Acts of the Apostles

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, a Canonical Book of the New Testament, which contains a great part of St. Peter’s life, and of St. Paul’s, beginning at the Ascension of our Saviour, and continued as far as St. Paul’s arrival at Rome, after his appeal to Cæsar, that is to say, this book includes the History of eight and twenty or thirty years. St. Luke has been always taken for the Author of the Acts. After that he had described the Actions of Jesus Christ in his Gospel, he resolved likewise to leave the lives and actions of the first Apostles, and a Relation of the wonderful manner, wherewith the holy Spirit formed that Church which Christ had redeemed with his Blood.

OEcumenius¹ calls the Acts the Gospel of the Holy Ghost, and St. Chrysostom² the Gospel of our Saviour’s Resurrection, or the Gospel of Christ Jesus risen from the Dead. Here in the Lives and Preaching of the Apostles, we have the most miraculous instance of the power of the Holy Ghost; and in the account of those who were the first Believers, we have the most excellent pattern of the true Christian Life; so that in this work, tho’ St. Luke seems to give us but a plain narrative of Facts, yet herein does this divine Physician, according to St. Jerom’s expression³, offer to us as many remedies, fit to heal the diseases of our Souls, as he speaks words.

It is believed that St. Luke’s principal Design in the composition of the Acts, was to write a true History of the Apostles, and of the foundation of the Christian Church, in opposition to the false Acts and false Histories which begun to be dispersed up and down the World. The fidelity and understanding of this holy Evangelist have been so much valued by the Church, that all other Acts of the Apostles which appeared either before or after him, have been despised by it, and those only adopted which were of his composing. We shall hereafter give a List of the several spurious Acts, the names whereof have been handed down to us; for few of them have been preserved entire.

The exact time wherein St. Luke wrote the Book of the Acts is not known: It is agreed that they were penn’d after his Gospel, and must have been written two years after St. Paul’s abode at Rome upon the first journey that he made thither, that is to say about the sixty second or the sixty third year of the vulgar Æra; for St. Luke speaks of this journey, and of St. Paul’s continuance at Rome for such a time after it. He might have written it at Rome while he remained with St. Paul during the time of his Imprisonment; for St. Luke stay’d with him for the two years of his abode at Rome till his Deliverance.

St. Luke wrote this work in Greek, and his Greek is generally purer and more elegant than that of other Authors of the New Testament. Epiphanius says⁴, that this Book was translated by the Ebionites out of Greek into Hebrew, that is to say, into Syriac, which was the common language of the Jews in Palestine; but these Hereticks corrupted it with the mixture of many Falsities and Impieties, injurious to the memory of the Apostles. St. Jerom⁵ assures us, that a certain Priest of Asia added to the true genuine Acts, the Voyages of St. Paul and St. Thecla⁶, and the Story of baptizing a Lion. Tertullian tells us, that St. John the Evangelist having convicted this Priest of varying from the truth in this Relation, he excused himself, saying, he did it purely out of love to St. Paul⁷.

The book of the Acts has always been esteemed canonical in the Church. The Marcionites⁸ indeed, the Manichees⁹, and some other Hereticks, rejected it, because they were sensible that their errors were too clearly condemned by it. St. Austin says¹⁰, that the Church received this work with great edification, and read it every year in the assembly of the Faithful. St. Chrysostom complains, that in his time this Book was too little known, and that the reading of it was too much neglected. As for himself, he very much extols the advantages of it, and maintains with good reason that it is as useful as the Gospel.

APOCRYPHAL ACTS OF THE

Read this article in its place on the printed pages