Such considerations have led a number of recent scholars--even of those who are unable to accept the supernaturalistic account which the Book of Acts gives of the origin of Christianity--to return to the traditional view that the book was actually written by Luke the physician, a companion of Paul. The argument for Lucan authorship has been developed with great acumen especially by Von Harnack[13]. And on the basis of purely literary criticism the argument is certainly irrefutable. It can be refuted, if at all, only through a consideration of the historical contents of the book. [13] _Lukas der Arzt_, 1906 (English Translation, _Luke the Physician_, 1907); _Die Apostelgeschichte_, 1908 (English Translation, _The Acts of the Apostles_, 1909); _Neue Untersuchungen zur Apostelgeschichte und zur Abfassungszeit der synoptischen Evangelien_, 1911 (English Translation, _The Date of the Acts and of the Synoptic Gospels_, 1911). Such attempts at refutation have not been lacking; the Lucan authorship of Acts is still rejected by the great majority of those who maintain the naturalistic view of the origin of Christianity. The objections may be subsumed under two main heads. The Book of Acts, it is said, is not the kind of book that could have been written by a companion of Paul, in the first place because it contains an account of miracles, and in the second place, because it contradicts the Pauline Epistles, particularly in the account which it gives of the relations between Paul and the Jerusalem Church. The former objection is entirely valid on the basis of any naturalistic account of the origin of Christianity. Efforts have indeed been made by Von Harnack, C. C. Torrey, and others, to overcome the objection. Belief in miracles, it is said, was very general in the ancient world; a miraculous interpretation could therefore be placed upon happenings for which the modern man would have no difficulty in discovering a natural cause. Luke was a child of his time; even in the we-sections, Von Harnack insists, where the work of an eyewitness is universally recognized, a supernaturalistic interpretation is placed upon natural events--as, for example, when Paul excites the wonder of his companions by shaking off into the fire a viper that was no doubt perfectly harmless. Why, then, should the presence of the supernatural in the rest of the book be used to refute the hypothesis of the Lucan authorship, if it is not so used in the we-sections?[14] [14] Harnack, _Die Apostelgeschichte_, 1908, pp. 111-130 (English Translation, _The Acts of the Apostles_, 1909, pp. 133-161).