been discussed on p. 27, ff.

[6] He changes the good into better (ii. 9); saves the dying (iv. 50);
gives power (v. 8); gives food (vi. 11); gives sight (ix. 7); is Lord
over death (xi. 44); blesses the work done in faith (xxi. 11). It
should be noticed that St. John never mentions that our Lord cured any
one possessed with a devil, which according to the Synoptists was a
common kind of miracle. But St. John does not therefore contradict the
other evangelists. He recognizes that there are visible works of the
devil (viii. 41; cf. 1 John iii. 8), and mentions "the prince of this
world" as causing the trials of our Lord.

{102}

CHAPTER VII

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

[Sidenote: The Author.]

The Christian Church has never attributed the Book of Acts to any other
writer than St. Luke. The external proofs of the primitive date of the
book are important, and point to the apostolic age as the date of its
composition. St. Clement of Rome, about A.D. 95, in referring to Ps.
lxxxviii. 20, quotes it in words which are almost certainly based on
Acts xiii. 22. There are two apparent quotations from Acts in the
letters of St. Ignatius and one in the letter of St. Polycarp. It is
also quoted in the works of Justin Martyr, Tatian, and Athenagoras, and
in the letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons written in A.D. 177.
It was evidently read throughout the 2nd century, and it is definitely
assigned to St. Luke by Irenaeus, the _Muratorian Fragment_,
Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria.

In opposition to this tradition, a persistent effort has been made to
prove that the book belongs to the early part of the and century.
There are certain passages in which the writer uses the _first person
plural_, implying that he was personally present on the occasions
described. The sections of the book in which that peculiarity is found
are ordinarily called the "we sections," and it has been asserted that
though the "we sections" are primitive they have been worked into the
narrative of a later writer.[1] Furthermore it is asserted that {103}
the book was deliberately intended to be a fictitious account of the
primitive Church, and that its special purpose was to balance the story
of St. Peter with that of St. Paul in such a manner as to completely
disguise the fundamental antagonism of the two apostles.

The force of this argument has been weakened by the general admission
of non-Christian writers that the differences