The Acts of the Apostles

xviii INTRODUCTION
idea, and the idea can be pictured as fixed or as in
development. What has St. Luke done? He dis-
dainfully refuses to be satisfied with a collection ot
stories like the fabricators of Acts of the Apostles
who came after him. Neither has he set up a single
personality as his central point, though his relations
with St. Paul and his veneration for that apostle
must well have suggested to him this procedure. On
the contrary, he recognised with sure tact that, if
he wished to place this new history side by side with
the Gospel history as its second part, no single per-
sonality ought to stand in the centre of interest ;
for
at once the unique character of the Master Jesus
Christ would be threatened and blurred. It followed
that he must group his material round an idea. If,
however, this work was to be regarded as a continuation
of the first work, this idea must be derived from
the active ministry of Jesus Himself. The power of
the Spirit of Jesus in the Apostles manifested in history
—this theme alone seemed to satisfy all requirements.
Everything worthy of memory in the history of the
primitive communities could without constraint be
ranged under this theme ; above all, it would supply
an excellent criterion of selection, and at the same
time would connect the whole subject-matter most
firmly with the first part, with the history of the
words and actions of Jesus. A genuine inspiration of
genius ! which loses nothing of its excellence in that
it seems to us now so very natural.
« The power of the Spirit of Jesus in the Apostles
manifested in history"^—here the term « Apostle " is
not yet used by St. Luke with an absolutely narrow