According to the foregoing explanations, the presence of the author at the incidents related in Acts betrays itself by the use of the pronoun "we." "we." Hence Sopater', Aristarchus, Secundus', Tychicus, Trophimus, and Caius are excluded from the authorship of the book, because the writer of Acts speaks of them in the third person. Though there might, at first sight, be more difficulty about Timothy and Silas, still a reference to Acts xvi., 19, 25, 29; xvii., 4, 10, 14, 15; xviii., 5, excludes these also from the authorship, since the "we" is wanting in the foregoing passages, though either Silas or Timothy or both are present at the events narrated therein. Hence only Titus and Luke are left as the possible authors of Acts. Again, Titus is excluded, because we know, from Gal., ii., 1, 2, that he was present at the events narrated in Acts xv., 1, 2, and still there is no "we;" besides, Titus was most probably not at Philippi when the author of Acts uses "we" concerning events which occurred in that city. Thus internal evidence determines not only that the writer of Acts is different from the writers of the apocrypha, that he lived in the apostolic age, that he was a companion of Paul, but it points also to St. Luke with unmistakable precision. Finally, a word about the theory of Blass, that Luke wrote not only one, but two copies of the Book of Acts. The main argument of the writer is based on the existence of the so-called Western or Roman text of Acts which is so different from the Eastern text, that it produces the impression of a different edition of the work. The reader must keep in mind that the chief authorities for the Western text are the Codex Bezæ [D], the Codex Laudianus [E], the Codex Mediolanensis [M, or 137 in Tischendorf's notation], the Latin part of Codex Bezæ [d], the Latin part of Codex Laudianus [e], the Latin palimpsest Floriacensis [f], the "gigas librorum" [g], now in Stockholm; the Codex 321 of Paris [p], the Codex Wernigerodiensis [w], the Provençal translation made from the Latin in the thirteenth century and published in 1887 [Prov], some passages in Augustine [a], the readings from a manuscript similar to the Codex Bezæ inserted in the text and margin of the Harkleian edition of the Philoxenian Syriac [s], the Sahidic version [sah], citations in Cyprian [Cypr] and Augustine [Aug], as well as in Ireneaus [Ir]. The great bulk of codices, versions and patristic citations and passages give the Eastern text. Beside the indubitable existence of a class of readings so different from the commonly received reading that they have the appearance of a different edition, there is also the circumstance that 2 Acts, xix., 29. 1 Acts, xx., 4. 3 Acts, xx., 4. 5 Acts, xix., 29. 4 Acts, xx., 4. the so-called Western or Roman text is, at times, distinguished for its minute accuracy and truthfulness, so that its variations from the common text cannot be the work of casual mistakes of the transcribers. In the third place, Nestle1 has pointed out that in some instances the Western text of Acts differs from the Eastern, just as two different translations of the same Hebrew or Aramaic text would be likely to differ from one another; the existence of the two texts would therefore be fully explained by the hypothesis that Luke translated his original Aramaic document twice; first in a more lengthy manner, and then more briefly. The first, or rough copy, remained in Rome, becoming the source of the Western or Roman text; the second copy was sent to Theophilus at Antioch, thus becoming the source of the Eastern text of Acts. In the fourth place, Blass himself appealed to certain parts of Demosthenes edited twice by the author, in order to show that such repeated editions of the same work by the original writer are not unknown in classical literature. Dræseke' added another, doubtful, instance of a second edition of the same work by a Byzantine writer on Basil, Gregory and Chrysostom, and Zöckler brought forward five more cases of the same practice.* Finally, Conybeare" has shown that the Western text of Acts was the basis of an early commentary to which, in some form, both Chrysostom and Ephrem had access, so as to use it in their respective commentaries on Acts. 8 If we now examine these arguments as to their solidity, we shall find that they are more pretentious than convincing. As to Conybeare's article, we may here grant, for argument's sake, that it proves what it intends to establish; but since we fully grant that Western readings of Acts were known in the church about a century or more before the time of either Chrysostom or Ephrem, the use made of them by the two Fathers proves nothing in favor of a double Lucan edition of Acts. Nor can this be said to rest on the fact that several writers of the early age edited their works twice or three times; at best, the latter circumstance shows the possibility of a double Lucan edition of Acts on the supposition that Luke wrote just as the alleged writers did write. We do not intend here to deny the possibility of a double edition of his work 1 Philologica Sacra, Berlin, 1896, pp. 39 ff. 2 "Zur Überlieferung," d. Ag., Hilg. Ztschr., xxxvii., p. 194. 3 Studia Gryphiswaldensia, 1895, p. 132 ff. Tert., Adv. Marc.; Eus., TEрì rŵv ¿v [[adaiorívn μaprvpnoávтwv; Pasch. Radb., De. Corpore et Sanguine Dni.; Apollod., xovi; Longin., 'Arrik ŵv óvoμúrwv ikdóceis dúo; Cf. Schanz, Hist. Litt. Rom., iii., 374, 387; Diels, Mas. Rhen., xxxi., 8, 54. 5 The American Journal of Philology, 1896, July, p. 135 ff. 6 Tert., Adv. Marc. on the part of an inspired writer,' but we deny that we can logically infer the possibility of a double edition of an inspired work from the fact of such a double edition of a work that is not inspired. As to Nestle's contention that the Western and Eastern texts of Acts differ just as two successive translations of the same original Hebrew or Aramaic text would be likely to differ, we find only two words given to establish this sweeping statement. Now, in the first place, it would be quite easy to find many more than two words of the Western and Eastern text of Acts respectively, that might in the same manner appear to be two successive translations of a Latin or an English original text, and it would be folly to infer from this that Luke translated Acts originally from a Latin or an English document, and that he corrected his first version in a second edition. In the second place, the instances adduced by Nestle are on inspection no instances at all, for in both the writer is obliged to suppose two different words even in his original Hebrew or Aramaic text in order to account for the two different readings in the Greek text. The alleged minute accuracies of the Codex Bezæ, the principal source of the Western or Roman text of Acts, are offset by almost innumerable readings in the same Codex that must be rejected as false. After discussing the readings of Codex Bezæ at some length, Ramsay concludes that some, at least, of the alterations in Codex Bezæ arose through a gradual process, and not through the action of an individual reviser. "Possibly all the changes," the writer says, " which have been discussed in the preceding pages may have arisen in this way. But some of them are perhaps more naturally explained as the work of a single individual, whom I shall speak of as the 'reviser.'" If the existence of a double text of an inspired book, such as we have in the case of Acts, be a solid argument for a double edition of the book, we must admit a double edition not only of Acts, but also of the gospels, since Codex Bezæ, the principal source of the Western text, contains the gospels too. We doubt greatly whether Prof. Blass himself is prepared to extend his inference to this length. If we, therefore, survey the opinions expressed by the critics of the last fifty years concerning the authorship of Acts, we find that they are not only opposed to, but also destructive of one another. On the one hand, it is contended that Luke did not write Acts; 1 The first gospel, eg., may have been written in Hebrew by the evangelist and then translated into Greek by the author himself, or at least under his immediate supervision. 2 Acts, ii., 47; iii., 31. 8 The Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 151 ff. The reviser must have lived before 150-160 A. D., and been more familiar with the conditions of Asia Minor than of Europe. on the other, it is maintained that Luke wrote Acts twice over; on the one hand, it is stated that no apostolic writer can be admitted as the author of Acts; on the other, it is shown that there must have been several apostolic writers who composed the different parts of Acts. By the light of this sad manifestation of human weakness and fallibility we are led to appreciate the simplicity and sufficiency of the traditional view, that St. Luke composed Acts partly from his own notes, partly from information derived from others, "according as they have delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses" (Lk., i., 2). A. J. MAAS, S.J. WOODSTOCK, MD. teenth century, "in the very depths of whose bowels he was born," and, nevertheless, a submissive conquest of the faith to which he afterward subjugated so many happy souls, Lacordaire was, of all the public men of our day, the most striking instance of what Catholicism can do for the natural man. Passionately devoted to liberty in a society which was too apt to confound that sacred gift with unbridled license, Lacordaire was saved by his Catholicism from a plunge into the gulf of anarchy. Endowed with a subtlety of imagination which is rarely given to man, he would have conceived arguments for any and every attractive theory, and would have wandered into the paths of intellectual and spiritual darkness, had he not been guided by the Star of Bethlehem. But because he was Catholic to the core, the quondam disciple of the mutilated Titan, Lamennais, bowed before the decision of the Chair of Peter; the editor of "L'Avenir" transferred his logic and his eloquence to the pulpit of Notre Dame; the Christian liberal of 1848 preserved his honor and his true liberty by abandoning the Constituent Assembly of the Second Republic; and finally, just as in 1832 he had said that "he departed from Rome free and victorious," so at the end of his career he was able to proclaim that "the Catholic Church is the liberatrix of the human mind." Catholic in every pulsation of his heart, in every 1 Montalembert on Lacordaire. conception of his mind, he could love men without loving the world; human respect, that most powerful obstacle to the propagation of every kind of truth, was conquered by him on the day when he bent to the yoke of Christ; and therefore no man, better than Lacordaire, could effect that work for which he was pre-eminently distinguished-the infusion of shame for their cowardice into the hearts of those children of the Revolution who dreaded to be seen entering into a church. "Lacordaire caused these disciples of Voltaire to make the sign of the cross like Marceau, and to communicate with Paqueron and Ozanam." He knew how to reach the hearts, to illumine the intellects of the devotees of that false liberalism which Montalembert has so thoroughly revealed to us. And yet this orator and polemic, who reminds us of Bossuet; this tribune and political leader, who seemed to be another O'Connell; this priest and ascetic, who stands forth among the living and dead of the nineteenth century as the most perfect embodiment of the spirit of St. Dominic, had himself drunk deeply of the poisoned waters of that bastard liberalism. His widowed mother, a strong and courageous Christian, had transmitted and developed her own characteristics in her four sons; and while he was still a child, the favorite recreation of little Henri was to preach some juvenile attempts at sermons to a congregation composed of his nurse and playmates. But when, after a sojourn of seven years at the State Lycée of Dijon, her boys returned to her maternal embraces, Mme. Lacordaire found that not one of them could join in her prayers. The future conferencier of Notre Dame says in his "Mémoires": "When seventeen years old, I left college with my religion destroyed. . . . holding before my eyes, as the luminary of my life, the human ideal of glory. And this result is easily explained. We had lived continually, during the course of our education, surrounded by the examples of ancient heroism and by the masterpieces of antiquity; and nothing had supported our faith while following a system in which the divine word gave forth only an indistinct sound, without eloquence and without consequences." In fine, the yoke of the University of that day was on the young Lacordaire; like all his professors, he cherished the vague reveries of Deism, and breathed the miasma. of Voltarian skepticism. Shortly after his admittance to the bar, Lacordaire, then only twenty-two years of age, attained to such distinction that the great Berryer predicted to him: "It is in your power to reach the highest rank in our profession." And the president, Séguier, remarked, after listening to one of his pleadings: "Gentlemen, it is 1 Pellissier, Les Gloires de la France Chrétienne, p. 239; Paris, 1890. VOL. XXII.-17 |