The Acts of the Apostles

The Power of the Gospel and of the Spirit in the World

Christ’s work, which the Gospels showed us being carried on in Palestine, was then carried on, and is being carried on today, throughout the entire world.

Those desirous of learning about the first steps taken on that journey have the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, which bears witness to the presence of the good news and of the Spirit in the midst of the nations. It is a book that describes the Church’s youth.

The title “Acts of the Apostles” was probably given to this Book many years after the death of the author. In fact, the title corresponds only imperfectly to the contents of the work, since it follows in some detail the story of only two of the apostles: Peter and Paul. Nor does it intend to write their biographies, but simply to hand on to us recollections of the early events in the Church’s life.

What it wants to tell us is, above all, the proclamation of a belief: A new age has begun in the history of humankind and the nations, the age of Easter, the age of the Church.

The author singles out the decisive turning points in this Spirit-sustained journey of the Gospel: Pentecost; the first martyrdom, that of Stephen the deacon; the conversion of Paul the persecutor; the acceptance of Gentiles into the Church through the intervention of Peter himself; the persecution in Jerusalem and the scattering of the apostles; and the establishment of Churches in the pagan world, at Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, and finally Rome.

We must not expect the Book of Acts to tell us everything about the history of the very early Church. Events are reported in connection with some geographical points that mark the entrance of the Gospel into the world and its various cultures: Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Rome. Only a few of the principal figures appear. Peter and Paul share the pages of the work in almost equal measure, but we are not given their biographies. Both leave the scene of the story without our knowing anything of their further work or their martyrdom.

The Church is God’s work, not a project of human beings, however great. There were other apostles, other communities; the author is well aware of this, but he does not mention them in his narrative. He has a different purpose.

In fact, he does not intend to serve as chronicler of the Church’s beginnings; rather, as in the third Gospel, of which he is also the author, he intends to remain an evangelist. His guiding principle is to proclaim the great deeds of God that attest to the presence of salvation, to bear witness to the life of the communities, and to tell the signs of the conversion of the world.

Half of the Book is devoted to Paul, but we are told relatively little of the struggles and trials he had to face, or of the conflicts that shook the communities of Corinth and Galatia. Fortunately, Paul’s own Letters have preserved lively traces of all these. The author sometimes refers to disagreements among the missionaries, but he does not regard these as important for the structure of his story.

Moreover, the Book ends too abruptly for our taste, when it has barely shown the way of the Gospel being opened throughout the world.

In this Book a lot of space is given to discourses. Ancient historians liked to put their own reflections and interpretations in the mouths of their heroes; by doing so they gave readers an opportunity to pause and reflect as the story moved on. It is not possible to say precisely the same of the author of Acts. Admittedly, he does not claim to be giving us a stenographic report of the discourses, but he does try to report, even if in concentrated form, the Christian preaching that was characteristic from the very beginning, and to show how sermons were developed.

The same author composed the third Gospel and the Book of Acts. There are no valid reasons for rejecting the tradition that this author was Luke.

These pages were composed around A.D. 80–90. Luke makes use of traditions preserved by various Churches that tell of their origin and the work of the first missionaries there, but he is also free to fill in the overall picture according to his own criteria. He recalls very early events, especially those that would inspire the Church of his own day; by the end of the first century, custom had already set a patina on the fervor of the early days.

The text of the Book of Acts has come down to us in two forms or redactions. Alongside the common redaction (the “Oriental” text) that is transmitted in the earliest manuscripts and versions, there existed as early as the second century a somewhat fuller redaction that added, not new events, but details that give the impression of coming from an eyewitness. This text (the “Western”) is now regarded by the majority of scholars as an amplification of the first.

The Acts of the Apostles may be divided as follows:

I: At Jerusalem (1:1—12:25)

II: Antioch (13:1—18:22)

III: Ephesus (18:23—20:38)

IV: From Jerusalem to Rome (21:1—28:31)