Introduction

Introduction

The Acts of the Holy Apostles is the next book of historical content in the New Testament after the holy Gospels, and it fully deserves, by its importance, to occupy the first place after them. “This book,” says St. Chrysostom, “can bring us no less benefit than the Gospel itself: it is filled with such depth of wisdom, such purity of doctrine, and such an abundance of miracles, especially those wrought by the Holy Spirit. Here one can see the fulfillment in practice of those prophecies which Christ proclaimed in the Gospels — truth shining in the very events, and the great change for the better wrought in the disciples by the Holy Spirit. Christ said to his disciples: ‘He who believes in me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater works than these he will do’ (John 14:12), and foretold them that they would be brought before governors and kings, that they would be beaten in synagogues (Matt 10:17-18), that they would be subjected to the most terrible torments and would triumph over all of them, and that the Gospel would be preached throughout the entire world (Matt 24:14). All this, as well as much else that he said while living among the disciples, is shown in this book to have been fulfilled with complete precision... The events of the book of Acts are the direct continuation of the Gospel events, beginning where these end (the Lord’s ascension into heaven) and unfolding the subsequent history of the Church of Christ down to the imprisonment of Paul, the apostle who labored more than all others.” Noting the distinctive character of the narrative and selection of events, St. Chrysostom calls this book one containing above all else proofs of the resurrection of Christ, since one who believed this could readily accept everything else. In this he sees the “principal purpose” of the book.

The writer of the book of Acts is the holy Evangelist Luke, as he himself indicates (Acts 1:1-2; cf. Luke 1:1 and following). — This indication, sufficiently strong in itself, is confirmed both by external testimonies of the ancient Christian Church (the testimonies of St. Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and many others) and by internal evidence, which together place the complete and unconditional reliability of the narratives of the author of Acts, down to the smallest details and particulars, beyond any doubt.¹

The time and place of writing the book are impossible to determine precisely. Since the book concludes with an account of the two-year preaching activity of the Apostle Paul while in bonds in Rome (Acts 28:30-31), yet makes no mention either of the apostle’s death or of his release, it must be thought that in any case it was written before the apostle’s martyrdom (in 63–64 AD) and specifically in Rome (as Jerome holds), though the latter is not undisputed. It is possible that during his journeys with the Apostle Paul, Evangelist Luke was keeping notes of all that was most remarkable, and only afterward arranged these notes into the orderly whole of a distinct book — the “Acts.”

Having set himself the goal of narrating the principal events of Christ’s Church from the ascension of the Lord down to the last days contemporary with him, Evangelist Luke covers a period of about 30 years in his book. Since in the spreading of the Christian faith in Jerusalem and its initial transition to the Gentiles the chief apostle Peter labored especially greatly, and in its spread throughout the Gentile world the chief apostle Paul labored especially greatly, the book of Acts correspondingly presents two main parts. In the first (chapters I–XII), the narrative deals mainly with the apostolic activity of Peter and the Church drawn from the Jews. In the second (chapters XIII–XXVIII), it deals with the activity of Paul and the Church drawn from the Gentiles.

Under the name of the Acts of this or that Apostle individually, several other books were known in antiquity, but all of them were rejected by the Church as forgeries containing teaching not genuinely apostolic, and even as unprofitable and harmful.

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Notes

As the closest companion and fellow-worker of the holy Apostle Paul, the author of Acts was himself an eyewitness of the majority of the events he describes; about the remaining events he had the opportunity to hear from the Apostle Paul himself (especially with regard to what concerned Paul personally), and from other Apostles, with whom he was in constant living communication. The influence of Paul in particular on the writing of Acts is very considerable and evident.