Interpretation of the Acts of the Holy Apostles

Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 The Acts of the Holy Apostles is the next New Testament book of historical content after the Holy Gospels, and in its importance it fully deserves to take first place after them. “This book,” says St. Chrysostom, “can bring us no less benefit than the Gospel itself: it is so filled with wisdom, such purity of dogmas and such an abundance of miracles, especially those performed by the Holy Spirit. Here one can see the fulfillment in practice of those prophecies that Christ proclaims in the Gospels - the truth shining in the very events, and the great change for the better in the disciples, accomplished by the Holy Spirit. Christ said to the disciples: “He who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will also do, and greater works than these will he do” (John 14:12), and predicted to them that they would be led to rulers and kings, that they would be beaten in the synagogues (Matthew 10, 17–18), that they would undergo the most severe torments and would triumph over all, and that the Gospel would preached all over the world (Matthew 24:14). All this, as well as many other things that He said when addressing his disciples, appears in this book to be fulfilled with all accuracy... The events of the book of Acts are a direct continuation of the events of the Gospel, starting with how these end (the ascension of the Lord into heaven), and revealing the subsequent history of the Church of Christ until the imprisonment of the one who worked the most among the Apostles - Paul. Noting the special nature of the presentation and selection of events, St. Chrysostom calls the present book containing primarily evidence of the resurrection of Christ, since it was already easy for those who believed in this to accept everything else. He sees this as the “main goal” of the book. The writer of the book of Acts is St. Evangelist Luke, according to his own instructions about this (Acts 1:1–2; cf. Luke 1:1, etc.). – This indication, quite strong in itself, is confirmed by both external evidence of the ancient Christian church (testimony of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen and many others), and internal signs, which all together makes the complete and unconditional reliability of the legends of the Writer down to the smallest particulars and details - beyond any doubt 1. The time and place where the book was written is not exactly certain. Since the book concludes with an indication of the two-year preaching activity of the Apostle Paul in prison in Rome (Acts 28:30-31), but there is no mention of either the Apostle’s death or liberation, one should think that in any case it was written before the martyrdom of the Apostle (in 63-64 AD) and precisely in Rome (as Blessed Jerome believes), although the latter is not indisputable. It is possible that during his travels with the Apostle Paul, St. Luke kept notes of everything that was most noteworthy, and only after that he brought these notes into order and the integrity of a special book - “Acts.” Having set out to present the most important events of the Church of Christ from the Ascension of the Lord to his last contemporary days, St. Luke's book covers a period of about 30 years. Since the supreme Apostle Peter worked especially hard during the spread of the faith of Christ in Jerusalem and during its initial transition to the pagans, and the supreme Apostle Paul worked especially hard during the spread in the pagan world, the book of Acts accordingly represents two main parts. The first (chap. I - XII) tells mainly about the apostolic activity of Peter and about the church of the Jews. In the second - (XIII-XXVIII chapters), about the activities of Paul and about the church of the pagans. Several more books were separately known in ancient times under the name of the Acts of one or another Apostle, but all of them were rejected by the Church as spurious, containing unreliable apostolic teaching, and even as not useful and harmful. As the closest companion and collaborator of St. Apostle Paul, the Writer was himself an eyewitness to most of the events he described; he had the opportunity to hear about other such events from the Apostle Paul himself (especially regarding what concerned Paul himself), and from other Apostles with whom he was in constant living communication. The influence of Paul especially on the writing of Acts is significant and obvious. You might be interested in: