The Acts of the Apostles

MIRACLES AND WORKS OF THE SPIRIT 145
follows not only from the fact that the supernatural
element is almost entirely absent from the second half
of the book (excluding the we-sections and chapter
xix.), but still more clearly from the fact that while
there is much in common between chapters i.—xv.
and the we-sections in their attitude to the super-
natural, there is much more of the supernatural in
chapters i.—xv. than in the we-sections. For in-
stance :
1. In the we-sections all that has been included
under category III.—namely, what I have called
miracles of a " singular ^' character—is entirely want-
ing. Stories like the Ascension, the Gift of Tongues,
the death of Ananias and Sapphira, the blinding of
St. Paul and of Elymas, the mo7's persecutoris Herodis,
have no parallels in the we-sections (naturally also
not in the rest of the second half of the book).
2. In the we-sections realistic appearances of angels
(tide stib IV.), such as we find in i. 10 /. ; v. 19 ; viii.
26 ; xii. 7—11, are wanting.
3. In the we-sections we are never expressly told
that such and such persons are filled with the Holy
Ghost. The more frequently we meet with such
persons in chaps, i.—xv. (vide sub V.)—the Apostles in
a body, those who were chosen as the " Seven," St.
Peter, St. Stephen, St. Barnabas, St. Paul, the Chris-
tians of Jerusalem, and the Christians of Pisidian
Antioch are so described—the more strange it must
seem that nothing of the kind is said of any one in
the second half of the book.
4. In the we-sections are to be found none of the
passages, so frequent in chaps, i.—xv., which speak of