The Acts of the Apostles

28 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
(xv. 36 and xviii. 23) ^juepa^ rivdg and ')(^p6vov riva
respectively, and that he remained in Corinth (xviii.
18) yet ^juLepag iKavdi after the trial, moreover, that
Felix summoned St. Paul before him (xxiv. 24) juLerd
^/uLcpas Tivd^f finally that Agrippa and Bernice came
to Caesarea (xxv. 13) ^jmepcj^i/ Siaycvoiuevcov tlvwv after
the first appearance of St. Paul before Festus and
abode there (xxv. 14) izXelov^ ijjmepag—in face of all
these instances we can scarcely regard the epithets
used with ^imepa^ as meaningless, or as quite arbi-
trarily chosen—especially seeing that in several cases
we can prove that they have been most suitably
chosen — rather we are led to suppose that St.
Luke^ in these cases was in possession of good
information, even though it were not exact but only
* It follows from Gal. i. 17 /. that the stay of St. Paul in
Damascus, including a journey into Arabia which came just at
the beginning, lasted three years. St. Luke says nothing of the
journey into Arabia; probably it was of no importance or he had
no knowledge of it. St. Paul only mentions it in order to explain
that he, although he had taken a journey, had nevertheless not
journeyed to Jerusalem. That St. Paul soon (after T]ixepa% TLvd%) began
his missionary work "in the synagogues," is not excluded by the
Galatians, for " in the synagogues" may well include those without
Damascus, and Arabia extended to the very gates of that city
moreover, the rjfi^pai iKavai of the Acts would correspond with the
three years of the Epistle.—That St. Paul on his last visit to
Antioch could only have remained a short time can also be shown
to be probable from the epi&tles. It can also be shown that
the approximate chronological statements of the section dealing
with St. Paul, Felix, and Festus are correct, especially as many
definite dates are found side by side with them. It is strange that
in XV. 36 we read only of "some days" which St. Paul and St.
Barnabas spent at that time in Antioch, while it was during this
time—some scholars place it earlier—that the visit of St. Peter to
this city (Gal. ii. 11/. ) seems to have occurred.
;