UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES BETWEEN ACTS AND PAUL'S EPISTLES.

We have seen that in assailing this book rationalists rely chiefly on its alleged inconsistency with certain statements in Paul's acknowledged Epistles, and especially with some in Galatians. We now propose to point out undesigned coincidences between these Epistles and Acts, and we shall see that the Epistles acknowledged by rationalists to be genuine confirm Acts in so many points as to make up a supplemental account of Paul's career.

1. Paul is first introduced in Acts as a persecutor of the church, giving consent to the death of Stephen, and afterward laying waste the church by entering into every house and seizing and dragging to prison both men and women. In these proceedings, though called a "young man," he is represented as a leader (vii. 58; viii. 1-3). With this corresponds precisely his own statement in Galatians: "Ye have heard of my manner of life in time past in the Jews' religion, how that, beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God and made havoc of it; and I advanced in the Jews' religion beyond many of mine own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers "(i. 13, 14).

2. The next incident given in Acts is his journey to Damascus in pursuance of his persecuting policy, and his interview on the way with the Lord Jesus (ix. 1-9). In a later passage he is represented as receiving from the Lord on this occasion a commission to preach to the Gentiles and to the people of Israel (xxvi. 15-18). In the Epistle this interview is not described, but, like his career in the "Jews' religion," just previously mentioned, it is alluded to as being already known to the Galatians. He says: "But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood" (i. 15, 16). Now, whatever one may think of the miraculous incidents related at this point in Acts, there can be no doubt that in the remark just quoted from Paul he refers to the incident of his conversion to the faith of Christ. This, then, confirms the statement that his conversion occurred on this journey, and thus far it confirms the account in Acts. Furthermore, he speaks of this incident as a revelation: "When it was the good pleasure of God to reveal his Son." But a revelation is a miracle; and to this extent he confirms the representation that a miracle was wrought on the occasion. He uses the words, "to reveal his Son in me;" but he means by this not, as rationalists have asserted, to make an inward revelation, but to reveal his Son to the world as still living in heavenly glory, by using Paul's person as the instrument. In what way his person was made the instrument of this revelation we could not know from the Epistle, the process being already known to his readers, and therefore omitted from his statement; but the history conies to our aid as if written for the very purpose of giving us the desired information, though certainly having no such purpose in view. It shows that Christ was revealed in him by the fact that he was blinded by the sight, and remained so until the Jews in Damascus knew the fact, and until, on account of the new convictions which the incident had implanted in him, he was baptized. Thus by an allusion which, on account of its brevity, we could not have fully understood without the narrative in Acts, the latter narrative is confirmed and the obscure allusions of the Epistle are made intelligible. It is scarcely possible that two independent documents should more positively confirm each other.

3. The next item in Acts is Paul's successful preaching in Damascus, and the expressions of amazement by those who heard him at the change which had taken place in him (ix. 20-22). Nothing is said expressly in Galatians of this preaching, but it is implied in Paul's words, "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood" (i. 15, 16). This clause is evidently elliptical, the word "immediately" qualifying some word understood. This word must be supplied from the preceding clause, "that I might preach him among the Gentiles." The meaning is, I immediately preached him, and did not confer with flesh and blood before I did so. This, then, asserts an immediate beginning of his preaching, and of course a beginning in Damascus. The same ellipsis is to be supplied in the two clauses which follow about going into Arabia, and returning to Damascus, as if he had said," I went away into Arabia to preach him, and again I returned unto Damascus to preach him." Thus while Acts speaks in general terms of his preaching in Damascus, Paul, by his allusions, brief as they are, shows that he preached there at two separate intervals, separated by a preaching tour in Arabia.1

4. The author of Acts next describes Paul's departure from Damascus. The items of the description are, first, a counsel of the Jews to kill him; second, their watching the gates day and night "that they might kill him;" third, his being let down by the disciples "through the wall" and "in a basket," by night (ix. 23-25). In Galatians nothing is said of this; Paul says only that after three years he went up to Jerusalem. But in II. Corinthians, another admitted Epistle of Paul, we have this statement: "In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of Damascus, in order to take me: and through a window was I let down in a basket by the wall, and escaped his hands" (xi. 32, 33). This account is so different from the one in Acts as to make it quite certain that neither could have been taken from the other, and that neither could have been written to explain the other. Yet Paul's account does really explain some points in which the other would be very obscure but for the explanation. First, we would wonder how the Jews could dare, in a foreign city like Damascus, to watch the gates night and day to kill a man whom they hated; and our wonder would never cease, did we not know from Paul's account that the governor of the city was watching for the same purpose, and that therefore the Jews were acting in concert with him. Second, it would be a mystery how Paul could be let down "through the wall" in a basket, had we not his own more explicit statement, that it was "through a window." When, in addition to this, we visit Damascus at the present day, and observe that in one part of the city there are houses whose uppermost stories rest on the wall, with windows looking out over the wall, the accuracy of both writers is strikingly attested.

5. The next incident in Acts is Paul's arrival in Jerusalem, where the disciples, though they may have heard of his conversion, were doubtful whether he was a real disciple till they were reassured by Barnabas; and where he preached boldly until the Jews went about to kill him, when the brethren took him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus (ix. 2G-30). This same journey to Jerusalem comes next in Paul's account of himself. He names the apostles whom he saw there, Cephas and James. Had he written not to tell the truth, but to confirm Acts, he would have named more of them to agree better with the plural of apostles used in Acts; but he gives the exact number, and it still confirms Acts. He says nothing about his preaching in Jerusalem, or about the plots to kill him, or about his departure to Tarsus; but he next says, "Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia," which agrees with the statement of Acts, that he was sent away to Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia.

6. Having sent Paul away to Tarsus, Acts leaves him there until Barnabas goes over to Tarsus to seek for Saul, finds him, and brings him to Antioch (xi. 25, 26). The interval, as we gather from the received chronology of Acts, was from the year 39 to the year 43, about four years. Luke says nothing as to how Paul was engaged during this time, though we should readily infer, from his ceaseless activity at other times, that he was preaching; and this inference is confirmed by the very next statement which Paul makes of himself. He says: "I was still unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ: but they only heard say, He that once persecuted us now preaches the faith of which he once made havoc; and they glorified God in me" (Gal. i. 22-24).

7. In Acts we next follow Paul on his first tour among the Gentiles, the incidents of which he has no occasion to mention in his Epistles; but even here, where the Epistles and the history stand most widely apart, they are not without coincidence. On this tour Paul was stoned at Lystra by Jews who had followed him from Antioch and Iconium, and left for dead. Many years afterward, when he was enumerating to the Corinthians his various sufferings for Christ, he says, "Once was I stoned99 (II. Cor. xi. 25); and the reference is undoubtedly to the stoning mentioned in Acts.

8. After Paul's return from his first tour the controversy about circumcision arose in Antioch, an account of which is given in the fifteenth chapter of Acts, and another in the second chapter of Galatians, so different as to be declared contradictory. We have already considered the points of alleged contradiction, and these are sufficient proof that neither account was made up from the other. We now propose to point out the coincidences between them.

(1) The persons sent up to Jerusalem are differently represented, yet the representations are harmonious. In Acts they are Paul and Barnabas and "certain others of them." In Galatians, Paul says: "I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me." Now, if the record in Acts bad been made up from the Epistle, it would naturally have specified Titus instead of including him in the vague expression, "certain others;" and if it had been made up at random without accurate knowledge, it could scarcely have hit upon this expression

(2) The purpose of the mission is expressly stated in Acts; they were sent up to the apostles and elders about this question of circumcising the Gentile converts. In Galatians the same purpose is implied, though it is nowhere expressly stated. It is implied in the struggle over the attempted circumcision of Titus, and in the agreement entered into between Paul and the other three apostles as to their respective missions to the circumcision and the uncircumcision. But while this implication is obvious when the two accounts are read in connection, it is not sufficiently apparent in the Epistle, if read alone, to have suggested the account in the history.

(3) Acts represents the apostles Peter and James as expressing, in a meeting of the church, full approval of the position held on the mooted question by Barnabas and Paul; while the Epistle, without mentioning the public meeting, declares that the same apostles, in a private meeting not mentioned in Acts, expressed the same approval. The fact of this expression of approval is the same in both accounts, while the two combine to show that it was expressed first privately and afterward publicly. That the two accounts vary so widely in details, yet without contradiction, and agree so perfectly in the main result, can be explained only on the ground that each is accurate so far as it goes.

(4) In both accounts the persons in opposition to Paul, though represented in quite different terms, are the same. In Acts they are styled "certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed;" in Galatians, "false brethren privily brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage." The two modes of describing them differ so widely as to show that neither description was taken from the other, and the points of coincidence can be due to nothing but the truthfulness of both.  

9. When Paul started on his second tour, he took Silas with him in place of Barnabas, who was his companion on the: first tour; and Silas continued with him, according to Acts, I until they were together in Corinth, when he disappears from the narrative and is seen in it no more (xv. 40; xviii. 5). In striking harmony with this we find that in the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, which were written during Paul's stay in Corinth, the name of Silas is joined with Paul's in the salutation. This shows that Acts is correct in its representation, and it affords no mean evidence of the authenticity of these two Epistles.  

10. Among the first incidents that occurred on this second tour was the circumcision of Timothy (xvi. 1-3). This act, occurring so soon after Paul's positive refusal to circumcise Titus, is a surprise; and when it is considered in connection with Paul's well known position that the law of Moses was no longer binding, it has the appearance of inconsistency, and it has been declared incredible.2 But here it is said that he circumcised Timothy "because of the Jews who dwelt there; for they all knew that his father was a Greek;" that is, it was done to prevent that prejudice against Timothy, as an uncircumcised half Hebrew, which would have crippled his influence among the Jews. Now, this is the very motive by which Paul himself declares that he was governed in his dealings with the Jews. He says: "To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, not being myself under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law" (I. Con ix. 20). He could not  have acted on this rule and refused the circumcision of men of Jewish blood like Timothy; and yet the rule did not bind him to the circumcision of Gentiles like Titus. So, then, Acts represents Paul as pursuing, in the case of Timothy, the line of conduct laid down in his Epistle. Instead of the act being incredible, therefore, and reflecting discredit on Acts, it has an important bearing in the opposite direction.

11. After the circumcision of Timothy at Lystra, Paul and his company are represented as passing through various districts of Asia Minor until they came to Troas, whence they went over into Macedonia, and preached at Philippi. During the stay here Paul and Silas are represented as being scourged and east into prison, whence they were released by proclaiming their Roman citizenship. To the church which he established there Paul afterward addressed an Epistle, and in it occurs the following passage: "To you it has been granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer on his behalf: having the same conflict which ye sawin me, and now hear to be in me" (Phil. i. 29, 30). Here is an evident allusion to suffering which they had seen him endure, and it corresponds to the suffering mentioned in Acts; but the reference is too vague to be the work of an impostor, yet it is sufficiently definite to show that he did suffer somewhat as is represented in Acts. He makes another and similar allusion to the same suffering in writing to the church in Thessalonica, to which city he went directly from Philippi. He says: "Having suffered before, and been shamefully entreated, as you know, in Philippi, we waxed bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much affliction" (I. Thess. ii. 2). There can be no doubt that this is another allusion to the same incident, yet it is made in a manner so incidental as to prove that it was not intended to support the statement of Acts. Thus these two Epistles unite to sustain the reliability of the narrative in Acts, while it in turn reflects credit on them as genuine productions of Paul's pen.

12. In the Epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul says: "For ye, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus: for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen, even as they did of the Jews" (I. Thess. ii. 14). Now this at first glance seems to be inconsistent with the account in Acts; for there the Jews are represented as the instigators of the persecution in Thessalonica, and they might be fairly represented as the authors of it. But on closer inspection we see that they "took to them certain vile fellows of the rabble, and gathering a crowd, set the city on an uproar; and assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them forth to the people" (xvii. 5). Thus a fact obscurely brought out in the history is mentioned as a well known circumstance in the Epistle--well known, that is, to the victims of the persecution.  

13. The coincidences between First Corinthians, the first in order of time of Paul's admitted Epistles, and Acts, are numerous and striking. We shall mention a few of them briefly. According to Acts, he came to Ephesus, whence the Epistle was written (I. Cor. xvi. 8, 9), from Galatia and Phrygia (xviii. 23; xix. 1); and this is implied in the Epistle by the remark, "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I gave order to the churches in Galatia, so also do ye" (xvi. 1). According to Acts, Priscilla and Aquila had gone to Ephesus with Paul (xviii. 18, 19); and in the Epistle written from Ephesus, he sends to the Corinthians their salutation (xvi. 19). According to Acts, Apollos visited the church which Paul had planted in Corinth, and labored in it successfully (xviii. 24-28);and in the Epistle Paul alludes to this by saying of the church, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase" (iii. 6). According to Acts, Paul's success at Ephesus was at one time so great that "not a few of them who practised curious arts brought their books together and burned them before a11: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of the Lord, and prevailed" (xix. 19, 20); and in the Epistle he says: "I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost; for a great and effectual door is open to me, and there are many adversaries" (xvi. 8, 9). According to Acts, while Paul was preaching at Ephesus, as an indirect result of his preaching, "all they who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks" (xix. 10); and in the Epistle he says to the Corinthians, "The churches of Asia salute you" (xvi. 19).

14. In the second Epistle to the Corinthians we find a number of similar coincidences with Acts, and also a much larger number with the first Epistle to the same church, with which our present argument is not concerned. In Acts we are told that under the leadership of Demetrius, a silversmith, a mob was raised to assault Paul, that they seized Gaius and Aristarchus, companions of Paul, and rushed into the theater; that Paul, evidently unwilling that these two friends should suffer in his stead, "was minded to enter in to the people," but that the disciples suffered him not, and that certain of the 'chief officers' of Asia also sent to him and besought him not to 'adventure himself into the theater'" (xix. 23-31). In the Epistle Paul says: "For we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning our affliction which befell us in Asia, that we were weighed down exceedingly beyond our power, insomuch that we despaired of life: yea, we ourselves have had the answer of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead; who delivered us out of so great a death, and will deliver" (i. 8-10). On this coincidence Paley well says; "I can not believe that any forger whatever should fall upon an expedient so refined as to exhibit sentiments adapted to a situation, and leave his readers to find out that situation from the history; still less that the author of a history should go about to frame facts and circumstances fitted to supply the sentiments which he found in the letter."3 In Acts it is said that after Paul left Athens and went to Corinth, Silas and Timothy came to him from Macedonia (xviii. 1,5); and in the Epistle Paul says to the Corinthians: "When I was present with you and was in want, I was not a burden on any man; for the brethren, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my want" (xi. 9). Here it is apparent that brethren came from Macedonia, and the way in which they are mentioned, "the brethren, when they came from Macedonia," shows that they were well known brethren; and the remark agrees perfectly with the fact that Silas and Timothy had come as stated in Acts, while it shows the additional circumstance for which it is chiefly introduced: that they brought means to supply Paul's personal wants. In the account of Paul's first visit to Corinth, it is evident that he went not beyond that city to evangelize more distant localities, but returned thence to Antioch whence he had started out (xviii. 18-22); and in the Epistle he expresses the hope that, "as your faith groweth, we shall be magnified in you according to our province unto further abundance, so as to preach the gospel even to the parts beyond you" (x. 15, 16). It seems impossible that a coincidence such as this should be the result of contrivance or forgery.

15. We shall continue this line of evidence no farther than to include some coincidences found in the Epistle to the Romans, the only one of the Epistles of Paul acknowledged by skeptics to be genuine which we have not yet employed. Near the close of the Epistle the writer says: "But now I go to Jerusalem, ministering to the saints. For it hath been the good pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are at Jerusalem" (xv. 25, 26). From this it appears that a journey to Jerusalem was about to be undertaken, and that the purpose of it was to minister to the poor saints in that city. Certain statements in the two Epistles to the Corinthians make it obvious that the journey in question is the one described in the twentieth and twenty-first chapters of Acts. In that description, however, though very minute in many particulars, not a word is said about the purpose of the journey or about any contribution; but strange as this omission is, both items are brought out in an incidental way in a later passage, and under peculiar circumstances. After Paul had reached Jerusalem and performed his task, had been cast into prison and sent to Caesarea to be tried by Felix the governor, in his defense before the latter he says: "Now, after many years I came to bring alms to my nation and offerings" (xxiv. 17). In Acts it is said of Paul, while he was yet in Ephesus, that he "purposed in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After that I have been there, I must also see Rome" (xix. 21). When this Epistle was written he had accomplished so much of this purpose as to have passed through Macedonia and Achaia, and was now about to prosecute it further. He says in the Epistle: "I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come to you (and was hindered hitherto), that I might have some fruit among you even as among the rest of the Gentiles" (i. 13), which confirms the statement in Acts that he had this purpose. Again in the Epistle, after speaking of his journey to Jerusalem, he says: "When, therefore, I have accomplished this, and have sealed to them this fruit, I will go on by you into Spain" (xv. 28). Here is the expression of the remainder of the purpose set forth in Acts, with the addition of a contemplated journey to Spain. That the complete agreement with Acts thus made out is purely incidental, and not a result of contrivance, is argued by Paley as follows: "If the passage in the Epistle was taken from that in Acts, why was Spain put in? If the passage in Acts was taken from that in the Epistle, why was Spain left out? If the two passages were unknown to each other, nothing can account for their conformity but truth."4 In the Epistle Paul says: "From Jerusalem, and round about even unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ" (xv. 19). In Acts, Illyricum is not mentioned among the regions in which he had preached; but it is said of his last visit to Macedonia, which was bordered on the west by Illyricum, that "when he had gone through those parts and had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece" (xx. 2, 3). When he "had gone through those parts" which constitute Macedonia, he had gone as far as to Illyricum, but had not gone into it; and this is precisely what his words, "even unto Illyricum," mean. In Acts, Paul is represented, while on his journey to Jerusalem, as saying to the Ephesian elders: "I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Spirit testifieth to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me" (xx. 22, 23). By "every city" he evidently means every city through which he had passed on his journey. In the Epistle we find, in strong confirmation of this, that when he was about to start on the journey he had the same apprehension; for he says: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from them that are disobedient in Judea, and that my ministration which I have for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints" (xv. 30, 31). It is quite certain from this instance, and it would be if we had no other, that neither of these two books was written for the purpose of conforming to the other; for if Acts had been written with such a purpose in view, the account of Paul's imprisonment, and the consequent failure of his prayer to be delivered from the disobedient in Judea, would have been omitted or greatly modified; and if, on the other hand, the Epistle had been forged after the event, it would not have contained a prayer which the writer knew to have been frustrated by the course of events. "This single consideration," says Paley, "convinces me that no concert or confederacy whatever subsisted between the Epistle and the Acts of the Apostles; and that whatever coincidences have been or can be pointed out between them are unsophisticated, and are the result of truth and reality."5

We here conclude our evidence from this source, though we have by no means exhausted it. For a fuller exhibition of it, and especially for specifications which prove the genuineness and authenticity of the Epistles ascribed to Paul, the student is referred to Paley's Horae Paulinae, a work from which a large part of the matter in this chapter is derived, and which, though it has been before the public since the year 1790, and has been regarded from the time of its first publication as a first class defense of Acts and Paul's Epistles, has never been replied to by an unbeliever. For a further statement of the coincidences between the Gospels, the reader is referred to Blunt's Coincidences, a work to which the present writer acknowledges much indebtedness.

Thus far in our discussion of the authenticity of the New Testament books we have prosecuted the inquiry without reference to the accounts of miracles; and having applied all the tests of historical criticism, we have found no error of fact, no discrepancy between these documents and other reliable histories, no inconsistency between the books themselves in regard to any of the multitudinous details into which their narratives run. On the contrary, we have found a very large number of those undesigned coincidences in detail between them and other books, and between these books individually, which are found only in such writings as are most minutely accurate in every particular. The same can not be said of the same number of books dealing with a common subject, and entering into so many details, in all human literature. It seems a perfectly legitimate conclusion from these premises that in the books of the New Testament the world has the most authentic historical documents, at least so far as ordinary facts of history are concerned, that have ever been written. 

1 The conjecture that Paul's excursion into Arabia was not for the purpose of preaching to the Jews in its town and villages, but for the purpose of meditating on his new relations to Christ, and preparing himself mentally for the work now before him, although it is adopted by such men as Alford, Lightfoot, and Farrar, appears to me so utterly at variance with the restless activity and burning zeal of the apostle as to be altogether incredible. The addition to this conjecture, that he went as far as Mount Sinai, more than four hundred miles from Damascus, where Elijah had retired before him, instead of confirming the original hypothesis, seems rather to weaken it; for Paul knew very well that when Elijah went thither he was rebuked by the Lord, who demanded, "Elijah, what doest thou here?" and that he was ordered back to his work. In the absence of all evidence for this conjecture, we should be governed in judging of the purpose of the excursion by what we know of Paul's habits during the remainder of his life; and by this standard we should judge that he was one of the last men on earth to waste any precious moments, not to speak of a year or two, in idle meditation in the desert, while the cause which he had espoused was now struggling for an existence. (Alford, Com. Gal., i. 18; Lightfoot, Com. on Galatian's, note, p. 87; Farrar, Life of Paul, chap, xi.)

2 "That the same Paul who in Jerusalem resisted with all his might the proposal to circumcise Titus for the sake of the Jews and Jewish Christians, should soon after himself have caused Timothy to be circumcised from regard to the same persons, belongs undoubtedly to the simply incredible side of the Acts of the Apostles." (Baur, Paul, i. 129, note).

3 Horae Paullinae, in loco.

4 Horae Paulinae, in loco.

5 Ib., Epistle to the Romans, No. 6.