chapters and the remainder of the work, and profess to detect a much more Hebraistic character in the language of the earlier portion,(1) although this is not received without demur.(2) As regards the [------] sections, whilst it is admitted that these fragments have in any case been much manipulated by the general editor, and largely contain his general characteristics of language, it is at the same time affirmed that they present distinct foreign peculiarities, which betray a borrowed document.(3) Even critics who maintain the [------] sections to be by the same writer who composed the rest of the book point out the peculiarly natural character and minute knowledge displayed in these passages, as distinguishing them from the rest of the Acts.(4) This of course they attribute to the fact that the author there relates his personal experiences; but even with this explanation it is apparent that all who maintain the traditional view do recognize peculiarities in these sections, by which they justify the ascription of them to an eye-witness. For the reasons which have been very briefly indicated, therefore, and upon other {50} strong grounds, some of which will be presently stated, a very large mass of the ablest critics have concluded that the [------] sections were not composed by the author of the rest of the Acts, but that they are part of the diary of some companion of the Apostle Paul, of which the Author of Acts made use for his work,(1) and that the general writer of the work, and consequently of the third Synoptic, was not Luke at all.(2) {51} A careful study of the contents of the Acts cannot, we think, leave any doubt that the work could not have been written by any companion or intimate friend of the Apostle Paul.(1) In here briefly indicating some of the reasons for this statement, we shall be under the necessity of anticipating, without much explanation or argument, points which will be more fully discussed farther on, and which now, stated without preparation, may not be sufficiently clear to some readers. They may hereafter seem more conclusive. It is unreasonable to suppose that a friend or companion could have written so unhistorical and defective a history of the Apostle's life and teaching. The Pauline Epistles are nowhere directly referred to, but where we can compare the narrative and representations of Acts with the statements of the Apostle, they are strikingly contradictory.(2) {52}