The question of date cannot be said to be absolutely settled, but the tendency of criticism as illustrated by Harnack is to the acceptance of an early date, as well as to that of the Lukan authorship of the entire book. It is difficult to see how Harnack, with his present defense of a date before Paul's release from prison, can consistently maintain his skepticism where the supernatural events recorded in the Acts are concerned. It is idle to say that his "revolution in chronology" has no effect upon the question of reliability. It is an established principle of historical method that the nearer a tradition is to the event it professes to describe, the more likely it is to be trustworthy. The resources of Harnack's learning have been used in support of the reliability of Luke in his geographical and chronological references,[275] and his treatment of persons and reports of their speeches.[276] He has shown that Luke was in touch with the leaders of the Jerusalem church, and that his statements are abundantly confirmed by the writings of Paul. If Luke wrote within the lifetime of Paul, the Acts was published while the main actors were still living, and, by inference, it recorded events as Peter and Barnabas and Apollos and Philip and Mark thought that they happened. If further, as Harnack argues, it was written during Paul's imprisonment there seems no room for doubt that it was written under the eye and with the full endorsement of its principal actor, and that we have thus the implicit guarantee not only of Luke but of Paul also for the accuracy of its record. 275: III, p. 97; "Acts of the Apostles," p. 112. 276: _Ibid._, pp. 101 ff.; E. T., pp. 117 ff. III. THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM It has been said that the two most important questions for religion are those of the rational foundations of theism and of the trustworthiness of the Four Gospels.[277] The Gospel records have always been regarded as the citadel of the Christian Faith. Not only do they contain the record of works of power and words of grace, and of a transcendent Personality, but they have always been considered to have been themselves supernatural in origin and character. They have been regarded as "a house not made with hands" (Robertson Nicoll), "a miracle of the Holy Ghost" (Stier), "the heaven-drawn picture of Christ, the living Word." The criticism of the past century, in its quest for the historical Jesus, has taken a very different attitude towards the Evangelical records. By many critics they have been regarded as a patchwork of traditions, a work of pious but credulous men, whose idealization and exaggeration, in the supposed interest of faith, it is necessary to discount in order to reach the bed-rock of historical fact. 277: Dr. Francis L. Patton, in an address.