The Acts of the Apostles

INACCURACY AND DISCREPANCY 229
in the case of an author who has the somewhat care-
less habit of referring to things that he should have
told us beforehand (vide supra). These are notably
the passages which critics have seized upon in order
to put in practice their well-known methods of ampu-
tation. It is possible that in some cases interpolation
may be safely assumed, yet seeing that the phenomenon
in question is of such frequent occurrence, strong
reasons must exist to justify this critical operation.
In the we-sections we gain better connection if we
omit xxvii. 9-11. In the remaining passages of the
second part of the book the same is the case if we
omit xvi. 24-34; xviii. 8; xviii. 9, 10, 24-28; xix.
30, 31, 37. In B, i. 22 disturbs the connection ; again,
V. 22-24 is easily dispensed with. In A, iv. 1-3 is
awkward before iv. 4 ; one is tempted either to omit
the latter verse or to transform the former passage;
also we could well dispense with iv. 15—20, with iv. 22,
27-28, with the words koi a-rj/meta koi repara ylvearOai
(iv. 30), with iv. 32, and with v. 14 and x. 39*. Lastly,
in the Antiochean source the connection seems to be
improved if we omit vii. 4 and other details of the
speech; again, the passage vii. 57-viii. 3 looks like
an awkward shuffling together of two sources with
repetitions (here at all events it is difficult to avoid
the hypothesis that sources are really present); xi.
26^ gives the impression of unskilful attachment, and
XV. 31 of an awkward interpolation. And yet in
almost all these cases the reasons are not quite con-
vincing, and there still remains the simpler hypo-
thesis of a certain literary carelessness on the part of
St. Luke.