If we cannot believe that the representation actually given of Paul in the Acts could proceed from a friend or companion of the Apostle, it is equally impossible that such a person could have written his history with so many extraordinary imperfections and omissions. We have already pointed out that between chs. ix.--xiv. are compressed the events of seventeen of the most active years of the Apostle's life, and also that a long period is comprised within the [------] sections, during which such minute details of the daily itinerary are given. The incidents reported, however, are quite disproportionate to those which are omitted. We have no record, for instance, of his visit to Arabia at so interesting a portion of his career (Gal. i. 17), although the particulars of his conversion are repeated with singular variations no less than three times (ix. xxii. xxvi.); nor of his preaching in Illyria (Rom. xv. 19); nor of the incident referred to in Rom. xvi. 3, 4. The momentous adventures in the cause of the Gospel spoken of in 2 Cor. xi. 23 ff. receive scarcely any illustration in Acts, nor is any notice taken of his fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus (1 Cor. xv. 32), which would have formed an episode full of serious interest. What, again, was "the affliction which happened in Asia," which so overburdened even so energetic a nature as that of the Apostle that "he despaired even of life?" (2 Cor. ii. 8 f.) Some light upon these points might reasonably have been expected from a companion of Paul. Then, xvii. 14--16, xviii. 5 contradict 1 Thess. iii. 1, 2, in a way scarcely possible in such a {56} companion, present with the Apostle at Athens; and in like manner the representation in xxviii. 17-22 is inconsistent with such a person, ignoring as it does the fact that there already was a Christian Church in Rome (Ep. to Romans). We do not refer to the miraculous elements so thickly spread over the narrative of the Acts, and especially in the episode xvi. 25 ff., which is inserted in the first [------] section, as irreconcilable with the character of an eye-witness, because it is precisely the miraculous portion of the book which is on its trial; but we may ask whether it would have been possible for such a friend, acquainted with the Apostle's representations in 1 Cor. xiv. 2 ff., cf. xii.--xiv., and the phenomena there described, to speak of the gift of "tongues" at Pentecost as the power of speaking different languages (ii. 4--11, cf. x. 46, xix. 6)