The Acts of the Apostles

26 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
would fall down dead after being bitten by the
snake.^]
In the first place, it is an important point in
favour of the identity of the author of the we-
account with the author of the whole work, that
indefinite chronological notices are of no rarer occur-
rence in the we-account than in the rest of the work,
nor are they different in form. This circumstance
will be considered in Appendix I. Next we must
distinguish those passages, where the fact that the
time is not defined is by no means remarkable, from
those where it seems at first sight strange. Of the
former we may at once simply dismiss the passages
i. 5; V. 36; viii. 11; ix. 37; xiii. 31; xvi. 18;
xviii. 2 ; xxi. 38 ; xxvli. 7, 9, 14, 20 ; xxviii. 6 ; in
some of these instances the author could have given
us more accurate information had he wished it, in
others the context required or allowed only a general
reference to time. But from the remaining passages
we may not as a rule argue ignorance on the part
of the author. Thus the duration of the stay at
Philippi and in Caesarea (XVi. 12 ; XXi. 10, 15) is
only given indefinitely, although the author, if he
had wished it—we are here in the we-account—could
^ rbTe is found 21 times in the Acts (including 4 occurrences in
the " we "-sections). It has, however, in no case chronological
significance in the strict sense of the word. In xvii. 14,
it is combined with evdem, in xxvii. 21, it follows a genitive
absolute, in xxviii. 1 a participle (dtacnodeyTei t6t€ iiriyvcj/xev).—
Eij'6'^w5, eiidvs (the latter only in x. 16) is not very frequent in the
Acts ; it occurs 10 times (including Kal evdioos 5 times). It is a
favourite word in stories of miracles and visions (ix. 18, 34
X. 16 ; xii. 10 ; xvi. 10) ; elsewhere only in ix. 20 ; xvii. 10, 14 •
xxi. 30 ;
xxii. 29.
;