The Acts of the Apostles

CHAPTER III
THE TREATMENT OF PERSONS
St. Luke, in his Acts of the Apostles, treats only two
persons, ^S*^. Peter and St. Paul^ as chief characters.
The former is introduced in i. 15 as already known
(from the gospel) and as the leader of the Apostles
but the author gives no further direct information as
to his character and antecedents. His character is
left to come out in his speeches and actions. St.
Luke, in xii. 17, lets him drop out of the history of
the Acts, though he afterwards mentions the part
he played in the most critical scene of the book (xv.
7—11, 14). St. Paul is first introduced (vii. 58) as an
unknown young man named Saul. Here again, as
with St. Peter, no definite summary of St. Paul's
character and antecedents is given, and the Apostle is
left to describe himself in his own words and actions.^
Emphasis is alone laid upon the fact that he, like
St. Peter, spoke moved by the Holy Spirit, and a
few details of his early history are referred to here
and there (Tarsus, Roman citizenship, study under
Gamaliel, &c.). From chap. xv. to the end of the
1 The only exception is the passage in the letter of the Church
of Jerusalem to Antioch, xv. 26, where we read of him and St.
Barnabas that thej were divdpwiroL irapadeSojK&res rdj ^vxo-i aiirdv
virkp Tov dvd/jiaTos tov Kvpiov rjfxQy 'I. Xp. This, however, can scarcely
be called an exception.
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