[vii] THE first part of this book was intended originally to be a single chapter, giving some slight account of the questions that were agitating the eastern Roman provinces when St. Paul brought the new religion before the populations of Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra. The writer had the belief that the action of the earliest missionaries stood in the most intimate relation to the life and the tendencies of that society; that the outward character of early Christianity, as shown in the first converts, was determined to a considerable extent by the facts of their situation; and that a true conception of "the Church in the Empire about 50 - 70 A.D." could not be attained, unless this relation were constantly borne in mind, and the student kept his eye continually on the state of society and politics in the eastern provinces.

The writer had no theory as to the composition or the date of Acts. He sought only for external and objective grounds on which to rest a rational criticism of the trustworthiness of the historical statements in the book [viii] He had, indeed, acquired a general idea that these statements had been to some degree affected and coloured by the prejudices of a later generation; and perhaps this idea may have occasionally shown itself in the form of words employed in the early chapters. In working out the proposed introductory chapter, he found that, out of the facts which led him to set a low value on the evidence of the book, several were founded on erroneous views. Especially the fundamental error with regard to the "Galatian Churches," an error which was almost universally accepted, was found to be responsible for many apparent discrepancies between Acts and facts. In the attempt to attain and to justify an answer to the fundamental questions determining the historical authenticity of Acts as a picture of Roman society in the eastern provinces, the proposed single chapter grew into eight.

Any value that this part of the following work has is involved in its character as an unprejudiced attempt to find out what are the facts, and what verdict the dispassionate historical critic must pass in this case; and in the changes that have been introduced in this edition that character is left undisturbed. It is hoped that the language used throughout remains such as to involve no theory as to the composition of Acts. Any reader who has arrived, or may hereafter arrive, at a definite view on that subject will find it necessary to make certain modifications in [ix] the language, even where he may accept, in a general way, the reasoning.

In the first edition a note was appended, in view of Spitta's recently published theory, pointing out that, if that at first view striking and alluring theory were proved, certain details would have to be modified. Since that note was written, the writer has acquired a definite opinion, which excludes Spitta's theory; but he has not introduced into the text any change suggested by his opinion, except in the paragraphs where Spitta is mentioned. Various changes have been made in Part I. (especially on pages 46, 58 note, 68, 73, 75 - 7, 81, 90, 94 - 6, 107 - 9, 1 159-60, 166 - 68), but the point of view is unaltered, and the solution of every difficulty in Acts remains essentially as before. Criticisms and suggestions by Mr. F. C. Conybeare, Dr. Sanday, Rev. F. Rendall, Rev. F. W. Lewis, Mr. R. S. Miller, Prof. Findlay, Mr. Hollis, Mr. A. Souter, Mr. A. F. Findlay, and others, have been utilised in the improvements.

Chapter VI. is far from adequate to its subject; but the general arguments in favour of the South-Galatian theory would easily fill a volume, and I therefore could not touch the chapter without lengthening it, which is not permitted.

[x] In Part II. no change has been made except to improve the expression in three or four sentences and to make some additions to the notes appended at the conclusion of Chapter XVI. The Armenian Version of the Acta of Paul and Thekia (published by Mr. F. C. Conybeare in his interesting and valuable work, Monuments of Early Christianity) has been referred to several times (p. 426, note 1): it is founded on the Syriac Version (as it was in an early form), and not on the original Greek.

I may add that the words used in my first preface, "the faults of execution of which I was and am painfully conscious," are not a mere form. If I had been able to devote five years to the work, I could perhaps have done it better; but in the situation in life that I hold, responsible during six months of the year for the teaching of Latin to the large classes of a Scottish university, and bound also in honour to carry on and complete a very big scheme of research in Asia Minor, I had no alternative between writing the book as it is and leaving it unwritten. Advisers whom I am ready to follow almost implicitly chose the former for me. But it lies in the plan of the work, and is in considerable degree the cause of any value that the book has, that the chapters are isolated and separate studies, and that no attempt is made to weld them into a systematic discussion of the entire subject. The intention is to discuss and try to understand single points, treating [xi] each by itself and not as part of a system. The full title of the book might be "an attempt to establish some facts in regard to the position of the Church in the Roman Empire during the first two centuries." Chapters XVIII. and XIX. lie outside the limits of the title. The latter was one of the series of lectures at Mansfield College out of which the book grew; but the theory, more favourable to Herodotus and to the legend, which was originally stated in the lecture, was relinquished as too daring, and hence that chapter appears rather disappointing.

Finally, it ought to be understood that the book is the work of a student of Roman history and of Roman society, who finds in the Church the cause and the explanation of many problems in his subject, and writes from the point of view of general Roman imperial history rather than of specially ecclesiastical history.

A few additional pages of notes on points that have been debated during the last two years (pp.481 f.) have been appended to this edition. But it may here be said plainly that it is a prime necessity, in estimating the authenticity and the meaning of the narrative in Acts, to study as a preliminary the circumstances, the currents of political and social development, the facts of life, that characterised central Asia Minor at that time. Christianity then, as always, was no mere philosophical doctrine, but was actual life: and, beyond all others, [xii] Paul especially plunged into the heart of the life around him; he drew his illustrations, and pointed his lessons, from the facts of his hearers' life; he taught them how to live in their own country. In Lightfoot we are struck by the steady purpose with which he aims at this method of study; he always tries to embrace in his view the whole circumstances of the people whom Paul addresses. But in the fifty-one pages which Dr. Zoeckler in Theolog. Stud. und Kritiken, 1895, and the forty pages which Dr. Chase in the Expositor, have devoted to the task of propping up the North-Galatian theory, I find no sentence that shows any recognition of this prime necessity. It is the same with every recent work on Galatians (so far as my reading extends): Lightfoot tried and found nought; no one else tries; and Dr Zoeckler (op. cit - p. 59) pointedly rejects Lightfoot's Galatian view as a whole, without making any new attempt to set the Galatian Churches in their true environment.

In speaking of the North-Galatian theory, it must be remembered that its adherents differ among each other just as widely as I differ from them. Lightfoot takes the Churches of Galatia as Ancyra, Pessinus, Tavium, and perhaps Juliopolis (ed. of 1892, p. 20); and in describing the situation and the surroundings of the Galatic Churches, he has Ancyra chiefly in his mind. But Zoeckler throws this idea overboard, declares that Paul [xiii] never was at Ancyra, or Tavium, or Juliopolis, and confines the Churches of Galatia to Pessinus and the wilderness of the Axylon. He does not indeed recognise that his theory means this (if he had recognised it, perhaps he would not have suggested it); but that is what it does mean. It is plain that the North-Galatian theorists, except Lightfoot, make no attempt to find order and method in Paul's work; to them his idea of "an open door" (2 Cor. ii. 12) has only the vaguest sense; pressing on to the great centres of life (see p. 158 note) was not, in their estimation, his way of work. Those who try to conceive what Asia Minor was in the first century will end by rejecting the North-Galatian view. The material for studying the country has been as yet uncollected and often inaccessible; but those who desire to study the question minutely will find the best defence that I can give of the South-Galatian theory in the Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (vol. i., Clarendon Press, 1895), where the question is not alluded to, but the state of the country and people, and the relations between classes and religions, are described.

W. M. RAMSAY.

FOOTNOTES

1 The changes in pp. 107 - 9 had to be compressed into very narrow space; and these pages are, I fear, hardly intelligible in their present form except to those who have read Spitta's book and Weise's article (quoted and criticised there)