It will readily be understood that a man who possesses such a disposition is, of all others, the least capable of representing things as they really are. Historic fidelity is to him a matter of indifference; he is only anxious to edify the reader. Luke scarcely concealed this tendency; he writes "that Theophilus should understand the truth of that which the catechists had taught him."[I.39] He thus had already a settled ecclesiastical system which he taught officially, and the limit of which, as well as that of evangelical history[I.40] itself, was probably fixed. The dominant characteristics of the Acts, like that of the third Gospel,[I.41] are a tender piety, a lively sympathy for the Gentiles,[I.42] a conciliatory spirit, a marked tendency towards the supernatural, a love for the humble and lowly, a large democratic sentiment, or rather a persuasion that the people were naturally Christian, and that the upper class prevented them from following out their good instincts,[I.43] an exalted idea of the power of the Church and of its leaders, and a remarkable leaning towards social communism.[I.44] The methods of composition are the same in the two works; and indeed in regard to the history of the apostles, are about as we would be in relation to evangelical history, if our only idea of the latter were derived from the Gospel according to St. Luke. The disadvantages of such a situation are apparent. The life of Jesus, told only by the writer of the third Gospel, would be extremely defective and incomplete. We know so, because in this case, comparison is possible. Besides Luke, we possess (without speaking of the fourth Gospel) Matthew and Mark, who, relatively to Luke, are at least partially original. We can place our finger on the places where Luke dislocates or mixes up anecdotes, and can perceive the manner in which he colors facts according to his personal views, and adds pious legends to the most authentic traditions. Could we make a similar comparison as regards the Acts, would we not perceive analogous faults? The earliest chapters of the Acts appear to us even inferior to the third Gospel; for these chapters were probably composed from the fewer and less universally documentary references. A fundamental distinction is here necessary. In a historic point of view the book of Acts is divided into two parts--one comprising the first twelve chapters, and recounting the principal events in the history of the primitive Church; and the other containing the seven remaining chapters, all devoted to the missions of St. Paul. This second part, in itself, includes two kinds of narrative: one portion related by the narrator from his ocular testimony, and the other consisting only of what he has heard.