The Acts of the Apostles

MIRACLES AND WORKS OF THE SPIRIT 143
I do not mean it is here a question of later inter
polation into an already complete text— it is by no
means necessary to suppose a written exemplar—but
the situation seems to be as follows : the author of
the we-sections, i.e. of the whole work, has given the
impress of his own peculiar temperament to accounts
which were at his disposal. In the whole suhject-
matter of the second half of the Acts—with the excep-
tion of the we-sections^
—
miraculous episodes do not
occur as organic elements of the context except in the
account of St. Paufs ministry in Ephesus (xix. 2 ff.).
Here we have the « disciples of John " who receive
the Spirit and prophesy ; here the exorcism of an evil
spirit ; and here the summary account of instances of
miraculous healing by St. Paul.
The situation here presented is most interesting
and admits of only one explanation. It is clear that
St. Luke—whose own we-account shows him to have
been a physician endowed with
healing— possessed for the first
miraculous
half of his
gifts of
book a
source or sources (oral or written) which was congenial
to his ozvn peculiar temperament. On the other hand
it is also clear that for the second half of his book he
did not possess such sources (with the exception of
what is told us of Ephesus), but only had at his dis-
posal simple records into which he has inserted nothing
except two conventional accounts of visions which
illustrate the development of the plot. It cannot be
otherwise; for if he himself had introduced the
supernatural element into chapters i.—xv., it is unin-
* And of the repeated narrative of St. Paul's conversion, which
may be here neglected.