The Acts of the Apostles

xlii
INTRODUCTION
were only objections that one could take hold of!
But after no small number of these has been finally
refuted, one has to deal not so much with definite
objections, as with an attitude of general mistrust in
the book, with airy conceits and lofty contempt
most of all, however, with the fruits of that vicious
method wherein great masses of theory are hung
upon the spider's thread of a single observation,
wherein a writer of the New Testament is allowed
no weakness, no possibility of ignorance, wherein
instances of such failing are used as powder to blow
the whole book into the air. In the first volume of
this series, entitled " Luke the Physician " (Crown
Theological Library, 1907), I have therefore tried in
the first place to prove the identity of the author of the
« we "-sections with St. Luke, and at the same time to
refute some of these objections and critical vagarities
— ;
not by means of the more or less subjective apologetic
of the harmonist, but by assiduous attention to, and
exhibition of, facts and observations that confirm one
another. In the following pages I continue these
investigations in order to arrive at a more assured
judgment as to how far the book is homogeneous, as
to its sources and its degree of trustworthiness, and
by this means to prove afresh the identity of the
author of the « we "-sections with the author of the
whole work. In an age wherein critical hypotheses,
once upon a time not unfruitful, have hardened
themselves into dogmas, and when if an attempt is
made to defend a book against prejudice, misunder-
standing, and misrepresentation, scornful remarks are
made about "special pleading," it is not superfluous