The Acts of the Apostles

INTRODUCTION xvii
traditional material, and to regard as their history
that which he offered them. In the whole under-
taking and in a hundred of its details he might have
made shipwreck, and his book might have sunk into
oblivion either without effect or condemned by
Christendom. But here it remains. Perhaps only
faute de mieuoc ? Certainly not ! Of course it does
not satisfy all the requirements of later days,^ but
it abides because that which is excellent is certain to
succeed.^
History can be narrated in two ways : one can
gather together a heap of more or less important
and characteristic stories—Memorabilia ; or one can
concentrate everything round a central point of in-
terest. This central point can be a personality or an
1 Even in early days those who gave the book the title of Upd^ets
TUP diro(TTb\o}v wished to see in the book a work wherein informa-
tion was preserved concerning the acts and the testimony of all
the twelve Apostles ;
for there was need of such a work as a proof
of the evangelic truth in opposition to heresy. But the book does
not satisfy this requirement, or only partially so. The above title,
which is generally received, and was already known to Irenseus,
Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and the author of the Muratorion
Fragment, cannot be original, and yet cannot have been
given much later than A.D. 150. The title IT/sd^eij is only an
abbreviation. The name " Commentarius Lucae," which Tertullian
uses once (De Jejun. 10), though not a bad one, is a free invention
of Tertullian himself.
' In Gentile communities the book, so far as we know, was
rejected only by the Marcionites (probably also by some Gnostic
sects), and by the problematical Severians (Euseb., " Hist. Eccl.,"
iv. 29 : these are probably not to be reckoned among Gentile
Christians, seeing that they rejected 8t. Paul). In spite of TertuUian
(Adv. Marc, v. 2, 3, and De Praescr., 22 /) we cannot be
quite certain whether the book came into the hands of Marcion ;
there are good reasons both for and against.
b