Halfte der Acta eine aramaische Quelle iibersetzt und benutzt hat, aber schlagend kann die Annahme nicht widerlegt werden, dass er lediglich auf miindlichen Mitteil- ungen fusst. Vollends unsicher ist es, welchen Umfang die Quelle gehabt hat und ob es iiberhaupt eine einzige Quelle gewesen ist." Similarly in his Apostelgeschichte, 1908, pp. 138, 186. Wendt, Die Apostelgeschichte, 1913, p. 16, says: " Im Anschluss an Nestle StKr 1896 S. 102 ff. nimmt [Blass] die Bearbeitung einer ara- maischen Quelle im ersten Teile der Apostelgeschichte an. Die in diesem ersten Teile haufiger als im zweiten vorliegenden Aramais- men werden von ihm als Beweis hierfiir betrachtet (Evang. sec. Luc., 1897, p. vi, xxi, ss.)." See also Blass' very meager statement in his Philology of the Gospels (1898), 141, 193 f., 201, of his some- what hastily conceived theory according to which Luke followed an Aramaic source in the first twelve chapters of Acts. But so far as I am aware, no one has ever attempted to point out specifically Aramaic locutions in Acts. Nor has the search for Semitisms, of whatever sort, hitherto resulted in any fruitful dis- covery. A few doubtful examples have been adduced in support of still more doubtful conclusions; there has been no effort to collect and examine the material of this nature. Nestle's observations, 2092604 4 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS referred to above, 1 were concerned only with two variant readings (2, 47 and 3, 14) in Codex Bezae, and have no bearing whatever on the question of the original language of this part of Acts, as I hope to have opportunity to show elsewhere. 2 Wellhausen in his " Noten zur Apostelgeschichte " (Nachrichten von der K. Gesellsch. der Wiss. zu Gb'ttingen, 1907, 1-21) takes no notice of Semitisms or of possible Semitic sources; in his " Kritische Analyse der Apostelgeschichte " (Abhandlungen der K. Gesellsch. der Wiss. zu Gottingen, 1914, 1-56) he considers the possibility of translation in only one passage, namely 2, 23 f., and there in a wholly non-committal way. Among English and American scholars the question of Semitic sources in Acts seems to have aroused even less interest than among the Germans. Moffatt, Introduction, 1911, p. 290, says (citing Harnack): " There is fair ground for conjecturing that Luke used and translated an Aramaic source "; and Milligan, The New Testament Documents, 1913, p. 163, refers to the hypothesis as a possible one. Now Aramaic is not an unknown language, and we have consider- able familiarity with the principles and methods of those who rendered Semitic documents into Greek at the beginning of the present era. The question, too, is one of far-reaching importance. In a writing of the character and extent of the first half of Acts it would ordinarily be possible to determine whether the Greek is a translation, and if so, from what language the version was made. In the present case, by good fortune, the material at hand for the demonstration is more than usually satisfactory. I am confident that those who examine the evidence carefully will find it conclusive. 2. THE LANGUAGE OF THE FIRST HALF OF ACTS The first half of the Book of Acts is concerned primarily with the church in Jerusalem, viewed as the center from which great evangel- izing forces went out into the world. The background of the narra- 1 They were first published in English in The Expositor, 1895, pp. 235-239; then, with the title " Einige Beobachtungen zum Codex Beza," in the Theol. Studien u. Kritiken, 1. c. * It should be added that Nestle's own conclusion as to the original language indi- cated was that it was more likely Hebrew than Aramaic (Expositor, I. c., p. 238) ; see however his Philologica Sacra, 1896, p. 55, where he refuses to express an opinion. THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 5 tive is obviously Judean. It is antecedently probable that the earliest documents of this Jewish Christian community would have been written in Aramaic, the vernacular. We also have excellent reason for believing that Luke, 1 the compiler of the two histories, was one who made special search for Semitic documents, as the primitive and authentic sources, in order to render them into Greek. I think I may claim, without undue presumption, that the whole question of Semitic sources in Acts has entered a new phase since my argument, in the article " The Translations made from the Original Aramaic Gospels," contributed to Studies in the History of Religions Presented to Crawford Howell Toy (New York, Macmillan Co., 1912, pp. 269-317), that the compiler of the Third Gospel was an accomplished translator of both Hebrew and Aramaic. 2 We should therefore surmise, at the outset, that the very noticeable Semitic coloring of the first part of the book, remarked by all com- mentators, is simply due to translation. It is not necessary to argue that the Greek of Acts is not homo- geneous; it may be well, however, to review here the main facts touching the question of translation. For the first fifteen chapters, the language is distinctly translation- Greek; in the remaining chap- ters, on the contrary, the idiom is not Semitic, and there is no evi- dence that we are dealing with a version. The whole book, however, shows unmistakable uniformity of vocabulary and phraseology, so that it is obvious (to him who recognizes the Semitic source) that the author of 16-28 was the translator of 1-15. Many have re- marked that the most strongly " Hebraizing " chapters are those at the beginning of the book. The reason for this appearance is the fact that the opening chapters are so largely made up of speeches composed in high style, along with quotations from the Old Testa- 1 The identification of the author of the Third Gospel and Acts with Luke, the com- panion of Paul, is not essential to the present argument. I will, however, record here my opinion that the church tradition is right, and that Luke the compiler was also the author of the " We-document." * The article was not reviewed or noticed in print, so far as I am aware, but the many letters which I received lead me to think that the demonstration was generally accepted by those who read it. Most of the letters expressly approved the argument derived from Luke i, 39, in particular, and no one of my correspondents raised objection to it. 6 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS ment. The case is exactly parallel to that of the first two chapters of Luke's Gospel. On the other hand, in such chapters as Acts 13- 15, where the events narrated are comparatively recent and widely familiar, and the language therefore is that of every-day life, the rendering sounds somewhat more free. But even in the chapters of this latter class the translation is found on examination to be truly close; the Greek idiom never strays far from the Aramaic, while occasional telltale phrases point to the underlying language. These indications of a translated Semitic source, it may be added, are present in every part of the first half of the book. There are no passages in which the language can be said to make it probable that Luke is composing his own Greek. It is a striking fact (which will be considered more fully below) that in the very beginning of the first chapter the evidence from the material content combines with that afforded by the language in such a way as to make it plain that Luke is following a written source so closely, and with such self-restraint, that he does not even allow himself space for an intro- ductory sentence of his own. This, again, is altogether characteristic of the author of the Third Gospel. Throughout chapters 1-15 we are constantly meeting such Semitisms as the following: 1 i, i 7;paro iroieiv (Aram.); i, 5 pera TroXXds rauras i^pas (Jewish Aram.); i, 10 /ecu cos (naO a.TeviovTes rjffav . . . KO.L loov (xrn) K.r.X.; i, 15 eiri TO O.VTO (also 2, I, 44, 47); 2, 7 ovxi ioov (Aram.); 2, 23 IKOOTOV 5id xtipbs (TS) dj>6/icov; 2 3, 20 Kcupot a.va.\l/v^fus airo TrpocrcoTrou TOV Kvpiov, 4, 12 r6 dedofj-tvov kv avdp&TTois', 4, 16 ywarbv ($53) KOWOJ'; 10, 15 TrdXij' e/c devTcpov (probably ily so also Matt. 26, 42); 10, 25 eyevero rov dy) rf? 5i5ax; 13, 24 Trpo 7rpo(rco7rou TTys tcr65ou auroO; 13, 25 O^K el/it 70? (Aram.); 14, 2 eKaKoxrav ras \frvxas T&V iQv&v] 14, 8 xu>\6s IK /cotXtas fj.rjrp6s avrov (also 3, 2); 14, 15 evayyf\L^6fj.VOL vfj.as eTnffTpefaiv eiri deov Z&vra', 15, 4 Trapt- bixdriaav airo TTJS eKK\r)ffla.s (} i^apDN , the invariable idiom in Ara- maic. Correction to UTTO, as in most MSS.,was inevitable); 15, 7 ev vfuv e^cXe'^aro (see below); 15, 3 (bre/cpifli; 'IaKco/3os (the very common Aramaic njy " take up the word," sometimes hardly more than " speak "; cf. Dan. 4, 27 ! So also 3, 12 and 5, 8); x 15, 23 ot 7rpff@VTtpoi adt\oL The fact that so many of these idioms are obviously Aramaic, while no specifically (or even prevailingly) Hebrew idiom is to be found, is certainly not accidental. Moreover, it is not enough to speak of frequent Semitisms; the truth is that the language of all these fifteen chapters is translation-Greek through and through, generally preserving even the order of words. In the remainder of the book, chapters 16-28, the case is altogether different. Here, there is no evidence of an underlying Semitic lan- guage. The few apparent Semitisms (/cat idov; ey&ero with infin.; rare used in continuing a narrative; iv&iriov with gen.; Wero v raj Tr^eujuart Tropeveffdai ; /c /zeVou (iv AieVw) avr&v) are chargeable to the Koine; though their presence may be due in part to the influence of the translation-Greek which Luke had so exten- 1 The idiom is also Hebrew. As for 2 Mace. 15, 14, it was written by a man who, as we have good reason to believe, was as familiar with Aramaic as with Greek (see my Aramaic Gospels, 295). 8 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS sively read and written. In either case they are negligible. Luke's own language if that is really what we have in the latter half of Acts has a simplicity of structure that is often much like the Semitic, and this fact renders the transition less abrupt. Harnack, Apostelgeschichte 16, says: " Im allgemeinen kommt Lukas' Stil dem der Septuaginta, namentlich aber dem der Makkabaerbiicher (der aber selbst nichts anderes ist als der Stil der gesprochenen Sprache, von gebildeten Mannern behandelt) sehr nahe." Whoever is well acquainted with the literature here named will rub his eyes when he reads these words. The " style " of the LXX is simply the style of literal translations from Semitic originals, the clumsy result of put- ting Hebrew writings into a too closely fitting Greek dress. Luke's style in Acts 16-28 (the only place, excepting Luke i, 1-4, where we can really examine it) has in it scarcely anything to remind us of the Greek Old Testament. In structure, syntax, and idioms habi- tually employed its Greek belongs to an altogether different genus. And what is "the style of the Books of Maccabees"? i Mace, is a closely literal rendering from a Hebrew original. The style of 2 Mace, is rhetorical, somewhat labored, and much more pretentious than that of Luke, and is totally different from that of i Mace. The style of 3 Mace, is so overloaded and bombastic as to make the book very tiresome reading. In 4 Mace, we have the work of a master of Alexandrian rhetoric, but his style has hardly any resem- blance to that of Luke. The Greek of Acts 16-28, then, is not " like that of the LXX," to say nothing of the widely diverse Books of Maccabees. Furthermore, even if we substitute "language" for " style," it is not true that Acts 1-15 sounds like the Koine. It sounds, on the contrary, like i Mace., Jeremiah, Daniel, and all the other translations from Hebrew or Aramaic. The voice of the Aramaic can be heard through the Greek. Luke translates like the best interpreters of his time, always faithfully and generally word for word. When he writes his own language, on the other hand, the resulting Greek represents a Syrian type of the Koine which reads smoothly and is sufficiently idiomatic. 1 In short, the Greek of the 1 In some respects the Greek of Marcus Diaconus' Life of Porphyrius of Gaza offers an interesting parallel to that of Acts 16-28, after due allowance has been made for the THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 9 first half of Acts differs widely and constantly from that of the sec- ond half, both in the idiom which it uses and in its literary structure. There is one obvious and satisfactory way of accounting for this fact, namely the hypothesis of translation in the first half. Is there any other adequate explanation ? 1 It is perhaps unnecessary to say that any attempt to reconstruct the Judean Aramaic dialect of the middle of the first century is bound to be arbitrary, and that the result can only be an artificial idiom. We must rely chiefly on our meager knowledge of the Ara- maic of the " Biblical " period (3d-2d centuries B.C.), and our hardly more satisfactory acquaintance with the dialect of the Onkelos Tar- gum (mainly second century A.D.; a translation idiom, with all the usual characteristics of such a creation) . We have also the valuable, though very scanty, aid afforded by the Megillath Taanith and other bits of the genuine Judean speech of the first or second century which have been preserved in the Talmud and elsewhere. The many other helps, necessary but of minor importance, need not be mentioned here. Questions as to the type of speech most likely to be employed in such a narrative as this in Acts, whether popular or formal, whether archaizing or representing actually current use, are perhaps a mere waste of time. The answer to them, moreover, would not in the least affect the results reached in any of the pas- sages discussed in the following pages. In my own attempts at retranslation I have been guided by the probability that since this is distinctly a literary composition, and also written from the stand- point of the Jewish sacred tradition, its diction may well be supposed to have inclined toward that of the older models. At all events, the words and phrases here conjectured are all truly Aramaic and Pales- tinian, and possible of use at the time supposed. interval of time between the two writings. The style is very simple, and the language contains some distinct Syriasms O'ust as Luke's frequent use of r6re, " thereupon," is probably due to the influence of the Aramaic PIK). Luke's style, however, is even more direct and effective, and also stands on a higher literary plane. 1 In regard to the untenability of the theory that Luke " imitated the LXX " I have expressed myself at some length elsewhere (Aramaic Gospels, pp. 285-288). 10 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS i. ESPECIALLY STRIKING EXAMPLES OF MISTRANSLATION 5 \) IN ACTS 1-15 Especially striking evidence of translation in chapters 1-15 is afforded by the following passages. I have put first a number of examples of serious mistranslation; then follows a collection of minor slips, including too literal renderings. This latter list could be considerably lengthened. 2, 47. The most interesting of all the phrases which suggest trans- lation is found in 2, 47. The narrator is telling how the first large body of believers was formed in Jerusalem, as the result of those things which happened on the day of Pentecost. The new commun- ity was harmonious within, and was looked upon with favor by all the people of the city: " Day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people." Verse 47 then continues: 6 8k Kvpios irpofffridet. TOVS ). Similarly in John 17, 23, " that they (the believers) may be perfected together " (lit. into one; Greek as above), the Palestinian Syriac has lahdd, while the Lewis and Pe- shitta versions have lehad. A good example of the use of the word to mean "together," Heb. nrr, is found in the Palestinian Syriac version of Is. 43, 17: " Who bringeth out chariots and horses, host and hero together (N"ir6)." But in the Judean dialects of Aramaic the usual meaning of tnr6 is " greatly, exceedingly," and this is pre- THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 13 cisely what is needed in the place of iici TO avro in Acts 2, 47. For example, in the Onkelos Targum tnr6 (properly " singularly, un- iquely ") is the ordinary rendering of Heb. ixp . Thus, Exod. 19, 18, "And the whole mountain trembled greatly," Nir6 &mt3 5a yn . Similarly in Palestinian Syriac, the Judean dialect as we find it several centures later (c. 5th cent. A.D.) : Matt. 2, 16, " Then Herod . . . was angered exceedingly (lahda)." Examples with verbs of multiplying, increasing, and the like are numerous; thus from the Onk. Targ.: Gen. 17, 2, " I will multiply thee exceedingly (nr6 tnr6, corresponding to Heb. IKD "IKO); Exod. i, 7, "The children of Israel grew in strength exceedingly "; and many others. It is also worthy of especial notice that in the clauses where this adverb modifies a verb it is regularly placed at the end of the clause like the 7rl TO ai>To in the verse under consideration. At the end of Acts 2 the statement that the church " was greatly increased daily " is certainly to be expected; not only because of the way in which similar statements are interjected at frequent intervals through all this part of the history (4, 4; 5, 14; 6, 7; 9, 31), but also in particular because comparison of 2, 41 with 4, 4 shows that this writer did indeed think of this very time as one in which the company of believers was greatly and rapidly increased. We know that it was not his habit to understate. The question why the Greek translator misunderstood his text, can be answered with greater ease and certainty than is ordinarily possible in explaining supposed mistranslations. The reason is simply this, that the use of xinb to mean "greatly," etc., is a peculi- arity of the Judean dialect, while the Greek version was presumably made at some distance from Judea. This use of the word is not only absolutely unknown in the Aramaic of Northern Syria and in classical Syriac, but it is also unheard of in the other Palestinian dialects, including even the Galilean. It is never found, for instance, hi the Palestinian Talmud or Midrash (Dalman, Grammatik des jiidisch-paldstinischen Aramaisch, 2 211). l If we suppose, for ex- ample, that this document of the Jerusalem church, composed in 1 For an instance of this usage in a remote Aramaic dialect, see Noldeke, Mandtiische Grammatik, 207 below. 14 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS Judea, was translated by a native of Antioch, familiar with Aramaic from his childhood, we can scarcely doubt that on coming to this tnrb he would be somewhat puzzled by it. It could hardly suggest to him, in this context, any other idea than " together," and we should expect him to render it by the customary phrase ini rb avr6. We may then restore the original Aramaic of 2, 476 as follows: mrb Dr f>3 pn nf> Kin spto VIDI . Here, the preposition i> in the T : - ..' T : T-; ' T ; T : r IT fourth word might signify either the dative or the direct object. Doubtless it was originally intended to signify the former; but if the translator failed to recognize the peculiar use of jnni> (and we certainly should not expect him, if he lived at a distance from Judea, to be familiar with this merely local idiom), it was inevitable that he should render with the Greek accusative. The correct ren- dering would be: 6 5e nvpios irpoatrWu rots au^o^vois Kad' rj^pav cr065pa, "And the Lord added greatly day by day to the saved." 2 The argument derived from this passage is exceedingly forcible. The hypothesis of accidental coincidence would be difficult enough even if we had only this one case to consider. But the fact is, as will be seen, that half a dozen others, hardly less striking, are to be put beside it. Even the evidence that author and translator lived in different parts of the Aramaic-speaking world receives corroboration from other passages. 3, 16. Kat 7rt rfi TricrTtt TOV 6v6fj.aros avrov TOVTOV dv 0opeTre icai otSare tartp&jXJtv TO ovo^a. avrov KCU 17 TTIOTIS 17 5t' avrov cdtaicfv abru rr)v 6\oK\Tjpiav TOLVT^V a-jrevavTi, wavrcov vn&v. "And by faith in his name hath his name made this man strong, whom ye see and know; yea, the faith which is through him hath given him this per- fect soundness before you all." The passage presents two very obvious and serious difficulties. In the first place, the mode of expression is intolerably awkward and 1 I use this word (N^.D or FliOD ,&OO) simply for convenience, since we cannot be certain what Aramaic original is rendered by 6 r\ JVUK pjm pruN prn n jnr6 BB^ ^ KriJD'mi fi3^3 Dip an sniD^n r6 nan 11 m n NruoTn . Here there is a curious ambiguity in the middle of the sentence, which probably accounts for the difficulty in our Greek. What was originally intended was not eeu/zaros ayiov ffr6fj,aros AaveiS Tratdos pva.av WVTJ . . . Kal Kara TOV XpttrroO avrov. avvi]\Bf]oo.v yap K.T.&. The difficulty of this passage, namely of the first clause of verse 25, is so notorious that it need not be set forth here. It is sufficient to say that modern scholars have either virtually or expressly declared the text quite hopeless. It is not merely that the whole clause 6 TOV iraTpds TIH&V . . . eiTrcoy is untranslatable an incoherent jumble of words; the fact is quite as noticeable that no simple emendation of the Greek will render the clause intelligible. The problem is not to be solved by cancelling words, nor by adding them, nor by making transposi- 1 In the Greek, the latter would be preferred. Not so in Semitic, in which the change of subject is easier. Cf. also 9, 34. THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 17 tions. The clumsy phrase which Wendt (Komm., p. 115, note 2) hesitatingly accepts as the possible original was not obtained by any scientific process, but simply by cutting loose as some of the early versions did from the text which has been handed down to us. Preuschen says very truly that the words which constitute the first clause of vs. 25 "spotten jeden Versuches einer Konstruktion " (or, he might have added, Rekonstruktion). He himself regards rou Trarpos rin&v and 5id irvVfj.a.Tos aylov as glosses, but this explanation is quite without plausibility; the former phrase (a most unlikely addition) would never have been placed where it now stands, and as for the latter, it is so superfluous as to be all but inconceivable as a gloss. The fact is, our Greek text of the verse is extremely well attested, and no attempt to get beyond it has ever succeeded. As soon as the question of an underlying Aramaic idiom is raised, the probability suggests itself that the source of the confusion lay in a relative clause beginning Njnx H &rn , "that which our father . . .," which was misread as NJ13K n Kin , 6 rov Trarpos T\H&V. Turning the Greek back into Aramaic we obtain: Ntnip -n Nnn Dis^ NJUK H NTI IDK Tny TH , "That which our father, thy servant David, said by (or, by the command of) the Holy Spirit "; etc. It is obvious that the neuter pronoun, " that which," is required by the whole passage: the connection of the address AeWora . . . aurois becomes evident for the first time, and the jap in vs. 27 now comes to its own. In- stead of the more common Dia^, 1 DIM might have been used; com- pare e.g. mrr 'ED, "by the command of Yahwe," i Chron. 12, 23. In the order of words in this restored Aramaic there is nothing unusual ; such delayed apposition is of frequent occurrence, and in this case we can see a rhetorical reason for separating " our father " from " thy servant David." There is now no ellipsis in the passage, 2 but everything is expressed as clearly and naturally as possible. But as soon as the * of NTJ was lengthened into } (perhaps the most com- mon of all accidents in Hebrew- Aramaic manuscripts, and here made especially easy by the preceding context) the whole passage was 1 For the Greek rendering, cf. Sid ori/xeiTos for ""&/> in i Kings 17, i; an excellent parallel. 2 In English idiom we should use as instead of that which: " Why (as our father David said) do the heathen rage ? " 1 8 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS ruined. NJUN n xin was of necessity 6 TOV Trarp6s THJ&V, and every other part of our Greek text followed inevitably; there is no other way in which a faithful translator would have been likely to render it. 1 This passage gives exceedingly strong support to the theory of translation. The manner in which the change from " to i reduces perfect order to complete chaos is as remarkable as anything of the sort in the history of the ancient versions. 8, 10. This passage occurs in the story of Simon the Sorcerer. He by his sorcery had made such an impression on the people of his city that they all united in saying : OVTOS ianv T\ bvvayns TOV deov fi KOL\OV- liivt\ /ie7a\77, which must be translated: " This (man) is the power of God which is called great." Both ancient and modern scholars have been perplexed by this sentence. Some Greek manuscripts and early versions, including the Peshitta, omit KaXov^vij as superfluous and so indeed it is. Preuschen would cancel it. But how, then, account for its presence in our text ? There is no conceivable reason why it should have been added. As for the " great power," it has been pointed out (what we could have taken for granted even with- out the demonstration) that Gnostic formulae and magic texts speak of a peyaXri dwa^s. But this is quite outside the atmosphere of the Book of Acts; nor have we any reason whatever for suppos- ing that the people of Samaria were a Gnostic community. Some, including Wendt, have even preferred to follow Klostermann's curious suggestion that the neyaXvj of this verse was originally a transliteration of N^JD " revealing! " But the main difficulty of the verse, after all, lies in the TOV deov. Who, or what, can have been intended by this phrase ? It is toler- ably certain that the scene of these events is the capital city of the province Samaria, i.e. Sebaste. 2 Now it is well known, though often 1 The manner of the translator in sticking dose to a difficult Semitic text, following word by word the order of the original (excepting that he did not, of course, write SiA o-Ti/xaroj Kvcbua.rvs), is the same which we see in Luke i and 2; see Aramaic Gospels, pp. 292 ff ., 305. * If we had only verse 5 to deal with, we should hardly hesitate to declare the rather noticeable phrase i) r6X TTJS Zanaplas a mistranslation of pOB> W1O , " the prov- ince of Samaria "; cf. Luke i, 39, where the mistranslation is certain. In verses 9 THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 19 forgotten, that the city (earlier Samaria, later Sebaste) was never a seat of the " Samaritan " religion. Aside from Shechem-Neapolis always the headquarters the sect occupied certain towns and dis- tricts of the province, but never the capital city; " die Stadt Samarien blieb heidnisch, und gehb'rte nicht zu der Gemeinde der Samariter " (Wellhausen, 1 " sraelitische undjiidische Geschichte, 1 194; see also his Kritische Analyse" 14) . We must therefore suppose that those to whom Philip was preaching were polytheists; not foreigners, indeed, but the result of a mixture of nations and a syncretism of religions which contained Israelite elements; men who believed in gods many and lords many. What deity could the people of Sebaste have designated as 6 dtos ? Verse lob rendered into Aramaic reads as follows: xnta H K^n ji T T -; T : - ' 3-1 xnj?np n . This is grammatically ambiguous as it stands, seeing that the gender of ^n happens to be masculine; but it is beyond question that the rendering required by all that we know of the situa- tion is the following: avrrj (euros is also possible) iarlv 17 dvvanis TOV 6eov TOV KaXovpevov neya\ov, " This is the power of the God who is called Great" It is true, in the first place, that both Jewish and early Christian usage gave to God the title Myas; see for example Sir. 39, 6; 43, 28; 3 Mace. 7, 22; Titus 2, 13. In early Syriac rabbd, 6 Meyas, is occasionally used absolutely as his title. Jews employ this adjective in speaking of their God to foreigners; thus Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar (2, 45): "A Great God (Greek, 6 6e6s 6 ptyas) has made known to the king what shall come to pass," and in Bel and the Dragon 41 the foreign king confesses: Meyas karl Kvpios 6 debs. Again, in the Book of Acts we not only see a " great " god distinguished from other gods (19, 27 f.), but we also have in 16, 17 a virtual parallel to the present passage, inas- much as the superiority of the Christians' God is confessed by a foreigner: the clairvoyant maid of Philippi declares Paul and his companions to be " servants of the Most High (inf/lo-rov) God." 1 In and 14 Sa/*opia is of course the province (Wvos in 9 is probably an inaccurate render- of Dy " people "), but 8 and 9 sound rather as though a city were really intended. 1 Cf. also such passages as those quoted by Norden, Agnostos Theos 39 f.: els plv 6 neyiffTos Ka.i Kajdmrkprepm icai 6 Kpari-uv TOV xeuros, rol S'AXAw xoXXoi nard. 5fo/a/u> (from the " Onatas " cited by Stobaeus); Is 0e6s, & re 0eoi' o\r]v rrjv olKovfjL^mjv TJTIS eytvero iiri KXauSiou, "He signified by the Spirit that there would be a great famine upon all the world\ which came to pass in the days of Claudius." Verses 29 f. then proceed to tell how, when the famine came, the disciples in Antioch, every man according to his ability, sent relief to the brethren in Judea. That is, there was no famine in Antioch, and the narrator seems to have in mind only Judea as the afflicted region. Josephus, Antt. xx. 5, 2 (cf. 2, 5), does indeed tell of a " great famine " which came upon Judea in the first years of the reign of Claudius. There have been many attempts to explain the passage. Some, like Schiirer, Gesch. 3 , I, 567, note 8, would pronounce the statement in verse 28 " eine ungeschichtliche Generalisirung." But that is obviously not the case, if verses 29 f. refer to the same famine; the region of Antioch was not affected. Preuschen and others, misled by the fact that Roman writers mention local famines in several parts of the empire (but none of them at all wide-spread, nor any one affecting Palestine except the one above mentioned) in the reign of Claudius, decide that a widely extended famine was indeed cor- rectly foretold by Agabus, in verse 28, but that in verses 29 f. this famine is confounded with the one in Judea described by Josephus; see also Encycl. Bibl., art. " Chronology," 76, where the facts are IJ&YUTTOS (from Xenophanes); . . . ifjtyeiv Beoin, k4> &TTCUTI 54 ^5i; rbv nkyav rS>v kitti /SacriXia Kal 'o> rv ri> nkya. abrov kvfteiKvvukvovs (from Plotinus); and finally, in the passage quoted from Apollonius of Tyana: . . . 0j> ftkv, bv dri irpwrov < ncy&h? KOI &ri v&vruv 0j> Birrtov. " The God who is called Great " was an idea familiar to both Greeks and Semites in the days of the Apostles. But Luke's translation is a perfectly natural one. THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 21 stated not quite accurately. This is certainly a desperate attempt at explanation. Wendt concludes that the author of Acts here mis- understood his source; the words of Agabus were originally in- tended as a prophecy of " hunger for the word of the Lord " (Amos 8, n), but were mistakenly supposed to predict a famine! It is certainly difficult to imagine the nature of a " source " in which the context would not show which sort of famine was intended by the prophet. But the explanation of the difficulty is both easy and sure. The Aramaic original had the word ^-JK (= Heb. p, "land, earth"). The author of this document, writing in Jerusalem, followed the time-honored usage in calling Judea simply " the land" But when the translator, living outside Palestine, came to the phrase Kjnx i>3 , it was only natural that he should render it by 6X77 17 oiKovntvi], " all the earth." It is a mistake that has been made a great many times. Luke himself made it, in exactly the same way, in his Gospel 2, i (Aramaic Gospels, p. 293), where he represented Quirinius as taxing " all the world " (iraffav rr\v OIK.OV \iivt\v = pxn io) instead of " all the land " of Palestine. 15, 7. The beginning of the speech of Peter in the council at Jerusalem: "Avdpes d6eX$oi, vftels eiriffraffOe on d<' THJiep&v dpxauop kv vfj.1v ^Xe'aro 6 0eds 5id TOV <7r6/iaros JMV d/coO' rmfp&v dpxcucojf is ridiculously unsuitable in this connection. As the text stands, the reference can only be to the events of chap. 10, which happened only a few years before the time of the council. Preuschen calls the phrase a " starker Ausdruck fur Trporepov." But the two expressions mean very different things ! Why, if Luke meant " formerly " or " recently," did he write " from days of old " ? 1 The Aramaic equivalent of the troublesome passage would read thus: nMB f>y jnsoy yoeto^ KH^K ina fira wo^ s ov p n finjrr IWUK NJOTI^ wnlDa H xnta . This is both idiomatic and unambiguous. T T : J133 stands before the verb for the sake of emphasis, and the reason of the emphasis is obvious. It was an important question, whether the evangelizing of the Gentiles, which had made so portentous a beginning, was a thing which had arisen far from Jerusalem and without the cooperation of the Apostles to whom Jesus had com- mitted the charge of his church. The Greek follows the Aramaic with absolute fidelity; so closely, in fact, that the result is a mis- translation. The verb im is construed with a, which is replaced by ev; compare Luke 12, 8, os av 6)^0X0717077 iv e/iot, "whoever confesses me," and many similar cases. Perhaps if the fm had been placed after the verb, Luke would not have rendered so cautiously. 2 The rendering in English is: " Ye know that from of old God chose you, that the Gentiles might hear, by my mouth, the word of the gospel, and believe" In this sentence Peter reminds his hearers of two things: first, that Israel, and therefore the Church of the Messiah, had been chosen to give light to the Gentiles; and again, that he himself had begun this work, having been the first to bring to them the gifts of baptism and the Holy Spirit. But the emphasis is put, in the Aramaic, on the pronoun " you," and the mission of the elect church which is the salt of the earth, rather than on Peter and the incident of his initial effort. 1 Compare kn yevt&v iipxaluv in this same chapter, vs. 21. 1 It is of course to be borne in mind that a translator who follows his original rather closely is more likely to make mistakes in translating Aramaic than in rendering Hebrew or Arabic, because of the greater freedom in the order of words in the Aramaic sentence. THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 23 4. OTHER EVIDENCE OF TRANSLATION IN THESE CHAPTERS Aside from the instances of serious mistranslation, the following passages containing further evidence may be pointed out. 1,1. Hparo is simply the usual rendering of Aram. n$, which in the Palestinian dialect is used constantly in this almost redundant way (see e.g. Dalman, Worte Jesu, 21 f.). It is very unlikely that the word would have been used here in a Greek composition. 1 See also below. i, 2. The awkward position of 5td Tr^eu/zaros 07101; (Wellhausen, Analyse, would cancel the phrase as a later addition) is another result of translation. In the Aramaic, the words came at the end of the sentence, just before the verb (a^eXi^^T/) . But in that posi- tion it might refer to either one of the two phrases, " giving command- ment to the Apostles " and " whom he had chosen." The only way a cautious translator could preserve this ambiguity was to put the words where they now stand. i, 4. It is probable that the somewhat unusual word avvaKtfb- Hvos is the (exact) rendering of Aramaic ntano , this ithpa'al mean- ing primarily " eat salt in company with," and then simply " have (table-) companionship with." The pe'al occurs in the Old Testa- ment, Ezra 4, 14: " We have been guests (literally have eaten the salt) of the palace." The ithpa'al happens to be known to us only in the northern (Syriac) dialect, but it must have been in use in the Pal- estinian speech. Typical examples in Syriac are the following. Ps. 140, 4 (Heb. 141, 4): "I will not break bread with them (wicked men)," where Hebrew has the denominative Dr6x. St. Ephraemi opera, ed. Overbeck, 300, 19: " Now let us be his guests at table " ; said by Joseph's brethren, Gen. 43, 32-34. Ephr. Syr. opera, ed. Benedictus, i, 474 A: "He (Jeroboam) consorted with a heathen people"; where the context, which is concerned with idolatry, shows that the author had in mind primarily sacrificial feasts. Ibid., 534 c: " With sinners he (Jesus) consorted and ate "; the two verbs being all but synonymous. Finally, the verb is used in the Har- klean Syriac rendering of QJ , and that in the original Aramaic the word meant " cast himself down." The whole verse may well have read as follows: }p N^pn &op ^ fin vitj^riN "niyp b) xyvp }p JttanNi $>Q:H HNCH n N^JK . " For he had purchased a field with his ill-gotten gain; and having cast himself down, he burst asunder in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out." This is strikingly summary; it would seem that the narrator had no relish for the tale of Judas' death, but made it as brief as he could. It was well known to all those for whom he was writing; on the other hand, not every one of them knew the origin of the local name " H*qel-d a md" and it was chiefly in order to put this on record that he introduced here the parenthesis (vss. 18, 19). For the ambiguity of *?&}, cf. especially the Lewis Syr. rendering of Matt. 4, 6: /SdXe ffeavrbv KCLTU, pel men hdmekkd; also John 21, 7: Peter girt his coat about him, and cast himself (ef3a\ej> eavrov, n'phat) into the sea. 1 This ambiguity could easily account for the Greek of Acts i, 18. The local tradition was unquestionably this, that Judas committed 1 Cf . further the Syriac renderings of Matt. 3, 10 (Lew., Pesh.) ; 5, 29 (Pesh.) ; 21,21 (Lew., Cur., Pesh.); Mark n, 20 (Lew., Pesh.); Luke 3, 9 (Lew., Cur., Pesh.), in all of which /3dXXr0oi, passive, is rendered simply by ?BJ . THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 25 suicide. The translation irpyvris yevoptvos left room for this, as the use of TriwTeiv would not have done. The Greek is not difficult, cf. Kara yfjv yevonevos, 2 Mace. 9, 8, in the story of the death of Antiochus Epiphanes. It is hardly necessary to insist that irprjvris does not mean, and could not mean, "swollen"! The fanciful expansion of the story found in Papias was the source of the Arme- nian translation in this passage, as well as of the Armenian and Latin (-n-pijvfts rendered inflates) in Wisd. 4, ig. 1 The account of the death of Judas in Acts is not derived from the passage in Wisdom (Preu- schen, p. 8); it is not surprising, on the other hand, that after Acts 1-15 had been translated into Greek many should have been reminded by it of the words prj^ei . . . irprjveis in the older passage though the resemblance is not in any way remarkable. Nor does it seem to be the case that Matt, follows another tradition (" einer vollig abweichenden Ueberlief erung," Preuschen, ibid.) . The author of the First Gospel starts from the same popular belief regarding the " Field of Blood," z but makes out of it his own story, more suo, on the basis of Zech. n, 12 f. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that Judas owned a piece of land, and committed suicide on it; nor that the " Field of Blood " actually received its name in this way. 1,22. " During all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, dp^djuepos OLTTO roO ^3a7rri(rjuaro$ 'luavov os rrjs fifttpas 175 avt\rifj,(f>d'r] a' Tj/iaW This is an Aramaic idiom: "from (j fcos?) 3 . . . unto (*TJj)." Similarly Matt. 20, 8, dpdjui>os OLTTO TU>V ta-xa-tuv e'cos T&v Trp&Tw; Luke 23, 5, 8i8a KaO' 0X775 rrjs 'lovdaias, nai dp^djuevos ct7r6 TT^S FaXiXaias e'cos co5e. This is passable Greek, though not classical (Blass 74, 2) ; but the verb, or participle, 1 Acute disease of the bowels, in one form or another, is a strikingly common feature of oriental popular accounts of " the most miserable death of the wicked." Aside from the story in 2 Mace. 9, that of the death of Herod the Great in Jos., Anil, xvii, 6, 5, Bell. Jud. i, 33, 5, and of Herod Agrippa I in Acts 12, 23, compare the accounts of abdomens bursting, bowels consumed by fire, or by worms, and the like, in the ancient Life of Simeon Stylites (Journal of the Am. Or. Soc., 36, pp. 49, 56, 57, 69, 70; cf. also 53). 2 Whether the i.-jHij^aro, " hanged himself," of Matt. 27, 5 belonged to the tradition, or was merely Matthew's inexact term for the mode of suicide, may be questioned. , or N"ie> H3 , might equally well be used. 26 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS of " beginning " is one which is often used loosely in Palestinian Aramaic, even to the point of redundance (see the note on i, i), and it seems plain that what we have here is a form of this local peculiarity. In several other passages (see below) the Greek par- ticiple dpd/zfos is used in this same way; and from a comparison of all the occurrences, with especial regard to the structure of the sentence in each case, it becomes increasingly probable that a peculiar idiomatic use of ineto is the source of our Greek. In Ara- maic the word is an accusative of state or condition, 1 sometimes rather loosely connected, so that a faithful Greek rendering is likely to be awkward. Even in Luke 23, 5 (just cited) the clause sounds decidedly better when turned into Aramaic. 2 In Luke 24, 27 we seem to have an example of the looser use of the native idiom: " And then (ap^a^evos) from Moses and all the prophets he inter- preted to them," etc. In two other passages with dp^djuepos we see exemplified in a very striking way Luke's cautious faithfulness, leading him into translation- Greek of the stiffest type. The first of these is Luke 24, 47: " It is written . . . that repentance and remission of sins should be preached (KrjpvxSfjvai) in his name unto all the nations (els iravTa TO, Wv-rj), dp^d/ze^oi cnro 'ItpoixraX^/i. i/jeis judprupes TOVTUV." The Aramaic could have precisely this participial construction, the participle being in the accusative of condition, though without case-ending or other sign to show how it should be connected: }p fneto sg W pxtpn rwpa^ navn ap^a nation ni p^K n PL!? flnJK tbvh^ . Here, the participle " beginning " should be connected with " the nations "; it might, however, by a loose construction, be referred to the disciples', and since the next follow- ing words are " ye are witnesses," while the very next verse (49) commands the disciples to remain in the city for the present (cf. Acts i, 4, 8, etc.), and they did in fact begin preaching to the Gentiles in Jerusalem, it is probable that any good translator of that 1 A favorite construction with the participle in the Semitic languages; cf. e. g., Ezr. 7, 16 ra*Wn , Targ. Is. 53, 7 ^ J in Hebrew, i Ki. 14, 6 HK3 , Hag. i, 3 D^BD ; and with prefixed 1, 2 Sam. 13, 20 riDDlKh , Hab. 2, 10 NOini . Examples could be multiplied to any extent. 2 Cod. D gives the Greek a more natural sound by omitting the nai, whose use is not justified by the context. In Aramaic the 1 is entirely idiomatic, see above. THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 27 time would have chosen apj-a/jicvot rather than dp^djuepa. The Greek was bound to be bad in either case, and the masculine made better sense. The other passage is Acts 10, 37: v/zets oidare rd yevbuevov pfj^a Kad' 6X775 TTJS 'lovdalas, dp^d/iews biro rrjs FaXtXatas /icrd r6 (3a.Tr- Ttcr/ja 6 tKr)pv$;v 'IcodvT/s, 'lyaovv rbv curb Na"ap&7, a>s fXP iffev O.VTOV 6 deds irvevfjiaTi, a7tCfj /cat dwd/m, 6s di,fj\Qev evepyeT&v /c.r.X. This case very closely resembles the other. There was the same Aramaic particple, &OK>D , in the same construction: jinjx pjrv Of course the obvious connection of the participle is with (p?7jua, "thing"); yet in view of Acts i, 22, 'Irjo-ovs dp^d/iews airo TOV fia.TTTio'iJLa.Tos 'luavov, and Luke 23, 5, /cat dp^d/iews axo TT/S FaXtXaias (!), the translator must have felt it important to leave open the possibility that here also, as in the two parallel pas- sages, it was Jesus who " began." The only way in which he could do this, while keeping close to his original, was to use the masculine nominative case, dp^d/zews. It is a very common translator's de- vice, illustrated in the Greek O.T. as well as in the Book of Revela- tion in the N.T. 1 Blass, 31,6 (end), thought that dp^d/^os airo rfjs FaXiXaias in Acts 10, 37 might have been interpolated from Luke 23, 5. From what source, then, was dpdjuei>ot airb 'lepovcraX-fifj, in Luke 24, 47 in- terpolated ? The two cases explain and support each other unmis- takably; in both the correct text has been preserved along with later attempts at improvement. The twofold barbarism is not due to a twofold accident, it is simply a well-known feature of transla- tion Greek. The man who composed Luke 1,1-4 (and, as I believe, also Acts 16-28) knew the Greek language, had ideas regarding literary style, and was capable of expressing himself clearly in a way that was not intolerably clumsy. But the ancient translator 1 Compare also with both these passages such cases as i Ki. 5, 14: nal diroi- nrjva fitrav kv T(3 .\i@ai>u>, K.T.X. Here the participle is masculine, not feminine, because TYlS vH refers rather to the suffix prounoun (= avrovi) than to D^BpN ; and nominative because of the liberty which the translator enjoys (observe that in the original the case is the same suspended accusative of condition which we have in our &p&nei>os passages). 28 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS was under a compulsion stronger than that of style. From the point of view of his time, there was no way of solving this particular prob- lem of interpretation more satisfactory than the one which he chose. 2, i. An interesting and characteristic specimen of translation. " When the day of Pentecost arrived" but neither avuirK-qpovaBou. nor any Semitic equivalent can mean this. Moreover, "Pentecost," 77 i7/xepa Tr}s 7rvrr?/cocrr^s, is a Hellenistic coinage. Obviously, the original was: NjynK' D^^rai , "and when the Weeks were fulfilled," i.e. , the seven weeks intervening before the Feast. It was customary to refer to the interval in just this way, see e.g. Num. 28, 26. Luke, always faithful and always Hellenistic, rendered the infinitive exactly (the same translation in Luke 9, 51), but employed the technical terminology which his readers would understand. 2, 7. Ovxl i&w reproduces xn t6 . The Aramaic interjection is inserted very often for emphasis where run or jn would not be used in Hebrew. This use in interrogation (nonne) is known to us mainly from classical Syriac; cf. the Peshitta in Matt. 24, 2, etc. It is also good Arabic. 2, 22. " Designated by (airo) God." p is very frequently used with a passive verb to denote the agent; 4, 36, and 15, 33 are similar cases. Cf. also Luke 6, 18; 7, 35! 2, 24. It has long been recognized that this verse contains an ancient mistranslation, inasmuch as the LXX's udlves Oavarov in Ps. 17, 5; 144, 3 is a false rendering of mo ^nn, " bands of death." But scholars have failed to draw the necessary conclusion from Xixras, which, as many have observed, suits only the " bands," not the " pains." No writer composing his own Greek would ever have chosen this unsuitable word, and there is nothing in the Old Testa- ment that could have led him to employ it. The appeal sometimes made to Job 39, 2 (LXX) is not justified, for that grotesquely con- fused passage is as far removed as possible from the ideas with which the author of Acts is here dealing. Three verbs in succession e$i>Xaas ehvaas e^aTroo-reXeis) l are there used in the same way with ci>5ipas, the meaning being clear in no case; there can thus be no question of a phrase becoming current. Luke had before him the 1 The second and third of these are variant renderings of njr6tJTl in vs. 3. THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 29 words Kroo n x^nn jot?, "loosing the bands of death." The quota- tion from Ps. was obvious, and he followed the LXX, as usual. The NIP he of course rendered literally. 2, 33. We do not speak of " pouring out " a miracle, but rather of "performing" it. We may suppose that the Aramaic was KM FDStf finyJDtjh prvm Jirox H , the formal equivalent of our Greek, but differ- ently intended. The feminine suffix joined to the verb did not refer to the following, as it might naturally appear to, but to the word " spirit " (nn , Trpefyuaros) just preceding. The writer is returning to the prophecy of Joel, quoted in vs. 17. The translation should have been: " hath poured it out, as ye have seen and heard." 1 3, 20 f. The plural in /ccupoi and XPOVOJV indicates duration, as in the original Aramaic, airo 7rpoK inn nx D>i , "and he established his words, which he spoke against us." This is exactly what the present passage re- quires, since it is speaking of the fulfilment of prophecy. We may suppose that the Aramaic was: 'DI sr6s hhfo n N;b i?n ^;ny ^ This niopn certainly meant "fulfilment"; but as it is a word capable of the meaning " restoration " in this context, 2 Luke ren- dered, as in other similar cases, by a Greek word which came as near as possible to leaving both interpretations open, while agreeing in etymology with the Aramaic original. This is perhaps as characteris- tic an example of his cautious exactitude as could be found. 3, 24. Kcu iravres 8k ol irporJTai, airo Sct/zov^A /cat TUV Kadeffi oavfpov at the end of the clause. 4, 36. M6epnr)Vv6iJ.evov means, I think, " interpreted euphemisti- cally." The very fact that a name is interpreted without apparent reason might lead us to suspect that something is wrong with it. Bar-Nebo (Nebo was a TB>, devil) was not, for church historians, a desirable name for such a saint as this unless by means of inter- pretation the reproach could be removed. That the interpretation was far-fetched made no difference; whoever heard it was freed from the possibility of future embarrassment because of the name. 1 Cf . further Luke 1 2, 50, " Think ye that I came to put (Bovvai) peace in the earth ? " also 15, 22, " Put (S6rt) a ring on (is) his hand." THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 31 A somewhat similar case is 13, 6-8. Here the narrative intro- duces a certain " false prophet " and " sorcerer " whose name was Bar- Jesus (so the original and therefore, of necessity, the Greek translation). But at the next mention of the man, his name is " interpreted " (jueflepjui^euerai) into 'EAivias. 1 This is merely a euphemistic substitution; there is no need to suppose nor is it probable that the Greek name which was selected stood in any sort of relation to the Semitic name. An unfortunate nomen atque omen was replaced by one that was harmless, that is all. From that time on, it was certain that the false prophet would be known as " Elymas the Sorcerer," not " ~Rzx-Jesus the Sorcerer." We have abundant evidence of the strong aversion felt to such collocations, and the euphemistic substitution, called in late Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic ^33 (eTri/cXT/o-is), was a common thing. 2 In both passages it seems plain that the " interpretation " belongs to the translator, not to the Aramaic document. Only because of Luke's fidelity to his original was the true name preserved in 13, 6. 5, 7. This would be, in Aramaic: 'DI rinnJN r&jn py# r6na mm. ..... -i . i : r T ; T-;- The rendering is typical translation-Greek, as exact as it could be made. The 5td, r/p^aro. 1 It does not represent action antecedent in time to that of the following verb, the two are rather coincident: " Then they started up, full of zeal, and laid then: hands on the apostles." The insertion of a parenthetical (cir- cumstantial) clause, n8Mp p Vim, literally "and they were filled with zeal," would be entirely idiomatic; compare e.g. Margolis, Aramaic Language of the Babylonian Talmud, 69, b: mm &ny srix maa rryntjn NS^I xo^y ^ TIB, "in the evening a poor man came, while everyone was busy, and there was none to hear him," etc. Such a clause would have been rendered here in just the words which we have, Tr\r]ff6r)crav 17X01;, the D[? having been translated by the parti- ciple, as usual in such cases. 5, 17. H.O.VT6S ol avv a.irr$, 77 ovaa cupecns ruv 2addovKaicov. Wendt: " Das Part. ^ ovva, statt ol fores, ist attrahiert vom Pradikat." I believe he is mistaken in this. In the two passages 1 See for example Dalman, Worte Jesu, 18 f. THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 33 (5, 17 and 13, i) where this construction occurs it is merely Luke's careful way of reproducing the Aramaic rvx (the word JVN is exactly oixrid). The phrase was this: ^Nj^nv n KrrYOn .TJVK V! T, "who were the sect of the Sadducees." See the note on 13, i. 5, 28. The infinitive absolute, as idiomatic in Aramaic as in Hebrew. 1 The outwardly similar construction found in 23, 14 and 28, 10 (concrete nouns) is essentially different. 7, 38. Is it not likely that |n ^D, "words of life" was acciden- tally miswritten pn jta (|jn }k>), " living words " ? Or is it merely the rendering that is at fault ? The reference is plainly to such pas- sages as Ezek. 20, 10 f. : "I brought them out of the land of Egypt, and into the wilderness; and I gave them my statutes and showed them my judgements, which if a man do, he shall live by them." Also Ezek. 33, 15; Lev. 18, 5; Deut. 30, 15-19, etc. 7, 52. Preuschen: " Der Ausdruck TOV 5ucuou fur den Messias ware Juden kaum verstandlich gewesen." This statement, unless hastily made, shows a very imperfect acquaintance with the Jewish conception of the Messiah. His chief office was to establish justice in the earth, Is. 42, 3 f.; cf. also 53, n, etc., and the i7th and i8th of the Psalms of Solomon. See also the various designations of the Coming One as " the righteous Messiah " (Dalman, Worte Jesu, 240 f.). 7, 53. The curious phrase, "unto ordinances of angels," els Siartryds a.'Y'YeKuv. The els represents f>, meaning " according to," or " by." " Ye who received the Law pa^ *jTOptt&, by the ordering, or ad- ministration, of angels." For the use of the preposition compare for example Ps. 119, 91, *pBBBtoi>, "according to thine ordinances"; 119, 154, ^rniD&6, "according to thy word," and many others. Luke's rendering here is not merely too literal, it is incorrect. 8, 7. The grammatical difficulty of the first clause is sufficiently familiar. Preuschen remarks that the text is " unheilbar verdor- ben "; see his commentary and that of Wendt for the catalogue of attempts, ancient and modern, to improve the reading; notice also the [Trapd] TroXXois of Codex Bezae. In Aramaic, however, the sus- pended construction is not unusual, the anacoluthon being avoided 1 Dalman, Worte Jesu, 27 f., exaggerates its rarity. 34 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS by the introduction of a suffixed pronoun in the latter part of the clause. For example: i>p3 prov pruo PIT 1in pn n PA>K p p'ao n ipaj ai . This would almost inevitably be rendered into Greek by the exact form of words which we have before us. The translator would gain nothing, but only make his Greek worse, by rendering jimo. His version was not in the least ambiguous, it was merely translation-Greek. 9, 2. " Any belonging to the Way." A genuine Semitic locution, which seems to have been taken over by the Gentile Christians from the speech of their Jewish brethren. Thus Talm. Rosh Hashana i t ja > uayn '3T1D ifcrpa, "they separated themselves from the ways (reli- gion) of the congregation," i.e., they became heretics. So also in old Syriac: urha d'Taiydyuthd, " the religion (literally way) of the Arabs "; urha damshihd, " the Christian religion "; other examples in Payne Smith, Thesaurus. So too in Arabic, as-sabil, " the way," is used, without any further description or qualification, for the true (Mohammedan) religion. The adopted Gentile use in 19, 9, 23, etc. 9, 316. This is probably the idiom which is so common in the Old Testament: Hebrew mi ^n , Aramaic ttiDl^m, "constantly in- creased," " abounded more and more," and the like, i Sam. 14, 19, " The tumult kept growing greater and greater " (iropevofj-evos ... Tr\r)6vvfv) ; 2 Sam. 3, i, "David grew stronger and stronger (iiroptv- ero K. 10, 30. "On (dTro) the fourth day (i.e., three days ago), at (M'xpO this hour." This is not a permissible idiom in Greek, where the THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 35 words would necessarily mean " for four days up to this hour." It is perfectly good Semitic, however: NT Kny.e* nj? **???} NI ?^ ?PJ t ^ at is, " on the fourth day back, reckoning up to this same hour." 10, 36 f. T6v \6yov ov airean ib>, Dan. n, 2), 2 and " Lord of All the Earth " Qosh. 3, u, etc.). In Aramaic we have also, as standing titles of Yahwe, " Lord of the Heavens " (Elephantine Papyri, Dan. 5, 23, etc.), " Lord of the World " (Targums, passim), " Lord of All the World " (Targ. Micah 4, 13), Lord of the Worlds," whence Arabic Rabb al- l Ala- min; cf. also Ps. 145, 13, Tobit 13, 6, 10, etc. 3 It is intrinsically improbable, then, that the title " Lord of All " would have been applied to Jesus in a Judean Aramaic document of the first century. (2) Again, it is to be observed that what is especially emphasized in this whole passage is the purpose of the all-powerful God. He is 1 Literally, " this Lord of All "; see the note on i, 5, above, and cf. Dan. 2, 32, etc. The use of such a demonstrative pronoun is common in the Judean dialect. Here, moreover, there is a very obvious reason for its use, since in the preceding verse it had been said that the God of Israel is also the God of all nations. 1 "ifc? inserted by conjecture after TJP ; see Journ. Am. Or. Soc. 25 (1004), pp. 310 f. 3 The " Lord of all " in Rom. 10, 12 is of course not a title, nor to be compared with the present passage. 36 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS the God of all nations (vss. 34, 35); this Jesus was anointed of God (38) ; God was with him (ibid .) ; God raised him up (40) ; his wit- nesses were chosen of God (41) ; and they testify that God ordained him (42). This purpose of emphasis would be naturally served by the position of the subject, " the Lord of All," at the end of its clause in vs. 36. For the case of dp^d/ze^os in vs. 37, see above, on i, 22. As for the rbv \6yov 8i> airiffTi\v, at the beginning of vs. 36, the noun is to be taken as the direct object of otiare (vs. 37). 10, 40. "EdoKv avrov tfjujxivri yeveadai, i.e., rpmnr6 rtoiV. The same idiom in 14, 3; cf. also 2, 27 (quoted from LXX), and the many examples in the Greek O.T. Well known as a Semitism ; Blass Gramm., 69, 4. u, 4. On dp^d/zevos, see above, on i, i; i, 22, etc. 11,6. The combination narcvbovv KCU eldov (after aTeviaasfy would be remarkable as a specimen of Greek style. But this, exactly, is a favorite Aramaic idiom, rPTrn JT^snpx . See, for example, the Targ. Eccles. 9, ii : rprm n^anox (not in the Hebrew); Targ. Is. 42, 18: ftrn ^3DDN (not so in the Hebrew); cf. also Dan. 7, 8, etc. n, 16. "I remembered the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water," etc. This was written by the author of i, 4, obviously, and brings incidental confirmation of my demonstration (see below, page 59) that the Aramaic document used by Luke begins at i, ib. n, 21. Ecu fa xdp Kvpiov /ucr' abruv. This is another plain Semitism. Cf. Luke i, 66, etc., as well as the many passages in the Greek O.T. 11, 22. " The word was heard into the ears of the church." No Greek writer would ever have perpetrated this unless he had wished to create the impression that he was using a Semitic "source." Even then, he would doubtless have used the standing LXX phrase, Iv rots &ffi. 12, ii. " Expectation " is too weak for this context, which speaks of that from which Peter was delivered. Hpo is presumably ton . This meant, in the speech of Judea, " angry," literally " burning "; thus also in the Hebrew of the Old Testament. But in the North Syrian dialect the verb, used chiefly in the reflexive stem, means " contend against, strive with." Luke's rendering is a model of exactness, but the Judean meaning, " angry," is the correct one here. 13, i. The phrase, Kara TT\V ovvav ^KK\rjffiav , "in the church which is (or, was) there." This is another example of the transla- tion of JVK ; see the note on 5, 17, above. The Aramaic was probably simply (or ,TJVN) rpK n Nrnya , no accompanying adverb being neces- sary, since it was made evident by the context. The commentators sometimes compare Rom. 13, i, also Acts 28, 17, etc.; but these passages are not really parallel cases, since in them the participle, or its equivalent, is indispensable. Other passages in the Aramaic half of Acts where JTN seems to be rendered are n, 22 and 14, 13. 13, 22. " He raised up for them David as their king (els /Sao-iXe'a)," ijfo!? T-n jir6 D'j?N . 13, 24. This is altogether too literal a translation of 'niJTO Dnp jo, " before his coming." See the note on 3, 20, above. 13, 25. " As John was ending (literally, fulfilling) his course." 'Eir\fipov is the translation of Aramaic D?>e*; cf. the note on 2, i, above. J 3> 25. "Who do ye suppose that I am?" ri lp* vTrovoeire elvai', It can hardly be questioned that ri, rather than T'LV a, has the pre- sumption in its favor as the original reading. The fact that the 1 The word ktrivoia in 8, 22 probably renders this same Aramaic word. Apparently there also the translation is too colorless. 38 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS neuter pronoun is " nicht ertraglich " (Blass, in Wendt, p. 210) makes the case all the more interesting. This is the regular Ara- maic idiom. No better illustration could be asked than that which is furnished by the Lewis 1 and Cur. Syriac renderings of Matt. 16, 13; Mk. 8, 27; Lk. 9, 18: " Who do men say that I am ? " using only mdnd (" what ? "), in spite of the riva in every passage. 13, 25. OVK dul 70), "I am not he." It is worthy of note that the Aramaic (not Hebrew) idiom simply repeats the pronoun of the first person; "I am he" is KJN NJX. Thus e.g. the Syriac in John 4, 26: " I that speak with thee am /." 14, 17. There is apparently a mistranslation of some sort here. It is no more agreeable to usage in Aramaic or Greek to speak of ' filling hearts with food ' than it is in English. Perhaps originally "Filling your hearts with all gladness" (cf. Rom. 15, 13); and confusion of ^20 with ^yo " food," since the nun of the preposition was frequently assimilated at this time in Judea, but very rarely else- where. The verb N;> might of course be construed either with p or with direct object. 14, 27; 15, 4. The phrase off a eirolrjaev 6 6eos juer' avruv. On the difference of opinion among scholars as to the meaning of this, see Thayer, Lexicon, s. v. juerd. It is, however, merely translation- Greek, meaning: " what God had done to (orfor) them." There is no idea of cooperation in the phrase, nor even of accompaniment. This is the regular idiom in all branches of Aramaic. Thus, an in- scription from Tarsus, fifth century B.C. (Journ. Am. Or. Soc. 35, Part 4) : " Whoever does ("ny) any harm to (oy) this image," etc. Dan. 3, 32: " the wonders which God has wrought upon me " (*ay 'Dy). Assemani, Bill. Or. Ill, ii, 486: " the miracle which was per- formed on their king " (firota Dy "ayn). The idiom is also found in Hebrew; see Deut. i, 30; 10, 21, etc. 15, 1 6-1 8. Luke always uses the Greek Bible for his Old Testa- ment quotations; see my Aramaic Gospels, 298 ff. In this case, we do not know to what extent the Greek varied from the Aramaic or rather, Hebrew which actually lay before him. Rabbi Akiba and his fellows had not yet set up a " standard " text of the Prophets; the 1 The Lewis Syriac in Matt. 16, 13 follows a different text, to be sure. THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 39 author of this Aramaic document was at liberty to select the reading which best suited his purpose; and the LXX rendering of Am. 9, ii f. certainly represented a varying Hebrew text. But even our Massoretic Hebrew would have served the present purpose admir- ably, since it predicted that " the tabernacle of David," i.e. the church of the Messiah, would " gain possession of all the nations which are called by the name [of the God of Israel]." Cf. vs. 14, where we are told what this quotation was expected to prove: 6 deos eirffK\l/a.TO Xa/3e' e edvuv \aov TU> ovo^ari avrov. As for the troublesome ending of vs. 18, 1 believe that the explana- tion is this: Instead of nt*T nfety, as in the Massor. Hebrew, the reading of our document was D^iyo ntft jrnio a very natural im- provement; cf. especially the d' fipepuv dpxcucojc in vs. 7. Luke, in giving the quotation in Greek, wrote out his LXX word for word, as usual. Arriving at the end of the verse, instead of rendering ymo by yvupifav he was able, by the periphrasis TTCH.&V TO.VTO. yvwara., " making these things known" to be faithful both to his Greek Bible (iroi&v ravra) and to the document which he was trans- lating. This is thoroughly characteristic of Luke; cf. for example the notes on 2, i and 2, 24, above. 15, 23. Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, 154, speaks of the " merk- wiirdige Ausdruck 01 Trpeo-jSurepoi d5X0ot," and Preuschen, Komm., declares this beginning of the address " unertraglich." But it is faultless Aramaic idiom. In the phrase Nns Ne^#pi Krv^, the word T -- T- '-; T- : ' " brethren " would naturally refer to both the nouns preceding; if it had been intended to refer to the " elders " alone, it would have stood between this word and the conjunction i. From the Christian Aramaic (Syriac) which we know, it is evident that in early church usage this apposed " brethren " was very common. 15, 28. HXrjv TOVTUV TUV eTr&vayKes. Professor G. F. Moore has suggested (orally) what seems to me the correct explanation of this improbable phrase. The Greek originally read: tbo&v . . . ir\tov 7rm0e0-0(H viJ.lv jSdpos irX^f TOVTWV eiravajKes K.T.I., the r&v being due to dittography. 1 iira.va.yKes dTr&eotfai ren- 1 Clem. Alex, seems to have read in just this way in his Stromata iv, 16, 97; this reading of his was probably obtained merely by accident or conjecture, however. 40 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS ders nj>rnriN^ Tjny, which according to Moore was probably the reading of the Aramaic document in this passage. The translation-Greek continues to the end of 15, 35, which prob- ably formed the original conclusion of the Aramaic narrative (see below). 1 With verse 36 the character of the language changes com- pletely, so far as its structure is concerned, and the Aramaic idiom does not appear again, even for a single paragraph. Two other facts deserve especial attention. The first is, that the author of the Greek half of the book composed his narrative as the continuation of the Aramaic document. This is sufficiently obvious, not only from the way in which vs. 36 takes its start from vs. 35, but also from the correspondence of the details of the narrative in 15, 36-16, 5 with those in the chapters immediately preceding; a relationship much too close to be accidental. The allusions to the churches already established in Asia are plainly intended as the sequel of chapters 13 and 14; 16, 4 is only comprehensible after reading 15, 1-29; 15, 38 refers to 13, 13; the speech of Paul in 17, 22-31 seems to be modeled on that in 14, 15-17, though the resemblance may be merely acci- dental (see below); and there are other striking correspondences. This is of course just what we should expect in view of the remark- able uniformity of vocabulary and phraseology in all parts of the book, showing (as already noted above) that the translator of the first half was the author of the second. The other fact deserving notice is this, that the author, translator, and compiler was a man singularly faithful to his sources. He disliked to alter, even slightly, the document in his hands, even where he believed its statements to be mistaken, and where he found himself obliged to contra- dict them. Acts i, 3 (the " forty days "), for instance, is flatly opposed to the statements in Luke 24 (see below), and the statement in Acts i, 4 (" which ye heard from me ") was certainly recognized as erroneous by the author of Luke 3, 16. As we have seen, the name of the sorcerer Bar- Jesus was allowed to stand in 13, 6, though the 1 Attention may be called at this point to the evidence furnished by the foregoing investigation that the text of Acts which has come down to us, especially in Cod. B and its nearest associates, is very old and correct. The later and all but worthless text of Cod. Bezae and its associates I hope to make the subject of a future study. THE ARAMAIC SOURCE IN ACTS 41 substitute " Elymas " was used thereafter. The many cases of very- faithful translation noted above, in passages where a somewhat freer rendering would have saved the translator from real difficulties, are in the same line of evidence. But perhaps the most striking illustration of the kind is afforded by the point where the transition is made from the Aramaic history to Luke's own narrative. Luke did not believe that Silas returned to Jerusalem as narrated in 15, 33, but rather (see vss. 36 and 40), that he remained at Antioch until the time when he set out with Paul on the missionary journey. It would have been easy to omit vs. 33, or to add a harmonizing state- ment, as some less scrupulous editor of the text has actually done in the vs. 34 which is now omitted from all critical editions. But Luke, as usual, gave his source the word, and would not falsify it. 1 1 I mean, of course, that this was his way of dealing with a unique document of great importance which he was translating. No one will doubt that he was quite ready to edit, to omit, and to supplement with his own freely composed material, wherever these activities were in place. He may have made numerous slight editorial additions here, though this does not seem to me a necessary supposition, and I do not believe that it would be possible to recognize them. Professor J. H. Ropes has given me the very plausible suggestion, for instance, that the list of the apostles in i, 13 is Luke's own addition, since it so closely resembles his list in Lk. 6, 14 f. But the Aramaic docu- ment can hardly have been without such a list at this point, in view of the episode which follows. Moreover, Luke's own list was certainly derived from a Semitic source. CHAPTER II THE INTEGRITY OF THE SECOND HALF OF ACTS i. THE HOMOGENEITY OF II ACTS It is beyond controversy that the general impression made by the second half of the Book of Acts is one of homogeneity. Phraseology, literary style, point of view of the writer, and mode of treatment of the material, are noticeably the same throughout chapters 16-28; it would be quite futile for any one to attempt to demonstrate the contrary, in any of these particulars. Nevertheless the unity of this half of Acts has long been called in question, perhaps by a majority of the best scholars, and for reasons which are obvious. 1 The book of Acts as a whole is plainly composite; the " Hebraizing " character of the opening chapters, in contrast with the smooth Greek of the last chapters, has long been the subject of comment. It is the style of these opening chapters that most resembles that of the Third Gospel; and the introductory words, mentioning Theophilus and referring to the " former treatise," are inseparably welded to the following history (see below). The Chris tology of the early chap- ters, moreover, could not easily be attributed to a Gentile companion of Paul. No theory of translation of documents has seemed to give any help (especially as it has always been taken for granted that the sources of the Third Gospel were Greek sources), nor has there seemed to be any way of establishing such a theory. Then was added the riddle of the " We-sections," giving such an inviting opportunity for theories of composition. Furthermore, Acts 15 was felt to be in disagreement with Gal. 2, so much so that it was hardly conceivable that Paul's travelling companion could have written it. Yet Acts 15 could not be separated from chapters 13 f. and 16, 1-5. 1 In the sequel, " I Acts " is used for chaps, i, 1-15, 35, and " II Acts " for 15, 36-28, 31. 4* THE INTEGRITY OF THE SECOND HALF OF ACTS 43 Hence also, apparently, the necessity of separating the " travel- document " from the preceding account. The fact that portions of the narrative are plainly untrustworthy as a record of events, while other portions are as evidently historical, also seemed to some to give a starting point for theories of composite authorship. Finally, the supposed necessity of postulating a late date for the entire work the Third Gospel being later than Mark and Matthew, and Acts later than the Gospel gave support to the view that at least the " travel-document " of II Acts was an older source incorporated in the main work. After a beginning of analysis had thus been made, there was no obvious halting place; it was simply a question of who should be most ingenious and plausible in discovering joints, altera- tions, and redactional patches. The " We-sections " to begin with these present no difficulty when the fact of Luke's translation of the Aramaic document is recognized. The reason for the employment of the first person is merely this, that the author of the account himself took part in some of the events which are described, and was historian enough to feel the importance of indicating the fact, though he does it in a very modest way. In the portions of the narrative in which the third person is used, in contexts where we should have expected the author to indicate his participation if he had really been present, it is most natural to suppose that he was not himself a participant in the events, but obtained his information from others. Eduard Nor- den, Agnostos Theos, 317-324, shows that the contemporary litera- ture, both Greek and Roman, contains numerous exact parallels to II Acts in this regard, and that if more of the writings of the time had been preserved we should doubtless have had many other examples. The demonstration is unnecessary, to be sure, since this has always and everywhere been the most natural way of composing an unpretentious and bona fide narrative of events partially wit- nessed by the writer; and it is such a narrative which we have before us. The point at which Luke's use of the first person begins, 16, 10, seems to make it plain that he joined Paul's company at Troas; and we know from vss. 12-17 th a t ne went on with the others to Philippi 44 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS and remained there with them. In the events narrated in vss. 18-39 Luke of course took no part, and the first person therefore could not have been used by him. When we read " the brethren," rather than " us," in vs. 40, it is possible to conclude that Paul and Silas left Philippi without seeing Luke after their release from prison; but it is quite as likely that his modesty (so abundantly attested) is the true reason for his failure to include himself expressly. In 17, 1-20, 4 the total absence of the first person, where it might reasonably be expected from the usage elsewhere in the document, is noticeable; and it can hardly be accidental that it is on the return of Paul and his party to Philippi that the author's " we " begins again to be employed, in 20, 5 f. It is safe to conclude that Luke did not go with the others through Macedonia and Greece, and through the other journeyings described in 17, 1-20, 5, but remained in Phi- lippi. This part of his account he composed on the basis of oral information obtained from his friends. 1 From this time on, how- ever, he seems always to have been a member of Paul's party, when- ever the apostle was accompanied by a group of his helpers. There was of course no opportunity or excuse for using the first person plural in 20, 17-38. The same is true in 21, 19-26, 32, the account of the imprisonment and trial of Paul; z only a writer with an undue sense of his own importance would have intruded himself here, where he played no part in the events narrated. 3 In 27, 1-28, 15 Luke had the opportunity to tell in some detail the story of the journey to Italy, and especially of the shipwreck; a series of happenings of which he remembered (naturally enough !) many striking incidents. Phraseology and literary style, as well as the close connection with 1 Judging from the scale on which the history is written where Luke was an eye- witness, he would have given us very much more than this meager sketch of a few pages (covering seven or eight years, at least, and including by far the most important parts of the great missionary journeys!) if he had had personal knowledge of the events. His information seems in fact to have been scanty and incidental. 1 Literary criticism more thoroughly unscientific than some of the current " analy- sis " of II Acts on the basis of the occurrence of the first person plural, it would be hard to find. See, for example, Wellhausen's Kriiische Analyse, p. 34. 1 In 24, 23 (end) we may have a hint of the historian's presence. Compare what was said above in regard to 16, 40. THE INTEGRITY OF THE SECOND HALF OF ACTS 45 what has preceded, show plainly enough that the same writer is composing the narrative. 1 2. THE THEORIES OF NORDEN AND OTHERS A typical specimen of the attempts to find interpolations in the original account is afforded by certain comments on the passage 27, 9-11. Wellhausen, Noten zur A G, 17, says of these verses: " Es braucht nicht noch bewiesen zu werden, dass der Vers 12 hinter V. 9-11 gar nicht zu verstehen ist, sondern unmittelbar an V. 8 anschliesst. Der Passus V. 9-11 ist mithin eine Einlage von zweiter Hand." But by what process of divination is this conclusion reached ? for it is only by divination, not through any scientific process, that the thing can be done. How is it possible for any one to know that the words of the passage do not mean what they appear to mean ? The party arrives at KaXot Ai/icm, in Crete; Paul ad- vises them to stay there, saying that if they proceed further (as they obviously intend) they will suffer loss; the officers do not heed his words, but since the harbor was not fit for wintering, decide to put to sea in the hope of reaching Phoenix. There is no semblance of incongruity here, unless one taxes his ingenuity to create it. And cannot the main course of a narrative be interrupted by an episode without arousing the suspicion of an interpolation ? Wendland, Die hellenistisch-romische Kultur 2 , 324, after giving the substance of verses 8, 12, and 13, proceeds: " Dazwischengeschoben ist eine Warnung des Paulus vor Fortsetzung der Fahrt, obgleich dieseja gar nicht bedbsichtigt war " (the italics are mine). If the wording of the narrative makes any one thing evident, it is this, that at no time did those in charge of the vessel have any other intention than that of a 1 Wellhausen, Krit. Analyse, 34, remarks: " Und ferner zeigen die beiden grossen Partien, in denen das Wir sich wirklich zeigt, eine erheblich verschiedene Art, so dass es recht zweifelhaft wird, ob in 20, 6-21, 16 der selbe Erzahler rede wie in Kap. 27." This is an assertion which neither Wellhausen nor any one else could substantiate. The subject matter is " erheblich verschieden," and the manner of the narrative is affected accordingly; but this is all. As for the nautical knowledge displayed in chap. 27, one can only say that a man who could have spent as many long months on the sea, hi many ships, as this writer, without learning at least this much, must have been unusually stupid. 46 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS " Fortsetzung der Fahrt." Verses 7 f. show that they put in at Fair Havens not because they wished to stop there, but because of the unabating fury of the wind. Vs. ga (IK.O.VOV 5e xpovov diayevotJi&ov) makes it plain that they were anxious to depart, but were still hin- dered for a considerable time by the wind, and vs. 12 (t TTCOS dvvaivTo) shows the same. Of course the pilot and the shipmaster did not need IKO.VOV xpbvov in order to ascertain that the harbor was not fit for wintering; the first glance would have shown it, even if they had not known it all their lives. Only a very strong desire to solve the problems believed to be present in II Acts could account for the perverse criticism of this passage. See also Agnostos Theos, 314 Anm. i, and Preuschen's Apostelgeschichte. The objections raised against 27, 21-26 (see e.g. Wendt, 355 f.) are equally futile and hardly more plausible; and there are other similar cases. 1 The speech of Paul at Athens, recorded in chapter 17, has recently been subjected to very searching criticism by Norden in his Agnostos Theos. I have read the book with great enjoyment, rinding it im- mensely interesting and stimulating; I am unable to see, however, that it throws any light on the composition of the Book of Acts. 1 Certainly some of the attempted dissection of the Book of Acts is due to mis- understanding of the mental attitude and predispositions of the narrator, and of the readers for whom he wrote. The attempt to find, in either I Acts or II Acts, at least one writer who thought and narrated after the manner of a modern historian is doomed to failure. To all such as could possibly have composed these histories, or any part of them, there was one and the same persuasion in regard to the aid given by God to his chosen emissaries through visions, dreams, angels, and manifestations of supernatural power. These things were not only a matter of course, they were also a necessity. Paul was a prophet (26, i6ff.), and being such, had the power of foreseeing future events (universally recognized as the principal characteristic of the Hebrew prophets) as well as of working miracles. If he had not possessed these powers, he would not have been worthy of credence. Luke does not profess to have seen or heard any of these marvel- lous happenings himself; they were reported by villagers and boatmen, who knew that a prophet was travelling among them, and neither Luke nor any of his fellows could have doubted their truth for an instant. The only remarkable thing is that they are so few in number. Those who think that considerable time is needed for the growth and wide acceptance of such legends, or that their adoption by an early Christian historian shows him to have been of an especially credulous turn of mind, should read the life of St. Simeon Stylites written during his own lifetime by the cultivated and truth-loving scholar Theodoret (Historic religiosa xxvi), who was a near neighbor and personal friend of the great ascetic. THE INTEGRITY OF THE SECOND HALF OF ACTS 47 Norden attempts to show, first, that the speech in 17, 22-31 con- forms to the recognized model of a missionary sermon; he succeeds, however, only in demonstrating what was already known. It is true that the religious propagandist was a long-familiar figure at that time; also true that many of these missionary preachers were men of wide learning and broad sympathy (it was for this very reason, generally speaking, that they had seen new light and wished to share it) ; and a matter of course, finally, that the speaker or writer fashioned his discourse according to his purpose. It was of the highest importance to set forth in a worthy and attractive manner though in brief compass the nature of God and of his relation to man, and the spiritual character of his worship. Cultivated Hellenistic Jews and cultivated Greeks would have had very much the same message to give, in these regards, in the first century. The polemic against idolatry, too, was of course always familiar. It was manifestly important also to be conciliatory, especially when it came to rebuking or correcting the accepted beliefs and practices. Even a tyro would recognize the wisdom of commending whatever could be commended in the religion or religious history of his hearers. Mohammed, for instance, unites all these elements, even the concilia- tory, in his exhortations in the Koran. These things could all be taken for granted. But the question of a commonly-used literary scheme of the missionary discourse, as distinct from other discourses (" Dass der Verfasser der Areopagrede sich an ein ihm iiberliefertes Schema anschloss," Agnostos Theos, 3) , is quite another matter. The existence of such a scheme is intrinsically improbable, and the speci- mens cited by Norden certainly do not give the idea any new plausi- bility. His " parallel " columns, pp. 6 f., show only the vaguest resemblances on the lines indicated above: knowledge of God; nature of true worship; need of turning from the old way to the new; promise of a blessed future. These are merely the essentials of any religion, and consequently of any religious propaganda. Even the logical order is obvious. Thus, we have in the Koran, n, 52-55, a typical specimen of a brief missionary sermon. The prophet Hud is sent to the 'Adites and preaches to them in the following words: " my people! Worship (euo-e/iteTTe) God; ye have no god but Him 48 THE COMPOSITION AND DATE OF ACTS TTOLV Wvos). Ye have only false knowledge (ayvoiav) . 53 I do not ask you for any reward; my reward rests with Him who created me (didovs iraat, far)i>). Will ye not have understanding (yv&