The Acts of the Apostles

68 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
With relative completeness he begins with " Parthians,
Medes, and Elamites,"" because these nations were far
distant and dwelt outside the Roman Empire—it
was the more important for him that their represen-
tatives heard the new message ! These are followed
most appropriately by Mesopotamia and Cappadocia.
He naturally passed over Syria because it lay too
near, and because it was self-evident that numerous
Syrians were to be found in Jerusalem. Besides,
their language was so nearly allied to that spoken
in Jerusalem that for them the miracle, which the
author intends, was scarcely a miracle at all. If in
the case of Asia Minor the four countries, Pontus,
Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, are chosen for men-
tion, one cannot but approve of the choice, seeing
that Cappadocia had been already mentioned: the
chief province in the north, the west, the centre, and
the south is thus marked. Could any one proceed on
a better plan ? With equal appropriateness he now
mentions Egypt and Cyrene and closes with Rome.
In the two former regions it was a matter of common
knowledge that the Jews had settled in especially
compact bodies ; and that the whole West should be
represented by Rome is not strange but rather what
one would expect in a Greek writer of the East.
The omission of the Balkan peninsula is less intel-
ligible. It has been said that the author has not
included purely Greek regions in his list, because for
Greeks with their universally-spoken language the
miracle of Pentecost was no miracle at all,—at
least they did not need such a miracle ; this explana-
tion is ingenious but scarcely correct. The disciples