The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 2Stokes, George Thomas
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 2
Stokes, George Thomas
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries; Bible. Acts -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
their lives by martyrdom at Rome--the place where Rationalist critics
generally believe the Acts to have been written. The stories told in
tolerably ancient times in that Church which venerated with equal
honour the memory of either apostle, represented both as joined in
harmonious resistance to the impostures of Simon Magus. And though I
believe these stories to be more modern than the latest period to
which any one has ventured to assign the Acts, yet what an opportunity
did that part of the story which is certainly ancient--that both
Apostles came to Rome and died there for the faith (Clem. Rom.,
5)--offer to any one desirous of blotting out the memory of all
differences between the preaching of Peter and Paul, and of setting
both on equal pedestals of honour! Just as the names of Ridley and
Latimer have been united in the memory of the Church of England, and
no count has been taken of their previous doctrinal differences, in
the recollection of their first testimony for their common faith, so
have the names of Peter and Paul been constantly bound together by the
fact that the martyrdom of both has been commemorated on the same day.
And if the object of the author of the Acts had been what has been
supposed, it is scarcely credible that he could have missed so obvious
an opportunity of bringing his book to its most worthy conclusion, by
telling how the two servants of Christ--all previous differences, if
there had been any, reconciled and forgotten--joined in witnessing a
good confession before the tyrant emperor, and encouraged each other
to steadfastness in endurance to the end."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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