The Acts of the Apostles

CONCLUSION 301
the appearances of the Crucified and the events which
immediately followed, lies entirely within the charmed
circle of a legend whose development was almost in-
comprehensibly speedy. Yet the sacred historian ex-
traordinarily quickly extricates himself from the bonds
of enchantment. He at first walks upon quaking
ground, but soon finds firm footing and, thanks to
his sources and his own personal experience, up to
the end of his coui'se he never again, or only seldom,
loses it. Thus in the Acts he has created an historical
work which upon the whole gives a correct representa-
tion of the actual development of events. But he
has done much more than this ! In that he has set
this historical work side by side with his gospel as a
second and equally important part of one and the
same work, he laid the foundation both of the New
Testament and of that reverence for the Apostolic
side by side with the Evangelic, from which arose the
conception of Apostolic tradition. It is true that St.
Peter, and above all St. Paul himself, laid the deepest
foundation for this reverence. But if these heroes
had found no historian, it is highly probable that in
spite of Marcion we should have had no New Testament;
for in the Catholic Church the combination
of the isolated Pauline epistles with the Gospel would
have been an impossibility. Accordingly St. Luke is
really the creator of the New Testament, and in the
same sense the creator of the Apostolic, side by side
with the Evangelic tradition.
In conclusion, I owe an explanation to Professor
Blass (lately deceased), and to Professors Ramsay,