Note 4 — Chapter III · THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE

In these sections, then, we have glimpses of a brotherhood disseminated all about the Mediterranean whose members were Monotheists of the Jewish type, but something besides, in so far as they accepted a gospel which Paul also preached, about a Lord Jesus Christ; these brethren solemnly broke bread on the first day of the week. In these sections we breathe the same atmosphere of personal visions, of angels, of prophecy, of direct inspiration of individuals by the Holy Ghost, of the cult of virginity, which we breathe in the rest of Acts and throughout the Pauline Epistles. Philip one of the sevenWe meet also with a Philip, an evangelist, and one of the seven. Who were the seven? We turn to an earlier chapter of Acts,4 and read that in the earliest days of the religion at Jerusalem, in order to satisfy the claims of the widows of Greek Jews who were neglected in the daily ministration, the twelve apostles had called together the multitude of the faithful, and chosen seven men of good report, full of the Spirit and of wisdom to serve the tables, because they, the Twelve, were too busy preaching the word to attend to the catering of the new Messianic society. The first on the list of these seven deacons was Stephen, the second Philip. When, therefore, in the later passage the fellow-traveller of Paul refers to Philip as one of the seven, he assumes that we know who the seven were; and he can only expect us to know it because we have read the earlier chapter which narrates their appointment. The fellow-traveller of Paul, therefore, was aware of the appointment of the seven deacons, and testifies thereto. Here we have irrefragable evidence of the historicity of verses 1–6 of chapter vi of Acts, and at the same time a strong presumption that the fellow-traveller of Paul was himself the redactor, if not the author, of the earlier chapters (i–xv) of Acts, as he is obviously of the last half (ch. xvi to end); for that last half coheres inseparably with the contiguous we sections.