Another explanation has also been offered. It has been suggested that Theudas was simply another name for one of the many rebels whom Josephus mentions,--for Simon, for instance, who had been a slave of Herod the Great, and had upon his death headed a revolt against authority. Either explanation is quite tenable, as opposed to the view which represents St. Luke as committing a gross historical error. And we are the more justified in offering these suggestions when we reflect upon the numberless instances where modern research has confirmed, and is every year confirming, the minute accuracy of this writer, who doubtless derived his information concerning what passed in the Sanhedrin, on this occasion, from St. Paul, who either as a member of the council or a favourite pupil of Gamaliel may have been present listening to the debates, or even sharing in the final decisions.[111] [111] Upon the question of the historical accuracy of the Acts of the Apostles, the appendix to the late Bishop Lightfoot's collected essays on _Supernatural Religion_ (London, 1889) should be consulted. The opening paragraph bears directly upon our point. "In a former volume M. Renan declared his opinion that the author of the third Gospel and the Acts was verily and indeed (_bien réellement_) a disciple of St. Paul.... Such an expression of opinion, proceeding from a not too conservative critic, is significant; and this view of the authorship, I cannot doubt, will be the final verdict of the future, as it has been the unbroken tradition of the past. But at a time when attacks on the genuineness of the work have been renewed, it may not be out of place to call attention to some illustrations of the narrative which recent discoveries have brought to light. No ancient work affords so many tests of veracity, for no other has such numerous points of contact in all directions with contemporary history, politics, topography, whether Jewish, or Greek, or Roman." Let us now turn from the purely historical side of Gamaliel's speech, and view it from a spiritual standpoint.