The Acts of the Apostles

CONCLUSION
The truth of the description of the characteristics of
the Acts of the Apostles which I have given in the
first pages of these investigations is, I hope, proved.
The book has now been restored to the position of
credit which is its rightful due. It is not only taken
as a whole a genuinely historical work,^ but even in
the majority of its details it is trustworthy. Except
for a few panegyric aberrations in the direction of
the Primitive Community, it follows no bias that
distorts its representation of the actual course of
^ According to von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Die griech. Literatur
de$ Altertums, s. 188 /., " The Acts of the Apostles has as little inten-
tion of being history as the JRes gestce divi Augusti. A record is
given of " Acts " in which the supernatural mission of a hero was
revealed ; with a god they would have been aperaL. We possess
the ' Acts of Heracles ' graven in stone ; we may compare the
legends of St. Francis." It seems to me that this piece of criticism
may serve as a warning against the too hasty subsuming of ancient
Christian literature under the same category as the general Greek
literature of the same period. While attending exclusively to the
points in which the two appear to be similar, the critic shuts his
eyes to the points in which they differ, and by his demonstration
of real or supposed analogies obliterates the peculiar characteristics
of ancient Christian literature. This is not what von Wilamowitz
has done elsewhere ; cf. his excellent review of the characteristics
of St. Paul and St. John. Certainly St. Luke, in higher measure
than these, invites illustration of his work by comparison with the
contemporary literature ; but by this means we are only brought
into little closer touch with the objects, the character, and the
essential value of his work.