The Acts of the Apostles

!
xxxviii INTRODUCTION
later style is still preserved, for the new movement
is no longer simply Palestinian, but now plays out its
part on the stage of the world. The author intended
that this fact should here find expression even in his
style. It is, however, most remarkable that St. Luke,
in spite of all the variety which he has introduced
into the form of his narrative, has understood how
to preserve the stylistic unity of his work. In
reading one receives no impression of patchiness or
of want of organic connection. The style also is
free from all suspicion of pose, and there is a com-
plete absence of vain and empty rhetoric. Scarcely
ever does the Avriter use a single superfluous word.
He is ever concerned only with the root of the
matter in hand, he knows how to tell a very great
deal in a few words, and he never tries to bribe
his readers with tricks of oratory. In respect of
its style this work can be compared with the best
literary productions of the Hellenico-Roman period.
Read the descriptions of the Pentecostal scene, of
the conversion of St. Paul, of that apostle's mission
in Athens, of the shipwreck, and many another
passage
And now where are to be found the weak points
of this author? We cannot say that he is on the
whole either credulous or uncritical. Credulous and
uncritical writers of those days produced works of
an entirely different character from his! Again,
for the larger half of the work we possess in the
epistles of St. Paul a test of the accuracy of the
historian than which we can scarcely imagine a more
stringent. That these epistles were creations of the