The Acts of the Apostles

152 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
however, important that the daughters of St. Philip
told Papias of a case of resurrection from the dead,
and that even Irenaeus writes (H. 31, 2) : o Kvpto^
^yeipev [yeKpov^'\ kcll ol awodTokoL Sia irpocrevyriq^ koli
ev aSeXcpOTtjTt ttoWolki^ Sia to avayKOiov Koi. rrjg Kara
TOirov eKKkrjcrla^ Trda-rjg aiTrjora/ULevrj^ jULera vrja-reiai koi
Xiraveia^ TroXXrjg eirea-Tpey^ev to vrveujULa tov tctc-
XevTTjKOTog KOI eyapiaOri 6 avOpcoTrog Taig ev-^aig twv
aylwv. I consider it to be quite probable that even
during the lifetime of St. Peter stories were current
concerning dead who had been raised again by that
apostle, indeed that he himself may have believed that
he had called a dead woman to life again. It is, more-
over, favourable to the hypothesis of a primary tradi-
tion that the story, in spite of its crudity, is fixed
in form and ministers to no special tendency. The
event it records did not take place in Jerusalem, but
in Joppa, a place which has no other significance in
early Christian history, and its favourable results
extend only to Joppa and the neighbourhood. None
of the more notable Christians of Jerusalem accompanied
St. Peter thither, and there is in the story no
conscious imitation of a similar event in the Gospel
St. Peter prayed over the corpse, and then by his
summons brought back to life this old woman, who
had played a part of some importance in the little
Christian community of Joppa. I do not see why
decades of years should have been necessary for the
creation of this legend ; it could well have been told
to St. Luke when he was staying with St. Philip at
Caesarea.
As for the miracles of « singular " character, we
: