It represents the origin and progress of Christianity from the capital of Judaism to the capital
of heathenism. It is a history of the planting of the church among the Jews by Peter, and among the
Gentiles by Paul. Its theme is expressed in the promise of the risen Christ to his disciples (Acts
1:8): "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you (Acts 2): and ye shall be my
witnesses both in Jerusalem (Acts 3–7), and in all Judaea and Samaria (Acts 8–12), and unto the
uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 13–28). The Gospel of Luke, which is the Pauline Gospel, laid
the foundation by showing how salvation, coming from the Jews and opposed by the Jews, was
intended for all men, Samaritans and Gentiles. The Acts exhibits the progress of the church from
and among the Jews to the Gentiles by the ministry of Peter, then of Stephen, then of Philip in
Samaria, then of Peter again in the conversion of Cornelius, and at last by the labors of Paul and
his companions.^1097
The Acts begins with the ascension of Christ, or his accession to his throne, and the founding
of his kingdom by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; it closes with the joyful preaching of the
Apostle of the Gentiles in the capital of the then known world.
The objective representation of the progress of the church is the chief aim of the work, and
the subjective and biographical features are altogether subordinate. Before Peter, the hero of the
first or Jewish-Christian division, and Paul, the hero of the second or Gentile-Christian part, the
other apostles retire and are only once named, except John, the elder James, Stephen, and James,
the brother of the Lord. Even the lives of the pillar-apostles appear in the history only so far as they
are connected with the missionary work. In this view the long-received title of the book, added by
some other hand than the author’s, is not altogether correct, though in keeping with ancient usage
(as in the apocryphal literature, which includes "Acts of Pilate," "Acts of Peter and Paul," "Acts of
Philip," etc.). More than three-fifths of it are devoted to Paul, and especially to his later labors and
journeys, in which the author could speak from personal knowledge. The book is simply a selection
of biographical memoirs of Peter and Paul connected with the planting of Christianity or the
beginnings of the church (Origines Ecclesiae).
Sources.
Luke, the faithful pupil and companion of Paul, was eminently fitted to produce the history
of the primitive church. For the first part he had the aid not only of oral tradition, but she of
Palestinian documents, as he had in preparing his Gospel. Hence the Hebrew coloring in the earlier
chapters of Acts; while afterward he writes as pure Greek, as in the classical prologue of his Gospel.
Most of the events in the second part came under his personal observation. Hence he often speaks
in the plural number, modestly including himself.^1098 The "we" sections begin Acts 16:10, when
Paul started from Troas to Macedonia (a.d. 51); they break off when he leaves philippi for corinth
(17:1); they are resumed (20:5, 6) when he visits macedonia again seven years later (58), and then
continue to the close of the narrative (a.d. 63). Luke probably remained several years at Philippi,
engaged in missionary labors, until Paul’s return. He was in the company of Paul, including the(^1097) The history of the Reformation furnishes a parallel; namely, the further progress of Christianity from Rome (the Christian
Jerusalem) to Wittenberg, Geneva, Oxford and Edinburgh, through the labors of Luther, Calvin, Cranmer and Knox.
(^1098) Ewald, in his Commentary on Acts (1872), pp. 35 sqq., infers from the use of the little word we and its connection with the
other portions that the whole work is from one and the same author, who is none other than Luke of Antioch, the "beloved"
friend and colaborer of Paul. Renan says (La apôtres, p. xiv.): "Je persiste à croire que le dernier rédacteur des Acts est bien le
disciple de Paul qui dit ’nous’aux derniers chapitres,"but he puts the composition down to a.d. 71 or 72 (p. xx.), and in his Les
Évangiles, ch. xix., pp. 435 sqq., still later, to the age of Domitian.
A.D. 1-100.