--- title: "Acts and Paul’s letters, point by point" canonical: "https://paulineletters.com/explore/acts-and-letters" published: "2026-10-23" updated: "2026-10-23" license: "https://paulineletters.com/explore/license" source: "Pauline Letters" --- # Acts and Paul’s letters, point by point > Acts and the letters were written for different purposes, so their overlaps are uneven: where they agree without copying each other they corroborate, and where they diverge the difference has to be explained rather than smoothed over. **Do Acts and Paul’s letters agree about Paul’s life?** Mostly, and often in incidental ways. They share companions, cities, routes and the collection for Jerusalem, sometimes in details neither seems to have taken from the other. They also differ, most sharply over Paul’s visits to Jerusalem and the council, and on what Acts leaves out, such as Paul’s letters and much of his suffering. ## How the comparison works Each entry pairs the passages in a letter with the passages in Acts that concern the same person, place, movement or event, and classifies the relationship. An explicit agreement states the same fact. An undesigned coincidence is an agreement that emerges only when the two accounts are read together, with neither written to supply the other’s detail. A complementary detail fills a gap in the other account. An apparent tension needs explaining. A silence notes what one source omits. The classification is a judgment, and each entry gives the strongest alternative reading, including the view that the author of Acts knew some of the letters, which would weaken the independence of an agreement. ## Why it matters William Paley made this kind of comparison famous in 1790, arguing that small, unplanned agreements are hard to manufacture. The method still has force, but it works item by item: one coincidence proves little, and a tension honestly stated is as informative as a match. [Download this dataset (JSON, CC BY 4.0)](https://paulineletters.com/data/agent/commons/v1/acts-letters-concordance.json) ## Explicit agreement ### Paul's Jewish credentials and zeal for the ancestral traditions Acts and Paul's letters agree that before following Jesus, Paul was a Pharisee zealous for his ancestral traditions. They agree in substance, not wording, and each adds details. Because these facts were openly known, the match shows consistency more than independent confirmation; Paley likewise set aside the Philippians list, which a forger could compile. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:13-14; Philippians 3:4-6; 2 Corinthians 11:22 - **Acts:** Acts 21:39-22:3; Acts 23:6; Acts 26:4-5 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul says he outstripped his contemporaries in Judaism, zealous for ancestral traditions; he claims eighth-day circumcision, Israelite and Benjamite birth, Hebrew parentage, Pharisaism and blamelessness under the law. **Acts:** Paul, born in Tarsus, says he was raised in Jerusalem, strictly trained under Gamaliel, zealous for God, a Pharisee from a Pharisee family; he addresses the Jerusalem crowd in Hebrew. The two portraits agree in substance, not wording. Acts adds Tarsus, Gamaliel, the Jerusalem upbringing and the Hebrew speech; the letters add eighth-day circumcision and the tribe. Paley treated the Galatians zeal as testimony independent of Acts, but set aside Philippians 3:5 because a forger could compile it from Acts and the other letters. **Other readings** - **Acts drew on the letters.** Richard Pervo argues Acts used Paul's letters, so its Pharisee and zeal themes could come from Galatians and Philippians; Gamaliel, Tarsus and the Jerusalem upbringing would then need another source or be Luke's addition. - **Jerusalem training questioned.** The letters never mention Gamaliel or a Jerusalem upbringing, and some scholars treat these as Lukan emphasis; Martin Hengel defended a Jerusalem Torah education as plausible. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 2, particular 1; 1849 New York reprint, p. 101: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 1 (Exposition of the Argument), on Philippians 3:5; 1849 New York reprint, p. 10: ### Serving the ancestral God with a clear conscience 2 Timothy and Paul's defence speeches in Acts portray him alike: serving the God of his forefathers with a clear conscience. The agreement is real but lies in shared idiom, and the Pastoral Letters' disputed authorship and affinities with Luke's vocabulary mean it may reflect one circle's portrait rather than two independent witnesses. - **The letter:** 2 Timothy 1:3; Romans 1:9; 2 Corinthians 1:12 - **Acts:** Acts 22:3; Acts 23:1; Acts 24:14-16; Acts 26:5-7; Acts 27:23 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul thanks God, whom he serves as his forefathers did, with a pure conscience, and recalls praying for Timothy night and day. **Acts:** Paul tells the council he lives in good conscience; Felix that he serves his ancestors' God with a clear conscience; Agrippa the ancestral promise; shipmates the God he serves. Serving the ancestral God and keeping a clear conscience appear together in 2 Timothy 1:3 and Acts 24:14-16, and Acts 26:7 adds serving night and day, though the Greek for ancestors and the conscience adjectives differ. Romans 1:9 likewise pairs serving God with unceasing prayer, and 2 Corinthians 1:12 appeals to conscience. Still, the Pastorals share much vocabulary with Luke-Acts, so the parallel may come from one hand or circle rather than independent memory. **Other readings** - **A later or Lukan hand.** Most critical scholars treat 2 Timothy as pseudonymous, modelled perhaps on Romans 1:9 in an idiom close to Luke's; C. F. D. Moule and Stephen G. Wilson linked the Pastorals to Luke himself. Either way, this is not independent confirmation. - **Common idiom or Paul's voice.** A good conscience is wider church idiom (1 Peter 3:16; Hebrews 13:18), so the match may be shared Christian speech; those who hold Paul wrote 2 Timothy read it as his own self-description, as in Romans 1:9. ### The persecutor who ravaged the church All strands agree that Paul violently persecuted the church before his call. The letters name no city; Acts places it in Jerusalem and extends it toward Damascus. A rare verb for ravaging links Galatians and Acts, which may reflect early shared tradition or Acts' use of Galatians. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:13; Galatians 1:22-23; 1 Corinthians 15:9; Philippians 3:6; 1 Timothy 1:12-16 - **Acts:** Acts 8:1-3; Acts 9:1-2; Acts 9:13-14; Acts 9:21; Acts 22:4-5; Acts 22:19-20; Acts 26:9-11 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul persecuted God's church beyond measure and tried to destroy it; he calls himself least of the apostles for it, and 1 Timothy adds blasphemer, acting ignorantly in unbelief. **Acts:** Saul drags believers from Jerusalem houses to prison, approves Stephen's death, seeks warrants for Damascus, tries to make believers blaspheme and pursues them to foreign cities. The verb portheo (to ravage) occurs in the New Testament only at Acts 9:21, Galatians 1:13 and Galatians 1:23, each time of Paul's persecution, twice in what others say of him, perhaps a fixed early way of speaking. 1 Timothy, of disputed authorship, adds that he acted in ignorance, as Acts 26:9 has him sincerely convinced. Galatians 1:22, where Judean churches did not know Paul by sight, sits uneasily with Acts' Jerusalem setting. **Other readings** - **Acts borrowed from Galatians.** If Acts used Paul's letters, as Richard Pervo argues, the shared verb may be borrowed from Galatians, and Acts' Jerusalem and Damascus details could be narrative elaboration of Paul's brief statements. - **Persecution outside Jerusalem.** Since Galatians 1:22 says the Judean churches did not know Paul by sight, some scholars locate his persecution near Damascus, not Jerusalem; others reply that Judea's churches outside Jerusalem need not have seen him. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 2, particular 2; 1849 New York reprint, p. 101: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 11 (First Epistle to Timothy), no. 5; 1849 New York reprint, p. 205: ### A former persecutor who saw the risen Jesus Paul's letters and Acts agree that the former persecutor saw the risen Jesus, which turned his life around. Acts narrates it three times as a light and voice near Damascus; Paul lists it as the last resurrection appearance and as God revealing his Son. The emphases differ, and whether it occurred is a further historical question. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:5-10; Galatians 1:15-16; Galatians 1:17 - **Acts:** Acts 9:3-9; Acts 9:17; Acts 9:27; Acts 22:6-15; Acts 26:13-19 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul has seen Jesus the Lord, who appeared to him last of all; after God revealed his Son in him, he went to Arabia, then returned to Damascus. **Acts:** Near Damascus a heavenly light blinds Saul and Jesus speaks; companions see no one. Ananias and Barnabas say he saw the Lord; Paul later calls it a heavenly vision. The core claim is shared: Paul saw the Lord, described in both with the language of appearing used in Paul's resurrection list. Galatians names no setting directly, yet its aside that Paul returned to Damascus (Galatians 1:17) implies the call happened there; Paley called this undesigned, though it weakens if Acts knew Galatians. Acts varies its own details: companions stand or fall, and hear the sound (Acts 9:7) but do not understand the voice (Acts 22:9). **Other readings** - **Visionary experience.** Some historians read the encounter as visionary, noting Acts' heavenly vision and companions who see no one; others stress that Paul ranks it with the appearances to Cephas, James and the apostles. - **Luke's literary retelling.** Some scholars treat the three Acts accounts as Luke's own retellings of one tradition, adapted to each speech setting; their differences show his freedom with detail rather than three independent reports. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 2, particular 3; 1849 New York reprint, p. 102: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 2, particular 3, on Galatians 1:17; 1849 New York reprint, p. 102: ### Called and sent to the Gentiles Acts and the letters agree that Paul's call was also a commission to the Gentiles. Galatians joins the revelation of God's Son to preaching among the nations; all three Acts accounts tie the commission to his call, each delivering it differently. Romans repeats the Gentile apostleship, as do Ephesians, Colossians and the Pastorals, whose authorship is disputed. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:11-12; Galatians 1:15-16; Galatians 2:7-9; Romans 1:5; Romans 1:16; Romans 11:13; Romans 15:15-16; 2 Corinthians 11:24; Ephesians 3:2-9; Colossians 1:25-27; 1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 1:11; 2 Timothy 4:17 - **Acts:** Acts 9:15; Acts 9:20; Acts 13:46-47; Acts 22:12-15; Acts 22:17-21; Acts 26:16-18; Acts 28:28 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** God revealed his Son in Paul so he would preach among Gentiles; he is their apostle, and letters of disputed authorship add steward of the mystery, herald and teacher. **Acts:** The Lord calls Saul a chosen instrument for nations, kings and Israel; later accounts have Jesus send him to Gentiles. He preaches first in synagogues, turning to Gentiles when rejected. Acts delivers the commission differently each time: through words to Ananias, through Ananias and a later temple vision, and directly from Jesus on the road. Galatians insists Paul received his gospel from no human (Galatians 1:11-12), which sits uneasily with Ananias' role in Acts 22. Galatians makes Gentiles the call's purpose; Acts includes Israel. Paley paired Acts 9:20 with Galatians 1:16, but in Galatians the immediacy attaches to not consulting others, not to preaching. **Other readings** - **Call rather than conversion.** Krister Stendahl argued that Paul describes a prophet-like call to the Gentiles rather than a conversion from one religion to another; Alan Segal answered that Paul is better understood as a genuine convert. - **Luke's turning pattern.** Some read Acts' synagogue-first pattern as Luke's scheme, noting that Galatians 2:7-9 divides Gentile and Jewish missions; yet Romans 1:16 gives Jews priority, and 2 Corinthians 11:24 records five Jewish floggings, suggesting Paul kept entering synagogues. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 2, particular 3; 1849 New York reprint, p. 102: ### The commission of Acts 26:18 and the language of Colossians and Ephesians Acts 26:18, the commission Paul reports, and Colossians 1:12-14, echoed in Ephesians, share darkness and light, the authority of darkness or Satan, forgiveness of sins, and a portion among the holy. The letters describe believers' conversion, not Paul's commission; the overlap is real, but its cause is open: Paul's idiom, Luke's, common conversion language or Isaiah's servant language. - **The letter:** Colossians 1:12-14; Ephesians 1:7; Ephesians 1:18; Ephesians 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5 - **Acts:** Acts 26:17-18; Acts 26:23; Acts 20:32; Acts 13:47 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** The Father has fitted believers for the saints' inheritance in light, rescued them from darkness's authority and forgiven them; Ephesians adds enlightened eyes and former darkness become light. **Acts:** Paul tells Agrippa the risen Jesus sent him to open Gentiles' eyes, turn them from darkness to light and Satan's authority to God, for forgiveness and inheritance among the sanctified. Shared Greek terms include exousia (authority) of Satan or darkness, aphesis (forgiveness), kleros (portion) among the holy. Luke may preserve how Paul spoke of his mission, yet these are also Luke's words: the noun aphesis recurs throughout Luke-Acts but in Paul's letters only at Colossians 1:14 and Ephesians 1:7; Luke 22:53 speaks of darkness's authority; Acts 20:32 reuses the inheritance phrase. Both passages may draw on Isaiah's servant, a light for the nations who opens blind eyes (Isaiah 42:6-7), language Acts 13:47 applies to Paul's mission, quoting Isaiah 49:6. **Other readings** - **Acts drew on the letters.** Richard Pervo argues Acts used a collection of Paul's letters; on that view Luke could have shaped Acts 26:18 from language like that of Colossians rather than from Paul's own speech. - **Common conversion language.** Light-and-darkness language was common Christian idiom (1 Thessalonians 5:4-5; 1 Peter 2:9), and many scholars doubt Paul wrote Colossians and Ephesians, so the parallel may reflect shared church language rather than one voice. ### Escape from Damascus in a basket over the wall Acts and 2 Corinthians agree that Paul escaped Damascus by being lowered through the city wall in a basket. Paul tells it, after an oath, as an example of weakness; Acts tells it as the end of his Damascus preaching. They share this odd detail but differ on who was hunting him. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 11:30-33 - **Acts:** Acts 9:23-25 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul’s discussion of weakness includes his escape at Damascus: his route out was a window in the city wall, with a basket used to lower him. The account also mentions King Aretas’s governor. **Acts:** After Saul's preaching, Damascus Jews plot to kill him and watch the gates day and night; his disciples lower him by night through the wall in a basket. The core event and its unusual method match, making this one of the firmest points of contact. Paley judged the differences in circumstance too great for one account to derive from the other; only the letter, for instance, mentions a window. Yet dependence is also most arguable here: basket and wall appear in both, and scholars who think Luke knew Paul's letters, such as Richard Pervo, see Acts reworking 2 Corinthians. **Other readings** - **Acts used the letter.** Luke drew the episode from 2 Corinthians 11:32-33, keeping its basket and wall; the agreement would then reflect borrowing, not two independent witnesses. - **Shared oral tradition.** The striking story probably circulated orally, perhaps from Paul's own retelling; Acts could rest on that tradition rather than the letter, so the two agree but may not be fully independent. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. 4 (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. II; 1850 Religious Tract Society edition: ### Justified by faith, saved by grace: the letters and Acts' speeches Paul's letters teach that Jews and Gentiles alike are justified freely by God's grace through faith in Christ, not by works of the law. Acts gives similar language about salvation to Paul at Pisidian Antioch, Peter at the Jerusalem meeting and Paul at Miletus. Critics debate whether Acts' version is fully Paul's. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:14-16; Galatians 3:11; Galatians 3:24; Galatians 5:1; Romans 3:20-28; Philippians 3:6; Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:4-7 - **Acts:** Acts 13:38-39; Acts 15:1; Acts 15:10-11; Acts 20:24; Acts 20:32 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** No one is justified by works of the law but through faith in Christ, as Paul reminds Peter; Romans adds that God justifies freely by his grace. **Acts:** Paul says believers are justified from all that Moses' law could not justify. Peter calls imposing the law an unbearable yoke and says Jews and Gentiles are saved through grace. Both frame the dispute as salvation by grace versus works of the law (Acts 15:1). Peter's words in Acts 15:11 match the conviction Paul attributes to him in Galatians 2:15-16, and both use the yoke image (Acts 15:10; Galatians 5:1), though Peter's claim that no one could bear the law sits awkwardly with Paul's claim to have been blameless under it (Philippians 3:6). At Miletus Paul sums up his ministry as testifying to God's grace. Since Acts could reflect Paul's known teaching, this shows consistency, not independent confirmation. **Other readings** - **A partial doctrine.** Philipp Vielhauer argued that Acts 13:38-39 equates justification with forgiveness and implies the law justifies in part, a view he judged unlike Paul's, so Luke echoed Paul's vocabulary without his theology. - **Dependence or later Paulinism.** Richard Pervo held that Acts used Paul's letters, which would explain the echoes; critics who date Ephesians and Titus after Paul read their summaries of salvation by grace, not works, as later Paulinism. ### The gospel of David's descendant raised from the dead Romans and 2 Timothy summarise Paul's gospel as Jesus, descended from David, raised from the dead. Paul's synagogue sermon at Pisidian Antioch in Acts pairs the same themes and, on the usual reading, links Jesus' sonship to his resurrection through Psalm 2, as Romans 1:4 does. Peter's Pentecost sermon argues similarly, so the pairing may be shared early preaching. - **The letter:** Romans 1:3-4; 2 Timothy 2:8 - **Acts:** Acts 13:22-23; Acts 13:30-37; Acts 2:29-32 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Romans introduces God's Son as David's descendant, declared Son of God with power by the resurrection; 2 Timothy tells Timothy to remember Jesus Christ, raised and of David's line. **Acts:** At Pisidian Antioch Paul says God brought salvation from David's offspring and raised Jesus, applying Psalm 2, on the usual reading, to the resurrection. The letters and Acts agree on a compact gospel: Jesus is David's heir and God's Son, shown by his resurrection. Yet Peter's Pentecost sermon makes the same Psalm 16 argument, that David's own death shows the psalm speaks of Jesus' resurrection (Acts 2:29-31; Acts 13:35-37), and Romans 1:3-4 is widely thought to quote an earlier creed, so the agreement shows a common apostolic message, not a detail only Paul would know. **Other readings** - **Luke's composition.** Martin Dibelius held that the speeches in Acts are Luke's own compositions in the manner of ancient historians; on that view the sermon's likeness to Peter's and to Romans reflects Luke's theology, not a record of Paul's words. - **Disputed 2 Timothy.** Many scholars regard 2 Timothy as written after Paul in his name; its summary would then show how Paul's gospel was remembered, perhaps drawing on Romans. ### Persecutions at Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, in Acts' order and stopping before Derbe 2 Timothy and Acts agree that Paul suffered persecution at Antioch, Iconium and Lystra. The letter lists them in Acts' order and stops before Derbe, where Acts reports no trouble, and Acts makes Timothy a local disciple. Paley saw an undesigned coincidence; on the view that 2 Timothy was written after Paul's death, its author could have drawn on Acts. - **The letter:** 2 Timothy 3:10-12 - **Acts:** Acts 13:14; Acts 13:50-51; Acts 14:1-6; Acts 14:19-23; Acts 16:1-2 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul reminds Timothy that he followed his teaching and the persecutions he endured at Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, from which the Lord rescued him. **Acts:** Paul is expelled from Pisidian Antioch, flees a stoning plot at Iconium and is stoned at Lystra; Derbe brings no reported trouble. Timothy later appears, commended at Lystra and Iconium. The three cities, their order and the omission of Derbe match Acts 13-14, whose warning that the kingdom comes through many afflictions parallels the letter's claim that the godly will be persecuted. Paley argued that a forger searching Acts would rather have chosen Philippi or Thessalonica, where Timothy seems to have been present; here Timothy's knowledge must be inferred from Acts 16:1-2, which places him as a disciple in that district. **Other readings** - **Drawn from Acts or tradition.** If 2 Timothy is pseudonymous, its author could have taken the three cities from Acts 13-14 or from local stories of Paul; MacDonald links the Pastorals to legends like those in the Acts of Paul, set at Iconium and Antioch. - **One author for both.** Stephen Wilson argued that the author of Luke-Acts also wrote the Pastoral Epistles; on that view the agreement reflects one writer's knowledge rather than two independent witnesses. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. XII (Second Epistle to Timothy), No. V: ### Stoned once, at Lystra Acts agrees with Paul's statement that he was stoned once: it narrates one stoning, at Lystra, where he was dragged out and taken for dead, while at Iconium a planned stoning fails. Paley judged that this clause, set beside that near-stoning, came nearer to contradiction without one than any he knew. One matching count proves little alone. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 11:24-25 - **Acts:** Acts 14:5-6; Acts 14:19-20; Acts 16:22-23 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Listing his sufferings, Paul says he was beaten with rods three times, stoned once and shipwrecked three times, besides five floggings from the Jews. **Acts:** At Iconium a plan to stone Paul fails because he flees. At Lystra, Jews from Antioch and Iconium sway the crowd; Paul is stoned, dragged out and taken for dead. The count holds up to the letter's date and indeed through all of Acts: no second stoning is narrated, though Acts reports many riots, and the Iconium plot is left unfulfilled. Paley noted that the other items in Paul's list cannot be drawn from Acts, which records only one beating with rods and no shipwreck before the letter, so the letter was not built from the history; the history, though silent, leaves room for them. **Other readings** - **Acts may know the letter.** Pervo argued that Acts was written in the early second century and used Paul's letters; if its author knew 2 Corinthians 11, the single stoning could echo that list rather than independent tradition. - **Consistency, not confirmation.** A single stoning is a small, memorable fact that tradition could preserve; matching it shows the accounts are consistent, not that either independently confirms the rest of the other. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. IX: ### Elders appointed in each church, also called overseers Acts and the Pastoral Letters agree that Paul's churches had appointed elders, at times also called overseers: Acts has Paul tell the Ephesian elders the Spirit made them overseers, and Titus moves straight from elders to an overseer's qualities. Whether this was Paul's own practice is debated, since his undisputed letters never mention elders. - **The letter:** Titus 1:5-9; 1 Timothy 3:1-7; 1 Timothy 5:17-22; Philippians 1:1 - **Acts:** Acts 14:21-23; Acts 20:17; Acts 20:28 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Titus is to appoint elders in every town, then the overseer's qualities follow. 1 Timothy regulates overseers and honors elders who lead and teach; Philippians greets overseers and servants. **Acts:** Paul and Barnabas appoint elders in every church with prayer and fasting. At Miletus Paul tells the Ephesian elders that the Holy Spirit made them overseers to shepherd God's church. Acts 20 plainly uses elder and overseer for the same Ephesian leaders, and Titus 1 seems to, appointing elders town by town as Acts 14:23 does. 1 Timothy treats overseers and elders separately, and some read its singular overseer as one leader drawn from the elders, a step toward the second-century single bishop. Yet Acts 14:23 appoints elders in churches founded on that same journey, while 1 Timothy bars a recent convert from oversight. Philippians, an undisputed letter, confirms overseers in a Pauline church. **Other readings** - **Later church order.** Paul's undisputed letters never call leaders elders. Many scholars think Acts and the Pastoral Letters reflect the church order of the generation after Paul, some even a shared author, so the agreement is not independent confirmation. - **An honorific title.** Elder may first have been a collective, honorific name for heads of house churches, each overseeing his own house church; Paul's early letters may predate that usage, and the Pastorals may promote one overseer above a town's elders. ### Philippi founded as the first stage of the Macedonian mission Acts narrates, and Philippians implies, that Philippi was Paul's first Macedonian church and Thessalonica came next. Acts traces the crossing from Troas and the road on to Thessalonica; Philippians dates the church's partnership from the first day and recalls its gifts reaching Paul at Thessalonica. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:5; Philippians 4:15-16; 1 Thessalonians 2:9 - **Acts:** Acts 16:9-12; Acts 16:13-15; Acts 16:33-34; Acts 16:40; Acts 17:1-2 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul thanks the Philippians for partnership from the first day and recalls that early on they alone shared in giving, even sending help to him at Thessalonica more than once. **Acts:** After the Macedonian vision at Troas, Paul sails by Samothrace and Neapolis to Philippi, gathers believers, then passes through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica, reasoning three Sabbaths in its synagogue. The order agrees: Philippi, then Thessalonica, where Philippian help followed Paul. Paley read the phrase about the gospel's beginning as its first preaching in those parts; in Acts, Philippi is the first stop after the crossing. Lydia's household and the jailer's table fit a partnership from the first day, though the letter names neither. Repeated gifts and Paul's night-and-day work suggest a longer Thessalonian stay than Acts' three synagogue Sabbaths; Acts may compress, or count only the synagogue phase. Being explicit, the agreement shows consistency more than independence. **Other readings** - **Order taken from the letters.** If Acts' author knew Paul's letters, the Philippi-then-Thessalonica order could come from them. Acts' route details, Samothrace, Neapolis, Amphipolis and Apollonia, appear in no letter, however. - **Earlier than Acts.** Some chronologies built from the letters first, notably Gerd Lüdemann's, read the gospel's beginning as the start of Paul's independent mission and place the Macedonian founding before the Jerusalem meeting, keeping Acts' order but not its timing. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. VII (Epistle to the Philippians), No. III: ### Beaten and shamefully treated at Philippi, just before Thessalonica 1 Thessalonians says Paul's party reached Thessalonica after suffering outrageous treatment at Philippi, and Philippians reminds its readers that they saw his struggle. Acts narrates the scene: Paul and Silas seized, stripped, beaten with rods and put in the stocks, then released and on the road to Thessalonica. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 2:2; 1 Thessalonians 2:17-18; Philippians 1:28-30; 2 Corinthians 11:25 - **Acts:** Acts 16:19-24; Acts 16:35-40; Acts 17:1 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul's party had suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi before preaching boldly at Thessalonica; the Philippians now face the same struggle they once saw Paul endure. **Acts:** Paul and Silas are dragged before the magistrates, stripped, beaten with rods and locked in stocks; released next day, they protest the public beating of Romans and leave for Thessalonica. Paley judged the agreement so explicit that independence had to be argued; he pointed to the letter's thwarted plan to revisit Thessalonica, which Acts omits. He also took Philippians' reminder of the struggle its readers saw as confirming Acts' Philippi account. The Thessalonian letter's word for outrage fits a public, humiliating beating like the one Acts describes. The letters give no details, and Acts' slave girl, earthquake and jailer appear in no letter, so the agreement covers the suffering and the sequence, not every episode. **Other readings** - **Acts expanded the letters.** If Acts' author knew 1 Thessalonians, the scene could expand its brief notice, perhaps with the rods drawn from 2 Corinthians 11:25, so the vivid particulars would be literary rather than remembered. - **Core and embellishment.** Some critics accept the beating and imprisonment but treat the earthquake and the jailer's conversion as later additions, noting that the magistrates' release next morning never mentions the earthquake. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IX (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), No. III: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. VII (Epistle to the Philippians), No. VII: ### Silvanus in the letters is Silas, Paul's partner in founding the Macedonian churches Acts and the Thessalonian letters agree that Silas, whom Paul calls Silvanus, helped found the church at Thessalonica. In Acts converts join Paul and Silas, who are sent away together by night; both letters name Silvanus as co-sender and recall the founders' conduct. The name forms never cross, which tells against verbatim copying. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:5; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9; 2 Corinthians 1:19; Romans 16:3 - **Acts:** Acts 15:22; Acts 15:27; Acts 15:32; Acts 15:40; Acts 16:19-25; Acts 17:4; Acts 17:10; Acts 18:2; Acts 18:5 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Both Thessalonian letters come from Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, and their 'we' recalls how the founders preached and behaved; 2 Corinthians names Silvanus among those who preached Christ at Corinth. **Acts:** Silas, a Jerusalem leader and prophet, helps carry the council's letter, joins Paul, suffers with him at Philippi, is with him at Thessalonica and rejoins him at Corinth from Macedonia. Nearly all scholars identify Silas with Silvanus. Acts uses only Silas and the letters only Silvanus; Paley argued that the difference rules out either account being transcribed from the other. But Acts also says Priscilla where Romans 16:3 has Prisca, so the form may be Acts' naming habit, consistent with independence without proving it. Acts adds what the letters lack: Silas came from the Jerusalem church, was a prophet and helped carry the council's letter. **Other readings** - **Acts used the letters.** If Acts was written in the early second century by someone who knew Paul's letters, Silas's place at Thessalonica may be drawn from the letters' co-sender, so the agreement would not be independent. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. VII: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IX (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), No. III: ### A church founded under pressure: the Jason riot and continuing persecution Clear agreement on the main fact. Acts and 1 Thessalonians both say the Thessalonian church began amid fierce opposition, just after Paul's mistreatment at Philippi. The letters add what Acts does not narrate: Paul had warned the converts of suffering, and persecution continued after the missionaries left. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 1:6; 1 Thessalonians 2:2; 1 Thessalonians 2:17-18; 1 Thessalonians 3:3-4; 2 Thessalonians 1:4-8; 2 Corinthians 8:1-2 - **Acts:** Acts 14:22; Acts 16:22-24; Acts 17:5-9; Acts 17:13-14 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** The converts accepted the message under heavy affliction; the founders, fresh from mistreatment at Philippi, preached amid conflict; Paul had forewarned suffering, and persecutions continued afterward. **Acts:** After the beating at Philippi, opponents at Thessalonica rouse a mob, attack Jason's house, and drag him and other believers before the city rulers, who take security and release them. The agreement is direct: both place mistreatment at Philippi just before a contested founding at Thessalonica. Paley judged the harmony so plain that it needs proof the texts are independent, and he found that proof in Paul's thwarted plan to return, which Acts never mentions. Acts alone tells of the attack on Jason and the pursuit to Berea; the letters alone tell of the warning and the converts' continuing trials, echoed for Macedonia in 2 Corinthians 8:1-2. Acts 14:22 shows Paul giving similar warnings elsewhere. **Other readings** - **Agreement need not be independent.** Because the agreement is explicit, it could arise if the author of Acts knew 1 Thessalonians, as some who date Acts late propose. It then shows consistent tradition rather than two independent witnesses. - **2 Thessalonians disputed.** Many scholars doubt that Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians. If it is later, its picture of continuing persecution may draw on 1 Thessalonians rather than report fresh events. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IX (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), No. III: ### Silvanus and Timothy rejoin Paul at Corinth: the setting of the Thessalonian letters Paul's letters and Acts agree that Silas, called Silvanus in the letters, and Timothy worked with Paul at Corinth. Both Thessalonian letters are sent in the names of the same three, and 1 Thessalonians follows Timothy's return, so they were probably written during the Corinth stay; the letters themselves name no place. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 1:19; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 1 Thessalonians 3:6-8; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2 - **Acts:** Acts 15:40; Acts 18:1-6; Acts 18:9-11; Acts 18:12-17 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Christ was preached at Corinth by Paul, Silvanus and Timothy. The same three send both Thessalonian letters, the first just after Timothy returned with good news. **Acts:** Paul chooses Silas for the second journey; Silas and Timothy rejoin him at Corinth from Macedonia during his eighteen-month stay. Silas is not mentioned in Acts again. The agreement is direct. 2 Corinthians, an undisputed letter, names the same trio Acts brings together at Corinth, and after Athens Acts offers no other time when all three were together. Paley conceded such open agreement proves little alone, but noted that Acts says Silas and the letters Silvanus, which tells against copying. The prayer for rescue from wicked people may echo Corinth's opposition and the hearing before Gallio, but is general. **Other readings** - **Pseudonymous second letter.** If 2 Thessalonians is pseudonymous, as William Wrede and Wolfgang Trilling argued, its opening simply copies 1 Thessalonians and adds no independent evidence; Abraham Malherbe and others defend it as Paul's, written from Corinth soon after. - **Luke used the letters.** Richard Pervo argued Luke knew a collection of Paul's letters; if so, Acts could have built its Corinth reunion from 2 Corinthians 1:19, though the name Silas tells against simple copying. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 4 (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), no. 7: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 9 (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), no. 3: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 15 (Subscriptions of the Epistles), no. 4: ### Macedonia and Achaia: the provincial map of the mission Acts and the letters draw the same Roman map, pairing the provinces of Macedonia and Achaia: the letters for the Thessalonians' influence, the Corinthian church's setting and the collection; Acts for Paul's route, Apollos' journey, Paul's travel plan and Gallio, correctly titled proconsul. The agreement is real but expected of anyone writing in that world. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 1:7-8; 1 Thessalonians 4:10; 2 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 9:2; 2 Corinthians 11:10; Romans 15:26; Romans 16:1 - **Acts:** Acts 16:9-12; Acts 17:34; Acts 18:12; Acts 18:18; Acts 18:27; Acts 19:21 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** The Thessalonians are a model to believers in Macedonia and Achaia and love the brothers throughout Macedonia; 2 Corinthians addresses saints across Achaia and boasts of Achaia's readiness. **Acts:** Philippi is a city of Macedonia; Gallio is proconsul of Achaia, where Corinth lies; Apollos crosses to Achaia; Paul plans to pass through Macedonia and Achaia to Jerusalem. Each source uses the pair for its own purposes, with no verbal overlap. Believers already exist in Achaia when 1 Thessalonians is written, fitting Acts' converts at Athens and Corinth and a letter written some months into the Corinth stay. Acts names no church elsewhere in Achaia, but Cenchreae, Corinth's port (Acts 18:18), where Romans places a church, makes the wider address plausible. Acts' title for Gallio fits the years after AD 44, when Claudius returned Achaia to senatorial proconsuls. **Other readings** - **Common knowledge.** Provincial names were common knowledge, so the agreement shows a shared Roman setting rather than independent corroboration of particular events; a later writer could reproduce it. - **Drawn from the letters.** If Luke knew Paul's letters, as Pervo argues, Acts' plan to pass through Macedonia and Achaia (Acts 19:21) could echo the collection passages (Romans 15:26; 2 Corinthians 9:2). ### Paul founded the church at Corinth Both texts make Paul the founder of the Corinthian church. 1 Corinthians repeatedly says he first brought them the gospel, laid the foundation and became their father in the faith; Acts 18 narrates that first stay: arrival from Athens, synagogue preaching, a move next door, many converts and eighteen months of teaching. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 2:1-2; 1 Corinthians 3:1-2; 1 Corinthians 3:6; 1 Corinthians 3:10; 1 Corinthians 4:15; 1 Corinthians 9:1-2; 1 Corinthians 12:2; 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 - **Acts:** Acts 18:1-11; Acts 20:2-3 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul first preached the crucified Christ at Corinth, fed converts like infants, planted before Apollos watered, laid the foundation and fathered them through the gospel; the church proves his apostleship. **Acts:** Paul comes from Athens, works with Aquila and Priscilla, argues in the synagogue, moves next door when opposed, wins many Corinthians, and stays eighteen months. The letter presupposes the kind of founding stay Acts describes, in which Paul planted the church before others built on it. The agreement lies in substance, not shared wording. Paley noted that 1 Corinthians is written after one stay and before another, matching Acts 18 and the three months in Greece, presumably at Corinth, in Acts 20:2-3; 2 Corinthians later implies a further visit that Acts omits. **Other readings** - **Believers before Paul.** Acts records no conversion for Aquila and Priscilla, so they may already have been Christians when Paul met them. Paul would then be founder of the congregation, though not the first believer in Corinth. - **Synagogue-first as Lukan pattern.** Some critics regard the synagogue-first sequence as Luke's recurring pattern, while the letter addresses a mainly Gentile church of former idol-worshippers (1 Corinthians 12:2). Both still agree that Paul founded it. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter III (First Epistle to the Corinthians), No. II; 1849 New York edition, p. 46: ### Crispus and the few Paul baptized himself Both texts place Crispus among the early converts at Corinth. Paul says he personally baptized only Crispus, Gaius and the household of Stephanas; Acts names Crispus as the synagogue ruler who believed with his household and reports many baptisms without naming the baptizer. The letter implies others did most of the baptizing. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 1:14-17 - **Acts:** Acts 18:5; Acts 18:8 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul is glad he personally baptized only Crispus, Gaius and Stephanas's household, since his commission was preaching, and no one could claim baptism in his name. **Acts:** Crispus, the synagogue ruler, comes to faith together with his household, and many other Corinthians also believe and receive baptism. The texts agree on a named person and place, and the letter's claim that Paul baptized few fits Acts' silence about who baptized the many. Paley argued that those Paul baptized himself would be people of standing or close connection, and a synagogue ruler fits. Acts narrates Crispus's conversion after Silas and Timothy arrived, so the few Paul baptized were not simply those converted before his helpers came. **Other readings** - **Acts dependent on the letter.** If Luke knew Paul's letters, as Richard Pervo argued, the shared name could come from 1 Corinthians. Acts' detail that Crispus led the synagogue, absent from the letter, tells against simple borrowing. - **Household difference.** Acts says Crispus believed with his household, while Paul names only Crispus himself among those he baptized; others may have baptized the household, or Paul simply named its head. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter III (First Epistle to the Corinthians), No. VIII; 1849 New York edition, p. 57: ### Apollos at Corinth after Paul Both place Apollos's work at Corinth after Paul founded the church. 1 Corinthians pictures Paul planting and Apollos watering; Acts has Apollos cross from Ephesus to Achaia after Paul left and be at Corinth when Paul returns to Ephesus. Paley saw an undesigned fit, but Luke could have known the letter. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 3:4-6; 1 Corinthians 3:22; 1 Corinthians 4:6; 1 Corinthians 16:12 - **Acts:** Acts 18:18-19; Acts 18:24-28; Acts 19:1 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul planted and Apollos watered; Corinthians rally to Paul, Apollos or Cephas; Apollos, apparently with Paul, declines for now to return despite Paul's urging. **Acts:** Apollos, an Alexandrian knowing only John's baptism, was taught by Priscilla and Aquila at Ephesus, crossed to Achaia with a letter, and was at Corinth when Paul reached Ephesus. The order matches without strain: Paul founds the church, Apollos follows, and by the time of writing Apollos has left Corinth and is apparently with Paul. Paley judged the fit undesigned, since each text brings Apollos in for its own reason, Acts for his incomplete baptism and the letter to rebuke factions. But the sequence is easy to infer from the letter, known at Rome by the 90s on the usual dating of 1 Clement 47, and Ramsay thought Luke chose his Apollos details to illuminate it. **Other readings** - **Independent after all.** Acts' distinctive details, Alexandria, John's baptism, the couple's teaching and the Ephesian letter, appear in no epistle, which tells against copying; the agreement may rest on Luke's own knowledge of events. - **Drawn from the letter.** Pervo argues that Luke used Paul's letters. On that view Apollos's place in the Corinthian story could come from 1 Corinthians itself, with the rest supplied by Luke. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. III (First Corinthians), No. V: - Clement of Rome, First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, 1885), 1 Clement 47: ### Writing from Ephesus: an open door and many opponents Both texts put Paul at Ephesus in a long, fruitful and contested ministry. 1 Corinthians, written there, speaks of a wide opening for work, many opponents and greetings from the churches of Asia; Acts gives over two years of teaching that reached all Asia, opposition, and Paul staying on in Asia. The match is real but general. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 16:8-9; 1 Corinthians 16:19 - **Acts:** Acts 18:18-19; Acts 18:26; Acts 19:8-10; Acts 19:17-20; Acts 19:22; Acts 19:26; Acts 20:31 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul will stay at Ephesus until Pentecost, since a wide opening for fruitful work has come, along with many opponents. The churches of Asia, Aquila and Priscilla send greetings. **Acts:** Paul leaves Priscilla and Aquila at Ephesus, later teaches two years in Tyrannus' hall so all Asia hears; some malign the Way; the word grows; Paul stays on in Asia. The letter's notes of place match Acts: Paul resident at Ephesus, Aquila and Priscilla there (Acts 18:18-19, 18:26), his work spreading through the province (Acts 19:10, 19:20, 19:26) and opposition from those who maligned the Way (Acts 19:9). Acts 19:22, Paul staying on in Asia, fits the plan to remain until Pentecost. The opponents are unnamed, and the riot may come later. Paley called the agreement 'circumstantial and perfect' and saw no sign of design; being general, it shows consistency more than an undesigned coincidence. **Other readings** - **Acts drew on the letter.** If Luke knew Paul's letters, as Richard Pervo argues, the open door and the opponents could have shaped his Ephesian summary, and the agreement would not be independent. - **Common memory.** Paul's long and troubled Ephesian ministry was widely remembered, so any well-informed writer could produce this match; it shows consistency, not independent confirmation. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 3 (First Epistle to the Corinthians), No. II; 1849 New York printing, p. 48: ### The plan: through Macedonia and Achaia to Jerusalem, then Rome Acts and Paul's letters give the same plan in the same order: from Ephesus through Macedonia and Achaia to Jerusalem, then Rome. 1 Corinthians states the first stage, Romans the later ones and the collection behind them, and Acts narrates the journey. Whether Acts drew the plan from Romans is debated. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 4:19; 1 Corinthians 16:3-7; Romans 1:10-13; Romans 15:22-29; Romans 15:30-31 - **Acts:** Acts 19:21; Acts 20:1-3; Acts 20:16; Acts 20:22-23; Acts 21:15-17; Acts 23:11; Acts 24:17 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** 1 Corinthians: Paul will reach Corinth after Macedonia; the gift goes to Jerusalem. Romans: Macedonia and Achaia have given; he takes it to Jerusalem, fearing opposition, then Rome and Spain. **Acts:** At Ephesus Paul resolves to go through Macedonia and Achaia to Jerusalem, then see Rome. He goes, warned of chains, and in Jerusalem the Lord says he must testify at Rome. Each letter is written at a different stage of one plan: 1 Corinthians before Macedonia, Romans probably in Achaia with Jerusalem next. Acts states the plan at Ephesus and narrates it, adding a plot that changed the route. Romans adds Spain, a long-hindered wish to visit Rome, and the collection as the journey's purpose; Acts mentions gifts only in passing, at Acts 24:17. Paley argued that the Spain difference shows neither text copied the other. **Other readings** - **Acts knew Romans.** Schellenberg, following Pervo, finds the wording and foreboding of Romans 15:22-31 echoed in Acts 19:21 and Acts 20:22-23, so Luke knew the letter, though the route could be independent memory; Spain lay beyond his story. - **Independent sources.** Campbell held that Acts and the letters agree on Paul's route as two reliable, independent sources would. Others add that Acts' near-silence on the collection, central to Romans 15:25-31, tells against close use of that letter. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 2 (Romans), no. 3: ### Signs and wonders in Paul's mission, though none recorded at Corinth Paul's letters and Acts agree that miracles accompanied his Gentile mission: Romans and 2 Corinthians use the paired phrase signs and wonders that Acts applies to Paul and Barnabas. Acts, however, records no miracle at Corinth, where Paul says such signs occurred. The agreement concerns the claim; whether miracles happened is a further judgment. - **The letter:** Romans 15:18-19; 2 Corinthians 12:12; Galatians 3:5 - **Acts:** Acts 14:3; Acts 14:8-10; Acts 15:12; Acts 18:1-18; Acts 19:11-12; Acts 28:8-9 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul says Christ worked through him with signs, wonders and the Spirit's power, reminds the Corinthians that an apostle's signs were done among them, and cites miracles among the Galatians. **Acts:** The Lord grants signs and wonders through Paul and Barnabas at Iconium, they report such signs at Jerusalem, and Acts narrates healings at Lystra, Ephesus and Malta. Paul makes the claim to readers who had seen the miracles (2 Corinthians 12:12; Galatians 3:5, perhaps the churches of Acts 14) and to a church he had not yet visited (Romans 15:18-19). The letters narrate no specific miracle, so Acts' stories cannot come from them, and Acts records none at Corinth, so it does not simply illustrate the letters. The paired phrase is common biblical idiom, so shared wording shows no dependence. Critics often regard some Acts miracles, such as the healing cloths, as heightened. **Other readings** - **Heightened tradition.** Many critical scholars accept that Paul was credited with healings but regard Acts' accounts, such as cloths carried from his body, as legendary growth, and read Paul's own references as charismatic claims rather than verified events. - **A rivals' criterion.** Some read the signs of an apostle as a slogan of Paul's rivals that he answers reluctantly, stressing weakness instead, so miracles mattered less to his self-understanding than Acts suggests. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. XVI (The Conclusion), proposition VII; New York 1849 edition, p. 259: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. XVI (The Conclusion), proposition VII; New York 1849 edition, p. 259: ### Peace preached to far and near: Gentiles made one body with Jews Ephesians and Acts agree that Gentiles share with Jews in salvation and the Spirit. Ephesians teaches it: the far-off brought near into one body. Acts narrates it: the Spirit falls on Cornelius's household and the council hears God made no distinction. On the law they differ: Ephesians says its commandments were abolished; Acts' council asks four abstentions of Gentiles. - **The letter:** Ephesians 1:12-13; Ephesians 2:8-9; Ephesians 2:11-22; Ephesians 3:6 - **Acts:** Acts 2:39; Acts 10:28; Acts 10:34-36; Acts 10:44-48; Acts 11:17-18; Acts 15:7-11; Acts 15:28-29; Acts 21:20-26; Acts 22:21 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Gentiles, once far off and strangers to the promise, are brought near and made one body with Jews, with access in one Spirit; Christ preached peace to far and near. **Acts:** Peter offers the promise to all far off, calls God's message good news of peace, sees the Spirit given to Gentiles, and tells the council God made no distinction. The wording overlaps: Ephesians 2:17 and Acts 10:36 both announce good news of peace, and both speak of those far off (Ephesians 2:13; Acts 2:39). Both appear to echo Isaiah 52:7 and 57:19, so shared Scripture may explain it. Acts 2:39 may mean distant Jews, though Acts 22:21 links 'far' with Gentiles. Ephesians says Christ abolished the law of commandments (Ephesians 2:15), while Acts' council still asks four abstentions of Gentiles (Acts 15:28-29) and Paul keeps Jewish custom (Acts 21:20-26). **Other readings** - **Acts echoes Paul's school.** Pervo argued that Acts knew several Pauline letters, Ephesians among them, and that Peter's grace language at the council echoes Ephesians 2:8. The agreement would then be literary, not independent. - **Shared early preaching.** Isaiah's peace for the far and the near was common early Christian material. Both authors could draw on it separately, which explains the overlap without either knowing the other's work. ### Paul writes as a prisoner in chains Five letters present Paul as a prisoner in bonds or chains and name fellow captives. Acts narrates a night in the Philippian stocks, then a long custody from Jerusalem through Caesarea to Rome. Ephesians, Colossians and Acts tie his bonds to the Gentile mission. The agreement covers the fact and cause of custody, not which custody produced the letters. - **The letter:** Ephesians 3:1; Ephesians 4:1; Philippians 1:7; Philippians 1:13; Philippians 1:30; Colossians 1:27; Colossians 4:3; Colossians 4:10; Colossians 4:18; Philemon 1:1; Philemon 1:9-10; Philemon 1:23-24; 2 Timothy 1:8; 2 Corinthians 11:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:2 - **Acts:** Acts 16:22-24; Acts 21:28-29; Acts 21:33; Acts 22:21-22; Acts 24:27; Acts 26:29; Acts 28:16-17; Acts 28:20 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul calls himself Christ Jesus' prisoner for the Gentiles, asks readers to remember his chains, names Aristarchus and Epaphras fellow captives, and recalls the struggle the Philippians saw. **Acts:** Paul is put in the stocks at Philippi; later he is bound with two chains in Jerusalem, left bound at Caesarea, and kept chained under a soldier's guard in Rome. Ephesians 3:1 makes Paul a prisoner for the Gentiles; Colossians 4:3 has him bound for the mystery, which Colossians 1:27 defines as Christ among Gentiles. In Acts the riot starts over a charge that Paul brought Greeks into the temple, and the crowd erupts at his mission to the Gentiles (Acts 21:28-29; 22:21-22). Philippians 1:30 recalls the struggle the Philippians saw, as Acts 16:22-24 and 1 Thessalonians 2:2 report. Acts never mentions Epaphras or calls Aristarchus a prisoner, and Paul claims more imprisonments than Acts records (2 Corinthians 11:23). **Other readings** - **Common knowledge.** That Paul was long a prisoner was widely known, so a later writer could portray him in chains without using Acts. The agreement then confirms the tradition of his custody, not any detail of it. - **Figurative captives.** Fellow captive (synaichmalotos) literally means fellow prisoner of war and may be figurative; Colossians gives it to Aristarchus, Philemon to Epaphras, so the term may not show who shared his custody. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 8 (Colossians), No. I: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 7 (Philippians), No. VII: ### Jesus' testimony before Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilate is named once in Paul's letters, in 1 Timothy, which says Christ Jesus bore witness before him. Acts names him three times, once in Paul's Pisidian Antioch sermon, always in connection with Jesus' condemnation and death. The agreement is explicit, but it reflects common Christian tradition rather than literary borrowing. - **The letter:** 1 Timothy 6:12-13 - **Acts:** Acts 3:13; Acts 4:27; Acts 13:28 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Timothy, reminded of his own confession before many witnesses, is charged before God and before Christ Jesus, who bore witness before Pontius Pilate. **Acts:** Peter says Jesus was denied before Pilate, who had resolved to release him; the believers' prayer names Herod and Pontius Pilate; Paul says Jerusalem's rulers asked Pilate for his execution. Both tie Jesus' passion to Pilate. Acts adds what 1 Timothy does not: Pilate had resolved to release Jesus, and the rulers found no capital charge yet pressed for death. The name had become a fixed part of Christian confession; early in the second century Ignatius repeatedly ties Christ's suffering to Pontius Pilate, once alongside Herod as in Acts 4:27. The agreement is real but shows shared tradition, not dependence. **Other readings** - **A confessional formula.** 1 Timothy 6:13 may preserve an early confessional formula (Kelly), and its Greek can mean 'in the time of Pontius Pilate', dating Christ's witness as the creeds' 'under Pontius Pilate' does, rather than describing a trial. - **A later letter.** If 1 Timothy is post-Pauline, the reference shows only that the Pilate formula was established by its time, as it is in Ignatius. **Sources** - Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Trallians (A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, 1885), Trallians 9: - Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, 1885), Smyrnaeans 1: ## Undesigned coincidence ### Syria and Cilicia: churches Acts presupposes but never founds Acts presupposes churches in Cilicia that it never shows being founded; Galatians suggests an explanation. After his first Jerusalem visit, Paul says, he went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and Judean churches heard he was now preaching. Acts places him in Tarsus and then Antioch in those years, though neither text names the churches' founders. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:21-23 - **Acts:** Acts 9:30; Acts 11:19-20; Acts 11:25-26; Acts 15:23; Acts 15:41; Acts 21:39; Acts 22:3 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Syria and Cilicia form the next stage of Paul’s account after the visit. He also records reports about his proclamation of a faith he had previously sought to eliminate. **Acts:** Paul is sent to Tarsus, his Cilician home city, and later brought to Antioch. The council writes to Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia, whose churches Paul later strengthens. Acts narrates the founding of the church at Antioch but not of any church in Cilicia, yet Acts 15:23 and 15:41 treat Cilician churches as established. Galatians places Paul in Syria and Cilicia in the years Acts puts him in Tarsus and then Antioch, and reports that he was preaching. Paley noted that an overland journey from Caesarea to Tarsus would match Paul's order of regions; that is weaker, since he may have sailed and the two regions were often paired administratively. **Other readings** - **Others may have founded them.** The Cilician churches may stem from believers scattered after Stephen's death, who reached Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch (Acts 11:19-20), or from unnamed missionaries; Galatians implies Paul preached in the region, not that he founded every church there. - **Echo of Galatians.** Acts 15:23 and 15:41 use the same pairing, Syria and Cilicia, as Galatians 1:21. If Luke knew Galatians, as Richard Pervo argues, the pairing could echo the letter rather than confirm it independently. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. V, No. II, 4 (New York 1849 ed., p. 103): ### Gifts from Macedonia reached Paul at Corinth The firmest interlock is between two letters: Philippians says only Philippi supported Paul as he left Macedonia; 2 Corinthians says brothers from Macedonia met his needs at Corinth. Acts, silent about gifts, adds the route and an arrival from Macedonia that its own story required. - **The letter:** Philippians 4:10-18; 2 Corinthians 11:7-9; 2 Corinthians 1:19 - **Acts:** Acts 17:14-15; Acts 18:1-5 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** When Paul left Macedonia, only the Philippians supported him; at Corinth he took nothing from the Corinthians, because brothers arriving from Macedonia met his needs. **Acts:** Paul leaves Macedonia from Berea for Athens and Corinth, makes tents and argues on Sabbaths; once Silas and Timothy arrive from Macedonia, he testifies with new urgency. Philippians and 2 Corinthians, written at different times to different churches, agree that Macedonian money followed Paul south. Acts, silent about gifts, supplies the route and an arrival from Macedonia that could have carried it; 2 Corinthians 1:19 confirms Silvanus and Timothy preaching at Corinth. On the critical text of Acts 18:5 Paul then devotes himself to preaching, as if freed from tentmaking; the WEB follows most later manuscripts, which lack that hint. No text names the bearers. **Other readings** - **A different gift.** Philippians 4:15 may describe support as Paul was leaving Macedonia, or the Macedonian period generally, not a gift sent on to Corinth; and 2 Corinthians 11:8 speaks of several churches, not Philippi alone. - **Luke used the letters.** If Luke knew Paul's letters, as Pervo argues, Acts could reflect them; but Acts' own story had already left Silas and Timothy in Macedonia, so their arrival needs no borrowing, and for the same reason it adds little independent confirmation. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. VII, No. III: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IV, No. VI: ### Prisca and Aquila: from Rome to Corinth and Ephesus, and back to Rome Acts, 1 Corinthians and Romans place the couple consistently. Acts brings them from Italy to Corinth after Claudius expelled Jews from Rome, then to Ephesus; 1 Corinthians, written at Ephesus, sends their greetings; Romans, written later, greets them in Rome, apparently returned. The fit is incidental, but it depends on Romans 16 having gone to Rome. - **The letter:** Romans 16:3-5; Romans 15:25-26; 1 Corinthians 16:8; 1 Corinthians 16:19; 2 Timothy 4:19; 2 Timothy 1:16-18 - **Acts:** Acts 18:2-3; Acts 18:18-19; Acts 18:26 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** 1 Corinthians sends their greetings with their house church; Romans greets them and their house church, thanking them for risking their lives for Paul; 2 Timothy greets them. **Acts:** Aquila, from Pontus, and Priscilla had recently left Italy under Claudius's order; Paul lodged and worked with them at Corinth; they sailed with him to Ephesus, stayed, and taught Apollos. Paley noted how easily such greetings could have clashed with the dates. When 1 Corinthians was written at Ephesus the couple were there, as Acts leads one to expect; Romans, written once the collection was gathered (Romans 15:25-26), leaves time for a return to Rome, perhaps after Claudius died in 54. 2 Timothy, whose authorship is disputed, later greets them apparently in Asia. Each side adds its own: the letters house churches and a risk for Paul, Acts Pontus, the edict and the name Priscilla for Paul's Prisca. **Other readings** - **Romans 16 went to Ephesus.** T. W. Manson argued that Romans 16, with its many greetings, was sent to Ephesus, so it would not show the couple back in Rome. Harry Gamble and Peter Lampe defend a Roman destination, now the majority view. - **Luke drew on the letters.** If Luke knew Romans and 1 Corinthians, he could have taken the couple from them. But Acts' Pontus, edict and tentmaking appear in no letter, and the letters' house churches appear nowhere in Acts. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. II (Romans), No. II: - W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, Ch. XII, sec. 2: ### Working with his own hands so as to burden no one Acts and the letters agree that Paul supported himself by manual work, and the agreement is oblique. Acts names his trade, tentmaking at Corinth, but mentions work at Ephesus only in Paul's later farewell speech; 1 Corinthians, written at Ephesus, says he still works with his hands. The letters add Thessalonica and his reasons. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 4:11-12; 1 Corinthians 9:6; 1 Corinthians 9:12; 1 Corinthians 9:15-18; 1 Corinthians 16:8; 2 Corinthians 11:7-12; 2 Corinthians 12:13-18; 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-10; Ephesians 4:28; Philippians 4:15-16 - **Acts:** Acts 17:7; Acts 18:3; Acts 20:33-35 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul worked night and day with his hands so as to burden no one and set an example, taking no pay from the church he served, though Macedonians sent gifts. **Acts:** At Corinth Paul worked at tentmaking with Aquila and Priscilla. Acts mentions no work at Ephesus until Paul's farewell at Miletus recalls that his hands supported him and his companions. 1 Corinthians implies manual work at Ephesus; Acts confirms it only indirectly, in a speech at Miletus rather than in its Ephesus narrative, and in different words. Paley argued that a writer copying the letter would have put the detail in the narrative. Both sides give the same motive, an example for others (2 Thessalonians 3:9; Acts 20:35), and Ephesians 4:28, like Acts, links work to giving, though both letters' authorship is disputed. Only Acts names the trade. **Other readings** - **A speech built from the letters.** Aejmelaeus argued that Luke composed the Miletus speech from Paul's letters, including 1 Thessalonians and Ephesians. Walton, weighing the same parallels, judged that Luke knew Pauline tradition independently of the letters. - **A friction at Thessalonica.** Jason hosted the missionaries at Thessalonica (Acts 17:7), and Philippi sent gifts there (Philippians 4:16), yet 2 Thessalonians insists they paid for their food. Lodging with Jason and buying food with gifts would reconcile them, but no text says so. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. III (First Corinthians), No. VI: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. X (Second Thessalonians), No. II: ### Timothy sent ahead by way of Macedonia, then with Paul in Macedonia Acts' note that Timothy was sent from Ephesus into Macedonia explains why 1 Corinthians, though it says Timothy has already been sent, expects him to reach Corinth only after the letter. Both texts set his errand beside Paul's own coming journey, and later both place Timothy back with Paul. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 4:17-19; 1 Corinthians 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:10-11; 2 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 7:6-7; Romans 16:21; Romans 16:23 - **Acts:** Acts 19:21-22; Acts 20:1-4 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul has sent Timothy to remind Corinth of his ways and will soon come himself; if Timothy arrives, receive him. Later Timothy co-sends 2 Corinthians and greets Rome with Paul. **Acts:** Having resolved to go through Macedonia and Achaia to Jerusalem, Paul sends Timothy and Erastus into Macedonia and stays in Asia; Timothy later travels with him from Greece. Timothy has already left, yet the letter tells Corinth what to do if he arrives, so he is taking a longer route than the letter. Acts supplies that route, round through Macedonia, which 1 Corinthians never mentions; a copier would more likely have sent him straight to Corinth. Paley also noted that both texts set the errand beside Paul's own plan. Acts adds Erastus, whom the Corinthian letters never name, though an Erastus, the city treasurer, sends greetings in Romans 16:23. **Other readings** - **Acts drew on the letters.** Schellenberg argues Luke built Acts' itinerary largely from the letters, reading Acts 19:22 with 1 Corinthians 16:10 as Luke's stand-in for Titus; 1 Corinthians 16:5 and 2 Corinthians 1:1 could suggest the Macedonian setting. - **A different errand.** Acts 19:22 may describe a later errand than 1 Corinthians 4:17, or Timothy may never have reached Corinth: in 2 Corinthians it is Titus who brings news from there. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 3 (1 Corinthians), no. 3: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 3 (1 Corinthians), no. 4: ### Romans written from Corinth during the three months in Greece Romans never names its place of writing, but its details point to Corinth during the three months in Greece of Acts 20:2-3: Paul is about to take Macedonia's and Achaia's gift to Jerusalem, commends Phoebe of nearby Cenchreae, and sends greetings from his host Gaius and Erastus, the city treasurer. - **The letter:** Romans 15:25-26; Romans 16:1-2; Romans 16:21; Romans 16:23; 1 Corinthians 1:14; 2 Corinthians 9:1-5 - **Acts:** Acts 18:1-11; Acts 18:18; Acts 20:1-3; Acts 20:4; Acts 20:16; Acts 24:17 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul recommends Phoebe and describes her service to the Cenchreae congregation. The letter also associates a contribution for Jerusalem with Macedonia and Achaia and relays greetings from Timothy, Gaius and Erastus. **Acts:** After touring Macedonia, Paul spends three months in Greece and is about to sail for Syria when a plot sends him back through Macedonia, hurrying to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost. Each clue is indirect. Cenchreae, where Acts 18:18 has Paul shave his head, was Corinth's eastern port; 1 Corinthians 1:14 ties a Gaius to Corinth; Romans treats the Achaian gift as ready, where 2 Corinthians 9:1-5 still urges it. Romans 16:21 sends greetings from Timothy and Sosipater, and Acts 20:4 has Timothy and Sopater, probably the same man, set out with Paul from Greece. Acts 20:2-3 names neither Corinth nor the collection, which surfaces only at Acts 24:17, so Acts shows no sign of drawing on Romans. **Other readings** - **Acts used Paul's letters.** Richard Pervo and others argue Luke used Paul's letters. On that view Acts' Greek stay may echo Romans' travel plans, and the agreement counts as one witness, not two. - **Romans 16 as a separate note.** Some, following T. W. Manson, read Romans 16 as a separate note to Ephesus, now a minority view. Then Phoebe, Gaius and Erastus would place that note, not chapters 1-15, whose setting would rest on the collection plans alone. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. II (Epistle to the Romans), No. II; New York 1849 edition, p. 22: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. II (Epistle to the Romans), No. II; New York 1849 edition, p. 26: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. II (Epistle to the Romans), No. II; New York 1849 edition, p. 29: ### Corinth as the farthest point of Paul's travels so far In 2 Corinthians Paul treats Corinth as the limit his mission has reached and hopes to preach in lands beyond it. Acts' itinerary agrees: his first European journey ran Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, then turned back east from Corinth's port. The wording is general and mainly about mission territory, so the coincidence is slight. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 10:13-16; Romans 15:19; Romans 15:24-28 - **Acts:** Acts 16:11-12; Acts 17:1; Acts 17:10; Acts 17:15; Acts 18:1; Acts 18:18-22; Acts 19:21; Acts 20:1-2 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul says God's assigned field for him reaches as far as Corinth, and hopes that as their faith grows he may preach the gospel in regions beyond them. **Acts:** Paul's first journey in Europe runs from Philippi through Thessalonica, Berea and Athens to Corinth, his longest stop, before he sails east. Later he resolves to see Rome. Paley argued the phrase suits Corinth but not Philippi or Thessalonica, from which Paul had gone farther, and Acts' route, told for other reasons, makes Corinth the turning point. But lands west and north-west of Thessalonica were also unvisited, and Paul is describing his allotted field, not mileage. The lands beyond may be Rome and Spain (Acts 19:21; Romans 15:24-28) or Balkan regions such as Illyricum (Romans 15:19), which the Macedonian tour of Acts 20:1-2 may have reached. **Other readings** - **Mission field, not travels.** Many modern readers take the passage as a claim about the territory God assigned Paul, answering rivals who intruded on it. On that reading it says little about the extent of his travels. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. XII; New York 1849 edition, p. 94: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. XII; New York 1849 edition, p. 94: ### The collection: central in the letters, mentioned in Acts only in passing Romans and the Corinthian letters make the collection for Jerusalem's poor believers a major project; Acts narrates the journey that carried it without stating its purpose. Only in Paul's defence before Felix does Acts mention that he came bringing gifts for the needy and offerings. That passing remark fits the letters without appearing designed to match them. - **The letter:** Romans 15:25-28; 1 Corinthians 16:1-4; 2 Corinthians 8:1-9:15 - **Acts:** Acts 11:27-30; Acts 19:21; Acts 20:1-6; Acts 20:16; Acts 21:17-26; Acts 24:17 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul is taking Macedonia's and Achaia's gift to Jerusalem's poor believers, a debt Gentiles owe; Corinth is told to save weekly, and 2 Corinthians urges completing it. **Acts:** Acts narrates the journey to Jerusalem without stating its purpose; only before Felix does Paul mention coming, after some years, with gifts for the poor of his nation, and offerings. Romans names the money, the givers and the journey; Acts supplies the journey and, chapters later, a passing reference to gifts that the collection would explain. Paley judged that no reader would suspect the clause was added to supply the narrative's omission. Its wording differs from the letters', which fits, though does not prove, independent knowledge. The famine relief of Acts 11:27-30 is an earlier, separate gift. **Other readings** - **A different gift.** Acts 24:17 speaks of gifts for Paul's nation and offerings, perhaps temple sacrifices (compare Acts 21:26), while the letters direct the money to poor believers; some doubt Luke means the collection, or think he recast it for a governor. - **Deliberate muting.** Acts' first-person narrator travels on this journey (Acts 20:5-6), so its silence looks chosen; if Luke also knew the letters, as Pervo argues, the passing reference may be controlled rather than accidental. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter II, No. I: ### Church delegates with the gift and the list of Acts 20:4 The Corinthian letters plan for church-chosen companions to travel with the gift so that no one could accuse Paul over money. Acts 20:4, without giving a reason, lists seven men from several regions accompanying Paul from Greece, and later places one of them in Jerusalem. The letters may explain the party Acts records, though Acts never calls them delegates. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 16:3-4; 2 Corinthians 8:16-23; 2 Corinthians 9:3-5 - **Acts:** Acts 20:2-6; Acts 21:29; Acts 24:17; Acts 27:2 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Corinth is to approve couriers for the gift; a brother chosen by the churches travels with Paul among other envoys, so no one can fault his handling of the money. **Acts:** Without explanation, seven men accompany Paul toward Asia: Sopater of Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica, Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia. The letters would explain what Acts leaves unexplained: why men from several regions travel with Paul at this moment. 2 Corinthians 9:4 expects Macedonians to come to Corinth with Paul; Acts lists Macedonians leaving Greece with him, and later puts Trophimus in Jerusalem and Aristarchus on the voyage to Rome. The home towns and this grouping cannot be drawn from the letters, though several names appear there. Acts never calls these men delegates, so the identification is an inference, though a widely shared one. **Other readings** - **A travelling team.** Acts may simply list Paul's travelling team; it never mentions money or calls them envoys. - **A chosen omission.** Acts' first-person narrator joins this journey (Acts 20:5-6) and Acts later mentions gifts (Acts 24:17), so the unexplained list may reflect a choice to omit the money, not ignorance. ### Who was with Paul as he wrote Romans: Timothy, Sosipater, Jason and others Romans sends greetings from Paul's companions, including Timothy and Sosipater. Acts 20:4 lists those who set out with Paul from Greece soon afterwards, including Timothy and Sopater of Berea, probably the same man. The overlap is real but modest; other proposed matches, Jason, Gaius and Lucius, are uncertain or unlikely. - **The letter:** Romans 16:21-23; Romans 15:25-26; 1 Corinthians 1:14; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Colossians 4:10-14 - **Acts:** Acts 13:1; Acts 17:5-9; Acts 19:22; Acts 20:1-4 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Timothy, Lucius, Jason and Sosipater greet Rome, with Tertius the scribe, Gaius the host of the church, Erastus the city treasurer and Quartus. **Acts:** Paul leaves Greece with Sopater of Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica, Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia. Romans never says where or when it was written; Paley dated it by comparing Romans 15:25-26 with the Corinthian letters and Acts 20:1-3, so the match is partly built on Acts. On that dating, Timothy's presence fits (2 Corinthians 1:1; Acts 20:4), and Sosipater is a fuller form of Sopater. Jason may be Paul's Thessalonian host and Lucius may be Lucius of Cyrene, but neither is certain. Paley judged the overlap about what reality would produce, and less than design would. **Other readings** - **Paley's fuller list.** Paley counted Gaius as a third match and wondered whether Lucius was Luke. But Paul's host is probably the Corinthian Gaius (1 Corinthians 1:14), and Colossians 4:10-14 seems to count Luke a Gentile, unlike Paul's kinsman Lucius. - **Paul's usual circle.** Timothy was Paul's constant companion and Sopater was a common name, so the overlap may show only that both texts know Paul's circle, not that they independently fix the same moment. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul, ch. II (Epistle to the Romans), No. II: ### Mark is Barnabas's cousin, which explains Barnabas's stand in Acts 15 Acts tells how Barnabas insisted on taking Mark, split from Paul over it, and sailed with him to Cyprus, without explaining his loyalty. Colossians mentions in passing that Mark was Barnabas's cousin. The kinship would account for Barnabas's stand, a connection neither text draws, which Paley counted an undesigned coincidence. - **The letter:** Colossians 4:10; Galatians 2:13 - **Acts:** Acts 4:36; Acts 9:26-27; Acts 12:12; Acts 12:25; Acts 13:13; Acts 15:37-39 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** In a greeting, Colossians identifies Mark as Barnabas's cousin and mentions earlier instructions to welcome him if he comes. **Acts:** Barnabas wanted to take John Mark again; Paul refused because Mark had withdrawn in Pamphylia; after a sharp dispute Barnabas took Mark to Cyprus, his homeland. Acts never mentions the kinship and Colossians never mentions the quarrel. Paley noted that only Colossians preserves the relationship and that it would account for Barnabas's adherence to Mark; Lightfoot agreed, showing that the word means cousin, not nephew as older English versions had it. A writer working from Acts would have had little motive to add it. Lightfoot thought the kinship may have run through Mark's mother Mary, whose Jerusalem house Acts mentions. **Other readings** - **Barnabas's character suffices.** Acts already explains Barnabas: the Son of Encouragement who vouched for the newly converted Saul when others feared him. Championing Mark needs no family tie, so the kinship fits but is not required. - **A deeper rift.** Galatians reports that Barnabas sided with Peter at Antioch, and some scholars think that rift, not Mark alone, lay behind the separation; the cousin detail would then explain only part of it. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter VIII (Colossians), No. II: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter VIII (Colossians), No. II: ## Complementary detail ### Tribe of Benjamin in the letters, the name Saul in Acts Paul's letters give his tribe, Benjamin, but never the name Saul; Acts gives the name Saul but never his tribe. Together they suggest a natural fit: a Benjamite family naming a son after Israel's Benjamite first king, whom Acts' Paul recalls. Neither text draws the link, so this is complementary detail, plausible but unprovable. - **The letter:** Romans 11:1; Philippians 3:5 - **Acts:** Acts 7:58; Acts 9:4; Acts 13:7-9; Acts 13:21; Acts 26:14 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul twice names his tribe as Benjamin, once when arguing that God has not rejected Israel and once in his list of credentials. No letter calls him Saul. **Acts:** Acts calls him Saul until Acts 13:9, then Saul also called Paul; the risen Jesus addresses him as Saul. In his Pisidian Antioch sermon Paul recalls King Saul, a Benjamite. Neither source points out the fit. The tribe named in Romans and Philippians could explain why a family chose the name of the tribe's most famous member; Acts supplies the name and, in a sermon it gives to Paul, the king's tribe. Acts 13:9 presents Paul as a second name, not a conversion rename. The fit is suggestive, not evidential. **Other readings** - **Not a Benjamite preserve.** Saul was not a Benjamite preserve: Josephus's Jewish War names a Saul among Agrippa's royal kin. The name may simply have been a family choice, so the tribal link stays conjecture. - **Paul named after Sergius Paulus.** Because Acts first uses Paul beside the proconsul Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:7-9), some infer the apostle took his name; Acts says only that Saul was also called Paul, and Colin Hemer treats Paulus as a Roman cognomen from birth. ### God's light in Paul's heart and the light on the Damascus road 2 Corinthians may allude to the Damascus light, though scholars dispute it. Paul says the God who first called light out of darkness has shone within him and his colleagues, revealing God's glory in Christ. Acts narrates a blinding light from heaven near Damascus. The imagery overlaps strongly, yet the letter names no place, time or event. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 3:16-18; 2 Corinthians 4:4-6; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:8 - **Acts:** Acts 9:3-9; Acts 9:17-18; Acts 22:6-11; Acts 26:13-18 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Unbelievers' minds are blinded, but the Creator of light has shone within Paul and his colleagues, revealing God's glory in Christ; turning to the Lord removes the veil. **Acts:** Near Damascus a heavenly light blinds Saul, in one account by its sheer glory, until Ananias comes. Jesus sends him to turn people from darkness to light. Acts supplies an outward scene of light, blindness and a commission to open eyes that fits Paul's inward language. Seyoon Kim and others read 2 Corinthians 4:6 as Paul recalling the Damascus appearance. But where Paul plainly refers to that event he speaks of seeing the Lord, never of a light (1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:8). Here he writes in the plural, draws on creation language, and describes what happens to anyone who turns to the Lord. The overlap is shared imagery, not agreement on a stated fact. **Other readings** - **General illumination.** 2 Corinthians 4:6 may describe how the gospel enlightens every believer, as the surrounding verses about the lifted veil suggest, with no specific reference to the Damascus event. - **Luke dramatized the imagery.** Luke, or the tradition behind him, may have turned Paul's language of light and blindness into a narrated scene; Acts would then reflect Pauline imagery rather than independently confirm it. ### Damascus as the place of the call is only implied in Galatians Galatians never says where Paul's call happened, but it implies he was at Damascus when, or just after, he was called: after Arabia, Paul says, he went back to Damascus. Acts narrates the call on the road to Damascus and his first days in the city. The letter's reference is incidental, as Paley stressed. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:15-17 - **Acts:** Acts 9:3-22; Acts 22:6-11; Acts 26:12-13 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul describes his call without naming a place, then mentions in passing that after Arabia he returned to Damascus. **Acts:** All three accounts place the encounter on the road near Damascus; the fullest then has Saul led into the city, baptized, and preaching in its synagogues. The pieces fit without strain: Galatians implies Paul was in Damascus around the time of his call, and Acts narrates that call in detail. Paley saw in the passing mention a mark of simplicity and undesignedness, evidence that the letter was not written to match Acts. That supports the letter's independence, not Acts'. Luke could have known of Damascus from tradition or from Paul's letters, so this agreement is classed as complementary rather than undesigned. **Other readings** - **An undesigned coincidence.** With Paley, the reference can be read as an unplanned fit between independent sources: the letter names Damascus only in passing and for another purpose, while Acts narrates the whole scene. - **Common knowledge.** Paul's conversion near Damascus was probably widely known among early Christians, so the agreement may show only that both writers shared well-known tradition. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. 5 (Galatians), No. II; 1850 Religious Tract Society edition: ### Fifteen days in Jerusalem and the command to leave quickly Galatians says Paul stayed fifteen days with Peter on his first post-conversion visit to Jerusalem. Acts 9 gives no length; Paley thought it suggests a longer stay, but Paul's speech in Acts 22 recalls a vision ordering him to leave quickly. They fit, though both Acts passages describe a hurried exit, not a measured stay, so the agreement is modest. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:18-19 - **Acts:** Acts 9:26-30; Acts 22:17-21 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** After three years, Paul went up to Jerusalem to visit Peter and stayed with him fifteen days, seeing no other apostle except James. **Acts:** Barnabas brings Paul to the apostles; he preaches boldly until Hellenists seek to kill him and is sent to Tarsus. Later he recalls a temple vision ordering quick departure. Paley argued that Acts 9, read alone, suggests a longer stay, while a distant passage, Paul's speech in Acts 22:17-21, implies a short one, matching Galatians' fifteen days. Acts gives two compatible causes for leaving, a plot and a divine command. Both Acts passages describe a hurried departure rather than measuring the stay, so the fit is general. Borrowing seems unlikely, since Acts gives no number and has Barnabas bring Paul to the apostles, whereas Galatians names only Peter and James. **Other readings** - **Acts 9 as Luke's construction.** Many critical scholars see Acts 9:26-30 as largely Luke's construction; on that view the shared brevity is incidental, not corroboration. - **Luke knew Galatians.** If Luke knew Galatians, as Richard Pervo argues, the brief, hurried visit in Acts could depend on the letter, and the agreement would not be independent. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. V, No. VIII (New York 1849 ed., p. 117): ### Appearances to Cephas, the five hundred and James Acts summarizes forty days of appearances to the apostles and narrates the appearance to Paul three times. Paul passes on a received list: Cephas, the Twelve, more than five hundred at once, James, all the apostles, and finally himself. Acts never mentions the five hundred or separate appearances to Peter and James, though it shows Jesus' brothers among early believers. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 - **Acts:** Acts 1:3; Acts 1:14; Acts 2:1-4; Acts 9:3-6; Acts 9:17; Acts 10:40-41; Acts 13:31; Acts 22:6-10; Acts 26:16 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul hands on received tradition: the risen Christ appeared to Cephas, the Twelve, over five hundred at once (most still living), James, all the apostles, and last to Paul. **Acts:** Jesus showed himself alive to the apostles over forty days and to chosen witnesses who ate with him, later appearing to Paul; his brothers join the early believers. Written about two decades after the events, the letter names appearances Acts passes over, while Acts supplies the frame of forty days and shared meals. Both call the Damascus encounter an appearance, though Acts places it after the forty days. Luke's Gospel reports an appearance to Simon, Paul's Cephas (Luke 24:34). Acts shows Jesus' brothers among the believers and a James leading in Jerusalem without explaining his rise; an appearance to James, usually taken to be the Lord's brother, could help account for it, though neither text draws that link. **Other readings** - **The five hundred and Pentecost.** Gerd Lüdemann suggests that the appearance to more than five hundred was a collective ecstatic experience that later tradition also told as Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4), so Acts and the letter may describe one event differently. ### James the Lord's brother at the head of the Jerusalem church Acts records the death of James the brother of John, then presents another, unexplained James as a leader in Jerusalem: Peter sends word to him, he gives the decisive judgment at the council, and he receives Paul with the elders. Galatians names him the Lord's brother and a pillar. The portraits agree on his standing, though their tone differs. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:19; Galatians 2:9; Galatians 2:12 - **Acts:** Acts 1:13-14; Acts 12:2; Acts 12:17; Acts 15:1; Acts 15:13-21; Acts 15:24; Acts 21:18-25 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** On his first visit Paul saw James, the Lord's brother; later James heads the list of pillars, and Peter withdraws from Gentile tables at Antioch when people from James arrive. **Acts:** After James the brother of John is killed, an unintroduced James receives Peter's message, closes the council with his judgment, and receives Paul with the elders, urging a purification rite. Galatians identifies the James whom Acts leaves unexplained, though Acts also names a James son of Alphaeus (Acts 1:13). Both give him a settled, leading place in Jerusalem, as Paley noted. Because his standing was widely remembered, as Hegesippus later shows, the agreement shows consistency more than independence. The tone differs: Acts 15 shows a mediator, while in Galatians people from James unsettle Antioch. Yet Acts 15:1 and 15:24 also report Judeans troubling Antioch, whom the Jerusalem letter disowns, and Acts 21:20-25 shows James attentive to law-observant believers. **Other readings** - **Undesigned after all.** Paley counted the agreement as undesigned: Acts never says which James it means, yet its James holds the same fixed, leading place in Jerusalem that Galatians gives the Lord's brother, as independent writers describing real circumstances would. - **Rival portraits.** In the Tübingen tradition of F. C. Baur, Galatians shows real conflict between Paul and the circle of James, which Acts smooths into harmony; the shared prominence of James then masks a deeper disagreement. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. V, No. X (New York 1849 ed., p. 119): - Eusebius, Church History (A. C. McGiffert, 1890), Hist. eccl. 2.23.4 (quoting Hegesippus): ### Cephas and John among the pillars Galatians names John, with James and Cephas, as a reputed pillar of the Jerusalem church, Paul's only mention of him. Acts repeatedly pairs Peter and John as Jerusalem leaders but drops John after Samaria, apart from naming him as the brother of the executed James. Galatians thus shows John still prominent years later. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:9; Galatians 1:19 - **Acts:** Acts 3:1-11; Acts 4:13; Acts 4:19; Acts 8:14; Acts 12:1-2; Acts 15:6-14 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** James, Cephas and John, reputed pillars, formally accepted Paul and Barnabas as partners: the two would go to the Gentiles, the pillars to the circumcised. **Acts:** Peter, with John, heals a lame man at the temple; the two face the authorities together and visit Samaria. Herod later kills John's brother James; the council scene omits John. The accounts complement each other. Acts presents Peter and John as a leading pair in Jerusalem; Galatians, written for another purpose, shows John still ranked beside Peter when Paul visited. Acts 12:2 makes its John the brother of the executed James; the pillar John is presumably the same man, and the pillar James the Lord's brother of Galatians 1:19. If Galatians 2 describes the council visit, Acts 15 leaves John among the unnamed apostles (Acts 15:6). **Other readings** - **John as a silent companion.** John never speaks or acts alone in Acts, and only Luke's Gospel names Peter and John as the pair sent to prepare the Passover (Luke 22:8; compare Mark 14:13). The pairing may be Luke's; Galatians is then the firm evidence. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 2: ### Peter's meals with Gentiles and the circumcision party Galatians says Peter ate with Gentiles at Antioch, then withdrew for fear of the circumcision party. In Acts, Peter learns not to call anyone unclean, enters Cornelius's house, and is criticized in Jerusalem for eating with the uncircumcised. The scene fits Acts' Peter, though his retreat sits uneasily with his stand at the council. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:11-14 - **Acts:** Acts 10:9-16; Acts 10:28; Acts 10:45; Acts 10:48; Acts 11:2-18; Acts 15:7-11 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** At Antioch Peter ate with Gentile believers until people came from James; then he withdrew, fearing the circumcision party. Other Jews and even Barnabas followed, and Paul rebuked Peter publicly. **Acts:** A vision teaches Peter not to call anyone unclean; he enters Cornelius's house and is asked to stay. Jerusalem believers of the circumcision fault him for eating with uncircumcised men. Acts and Galatians show the same man under similar pressure. In Acts, objection to Peter's meals comes from believers of the circumcision (Acts 11:2-3); in Galatians he gives way to a like-named group. The difficulty is that Acts' Peter had defended his conduct (Acts 11:4-18) and later argued that God treats Jew and Gentile alike (Acts 15:9). Paley answered that the Antioch question, Jews sharing meals with Gentile believers, differed from the council's, and that Peter may have taken the vision as a ruling for one occasion. **Other readings** - **Luke enlarged the Cornelius story.** Many critical scholars, following Martin Dibelius, think Luke enlarged a simple conversion story into a founding precedent; Peter's wavering at Antioch would then better show how unsettled the question still was. - **Different opponents.** The circumcision group Peter feared at Antioch may have been non-Christian Jews pressing Jewish believers, rather than the believing critics of Acts 11:2-3; on that reading the link between the accounts is looser. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 10: ### Barnabas: partner, self-supporting colleague, swayed at Antioch Galatians and 1 Corinthians mention Barnabas four times without introducing him: as Paul's companion to Jerusalem, his partner in the Gentile mission, a colleague swayed at Antioch, and a fellow worker who, like Paul, waived support. Acts tells the partnership's story from Jerusalem to Antioch and the first journey, ending in a sharp split. The letters add details Acts lacks. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:1; Galatians 2:9; Galatians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 9:5-6; Colossians 4:10; Philemon 1:24 - **Acts:** Acts 4:36; Acts 9:27; Acts 11:22-26; Acts 11:30; Acts 12:25; Acts 13:1-3; Acts 14:4; Acts 14:12-14; Acts 15:2; Acts 15:12; Acts 15:35-39 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Barnabas went up with Paul, was accepted as his partner for the Gentiles, was drawn into Peter's withdrawal, and, like Paul, worked for his living rather than claim support. **Acts:** Barnabas vouches for Paul, brings him to Antioch, travels with him to Jerusalem, Cyprus and inland Asia Minor, shares the title apostle, then splits with him over John Mark. The pictures interlock without visible borrowing. Acts applies the word apostle to Paul only in Acts 14:4 and Acts 14:14, both times jointly with Barnabas, while 1 Corinthians 9:5-6 sets Barnabas beside the apostles. Paul's surprise that even Barnabas joined the withdrawal assumes the close partnership Acts describes. The letters add that Barnabas supported himself, wavered at Antioch, and was still known at Corinth after the split. Galatians records friction too, so 1 Corinthians 9:6 does not prove full reconciliation. Philemon 1:24 later names Mark among Paul's fellow workers. **Other readings** - **South Galatian significance.** If Galatians went to the churches Paul and Barnabas founded together, its readers knew Barnabas, explaining why he needs no introduction; but 1 Corinthians names him just as casually to a church he is not known to have visited. - **Rupture or kinship?.** Many suspect the Antioch rupture (Galatians 2:13) lay behind the parting Acts ties to Mark (Acts 15:37-39). Paley noted that Colossians 4:10 makes Mark Barnabas's cousin, explaining his loyalty; but Colossians' authorship is disputed. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 8 (Colossians), no. 2: ### Becoming like a Jew to win Jews Paul's letter and Acts fit as policy and practice. In 1 Corinthians Paul says he became as a Jew to Jews and as one without the law to Gentiles, to win both. Acts narrates two Jewish-facing cases: Timothy's circumcision because of local Jews, and a temple purification at the elders' urging. Whether these reflect strategy or conviction is debated. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 9:19-23; 1 Corinthians 10:32-33 - **Acts:** Acts 16:3; Acts 21:20-26 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Though free, Paul served all: as a Jew to Jews, as under the law to those under it, as without law to others, weak to the weak, giving no offence. **Acts:** Paul circumcises Timothy because the local Jews know his father is Greek, and at the elders' urging joins four men's purification in the temple to quiet rumours. The letter states a principle that reaches Gentiles and the weak as well as Jews; Acts' two cases, one before the letter and one after, concern only Jews and are woven into its narrative. Paley argued that the self-portrait is unlikely to have been built from these instances, or the instances invented to match it. A consistent character supports plausibility, not each event. **Other readings** - **Dependence.** Richard Pervo argues that Acts' author knew a collection of Paul's letters. If so, these scenes could have been shaped with 1 Corinthians 9 in view and do not independently confirm it. - **Beyond tactic.** In the critical Greek text, though not the World English Bible, 1 Corinthians 9:20 adds that Paul was not himself under the law. Acts 21:24, where Paul shows he himself keeps the law, then goes beyond the letter's tactic. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 3, no. 7: ### Rumours that Paul's gospel undermines the law Romans shows Paul's teaching being slandered as licence to sin and answers objections that grace encourages sin or voids the law. Acts reports accusations that Paul taught against the law and urged Diaspora Jews to abandon Moses. The charges differ, moral in Romans and ritual in Acts, but both may reflect one controversy over Paul's teaching on the law. - **The letter:** Romans 3:8; Romans 3:31; Romans 6:1-2; Romans 6:15; Romans 15:31; Galatians 5:11 - **Acts:** Acts 18:13; Acts 21:20-24; Acts 21:28 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul says some slanderously report him as approving evil for good's sake; he rejects that grace licenses sin or faith voids the law, and denies still preaching circumcision. **Acts:** At Corinth Jews charge Paul with promoting unlawful worship; in Jerusalem believers have heard he tells Diaspora Jews to abandon Moses; a temple crowd says he teaches against the law. Romans, written as Paul was about to go to Jerusalem, fears unbelievers in Judea and is unsure of the believers' welcome there (Romans 15:31), and answers misreadings of his gospel. Paley argued that the report in Acts 21 was an easy misreading of Romans' teaching, so Paul's reception there fits its author. The rumours also point both ways: Galatians denies he still preached circumcision, while in Acts the elders deny he told Jews to stop circumcising. **Other readings** - **Rhetorical objections.** Romans 6:1 and 6:15 may voice an imagined debating partner, a teaching style Stanley Stowers traces to the ancient diatribe, rather than real rumours; only Romans 3:8 explicitly reports slander. - **A Lukan pattern.** Acts repeatedly shows Jews accusing Paul falsely and Roman officials clearing him. The parallel may reflect that apologetic theme as much as knowledge of real rumours, and Acts' charges concern Jewish custom, not Romans' moral objection. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 2, no. 7: ### Those of the circumcision: troublers from Judea, people from James, Cretan teachers Acts and Galatians agree that some Jewish believers pressed circumcision and the law on Gentile converts, and Philippians and Titus warn against similar figures. But the shared label, those of the circumcision (hoi ek peritomēs), is a neutral term for Jews or Jewish believers, and whether these were one movement, and James's role, remain uncertain. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:7; Galatians 2:4-5; Galatians 2:12; Galatians 5:10-12; Galatians 6:12-13; Philippians 3:2-3; Colossians 4:11; Titus 1:10-11; Titus 1:14-15; Titus 3:9 - **Acts:** Acts 10:45; Acts 11:2-3; Acts 15:1; Acts 15:5; Acts 15:24 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Troublers distort the gospel; false brothers spied on our liberty; Peter withdrew when men came from James; agitators press circumcision to avoid persecution; Cretan teachers spread Jewish myths. **Acts:** Jewish believers criticise Peter for eating with uncircumcised men; men from Judea teach that Gentiles must be circumcised to be saved; believing Pharisees agree; Jerusalem's letter disowns the troublers. Both describe pressure from Jewish believers, and Acts 15:24 and Galatians 1:7 and 5:10 use the same verb (tarassō) for the trouble, though it is a common word. They differ on James: the council letter says the troublers had no mandate from Jerusalem, while Galatians links the visitors at Antioch to James without saying what he authorised. The Cretan opponents, with myths, genealogies and purity rules, look more speculative. Colossians 4:11 uses the same label for Paul's loyal Jewish co-workers. **Other readings** - **Several groups.** Justin Hardin argues the Galatian agitators were local, not emissaries from Jerusalem. The Cretan teachers, especially if Titus is later than Paul, may reflect yet another problem; a shared label need not mean one movement. - **James's role.** Some critics read Acts 15:24 as part of Acts' picture of apostolic harmony, with Galatians 2:12 nearer James's real stance; others think the men from James went beyond any mandate, which would fit both texts. ### The request to remember the poor and Antioch's famine relief Galatians says the Jerusalem pillars asked Paul and Barnabas only to remember the poor, which Paul says he was eager to do. Acts records Barnabas and Saul carrying Antioch's famine relief to the Judean elders. If Galatians 2 describes that relief visit, the accounts explain each other; if it describes the later council, the gift was earlier and separate. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:18-24; Galatians 2:1-10; Romans 15:25-27 - **Acts:** Acts 11:27-30; Acts 12:25; Acts 14:28; Acts 15:1-29 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** On a visit with Barnabas and Titus, James, Cephas and John asked only that they remember the poor, something Paul says he was eager to do. **Acts:** After Agabus foretold a famine, which came under Claudius, Antioch's disciples sent relief to the Judean believers through Barnabas and Saul, who completed the service and took John Mark along. Neither text has the other's detail: Acts reports no private meeting or request, and Galatians no gift. On the famine-visit view (Ramsay, Bruce), the request came while relief was being delivered, which suits Paul's eagerness, and Paul's sworn account (Galatians 1:20) would hardly skip a visit. Against it, the fourteen years of Galatians 2:1 must then usually run from his conversion, compressing the chronology. The fit depends on that identification; Paley instead proposed a visit Acts omits, during the long stay at Antioch (Acts 14:28). **Other readings** - **Council identification.** Many, following Lightfoot, equate Galatians 2 with Acts 15; Galatians then passes over the relief visit, perhaps because Paul met no apostles, and the request anticipates the collection of Romans 15:25-27. - **Doubts about the relief visit.** Some critics doubt Paul made the Acts 11:30 journey, since Galatians allows only two early visits, and treat it as Luke's duplicate of another Jerusalem visit. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), No. 10 (1849 New York reprint): ### Who are the churches of Galatia? Galatians is addressed to the churches of Galatia but names no city. On the South Galatian view they are Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, whose founding Acts 13-14 narrates. On the North Galatian view they lie among ethnic Galatians of the interior, where Acts mentions only journeys through the region (Acts 16:6 and 18:23). - **The letter:** Galatians 1:1-2; Galatians 3:1; Galatians 4:13; Galatians 6:11-18 - **Acts:** Acts 13:14-14:23; Acts 16:1-6; Acts 18:23 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul and unnamed brothers write to the churches of Galatia, calling the readers Galatians; no city, named co-sender or personal greeting appears. **Acts:** Paul and Barnabas found churches at Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. Paul later revisits Derbe and Lystra, crosses the region of Phrygia and Galatia, and returns to strengthen disciples. Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe lay in the Roman province of Galatia, though Acts places them by region, and calling Phrygians and Lycaonians Galatians is argued both ways. The South view reads Acts 16:6 as the province's Phrygian district; Paley, a century before Ramsay, took it as Paul's first Galatian visit. Either view gives at least two visits, but only the South view has a narrated founding. **Other readings** - **South Galatian view.** Ramsay, Bruce and Longenecker identify the readers with the Acts 13-14 churches. Acts then narrates their founding, and the letter could predate the Acts 15 meeting, which would explain its silence on the decree. - **North Galatian view.** Lightfoot and Betz take the readers as ethnic Galatians of the interior, reached when, on their reading, Acts 16:6 brings Paul into Galatia proper. The letter must then postdate the Acts 15 meeting and its decree. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), No. 10 (1849 New York reprint): ### The Galatians' sufferings and the miracles among them If Galatians was written to the churches of Acts 13-14, Acts supplies the background to Paul's appeal: the Spirit among new disciples, signs at Iconium, a healing at Lystra and hostility aimed at the converts. If it went to ethnic Galatians farther north, Acts narrates no founding there, so the fit depends on the destination. - **The letter:** Galatians 3:1-5; Galatians 4:13-14 - **Acts:** Acts 13:50-52; Acts 14:2-5; Acts 14:8-10; Acts 14:19-22 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul reminds the Galatians that they received the Spirit through faith, that God works miracles among them, and asks if they suffered in vain; bodily weakness occasioned his first preaching. **Acts:** At Pisidian Antioch disciples are filled with the Spirit; at Iconium God grants signs and wonders; at Lystra Paul heals a lame man; opponents stir up hostility against the believers. On the South Galatian view, Paul's appeal to the converts' own experience matches Acts 13-14: the Spirit among the first disciples, signs at Iconium and Lystra, and hostility aimed at the believers, whom the missionaries warned of many afflictions. There are limits. The verb in Galatians 3:4 can mean 'experienced' rather than 'suffered'; Galatians puts the miracles in the present, while Acts reports only those of the first mission; and Acts never mentions the bodily weakness that, by Galatians 4:13, first occasioned Paul's preaching there. **Other readings** - **North Galatian destination.** If Paul wrote to ethnic Galatians farther north, evangelized on the journey of Acts 16:6, Acts tells nothing of their conversion, and the events of Acts 13-14 are not the background. - **A generic appeal.** Spirit, power and affliction marked Paul's founding visits elsewhere too (1 Thessalonians 1:5-6), so the parallel with Acts 13-14 may be generic rather than specific to Galatia. ### Persecuted for a law-free gospel, with marks on his body Acts broadly fits Galatians' passing claim that Paul is persecuted for not preaching circumcision: most opposition Acts reports is instigated by Jewish opponents, the later Jerusalem rumor concerns circumcision, and the stoning at Lystra (or, if Galatians is late, the rods at Philippi) could explain the marks he bears. The agreement is real but general. - **The letter:** Galatians 5:11; Galatians 6:12; Galatians 6:17 - **Acts:** Acts 13:45; Acts 13:50; Acts 14:2; Acts 14:5; Acts 14:19; Acts 16:3; Acts 16:19-24; Acts 21:21-24; Acts 21:27-28 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul asks why, if he still preaches circumcision, he is still persecuted; his rivals push circumcision to avoid persecution for the cross; he bears Jesus' marks on his body. **Acts:** Jewish-led opposition drives Paul from Pisidian Antioch and Iconium and stones him at Lystra; the attack at Philippi concerns profit; in Jerusalem he is accused of teaching against the law. Galatians gives a cause, Acts gives incidents. As Paley argued, Galatians implies and Acts shows that Paul's persecutors were mostly Jewish opponents of his law-free mission. In Jerusalem, later than the letter, Acts has him attacked as a teacher against the law, after a rumor, which James and the elders call untrue, that he told diaspora Jews not to circumcise. The marks of Galatians 6:17 are most naturally scars of stoning or beating. But the pattern was widely known, and at Pisidian Antioch Acts gives jealousy as the motive. **Other readings** - **Tension over circumcision.** Galatians 5:11 may answer a claim that Paul still preached circumcision; if the letter postdates Acts 16:3, Timothy's circumcision may be the pretext, and critics such as Vielhauer judge that story at odds with Galatians. - **Too general to weigh.** Jewish hostility is reported in Paul's own letters (2 Corinthians 11:24; 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16) and is a recurring Lukan theme, so Acts' pattern may reflect Luke's scheme and adds little independent confirmation. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. V (Epistle to the Galatians), No. V: ### Collection instructions already given to the churches of Galatia Acts supplies a natural occasion for the collection instructions Paul says he gave Galatia's churches: just before his long stay in Ephesus, where he wrote 1 Corinthians, Acts has him pass through Galatia and Phrygia strengthening the disciples. The fit is suggestive, not decisive, because Acts never mentions a collection there. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 16:1-2; 1 Corinthians 16:8; Romans 15:26 - **Acts:** Acts 16:6; Acts 18:23; Acts 19:1; Acts 19:8-10; Acts 20:4; Acts 24:17 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul tells Corinth to follow the collection instructions he gave the churches of Galatia, setting money aside weekly, and says he will stay at Ephesus until Pentecost. **Acts:** The Galatia and Phrygia stage follows Paul’s time in Antioch and includes his encouragement of every disciple. His onward path takes him through the interior to Ephesus, where the account later describes a two-year period of teaching. Paul could have given Galatia its instructions in person on this journey, the last church visits Acts reports before Ephesus; Paley made this point. The fit works on either view of where the Galatian churches were, since Acts 18:23 covers the region. Acts mentions the collection only obliquely, if at all (Acts 24:17), though many read the party of Acts 20:4, including Gaius of Derbe, as church delegates. **Other readings** - **Instructions sent, not given.** Paul could equally have sent the instructions by letter or messenger from Ephesus, or given them on the earlier visit of Acts 16:6; Acts shows only that a recent visit was possible. - **Galatia may have dropped out.** Because Romans 15:26 names only Macedonia and Achaia, some infer that the Galatian churches, perhaps estranged by the crisis behind Galatians, never completed their share; 1 Corinthians 16:1 shows only that instructions were given. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. III (First Epistle to the Corinthians), No. X: ### Timothy's believing Jewish mother and grandmother, with the Greek father unmentioned Acts and 2 Timothy fit together on Timothy's family. Acts gives a believing Jewish mother and a Greek father; 2 Timothy praises his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, recalls his childhood in the Scriptures and never mentions a father. The Greek father explains why a boy raised on Scripture was uncircumcised. A later writer could have built on Acts. - **The letter:** 2 Timothy 1:5; 2 Timothy 3:14-15 - **Acts:** Acts 16:1-3 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul recalls the genuine faith of Timothy's grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, now in Timothy too, and notes he has known the Scriptures since infancy; no father appears. **Acts:** Visiting Derbe and Lystra, Paul finds Timothy, son of a believing Jewish woman and a Greek father, and circumcises him because local Jews all knew his father was Greek. Each text fills a gap in the other. Acts describes only the mother as a believer, which suggests the father was dead or unconverted, and the letter, praising two women, is silent about him. A Jewish mother makes a childhood in the Scriptures likely; a Greek father explains the missing circumcision. The letter adds the names and a grandmother, which Acts lacks. Paley judged it a fair, unforced coincidence; whether it is undesigned depends on who wrote 2 Timothy. **Other readings** - **Built on Acts.** If 2 Timothy is pseudonymous, its author could have developed Acts 16:1 into a family portrait, adding names and a grandmother and inferring a scriptural upbringing from the Jewish mother. - **Silence is expected.** A passage tracing inherited faith would naturally name only believing relatives, so the missing father fits any account of authorship and adds little. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. XII (Second Epistle to Timothy), No. II: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. XII (Second Epistle to Timothy), No. III: ### Timothy: Paul's child in the faith, already a disciple when Paul returns Acts and the letters together suggest that Timothy came to faith during Paul's first journey. Acts already calls him a disciple when Paul next comes to Derbe and Lystra, and Paul calls him his child in the faith. Neither text states the conversion, 'child' may mean protégé, and 2 Timothy traces his faith through his grandmother and mother. - **The letter:** 1 Timothy 1:2; 1 Timothy 4:12; 1 Corinthians 4:15-17; 1 Corinthians 16:10-11; Philippians 2:22; 2 Timothy 1:5 - **Acts:** Acts 14:6-7; Acts 14:19-23; Acts 16:1-3 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul calls Timothy his child in the faith and in the Lord, tells Corinth not to despise him, and urges Timothy to let no one look down on his youth. **Acts:** Paul preaches at Lystra, is stoned, and returns to strengthen the disciples. Revisiting Derbe and Lystra later, he finds Timothy already a disciple, well regarded at Lystra and Iconium. If 'child in the faith' means Paul's own convert, as Paley assumed, Acts leaves one natural occasion: the first journey's visits to Lystra and Derbe (Acts 14:6-7, 14:20-21), before Acts 16:1 finds Timothy already a disciple there. Acts 16:2 adds that believers at Lystra and Iconium vouched for him. His youth is a link between the letters (1 Corinthians 16:10-11, as Paley read it, and 1 Timothy 4:12); Acts gives no age. **Other readings** - **Child as protégé.** Paul uses fatherhood for converts (1 Corinthians 4:15) but also for shared service (Philippians 2:22), so 'child' may mark affection and apprenticeship; Timothy could have come to faith through his grandmother and mother (2 Timothy 1:5). - **A literary portrait.** If 1 Timothy is pseudonymous, calling Timothy Paul's child may cast him as heir rather than convert, and the remark on his youth may echo 1 Corinthians 16:10-11, adding no independent evidence. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. XII (Second Epistle to Timothy), No. V: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. III (First Epistle to the Corinthians), No. IX: ### Timothy's commissioning by prophecy and laying on of hands Acts never narrates Timothy's commissioning; only the letters to Timothy recall it: prophecies about him, a gift conferred through the laying on of hands, and perhaps a confession before many witnesses. Acts supplies fitting background (Lystra's good report of him and elders appointed there), but when the commissioning happened is debated. - **The letter:** 1 Timothy 1:18; 1 Timothy 4:14; 1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 1:6 - **Acts:** Acts 13:1-3; Acts 14:21-23; Acts 16:1-3 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Timothy is reminded of earlier prophecies, a gift given through prophecy when the elders laid hands on him, and his confession before many witnesses; 2 Timothy credits Paul's hands. **Acts:** Lystra and Iconium believers vouch for Timothy, and Paul takes him along. Earlier, elders are appointed there; Antioch sends off Barnabas and Saul after fasting, prayer and laying on hands. The letters presuppose a public commissioning that Acts never describes, so this is complementary detail, not confirmation. Acts makes such a scene plausible: Timothy came from churches where Paul and Barnabas had appointed elders, local believers vouched for him, and at Antioch a word from the Spirit among prophets led to laying on of hands. One letter names the elders' hands, the other Paul's; they may describe one shared rite or two occasions. **Other readings** - **Later church order.** If the Pastoral Letters were written after Paul's death, as many scholars hold, the commissioning may reflect the ordination practice of the writer's church, and any fit with Acts would show shared tradition rather than independent memory. - **A different occasion.** The rite need not belong to Timothy's recruitment at Lystra. Some place it at a later appointment, perhaps for his task at Ephesus, and some read the confession before many witnesses as his baptism. ### A Roman colony and the letter's citizenship language Among New Testament writings only Acts calls Philippi a Roman colony, a status known from the city's coins and inscriptions, and its Philippi scene is thoroughly Roman. Philippians, unusually for Paul, uses citizenship language: its verb for living worthy of the gospel is civic, and believers' citizenship is in heaven. The fit is natural, but neither text draws the connection. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:27; Philippians 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; Ephesians 2:19 - **Acts:** Acts 16:12; Acts 16:20-22; Acts 16:35-39; Acts 23:1 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul urges the Philippians to live worthy of the gospel, using a Greek verb for conducting oneself as a citizen, and says their citizenship is in heaven. **Acts:** Acts calls Philippi a Roman colony, where accusers object, as Romans, to the missionaries' customs and the magistrates order a beating with rods. The verb Paul uses occurs elsewhere in the New Testament only in Acts 23:1, of Paul's conduct before God, and the noun for citizenship only in Philippians 3:20. Elsewhere Paul urges a worthy walk (1 Thessalonians 2:12) without civic terms; here he chooses them, which would resonate in a colony whose citizens, in Acts, protest as Romans. Acts supplies that setting; the letter never mentions it, so the fit is suggestive rather than proof. **Other readings** - **A common metaphor.** Citizenship language was common in Greek moral and Jewish writing, where the verb can mean simply conducting one's life, as before God in Acts 23:1; Ephesians uses similar terms for readers outside any colony. ### Silas in Acts, Silvanus in the letters Almost certainly one man under two names. Acts calls Paul's partner in Macedonia and Corinth Silas; the letters name Silvanus as co-sender to Thessalonica and co-preacher at Corinth. Differing names suggest neither text copied the other. That the Latin form suits the Roman citizenship Acts implies is suggestive only. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:19 - **Acts:** Acts 1:23; Acts 12:12; Acts 13:9; Acts 15:22; Acts 15:27; Acts 15:32; Acts 15:40; Acts 16:19-24; Acts 16:37-38; Acts 17:4; Acts 17:10; Acts 17:14-15; Acts 18:5 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul names his co-worker Silvanus, a Latin name, as co-sender of both Thessalonian letters and as one who preached with him at Corinth. **Acts:** Acts always calls him Silas, a Jerusalem prophet who travels with Paul through Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea to Corinth; at Philippi Paul protests that both, as Romans, were beaten without trial. Silas and Silvanus are almost certainly one man, Paul's partner in Macedonia and Corinth. Silas may be a short form of Silvanus, or a Semitic name paired with a similar Latin one, like Saul and Paul. Citizens normally bore Latin names, but so did many non-citizens, so the letters' usage merely suits the citizenship Acts implies. Paley, conceding the Corinth match alone is too obvious to weigh much, argued the name difference shows neither text copied the other. **Other readings** - **A Latin name proves little.** Jerusalem believers such as Joseph Justus and John Mark bore Latin names with no hint of citizenship (Acts 1:23 and Acts 12:12). Silvanus may simply be a Latin rendering of Silas, adding little evidence. - **The citizenship scene may be literary.** Critics who read the Philippi prison story, with its earthquake and belated citizenship protest, as dramatic narrative would treat Silas's implied citizenship as the author's construction, leaving only the name match. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. VII: ### Women at Philippi: Lydia in Acts, Euodia and Syntyche in the letter The two texts agree on the kind of church, not on names. Acts begins the Philippian church among women at a place of prayer, with Lydia as first convert and host. Philippians names two women, Euodia and Syntyche, who worked alongside Paul in the gospel. Neither text names the other's women. - **The letter:** Philippians 4:2-3; Romans 16:1-2 - **Acts:** Acts 16:13-15; Acts 16:40; Acts 17:4; Acts 17:12 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul urges Euodia and Syntyche to agree in the Lord and asks his partner to help them, since they struggled alongside him for the gospel with Clement and others. **Acts:** At Philippi the mission begins with women at a riverside place of prayer. Lydia, a God-worshiper from Thyatira, is baptized and hosts the missionaries; believers gather at her house. Together the texts show women prominent in the Philippian church from its first meeting, with two still named co-workers when Paul wrote. Acts also notes leading women among converts at Thessalonica and Berea, which Lightfoot tentatively linked to inscriptions suggesting Macedonian women had unusual standing. The match is general: Acts never names Euodia or Syntyche, the letter never names Lydia, and the letter's Clement appears nowhere in Acts. Eusebius later identified him with Clement of Rome; Lightfoot doubted it, the name being common. **Other readings** - **Luke's interest in women.** Luke's Gospel and Acts often feature women, so the riverside scene may reflect the author's interests as much as Philippian memory, making the agreement thematic rather than historical. - **A wider pattern.** Women co-workers and patrons appear in Paul's churches elsewhere, such as Phoebe of Cenchreae (Romans 16:1-2), so the match may reflect early Christian practice generally rather than something specifically Philippian. **Sources** - Eusebius, Church History (A. C. McGiffert, 1890), HE 3.15: ### Timothy known at Philippi and Thessalonica, though Acts never names him there Timothy was probably part of the party that founded the churches at Philippi and Thessalonica, though Acts names him only before, at Lystra, and after, at Berea. The letters show both churches knew him well, as co-sender, envoy and proven co-worker, while in Acts only Paul and Silas are seized or hunted. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:1; Philippians 2:19-22; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:5; 1 Thessalonians 2:17-18; 1 Thessalonians 3:1-6; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-10 - **Acts:** Acts 16:1-4; Acts 16:10-17; Acts 16:19-40; Acts 17:1-10; Acts 17:14-15; Acts 17:16; Acts 18:5; Acts 19:22; Acts 20:3-4 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Timothy co-sends Philippians and both Thessalonian letters. The Philippians know his proven service with Paul; the Thessalonians receive him as Paul's envoy and remember how the missionaries lived among them. **Acts:** Paul takes Timothy from Lystra and a "we" party sails to Philippi, yet only Paul and Silas are seized or sought. Timothy reappears at Berea, staying with Silas. Acts takes Timothy along from Lystra and finds him at Berea, so he most likely passed through Philippi and Thessalonica. The "we" companions at Philippi (Acts 16:10-17) were not arrested, so companions could escape notice. The letters supply what Acts leaves implicit: both churches knew Timothy, and Paul could send him from Athens to Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 3:1-2), a reunion Acts does not narrate (Acts 17:14-16 and Acts 18:5). Paley treated the Philippians case as an oblique allusion to an implied fact. **Other readings** - **Familiarity from later visits.** Philippians was written years after the founding, perhaps after Timothy's further visits to Macedonia (Acts 19:22 and Acts 20:3-4), so its picture of him proves little about the founding; 1 Thessalonians, written soon after, is the stronger witness. - **Co-senders need not be co-founders.** Paul's first-person plural can mean Paul alone (1 Thessalonians 3:1-5), and naming Timothy as co-sender does not prove he helped found the church. Acts never states that Timothy crossed to Macedonia with Paul. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. VII (Epistle to the Philippians), No. IV: ### Persecuted by their own compatriots, at Jewish instigation A modest fit, not a strong coincidence. 1 Thessalonians says the converts suffered from their own compatriots, as the Judean churches did from Jewish opponents. Acts names Jewish instigators at Thessalonica but has a marketplace crowd and the city rulers do much of the acting, so many immediate persecutors were the converts' fellow townspeople. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 - **Acts:** Acts 13:50; Acts 14:2; Acts 14:5; Acts 14:19; Acts 17:5-10; Acts 17:13-14 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** The Thessalonians suffered from their own compatriots, as the Judean churches did from Jewish opponents who, Paul adds, drove the missionaries out and hindered preaching to Gentiles. **Acts:** At Thessalonica Jewish opponents recruit marketplace men and a crowd, who riot and seize Jason; at Berea, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, opponents likewise rouse Gentile crowds and leaders. Paley noticed that the letter's distinction matches Acts on close reading: outside Judea, Jewish opponents worked through Gentile crowds and officials, so the converts' immediate persecutors were their fellow citizens. The letter's complaint that the missionaries were driven out may also echo Acts 17:5-10 and Acts 17:13-14, though it could refer to Judea. Neither text spells out the link, though Acts' recurring pattern limits how much independence this shows. **Other readings** - **A later insertion?.** Some scholars judge 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 a later insertion from after AD 70; if so, the fit says nothing about Paul's own experience. Many recent commentators defend the passage as Paul's. - **Local experience and a Lukan theme.** Paul's word for compatriots may simply reflect a mostly Gentile church harassed by Gentile neighbors, with no Jewish role; Acts' Jewish instigators may reflect the author's recurring theme rather than local memory. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IX (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), No. V: ### Judean churches persecuted, prophets killed, Paul driven out Acts narrates episodes matching most of this sharp passage: Judean churches persecuted, the charge that earlier generations killed the prophets, Paul driven from cities. At Thessalonica, synagogue opponents rouse a local mob that drags believers before the city rulers, fitting converts who suffered from their own countrymen. Most judge the passage authentic; some see a post-70 insertion. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 - **Acts:** Acts 7:52; Acts 8:1-3; Acts 9:29-30; Acts 12:1-3; Acts 13:45-50; Acts 14:2-6; Acts 14:19; Acts 17:5-10; Acts 17:13-14; Acts 22:21-22 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** The Thessalonians suffered from their own countrymen as the Judean churches did from the Jews who killed Jesus and the prophets, drove Paul's party out and hindered preaching to Gentiles. **Acts:** Judean believers are scattered and jailed, James is executed, Stephen accuses the fathers of killing the prophets, and opponents drive Paul from city after city, including Thessalonica. Acts gives the Judean persecutions and repeated expulsions the letter assumes, and at Jerusalem a crowd erupts when Paul speaks of being sent to Gentiles. Paley noticed a finer fit: outside Judea, opposition in Acts usually began among synagogue opponents but worked through Gentile crowds and magistrates, as at Thessalonica, so the converts' persecutors were their own countrymen. Many read the passage as polemic against particular opponents rather than a verdict on the Jewish people; others find it broader. **Other readings** - **Later interpolation.** Birger Pearson argued the passage was inserted after AD 70, reading its claim that wrath has already come as the fall of Jerusalem. Its harshness also sits uneasily with Romans 9-11. - **Luke's literary pattern.** Acts' recurring scene of synagogue jealousy followed by expulsion may be Luke's literary pattern rather than a record of each city, so the match with the letter may reflect shared early Christian polemic, not two independent memories. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 9 (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), no. 5: ### What was preached: the living God, the raised Son, coming judgment, the kingdom through affliction The letters recall a message close to Acts' outline of Paul's preaching to Gentiles: turn from idols to the living God, Jesus raised from the dead, judgment to come, and entry to God's kingdom through suffering. But Acts' Thessalonian converts are Jews, God-fearing Greeks and leading women, while the letter addresses former idol-worshippers. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; 1 Thessalonians 3:3-4; 1 Thessalonians 4:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10; 2 Thessalonians 1:4-10 - **Acts:** Acts 14:15; Acts 14:22; Acts 17:2-4; Acts 17:18; Acts 17:22-31; Acts 24:25 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** The converts turned from idols to the living God to await his raised Son, who rescues from coming wrath; called into God's kingdom, they were forewarned of suffering. **Acts:** Paul calls pagans at Lystra and Athens from idols to the living Creator, adding at Athens judgment by a man God raised; at Thessalonica, a suffering, risen Messiah. In outline the match is real: Acts' speeches to Gentile audiences and the letters share the living God against idols, a raised Jesus and coming judgment, and Acts 14:22 echoes the warning that suffering precedes the kingdom. Paley flagged that Acts 17:4 names God-fearers, not idolaters; he suggested either a minority manuscript reading listing Greeks alongside God-fearers, or that Acts reports only the synagogue weeks. The speeches are Luke's summaries, so the fit is in outline only. **Other readings** - **Luke's composition.** Martin Dibelius and many since treat the Areopagus speech as Luke's composition; Luke may have drawn on common mission preaching, so the match shows shared tradition rather than Paul's own words. - **A weaker parallel.** Johannes Munck judged that only Jesus' resurrection in an end-time setting really links 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 with the Athens speech; other likenesses are moderate. Acts 17:2-3 also gives Thessalonica a different, scriptural Messiah argument. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 9 (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), no. 6: ### The 'rival king' charge and the letters' kingdom and royal-coming language Acts says Jason and others were charged before the city rulers with harboring men who defy Caesar's decrees by proclaiming Jesus as a rival king. The letters show teaching that could be heard that way: God's kingdom, the Lord Jesus' royal coming and, in the debated 2 Thessalonians, his destroying a lawless figure. The link is suggestive. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 1 Thessalonians 3:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3; 2 Thessalonians 1:5; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8 - **Acts:** Acts 17:3; Acts 17:5-9 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** God calls the converts into his kingdom and they await the Lord Jesus' coming; 2 Thessalonians recalls oral teaching about a lawless figure the Lord will destroy. **Acts:** Opponents tell Thessalonica's rulers that Paul's group, sheltered by Jason, defies Caesar's decrees by proclaiming Jesus as a rival king; Paul had preached a suffering, risen Messiah. In Acts the only preaching content behind the charge is that Jesus is the Messiah, itself a royal title. The letters fill this in: Paul taught in person about God's kingdom and Jesus' coming, or parousia, a word also used for a ruler's state visit; 2 Thessalonians, if Paul's, adds oral teaching about a lawless figure Jesus will destroy. Hostile hearers could cast such teaching as a rival kingship. The letters never mention Caesar or the charge, and claimed echoes of imperial slogans are disputed. **Other readings** - **Shaped on Jesus' trial.** Luke's Gospel brings a similar king charge against Jesus before Pilate (Luke 23:2), so the accusation in Acts may be Luke's shaping of Paul's story on Jesus' trial rather than a remembered Thessalonian detail. - **A legal charge.** Justin Hardin ties the charge and Jason's security to imperial laws curbing voluntary associations; on that reading the legal issue was an unlicensed assembly in Jason's house, and the charge may reveal little about what Paul taught. ### Parted from Thessalonica, and the return repeatedly blocked Acts has Paul's party sent from Thessalonica by night; the letter speaks of being bereaved of the converts. The letter adds what Acts never mentions: Paul tried more than once to return but was blocked, and prayed for a way back. Paley took this unfulfilled plan as a sign the letter was not built from Acts. The obstacle is unknown. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 2:17-18; 1 Thessalonians 3:10-11 - **Acts:** Acts 17:5-10; Acts 17:13-15; Acts 20:1-4 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Separated from them for a short while, Paul's party longed to see them; Paul tried more than once to come, but Satan hindered them. He prays for the way back. **Acts:** After the uproar and the security taken from Jason, believers send Paul and Silas away by night; opponents from Thessalonica pursue him to Berea. Later Acts names no Thessalonian visit. Acts supplies the setting of the separation the letter mourns: a night departure after the riot and the security taken from Jason. The failed attempts appear only in the letter. Paley argued that a historian would naturally omit a plan never carried out, that a forger working from Acts could not have found it, and that Luke, had he used the letter, would hardly have skipped it. Acts later takes Paul through Macedonia with Thessalonians in his company, but names no visit to the city. **Other readings** - **Jason's bond as the obstacle.** W. M. Ramsay proposed that the security taken from Jason bound the Thessalonian leaders to keep Paul away, so the magistrates' ruling was the hindrance. This is conjecture: the letter never names the obstacle. - **Another obstacle.** The obstacle may have been continued hostility in Thessalonica or circumstances elsewhere; Paul ascribes it to Satan without detail, and Acts' silence may simply mean Luke did not know of the attempts. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 9 (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), no. 3: ### Dating the Thessalonian letters: soon after the founding, during the Corinth stay of Acts 18 The letters give relative clues; Acts supplies the anchor. 1 Thessalonians was written soon after Paul left, when Timothy had just returned, a return usually identified with his arrival from Macedonia early in Paul's eighteen months at Corinth. Gallio's proconsulship, which a Delphi inscription dates about AD 51-52, overlapped that stay, so most scholars date 1 Thessalonians about AD 50-51. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:8-9; 1 Thessalonians 2:17; 1 Thessalonians 3:6; 1 Thessalonians 4:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:2 - **Acts:** Acts 18:2; Acts 18:5; Acts 18:11-12 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul was parted from them briefly; Timothy has just returned; news of their faith has spread; some believers have died. 2 Thessalonians answers a claim that Christ's day had come. **Acts:** Paul meets Aquila and Priscilla, who left Rome under Claudius' order; Silas and Timothy rejoin him; he stays eighteen months and is brought before Gallio, proconsul of Achaia. The letters date themselves only relatively: a short absence, a fresh report from Timothy, time for some believers to die, and later confusion about the day of Christ. That news of their faith had already spread widely (1 Thessalonians 1:8-9) suggests some months had passed. Acts puts all three senders together at Corinth and ties the stay to Claudius' expulsion of Jews from Rome (usually dated 49, by some 41) and to Gallio, whose year a Delphi inscription fixes about 51-52. **Other readings** - **Letters-first chronology.** Knox and Lüdemann build the chronology from the letters; Lüdemann dates Claudius' action against Rome's Jews to 41, places 1 Thessalonians in the early 40s, before the Jerusalem meeting, and assigns Gallio to a later Corinth visit. - **Pseudonymity or reversed order.** Many critical scholars think 2 Thessalonians was written later by someone else, so it tells us nothing about the Corinth stay; others, keeping it Pauline, argue that it came before 1 Thessalonians. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IX, No. III: ### Return visits to Philippi, and the lapse in giving Philippians fits, though it does not require, the return visits Acts records. The letter recalls a partnership since the first day, repeated warnings and support revived after a lack of opportunity; Acts takes Paul through Macedonia twice more on his third journey, sailing from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:5; Philippians 1:26-27; Philippians 2:12; Philippians 2:24; Philippians 3:1; Philippians 3:18; Philippians 4:10; Philippians 4:15; 2 Corinthians 2:13; 2 Corinthians 7:5 - **Acts:** Acts 16:12; Acts 20:1-3; Acts 20:6 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul hopes to be with them again, recalls their obedience in his presence and absence and his frequent warnings, and rejoices that their care, long without opportunity, has revived. **Acts:** After Ephesus Paul goes through Macedonia to Greece, returns through Macedonia to avoid a plot, and sails from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread. Paley argued that calling the founding the beginning of the gospel implies later stages, though the phrase may simply mean the mission's early days. Acts 20 supplies two further passes through Macedonia, naming Philippi on the return, and 2 Corinthians also places Paul in Macedonia then. On the Roman view, the hoped-for visit lies beyond the end of Acts, and the lapse in giving may span his arrest and custody; the letter says only that they lacked opportunity. **Other readings** - **Written from Ephesus.** If Philippians was written in an Ephesian imprisonment, unrecorded in Acts, the visit it hopes for would be the Macedonian journey of Acts 20:1-2, and the lapse would belong to the Ephesus years. - **Founding stay and letters.** Repeated warnings and obedience in Paul's presence could come from the founding stay and later letters (compare Philippians 3:1); the letter itself does not require a return visit before it was written. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. VII, No. III: ### Turmoil in Macedonia and the Macedonian churches' hardship Acts shows the Macedonian churches founded amid beatings, mobs and pursuit, which fits the severe affliction 2 Corinthians reports years later, though Acts never calls them poor. The letter also reports conflict and fear on Paul's arrival in Macedonia and praises the churches' generosity despite poverty; Acts highlights some well-placed converts. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 7:5; 2 Corinthians 8:1-5; 2 Corinthians 8:8; 2 Corinthians 9:2-4; Philippians 1:29-30; Philippians 4:15-16; 1 Thessalonians 1:6; 2 Thessalonians 1:4 - **Acts:** Acts 16:14-15; Acts 16:19-40; Acts 17:4-9; Acts 17:12-13; Acts 20:1-2 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** On reaching Macedonia Paul had no rest, with conflicts outside and fears within; the Macedonian churches, though sorely afflicted and very poor, begged to give beyond their means. **Acts:** Paul and Silas are beaten and jailed at Philippi, a mob attacks Jason's house at Thessalonica, and agitators pursue Paul to Berea; later Paul tours Macedonia encouraging the believers. Acts narrates hostility at the founding of the churches in Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea, and Paul's letters to Thessalonica and Philippi confirm continuing suffering there; 2 Corinthians shows hardship still pressing years later. Acts reports no conflict on the later tour, so the letter adds that detail. A mild tension remains: Acts names a purple-dealer and prominent women among the converts, while the letter stresses poverty; persecution or wider hardship could impoverish churches with a few people of means. **Other readings** - **Selective social picture in Acts.** Luke may favour converts of standing, as with Lydia and the prominent women, so Acts' picture of the Macedonian churches' social level may be selective; the letters are the better guide to their poverty. - **Rhetorical contrast.** Paul holds up Macedonian generosity to spur Corinthian giving (2 Corinthians 8:8; 9:2-4), and Philippi had repeatedly funded him (Philippians 4:15-16), so the poverty language may be heightened for effect rather than a social description. ### Arriving in weakness and fear, and the vision telling Paul not to fear A modest complementary detail, sometimes read as undesigned. Paul recalls being weak, afraid and trembling at Corinth; Acts never says he was afraid there, yet after synagogue opposition it reports a night vision telling him not to fear but keep speaking. The letter's idiom and the vision's reassurance formula are both common, so the link is only suggestive. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; 2 Corinthians 7:15; 2 Corinthians 10:10; Philippians 2:12; 1 Thessalonians 3:6-7 - **Acts:** Acts 17:16-34; Acts 18:1; Acts 18:5-6; Acts 18:9-10; Acts 23:11; Acts 27:23-24 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul came to Corinth without rhetorical brilliance, resolved to proclaim only the crucified Christ, and was weak, fearful and trembling among them, relying on the Spirit's power. **Acts:** After a mixed reception at Athens and synagogue opposition at Corinth, the Lord tells Paul in a night vision not to fear, to keep speaking, and to expect no harm. A command not to fear suggests, without proving, that Paul was afraid, which Acts never narrates; the letter admits fear without naming a cause, and Acts' account of opposition offers a plausible one. Both tie the fear to speaking: the letter to how Paul preached, the vision to whether he would keep preaching. 1 Thessalonians, probably written at Corinth after Timothy arrived, also mentions Paul's distress and affliction then. Ramsay linked Paul's plain resolve to disappointment at Athens, though 1 Corinthians never mentions Athens. **Other readings** - **Fear and trembling as idiom.** Paul uses the pairing of fear and trembling for humble deference (2 Corinthians 7:15; Philippians 2:12), and critics mocked his weak presence and speech (2 Corinthians 10:10), so 1 Corinthians 2:3 may describe manner, not fear of danger. - **Vision as Lukan device.** Reassuring visions recur at turning points in Acts (Acts 23:11; 27:23-24), so the Corinth vision may be Luke's narrative device, or even drawn from 1 Corinthians if he knew it, rather than an independent memory. ### Sosthenes the co-sender and Sosthenes the synagogue ruler Possibly one man, but unproven. 1 Corinthians names a fellow believer, Sosthenes, as Paul's co-sender; Acts names Sosthenes, ruler of the Corinthian synagogue, beaten at Gallio's tribunal after the case against Paul was thrown out. He may have believed later, as Crispus did, but the name was not rare and neither text links the two. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 1:1; 1 Corinthians 16:8 - **Acts:** Acts 18:8; Acts 18:12-17 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul writes jointly with Sosthenes, a fellow believer apparently known to the Corinthians. The letter says nothing else about him and never mentions the hearing before Gallio. **Acts:** After Gallio refused to judge the Jewish charge against Paul, Sosthenes, the synagogue ruler, was seized and beaten before the tribunal, and Gallio showed no concern. If they are one man, Acts gives his past and the letter his later standing: a synagogue ruler who, like Crispus (Acts 18:8), came to faith and was later with Paul at Ephesus. Nothing confirms this. The oldest manuscripts say only that they all seized him; later copies name the Greeks, as the WEB does, or the Jews. Paley argued that a beating by Jews would mark Sosthenes as Paul's friend, but Jews could as easily have turned on a spokesman who lost the case. **Other readings** - **Two different men.** Ramsay preferred the reading with Greeks and judged it probable that two men of that name dealt with Paul at Corinth, a Jewish ruler and a prominent Christian, while allowing a later conversion. - **An early tradition points elsewhere.** Eusebius reports Clement of Alexandria's claim that the co-sender was one of the seventy disciples sent out by Jesus, which sits awkwardly with a Corinthian synagogue ruler. The tradition is late and cannot be checked. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. III (First Corinthians), No. VIII, note: - Eusebius, Church History (A. C. McGiffert, 1890), Church History 1.12.2: - W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, Ch. XI: ### Apollos's eloquence and the Corinthian taste for clever speech Acts supplies what the letter leaves unsaid. 1 Corinthians contrasts Paul's plain preaching with a Corinthian taste for persuasive wisdom and mentions an Apollos faction, but never calls Apollos eloquent; Acts calls him an eloquent Alexandrian who publicly refuted opponents at Corinth. Together they suggest why some preferred him, though the letter never blames him. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 1:17; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; 1 Corinthians 3:18-23; 1 Corinthians 4:6; 1 Corinthians 16:12 - **Acts:** Acts 18:24; Acts 18:27-28; Acts 19:1 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul says he preached without eloquence or clever wisdom, relying on God's power; he rebukes those who rally to Paul or Apollos, yet treats Apollos as a colleague. **Acts:** Apollos was an eloquent Alexandrian Jew, powerful in the Scriptures, who at Corinth vigorously and publicly refuted Jewish opponents, arguing from Scripture that Jesus is the Messiah. Ramsay read the letter as answering an unfavourable comparison with Apollos's more polished style, which Acts' portrait would explain. The link is an inference, and Luke may have chosen his details with the letter in view. Acts' word for Apollos can mean learned as well as eloquent, and Paul applies the party names to himself and Apollos as an illustration (1 Corinthians 4:6), aiming at the Corinthians' boasting rather than at Apollos, whom he urged to visit them (1 Corinthians 16:12). **Other readings** - **Corinthian culture, not Apollos.** The prized wisdom may reflect Corinth's admiration for orators and sophists generally, as Bruce Winter argues, so Apollos's style need not be the cause; Paul never names him as the source of the problem. - **A different fault line.** F. C. Baur argued that the real divide set Paul and Apollos together against a Cephas party of Jewish believers, so the quarrel concerned Paul's gospel and authority more than eloquence. ### Apollos and Zenas sent on their way; Artemas and Zenas unknown to Acts A small fit with a large caveat. Titus asks that Zenas the lawyer and Apollos be sent on promptly with all they need, matching Acts' picture of Apollos as a travelling teacher whom believers encouraged and commended on his way. But Apollos's name was available from Acts or 1 Corinthians, and the letter's authorship and setting are disputed. - **The letter:** Titus 1:5; Titus 3:12-13; 1 Corinthians 16:6; 1 Corinthians 16:11; 1 Corinthians 16:12 - **Acts:** Acts 15:3; Acts 18:24-28; Acts 19:1; Acts 20:4; Acts 20:38; Acts 21:5; Acts 27:7-13 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** Titus, left in Crete, is to come to Paul at Nicopolis when Artemas or Tychicus arrives, and to send Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on promptly, lacking nothing. **Acts:** Apollos, an eloquent Alexandrian, crossed from Ephesus to Achaia with the Ephesian believers' encouragement and letter. Elsewhere Acts uses Titus's verb for churches seeing travellers off. Titus 3:13 uses propempo, the usual term for a church equipping and escorting travellers, which Acts applies at Antioch, Miletus and Tyre and Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 16:6 and 16:11. Tychicus (Acts 20:4) and Apollos appear in Acts; Artemas, Zenas and Titus himself do not. 'Lawyer' may mean an expert in Jewish law, as in Luke's Gospel, or a Roman jurist. Acts brings Paul to Crete only as a prisoner sailing past (Acts 27:7-13) and never names Nicopolis. **Other readings** - **After Acts ends.** Paley, like many who accept Pauline authorship, placed Titus after a release from the Roman custody that closes Acts, which would explain its silence on Crete and Nicopolis. He admitted the route was largely hypothetical. - **Names for realism.** If the Pastorals are pseudonymous, as many scholars hold, a later author could borrow Apollos and Tychicus from Acts or the letters and add unknown names for realism, so the fit proves little. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. XIII (Titus), No. II: ### Letters of recommendation Acts shows the same custom Paul mentions, in the same network. 2 Corinthians asks whether Paul, like some others, needs letters of recommendation to or from Corinth; Acts shows the Ephesian believers writing ahead to Achaia to welcome Apollos. Paley thought that letter was Paul's very target, but the others Paul means are more likely rivals than Apollos. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 3:1-3; 2 Corinthians 10:12-18; Romans 16:1-2; 1 Corinthians 3:9; 1 Corinthians 16:3 - **Acts:** Acts 9:2; Acts 15:23-30; Acts 18:27; Acts 22:5 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul asks if he needs, like some, letters of recommendation to or from the Corinthians; they themselves are his letter. He writes such a commendation for Phoebe. **Acts:** When Apollos crossed to Achaia, the Ephesian believers wrote asking the disciples to welcome him. Acts also mentions letters authorising Saul and the Jerusalem council's letter. The practice matches in the same network and direction: a church writing ahead to Corinth for a travelling teacher. Paley first proposed that Apollos's letter was the one Paul meant, then allowed that Paul may refer to the general usage, which the Apollos case illustrates. The second reading is safer: those carrying letters are most likely the self-commending rivals of 2 Corinthians 10:12-18, while Paul counts Apollos a fellow worker (1 Corinthians 3:9). **Other readings** - **Paley's specific reference.** If some Corinthians weighed Apollos's credentials against Paul's, the remark could include him, as Paley held, but neither letter shows such a contest. - **A widespread custom.** Letters commending travellers were a standard ancient genre, and Paul writes them himself, so the agreement shows that Acts knows the period's habits, not that it knew this passage. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. IV (Second Corinthians), No. X: ### Tongues and prophecy at Ephesus 1 Corinthians, written at Ephesus, weighs tongues against prophecy and has Paul claim to speak in tongues more than all the Corinthians. Acts reports that at Ephesus about twelve disciples, on receiving the Spirit through Paul, spoke in tongues and prophesied. The pairing matches, but both writers present these gifts as widespread, so the link is modest. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 12:10; 1 Corinthians 12:28-30; 1 Corinthians 14:1-5; 1 Corinthians 14:18; 1 Corinthians 14:39 - **Acts:** Acts 2:4; Acts 2:16-18; Acts 19:1-7 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul lists tongues and prophecy among the Spirit's gifts, ranks prophecy higher unless tongues are interpreted, thanks God he speaks in tongues more than all, and forbids banning tongues. **Acts:** At Ephesus Paul meets about twelve disciples who had received only John's baptism; after baptism in Jesus' name and Paul's laying on of hands, they speak in tongues and prophesy. Acts never shows Paul himself speaking in tongues; the letter supplies that, and Acts supplies an Ephesian occasion where the same two gifts appear together under Paul's ministry, in the city from which he wrote 1 Corinthians. The fit is natural but loose: the letter addresses Corinthian practice, not Ephesian memories, and Luke already presents the Pentecost tongues as Joel's promised prophesying (Acts 2:4, 2:16-18). It shows consistent portraits rather than independent confirmation of the Acts 19 episode. **Other readings** - **A Lukan pattern.** Acts 19:1-7 echoes Pentecost, Samaria and Cornelius's house, where new groups receive the Spirit in marked ways; some critics see Luke's construction, making the agreement with the letter thematic only. - **Different settings.** Acts shows tongues only when a group first receives the Spirit; 1 Corinthians treats them as a recurring part of worship, so the two texts need not describe the same practice. ### Sealed on believing, one baptism, and the twelve at Ephesus Ephesians says its readers were sealed with the Spirit when they believed and stresses one Spirit and one baptism. In Acts, Paul asks some disciples at Ephesus whether they received the Spirit when they believed; they knew only John's baptism. The wording resonates, but the link is thematic and the letter's address is uncertain. - **The letter:** Ephesians 1:1; Ephesians 1:13-14; Ephesians 4:4-5; Ephesians 4:30; Galatians 3:2; 2 Corinthians 1:22 - **Acts:** Acts 11:17; Acts 18:24-26; Acts 19:1-7 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** When the readers believed the gospel, God marked them with the promised Spirit as seal and pledge; they must not grieve the Spirit. There is one Spirit, one baptism. **Acts:** Priscilla and Aquila instruct Apollos, who knew only John's baptism. Paul asks disciples if they received the Spirit on believing; after baptism and his laying on of hands, they do. Both texts use the same Greek participle (pisteusantes, on believing) of the Spirit (Ephesians 1:13; Acts 19:2), and where Acts shows John's baptism beside baptism in Jesus' name, 'one baptism' may have had local point. But in Acts the Spirit comes after baptism, through Paul's hands; elsewhere Luke and Paul tie Spirit to believing (Acts 11:17; Galatians 3:2) and Paul speaks of sealing (2 Corinthians 1:22); and the words naming Ephesus are missing from the earliest manuscripts of Ephesians 1:1. The resonance is suggestive, not evidential. **Other readings** - **The initiation debate.** Pentecostal readers, following older translations, took both participles as 'after believing', a later Spirit-baptism; James Dunn argued they mark one moment and that the twelve were not yet Christians; Robert Menzies reads Luke's Spirit as prophetic empowerment. - **Not an Ephesian letter.** If Ephesians was a circular letter or written after Paul, its Spirit language reflects general Pauline teaching, and the Ephesian episode in Acts adds no specific link. ### Powers, the devil and works of darkness, against the magic and Artemis of Acts 19 Ephesians speaks much of Christ's supremacy over rulers and powers, of spiritual warfare and of secret deeds of darkness. Acts' Ephesus is a city of exorcism, costly magic books burned by converts and a powerful Artemis cult. Some scholars read the letter's language against that setting; the fit is regional and thematic, not proof. - **The letter:** Ephesians 1:19-21; Ephesians 2:2; Ephesians 3:10; Ephesians 5:11-12; Ephesians 6:10-17; Colossians 1:16; Colossians 2:15; Romans 8:38; 1 Corinthians 15:24 - **Acts:** Acts 19:11-20; Acts 19:23-28; Acts 19:35 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** Christ reigns above every power; the church displays God's wisdom to heavenly powers; believers arm against the devil and expose secret deeds of darkness. **Acts:** God heals and expels spirits through Paul; Sceva's sons are routed; converts burn magic books worth fifty thousand silver coins; Demetrius's guild riots for Artemis, whose temple Ephesus keeps. Clinton Arnold argued that the letter's power vocabulary speaks to converts from the world Acts 19 depicts, where magic and the Artemis cult loomed large; Acts reports such converts at Ephesus (Acts 19:18-19). Caution is needed: the letter never names magic or Artemis, Colossians uses similar language for Colossae, another city of Asia (Colossians 1:16; Colossians 2:15), Jewish apocalyptic writing shares it, and the letter's address is uncertain. The fit is regional and thematic. **Other readings** - **Jewish and Pauline background.** Language of rulers and powers comes from Jewish apocalyptic thought and early Christian confession and appears also in Romans 8:38 and 1 Corinthians 15:24, so it needs no Ephesian setting. - **Regional, not local.** If Ephesians was a circular letter for Asia or written after Paul, Acts 19 still describes its region's religious climate but cannot show that the letter addressed Ephesian converts. ### A spring letter: Passover imagery and Pentecost 1 Corinthians was probably written in spring: Paul will stay at Ephesus until Pentecost and hopes perhaps to winter at Corinth. Acts' later narrative also reckons Paul's travel by feasts: after three months in Greece he leaves Philippi after Unleavened Bread and hurries to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; 1 Corinthians 16:6; 1 Corinthians 16:8 - **Acts:** Acts 20:3; Acts 20:6; Acts 20:16 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul will stay at Ephesus until Pentecost, then perhaps winter at Corinth; he urges the church to get rid of old yeast, because Christ is their sacrificed Passover lamb. **Acts:** After three months in Greece, Paul sails from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread and hurries past Ephesus to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost. The letter's notes suggest a season: written before Pentecost, with the winter it hopes to spend at Corinth apparently still ahead, so most naturally spring, near Passover. Paley thought the yeast-and-feast language suited that season. Acts fits the hoped-for winter: three months in Greece end before Paul sails from Philippi after Unleavened Bread (Acts 20:3 and Acts 20:6), and the voyage is timed to Pentecost. **Other readings** - **Imagery fits any season.** Passover imagery need not date the letter: Paul could use yeast and Passover language in any season, so the dating rests mainly on the Pentecost note. - **A different winter.** Many reconstructions place a painful visit and a lost letter between 1 Corinthians and Paul's arrival, so the winter he hoped for may not be the three months of Acts 20:3. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 3 (1 Corinthians), no. 12: ### The changed travel plan and the intended sailing for Judea 2 Corinthians reveals a plan Paul dropped: Corinth, Macedonia, Corinth again, then Judea. Acts records only the route taken, Macedonia then Greece, and a planned sailing for Syria that a plot diverted. The letter supplies background Acts omits; how the change relates to 1 Corinthians is disputed. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 4:17; 1 Corinthians 16:5-7; 2 Corinthians 1:15-17; 2 Corinthians 1:23-2:4 - **Acts:** Acts 19:21-22; Acts 20:1-3; Acts 21:3 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul had planned to visit Corinth before and after Macedonia and be sent on to Judea; he denies fickleness in dropping it, saying he stayed away to spare them. **Acts:** From Ephesus Paul goes through Macedonia to Greece, stays three months, and is about to sail for Syria when a plot sends him back through Macedonia. Both texts aim Paul at Judea from Corinth (Greece in Acts): the letter expects the Corinthians to send him there, and Acts has him about to sail from Greece for Syria, the sea route to Judea. Acts never mentions the abandoned double visit or the criticism it caused. Paley argued that two independent lines, Acts read with 1 Corinthians 4:17 and 2 Corinthians 2:1-4, each show the plan changed before 1 Corinthians; the second requires the tearful letter to be 1 Corinthians. **Other readings** - **Change after 1 Corinthians.** Many modern commentators take the tearful letter as lost: after 1 Corinthians Paul made a painful visit and adopted the double-visit plan, then dropped the return leg and wrote instead. So the change came after 1 Corinthians. - **Luke's redaction.** Schellenberg treats the plot and change of route at Acts 20:3 as Luke's own redaction, perhaps a loose echo of Paul's changed plans, rather than independent confirmation. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 4 (2 Corinthians), no. 4: ### Troas: an opening for the gospel, but no Titus 2 Corinthians says Paul stopped at Troas on his way to Macedonia and found an opening for the gospel, a stop Acts omits. On the return journey Acts shows a settled group of disciples at Troas whose beginnings it never narrates. Each account modestly fills a gap in the other. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 2:12-13; 2 Corinthians 7:5-7 - **Acts:** Acts 16:8-11; Acts 19:10; Acts 20:1; Acts 20:5-12 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul came to Troas to preach and found an opening, but, uneasy at not finding Titus, he left for Macedonia, where Titus arrived with comforting news. **Acts:** Acts 20:1 says only that Paul left Ephesus for Macedonia. Returning months later, he spends a week at Troas with disciples who gather to break bread. Acts presupposes a church at Troas but never tells how it began; earlier, Troas is only a crossing point. The letter's opening there on the outward journey offers a plausible start, though Acts 19:10 implies the word had already spread through Asia, Troas included. Paley noted that the letter stops Paul at Troas on one journey and Acts on another, a fit by probability rather than stated facts. Acts never names Titus, so it shows no sign of drawing on this passage. **Other readings** - **The letter as Luke's source.** Schellenberg notes that 2 Corinthians 2:12 attests Paul at Troas and argues Luke built much of the route from the letters, though he allows that the detailed travel notes around Troas on the return voyage may be another matter. - **Only the obvious port.** Troas was the natural port between Asia and Macedonia, so both texts would mention it anyway; the fit shows consistency rather than independent proof. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 4 (2 Corinthians), no. 8: ### The first day of the week and breaking bread Both 1 Corinthians and Acts single out the first day of the week in Paul's churches: Paul tells the Corinthians to set money aside on that day, and Acts shows believers at Troas gathered on it to break bread. Neither says the Corinthians met on that day, so the link is suggestive, not proof. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; 1 Corinthians 11:20-26; 1 Corinthians 16:2 - **Acts:** Acts 2:42; Acts 2:46; Acts 20:7; Acts 20:11 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul tells each Corinthian to set money aside weekly, on the first day, and rebukes abuses at their gatherings for the Lord's Supper of bread and cup. **Acts:** At Troas believers meet on the first day of the week to break bread, and Paul breaks bread after midnight; earlier, Jerusalem believers devote themselves to breaking bread. The texts meet at one point: both treat the first day of the week as a marker in congregations linked with Paul in the 50s. Paul's choice of that day for setting money aside suggests a recurring significance, and Acts supplies a gathering on it, though Acts 20:7 may mean Saturday evening by Jewish reckoning. Paul's own use of breaking bread for the Supper (1 Corinthians 10:16) favours reading Acts' phrase as the Lord's Supper, though Acts 2:46 links it with meals at home. **Other readings** - **Practical, not liturgical.** Bacchiocchi and others read 1 Corinthians 16:2 as private saving at home and Acts 20:7 as a one-off Saturday-evening farewell, so neither shows regular first-day worship, which they date later. - **An early weekly practice.** Rordorf argued that first-day gatherings go back to the earliest churches, rooted in the resurrection appearances, and that these passages are among their earliest witnesses. ### Dangers from his own people and from Gentiles; riots 2 Corinthians lists dangers from Paul's own people and from Gentiles, in city and wilderness, and riots. Acts shows the same pattern in many places: Jewish opposition from Pisidian Antioch to Corinth, and Gentile crowds at Philippi and Ephesus. The agreement is in pattern; the letter's rivers and bandits have no Acts counterpart. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 4:8-9; 2 Corinthians 6:5; 2 Corinthians 11:24; 2 Corinthians 11:26 - **Acts:** Acts 9:29; Acts 13:13-14; Acts 13:50; Acts 14:2-5; Acts 14:19; Acts 16:19-22; Acts 17:5-9; Acts 17:13; Acts 18:12-17; Acts 19:23-41 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Among his hardships Paul lists frequent journeys, dangers from rivers, bandits, his own countrymen and Gentiles, in city, wilderness and sea, plus beatings, imprisonments and riots. **Acts:** Jews plot against Paul at Jerusalem and stir opposition from Pisidian Antioch to Corinth; Gentile crowds riot against him and his companions at Philippi and Ephesus. Acts gives cases for several of the letter's categories, and the letter attests in Paul's own voice the pattern Acts narrates: opposition from both Jews and Gentiles, often in cities. The same letter's five synagogue floggings (2 Corinthians 11:24), which Acts never mentions, show Jewish hostility is not merely a Lukan theme, though Acts' recurring scenes may be stylised. Rivers and bandits are often linked with the road from Perga to Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:14), but Acts records no such incident. **Other readings** - **Luke's schema.** Some critics, such as Jack T. Sanders, see Acts' repeated Jewish instigation of riots as a polemical pattern imposed by Luke, so individual scenes may be stylised even where Paul confirms opposition in general. - **A conventional catalogue.** Hardship lists were a literary form among moralists, so the categories may be rhetorical and comprehensive rather than a record of specific events, making any match with Acts loose by nature. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. IX, on 2 Corinthians 11:24-25; New York 1849 edition, p. 84: ### Jews first: synagogue preaching and five floggings The letters and Acts agree that Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, kept reaching out to Jews. Romans gives the gospel priority for Jews; Acts shows Paul beginning in the synagogue city after city. 2 Corinthians adds five Jewish floggings that Acts never mentions, which may confirm continued synagogue contact, though where they happened is debated. - **The letter:** Romans 1:16; Romans 11:13-14; 1 Corinthians 9:20; 2 Corinthians 11:24; Galatians 2:7-9 - **Acts:** Acts 9:20; Acts 13:5; Acts 13:14; Acts 13:46-47; Acts 14:1; Acts 16:22-23; Acts 17:1-2; Acts 17:10; Acts 17:17; Acts 18:4-6; Acts 19:8-9; Acts 22:19; Acts 26:11; Acts 28:17-28 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Romans gives the gospel priority for Jews; the Gentiles' apostle hopes to save some of his people and adapts to Jews; five times Jews gave him thirty-nine lashes. **Acts:** In city after city Paul first preaches in the synagogue, saying the word had to reach Jews first, and turns to Gentiles when opposed; no Jewish lashing is recorded. The letters give Jews priority and show Paul seeking them; Acts makes this a recurring synagogue-first pattern. Romans 1:16 and Acts 13:46 share the idea of priority for Jews, so Acts could reflect Pauline tradition here. The floggings, absent from Acts, are independent: if they were synagogue discipline, Paul kept entering synagogues and accepting their jurisdiction, as Acts implies, and Acts itself shows synagogues punishing believers (Acts 22:19; Acts 26:11). **Other readings** - **A Lukan pattern.** Many critics read the repeated synagogue-then-Gentiles sequence as Luke's theological schema rather than a record, and Galatians 2:7-9, which assigns Paul to the Gentiles and Peter to the circumcised, may suggest less synagogue work than Acts depicts. - **Floggings in Judea.** Oehler argues that diaspora synagogues could not legally inflict corporal punishment, so local courts in Judea or Galilee imposed the lashes; if so, they say little about synagogue preaching in the cities Acts describes. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter IV, No. IX: ### Fear of unbelievers in Judea, and the dangers Acts narrates Romans asks for prayer that Paul be rescued from unbelievers in Judea. Acts, without echoing the wording, shows the danger growing on that journey and then arriving: warnings in every city, a riot in the temple, a sworn plot to kill him and a planned ambush. He is rescued, but by Roman soldiers who keep him prisoner. - **The letter:** Romans 15:30-32 - **Acts:** Acts 20:3; Acts 20:22-23; Acts 21:4; Acts 21:10-14; Acts 21:17-26; Acts 21:27-36; Acts 23:12-22; Acts 23:23-35; Acts 25:3 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul asks the Romans to pray for rescue from unbelievers in Judea, for the Jerusalem saints to accept his service, and for a joyful arrival in Rome. **Acts:** A plot in Greece; warnings reported at Miletus and given at Tyre and Caesarea; a temple riot; over forty men sworn to kill him; a later ambush plan. The two accounts share no wording but describe the same journey and the same fear. Paley noted that Paul sounds more anxious at Miletus than in Romans, as expected if the warnings Acts mentions came along the way. Acts then supplies what Romans could not know: the fear proved justified, and the commander's troops rescued Paul (Acts 23:27) only to hold him in custody for years. Acts never says whether the saints accepted the gift, Romans' second worry; it shows a glad welcome but suspicion of Paul (Acts 21:17-24). **Other readings** - **Literary dependence.** If Luke knew Paul's letters, as some argue, Romans 15:31 could have shaped Acts' story of mounting danger, and the agreement would not be independent evidence. - **Predictable danger.** Hostility toward Paul in Jerusalem was predictable, so a general fear in a letter and a story of danger in Acts could agree without either confirming the other's details. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul, ch. II (Epistle to the Romans), No. V: ### From Jerusalem round to Illyricum Romans says Paul has completed his preaching from Jerusalem round to Illyricum, a region Acts never names. Acts' first Macedonian route stays in the east, but its later report that Paul went through those regions before reaching Greece leaves room for a westward push. The fit is compatibility, not confirmation. - **The letter:** Romans 15:19-20 - **Acts:** Acts 16:11-17:15; Acts 20:1-2 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul says he has completed preaching the gospel in a circuit from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum, choosing places where Christ was not yet known. **Acts:** Acts traces Paul from Philippi through Thessalonica and Berea to Athens, and later says only that he went through Macedonia encouraging believers before reaching Greece. Illyricum bordered Macedonia to the north-west. Acts' first route keeps Paul in eastern Macedonia and then sends him south, so Paley placed any approach to Illyricum on the later Macedonian tour, shortly before Romans was written. Since Acts never names Illyricum, Romans cannot have taken the name from Acts. But Acts' summary of that tour is too brief to confirm or exclude a visit. **Other readings** - **Border, not province.** Paul may mean he reached Illyricum's border rather than entering it, as Paley thought. That narrows the claim but not the gap: Acts still narrates no route that far west. - **A rhetorical sketch.** The phrase may be a rhetorical sketch of the whole eastern mission rather than an itinerary, so neither Romans nor Acts fixes the westernmost point Paul actually reached. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul, ch. II (Epistle to the Romans), No. IV: ### Phoebe and the port of Cenchreae Paul recommends Phoebe and notes her service in Cenchreae’s congregation. Acts places his party at this port east of Corinth before a departure for Syria. The fit has limited geographical force, with no apparent borrowing between the otherwise unconnected details; it does not independently confirm either event. - **The letter:** Romans 16:1-2; Romans 16:23 - **Acts:** Acts 18:18 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul commends Phoebe, a servant (diakonos) of the church at Cenchreae who has helped many, Paul included, and asks the Romans to welcome and assist her. **Acts:** At the end of his first stay in Corinth, Paul has his hair cut at Cenchreae because of a vow, then sails for Syria with Priscilla and Aquila. Romans names a church at Cenchreae, which with Romans 16:23 suggests a Corinthian setting for the letter; Acts shows Paul using the port years earlier without mentioning believers there. Neither detail explains the other: the vow has nothing to do with Phoebe, and Romans says nothing of the earlier departure. Paley asked whether either writer could have invented his detail from the other. The agreement fits the setting; it does not confirm the events. **Other readings** - **Dependence or geography.** If Luke knew Romans, Romans 16:1 could have supplied Cenchreae, though the vow story has no link to Phoebe; and any writer placing Paul at Corinth might name its eastern port. - **Whose vow.** The Greek of Acts 18:18 could, less naturally, mean that Aquila rather than Paul cut his hair; either way, Acts places Paul's party at Cenchreae. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul, ch. II (Epistle to the Romans), No. II: ### Erastus: Paul's helper in Acts and the city treasurer in Romans Possibly one man, but unproven. Acts names Erastus as a helper Paul sent from Ephesus into Macedonia with Timothy; Romans, probably written from Corinth on the following visit, sends greetings from Erastus the city treasurer; 2 Timothy says Erastus stayed at Corinth. Paley read these as one Corinthian, but Acts never ties its Erastus to Corinth. - **The letter:** Romans 16:1; Romans 16:23; 2 Timothy 4:20 - **Acts:** Acts 19:22; Acts 20:1-3 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** Romans sends greetings from Erastus, the city treasurer, alongside Paul's host Gaius; 2 Timothy reports that Erastus remained at Corinth. **Acts:** At Ephesus Paul sends two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, ahead into Macedonia while he stays on in Asia, then follows through Macedonia to Greece. If one man, the pieces fit: Erastus went ahead into Macedonia, Paul followed to Greece, and Romans, probably written at Corinth, finds Erastus there in civic office. Paley took 2 Timothy's note that Erastus stayed at Corinth to mean it was his home, though Paley himself placed that note on a journey after Acts ends. The link also leans on 2 Timothy, whose authorship many doubt, and Acts never ties its Erastus to Corinth or office. **Other readings** - **Different men.** Acts' Erastus is a travelling assistant, Romans' a serving city official hardly free to travel; the name was borne by prominent men at Ephesus too, and Acts never links its Erastus to Corinth. - **The Corinthian aedile.** Some identify Romans' treasurer with the Erastus who paved a Corinthian square as aedile, making him a prominent convert; others redate the pavement to the second century or read the treasurer as a lower official. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 2, no. 2: ### A Roman church older than Paul's visit Both Romans and Acts assume a church in Rome before Paul arrived. Romans addresses established believers whose faith is reported everywhere and whom Paul has long wanted to visit; Acts never narrates the founding but has believers come out from Rome to meet him. Neither credits Paul with founding it, though later tradition did. - **The letter:** Romans 1:7-8; Romans 1:13; Romans 15:20-23; Romans 16:3-16 - **Acts:** Acts 2:10; Acts 18:2; Acts 28:13-15 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul writes to a church he has not visited, whose faith is reported worldwide; he avoids building on others' foundations, and greets many there, including Prisca and Aquila. **Acts:** Jews and proselytes from Rome are at Pentecost; Aquila and Priscilla arrive from Italy after Claudius expels Jews from Rome; believers at Puteoli and from Rome welcome Paul. Acts offers possible channels, not a founding story: Jews and proselytes from Rome at Pentecost, and Aquila and Priscilla, newly from Italy, whose conversion is never told, perhaps because they already believed. A letter sent some years before could explain why believers came out to the Forum of Appius to meet Paul. Of those Romans greets, Acts names only Priscilla and Aquila. Irenaeus later named Peter and Paul as founders, but both texts show believers there first. **Other readings** - **Romans 16 sent to Ephesus.** T. W. Manson argued Romans 16 was sent to Ephesus, where Acts leaves Priscilla and Aquila; if so, the long list does not describe Rome. Most recent scholars, following Harry Gamble and Peter Lampe, keep it with Rome. - **Founded by Peter.** Later tradition (Irenaeus) names Peter and Paul as founders, and some place Peter in Rome early. Romans' silence about Peter, despite its long greeting list, makes an apostolic founding before the letter hard to show. **Sources** - Irenaeus, Against Heresies (A. Roberts and W. H. Rambaut, 1885), 3.3.2: ### God's witness in creation and his patience with past ages They share an argument but differ in tone. Romans and the speeches at Lystra and Athens say the Creator left evidence of himself in creation, that idol images are folly, that God bore with past ages, and that judgment comes through Christ. Romans uses this to condemn; Acts, as common ground. Whether the speeches reflect Paul or Luke is debated. - **The letter:** Romans 1:18-25; Romans 2:4; Romans 2:14-16; Romans 3:25-26; 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 - **Acts:** Acts 14:15-17; Acts 17:24-31 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** God's power and divinity are seen in creation, leaving people without excuse for idol images; God passed over earlier sins in forbearance, and will judge through Christ. **Acts:** At Lystra with Barnabas, and at Athens, Paul says God witnessed through rain and harvests, overlooked past ignorance, needs no temples or images, and will judge through the risen man. The overlap is specific: creation as witness, the folly of images, God's forbearance toward earlier sin (Acts 14:16; 17:30; Romans 2:4; 3:25) and judgment through the risen Christ, which 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 also gives as Paul's message to pagans. The difference is real: Romans calls pagan ignorance culpable and has God handing idolaters over to their desires, where Athens calls it ignorance God overlooked. Audience explains part of this, and Acts gives the speeches only in summary. **Other readings** - **Un-Pauline natural theology.** Philipp Vielhauer argued the Areopagus speech's positive natural theology, treating pagan religion as ignorant seeking, is foreign to Romans 1, where knowledge of God only condemns; on this view Luke, not Paul, speaks. - **Same theology, different audience.** Bertil Gärtner argued the speech draws on Old Testament and Jewish thought rather than Stoicism and fits Romans 1; preaching to outsiders naturally starts from common ground, while Romans explains the same ideas to believers. ### An ambassador in a chain and Paul's soldier guard in Rome A small fit, weaker than Paley thought. Ephesians calls Paul an ambassador in a chain, singular in Greek; Acts has him in Rome living with one soldier guard and speaking of the chain he wears. Paley saw an undesigned coincidence, but the singular is not confined to this custody, and the letter's authorship and place of writing are disputed. - **The letter:** Ephesians 6:19-20; Colossians 4:3; 2 Timothy 1:16-17 - **Acts:** Acts 12:6-7; Acts 21:33; Acts 24:27; Acts 26:29; Acts 28:16; Acts 28:20 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul seeks prayer for boldness as an ambassador in a chain, singular in Greek; Colossians' parallel says only he is bound; 2 Timothy, set in Rome, mentions his chain. **Acts:** Peter sleeps between two soldiers in two chains, and Paul is first bound with two; in Rome Paul lives alone with his guard and speaks of his chain. Paley, citing Lardner, held that Roman soldier custody chained a prisoner to one guard, and Acts 28 fits that picture; he added that a forger copying Acts would not have left the detail out of Colossians, whose parallel says only that Paul is bound. But the singular is used of other binding (Revelation 20:1), 2 Timothy 1:16-17 also places its chain in Rome, Paul was held under guard at Caesarea too, and anyone who knew of his Roman custody could write this. **Other readings** - **Paley: undesigned coincidence.** Paley held the singular chain was used only for this soldier custody, so the letter's wording reflects Paul's real situation in Rome, and an impostor would have used it in both twin letters. - **A conventional image.** Chains were a stock image of Paul the prisoner; a later author of Ephesians, or Paul writing from another custody, could use the singular without any knowledge of Acts 28, so the match proves little. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 6, no. 5: ### Echoes of the Miletus speech to the Ephesian elders Paul's farewell to the Ephesian elders at Miletus, his only full speech to Christians in Acts, shares wording and ideas with Ephesians: all humility, God's counsel, a church acquired by blood, an inheritance among the holy, and building up. The parallels are real; whether they reflect Paul's idiom, Luke's use of letters, or shared tradition is disputed. - **The letter:** Ephesians 1:1; Ephesians 1:7; Ephesians 1:11; Ephesians 1:14; Ephesians 1:18; Ephesians 4:2; Ephesians 4:12; Ephesians 4:16 - **Acts:** Acts 20:13-15; Acts 20:17-21; Acts 20:27-28; Acts 20:31-32; Acts 26:18 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Ephesians urges all humility, speaks of God's counsel, redemption through Christ's blood, God's own possession, the inheritance among the saints, and a body that builds itself up. **Acts:** Paul recalls serving with all humility and declaring God's whole counsel, charges the elders to shepherd the church acquired with his own blood, and commends them to the upbuilding word. One phrase is distinctive: 'with all humility' (meta pases tapeinophrosynes) occurs in the New Testament only at Acts 20:19 and Ephesians 4:2, and the speech's verb for acquiring shares a root with 'possession' in Ephesians 1:14. Other terms prove less: God's counsel (boule) is frequent in Luke-Acts, the inheritance phrase recurs at Acts 26:18, and building up is common in Paul. The speech recalls three years together; Ephesians recalls nothing shared, and early manuscripts lack 'in Ephesus' (Ephesians 1:1). **Other readings** - **Paul's own idiom.** The narrator is in the party sailing to Miletus (Acts 20:13-15), so the speech may come from a hearer who kept Paul's phrasing. Speech and letter would then both preserve how Paul spoke to the churches of Asia. - **Luke used letters or tradition.** Aejmelaeus and Pervo argued that Luke knew Paul's letters and composed with them. If Ephesians is post-Pauline, speech and letter may instead share one later Asian tradition about Paul. ### The ascended Christ gives gifts; filled with the Spirit, not wine Ephesians and Peter's Pentecost speech share a pattern: Christ raised, seated at God's right hand as Psalm 110 says, ascended, and giving from heaven. In Ephesians the gifts are grace and ministers; in Acts the gift is the Spirit. The letters never mention Pentecost, so the link lies in shared belief and use of the Psalms, not literary contact. - **The letter:** Ephesians 1:20-22; Ephesians 4:7-11; Ephesians 5:18; 1 Corinthians 15:25-27; Romans 13:13 - **Acts:** Acts 1:9-12; Acts 2:4; Acts 2:13-17; Acts 2:33-35 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** God seated Christ at his right hand above every power; citing Psalm 68, the letter says Christ ascended and gave gifts. Believers must be Spirit-filled, not drunk with wine. **Acts:** Jesus is taken up from the Mount of Olives. At Pentecost the Spirit-filled disciples are mocked as drunk; Peter says the exalted Jesus received and poured out the Spirit. Psalm 110 and the right hand are common ground: Peter uses them in Acts, and Paul pairs Psalm 110 with Psalm 8 (1 Corinthians 15:25-27) as Ephesians 1:20-22 does. Ephesians reads Psalm 68:18, where the victor receives gifts, as Christ giving them; Acts has the exalted Jesus receive the Spirit and pour it out. The wine clause echoes Greek Proverbs 23:31, and Paul warns against drunkenness elsewhere (Romans 13:13), so the contrast may owe nothing to Pentecost. **Other readings** - **A descent at Pentecost.** Harris argued that the descent in Ephesians 4:9-10 is the ascended Christ returning as the Spirit at Pentecost, drawing on Jewish readings of Psalm 68 about Moses at Sinai. That would tie the letter closer to Acts. - **Exaltation only.** Most interpreters read the descent as the incarnation or as Christ's descent to the grave or underworld at his death. Ephesians then speaks only of exaltation and gifts, and its link with Pentecost is thematic at most. ### Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers: each appears in Acts Ephesians lists the ministries Christ gave: apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers, with apostles and prophets as the foundation. Acts shows them at work: prophets and teachers at Antioch, Agabus, Judas and Silas as prophets, Philip the evangelist, elders told to shepherd the flock. The roles largely match, though Acts seldom calls Paul an apostle. Ephesians' date is disputed. - **The letter:** Ephesians 2:20; Ephesians 3:5; Ephesians 4:11-12; 2 Timothy 4:5; 1 Corinthians 12:28; 1 Corinthians 3:11; 1 Peter 5:2 - **Acts:** Acts 11:27-28; Acts 13:1-2; Acts 14:4; Acts 14:14; Acts 15:32; Acts 19:6; Acts 20:28; Acts 21:8-11 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers to equip the saints; the church is built on apostles and prophets, to whom the mystery was revealed. **Acts:** Prophets and teachers serve at Antioch; Agabus twice prophesies; Judas and Silas are prophets; Philip is called the evangelist; the Ephesian elders must shepherd God's flock. Evangelist occurs only three times in the New Testament: Acts 21:8, Ephesians 4:11 and 2 Timothy 4:5. Only Ephesians calls church leaders shepherds, while Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:2 give elders the verb. 1 Corinthians 12:28 already ranks apostles, prophets and teachers, so the list is not peculiar to Ephesians. One difference: Acts nearly always keeps 'apostle' for the Twelve, calling Barnabas and Paul apostles only at Acts 14:4 and 14:14. **Other readings** - **Looking back on a finished era.** Many critical scholars read a church built on apostles and prophets, where 1 Corinthians 3:11 makes Christ the only foundation, as a later generation's view of a finished founding age; Käsemann set Ephesians beside Acts as post-apostolic. - **A charter in Paul's lifetime.** If Paul wrote Ephesians, the foundation is the first generation still at work, and the gifts are those Acts shows active in the 40s and 50s, with prophets beside apostles as in 1 Corinthians 12:28. ### A custody open to visitors, couriers and bold preaching The captivity letters assume a custody open enough for co-workers to stay, couriers to travel, a slave to reach Paul and believe, and news of his case to spread. Acts describes such custody at Caesarea and Rome: friends attend him, all comers are received, he preaches unhindered. Such access was common, so the match shows realism, not which custody. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:12-14; Philippians 1:20; Philippians 2:25-30; Philippians 4:22; Ephesians 6:19-20; Colossians 4:3-4; Colossians 4:7-14; Philemon 1:10-13; Philemon 1:23-24 - **Acts:** Acts 24:23; Acts 27:3; Acts 28:16; Acts 28:23-24; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Co-workers send greetings from Paul's side, envoys travel to the churches, Onesimus believes through the chained Paul, the praetorium hears of his bonds, and others grow bold to preach. **Acts:** Felix lets Paul's friends serve and visit him; Julius lets him see friends at Sidon; in Rome he lives with one guard, receives all comers and preaches boldly, unhindered. Paul asks prayer for boldness (Ephesians 6:19-20) and expects Christ to be honored with all boldness (Philippians 1:20); Acts ends with him preaching with all boldness (Acts 28:31), though boldness is frequent in Acts. Philippians implies messages passing back and forth with Philippi, which Paley argued took a long time. Acts says some Roman visitors believed (Acts 28:24) but names none; Philemon names one convert in custody, a slave, without saying where. **Other readings** - **How Onesimus came.** Lightfoot thought Onesimus a runaway hiding in Rome who met Paul there; Lampe and Rapske argued he sought Paul out to intercede for him with his master. Either fits any custody that admitted visitors. - **Typical, not specific.** Visits by friends were normal in Roman custody, so open access shows that both describe a realistic custody, not that the letters were written during the custody Acts describes. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 7 (Philippians), No. V: ### Prisoner for the Gentiles, the broken dividing wall, and Trophimus in the temple Colossians and Ephesians tie Paul's chains to his message that Gentiles share fully in Christ, and Ephesians speaks of a broken dividing wall. Acts traces the Jerusalem arrest to the same issue: a rumour that Paul took Trophimus, a Greek from Ephesus, into the temple, and a riot at his Gentile commission. The fit is thematic, not proof. - **The letter:** Colossians 1:24-27; Colossians 4:3; Ephesians 2:11-16; Ephesians 3:1; Ephesians 3:6; Ephesians 3:13 - **Acts:** Acts 21:27-33; Acts 22:21-22; Acts 23:6; Acts 24:5-6; Acts 24:21; Acts 26:6-7; Acts 26:17-21; Acts 28:20 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Colossians links Paul's sufferings and bonds to proclaiming the mystery of Christ among Gentiles; Ephesians calls him Christ's prisoner for Gentiles and says Christ broke down the dividing wall. **Acts:** Asian Jews seized Paul for allegedly bringing Greeks into the temple; the crowd erupted at his Gentile commission; before Agrippa he says he was seized for preaching to Gentiles too. Paley argued these letters blame Paul's imprisonment not on preaching Christ but on admitting Gentiles without the Law, the issue behind the Jerusalem riot that began his custody. J. Armitage Robinson read the dividing wall as the temple barrier, the outward sign of the Law's division, past which Trophimus was supposedly taken. The letters never name the temple or the arrest, the link fails if they come from an earlier imprisonment, and in Acts Paul also says he is on trial for the resurrection and bound for Israel's hope. **Other readings** - **No temple allusion.** Ephesians itself names what was abolished, the hostility and the law of commandments, so the wall may be the Law as a barrier, or a general image, with no allusion to the temple or to Paul's arrest. - **A theme, not a coincidence.** The Gentile mission runs through all Paul's letters, and many scholars judge Ephesians, perhaps Colossians, the work of later followers who knew his story; the fit could then be designed rather than incidental. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter VIII (Colossians), No. I: ### Tychicus, a man of Asia, carries Paul's news to Asian churches Acts names Tychicus only once, as one of two men of Asia in the party escorting Paul back from Greece. The letters make him Paul's envoy, mostly to Asia: he carries news to the readers of Ephesians and Colossians, is sent to Ephesus, and is considered for Crete. A native envoy suits Asian churches, a modest fit. - **The letter:** Ephesians 6:21-22; Colossians 4:7-9; 2 Timothy 4:12; Titus 1:5; Titus 3:12 - **Acts:** Acts 20:2-3; Acts 20:4; Acts 20:5-6; Acts 21:29 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Tychicus will give the readers of Ephesians and Colossians Paul's news, travelling with Onesimus; 2 Timothy says Paul sent him to Ephesus; Titus names him as possible relief on Crete. **Acts:** Acts lists Tychicus with Trophimus as men of Asia escorting Paul back from Greece; they wait for him at Troas. Acts gives him no errand and never names him again. Neither source explains the other: Acts never mentions his errands, and the letters never say where he came from. Yet a man of the province is a natural courier for Ephesus, Colossae and their neighbours. Paley read the parallel notes as showing that Tychicus carried both letters; J. Armitage Robinson added that the Asian Tychicus of Acts may have gone to Jerusalem as a church delegate, where Acts places Trophimus. The interlock is real but modest. **Other readings** - **One witness, not two.** Ephesians 6:21-22 repeats Colossians 4:7-8 almost word for word. Paley took the shared courier as explaining the letters' likeness; many scholars instead think a later author copied Colossians, so the notes count as one witness. - **Disputed letters.** Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Timothy and Titus are all of disputed authorship. A later writer who knew Acts could have cast Tychicus, an Asian, as the obvious envoy to Asia, making the fit designed. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter VI (Ephesians), No. I: ### Aristarchus at Paul's side in danger and captivity Colossians calls Aristarchus Paul's fellow prisoner, and Philemon lists him as a co-worker. Acts names him three times in passing: seized in the Ephesus riot, travelling in the party heading for Jerusalem, and embarking with the prisoner Paul on a ship bound for Asia's coast. Both put him beside Paul in danger, though Acts never calls him a prisoner. - **The letter:** Colossians 4:10-11; Philemon 1:23-24 - **Acts:** Acts 19:29; Acts 20:4; Acts 27:1-2; Acts 27:5-6 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Colossians sends greetings from Aristarchus, Paul's fellow prisoner and one of his few Jewish-born co-workers; Philemon lists him among co-workers and gives the prisoner title to Epaphras. **Acts:** Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, is seized in the Ephesus riot, joins Paul's Jerusalem-bound party, and embarks with the prisoner Paul on a ship bound for Asia's coast. Acts places Aristarchus with Paul at Ephesus and on the voyage from Caesarea, so he fits any proposed setting for the captivity letters. Paley, assuming Aristarchus reached Rome, granted that a forger could take the name from Acts, but noted that Colossians adds Mark and Justus, whom Acts never brings to Rome, and that Philemon assigns the prisoner title differently, so neither list copies the other. Eusebius already linked the voyage with Colossians. **Other readings** - **Prisoner in what sense?.** Acts never says Aristarchus was arrested. The title may mean he voluntarily shared Paul's confinement, recall an earlier imprisonment, or be a figure of speech; Lightfoot thought he left the ship at Myra and rejoined Paul in Rome later. - **Lists drawn from Philemon.** Scholars who judge Colossians post-Pauline, such as Eduard Lohse, take its greetings from Philemon's list, so the letters give one witness; Acts may reflect separate memory of Paul's companions. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter VIII (Colossians), No. II: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter XIV (Philemon), No. II: - Eusebius, Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1) (A. C. McGiffert, 1890), Church History 2.22.1: ### Mark, rejected in Acts, back among Paul's co-workers Acts leaves John Mark rejected by Paul for withdrawing from the first journey and never mentions him again. Colossians, Philemon and 2 Timothy show him back among Paul's co-workers and useful for ministry. Acts does not narrate a reconciliation and the letters do not mention the quarrel, so each fills a gap the other leaves. - **The letter:** Colossians 4:10-11; Philemon 1:24; 2 Timothy 4:11 - **Acts:** Acts 12:25; Acts 13:5; Acts 13:13; Acts 15:37-39 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Mark greets as one of Paul's few Jewish-born co-workers who comfort him; Philemon lists him as a fellow worker; 2 Timothy asks Timothy to bring him, useful for service. **Acts:** John Mark assisted Barnabas and Saul but left them at Perga; Paul refused to take him again, as he had not gone with them to the work, parting from Barnabas. Read together, the sources imply a reconciliation at an unknown date between Acts 15 and the captivity letters. Colossians mentions earlier instructions to welcome Mark, and Lightfoot read the careful commendations as meant to efface an unfavourable past. The letters neither explain the change nor allude to the quarrel, which a writer embroidering Acts might have done. The link rests on Colossians, which names this Mark as Barnabas's cousin among the same companions who send greetings in Philemon. **Other readings** - **A common name.** Marcus was one of the commonest Roman names. Without Colossians 4:10, whose authorship is disputed, Philemon's Mark need not be John Mark, and the reconciliation becomes a reconstruction. - **Later memory.** 2 Timothy is widely judged post-Pauline, so its warm request for Mark may reflect later church memory of a restored Mark rather than Paul's own words; only Philemon is undisputed. ### Luke with the imprisoned Paul and the 'we' narrator of Acts The letters place Luke the physician with the imprisoned Paul. Acts never names its author, but its first-person narration accompanies Paul on the voyages to Jerusalem and Rome. If Luke is that narrator, the sources fit closely, as Irenaeus argued; but the identification partly rests on these very verses, and many read the first person differently. - **The letter:** Colossians 4:11; Colossians 4:14; Philemon 1:24; 2 Timothy 4:11 - **Acts:** Acts 1:19; Acts 16:10-17; Acts 20:5-21:18; Acts 27:1-28:16 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Luke the beloved physician greets, listed after the Jewish-born colleagues; Philemon calls him a fellow worker; 2 Timothy says only Luke remains with Paul. **Acts:** Acts names no author, but its first-person narration joins Paul at Troas and Philippi, resumes at Philippi years later, and runs to Jerusalem and from Caesarea to Rome. If the narrator is Luke, Acts puts him with Paul on the journeys that end in custody at Caesarea and Rome. The first person is absent from the Ephesus chapters, but also from the Caesarean custody itself, so this silence favours a Roman setting only slightly. Paley, cautiously, added that Colossians implies Luke was a Gentile, and that the aside on Akeldama in the local language reads like an outsider's note, though a Greek-speaking Jew could write it too. **Other readings** - **Circular identification.** The tradition that Luke wrote Acts was partly inferred from these letters; Irenaeus already argued from them, so the agreement may echo that inference rather than confirm it independently. - **Source or convention.** Critics read the first person as an incorporated travel source or, with Vernon K. Robbins, a sea-voyage convention; yet it also covers land scenes at Philippi and Jerusalem, which the convention theory explains less well. **Sources** - Irenaeus, Against Heresies (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1) (A. Roberts and W. H. Rambaut, 1885), Against Heresies 3.14.1: - Eusebius, Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1) (A. C. McGiffert, 1890), Church History 3.4.7: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter VIII (Colossians), No. III: ### Lycus valley churches founded through Epaphras during the Ephesian years Colossians addresses a church that learned the gospel from Epaphras and apparently had never seen Paul. Acts records no visit to the Lycus valley but says Paul's two years at Ephesus reached all who lived in Asia. Together they suggest churches founded by Paul's co-workers during the Ephesian years, not by Paul in person. - **The letter:** Colossians 1:4; Colossians 1:6-9; Colossians 2:1; Colossians 4:12-13; Philemon 1:5; Philemon 1:19 - **Acts:** Acts 16:6; Acts 18:23; Acts 19:1; Acts 19:10; Acts 19:26 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul heard of their faith; Epaphras, their teacher, labours for Laodicea and Hierapolis; Paul strives for them and all who have not seen him; Philemon owes Paul his own self. **Acts:** Acts reports no visit to Colossae. Paul was once barred from speaking in Asia, later crossed the interior to Ephesus, and his two years there spread the word through Asia. Acts supplies the setting, a long base at Ephesus whose reach across the province even Demetrius complains of; Colossians supplies an instance, a church planted by a local co-worker. Lightfoot and Ramsay both concluded that Paul did not found the Lycus valley churches himself. Paley inferred that Paul converted Philemon somewhere else; Ephesus is the natural guess. The fit is general, not undesigned: Acts' summary of Asia-wide reach would suit any church in the province. **Other readings** - **An unrecorded visit.** Theodoret and some later critics read Colossians 2:1 as distinguishing the Colossians from those who had not seen Paul. On that reading, and given Acts' selectivity, an unrecorded visit on the interior routes remains possible. - **A disputed letter.** If Colossians is post-Pauline, its picture of a church founded by Epaphras may be literary, built from Philemon's names; the Ephesian setting would then rest on Acts alone. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter XIV (Philemon), No. III: ### Expected release and a guest room: Acts' legal grounds for hope Philippians expects Paul to live and visit soon; Philemon asks for a guest room in hope of release. If these letters come from Caesarea or Rome, Acts supplies grounds for that hope: Lysias, Festus and Agrippa find nothing deserving death, and Rome's Jewish leaders have heard nothing against him. Acts ends before any verdict. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:19-26; Philippians 2:23-24; Philemon 1:22; 2 Timothy 4:6-8; Romans 15:24; Romans 15:28 - **Acts:** Acts 20:1; Acts 23:29; Acts 24:27; Acts 25:11; Acts 25:25; Acts 26:31-32; Acts 28:18; Acts 28:21; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Weighing life against death, Paul expects to remain and see the Philippians again and to come soon; he asks Philemon for lodging, hoping to be restored to them. **Acts:** Lysias, Festus and Agrippa's company find nothing deserving death; Agrippa says Paul could have been freed but for his appeal; Paul says the Romans wanted to release him. On a Caesarean or Roman setting, the letters' hope matches the legal picture in Acts, though they never mention the officials' findings and ground their hope in prayer. Paley noted that these letters expect release while 2 Timothy expects death, and that Philippians regards the decision as near. **Other readings** - **An Ephesian imprisonment.** If Philippians and Philemon come from an Ephesian imprisonment, which Acts does not record, the hoped-for release preceded Acts 20:1. Philemon's request for lodging at nearby Colossae, and Romans' plan to go from Rome to Spain, are cited for this. - **Hope is not outcome.** Favorable findings did not free Paul under Felix or Festus, and Acts may stress Roman verdicts of innocence for its own apologetic aims; neither the letters' hope nor Acts shows that he was released. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 12, no. 1: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 7, no. 5: ### Churches meeting in households and whole households converted Acts and the letters agree that early churches, Paul's among them, met in homes and grew through households. The letters greet churches meeting in named homes, including Prisca and Aquila's; Acts shows believers meeting in homes and whole households believing or being baptized with their head. This is agreement on a social pattern, not on one event. - **The letter:** Philemon 1:2; Philemon 1:10; Philemon 1:15-16; Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:19; Colossians 4:15; 1 Corinthians 1:14; 1 Corinthians 1:16; 1 Corinthians 16:15; Titus 1:6; Titus 1:11; Titus 2:2-10 - **Acts:** Acts 2:46; Acts 10:24; Acts 10:44-48; Acts 11:14; Acts 12:12; Acts 16:15; Acts 16:31-34; Acts 16:40; Acts 18:2-3; Acts 18:7-8; Acts 20:20 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul greets churches in named homes and baptized Stephanas's household; Titus requires elders' children to believe, warns of teachers upsetting whole households, and instructs groups by age and status. **Acts:** Believers meet in homes in Jerusalem, including Mary's house; Cornelius, Lydia, the jailer and Crispus are saved or baptized with their households; Paul teaches house to house at Ephesus. Neither text looks copied from the other. Acts' Lydia, jailer and Justus are not named in the letters, and the hosts addressed in Philemon and Colossians are absent from Acts. Two names bridge both: Prisca and Aquila lodge Paul in Acts and host a church in the letters; Crispus believes with his household in Acts and is baptized by Paul in 1 Corinthians. Philemon adds a nuance: Onesimus, a slave in a believer's household, became a believer only through Paul in custody. A shared pattern carries modest weight. **Other readings** - **Who was in the household.** Whether household baptisms included infants is a long denominational debate (Jeremias for, Aland against). The texts show households joining together, not who was in them. - **Later church order.** Titus's household instructions may reflect a later, settled church order if the Pastorals are post-Pauline; the house churches of Romans, 1 Corinthians and Philemon still show the pattern was early. ### The Miletus warning and the false teachers of Ephesus and Asia At Miletus Paul warns the Ephesian elders that wolves will come in and that men from their own ranks will draw disciples away. 1 and 2 Timothy depict such teachers at Ephesus and name several. Read at face value, Acts gives the forecast and the letters the fulfilment; many critics see one later situation behind both. - **The letter:** 1 Timothy 1:3-7; 1 Timothy 1:19-20; 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 1 Timothy 5:19-20; 1 Timothy 6:3-5; 1 Timothy 6:20-21; 2 Timothy 1:15; 2 Timothy 2:16-18; 2 Timothy 3:6-9; 2 Timothy 4:3-4; Titus 1:5-11; Romans 16:17-18 - **Acts:** Acts 20:17; Acts 20:28-31 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** 1 Timothy confronts would-be law teachers, myths and ascetic rules at Ephesus; 2 Timothy names Hymenaeus and Philetus, who call the resurrection past, and says all in Asia deserted Paul. **Acts:** Paul summons the Ephesian elders, also calling them overseers, charges them to shepherd the flock, predicts wolves from outside and twisted teachers from within, and recalls three years of warnings. The link is thematic: Acts names none of the letters' opponents, and the letters never cite the speech. Still, 1 Timothy's rules for charges against elders suit a warning that some would arise from the elders' own ranks, and Acts, like Titus 1:5-7, calls the same men elders and overseers. Because Acts openly frames a forecast, the link is complementary, not undesigned. **Other readings** - **Written in hindsight.** If Acts and the Pastorals both come from post-Pauline Asia, the speech may have been composed in hindsight, so both reflect one situation rather than forecast and fulfilment (Pervo). - **Paul's own concern.** Walton finds the speech's portrait of Paul close to 1 Thessalonians, suggesting Luke knew genuine Pauline tradition; and in Romans 16:17-18 Paul himself warns a church against divisive teachers, so the warning may echo his own concern. ### Alexander in the letters and Alexander in the Ephesian riot Up to three Alexanders may touch Ephesus: a man whose faith was wrecked in 1 Timothy, Alexander the coppersmith in 2 Timothy, whose location is unstated, and a Jew pushed forward in Acts during the riot. Identifying them is possible but unproven: the name was very common, and Acts gives its Alexander no trade and no stance toward Paul. - **The letter:** 1 Timothy 1:19-20; 2 Timothy 4:12; 2 Timothy 4:14-15 - **Acts:** Acts 4:6; Acts 19:23-27; Acts 19:33-34 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** 1 Timothy says Hymenaeus and Alexander wrecked their faith and were handed to Satan to learn not to blaspheme; 2 Timothy warns against Alexander the coppersmith, who greatly harmed Paul. **Acts:** During the riot stirred by Demetrius the silversmith, the Jews push an Alexander forward; he motions to make a defence but is shouted down once recognised as a Jew. If one man, 2 Timothy adds a metalworking trade that would suit a craftsmen's riot, and a hostility Acts never shows. But 2 Timothy never says where the coppersmith was, and its sending of Tychicus to Ephesus may imply Timothy was elsewhere. Acts gives its Alexander no trade and leaves his purpose unclear; the Jewish community may have put him forward to distance itself from Paul. Acts also names another Alexander, in the high-priestly circle. The two letters' Alexanders need not be one person either. At most a possible link. **Other readings** - **One Ephesian opponent.** The texts would allow the coppersmith to be Acts' Alexander: a Jewish metalworker at Ephesus whose opposition to Paul began in the riot. Nothing requires it. - **Unrelated men.** Alexander was a very common name; the letters' Alexander or Alexanders and the Jew of Acts 19 may be unrelated, leaving no point of contact at all. ### Church support for widows Both texts show churches supporting widows. Acts records a daily distribution in Jerusalem in which Greek-speaking widows were overlooked, and widows gathered around Dorcas at Joppa; 1 Timothy regulates which widows the Ephesian church should enroll, with families providing first. The agreement lies in the practice, not in details such as an order of deacons. - **The letter:** 1 Timothy 5:3-16; 1 Timothy 3:8-13 - **Acts:** Acts 6:1-6; Acts 9:36-41 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Families must support their own widows; the church enrolls only widows left alone, at least sixty, wife of one husband, known for good works; younger widows should remarry. **Acts:** Hellenist widows were neglected in the daily service at Jerusalem, so seven men were chosen and commissioned; at Joppa widows mourned Dorcas, a disciple known for good works. Paley observed that 1 Timothy mentions enrollment abruptly, as something readers already knew, and judged that the letter had not borrowed from Acts. The fit is real but modest, since caring for widows was an old Jewish duty. Acts 9 names widows as a distinct group alongside the saints. Acts never calls the seven deacons, though it describes their task with related words for service; identifying them with the servants, or deacons, of 1 Timothy 3 is later tradition, attested by Irenaeus about AD 180. **Other readings** - **A later order of widows.** Scholars who date 1 Timothy after Paul read the enrolled widows, with an age limit and a pledge, as a more developed order, so the agreement shows a practice continuing over decades rather than evidence from Paul's lifetime. - **Relief list, not an office.** Others read 1 Timothy 5 as a list of destitute widows the church supports, shaped by Roman expectations that families provide, not an office; on this view it extends the relief Acts describes. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter 11 (First Epistle to Timothy), No. II: - Irenaeus, Against Heresies (A. Roberts and W. H. Rambaut, 1885), Against Heresies 1.26.3: ### Paul's race: to be finished at Miletus, finished in 2 Timothy At Miletus Paul says he does not value his life if only he can finish his race; 2 Timothy has him declare the course finished and his death at hand. The Greek word behind 'race' and 'course' occurs in the New Testament only in Acts and 2 Timothy, so the link is real, but its independence is debated. - **The letter:** 2 Timothy 4:6-8; Philippians 1:20-23; Philippians 2:16-17; Philippians 3:12-14; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Galatians 2:2 - **Acts:** Acts 13:25; Acts 20:15; Acts 20:22-24; Acts 21:13; Acts 25:11 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Philippians hopes Paul has not run in vain, accepts being poured out as an offering and presses toward the goal; 2 Timothy declares the offering begun and the course finished. **Acts:** At Miletus Paul counts his life nothing beside finishing his race and ministry; at Caesarea he is ready to die; before Festus he does not refuse death if guilty. Read together, Acts and 2 Timothy show one resolve from opposite ends: the intention to finish, then the claim to have finished. The running image is Paul's own, as 1 Corinthians 9 shows, but the noun is absent from his undisputed letters, and both Acts uses come in speeches Luke gives Paul, one about John the Baptist. The Miletus address, Paul's only speech to Christians in Acts, is often judged its most Pauline. **Other readings** - **A resolve fulfilled.** If 2 Timothy is Paul's, it shows him reaching the end he accepted at Miletus and Caesarea; the shared image reflects his own idiom, remembered by the companion who narrates the Miletus visit as 'we'. - **A shared portrait.** Those who see one hand behind Acts and the letters to Timothy and Titus, or a later tradition idealizing Paul as martyr, read the match as a common portrait, not independent confirmation of his last days. ### Winter plans, Nicopolis, and the sailing season of Acts 27 The letters plan around winter: Paul may winter at Corinth, decides to winter at Nicopolis, and urges Timothy to come before winter. Acts shows the constraint: after the Fast (Day of Atonement), sailing turned dangerous and Paul's ship sought a winter harbour. Acts' three months in Greece, before Unleavened Bread, probably fulfil the Corinth plan; Nicopolis never appears in Acts. - **The letter:** Titus 3:12; 2 Timothy 4:21; 1 Corinthians 16:6; Romans 15:19 - **Acts:** Acts 20:1-3; Acts 20:6; Acts 27:9-12; Acts 28:11 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul may stay or even winter at Corinth, has decided to winter at Nicopolis and summons Titus there, and urges Timothy to come before winter. **Acts:** After three months in Greece Paul sails from Philippi after Unleavened Bread; bound for Rome, his ship faces danger after the Fast, seeks winter harbour, and they winter on Malta. Acts makes concrete the seasonal limits the letters assume: the Fast, an unsuitable harbour, a ship laid up at Malta. Its three months in Greece, before Paul sailed from Philippi after Unleavened Bread, probably match the hope of wintering at Corinth, though Acts names neither winter nor Corinth. Paley identified Nicopolis with the best-known city of the name, in Epirus near Actium, and rejected the later subscription dating Titus from a Macedonian Nicopolis. No winter Acts narrates is spent there, though Acts 20:1-2 is vague. **Other readings** - **Background, not corroboration.** Sailing seasons were common knowledge, so agreement about winter travel shows that both texts reflect real Mediterranean conditions, not that either confirms the other's particular events. - **A Nicopolis winter inside Acts' years.** P. N. Harrison treated Titus 3:12-15 as a genuine note from the Macedonian travels summarized in Acts 20:2, when Paul may have pushed toward Illyricum (Romans 15:19) and planned to winter at Nicopolis. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. XIII (Epistle to Titus), No. II, on Nicopolis: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. XV (Subscriptions of the Epistles), No. VI: ### Cretans at Pentecost and a Jewish community on Crete Acts and Titus agree, in passing, that Crete had Jews. Acts lists Cretans among the Jews in Jerusalem at Pentecost; Titus warns of teachers of Jewish myths unsettling Cretan households. Philo and Josephus independently confirm Jewish communities on Crete. Neither text says how the gospel reached the island; returning pilgrims are a guess. - **The letter:** Titus 1:5; Titus 1:10-11; Titus 1:14 - **Acts:** Acts 2:5; Acts 2:7; Acts 2:9-11 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Titus must silence deceivers on Crete, especially circumcision-party teachers who unsettle entire families for gain, and keep believers from heeding Jewish myths and human commands. **Acts:** Cretans are among the Jews from every nation staying in Jerusalem at Pentecost who hear the Galilean disciples speaking in their own languages. The agreement is modest and unlikely to be borrowed: Acts mentions Cretans once, in a list, and Titus never mentions Pentecost. A letter of Agrippa I that Philo reproduces counts Crete among islands full of Jewish settlements (Embassy to Gaius 282); Josephus mentions Crete's Jews, fleeced by a royal pretender (Jewish War 2.103), and his Jewish wife who had lived on Crete (Life 427). Both texts thus assume a real feature of the island. How churches arose in its towns is unrecorded. **Other readings** - **Too general to corroborate.** Jewish communities were spread across the eastern Mediterranean, so any writer could assume Jews on Crete; the agreement shows a plausible setting, not that either text knew specific Cretan events. - **Opponents inside the church.** The circumcision party in Titus may be Jewish believers or Judaizing teachers within the churches rather than the synagogue; that still implies Jewish roots on the island but says nothing about Pentecost. ### Paul quotes a Greek poet Titus and Acts both show Paul citing pagan writers. Titus cites a Cretan prophet about Cretans; at Athens Paul quotes Greek poets. Clement of Alexandria named Epimenides and Aratus. Paley saw a genuine Pauline habit, but a later writer could imitate Acts, so the overlap cannot settle authorship. - **The letter:** Titus 1:12-13; 1 Corinthians 15:33 - **Acts:** Acts 17:28 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul cites a Cretan prophet's harsh verdict on his own people, affirms it as true, and tells Titus to rebuke them sharply so they become sound in faith. **Acts:** Speaking on the Areopagus, Paul backs his claim that humans are God's offspring with words he credits to some of his hearers' own poets. The texts share a habit, not wording. Paley argued that no other New Testament writer appeals to pagan testimony, that Paul does so again in 1 Corinthians 15:33, that an imitator copying Acts would have called Epimenides a poet, not a prophet, and, since Acts never names Titus, that Luke did not borrow from the letter. The 1 Corinthians line, from Menander, may have circulated as a proverb. The Areopagus speech may be Luke's composition, and a later author of Titus could know Acts 17. **Other readings** - **Luke's speech, Luke's portrait.** Following Martin Dibelius, many scholars treat the Areopagus speech as largely Luke's composition; then Acts 17 shows how Luke portrayed Paul and offers no independent evidence of Paul's own practice. - **One Cretan poem behind both.** J. Rendel Harris argued, from a Syriac commentary tradition, that the first clause of Acts 17:28 also comes from Epimenides, so both texts would draw on one Cretan poem; that attribution is debated. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. XIII (Epistle to Titus), No. I: - Clement of Alexandria, Stromata (W. Wilson, 1885), Stromata 1.14: - Clement of Alexandria, Stromata (W. Wilson, 1885), Stromata 1.19: ### Submission to rulers and giving outsiders nothing to accuse Romans and Titus urge submission to rulers, and Titus wants outsiders given nothing to criticize. In Acts several officials find no crime in Paul and his companions, and Paul, rebuked for insulting the high priest, cites the command not to revile a ruler. Romans shows the theme is early; critics see its stress in Acts and Titus as later apologetic. - **The letter:** Titus 2:5; Titus 2:8; Titus 3:1-2; Romans 13:1-7 - **Acts:** Acts 16:22-23; Acts 16:37; Acts 17:6-7; Acts 18:14-15; Acts 19:37; Acts 23:5; Acts 23:29; Acts 24:26-27; Acts 25:25; Acts 26:31-32 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Believers should submit to rulers, slander no one, and behave so that God's word is not maligned and opponents find nothing to criticize; Romans roots submission in God's ordering. **Acts:** Gallio, Ephesus's town clerk, Lysias, Festus and Agrippa find no crime in Paul or his companions; Paul, rebuked for insulting the high priest, cites the law against reviling rulers. The texts meet in a concern, not in wording: give authorities no real cause for complaint, and Acts shows several authorities finding none. Acts is not uniformly flattering to officials: magistrates at Philippi beat Paul and Silas before he insists on his rights as a Roman (Acts 16:22-23, 37), Felix keeps him bound to win favour (Acts 24:26-27), and opponents accuse believers of defying Caesar (Acts 17:6-7). Romans 13 places the theme in an undisputed letter, and 1 Peter 2:13-17 shows similar teaching beyond Paul. **Other readings** - **Later apologetic.** Following Hans Conzelmann, many read Acts as presenting Christianity as politically harmless to Rome, and Dibelius and Conzelmann saw the Pastorals as commending settled good citizenship; on this view both reflect a later generation's concerns. - **One writer behind both.** S. G. Wilson argued that Luke wrote the Pastorals, and C. F. D. Moule that Luke drafted them for Paul; either way the shared outlook would come from one hand, not two independent witnesses. ## Apparent tension ### A gospel received from no human being, and the role of Ananias Galatians and Acts differ here, at least in emphasis. Galatians insists Paul's apostleship and gospel came through no human being and that he consulted no one at first. In Acts, Ananias heals Paul and calls him to baptism and, in one account, announces his commission, though as the Lord's messenger. The third Acts account leaves Ananias out. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:1; Galatians 1:11-12; Galatians 1:16-17 - **Acts:** Acts 9:10-19; Acts 22:12-16; Acts 26:16-18 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul's apostleship came neither from nor through any human; his gospel came by revelation of Jesus Christ, not human teaching; after his call he did not immediately consult anyone. **Acts:** Sent by the Lord in a vision, Ananias restores Saul's sight and Saul is baptized; in Acts 22:14-16 Ananias announces his commission. In Acts 26:16-18 Jesus commissions Saul directly. Harmonizers note that Acts makes Ananias a local disciple acting on a vision, not an apostle or teacher, and that Galatians stresses independence from the Jerusalem apostles. Healing and baptism need not supply a gospel's content. Still, Acts places a human intermediary in Paul's commissioning that Galatians never mentions, and Acts 26:16-18 drops him, so Luke himself varied the telling. The fit is possible but not seamless. **Other readings** - **A real conflict.** Acts sets Paul within a chain of human mediation, through Ananias and later Barnabas and the apostles, that Galatians plays down; Luke's picture may reflect his own interest in linking Paul to the wider church. - **Literary shaping.** The three Acts accounts differ among themselves, and Luke may have shaped Ananias's role for each setting; the comparison may then show Luke's narrative choices more than a historical disagreement with Paul. ### Who watched Damascus: King Aretas' ethnarch or the Jews? The accounts name different pursuers. Acts says Damascus Jews plotted to kill Saul and watched the gates; 2 Corinthians says King Aretas' ethnarch, a governor or community head, guarded the city to seize him. Cooperation between them is possible but unstated. The mention of Aretas IV, who died about AD 40, also helps date Paul's early years. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 11:32 - **Acts:** Acts 9:23-24 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** King Aretas' official at Damascus had the city guarded to catch Paul, who escaped by basket. **Acts:** Damascus Jews plot Saul's death; he learns of it while they keep watch on the gates around the clock, and his disciples get him out. Harmonies are available: the Nabataean official may have acted with or at the urging of local Jewish opponents, or each source names the party that mattered to its argument. Some take the ethnarch as head of the Nabataean community in Damascus rather than ruler of the city. Neither text states any of this. If Aretas IV's official could act at Damascus, the escape falls before the king's death about AD 40; Douglas Campbell argues for about AD 36. **Other readings** - **Luke's theme.** Acts regularly casts Jews as Paul's persecutors; Luke may have replaced the royal official with Jewish plotters, whether from his sources or from 2 Corinthians, so the difference reflects Lukan emphasis. - **Who held Damascus.** Whether Nabataea controlled Damascus then is disputed. If it did not, the ethnarch was perhaps a community leader or an official watching from outside, and the escape is harder to date. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. 4 (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. II; 1850 Religious Tract Society edition: ### First Jerusalem visit: Peter and James only, or Barnabas and the apostles? The accounts differ in focus and are hard to align fully. Galatians says Paul went up to get to know Peter, stayed fifteen days, and saw no other apostle except James, adding an oath. Acts says the disciples feared him until Barnabas brought him to the apostles, and that he preached openly in Jerusalem. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:18-20; Galatians 1:22-23 - **Acts:** Acts 9:26-29; Acts 22:17-18 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** After three years Paul spent fifteen days in Jerusalem getting to know Peter, saw no other apostle but James, swore to it, and remained unknown by face to Judea's churches. **Acts:** The disciples fear Saul until Barnabas brings him to the apostles and vouches for him; Saul then moves freely in Jerusalem, preaching boldly and debating Greek-speaking Jews. Harmonizers read the apostles of Acts as a general plural for Peter and James, note that a long absence could explain lingering fear, and cite Acts 22:17-18, where Paul is told to leave Jerusalem quickly, as fitting a short stay. Paley saw a historian writing generally and Paul supplying particulars. Yet Galatians gives Barnabas no role, stresses minimal contact under oath, and says Paul stayed unknown by face to Judea's churches, while Acts has him preaching boldly in Jerusalem. **Other readings** - **Luke's portrait.** Acts consistently shows Paul validated by Jerusalem, and its account here reflects that theme; on this view Paul's sworn statement in Galatians is the better witness, and Acts overstates the apostolic welcome. - **Barnabas as go-between.** Barnabas may have arranged the meeting with Peter and James without Galatians naming him, since Paul's aim there was to limit his apostolic contacts, not to list every helper. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. 5 (Galatians), No. III; SPCK edition with notes by J. S. Howson: ### Unknown by face to the churches of Judea Galatians says that while Paul was in Syria and Cilicia the churches of Judea still did not know him by face, yet Acts has him persecute believers house to house in Jerusalem, preach openly there, and later claim to have preached throughout Judea. The tension eases if Paul means congregations outside Jerusalem, which knew of him without having seen him. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:22-24; Galatians 2:1 - **Acts:** Acts 8:1-3; Acts 9:21; Acts 9:28-29; Acts 11:29-30; Acts 22:19; Acts 26:10; Acts 26:20 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** During his years in Syria and Cilicia, Paul says, the Judean churches in Christ still did not know him by face; they had only heard their former persecutor now preached. **Acts:** Paul attacks the Jerusalem church house to house, preaches boldly in Jerusalem after his conversion, and before Agrippa says he preached in Jerusalem and throughout Judea. Galatians 1:22 may mean congregations beyond Jerusalem, and a fifteen-day stay spent mainly with Peter need not have made Paul's face widely known; Paley suggested he crossed Judea hastily. Acts 26:20 summarizes a whole career. The report that their former persecutor now preached implies these churches counted themselves his victims, fitting the scattering of Acts 8:1. Still, Acts 9:28-29 pictures a public Jerusalem ministry, and unless the famine-relief visit of Acts 11:29-30 is the one in Galatians 2:1, Acts brings Paul to Judea again during the years Galatians covers. **Other readings** - **Persecution outside Jerusalem.** Some critics take Galatians 1:22 at face value: Paul was unknown in Judea because his persecuting happened elsewhere, perhaps around Damascus, and Acts relocated it to Jerusalem. - **Unknown as a believer.** The phrase may mean the Judean churches had not met Paul as a fellow believer. Those he once harassed knew of him, but few had seen him since his conversion, so Galatians and Acts 8:3 need not conflict. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. V, No. II, 4 (New York 1849 ed., p. 104): ### Who counts as an apostle Paul's letters insist he is an apostle by God's call, linked to having seen the risen Jesus. Acts frames the appearances as forty days ending at the ascension, ties membership of the Twelve to following Jesus since John's baptism, and calls Paul an apostle only twice, with Barnabas. Scholars disagree on whether Acts thereby ranks Paul below the Twelve. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:1; Romans 1:1; Romans 1:5; Romans 11:13; 1 Corinthians 9:1-2; 1 Corinthians 15:5-9; 1 Thessalonians 2:6-7 - **Acts:** Acts 1:3; Acts 1:21-26; Acts 9:17; Acts 13:1-3; Acts 14:4; Acts 14:14; Acts 15:2; Acts 26:16-18 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul calls himself an apostle by God's call, links it to having seen the Lord, admits some do not accept it, and seems to extend the title to others. **Acts:** Acts gives the apostles forty days of appearances, sets a test for Judas's replacement that Paul could not meet, and calls Paul and Barnabas apostles only in Acts 14. Paul places his own encounter in the same series as the appearances to Cephas, James and the apostles, though last. Acts also calls that encounter an appearance and gives Paul the substance of an apostolic commission (Acts 26:16-18), but reserves the title mostly for the Jerusalem Twelve. Its two uses for Paul may mean envoys of the Antioch church (Acts 13:1-3). Both describe the same encounter; whether Acts' narrower usage is vocabulary or a deliberate ranking is debated. **Other readings** - **Luke ranks Paul below the Twelve.** Critical scholars such as Günter Klein argue that equating the apostles with the Twelve is Luke's own idea, which leaves Paul a witness rather than their equal, a ranking Paul's letters resist (Galatians 1:1). - **A wider sense of apostle.** Others, following J. B. Lightfoot, note that early Christians used the word apostle both for the Twelve and for commissioned missionaries, as Acts 14 and 1 Thessalonians 2 show, so Luke's usage need not deny Paul's claim. ### Peter as apostle to the circumcised, and Peter who opened the door to Gentiles Galatians assigns Peter the gospel for the circumcised and Paul that for the Gentiles, yet Acts has Peter open the door to Gentiles at Cornelius's house and Paul begin in synagogues. The tension is modest if the agreement named main fields, not exclusive ones; Paul's own letters show him seeking Jews too. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:7-9; Galatians 2:12; Romans 11:13; 1 Corinthians 9:20 - **Acts:** Acts 10:44-48; Acts 15:7; Acts 13:5; Acts 13:14; Acts 13:46; Acts 14:1 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** The Jerusalem leaders saw that God had given Paul the mission to the uncircumcised, as he had given Peter the mission to the circumcised, and agreed to divide the work. **Acts:** Peter preaches at Cornelius's house, sees the Spirit fall on Gentiles and has them baptized, later citing this at the council. Paul usually starts in synagogues, then turns to Gentiles. Acts presents Cornelius as an opening God made through Peter long before (Acts 15:7), not as Peter's continuing field, and after the council its Gentile mission centres on Paul. Galatians itself shows Peter eating with Gentiles at Antioch (Galatians 2:12), and Paul, who calls himself apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:13), says he became like a Jew to win Jews (1 Corinthians 9:20). The agreement reads naturally as a division of main responsibility, as Tertullian already took it: one gospel, different hearers. **Other readings** - **Acts parallels Peter and Paul.** F. C. Baur (1845) argued that Acts makes Peter act like Paul, and Paul like Peter, to reconcile rival Jewish-Christian and Gentile-Christian parties; on this view the Cornelius story is shaped to give Peter priority in the Gentile mission. - **Territory or peoples?.** Some read the agreement as dividing territory, Judea versus the wider world, rather than peoples; others think its vagueness invited the later clash at Antioch. Neither text defines the terms precisely. **Sources** - Tertullian, The Prescription against Heretics (P. Holmes, 1885), Prescription against Heretics 23: ### Which visit is Galatians 2:1-10? Galatians recounts two visits to Jerusalem, Acts three in the same span. Most scholars equate Galatians 2:1-10 with the council of Acts 15, others with the famine visit of Acts 11:30, and Paley suspected a visit Acts omits. Each identification leaves some detail unexplained; the question remains open. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:18; Galatians 1:20; Galatians 2:1-10 - **Acts:** Acts 9:26-30; Acts 11:27-30; Acts 12:25; Acts 13:2-3; Acts 14:28; Acts 15:1-29; Acts 18:22 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Insisting he is not lying, Paul lists a fifteen-day visit after three years, then another after fourteen, with Barnabas and Titus, prompted by revelation and including a private meeting. **Acts:** Paul visits Jerusalem after Damascus, brings famine relief to the elders with Barnabas, then goes up again, sent by the Antioch church, for an open assembly on circumcision. Equating Galatians 2 with Acts 15 fits the issue, people and outcome, but Paul's solemn list would skip the famine visit, he went by revelation to a private meeting where Acts has the church send him to an assembly, and he never mentions a decree. Equating it with the famine visit makes two visits match two and ties the request about the poor (Galatians 2:10) to the relief, but Acts 11:30 mentions only elders and no debate. For Paley, the discrepancy itself showed that neither writer copied the other. **Other readings** - **An unrecorded visit.** Paley judged an unrecorded visit more probable, perhaps during the long Antioch stay (Acts 14:28); T. W. Manson (1962) placed one between Acts 13:2 and Acts 13:3. - **Doublet or a later visit.** Julius Wellhausen and Eduard Schwartz (1907) held that Luke, using two sources, made two visits out of one, the famine and council visits; John Knox (1950) placed Galatians 2 later, at the visit of Acts 18:22. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 2: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 10: ### Timothy circumcised, Titus not, and the rule to remain as called Galatians says Titus, a Greek, was not made to undergo circumcision, and 1 Corinthians tells the uncircumcised not to seek it. Acts has Paul circumcise Timothy, whose mother was Jewish and father Greek, because of local Jews. Whether this conflicts depends on whether Timothy counted as a Jew, and whether a missionary concession breaks Paul's rule. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:3-5; Galatians 5:2-3; Galatians 5:11; 1 Corinthians 7:17-20; 1 Corinthians 9:20 - **Acts:** Acts 16:1-3; Acts 21:21; Acts 21:24 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Titus, a Greek, was not made to undergo circumcision; accepting circumcision binds one to the whole law; Paul denies still preaching circumcision; each should remain as when called. **Acts:** Paul circumcises Timothy, whose mother was a Jewish believer and father Greek, because of local Jews; the Jerusalem elders call reports that Paul opposes circumcising Jewish children untrue. The cases differ. Titus was a Gentile whose circumcision false brothers pressed; Timothy had a Jewish mother, and Acts ties his circumcision to local Jews, as 1 Corinthians 9:20 might allow. If Timothy counted as a Jew, this arguably completed his status, though 1 Corinthians 7:18 concerns one's bodily state when called. Paley argued that Acts always gives such compliance a motive like avoiding offence. If Timothy counted as a Gentile, the difficulty remains. **Other readings** - **Acts reshaped Paul.** F. C. Baur judged Acts 16:3 incredible: the Paul who refused to circumcise Titus would not circumcise Timothy, and doing so would contradict Galatians 5:11. He took the story as Acts' effort to reconcile Paul with Jewish Christians. - **Timothy as a Gentile.** Shaye Cohen argues that Jewish status through the mother cannot be shown for Paul's day, so Timothy probably counted as a Gentile; his circumcision would then strain 1 Corinthians 7:18. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5, no. 7: ### The law-keeping Paul of Acts and the letters' teaching on the law The letters say believers have died to the law and that righteousness comes through faith, not the law; Acts portrays Paul keeping Jewish customs, calling himself a Pharisee and denying any offence against the law. Many read Acts as showing Paul's practice and the letters the ground of salvation; others think Acts' author did not know or share Paul's theology. - **The letter:** Romans 3:31; Romans 7:4-6; Romans 10:4; Romans 14:5-6; Romans 14:14; Romans 14:20; Galatians 3:23-25; Philippians 3:5-7; Philippians 3:9 - **Acts:** Acts 13:38-39; Acts 15:10-11; Acts 16:3; Acts 18:18; Acts 21:20-26; Acts 21:25; Acts 23:6; Acts 24:14; Acts 24:17-18; Acts 25:8; Acts 28:17 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Believers died to the law; Christ is its fulfilment; nothing is unclean in itself; Paul counts his Pharisaic righteousness under the law as loss, seeking righteousness through faith. **Acts:** Paul circumcises Timothy, keeps a vow, joins a temple purification to show he observes the law, calls himself a Pharisee, and denies wronging the law, temple or ancestral customs. The letters also leave days and food to conscience and say faith upholds the law (Romans 3:31; 14:5-6); Acts frees Gentiles from the law apart from four abstentions and grounds salvation in grace (Acts 15:10-11; 21:25). Read so, Acts shows Paul's practice, not his basis for salvation; Paley argued its motive was avoiding offence. Yet Acts 18:18 gives no motive, Acts 21:24 makes observance a public proof, and Acts' Paul seldom voices the letters' view of the law (Acts 13:38-39 is closest). **Other readings** - **Acts' own portrait.** Philipp Vielhauer argued that Acts' author did not know or share Paul's theology of the law; his law-observant Paul reflects the author's later perspective rather than the letters. - **The Jewish Paul.** Jacob Jervell argued that the Jewish, law-observant Paul of Acts is a valuable complement to the letters, not a distortion. On this view Acts preserves a side of Paul that his polemical letters leave in the background. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5, no. 7: ### Nothing added, only the poor remembered, against the council's four requirements Galatians says the Jerusalem leaders added nothing to Paul and asked only that he and Barnabas keep the poor in mind; Acts has the council ask Gentile believers to keep four abstentions. If both describe one meeting, the tension is sharp. It eases if Galatians 2 is an earlier visit, or if the abstentions governed fellowship rather than salvation. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:6; Galatians 2:9-10; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; 1 Corinthians 10:25-28 - **Acts:** Acts 11:30; Acts 15:19-20; Acts 15:28-29; Acts 16:4; Acts 21:25 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** The reputed leaders added nothing to Paul, agreed that he and Barnabas would go to the Gentiles, and asked only that they keep the poor in mind. **Acts:** James proposes, and the council's letter asks, that Gentile believers avoid idol sacrifices, blood, strangled meat and sexual immorality; Paul delivers it, and James and the elders later restate it. Paley judged the accounts hard to fit to one meeting and preferred a visit Acts omits; many identify Galatians 2 with the famine visit of Acts 11:30, before the council, which also suits the concern for the poor. On the same-meeting view, the abstentions eased shared meals and, as Paley argued, did not impose the law on Gentiles. Yet 1 Corinthians never cites the decree and lets believers eat market meat unasked, abstaining only for another's conscience (1 Corinthians 10:25-28). **Other readings** - **A later decree.** Ernst Haenchen saw the decree as a later settlement between Jewish and Gentile believers that Luke placed at the council, unconnected with the meeting of Galatians 2:1-10; Paul's silence about it in his letters then needs no explanation. - **Same meeting, selective report.** Others equate the meetings and suppose Paul, defending his independence, reports only what bears on his gospel, treating the abstentions as practical terms rather than additions; the omission is then purposeful, not contradictory. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5, no. 10: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5, no. 10: ### Idol food and food rules settled without the Jerusalem decree Acts says the Jerusalem decree told Gentile believers to avoid idol sacrifices, blood, strangled meat and sexual immorality, and that Paul delivered it. His letters never cite it. They settle idol food and food disputes by knowledge, love and conscience, allowing market meat while forbidding the table of demons. The tension is real; explanations differ. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; 1 Corinthians 10:14-33; Romans 14:1-23; Romans 15:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8; 2 Corinthians 1:19 - **Acts:** Acts 15:19-29; Acts 16:4; Acts 18:5; Acts 21:18-25 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** 1 Corinthians allows market meat and meals with unbelievers, abstaining when told food was sacrificed, but forbids the table of demons; Romans says nothing is unclean in itself. **Acts:** James proposed, and the Jerusalem letter named as necessary, that Gentile believers abstain from idol sacrifices, blood, strangled things and sexual immorality. The Jerusalem elders later restate it to Paul. As Acts gives it, the decree was addressed to Antioch, Syria and Cilicia, and Paley granted that the silence extends beyond Galatians. Yet Silas, one of its bearers, helped found the Corinthian church (Acts 18:5; 2 Corinthians 1:19, as Silvanus), so distance explains little there. Paul shares two of its points, rejecting idol worship and sexual immorality, but lets believers eat market meat without asking and never mentions abstaining from blood or strangled meat. **Other readings** - **Paul set it aside.** Many critics read 1 Corinthians 10:25-27 as permitting what the decree forbids; Paul then either did not know the decree or did not treat it as binding on his churches. - **Compatible in substance.** Peter Tomson reads Paul's idol-food rulings as Jewish legal reasoning that forbids food known to be sacrificed; on that reading Paul's practice is compatible with the decree even though he never cites it. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), No. 10 (1849 New York reprint): ### Paul's Roman citizenship: central in Acts, absent from the letters Acts has Paul invoke Roman citizenship after his beating at Philippi and make it decisive in Jerusalem, and his appeal to Caesar is usually taken to rest on it, yet no letter mentions it, not even Philippians' list of credentials. 2 Corinthians adds three beatings with rods, a punishment Roman law forbade for uncondemned citizens. Scholars divide over the silence. - **The letter:** Philippians 3:2-8; Philippians 3:20; 2 Corinthians 6:5; 2 Corinthians 11:25; 2 Corinthians 11:30 - **Acts:** Acts 16:22-23; Acts 16:37-38; Acts 22:25-29; Acts 23:26-27; Acts 25:10-12; Acts 28:19 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul lists Jewish credentials, counts former status as loss, places citizenship in heaven and recalls three beatings with rods, but never claims Roman citizenship. **Acts:** Citizenship alarms Philippi's magistrates, stops a flogging in Jerusalem and features in Lysias's letter. Paul's appeal to Caesar, which Acts does not explicitly link to it, brings him to Rome. Acts narrates one beating with rods, at Philippi, so Paul's three go beyond Acts without contradicting it, as Paley noted. Acts itself has Paul beaten before he mentions citizenship and never explains his silence. The letters' silence may reflect their purpose: Paul boasts of weakness and counts former status as loss, and Philippians lists Jewish credentials against rivals who prized circumcision, where Roman status would be irrelevant. Acts mentions citizenship only when legal procedure turns on it. The question remains open. **Other readings** - **Citizenship doubted.** Some scholars judge Roman citizenship unlikely for a Jewish artisan of Paul's background and see it as part of Acts' portrait of Paul as respectable to Rome; the letters' silence and repeated rod beatings then count against it. - **Citizenship accepted.** Many, probably most, scholars accept it: the appeal to Caesar presupposes it, magistrates did sometimes beat citizens despite the law, and nothing in the letters required Paul to assert a civic privilege. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. IX: ### Three Sabbaths, or a longer stay at Thessalonica? A real but modest tension. Acts reports three Sabbaths of synagogue argument before a riot forces Paul to leave, which suggests weeks. The letters imply longer: work night and day, personal teaching, recognized leaders, and repeated gifts from Philippi. The synagogue phase may have been followed by more, or Acts compressed the stay. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12; 1 Thessalonians 3:10; 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2; 1 Thessalonians 4:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:12; Philippians 4:15-16 - **Acts:** Acts 17:1-10; Acts 18:4-11; Acts 19:8-10 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul recalls working night and day to avoid burdening them, caring for each like a father, and giving instructions; Philippi sent him aid there more than once. **Acts:** Paul reasons in the synagogue on three Sabbaths; converts join him; Jewish opponents rouse a crowd and attack Jason's house, and the believers send Paul and Silas away by night. Acts elsewhere shows a synagogue phase followed by a longer Gentile ministry, at Corinth and Ephesus, and Paley argued the same may have happened at Thessalonica. Nothing in Acts 17:1-10 rules this out, but it narrates no second phase and moves straight from the converts to the riot. The letters' details fit more easily into a stay longer than three weeks, though Philippians 4:16 may mean one gift there and another later. Acts may give the opening and the end, not the whole stay. **Other readings** - **A short stay after all.** Intense daily contact could produce the letters' picture within weeks, and Paul's wish to supply what their faith lacked and his new teaching on the dead (1 Thessalonians 3:10 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13) suggest a short stay. - **The letters take priority.** Scholars who reconstruct Paul's career from the letters first, as John Knox urged, would accept the longer stay and treat the three Sabbaths as part of Acts' stylized synagogue-first scheme rather than a measure of time. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IX (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), No. VI: ### Converts from idols, or converts from the synagogue? A real tension. 1 Thessalonians addresses converts who had abandoned idols and contrasts them with Gentiles ignorant of God, implying a largely ex-pagan church. Acts lists as converts some Jews, many devout Greeks and prominent women, apparently all from the synagogue audience. Paley's proposed later Gentile phase, unnarrated in Acts, would ease it (see the item on Paul's stay). - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 1:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:5 - **Acts:** Acts 17:1-4 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** The Thessalonians had worshiped idols before turning to God and must not live like Gentiles ignorant of God; the letter treats them as former pagans. **Acts:** After three Sabbaths of synagogue argument, some Jews are persuaded, along with a great many devout Greeks and a number of prominent women. Paley offered two answers. Some manuscripts add a conjunction that makes God-fearers and Greeks two groups, a reading he favored, but modern critical editions and the World English Bible do not adopt it, and it has little support today. His second answer, that Acts 17:4 covers only the synagogue weeks and Gentiles were won later, is possible but rests on a longer stay that Acts does not narrate. **Other readings** - **Luke's synagogue-first pattern.** Acts usually opens a city's mission in the synagogue and features God-fearers. Critics read Acts 17:1-4 as that stylized pattern and prefer the letter's picture of a church of former idol-worshipers. - **A synagogue core that grew.** God-fearers may not have abandoned civic cults entirely, and their households and neighbors could follow. A synagogue-based core could soon become a mostly ex-pagan church, as the letter implies. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. IX (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), No. VI: ### Timothy sent back from Athens: a gap in Acts Acts leaves Silas and Timothy at Berea and next brings them to Paul at Corinth; it never puts Timothy in Athens. The letter, in Paul's only mention of Athens, has him send Timothy from there to Thessalonica, implying Timothy had joined him. Acts does not mention this; Paley argued the letter explains a delay in Acts. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 3:1-6 - **Acts:** Acts 17:14-16; Acts 18:1-5 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Unable to bear it longer, the writers chose to be left alone at Athens and sent Timothy to strengthen the Thessalonians; he has just returned with good news. **Acts:** Silas and Timothy remain at Berea; Paul, at Athens, sends for them and waits. Acts next has both arrive at Corinth from Macedonia after Paul has settled and begun preaching. Paul's one mention of Athens fits Acts' route from Berea through Athens to Corinth. Paley's harmonization: Timothy obeyed the summons, reached Athens, and was sent back to Thessalonica; that would explain why he and Silas reached Corinth only after Paul had found lodging, work and a synagogue hearing. Acts' note that they came from Macedonia fits Timothy returning from Thessalonica, and Acts' silence suggests it did not draw on the letter here. Silas's movements remain unclear. **Other readings** - **Compressed itinerary.** Luke may have simplified movements he knew only in outline, or not known them; on this view Acts 17-18 is a compressed itinerary, and the letter, as primary evidence, should govern the reconstruction. - **Redirected by message.** Paul may have redirected Timothy by message from Athens to Thessalonica without meeting him, though the letter's wording about being left alone more naturally implies Timothy had been with him. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 9 (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), no. 4: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 9 (First Epistle to the Thessalonians), no. 4: ### Late subscriptions 'written from Athens' set against Acts The clash is with later scribal notes, not the letters. Many later manuscripts, followed by the King James Version, say both Thessalonian letters were written from Athens; but Acts has Silas and Timothy rejoin Paul only at Corinth, and the letters, sent by all three, name no place. One gap remains: Acts never records Timothy's visit to Athens. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 1 Thessalonians 3:1-6; 2 Thessalonians 1:1 - **Acts:** Acts 17:14-16; Acts 18:1; Acts 18:5 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul, Silvanus and Timothy send both letters. The senders recall being left at Athens alone and sending Timothy, who has now returned. No place of writing is named. **Acts:** Paul waits at Athens for Silas and Timothy, who stayed at Berea, then moves on to Corinth; there they come down from Macedonia to join him. Subscriptions are scribal notes, not part of what Paul wrote; Paley judged them conjectures, usually drawn from a single text, perhaps here the mention of Athens in 1 Thessalonians 3:1. Both letters have all three senders together, a reunion Acts places at Corinth. One real gap remains: 1 Thessalonians has Timothy sent from Athens, a visit Acts never records, though Paul was waiting there for him. **Other readings** - **Written at Athens after all.** Timothy might have come back to Paul while he was still at Athens, and the letter been written there; but Acts never brings Silas to Athens, though he co-sends the letter, and nothing in the letter requires Athens. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. XV, III: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. XV, IV: ### 'First fruits'? A variant at 2 Thessalonians 2:13 and the order of Macedonian conversions Any tension depends on a disputed reading. At 2 Thessalonians 2:13 manuscripts divide between God choosing the readers from the beginning (ap' arches, followed by the WEB) and choosing them as first fruits (aparchen, preferred by many modern editions and translations). Read as Macedonia's first converts, the latter would clash with Acts, where Philippi came first. - **The letter:** 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 2:2; 1 Corinthians 16:15 - **Acts:** Acts 16:12-15; Acts 16:40; Acts 17:1-4; Acts 17:34 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul gives thanks that God chose the readers for salvation, either from the beginning or as first fruits, depending on the manuscript; no region is named. **Acts:** Lydia's household at Philippi is baptized and a group of brothers gathers there before Paul reaches Thessalonica, where some Jews and many devout Greeks then believe. 1 Thessalonians says Paul came to Thessalonica after suffering at Philippi, agreeing with Acts on the order. Where Paul calls Stephanas' household Achaia's first fruits (1 Corinthians 16:15), he names the region, and even that sits loosely with Acts' earlier converts at Athens. Here no region is named, and first fruits can mean people set apart for God. On the WEB's reading no question arises. Any tension rests on a variant plus one interpretation. **Other readings** - **If first fruits meant Macedonia's first converts.** Were first fruits original and meant Macedonia's first converts, 2 Thessalonians would contradict both Acts and 1 Thessalonians 2:2; that conflict with Paul's own letter is itself a reason to doubt the regional sense. - **From the beginning as original.** Others judge ap' arches original, given its wide manuscript support; the verse then speaks of when God chose them, not of which Macedonian church came first. ### First converts of Achaia: Stephanas, Epaenetus, and the believers at Athens A mild tension. 1 Corinthians calls Stephanas's household the first converts of Achaia, and in the WEB Romans 16:5 gives Epaenetus the same title, yet Acts reports believers at Athens, also in Achaia, before Paul reached Corinth. Plausible resolutions exist, and most critical editions read Asia, not Achaia, for Epaenetus. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 1:16; 1 Corinthians 16:15-18; Romans 16:5; 2 Corinthians 1:1 - **Acts:** Acts 17:34; Acts 18:12-16; Acts 18:19-21; Acts 19:1-10 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Stephanas's household, baptized by Paul himself, were Achaia's first converts and now serve the church; in the WEB, Romans also calls Epaenetus Achaia's first convert to Christ. **Acts:** Before Corinth, some Athenians believe, including Dionysius the Areopagite and Damaris; at Corinth Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, declines to judge charges against Paul; Paul later preaches at Ephesus in Asia. Athens lay in the Roman province of Achaia, so a strict reading clashes with Acts 17:34. Paul may mean the first household converted, or the first converts of a church that lasted, since Acts mentions no church at Athens. Limiting Achaia to Corinth's region is harder, because Paul addresses saints throughout Achaia (2 Corinthians 1:1). **Other readings** - **Sceptical reading.** Luke may have enlarged the Athenian results with named converts, or Paul and Acts simply diverge; the letter's claim would then count against the Athens report rather than be harmonised with it. - **Asia in the critical text.** Most critical editions read Asia at Romans 16:5, with early manuscripts, treating Achaia as a scribal echo of 1 Corinthians 16:15; only Stephanas's title needs explaining. Manson's view that Romans 16 went to Ephesus would suit greeting Asia's first convert. ### Tongues at Pentecost and tongues at Corinth Acts and 1 Corinthians describe tongues differently. At Pentecost Jews from many nations understand the disciples in their own languages; at Corinth no one understands tongues without an interpreter, and outsiders may think the church mad. Whether these are one gift seen differently or two phenomena is debated; the settings differ, so there is no contradiction about one event. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 13:1; 1 Corinthians 14:2; 1 Corinthians 14:9-11; 1 Corinthians 14:13; 1 Corinthians 14:21-23; 1 Corinthians 14:27-28 - **Acts:** Acts 2:4-13; Acts 10:46; Acts 11:15; Acts 19:6 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** A tongues-speaker addresses God and is understood by no one; an interpreter is needed, or silence; outsiders may call the church mad. Yet Paul compares tongues with the world's languages. **Acts:** At Pentecost disciples speak other languages; Jews from many nations each hear their own; some call them drunk. Peter likens the Spirit's coming, with tongues, at Cornelius's house to Pentecost. The accounts overlap more than first appears: Acts also records scorn (Acts 2:13), as Paul anticipates (1 Corinthians 14:23), and Paul compares tongues with foreign languages and cites Scripture on strange tongues (1 Corinthians 14:10-11; 1 Corinthians 14:21). Two differences remain: at Pentecost hearers understand without an interpreter, while at Corinth no one does; and in Acts tongues come when the Spirit first falls on a group, while at Corinth they recur in worship. **Other readings** - **One gift, real languages.** Robert Gundry argued that Paul's tongues were human languages; Christopher Forbes, that Luke and Paul both meant real languages, human or heavenly, unknown to the speaker, so Corinth needed interpreters where Pentecost's hearers did not. - **Different phenomena or Lukan recasting.** Others hold that Corinthian tongues were not human language (Anthony Thiselton reads interpretation as putting utterance into words); Pentecost is then either a unique sign or Luke's recasting of ecstatic speech as foreign languages. ### Timothy as Paul's envoy, and two errands hard to place in Acts Acts and the letters give Timothy the same role: the colleague who stays behind or is sent ahead while Paul moves on. The letters add errands Acts omits, and two details are hard to place in Acts: Timothy's sending from Athens and his being left at Ephesus. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 3:1-2; 1 Thessalonians 3:6; 1 Timothy 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:1 - **Acts:** Acts 17:14-16; Acts 18:5; Acts 19:22; Acts 20:1 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul sent Timothy from Athens to strengthen Thessalonica, and he returned with good news; 1 Timothy has him stay on at Ephesus when Paul goes into Macedonia. **Acts:** Timothy stays at Berea while Paul goes to Athens and waits for him; he rejoins Paul at Corinth from Macedonia and is later sent ahead into Macedonia from Ephesus. The role matches, but two pieces are hard to join. Acts never brings Timothy to Athens, though Paul summons him and waits there (Acts 17:15-16), so Paley judged the meeting likely; both texts then bring Timothy from Macedonia to Paul. Paley found that Timothy's being left at Ephesus fits no Macedonian journey in Acts, since Timothy was sent ahead and 2 Corinthians has him with Paul in Macedonia, and placed it after Acts ends. **Other readings** - **1 Timothy is later.** Many scholars date 1 Timothy after Paul's lifetime. Its picture of Timothy left at Ephesus may then draw on Acts or the undisputed letters and is not an independent witness. - **No real clash at Athens.** Against the usual reading, Donfried argues that the apparent clash with Acts comes only from an unnecessary reading of 1 Thessalonians 3:1-3. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 9 (1 Thessalonians), no. 4: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 11 (1 Timothy), opening: ### Weak in person and an amateur speaker, against Acts' orator Paul's Corinthian critics found him unimpressive in person and a poor speaker, and he concedes lacking training in speech, yet Acts mostly portrays a bold, effective orator. The tension is real but limited: the letter reports opponents' charges and a disclaimer orators often made, while Acts' speeches are condensed, Lukan in style, and stress effect over polish. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 2:1-4; 2 Corinthians 10:1; 2 Corinthians 10:10; 2 Corinthians 11:6 - **Acts:** Acts 14:12; Acts 17:18; Acts 17:22-34; Acts 24:10-21; Acts 26:1-29 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Critics call his letters forceful but his presence feeble and speech poor; Paul echoes the charge of being lowly in person and concedes lacking skill in speech, not knowledge. **Acts:** Lystrans call Paul Hermes because he led the speaking; Acts gives him formal addresses at Athens and before Felix and Agrippa, though some Athenian philosophers dismiss him as a babbler. The pictures need not exclude each other. 2 Corinthians 10:10 reports hostile critics, probably judging by professional standards; Paul's concession uses a word for a layman, and 1 Corinthians 2:1-4 says he deliberately avoided eloquence at Corinth. Acts stresses effect over polish and itself records scorn at Athens (Acts 17:18). Its speeches are condensed and in Luke's style, as ancient historians composed them; many think they summarise what Paul said, but they cannot show how he sounded. **Other readings** - **A genuine difference.** Critical scholars often see a real gap: Acts makes Paul the eloquent orator Luke's readers would admire, while the letters show a speaker his own converts could dismiss. On this view Acts idealises Paul. - **A deliberate refusal of rhetoric.** Others argue the letters themselves are rhetorically skilful, so Paul's disclaimer is a deliberate refusal of showy sophistic style rather than an admission of weakness, which would bring the two portraits closer. ### Donor churches in the letters against the companions in Acts 20:4 The donor churches named in the letters do not match the companions listed in Acts 20:4. The letters stress Macedonia and Achaia and mention Galatia; Acts lists men from Macedonia, Derbe and Asia, plus Timothy, but no one from Achaia or Philippi. Neither text explains the difference, so it remains an open tension, not a contradiction. - **The letter:** Romans 15:26; 1 Corinthians 16:1-4; 2 Corinthians 8:1-5; 2 Corinthians 9:2 - **Acts:** Acts 20:4; Acts 16:1-2; Acts 19:29 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Romans names Macedonia and Achaia as givers; 1 Corinthians says Galatia's churches had the same instructions; 2 Corinthians praises Macedonian generosity and Achaia's readiness since the previous year. **Acts:** Acts 20:4 names companions from Berea and Thessalonica in Macedonia, Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, and two from Asia, but no one from Corinth or elsewhere in Achaia, nor from Philippi. If Acts 20:4 lists delegates, the match is imperfect. Achaia, the giver Romans and 2 Corinthians stress, has no named representative, nor does Philippi, while Asia, never named as a donor, sends two men. Galatia may appear in both through Gaius of Derbe and perhaps Timothy, linked with Lystra (Acts 16:1-2), if the letters mean the Roman province, though Romans omits it. Even Gaius is uncertain: Codex Bezae makes him a Macedonian of Doberus, and Acts 19:29 names a Macedonian Gaius. **Other readings** - **Not a delegate list.** Acts may list travelling companions, not representatives. Corinth's gift could have gone with Paul himself (1 Corinthians 16:4) or with the brothers of 2 Corinthians 8:16-23, and the first-person narrator who joins at Philippi may represent Philippi. - **Changed participation.** Romans may name only the latest givers, or Galatia may have withdrawn after the crisis behind Galatians, and Asian believers may have joined without being formal donors. None of these can be shown. ### A hoped-for visit to Rome versus arrival as a prisoner Romans plans a free, joyful, short visit to Rome on the way to Spain. Acts brings Paul there years later as a prisoner, after arrest, two years' custody and shipwreck, and leaves him under guard. A plan is not a report, so this is no contradiction, but the letter's hopes were not met as written. - **The letter:** Romans 1:10-12; Romans 1:13; Romans 1:15; Romans 15:22-23; Romans 15:24; Romans 15:28-29; Romans 15:30-32 - **Acts:** Acts 21:33; Acts 24:27; Acts 27:41-44; Acts 28:14-16; Acts 28:20; Acts 28:21-22; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul has long hoped to visit Rome, share a spiritual gift, preach there and be refreshed, staying briefly after delivering the Jerusalem gift before heading west. **Acts:** Paul is arrested in Jerusalem, held two years at Caesarea, shipwrecked, and reaches Rome under guard; believers meet him on the road, and he preaches there for two years. Romans states intentions; Acts reports outcomes, and the gap fits a letter written before the events. Some hopes are met in altered form: believers come out to meet Paul and he is encouraged (Acts 28:15), and he preaches in Rome unhindered (Acts 28:31), as Romans 1:15 wished. Paley argued that a forger who had read Acts would not have given Paul hopes so plainly overturned. **Other readings** - **Acts' thin Roman church.** After Acts 28:15 the Roman believers vanish from the story, and Rome's Jewish leaders say no letters or reports about Paul have reached them (Acts 28:21-22), a puzzling silence about the church Romans addressed. - **Limits of the argument.** The mismatch shows that Romans was not composed from Acts. It does not by itself show that Acts' account of the arrival is accurate in detail. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul, ch. II (Epistle to the Romans), No. VI: ### Acts 28: the Roman believers fade from view A real but mild tension. Romans implies a well-known Roman church with Jewish members, yet after believers greet Paul on the road, Acts drops them; the Jewish leaders in Rome know the movement only by its bad reputation and want Paul's own account. Acts, which mentions none of Paul's letters, is silent about this one too. - **The letter:** Romans 1:8; Romans 16:3-16 - **Acts:** Acts 18:2; Acts 28:15; Acts 28:17-22; Acts 28:23-28; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Romans praises a faith reported worldwide and greets many believers in Rome, several apparently Jewish, whom Paul calls his kin, together with Prisca and Aquila. **Acts:** Roman believers meet Paul on the road; afterwards Acts narrates only his meetings with Jewish leaders, who have had no reports against him and know the sect as everywhere opposed. Nothing here contradicts Romans: the leaders say only that no complaint about Paul reached them and that the sect has a bad name, not that they know no Christians. Their reserve suits a community once expelled under Claudius (Acts 18:2), and Romans greets believers, not synagogue officers. Still, Acts keeps the Roman church offstage after the welcome and gives the last scene to Paul and the Jewish leaders. **Other readings** - **Separate communities.** Wolfgang Wiefel argued that after the Claudian expulsion Roman synagogues and Christian groups went separate ways; if so, the leaders could honestly know the movement mainly by reputation. - **Luke's literary ending.** Luke may have shaped the ending as a final scene between Paul and Israel, leaving out the Roman church and Paul's letters because they did not serve that theme; the omission then says nothing about Rome. ### Israel's unbelief: hope in Romans 9-11, the turn to the Gentiles in Acts 28 They share a diagnosis but end differently. Both explain Jewish unbelief with prophetic texts about unseeing eyes and unhearing ears, note that some Jews believed, and see salvation going to the Gentiles. Romans also grieves over Israel and expects all Israel to be saved, however that is read; Acts closes on the turn to the Gentiles without restating that hope. - **The letter:** Romans 9:1-5; Romans 10:1; Romans 10:16-21; Romans 11:1-15; Romans 11:25-29 - **Acts:** Acts 3:19-21; Acts 13:46; Acts 14:1; Acts 18:6; Acts 19:8; Acts 28:23-28; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul grieves for Israel, cites prophets on hardened eyes and ears, sees a believing remnant and Gentile salvation through Israel's stumbling, and expects all Israel's salvation. **Acts:** In Rome some Jews believe and others refuse; Paul applies Isaiah's words on unhearing ears and announces God's salvation sent to the Gentiles, then welcomes all comers. The pattern is shared: a divided response, prophetic hardening, and salvation passing to the Gentiles (compare Romans 11:11 with Acts 28:28), though Acts cites Isaiah 6 and Romans Deuteronomy 29 with Isaiah 29. Other early Christians used Isaiah 6 the same way (Mark 4:12; John 12:40), so the overlap need not show contact. Acts' earlier turns to the Gentiles were local, since Paul returned to synagogues afterwards, and Peter's temple speech holds out restoration, but Acts 28 omits Romans' hope, whatever its scope, that the hardening will end. **Other readings** - **A final verdict.** Jack T. Sanders read Acts 28 as Luke's closing judgment that the Jewish people as a whole have rejected the gospel, a sharper view than Romans 11 allows. - **A divided Israel.** Jacob Jervell read Israel in Acts as divided, not rejected: believing Jews form restored Israel, to which Gentiles are added, so Acts 28 records the split rather than the end of hope. ### Ephesians and Paul's years at Ephesus: a letter that reads as if they had never met A real tension. Acts gives Paul about three years at Ephesus and a tearful farewell to its elders, yet Ephesians reads as if writer and readers had never met: Paul has heard of their faith, names only Tychicus, and recalls nothing of his stay. Early manuscripts lacking the place name may point to a wider first audience. - **The letter:** Ephesians 1:1; Ephesians 1:15; Ephesians 3:2-4; Ephesians 4:20-21; Ephesians 6:21-24; Colossians 2:1; Colossians 4:16 - **Acts:** Acts 18:19-21; Acts 19:1-20:1; Acts 20:17-38 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Addressed in most manuscripts to the saints at Ephesus, it mentions hearing of the readers' faith, speaks as if they know Paul's commission by report, and greets nobody by name. **Acts:** Paul reasons at Ephesus three months in the synagogue and two years in Tyrannus' hall, reaching all Asia; at Miletus he reminds the elders of three years among them. Paley judged that no text in Ephesians shows Paul had ever been at Ephesus. The words naming Ephesus are missing from P46 and the first hands of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, and Marcion called it the letter to the Laodiceans. If it was a circular for Asian churches, including some Paul had never visited (Colossians 2:1), its impersonal tone fits Acts. If it went to Ephesus alone, the tension stands, explained either by later authorship or by years of growth after Paul left. **Other readings** - **A circular or Laodicean letter.** Paley thought it the letter from Laodicea (Colossians 4:16); J. Armitage Robinson, a circular Tychicus carried to several Asian churches. On either view the Ephesian name entered the address later. - **Authorship explanations.** Many critics, such as A. T. Lincoln, take Ephesians as a later disciple's reworking of Colossians, explaining its silence about Paul's Ephesian years; Harold Hoehner and others defend Pauline authorship and the Ephesian address. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 6, no. 4: - Tertullian, Against Marcion (P. Holmes, 1885), 5.17: ### Epaphroditus nearly dies and Trophimus is left sick, despite Acts' healings Acts shows Paul healing at Lystra, Ephesus and Malta and reviving Eutychus at Troas, yet Philippians credits Epaphroditus's recovery to God's mercy and 2 Timothy leaves Trophimus sick at Miletus. Acts frames healings as God's acts, though on Malta all the sick who came were cured; Paul's letters claim signs but also an affliction God did not remove. - **The letter:** Philippians 2:26-27; Philippians 2:30; 2 Timothy 4:20; Romans 15:19; 2 Corinthians 12:7-9; 2 Corinthians 12:12; Galatians 4:13-14 - **Acts:** Acts 14:8-10; Acts 19:11-12; Acts 20:9-12; Acts 20:15-17; Acts 21:29; Acts 28:8-9 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Epaphroditus nearly died, but God had mercy on him; Trophimus was left sick at Miletus. Paul claims signs and wonders, yet also an unremoved thorn and bodily weakness in Galatia. **Acts:** Paul heals a man lame from birth at Lystra, cloths from him cure the sick at Ephesus, he revives Eutychus, and on Malta Publius's father and others are cured. Acts presents healings as God's work through Paul on particular occasions. Paley argued that Epaphroditus's illness shows such power did not depend on the apostles' will, and that a forger would not have spared a miracle. The Miletus of 2 Timothy is unlikely to be the stop in Acts 20:15-17, since Trophimus went on to Jerusalem; Paley took it as a journey after Acts ends. **Other readings** - **Acts heightens Paul.** Critical scholars such as Haenchen see Acts heightening Paul into a miracle-worker, while the letters show an apostle marked by weakness; on this view the contrast reflects the author's portrait, not two sides of one record. - **2 Timothy as a later writing.** If 2 Timothy was written after Paul, its note on Trophimus may be literary detail rather than report, leaving Epaphroditus as the case from an undisputed letter. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 7, no. 2: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 7, no. 2: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 12, no. 1: ### No one else like Timothy, yet Paul's companions send greetings Philippians says Paul has no one else like Timothy who will genuinely care for the Philippians, since all pursue their own interests. If written from Rome, this sits awkwardly with Colossians and Philemon, which send greetings from Aristarchus, Mark, Luke and Demas, and with Acts, which puts Aristarchus aboard for Italy and brings the 'we' narrator to Rome. - **The letter:** Philippians 2:19-22; Philippians 4:21; Colossians 4:7; Colossians 4:10-14; Philemon 1:24 - **Acts:** Acts 19:29; Acts 27:1-2; Acts 28:16 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul has no one else of the same spirit who will genuinely care for them, for all seek their own interests; Timothy has proved himself. Yet unnamed brothers send greetings. **Acts:** Aristarchus embarks with Paul and the 'we' narrator for Italy, and 'we' reach Rome. Acts never says who stayed with Paul there and never mentions Timothy in Rome. The remark may concern who was free and trusted to travel to Philippi, not everyone near Paul, and the letter itself mentions brothers with him. Ramsay argued Philippians was written late in the Roman custody, after Aristarchus, Luke, Mark and Tychicus had left on missions. Lightfoot, dating it earliest, argued that Aristarchus probably left the ship at Myra and rejoined Paul later, and that Luke may have been away or busy. **Other readings** - **An Ephesian setting.** If Philippians was written at Ephesus, Acts' Roman companions are irrelevant, though Acts also places Aristarchus at Ephesus during the riot, so the tension does not vanish entirely. - **Praise, not census.** Some read the line as overstatement in praise of Timothy, not a survey of Paul's companions; others hear genuine disappointment with those around him. ### The Miletus farewell and the letters' later visits east At Miletus Paul tells the Ephesian elders they will never see his face again, yet in Philemon he hopes to visit Colossae, near Ephesus, and 1 Timothy has him at Ephesus again. The tension is real. It eases if the prediction was Paul's own foreboding or the letters predate Acts 20; many critics conclude he never returned. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:25-26; Philippians 2:23-24; Philemon 1:22; Colossians 4:9; Romans 15:24; Romans 15:28; 1 Timothy 1:3; 1 Timothy 3:14-15; 1 Timothy 4:13; 2 Timothy 4:20 - **Acts:** Acts 20:16-17; Acts 20:22-25; Acts 20:38 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul asks Philemon for a guest room, likely at Colossae near Ephesus; in 1 Timothy he leaves Ephesus for Macedonia, hoping to return; in 2 Timothy he left Trophimus sick at Miletus. **Acts:** At Miletus Paul says he knows the Ephesian elders will never see him again, which grieves them most; the Spirit had warned him only of chains and hardships. If these letters reflect visits after Acts 28, the farewell did not come true as stated. Paley suggested that the Spirit foretold only chains and hardships, and Paul's certainty was his own foreboding, as in Philippians, where he knows he will remain yet waits to see how his case goes. He also judged that a visit to Colossae would hardly bypass nearby Ephesus. Romans 15, written shortly before, shows Paul planning to go west to Spain, so the farewell may voice a plan that later changed. **Other readings** - **Letters before Miletus.** If Philemon and Philippians came from an Ephesian imprisonment (Duncan) and the Pastorals from Paul's Acts-era career (Robinson), the visits they imply came no later than the Miletus stop or remained hopes, and Acts 20:25 stands as written. - **Written in hindsight.** Luke may have written the farewell knowing Paul died without returning (Haenchen). The verse then counts against the release-and-return journeys the Pastorals presuppose, which critics who doubt their authorship read as literary settings. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 11 (First Epistle to Timothy), introduction; T. R. Birks ed. (archive.org): - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 11 (First Epistle to Timothy), no. 1; T. R. Birks ed. (archive.org): ### Timothy left at Ephesus when Paul set out for Macedonia 1 Timothy says Paul left Timothy at Ephesus when he went into Macedonia and hoped to return soon. Acts' only such departure, after the riot, fits poorly: Timothy co-sends 2 Corinthians from Macedonia and travels with Paul, who then bypasses Ephesus. Acts omits this journey, it came after Acts, or the setting is literary. - **The letter:** 1 Timothy 1:3; 1 Timothy 3:14-15; 1 Timothy 4:13; 1 Corinthians 16:10-11; 2 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 2:1; 2 Corinthians 2:12-13; 2 Corinthians 7:5; 2 Corinthians 13:1 - **Acts:** Acts 19:21-22; Acts 20:1-4; Acts 20:16 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul urged Timothy to remain at Ephesus, while Paul went into Macedonia, to stop certain men teaching otherwise; he hopes to return shortly but writes in case of delay. **Acts:** Paul sends Timothy and Erastus ahead to Macedonia, leaves Ephesus after the riot, returns from Greece with Timothy in his party, and sails past Ephesus, hurrying to Jerusalem. Paley, following Pearson, judged that the departure fits no journey Acts records and dated the letter after Paul's first Roman imprisonment. Timothy, sent ahead, may have returned as 1 Corinthians 16:11 expects, but 2 Corinthians, written in Macedonia soon after Paul left Ephesus, names him co-sender, while 1 Timothy expects Paul to return rather than Timothy to follow. Placing the letter at Acts 20:1, as Benson and Michaelis did, needs Timothy to catch up quickly. Acts does omit some travel, such as a second Corinth visit. **Other readings** - **An unrecorded Ephesian-era trip.** Paul may have made a short unrecorded trip from Ephesus to Macedonia during his years there, leaving Timothy behind; Robinson dates 1 Timothy within that period. - **A literary frame.** On the pseudonymity view, the setting is a literary frame drawn loosely from Paul's Ephesian ministry, so a mismatch with Acts' itinerary is unsurprising (Dibelius and Conzelmann). **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 11 (First Epistle to Timothy), introduction; T. R. Birks ed. (archive.org): - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 11 (First Epistle to Timothy), introduction; T. R. Birks ed. (archive.org): ### Money, pay for elders, and a saying matching Luke 10:7 Acts and 1 Timothy share a money ethic but differ on pay. At Miletus Paul reminds the Ephesian elders that he coveted no one's silver and worked for his own and his companions' needs, an example for them. 1 Timothy also condemns greed, yet grants elders who lead well double honor, citing a saying matching Luke 10:7. - **The letter:** 1 Timothy 1:3; 1 Timothy 3:3; 1 Timothy 3:8; 1 Timothy 5:17-18; 1 Timothy 6:5-10; 1 Timothy 6:17-19; 1 Corinthians 9:9-15 - **Acts:** Acts 20:17; Acts 20:33-35 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Overseers and deacons must not love money; treating godliness as gain is rejected; the rich must share; elders who lead and teach well deserve double honor, as workers deserve wages. **Acts:** Paul tells the Ephesian elders that he coveted no one's silver or gold, worked with his hands, and that they should likewise help the weak, remembering Jesus' words on giving. The money ethic agrees: no greed and generous giving. The difference is pay. Acts holds up Paul's self-support as the elders' model; 1 Timothy grants leading elders double honor, apparently including pay, citing the law about the unmuzzled ox that Paul also cites in 1 Corinthians 9, where he claims the right to support yet waives it. The tension is mild: 1 Corinthians already holds both. **Other readings** - **Luke's hand.** Moule and Wilson propose that Luke wrote or shaped the letters to Timothy and Titus, noting the Luke 10:7 wording; if so, their money ethic and the Miletus speech come from one hand and are not independent. - **Written Gospel or oral saying.** If the word Scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18 covers both sayings, the letter may cite Luke's Gospel as Scripture, implying a later date; others take the second as a saying of Jesus known orally, as in 1 Corinthians 9:14. ### Women teaching at Ephesus and Priscilla 1 Timothy bars a woman from teaching or holding authority over a man, while Acts shows Priscilla, with Aquila, instructing Apollos at Ephesus, the same city. Whether they conflict depends on how 1 Timothy 2:12 is read: as a lasting rule on public teaching, a response to local false teaching, or a later development. - **The letter:** 1 Timothy 1:3; 1 Timothy 2:11-15; 1 Timothy 5:13; 2 Timothy 3:6-7; 2 Timothy 4:19; 1 Corinthians 11:5; 1 Corinthians 12:28; Romans 16:3 - **Acts:** Acts 18:18-19; Acts 18:24-26; Acts 21:8-9 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** A woman should learn quietly, not teach or hold authority over a man, citing Adam and Eve; idle younger widows go house to house saying improper things. **Acts:** Priscilla and Aquila, left at Ephesus by Paul, heard Apollos in the synagogue, took him aside and set out God's way to him more precisely; Philip's four daughters prophesied. The texts meet in one city: 1 Timothy addresses Timothy at Ephesus, and 2 Timothy greets Prisca and Aquila, probably there. Acts says only that the couple took Apollos aside; complementarians read private instruction outside the assembly, while egalitarians note Priscilla is usually named first and 1 Corinthians 11:5 assumes women prophesy in worship. Paul lists prophecy and teaching as distinct gifts. Neither text addresses the other's case, so the tension lies in interpretation, not conflicting facts. **Other readings** - **Lasting rule (complementarian).** Complementarian readers take 1 Timothy 2:12 as a lasting rule, grounded in creation order, against women teaching men with authority in the gathered church; Priscilla's private help to Apollos, with her husband, falls outside it. - **Local crisis or later stage.** Egalitarian readers see it answering false teaching spreading through Ephesian households (1 Timothy 5:13; 2 Timothy 3:6), so Priscilla reflects Paul's wider practice; others, dating 1 Timothy after Paul, see a later, more restrictive stage. ### Paul's chain in Rome: open house arrest in Acts, harsh custody in 2 Timothy Acts and 2 Timothy both place Paul in chains at Rome, but the conditions differ. Acts ends with two years of house arrest, visitors welcome and officials finding no capital charge; 2 Timothy describes chains as a criminal, a friend's diligent search to find him, and expected death. Whether these are one imprisonment or two remains debated. - **The letter:** 2 Timothy 1:8; 2 Timothy 1:16-17; 2 Timothy 2:9; 2 Timothy 4:6-8; 2 Timothy 4:20; Philippians 1:25-26; Philippians 2:24; Philemon 1:22; Romans 15:24; Romans 15:28 - **Acts:** Acts 21:29; Acts 23:29; Acts 25:25; Acts 26:31-32; Acts 28:16; Acts 28:18; Acts 28:20; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul is the Lord's prisoner, chained like a criminal; Onesiphorus sought him diligently in Rome and found him; Paul left Trophimus sick at Miletus; his death is near. **Acts:** Officials find nothing deserving death; in Rome Paul lodges by himself under a soldier's guard, wearing a chain, for two years receiving all comers and preaching without hindrance. Paley assigned 2 Timothy to a second Roman imprisonment: Philippians and Philemon, which he placed in Rome, expect release, while 2 Timothy expects death. His 'uniform tradition' overstates the evidence. The earliest witness, 1 Clement, usually dated about AD 96, says only that Paul reached the limit of the west (Spain, as Romans 15 planned, or Rome itself) before martyrdom; the Muratorian Fragment's Spanish journey and Eusebius's hedged release come later. Acts never reports the appeal's outcome, so later, harsher custody can be neither confirmed nor excluded. **Other readings** - **One imprisonment, later turn.** The harsher details belong to a later stage of the same Roman case, with no release; Acts' silence allows this, though 2 Timothy 4:20 then fits awkwardly, since Acts takes Trophimus on to Jerusalem. - **A later farewell testament.** Many critical scholars read 2 Timothy as written after Paul's death in his name, a farewell testament whose bleak custody is literary portrait, not a second historical imprisonment; defenders of authenticity point to its many personal details. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter 12 (Second Epistle to Timothy), No. I: - Clement of Rome, First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, 1885), 1 Clement 5: - Anonymous, Muratorian Fragment (S. D. F. Salmond, 1886), Muratorian Fragment 2 (ANF numbering): ### Erastus at Corinth, Trophimus sick at Miletus, a cloak at Troas: journeys Acts does not record Three travel notes in 2 Timothy do not fit Acts' sequence. Trophimus cannot have been left sick at Miletus on Paul's last Acts visit, since Acts soon places him in Jerusalem; Erastus at Corinth fits poorly, and a cloak left at Troas then would have waited years. Paley inferred a journey after Acts; others see fragments or literary setting. - **The letter:** 2 Timothy 4:13; 2 Timothy 4:20; 2 Corinthians 2:12-13 - **Acts:** Acts 19:22; Acts 20:2-6; Acts 20:13-17; Acts 21:29; Acts 21:33; Acts 27:3-8; Acts 28:30 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul asks Timothy to bring the cloak, books and parchments left with Carpus at Troas, and reports that Erastus stayed at Corinth and Trophimus was left sick at Miletus. **Acts:** Erastus is sent to Macedonia; Trophimus waits at Troas for Paul's party and is later seen with him in Jerusalem; arrested, Paul reaches Rome without revisiting Troas, Miletus or Corinth. Paley, following Capellus, noted that Timothy left Greece with Paul (Acts 20:4), so needed no news that Erastus stayed at Corinth, and that Trophimus went on to Jerusalem (Acts 21:29). Acts then keeps Paul in custody. Paley therefore placed the notes after a release from Roman custody. Eusebius reports that release as tradition, but partly argues from 2 Timothy itself, so he is not an independent witness. Trophimus is the firmer case; the Erastus point is an inference. Only the cloak could date from Acts 20. **Other readings** - **Genuine notes in a later letter.** P. N. Harrison argued these verses are an authentic note Paul wrote from Macedonia after the Troas visit of 2 Corinthians 2:12-13, later worked into a letter composed by a follower. - **Literary detail.** Scholars who judge 2 Timothy pseudonymous, such as Lewis Donelson, take its names and errands as part of a constructed portrait of Paul that gives the letter a personal setting, not a record of real journeys. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. XII (Second Epistle to Timothy), No. I, on Erastus: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. XII (Second Epistle to Timothy), No. I, conclusion: - Eusebius, Church History (A. C. McGiffert, 1890), Church History 2.22.2: ## Silence ### Arabia and the three years: Acts says nothing Acts is silent on Arabia. Galatians says that after his call Paul withdrew to Arabia, returned to Damascus, and only after three years went up to Jerusalem. Acts moves from Damascus to Jerusalem with only vague notes of time, which can accommodate the gap but give no sign of it. - **The letter:** Galatians 1:17-18; Galatians 4:25 - **Acts:** Acts 9:19-26 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Instead of going to Jerusalem, Paul withdrew to Arabia, then returned to Damascus; after three years he went up to Jerusalem. Elsewhere he places Mount Sinai in Arabia. **Acts:** Saul spends some days with the Damascus disciples, preaches, and after many days escapes a plot and goes to Jerusalem. No stay in Arabia is mentioned. The gap can sit within the indefinite interval at Damascus in Acts. Lightfoot put a brief Arabian stay early, before Paul's active preaching, though Acts 9:20 has him preaching at once; Paley argued that the vague timing in Acts could span three years. Paley took the omission as proof the writers did not copy each other. What Paul did in Arabia is debated: mission in the Nabataean kingdom, perhaps provoking King Aretas, or a retreat toward Sinai like Elijah's. **Other readings** - **Deliberate omission.** Luke may have known of Arabia, from tradition or even from Galatians, and left it out to move Paul quickly to Jerusalem; silence alone cannot prove the two writers were independent. - **Luke did not know.** Luke may simply not have known of a brief stay in Arabia, as Lightfoot judged, so the silence reflects the limits of his information rather than a choice. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Ch. 5 (Galatians), No. II; 1850 Religious Tract Society edition: ### A heavenly ascent fourteen years earlier, absent from Acts Acts never narrates the ascent to the third heaven that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 12, though it reports several of his visions. Counting back fourteen years from a letter of about AD 55-57 points to the early 40s, years Acts covers only in summary. One proposal nonetheless identifies the ascent with the temple vision of Acts 22. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 12:1-7; Galatians 1:18 - **Acts:** Acts 9:3-6; Acts 9:30; Acts 11:25-26; Acts 16:9-10; Acts 18:9-10; Acts 22:17-21; Acts 23:11; Acts 27:23-24 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Speaking in the third person, Paul tells of being caught up to the third heaven and paradise fourteen years earlier; such revelations brought him a humbling thorn in the flesh. **Acts:** Acts records visions: the Lord on the Damascus road, a Macedonian man, night assurances at Corinth and Jerusalem, a temple trance, and an angel in the storm, but no ascent. Acts and the letter agree that Paul had visionary experiences, but Acts does not narrate this ascent. Fourteen years before 2 Corinthians falls around AD 41-43 on common chronologies, when Acts has Paul in Tarsus and then Antioch with few details. The temple trance of Acts 22:17-21 is the closest Acts parallel, but most chronologies place it at the first Jerusalem visit, about three years after the conversion (Galatians 1:18). Paul's reluctance to boast about the ascent may explain why it was little told. **Other readings** - **The temple vision.** C. R. A. Morray-Jones identified the ascent with the temple vision of Acts 22:17-21, read as Paul's commission to the Gentiles, and argued the identification can be fitted into Pauline chronology. ### Peter after Acts 15: Corinth, Rome and the silence of both texts Apart from a visit to Antioch (Galatians 2:11), neither Acts nor Paul's letters says where Peter later worked. Acts last shows him at the Jerusalem council. 1 Corinthians knows a Cephas group and implies he travelled with a believing wife. Romans greets many in Rome, not Peter. Visits to Corinth or Rome rest on later sources. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:11; 1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 3:6; 1 Corinthians 3:10; 1 Corinthians 3:22; 1 Corinthians 9:5; Romans 15:20; Romans 16:3-16 - **Acts:** Acts 12:17; Acts 15:7-11; Acts 18:27-19:1; Acts 28:14-31 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** A Corinthian faction claimed Cephas, who, Paul implies, travelled with a believing wife. Romans greets about two dozen people in Rome but not Peter. Galatians places him at Antioch. **Acts:** After escaping prison, Peter goes off to an unnamed place, reappears to speak at the council, then vanishes from the story. Acts never takes him to Greece or Rome. The texts do not conflict; they stop. A Cephas group need not mean Peter visited Corinth, since another group claimed Christ, though the Apollos group followed a real visit (Acts 18:27-19:1). Paul says he planted the church and laid its foundation (1 Corinthians 3:6-10), which sits awkwardly with the later claim that Peter co-founded it. Romans' greetings tell against Peter being in Rome when Paul wrote, not against a later stay. Paul's policy of not working where others had founded churches (Romans 15:20) settles nothing either way. **Other readings** - **Early witnesses to Peter in Rome.** 1 Clement 5, written from Rome about 96, recalls Peter's martyrdom without naming its place; Ignatius implies Peter and Paul had instructed the Romans; Dionysius of Corinth, about 170, says both taught at Corinth and in Italy. - **Peter never reached Rome.** Otto Zwierlein (2009) argues that Peter never came to Rome and that the tradition grew in second-century literature; on that view the silence of Acts and Romans is the earliest evidence. Most historians still accept that he died there. **Sources** - Clement of Rome, First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, 1885), 1 Clement 5: - Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans (A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, 1885), To the Romans 4: - Eusebius, Church History (A. C. McGiffert, 1890), Church History 2.25.8 (quoting Dionysius of Corinth): ### Acts does not record Paul's confrontation with Peter at Antioch Acts never places Peter in Antioch and never mentions Paul's public rebuke of him there. Its Antioch stays leave room for the incident, before or after the council. Paley took the omission as a sign that Acts and Galatians were written independently; others, such as Richard Pervo, think Luke knew Paul's letters, so the omission may be deliberate. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:11-14 - **Acts:** Acts 12:17; Acts 14:26-28; Acts 15:1-2; Acts 15:24; Acts 15:30-39 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** When Peter came to Antioch and withdrew from Gentile believers, Paul confronted him publicly for pressing Gentiles to live like Jews. **Acts:** Acts records a long Antioch stay before the council and another after it, ending in Paul and Barnabas's sharp split over John Mark, but never brings Peter there. This is silence, not contradiction. Acts 12:17 sends Peter to an unnamed place, so a visit to Antioch fits the long stay of Acts 14:28 or the stay of Acts 15:35. Acts does report men from Judea unsettling Antioch, whom the Jerusalem letter says it never commissioned (Acts 15:1-2; Acts 15:24); some who date the incident before the council link them with the people from James (Galatians 2:12). Acts is not shy of conflict: it reports Paul's sharp quarrel with Barnabas (Acts 15:39). **Other readings** - **Conciliatory omission.** F. C. Baur and the Tübingen school held that Luke suppressed a doctrinal clash between Peter and Paul to present the apostles as united; on this view the Paul-Barnabas quarrel, being personal, posed no such threat. - **Paul lost at Antioch.** James D. G. Dunn (1983) argued that Paul probably failed to carry the Antioch church, which would explain his later independence from Antioch; Luke may have preferred not to tell that story. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 2: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 10: ### Titus, central in the letters, is never named in Acts Acts never names Titus, although Paul's letters make him a trusted delegate: the uncircumcised Greek taken to Jerusalem, the go-between in the Corinthian crisis and the collection, and the addressee of a letter bearing Paul's name. The silence suggests Acts was not compiled from these letters. It does not, by itself, show that the letters are authentic. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:1; Galatians 2:3; 2 Corinthians 2:13; 2 Corinthians 7:6-15; 2 Corinthians 8:6; 2 Corinthians 8:16-23; 2 Corinthians 12:18; 2 Timothy 4:10; Titus 1:4; Titus 1:5 - **Acts:** Acts 11:30; Acts 15:2; Acts 18:7; Acts 20:4 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Titus goes with Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem uncircumcised, handles Paul's dealings with Corinth including the collection, and in the Pastoral Letters is left on Crete and goes to Dalmatia. **Acts:** Acts never mentions Titus. Barnabas and Saul carry the famine relief, unnamed others join Paul and Barnabas going to Jerusalem, and the list of Paul's later companions omits him. Acts is selective: it never mentions Paul writing letters and passes over the Corinthian crisis and most of the collection, the episodes in which Titus is prominent. Paley drew the evidential point: a writer working from 2 Corinthians or Titus would hardly omit him, so Acts and these letters look independent. Lightfoot placed Titus among the unnamed others of Acts 15:2. Some manuscripts call the Justus of Acts 18:7 Titius or Titus Justus, but few identify him with Paul's co-worker. **Other readings** - **Deliberate omission.** F. C. Baur argued that Acts, smoothing over the conflict with Jewish Christians, avoided naming Titus because his case recalled the circumcision dispute. On this view the silence is deliberate, not mere selectivity. - **Family reticence.** Alexander Souter suggested Titus was Luke's brother: if Luke wrote Acts, he might leave a brother unnamed as he leaves himself unnamed. Nothing in the texts confirms the relationship. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 4, no. 2: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 13, no. 1: ### Galatians never cites the Jerusalem decree Acts says Paul delivered Galatians argues at length against circumcising Gentile believers, yet never mentions the Jerusalem decree. Acts says that decree did not require Gentile circumcision and that Paul's party delivered it in the cities around Derbe and Lystra. The silence is real; explanations turn on Paul's independence, the decree's narrower scope, and the letter's date and destination. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:1-10; Galatians 5:2-6 - **Acts:** Acts 15:23-29; Acts 15:30-31; Acts 16:1-6; Acts 21:25 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul says the Jerusalem leaders added nothing to his message and warns that seeking justification by the law, through circumcision, means falling from grace. He never cites a decree. **Acts:** The Jerusalem letter to Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia did not require circumcision. Travelling through Derbe and Lystra, Paul's party delivered its decisions to the cities. Paley found the silence striking and gave reasons: Paul argued from his own commission, not Jerusalem's authority, and the decree only declined to impose the law on Gentile converts, whereas Galatians denies the law any saving effect even for Jews. Paley also doubted the Galatians had the decree, since Acts first brings Paul to Galatia at Acts 16:6, after the delivery of Acts 16:4. On the South Galatian view Acts 16:4 includes the readers, so, unless the letter came first, the silence is sharper. **Other readings** - **Decree came later, without Paul.** If Galatians 2:1-10 describes the Acts 15 meeting, Paul's report that the leaders added nothing and asked only for the poor sits uneasily with a four-point decree; many critics conclude the decree came later, without Paul (compare Acts 21:25). - **Written before the decree.** South Galatian scholars such as Bruce and Longenecker date the letter before the Acts 15 meeting and identify Galatians 2 with the famine visit, so the letter could not cite a decree that did not yet exist. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), No. 10 (1849 New York reprint): - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), No. 10 (1849 New York reprint): - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 5 (Galatians), No. 10, footnote (1849 New York reprint): ### A founding visit in bodily weakness that Acts does not mention Galatians says Paul first preached there because of a bodily weakness, yet the Galatians welcomed him as an angel of God. Acts mentions no illness on any Galatian visit. Ramsay's proposal of malaria in Pamphylia and a comparison with Lystra hailing Paul as Mercury remain conjectures; Acts' silence neither confirms nor contradicts the letter. - **The letter:** Galatians 4:13-15; 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 - **Acts:** Acts 13:13-14; Acts 14:11-13; Acts 14:19-23; Acts 15:38; Acts 16:1-6; Acts 18:23 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul first preached to them because of a bodily weakness that tested them; they welcomed him as God's angel and would have given him their eyes. **Acts:** Acts narrates John Mark leaving at Perga, the Lystrans hailing Paul as Mercury and his stoning there, but records no illness on any Galatian visit. This is a silence, not a conflict: Acts omits many hardships the letters report (compare 2 Corinthians 11:23-27), and Galatians does not name the illness. Paul's Greek adverb, to proteron, can mean the first of two occasions or simply formerly. If it implies two visits, Acts reports two on either theory, though on the North Galatian view both are brief journeys through the region. **Other readings** - **Malaria in Pamphylia.** Ramsay proposed that Paul fell ill, perhaps with malaria, in Pamphylia and left Perga for Pisidian Antioch on that account, which would also explain the change of plan John Mark refused to follow. Acts gives Mark's departure no reason. - **An echo of Lystra.** Some compare the Galatians' welcome of Paul as God's messenger with Lystra hailing him as Mercury, the gods' messenger; but that was an unconverted crowd soon persuaded to stone him, so the echo is loose. ### Jason, Aristarchus and Secundus in Acts; no named Thessalonian in the letters Acts names three Thessalonians tied to Paul's mission, Jason, Aristarchus and Secundus, but neither Thessalonian letter names any member of the church. 1 Thessalonians asks that all the brothers be greeted and the letter read to all. That suits a letter to a whole congregation, but it leaves Acts' names unsupported by these letters. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 1 Thessalonians 2:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:26-27; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:17; Romans 16:21; Colossians 4:10; Philemon 1:24; Philippians 4:2-3; 1 Corinthians 1:14-16 - **Acts:** Acts 17:5-9; Acts 19:29; Acts 20:4; Acts 27:2 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** The letters name only their three senders. 1 Thessalonians asks that all the brothers be greeted and the letter read to all; 2 Thessalonians closes with Paul's handwritten greeting. **Acts:** Jason hosts the missionaries and gives security after a riot; Aristarchus and Secundus, both Thessalonians, later travel with Paul, and Aristarchus sails with him toward Rome. This is a gap, not a contradiction. Paul's practice varies: Galatians names no local believer, while Philippians and 1 Corinthians name several. The Thessalonian letters confirm local opposition but not who bore it. Aristarchus appears in Colossians and Philemon, but only Acts makes him a Thessalonian; the Jason who sends greetings in Romans may or may not be Acts' host. **Other readings** - **Names from a list.** Many read Acts 20:4 as a list of delegates for the collection; Luke may have drawn Thessalonian names from such a list or tradition, which the letters neither confirm nor contradict. - **The Jason of Romans 16.** If the Jason of Romans 16:21, greeting Rome from Paul's company, probably at Corinth, is the Thessalonian host, Paul's letters touch Acts' account indirectly; the name was common, so the identification stays uncertain. ### Gaius of Corinth, Paul's host, and the Titius Justus of Acts 18:7 Acts never mentions a Corinthian Gaius, though 1 Corinthians names one whom Paul baptized and Romans a Gaius, probably the same, usually read as host to Paul and the church. Acts' two Gaiuses are a Macedonian seized at Ephesus and Gaius of Derbe. Goodspeed's proposal that the Corinthian Gaius was the Justus of Acts 18:7 is unproven. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 1:14; Romans 16:23 - **Acts:** Acts 18:7-8; Acts 19:29; Acts 20:4 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** Gaius is one of the few Corinthians Paul baptized himself; Romans, probably sent from Corinth, carries greetings from a Gaius usually read as host to Paul and the whole church. **Acts:** Paul leaves the synagogue for the house next door of Justus, a God-fearer; Gaius appears only as a Macedonian seized at Ephesus and as Gaius of Derbe. Acts names only a handful of Corinthians, so its silence about Gaius is unsurprising. Goodspeed's proposal would make Justus, whose house Paul used, the Gaius usually read as the church's host; Acts also mentions Justus beside Crispus, a slight point in its favour, though it never says Justus believed. The WEB reads only Justus; critical editions read Titius Justus. Gaius was a very common first name, so the identification is possible, not established. **Other readings** - **Gaius of Derbe.** Paley matched the Gaius of Romans with Gaius of Derbe, who left Greece with Paul (Acts 20:4). A Lycaonian could have lived at Corinth, though the usual reading of Gaius as a settled host makes this less likely. - **Guest, not host.** John Kloppenborg argues that Romans 16:23 calls Gaius a guest, not a host: a Roman visitor rather than a wealthy Corinthian patron. That would undercut both the host reading and any link to Justus's house. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter II (Epistle to the Romans), No. II; 1849 New York edition, p. 22: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter III (First Epistle to the Corinthians), No. VIII; 1849 New York edition, p. 57: ### Silas vanishes from Acts after Corinth and from the later letters Both sources fall silent about Silas after the founding of Corinth. Acts last names him at Acts 18:5; among Paul's letters only 1 and 2 Thessalonians name Silvanus, generally taken as Silas's Latin name, as co-sender, and 2 Corinthians recalls his preaching at Corinth. Later letters name other companions; neither source says what became of him. - **The letter:** 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 1 Corinthians 1:1; 1 Corinthians 16:10-12; 2 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:19; Philippians 1:1; Romans 16:21-23 - **Acts:** Acts 15:40; Acts 16:19-29; Acts 17:14-15; Acts 18:5; Acts 19:22; Acts 20:4 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Silvanus preached at Corinth with Paul and Timothy; later letters name Sosthenes, Timothy, Apollos and others, and Romans, probably sent from Corinth, lists Paul's companions there, but never Silvanus. **Acts:** Silas is Paul's chosen partner, jailed with him at Philippi, left behind at Berea, and rejoins him at Corinth; afterwards Acts' companion lists name Timothy, Erastus and others, never Silas. The two silences coincide: Acts drops Silas after Corinth, and the later letters never list him with Paul, though he is named as co-sender of both Thessalonian letters. Neither text explains the change, and silence alone proves little. Still, both sources tie Silas to the Macedonian and Corinthian mission, and neither records him in the Ephesian years. **Other readings** - **Moved to other work.** Silas may have taken up other work. If he is the Silvanus through whom 1 Peter was written or carried (1 Peter 5:12), he later worked with Peter, though that identification is debated. - **Argument from silence.** Absence from greetings need not mean absence from the mission: Paul names those relevant to each letter, and Luke follows Paul's own movements, so Silas may have worked nearby unrecorded. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. VII; 1849 New York edition, p. 81: ### The tearful letter, the offender and the rival apostles: Acts is silent The Corinthian letters reveal a crisis Acts never mentions: reports from Chloe's people, a painful visit, a tearful letter, an offender disciplined by the majority, Titus's report of the church's repentance and rival preachers Paul calls false apostles. After Apollos reaches Corinth, Acts says nothing more about the Corinthian church. Why Luke is silent is debated. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 1:11; 1 Corinthians 5:1-5; 2 Corinthians 2:1; 2 Corinthians 2:3-11; 2 Corinthians 7:5-12; 2 Corinthians 10:9-11; 2 Corinthians 11:4; 2 Corinthians 11:13; 2 Corinthians 13:1-2 - **Acts:** Acts 18:27-19:1; Acts 19:21-22; Acts 20:1-3 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Chloe's people report quarrels; Paul makes a painful visit and writes a tearful letter; the majority punishes an offender; Titus reports repentance; newcomers preach another message, posing as apostles. **Acts:** Apollos, commended by the Ephesian brothers, helps believers in Achaia. Later Paul plans to pass through Macedonia and Achaia, sends Timothy and Erastus ahead, then spends three months in Greece. There is no contradiction: Acts omits the crisis and covers Paul's months in Greece in two verses (Acts 20:2-3). Paley took such omissions as evidence that neither text copied the other. Acts gives two stays in Greece; most scholars infer an unrecorded painful visit from 2 Corinthians 2:1 and 13:1-2, which Paley read as a third readiness to come. Paley, following Locke, took the tearful letter to be 1 Corinthians and its offender the man of 1 Corinthians 5:1-5; Hausrath proposed 2 Corinthians 10-13; many think it lost. **Other readings** - **Luke knew and passed over it.** Richard Pervo holds that Luke knew Paul's letters; on that view he chose to leave out quarrels that would mar his picture of a united, advancing mission. - **Luke's focus or ignorance.** Others think Luke did not know the letters, or kept to public mission and trials and left internal church disputes aside, as he leaves Paul's letter-writing aside generally. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 4 (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. II; 1849 New York printing, p. 69: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 4 (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. IV; 1849 New York printing, p. 77: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 4 (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. XI; 1849 New York printing, p. 91: ### Paul the letter-writer: Acts never mentions a letter of Paul Paul's letters show a habitual letter-writer: an earlier letter to Corinth, a Corinthian letter of questions, letters exchanged between churches, a warning about a letter said to be from him, and an own-hand greeting. Acts quotes others' letters and shows Paul carrying them, but never mentions him writing one. What the silence means is disputed. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 5:9; 1 Corinthians 7:1; 2 Corinthians 10:9-11; Galatians 6:11; Colossians 4:16; Colossians 4:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 2 Thessalonians 3:17 - **Acts:** Acts 9:2; Acts 15:1; Acts 15:23-31; Acts 18:27; Acts 22:5; Acts 23:25-30; Acts 28:21 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul cites an earlier letter and one from Corinth; critics find his letters forceful; churches swap letters; he warns about a letter seemingly from him and signs by hand. **Acts:** Acts quotes the council's letter, which Paul helps deliver, and Lysias's letter; Paul carries the high priest's letters; Ephesian believers write for Apollos; Roman Jews received no letters about Paul. Acts treats letters as instruments of authority and commendation, yet never links Paul with writing one. Paley read the alarm of 2 Thessalonians 2:2 as Paul's words misread, or as someone claiming his authority falsely, as men from Judea did in Acts 15:1 and Acts 15:24. The authorship of 2 Thessalonians is itself disputed. The silence is clear; whether it shows Luke's ignorance of the letters or deliberate reticence is debated. **Other readings** - **Luke knew the letters.** John Knox and Richard Pervo held that Luke knew Paul's letters; Knox thought he deliberately passed over them, Pervo that he drew on them unnamed. Either way the silence is a choice. - **Luke did not know them.** Edgar Goodspeed held that Luke had no acquaintance with Paul's letters, which were gathered only later; on that view the silence reflects Luke's sources, and Acts may even have revived the interest that led to their collection. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 10 (Second Epistle to the Thessalonians), No. III, footnote; 1849 New York printing, p. 196: ### Mortal danger in Asia, beasts at Ephesus, and the riot of Acts 19 The letters speak of mortal danger at Ephesus and in Asia; Acts narrates no direct threat to Paul's life there. Its silversmiths' riot endangers his companions, but friends keep Paul away. Whether the letters mean the riot, an unrecorded imprisonment, illness or a figure of speech is debated. - **The letter:** 1 Corinthians 4:9-13; 1 Corinthians 15:30-32; 1 Corinthians 16:8; 2 Corinthians 1:8-11; 2 Corinthians 11:23; Romans 16:3-4 - **Acts:** Acts 19:23-41; Acts 20:1; Acts 20:19 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** From Ephesus Paul says he faces death daily and speaks of fighting beasts there; later he recalls an Asian ordeal so crushing he expected to die until God rescued him. **Acts:** Demetrius stirs a riot; the crowd seizes Gaius and Aristarchus, but disciples and friendly Asiarchs keep Paul out of the theatre. He leaves for Macedonia once it ends. Paley referred the ordeal in Asia to the riot, conceding only that Acts does not state Paul's danger outright. 1 Corinthians, written while Paul planned to stay until Pentecost, probably predates the riot, so its beasts are likely earlier opposition, figurative on most readings; Frayer-Griggs sees Artemis's devotees, the group Acts shows rioting. Acts itself mentions Jewish plots in Asia (Acts 20:19), and Romans 16:3-4 and 2 Corinthians 11:23 suggest further perils it does not narrate. **Other readings** - **The riot after all.** With Paley: the ordeal is the riot. The city was in uproar, Paul's companions were seized and he had to leave; the letter gives the feeling, Acts the outward events. - **An unrecorded crisis.** Duncan and others posit an Ephesian imprisonment unrecorded in Acts; others suggest severe illness. On either view Acts omits Paul's gravest danger at Ephesus. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 4 (2 Corinthians), no. 3: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 3 (1 Corinthians), no. 2: ### Coming a third time: an unrecorded painful visit to Corinth? 2 Corinthians seems to imply Paul had been in Corinth twice, but before that letter Acts narrates only the founding stay. Most commentators posit a short, painful visit from Ephesus that Acts omits; Paley instead counted three occasions of readiness to come, including a cancelled plan. Acts' brief summary of the Ephesian years leaves room for such a trip. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 1:15-16; 2 Corinthians 2:1; 2 Corinthians 12:14; 2 Corinthians 12:21; 2 Corinthians 13:1-2 - **Acts:** Acts 18:1-18; Acts 19:8-10; Acts 20:2-3; Acts 20:31 - **Confidence:** Medium-high **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul says he is ready to come a third time, resolved not to come again in grief, and warns them as when present the second time, a disputed phrase. **Acts:** Acts narrates a founding stay of over eighteen months at Corinth, then over two years at Ephesus summarised briefly; its three months in Greece are usually dated after this letter. If the second visit happened, it fits best as a quick crossing from Ephesus within the years Acts compresses into a few verses (Acts 19:8-10; Acts 20:31), and 2 Corinthians 2:1, which Paley's discussion leaves aside, suits a visit that went badly. Paley's claim that Acts accounts for all of Paul's time overstates its completeness. Acts neither records nor excludes the visit; it is an inference from the letter, and a minority date it before 1 Corinthians rather than between the letters. **Other readings** - **Readiness, not visits (Paley).** Following Grotius, Paley read the third time as the third occasion Paul was ready to come, counting a cancelled plan (2 Corinthians 1:15-16), and took 2 Corinthians 13:2 as anticipating a second presence. Most modern commentators find this strained. - **A composite letter.** Many scholars, including Furnish and Thrall, take 2 Corinthians 10-13 as a separate, later letter. Then 2 Corinthians 1:15-16 cannot fix the sense of 2 Corinthians 13:1-2, as Paley's argument assumes, though the second-visit inference remains. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. XI; New York 1849 edition, p. 90: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul Evinced, ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. XI; New York 1849 edition, p. 91: ### Imprisonments more numerous than Acts records Paul's letters claim more imprisonments than Acts narrates. When he wrote 2 Corinthians and Romans, Paul counted imprisonments among his hardships and named two fellow prisoners, yet Acts by then records only one night in the Philippian jail. Acts is selective rather than contradictory, and 1 Clement later credits Paul with seven imprisonments. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 6:5; 2 Corinthians 11:23; Romans 16:7; 2 Corinthians 1:8-10; 1 Corinthians 15:32 - **Acts:** Acts 16:23-40; Acts 19:23-41; Acts 21:33-28:31 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Writing before his arrest in Jerusalem, Paul lists imprisonments among his hardships, claims more imprisonments than his rivals, and greets Andronicus and Junia as his fellow prisoners. **Acts:** Before that arrest Acts narrates one imprisonment, with Silas overnight at Philippi; the long custody in Jerusalem, Caesarea and Rome comes after these letters were written. Acts never claims to list every hardship, so the letters' larger count contradicts nothing it says. Both letters are undisputed and earlier than Acts, so the gap shows how selective Acts is. Later tradition goes further: 1 Clement 5, written from Rome and usually dated near the end of the first century, gives Paul seven imprisonments, more than Acts shows for his whole life, though the number may be rounded or symbolic. **Other readings** - **An Ephesian imprisonment.** Duncan and others reconstruct an imprisonment at Ephesus from the deadly affliction in Asia (2 Corinthians 1:8-10) and the fight with wild animals (1 Corinthians 15:32). Acts 19 shows danger there but no arrest, and nothing attests it directly. - **A looser sense.** Romans 16:7 may mean Andronicus and Junia were imprisoned separately rather than with Paul, or may use captivity figuratively. The plural imprisonments of 2 Corinthians remain, and no reading creates a conflict with Acts. **Sources** - Clement of Rome, First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (J. B. Lightfoot, 1891), 1 Clement 5:5: ### Three shipwrecks before Malta, none in Acts By the time of 2 Corinthians, Paul had already been shipwrecked three times and spent a night and a day in the deep. Acts narrates several earlier voyages but no wreck; its one shipwreck, at Malta, came years later. Acts is silent rather than contradictory, and leaves room for these wrecks. - **The letter:** 2 Corinthians 11:25-26; 2 Corinthians 2:1; 2 Corinthians 13:1; 2 Corinthians 11:16-21 - **Acts:** Acts 9:30; Acts 11:25; Acts 13:4; Acts 13:13; Acts 14:25-26; Acts 16:10-11; Acts 18:18-22; Acts 27:39-28:1 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Among his hardships Paul counts three shipwrecks, a night and a day in the deep, and dangers at sea, all before writing the letter. **Acts:** Acts reports earlier sea crossings to and from Cyprus, Pamphylia, Macedonia and Syria with no mishap mentioned; its only shipwreck, at Malta, happens years after 2 Corinthians. The counts never collide: Acts reports no wreck before 2 Corinthians, so three unrecorded wrecks contradict nothing, and Malta makes at least four. Acts passes quickly over long periods, such as Paul's years in Tarsus before Barnabas fetched him, leaving room for unrecorded voyages; Paley suggested some wrecks happened then, which is conjecture. 2 Corinthians itself implies a second visit to Corinth that Acts does not record (2 Corinthians 2:1; 2 Corinthians 13:1), probably by sea from Ephesus. **Other readings** - **A stylised list.** The list sits inside a boast Paul himself calls foolish (2 Corinthians 11:16-21) and may be rhetorically shaped, so its numbers need not be pressed. Even so, nothing in Acts contradicts them. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter IV, No. IX: ### Would Jerusalem accept the gift? Acts never says Before the journey Paul asked the Romans to pray that Jerusalem's believers would accept his service, implying real doubt. Acts describes a warm welcome quickly overshadowed by suspicion of Paul among law-observant believers, and never says the gift was handed over or received. Romans shows the worry; Acts shows the climate, but not the outcome. - **The letter:** Romans 15:31 - **Acts:** Acts 21:17-26; Acts 24:17 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul asks the Romans to pray that his service for Jerusalem proves acceptable to the believers there, implying he was unsure it would. **Acts:** Paul is welcomed and his report praised; James and the elders relay suspicions among law-zealous believers and ask him to pay four men's vow costs. No gift is mentioned. Romans shows the worry before the journey; Acts shows a welcome shadowed at once by suspicion of Paul among Jewish believers, a climate that plausibly explains Paul's doubt. Paley argued that the rumour of Acts 21:21 is what Romans' teaching on the law would provoke. Acts never reports a handover, so whether the gift was received is unknown; the fit rests on reading a silence. **Other readings** - **Accepted but unreported.** Luke may have had no narrative need to report a successful handover. The glad welcome of Acts 21:17 could include it, and Paul's later mention of gifts (Acts 24:17) implies he brought them. - **Refused or diverted.** Others infer a cool reception or refusal that Luke chose not to record, or suggest the vow costs were paid from the fund as a compromise. No text says either. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, Chapter II, No. VII: ### Silence on the collection as a dating clue for other letters Only Romans and the Corinthian letters clearly mention Paul's collection for Jerusalem; Galatians 2:10 at most alludes to it. The other letters are silent, even where Macedonian donors, Titus (its organiser in 2 Corinthians 8) or Acts 20:4 travellers appear. The silence suits letters written before or after the collection, but it is a weak argument from silence. - **The letter:** Galatians 2:10; Romans 15:26; 1 Corinthians 16:1-8; 2 Corinthians 8:1-5; 2 Corinthians 8:16-23; 1 Thessalonians 3:6; Philippians 4:10-19; Colossians 4:7; Colossians 4:10; Philemon 1:24; Ephesians 6:21-22; Titus 3:12-15; 2 Timothy 4:12 - **Acts:** Acts 17:1-9; Acts 18:5; Acts 19:8-10; Acts 19:29; Acts 20:4; Acts 24:17; Acts 27:2 - **Confidence:** Low **How they fit** **The letter:** Every letter except Romans, 1-2 Corinthians and perhaps Galatians is silent, though Philippians discusses gifts to Paul and Colossians names Tychicus and Aristarchus. **Acts:** Acts never names the collection, mentioning gifts for Paul's nation only at his trial. Tychicus and Aristarchus leave Greece with him; Aristarchus is also at Ephesus and sails to Rome. 1 Thessalonians, written soon after the Thessalonian mission (1 Thessalonians 3:6; Acts 18:5), predates the Ephesian years when Paul organised the gift (1 Corinthians 16:1-8), so its silence is expected. Philippians' silence despite Macedonia's giving (2 Corinthians 8:1-5) suits a later Roman setting, as Schnelle argues. For Colossians, Aristarchus fits either an Ephesian or a Roman setting: Acts places him at Ephesus (Acts 19:29) and on the voyage to Rome (Acts 27:2). And Paul need not mention the gift everywhere: Romans 15:26 omits Galatia (1 Corinthians 16:1). **Other readings** - **Ephesian imprisonment.** Philippians may come from an Ephesian imprisonment before the collection began, or Paul may simply have had no reason to raise it there; on either view the silence dates nothing. - **Later letters.** If Colossians, Ephesians and the Pastoral Letters are post-Pauline, or were written after Acts ends, the collection was long finished and its absence carries no dating weight. ### Spain: announced in Romans, absent from Acts Romans twice announces a mission to Spain; Acts never mentions Spain and ends with Paul two years under guard in Rome. Whether he went depends on later evidence: 1 Clement says he reached the limits of the West, and the Muratorian Fragment says Luke omitted his journey to Spain. Both are suggestive; neither is decisive. - **The letter:** Romans 15:23-24; Romans 15:28; 1 Timothy 1:3; 2 Timothy 4:20 - **Acts:** Acts 19:21; Acts 20:25; Acts 20:38; Acts 28:16; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul says his work in these regions is finished; once the Jerusalem gift is delivered, he will visit Rome on his way to Spain. **Acts:** Acts has Paul plan Jerusalem, then Rome, never Spain; he tells the Ephesian elders they will not see him again, and Acts ends with him under guard in Rome. Acts' silence fits its ending, which stops before Paul's case is decided, so any later journey falls outside it. Paley used the difference against copying: had Romans drawn on Acts, why add Spain; had Acts drawn on Romans, why drop it? Whether Paul reached Spain rests on 1 Clement 5, usually dated near the end of the first century, and on the Muratorian Fragment, whose date and sources are disputed. **Other readings** - **No Spanish journey.** Paul may have died after the Roman custody. 1 Clement's phrase may be rhetoric, or Rome seen from the East, and the Muratorian claim may be inferred from Romans 15 or the apocryphal Acts of Peter. - **Release and return east.** If the Pastoral Letters are Paul's and fall after Acts, he was released and returned to the Aegean (1 Timothy 1:3; 2 Timothy 4:20), despite Acts 20:25; a Spanish visit could fit, but no letter mentions one. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul, ch. II (Epistle to the Romans), No. III: - Clement of Rome, First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (J. B. Lightfoot, 1891), 1 Clem. 5: - Muratorian Fragment (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5) (S. D. F. Salmond, 1886), §2 (on Acts): ### Which imprisonment? Rome, Caesarea, or an Ephesian custody Acts does not record None of the captivity letters names its place of writing, and Acts never mentions Paul's letters. Rome, the traditional answer, suits the praetorium (guard or headquarters), Caesar's household and Acts' two open years; Caesarea suits Acts' two years under Felix; Ephesus suits short journeys to Philippi and Colossae, but Acts records no imprisonment there. The evidence does not settle it. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:13; Philippians 1:19-26; Philippians 2:19-30; Philippians 4:22; Colossians 4:7-14; Ephesians 6:21-22; Philemon 1:22-24; Romans 15:24; 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 - **Acts:** Acts 19:22; Acts 19:29-31; Acts 23:33-35; Acts 24:23-27; Acts 25:10-12; Acts 27:1-2; Acts 28:16; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul is held where the praetorium knows of his bonds and Caesar's household sends greetings; envoys go to Philippi and back; he expects a verdict soon and plans visits. **Acts:** Paul is held two years at Caesarea in Herod's praetorium with friends allowed, then two open years in Rome. At Ephesus Acts reports a riot but no arrest. Each option fits some details. Rome explains the praetorian guard and Caesar's household but lies far from Philippi and Colossae, and visiting Colossae (Philemon 1:22) would reverse the plan for Spain (Romans 15:24). Caesarea had Herod's praetorium, but Paul could appeal to Caesar, which sits awkwardly with Philippians' life-or-death uncertainty. Ephesus lay near both churches, and Paul despaired of life in Asia (2 Corinthians 1:8-10), but no arrest is recorded. Aristarchus was at Ephesus (Acts 19:29), but he and the 'we' narrator, traditionally Luke, sail from Caesarea (Acts 27:1-2). **Other readings** - **Different places.** The letters need not share one setting. The ancient Latin prologues called Marcionite already split them, placing Colossians at Ephesus but Philippians and Philemon at Rome, though Colossians and Philemon share nearly the same greeters. - **Rome.** Paley set the letter's long custody beside Acts' two years in Rome; Fee argues for Philippians that the praetorium and Caesar's household point most naturally to Rome, and that distance costs months, not plausibility. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 7 (Philippians), No. V: ### Epaphras, Onesimus, Philemon, Demas and Justus: Paul's circle unknown to Acts Acts never names Epaphras, Onesimus, Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, Nymphas, Demas or Jesus called Justus, nor Colossae or Laodicea, though Colossians and Philemon place them in Paul's circle. Acts sums up two years in which all Asia heard the word in one verse, and Colossians implies Paul never visited Colossae, so the silence is unsurprising. - **The letter:** Colossians 1:2; Colossians 1:7; Colossians 2:1; Colossians 4:9-17; Philemon 1:1-2; Philemon 1:10; Philemon 1:23-24; 2 Timothy 4:10 - **Acts:** Acts 1:23; Acts 18:7; Acts 19:10; Acts 27:2 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Colossians and Philemon name Epaphras, the Colossians' teacher, and Onesimus, Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, Nymphas, Demas and Jesus called Justus; 2 Timothy says Demas left for Thessalonica. **Acts:** Acts names none of them, nor Colossae or Laodicea, saying only that all Asia heard the word. Its two men called Justus are probably other people. Acts follows Paul's public mission and trials; a household circle in a town Paul had not visited lies outside its scope. Assuming a Roman setting, Paley observed that Colossians joins Aristarchus, whom Acts puts aboard for Italy, with Mark and Justus, whose coming Acts never reports: a writer copying Acts would have named Aristarchus alone. **Other readings** - **Colossians drawn from Philemon.** If Colossians was written after Paul by a disciple, its overlapping names may be borrowed from Philemon, so the two letters are not independent witnesses, though neither shows signs of drawing on Acts. - **Onesimus the bishop.** John Knox identified Ignatius' Ephesian bishop with Philemon's Onesimus and gave him a role in collecting Paul's letters; Lightfoot judged the bishop a namesake about fifty years later. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 8, no. 2: - Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians (J. B. Lightfoot, 1891), To the Ephesians 1.3: ### Timothy with the imprisoned Paul, though Acts last names him at Acts 20:4 Philippians, Colossians and Philemon name the imprisoned Paul's co-sender as Timothy, whom Acts last mentions going ahead to Troas. If written from Caesarea or Rome, the letters supply a presence Acts omits; if from Ephesus, they fit his work there, though Acts reports no Ephesian imprisonment. 2 Timothy instead summons him from afar. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:1; Philippians 2:19; Colossians 1:1; Philemon 1:1; 2 Timothy 1:4; 2 Timothy 1:8; 2 Timothy 4:9; 2 Timothy 4:21 - **Acts:** Acts 16:1-3; Acts 17:14-15; Acts 18:5; Acts 19:22; Acts 20:4-5; Acts 27:2 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Three prison letters open in Paul's and Timothy's names, and Philippians plans to send Timothy soon. 2 Timothy, also from custody, urges him to come quickly. **Acts:** Enlisted at Derbe and Lystra, Timothy works with Paul through Macedonia, Achaia and Ephesus; Acts last lists him in the party going ahead to Troas, never at Caesarea or Rome. Acts names companions selectively, and Aristarchus is the only companion it names on the voyage, so its silence cannot show Timothy was absent later. On a Caesarean or Roman origin, Timothy must have rejoined Paul; Ramsay supposed he followed him to Rome soon after. On an Ephesian origin, Philippians' plan to send Timothy recalls Acts 19:22, where Paul sends him from Ephesus to Macedonia. Paley set 2 Timothy, which implies his absence, against these letters, but granted this alone would fit if 2 Timothy came first. **Other readings** - **Colossians not independent.** If Colossians is pseudonymous, its opening may copy Philemon 1:1, leaving Philippians and Philemon, widely accepted as Paul's, as the witnesses. Dunn's view that Timothy drafted Colossians for Paul presupposes his presence. - **2 Timothy as a later writing.** Many scholars date 2 Timothy after Paul's death; its picture of an absent Timothy summoned to Paul may then be literary rather than a separate report. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 12, no. 1: ### Epaphroditus, the Philippian envoy, unknown to Acts Philippians tells of Epaphroditus, who carried the Philippians' gift to the imprisoned Paul, fell gravely ill and is being sent home. Acts never names him or any Philippian visitor, though it says friends could attend Paul at Caesarea and that he received all comers in Rome. The two accounts do not conflict. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:7; Philippians 2:25-30; Philippians 4:10-20 - **Acts:** Acts 24:23; Acts 28:30 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Epaphroditus, the Philippians' envoy, brought their gift, nearly died of illness while serving Paul, and is sent back so they may rejoice. Paul acknowledges the gift as a pleasing sacrifice. **Acts:** Acts names no Philippian envoy. Felix lets Paul's friends serve and visit him at Caesarea, and in Rome Paul welcomes all who come to his rented house. Acts allows visitors in both custodies without naming them, so an unnamed envoy is no surprise. Paley, reading Philippians 1:7 as alluding to the gift, observed that the story emerges piecemeal across separated passages, as one writes to readers who already know it, and that the news passing to and fro implies a long custody, matching Acts' two years in Rome; Lightfoot thought as few as two journeys after Paul reached Rome would suffice. Epaphroditus should not be confused with Epaphras. **Other readings** - **Ephesus nearer Philippi.** Several journeys between Philippi and Paul's place of custody are implied; advocates of an Ephesian imprisonment argue these suit Ephesus, much nearer Philippi, better than distant Rome. - **Partition theories.** Some divide Philippians into two or three letters, treating Philippians 4:10-20 as an earlier thank-you note. That would weaken Paley's argument from scattered passages, though not the outline of Epaphroditus's errand. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 7, no. 1: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 7, no. 5: ### Rival preachers where Paul is held, unmentioned in Acts Philippians says some believers where Paul is held preach Christ from envy and rivalry, hoping to add to his troubles, though he rejoices that Christ is proclaimed. Acts reports no such rivalry around Paul in custody, though it narrates disputes among believers elsewhere. This is a silence, not a contradiction. - **The letter:** Philippians 1:13; Philippians 1:14-18 - **Acts:** Acts 15:1-2; Acts 15:39; Acts 21:20-21; Acts 28:15; Acts 28:21-22; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul's chains embolden most believers; some preach from envy and rivalry, hoping to worsen his plight, others from love. Paul rejoices that Christ is proclaimed either way. **Acts:** In Rome, believers come out to meet Paul and encourage him; Jewish leaders have received no reports against him; Paul preaches for two years unhindered. Acts narrates believers' disputes elsewhere. Acts' account of Rome is brief and centered on Paul's meetings with Jewish leaders, so friction among Roman believers could easily go unmentioned. 1 Clement, sent from Rome about a generation later, ascribes Paul's sufferings to jealousy and strife, vices close to those Philippians names, but identifies no opponents. If Philippians was written from Ephesus or Caesarea, the rivals belong there; Acts reports no rival preaching, though it notes Jerusalem believers' suspicion of Paul. **Other readings** - **Rivalry and the apostles' deaths.** Cullmann read 1 Clement's jealousy as rivalry inside the Roman church, linked it with these rival preachers, and thought it contributed to the apostles' deaths; others take Clement's theme of jealousy as a stock moral warning. - **An irenic Acts.** Many critics since F. C. Baur think Acts softens conflict among believers, so its silence may be selective; Acts does, however, report the dispute of Acts 15:1-2 and Paul's split with Barnabas. **Sources** - Clement of Rome, First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (J. B. Lightfoot, 1891), 1 Clement 5.5: ### Acts ends before the verdict; the Pastorals assume Paul free and travelling Acts ends with Paul in Roman custody and never reports a verdict. 1 Timothy and Titus show him free in the Aegean, leaving delegates and choosing his winter quarters; 2 Timothy has him chained in Rome after recent travel. Acts neither confirms nor excludes a release; the Pastorals need one unless they fit earlier or are pseudonymous. - **The letter:** 1 Timothy 1:3; 1 Timothy 3:14; Titus 1:5; Titus 3:12; 2 Timothy 1:16-17; 2 Timothy 4:16-17; 2 Timothy 4:20 - **Acts:** Acts 20:25; Acts 20:38; Acts 21:29; Acts 21:33; Acts 23:29; Acts 25:25; Acts 26:31-32; Acts 27:7-12; Acts 28:18; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** Debated **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul left Timothy at Ephesus and Titus on Crete and will winter at Nicopolis; in 2 Timothy, in chains, he recalls a first defence and leaving Trophimus sick at Miletus. **Acts:** Trophimus reaches Jerusalem with Paul, who stays in custody from his arrest, others choosing his winter harbour; Acts ends after two years of unhindered preaching in Rome, without a verdict. These letters cannot sit inside Acts 21-28. Paley noted that Acts brings Paul to Crete only as a prisoner, while Titus presumes a free visit, and that Trophimus reached Jerusalem rather than staying sick at Miletus. Acts' officials find no capital charge, suiting a release, though the Miletus farewell implies no return. Eusebius reports a release and second Roman imprisonment, partly reading it out of 2 Timothy. 1 Clement has Paul reach the West's farthest bounds; the Muratorian Fragment, of debated date, says Acts omits his journey to Spain. **Other readings** - **Pastorals within Acts' years.** If the Pastorals were written during Paul's Acts-era career, in journeys Acts leaves out as it demonstrably omits others, no release is needed (Robinson). - **A literary itinerary.** If the Pastorals are pseudonymous, their journeys may be a literary setting and the release tradition may partly rest on them; Acts' silence then needs no filling (Dibelius and Conzelmann). **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 13 (Epistle to Titus), no. 2; T. R. Birks ed. (archive.org): - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. 12 (Second Epistle to Timothy), no. 1; T. R. Birks ed. (archive.org): - Eusebius, Church History (A. C. McGiffert, 1890), Church History 2.22.2: - Clement of Rome, First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (J. B. Lightfoot, 1891), 1 Clement 5.6: - Anonymous (Muratorian Fragment), Muratorian Fragment (S. D. F. Salmond, 1886), Canon Muratorianus §2: ### Paul's first defense: anticipated in Acts, reported only in 2 Timothy Acts builds toward Paul's hearing before Caesar but ends with it still ahead. 2 Timothy reports a first defense at which everyone deserted Paul, yet the Lord stood by him and he was rescued. Acts narrates no such hearing; whether it ended the Acts imprisonment or began a later, fatal trial is debated. - **The letter:** 2 Timothy 4:16-18 - **Acts:** Acts 23:11; Acts 25:10-12; Acts 26:17; Acts 27:23-24; Acts 28:15; Acts 28:30-31 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** At his first defense nobody supported Paul, but the Lord stood by and strengthened him so the Gentiles might hear, and rescued him from the lion's mouth. **Acts:** Paul appeals to Caesar; the Lord, then an angel, says he must testify in Rome and stand before Caesar; Acts ends after two years in Rome with no hearing narrated. In Acts the Lord, and later an angel, stand by Paul; in 2 Timothy the Lord stands by him at his defense. Acts 26:17, like 2 Timothy 4:17, pairs rescue with mission to the Gentiles. The desertion contrasts with Roman believers traveling out to meet him. Eusebius, hedging with 'it is said', took this defense as the hearing that ended Acts' imprisonment in release, and the lion as probably Nero. **Other readings** - **Opening hearing of the final trial.** Others take the first defense as the opening hearing of the trial that ended in Paul's death, not the end of Acts' imprisonment; Acts would then be silent about the whole final trial. - **Literary portrait.** Readers who date 2 Timothy after Paul's death, or see one hand behind Acts and the letters to Timothy, treat the shared stood-by motif as a literary portrait, not an independent report of a hearing. **Sources** - Eusebius, Church History (A. C. McGiffert, 1890), Church History 2.22.2-4: ### Onesiphorus' service at Ephesus and in Rome, unknown to Acts In the New Testament only 2 Timothy names Onesiphorus, who served at Ephesus, often refreshed Paul and sought him out in Rome. Acts narrates the long Ephesian ministry and the Roman lodging without naming him, Phygelus or Hermogenes, so these details do not come from Acts; whether they are Paul's memory or a later author's color is debated. - **The letter:** 2 Timothy 1:15-18; 2 Timothy 4:19 - **Acts:** Acts 19:1-20; Acts 20:31; Acts 28:16 - **Confidence:** Medium **How they fit** **The letter:** Everyone in Asia, including Phygelus and Hermogenes, deserted Paul; Onesiphorus often refreshed him, was unashamed of his chain, sought him out in Rome and served at Ephesus. **Acts:** Acts covers about three years at Ephesus, with many converts, and Paul's guarded lodging in Rome, but names neither Onesiphorus nor Phygelus nor Hermogenes. Acts omits many of Paul's helpers, even Titus, so its silence about Onesiphorus is unsurprising and does not count against the letter. It does show that 2 Timothy did not take these names from Acts. That supports independence from Acts, not Pauline authorship: a later writer in Asia could draw on local memory. The second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla later made Onesiphorus Paul's host at Iconium. **Other readings** - **Personal memory.** Defenders of Paul's authorship read the specific, unflattering details, named deserters and a helper's service at Ephesus, as a writer's memory shared with a reader who knew the people. - **Pseudonymous color.** Scholars who judge 2 Timothy pseudonymous read its personal notes as verisimilitude, perhaps using names remembered in Asian churches; MacDonald sees the letters contesting oral legends about Paul later written into the Acts of Paul. **Sources** - Anonymous, Acts of Paul and Thecla (A. Walker, 1886), Acts of Paul and Thecla 2 (section numbers as in James 1924): ### Paul's Cretan mission has no place in Acts Acts records no Cretan mission. Titus 1:5 has Paul on Crete leaving Titus to appoint elders, but Acts brings Paul to Crete only as a prisoner bound for Rome, and never names Titus. Paley placed the mission after Paul's release; others fit it into gaps in Acts or read it as literary setting. - **The letter:** Titus 1:5; Titus 3:12; 2 Corinthians 11:25; 2 Corinthians 7:6-7; 2 Corinthians 8:16-17 - **Acts:** Acts 19:10; Acts 20:1-3; Acts 27:1-3; Acts 27:7-13; Acts 27:21 - **Confidence:** High **How they fit** **The letter:** Paul says he left Titus on Crete to finish organizing the churches and appoint elders town by town, and later summons him to Nicopolis. **Acts:** Paul reaches Crete only as a prisoner: the ship works along the coast to Fair Havens and leaves against his advice into a storm. No mission or Cretan believers appear. Acts is silent, not contradictory. It omits much, including shipwrecks before Acts 27 (2 Corinthians 11:25), and never names Titus. Paley argued that Paul writes Titus as a free man, so the prisoner voyage cannot be the occasion; he placed the visit after Paul's release while admitting the route was largely hypothetical. A visit in the Ephesian years (Acts 19:10) is possible but unattested; the tour of Acts 20:1-3 faces Capellus's objection, reported by Paley, that Titus was then busy between Macedonia and Corinth (2 Corinthians 7:6-7; 8:16-17). **Other readings** - **A gap within Acts' years.** J. A. T. Robinson dated Titus to about AD 57, within the years Acts covers, which requires a Cretan visit that Acts passes over, as it passes over other journeys. - **Literary setting.** If Titus was written later in Paul's name, the Cretan mission is the setting its author chose to authorize church order there, and Acts' silence needs no explanation. **Sources** - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. XIII (Epistle to Titus), No. II, on Crete: - William Paley, Horae Paulinae, ch. XIII (Epistle to Titus), No. II, on the route: ## Common questions ### What is an undesigned coincidence? An agreement between two independent accounts that only appears when they are read side by side, such as a detail in one that explains something unexplained in the other. Because neither author seems to have planned it, such agreements are evidence that both draw on real events rather than on each other. ### Where do Acts and Galatians seem to disagree? Mainly over Paul’s visits to Jerusalem. Galatians insists Paul met only Peter and James on his first visit and describes a private meeting about Gentile believers; Acts narrates more public visits and a council. Scholars match the visits differently, and the entries set out the main options. ### Did the author of Acts know Paul’s letters? Acts never mentions that Paul wrote letters, and most scholars think its author did not use them as sources, though some argue he knew a few. The answer affects how much weight an agreement between them can carry, so each entry notes it where it matters. --- Canonical: https://paulineletters.com/explore/acts-and-letters