The Acts of the Apostles

158 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
after a period of forty days of continuous intercourse
with the disciples. If it is thought incredible that
St. Luke could have exchanged the tradition of St.
Paul and St. Mark for that which appears in his
gospel, then it ought also to be thought incredible
that he should have given up the latter tradition in
favour of that which appears in the Acts. And yet
the latter exchange is a fact, unless we are to assume
that the first twelve verses (certainly not intact) of
the Acts have been, even to their innermost nucleus,
edited and recast. There are, however, no grounds
for such a radical hypothesis. Hence it follows that
St. Luke has twice exchanged his better knowledge
for that which is worse.
Yet, after all, is this so strange ? Has not Chris-
tology its own history ? and must we assume that its
influence could not have been as strong as that of actual
history ? The problem here in question is simple
compared with the problem of the gospel of St. Mark,
i.e. compared with the problem presented by the fact
that the legendary traditions concerning Christ actu-
ally took form within the Primitive Community during
the first thirty years and under the very eyes of those
who had witnessed the events themselves ! Later
legends and legends with a doctrinal tendency show
themselves even more powerful than the memory of
the actual history ; and even the recollections of eye-
witnesses are modified and transformed under the
dominating influence of the thought " So it must
have happened " ! When some considerable time
after the destruction of Jerusalem St. Luke wrote
his gospel— perhaps in Asia—he reproduced the