The Acts of the Apostles

CHRONOLOGICAL DATA 8
tive ofpai'ticular events. He does not, as a rule, place
the reader in a position to judge whether he repre-
sents events in their correct order ; his desire is
rather that the reader should simply trust him in
this matter. But for this very reason, because he
has not thought of consistently dating events by the
year in which they occurred, nor of a chronological
framework for his work, the passages wherein he
produces chronological material have special value;
for they do not belong to a system, but are scattered
throughout the book apart from any tendency what-
ever. Let us consider in order the chronological
expedients of which the writer has availed himself,
distinguishing the while his use of them in connection
with the history of Christianity in Palestine, from
his use of them in connection with the history of
Christianity in the Diaspora.
I. Chronological References to Contemporary History.
As concerns the history in Palestine, apart from
a few references to the past,-^ and to person-
1 Our Lord executed under Pilate and Herod Antipas (iv. 27,
&c.) ; in the days of " the enrolment " (v. 37) ; Theudas (v. 36)
Judas the Galilaean (v. 37) ; the " Egyptian " (xxi. 38). Here let
it be noted by the way that St. Luke gives us certain information,
nowhere else recorded, concerning the relationship of Herod
Antipas and his court to Christ and the new religion. He ex-
pressly refers to this Herod when giving the date of the public
appearance of our Lord (St. Luke iii. 1) ; he records (viii. 3) that
among the women who followed our Lord was to be found one
Joanna, the wife of a steward of Herod (c/. xxiv. 10), and (Acts
xiii. 1) that among the spiritual leaders of the Primitive Community
of Antioch was a " syntrophos " (confidential friend) of Herod,
;