temple-warden, the theatre (capable of holding twenty-five thousand people) often used for public
assemblies, the distinct officers of the city, the Roman proconsul (ἀνθύπατος), the recorder or
"town-clerk" (γραμματεύς), and the Asiarchs (Ἀσιαρχαί) or presidents of the games and the religious
ceremonials, have all reappeared in ruins and on inscriptions, which may now be studied in the
British Museum. "With these facts in view," says Lightfoot, "we are justified in saying that ancient
literature has preserved no picture of the Ephesus of imperial times—the Ephesus which has been
unearthed by the sagacity and perseverance of Mr. Wood—comparable for its life-like truthfulness
to the narrative of St. Paul’s sojourn there in the Acts."^1118- The voyage and shipwreck of Paul in Acts 27. This chapter contains more information
about ancient navigation than any work of Greek or Roman literature, and betrays the minute
accuracy of an intelligent eye-witness, who, though not a professional seaman, was very familiar
with nautical terms from close observation. He uses no less than sixteen technical terms, some of
them rare, to describe the motion and management of a ship, and all of them most appropriately;
and he is strictly correct in the description of the localities at Crete, Salmone, Fair Havens, Cauda,
Lasea and Phoenix (two small places recently identified), and Melita (Malta), as well as the motions
and effects of the tempestuous northeast wind called Euraquilo (A. V. Euroclydon) in the
Mediterranean. All this has been thoroughly tested by an expert seaman and scholar, James Smith,
of Scotland, who has published the results of his examination in the classical monograph already
mentioned.^1119 Monumental and scientific evidence outweighs critical conjectures, and is an
irresistible vindication of the historical accuracy and credibility of Luke.
The Acts an Irenicum.
But some critics have charged the Acts with an intentional falsification of history in the
interest of peace between the Petrine and Pauline sections of the church. The work is said to be a
Catholic Irenicum, based probably on a narrative of Luke, but not completed before the close of
the first century, for the purpose of harmonizing the Jewish and Gentile sections of the church by
conforming the two leading apostles, i.e., by raising Peter to the Pauline and lowering Paul to the
Petrine Plane, and thus making both subservient to a compromise between Judaizing bigotry and
Gentile freedom.^1120
The chief arguments on which this hypothesis is based are the suppression of the collision
between Paul and Peter at Antioch, and the friendly relation into which Paul is brought to James,
especially at the last interview. Acts 15 is supposed to be in irreconcilable conflict with Galatian.
But a reaction has taken place in the Tübingen school, and it is admitted now by some of the ablest
critics that the antagonism between Paulinism and Petrinism has been greatly exaggerated by Baur,
and that Acts is a far more trustworthy account than he was willing to admit. The Epistle to the
Galatians itself is the best vindication of the Acts, for it expressly speaks of a cordial agreement
between Paul and the Jewish pillar-apostles. As to the omission of the collision between Peter and
(^1118) See Wood:Discoveries at Ephesus, and Lightfoot’s article above quoted, p. 295. Lightfoot aided Mr. Wood in explaining
the inscriptions.
(^1119) Comp. § 82 of this vol., and myCompanion to the Greek Test., p. 61.
(^1120) This view was first broached by Baur (1836, 1838, and 1845), then carried out by Schneckenburger (1841), more fully by
Zeller (1854), and by Hilgenfeld (1872, and in his Einleitung, 1875). Renan also presents substantially the same view, though
somewhat modified. "Les Actes"(Les Apôtres, p. xxix.) "sont une histoire dogmatique, arrangée pour appuyer les doctrines
orthodoxes du temps ou inculquer les idées qui souriaíent le plus à la pieté de l’auteur."He thinks, it could not be otherwise, as
we know the history of religions only from the reports of believers; "i il n’y a que le sceptique qui écrive l’histoiread narrandum."
A.D. 1-100.