ACRIDINE, C13H9N, in chemistry, a heterocyclic ring compound found in crude coal-tar anthracene. It may be separated by shaking out with dilute sulphuric acid, and then precipitating the sulphuric acid solution with potassium bichromate, the resulting acridine bichromate being decomposed by ammonia. It was first isolated in 1890 by C. Graebe and H. Caro (Ann., 1871, 158, p. 265). Many synthetic processes are known for the production of acridine and its derivatives. A. Bernthsen (Ann., 1884, 224, p. 1) condensed diphenylamine with fatty acids, in the presence of zinc chloride. Formic acid yields acridine, and the higher homologues give derivatives substituted at the meso carbon atom,
Acridine may also be obtained by passing the vapour of phenylortho-toluidine through a red-hot tube (C. Graebe, Ber., 1884, 17, p. 1370); by condensing diphenylamine with chloroform, in presence of aluminium chloride (O. Fischer, Ber., 1884, 17, p. 102); by passing the vapours of orthoaminodiphenylmethane over heated litharge (O. Fischer); by heating salicylic aldehyde with aniline and zinc chloride to 260 deg. C. (R. Mohlau, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 2452); and by distilling acridone over zinc dust (C. Graebe, Ber., 1892, 25, p. 1735).
Acridine and its homologues are very stable compounds of feebly basic character. They combine readily with the alkyl iodides to form alkyl acridinium iodides, which are readily transformed by the action of alkaline potassium ferricyanide to N-alkyl acridones. Acridine crystallizes in needles which melt at 110 deg. C. It is characterized by its irritating action on the skin, and by the blue fluorescence shown by solutions of its salts. On oxidation with potassium permanganate it yields acridinic acid (quinoline -a-b-dicarboxylic acid) C9H5N(COOH)2. Numerous derivatives of acridine are known and may be prepared by methods analogous to those used for the formation of the parent base. For the preparation of the naphthacridines, see F.Ullmann, German patents 117472, 118439, 127586, 128754, and also Ber., 1902, 35, pp. 316, 2670. Phenyl-acridine is the parent base of chrysaniline, which is the chief constituent of the dyestuff phosphine (a bye-product in the manufacture of rosaniline). Chrysaniline (diamino-phenylacridine) forms red-coloured salts, which dye silk and wool a fine yellow; and the solutions of the salts are characterized by their fine yellowish-green fluorescence. It was synthesized by O. Fischer and G. Koerner (Ber., 1884, 17, p. 203) by condensing ortho-nitrobenzaldehyde with aniline, the resulting ortho-nitro-para-diamino-triphenylmethane being reduced to the corresponding orthoamino compound, which on oxidation yields chrysaniline. Benzoflavin, an isomer of chrysaniline, is also a dye-stuff, and has been prepared by K. Oehler (English Patent9614) from meta-phenylenediamine and benzaldehyde. These substances condense to form tetra-aminotriphenylmethane, which, on heating with acids, loses ammonia and yields diaminodihydrophenylacridine, from which benzoflavin is obtained by oxidation. It is a yellow powder, soluble in hot water. The formulae of these substances are:—
ACRO (or ACRON), HELENIUS, Roman grammarian and commentator, probably flourished at the end of the 2nd century A.D. He wrote commentaries on Terence and perhaps Persius. A collection of scholia on Horace, originally anonymous in the earlier MSS., and on the whole not of great value, was wrongly attributed to him at a much later date, probably during the 15th century. It has been published by Pauly (1861) and Hauthal (1866), together with the other Horace scholia.
See Pseudoacronis Scholia in HoratiumVetustiora, ed. O. Keller (1902-1904).
ACROBAT (Gr. akrobatein, to walk on tiptoe), originally a rope-dancer; the word is now used generally to cover professional performers on the trapeze, &c., contortionists, balancers and tumblers. Evidence exists that there were very skilful performers on the tight-rope (funambuli) among the ancient Romans. Modern rope-walkers (e.g. Blondin) or wire-dancers generally use a pole, loaded at the ends, or some such assistance in balancing, and by shifting this are enabled to maintain, or readily to recover, their equilibrium.
ACROGENAE (``growing at the apex''), an obsolete botanical term, originally applied to the higher Cryptogams (mosses and ferns), which were erroneously distinguished from the lower (Algae and Fungi) by apical growth of the stem. The lower Cryptogams were contrasted as Amphigenae (``growing all over''), a misnomer, as apical growth is common among them.
ACROLITHS (Gr. akrolithoi, i.e. ending in stone), statues of a transition period in the history of plastic art, in which the trunk of the figure was of wood, and the head, hands and feet of marble. The wood was concealed either by gilding or, more commonly, by drapery, and the marble parts alone were exposed. Acroliths are frequently mentioned by Pausanias, the best known specimen being the Athene Areia of the Plataeans.
ACROMEGALY, the name given to a disease characterized by a true hypertrophy (an overgrowth involving both bony and soft parts) of the terminal parts of the body, especially of the face and extremities (Gr. akron, point, and megas, large). It is more frequent in the female sex, between the ages of 25 and 40. Its causation is generally associated with disturbances in the pituitary gland, and an extract of this body has been tried in the treatment, as one of the recent developments in organotherapeutics; thyroid extract has also been used, but without marked success, On the apparent analogy of acromegaly with myxoedema.
ACRON, a Greek physician, born at Agrigentum in Sicily, was contemporary with Empedocles, and must therefore have lived in the 5th century before Christ. The successful measure of lighting large fires, and purifying the air with perfumes, to put a stop to the plague in Athens (430 B.C.), is said to have originated with him; but this has been questioned on chronological grounds. Suidas gives the titles of several medical works written by him in the Doric dialect.
ACROPOLIS (Gr. akros, top, polis, city), literally the upper part of a town. For purposes of defence early settlers naturally chose elevated ground, frequently a hill with precipitous sides, and these early citadels became in many parts of the world the nuclei of large cities which grew up on the surrounding lower ground. The word Acropolis, though Greek in origin and associated primarily with Greek towns (Athens, Argos, Thebes, Corinth), may be applied generically to all such citadels (Rome, Jerusalem, many in Asia Minor, or even Castle Hill at Edinburgh). The most famous is that of Athens, which, by reason of its historical associations and the famous buildings erected upon it, is generally known without qualification as the Acropolis (see ATHENS).
ACROPOLITA (AKROPOLITES), GEORGE (1217-1282), Byzantine historian and statesman, was born at Constantinople. At an early age he was sent by his father to the court of John Ducas Batatzes (Vatatzes), emperor of Nicaea, by whom and by his successors (Theodorus II. Lascaris and Michael VIII. Palaeologus) he was entrusted with important state missions. The office of ``great logothete'' or chancellor was bestowed upon him in 1244. As commander in the field in 1257 against Michael Angelus, despot of Epirus, he showed little military capacity. He was captured and kept for two years in prison, from which he was released by Michael Palaeologus. Acropolita's most important political task was that of effecting a reconciliation between the Greek and Latin Churches, to which he had been formerly opposed. In 1273 he was sent to Pope Gregory X., and in the following year, at the council of Lyons, in the emperor's name he recognized the spiritual supremacy of Rome. In 1282 he was sent on an embassy to John II, emperor of Trebizond, and died in the same year soon after his return. His historical work (Xronike Supsgrafe, Annales) embraces the period from the capture of Constantinople by the Latins (1204) to its recovery by Michael Palaeologus (1261), thus forming a continuation of the work of Nicetas Acominatus. It is valuable as written by a contemporary, whose official position as great logothete, military commander and confidential ambassador afforded him frequent opportunities of observing the course of events. Acropolita is considered a trustworthy authority as far as the statement of facts is concerned, and he is easy to understand, although he exhibits special carelessness in the construction of his sentences. He was also the author of several shorter works, amongst them being a funeral oration on John Batatzes, an epitaph on his wife Eirene and a panegyric of Theodorus II. Lascaris of Nicaea. While a prisoner at Epirus he wrote two treatises on the procession of the Holy Ghost ('Ekporeusis, Processio Spiritus Sancti).
Editio princeps by Leo Allatius (1651), with the editor's famous teatise De Georgiis eorumque Scriptis; editions in the Bonn Corpus Scriptoruin Hist. Byz., by I. Bekker (1836), and Migne, Patrologia Graeca, cxl.; in the Teubner series by A. Heisenberg (1903), the second volume of which contains a full life, with bibliography; see also C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897).
ACROSTIC (Gr. akros, at the end, and stichos, line or verse), a short verse composition, so constructed that the initial letters of the lines, taken consecutively, form words. The fancy for writing acrostics is of great antiquity, having been common among the Greeks of the Alexandrine period, as well as with the Latin writers since Ennius and Plautus, many of the arguments of whose plays were written with acrostics on their respective titles. One of the most remarkable acrostics was contained in the verses cited by Lactantius and Eusebius in the 4th century, and attributed to the Erythraean sibyl, the initial letters of which form the words 'Insous Arist.os Theou uios sozer: ``Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour.'' The initials of the shorter form of this again make up the word ichthbs (fish), to which a mystical meaning has been attached (Augustine, De Civitale Dei, 18, 23), thus constituting another kind of acrostic.
The monks of the middle ages, who wrote in Latin, were fond of acrostics, as well as the poets of the Middle High German period, notably Gottfried of Strassburg and Rudolph of Ems. The great poets of the Italian renaissance, among them Boccaccio, indulged in them, as did also the early Slavic writers. Sir John Davies (1569-1626) wrote twenty-six elegant Hymns to Astraea, each an acrostic on ``Elisabetha Regina''; and Mistress Mary Fage, in Fame's Roule, 1637, commemorated 420 celebrities of her time in acrostic verses. The same trick of composition is often to be met with in the writings of more recent versifiers. Sometimes the lines are so combined that the final letters as well as the initials are significant. Edgar Allan Poe worked two names—-one of them that of Frances Sargent Osgood—into verses in such a way that the letters of the names corresponded to the first letter of the first line, the second letter of the second, the third letter of the third, and so on.
Acrostic verse has always been held in slight estimation from a literary standpoint. Dr Samuel Butler says, in his ``Character of a Small Poet,'' ``He uses to lay the outsides of his verses even, like a bricklayer, by a line of rhyme and acrostic, and fill the middle with rubbish.'' Addison (Spectator, No. 60) found it impossible to decide whether the inventor of the anagram or the acrostic were the greater blockhead; and, in describing the latter, says, ``I have seen some of them where the verses have not only been edged by a name at each extremity, but have had the same name running down like a seam through the middle of the poem.'' And Dryden, in Mac Flecknoe, scornfully assigned Shadwell the rule
Some peaceful province in acrostic land.
The name acrostic is also applied to alphabetical or ``abecedarian'' verses. Of these we have instances in the Hebrew psalms (e.g. Ps. xxv. and xxxiv.), where successive verses begin with the letters of the alphabet in their order. The structure of Ps. cxix. is still more elaborate, each of the verses of each of the twenty-two parts commencing with the letter which stands at the head of the part in our English translation.
At one period much religious verse was written in a form imitative of this alphabetical method, possibly as an aid to the memory. The term acrostic is also applied to the formation of words from the initial letters of other words. 'Ichthbs, referred to above, is an illustration of this. So also is the word ``Cabal,'' which, though it was in use before, with a similar meaning, has, from the time of Charles II., been associated with a particular ministry, from the accident of its being composed of Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington and Lauderdale. Akin to this are the names by which the Jews designated their Rabbis; thus Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (better known as Maimonides) was styled ``Rambam,'' from the initials R.M.B.M.; Rabbi David Kimchi (R.D.K.), ``Radak,'' &c.
Double acrostics are such as are so constructed, that not only initial letters of the lines, but also the middle or last letters, form words. For example:—-1. By Apollo was my first made. 2. A shoemaker's tool. 3. An Italian patriot. 4. A tropical fruit. The initials and finals, read downwards, give the name of a writer and his nom de plume. Answer: Lamb,
1. L yr E 2. A w L 3. M azzin I 4. B anan A
ACROTERIUM (Gr. akroterion the summit or vertex), in architecture, a statue or ornament of any kind placed on the apex of a pediment. The term is often restricted to the plinth, which forms the podium merely for the acroterium.
In law it means any instrument in writing, for declaring or justifying the truth of a bargain or transaction, as: ``I deliver this as my act and deed.'' The origin of the legal use of the word ``act'' is in the acta of the Roman magistrates or people, of their courts of law, or of the senate, meaning (1) what was done before the magistrates, the people or the senate; (2) the records of such public proceedings.
In connexion with other words ``act'' is employed in many phrases, e.g. act of God, any event, such as the sudden, violent or overwhelming occurrence of natural forces, which cannot be foreseen or provided against. This is a good defence to a suit for non-performance of a contract. Act of honour denotes the acceptance by a third party of a protested bill of exchange for the honour of any party thereto. Act of grace denotes the granting of some special privilege.
In universities, the presenting and publicly maintaining a thesis by a candidate for a degree, to show his proficiency, is an act. ``The Act'' at Oxford, up to 1856 when it was abolished, was the ceremony held early in July for this purpose, and the expressions ``Act Sunday,'' ``Act Term'' still survive.
In dramatic literature, act signifies one of those parts into which a play is divided to mark the change of time or place, and to give a respite to the actors and to the audience. In Greek plays there are no separate acts, the unities being strictly observed, and the action being continuous from beginning to end. If the principal actors left the stage the chorus took up the argument, and contributed an integral part of the play, though chiefly in the form of comment upon the action. When necessary, another droma, which is etymologically the same as an act, carried on the history to a later time or in a different place, and thus we have the Greek trilogies or groups of three dramas, in which the same characters reappear. The Roman poets first adopted the division into acts, and suspended the stage business in the intervals between them. Their number was usually five, and the rule was at last laid down by Horace in the Ars
Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior actuFabula, quae posci vult, et spectata reponi.``If you would have your play deserve success,Give it five acts complete, nor more nor less.'' (Francis.)
On the revival of letters this rule was almost universally observed by dramatists, and that there is an inherent convenience and fitness in the number five is evident from the fact that Shakespeare, who refused to be trammelled by merely arbitrary rules, adopts it in all his plays. Some critics have laid down rules as to the part each act should sustain in the development of the plot, but these are not essential, and are by no means universally recognized. In comedy the rule as to the number of acts has not been so strictly adhered to as in tragedy, a division into two acts or three acts being quite usual since the time of Moliere, who first introduced it. It may be well to mention here Milton's Samson Agonistes as a specimen in English literature of a dramatic work founded on a purely Greek model, in which, consequently, there is no division into acts.
For ``acting,'' as the art and theory of dramatic representation (or histrionics, from Lat. histrio, an actor), see the article DRAMA.
ACTA DIURNA (Lat. acta, public acts or records; diurnius, daily, from dies), called also Acta Fopuli, Acta Publica and simply Acta or Diurna, in ancient Rome a sort of daily gazette, containing an officially authorized narrative of noteworthy eventsat Rome. Its contents were partly official (court news, decrees of the emperor, senate and magistrates), partly private (notices of births, marriages and deaths). Thus to some extent it filled the place of the modern newspaper (q.v.). The origin of the Acta is attributed to Julius Caesar, who first ordered the keeping and publishing of the acts of the people by public officers (59 B.C.; Suetonius, Caesar, 20). The Acta were drawn up from day to day, and exposed in a public place on a whitened board (see ALBUM). After remaining there for a reasonable time they were taken down and preserved with other public documents, so that they might be available for purposes of research. The Acta differed from the Annals (which were discontinued in 133 B.C.) in that only the greater and more important matters were given in the latter, while in the former things of less note were recorded. Their publication continued till the transference of the seat of the empire to Constantinople. There are no genuine fragments extant.
Leclerc, Des Journaux chez les Romains (1838); Renssen, DeDiurnis aliisque Romanorum Actis (1857); Hubner, De SenatusPopulique Romani Actis (1860); Gaston Boissier, Tacitus and otherRoman Studies (Eng. trans., W. G. Hutchison, 1906), pp. 197-229.
ACTAEON, son of Aristaeus and Autonoe, a famous Theban hero and hunter, trained by the centaur Cheiron. According to the story told by Ovid (Metam. iii. 131; see also Apollod iii. 4), having accidentally seen Artemis (Diana) on Mount Cithaeron while she was bathing, he was changed by her into a stag, and pursued and killed by his fifty hounds. His statue was often set up on rocks and mountains as a protection against excessive heat. The myth itself probably represents the destruction of vegetation during the fifty dog-days. Aeschylus and other tragic poets made use of the story, which was a favourite subject in ancient works of art. There is a well-known small marble group in the British Museum illustrative of the story.
ACTA SENATUS, or COMMENTARII SENATUS, minutes of the discussions and decisions of the Roman senate. Before the first consulship of Julius Caesar (59 B.C.), minutes of the proceedings of the senate were written and occasionally published, but unofficially; Caesar, desiring to tear away the veil of mystery which gave an unreal importance to the senate's deliberations, first ordered them to be recorded and issued authoritatively. The keeping of them was continued by Augustus, but their publication was forbidden (Suetonius, Augustus, 36). A young senator (ab actis senatus) was chosen to draw up these Acta, which were kept in the imperial archives and public libraries (Tacitus, Ann. v. 4). Special permission from the city praefect was necessary in order to examine them. For authorities see ACTA DIURNA.
ACTINOMETER (Gr. aktis, ray, metron, measure), an instrument for measuring the heating and chemical effects of light. The name was first given by Sir John Herschel to an apparatus for measuring the heating effect of solar rays (Edin. Journ. Science, 1825); Herschel's instrument has since been discarded in favour of the pyrheliometer (Gr. tur, fire, elios, sun). (See RADIATION.) The word actinometer is now usually applied to instruments for measuring the actinic or chemical effect of luminous rays; their action generally depends upon photochemical changes (see PHOTO-CHEMISTRY). Certain practical forms are described in the article PHOTOGRAPHY.
ACTINOMYCOSIS (STREPTOTRICHOSIS), a chronic infective disease occurring in both cattle and man. In both these groups it presents the same clinical course, being characterized by chronic inflammation with the formation of granulomatous tumours, which tend to undergo suppuration, fibrosis or calcification. It used to be believed that this disease was caused by a single vegetable parasite, the Ray-Fungus, but there is now an overwhelming mass of observations to show that the clinical features may be produced by a number of different species of parasites, for which the generic name Streptothrix has been generally adopted. In 1899 the committee of the Pathological Society of London recommended that the term Streptotrichosis should be used as the appropriate clinical epithet of the large class of Streptothrix infections. And since that year the name Actinomycosis has been falling into disuse, and in any case is only used synonymously with Streitotrichosis. For a further account of these parasites see the articles on BACTERIOLOGY and on PARASITIC DISEASES.
Pathological Anatomy.—-The naked-eye appearance of the different organs affected by Streptothrix infection varies according to the duration and acuteness of the disease. In some tissues the appearance is that of simple inflammation, whereas in others it may be characteristic. The liver when affected shows scattered foci of suppuration, which may become aggregated into spheroidal masses, surrounded by a zone of inflammation. In the lungs the changes may be any that are produced by the following conditions. (1) An acute bronchitis. (2) A phthisical lung, grey nodules being scattered here and there almost exactly simulating tuberculous nodules. (3) An acute broncho-pneumonia with some interstitial fibrosis and a tendency to abscess formation. The most characteristic lesions are in the skin. These appear as nodules, sarcomatous-looking, soft and pulpy. Their colour is mottled, yellow and purplish red. The skin over them is thinned out, and broken down in places to form one or two crateriform ulcers from which a clear sticky fluid exudes. The size varies from that of a pea to a small orange. The pus is characteristic, varying in consistency though usually viscid, and containing numerous minute specks.
The disease is more common in males than in females, aod more prevalent in Germany and Russia than in England. The infection is probably spread by grain (corn or barley), on which the fungus may often be found. In a great number of recorded cases the patient has been following agricultural pursuits. The disease can only be transmitted from one individual to another with considerable difficulty, and no case of direct transmission from animal to man has yet been noted.
Clinical History.—-The course of actinomycosis is usually a chronic one, but occasionally the fungus gets into the blood, when the course is that of an acute infective disease or even pyaemia. The symptoms are entirely dependent on the organ attacked, and are in no way specially characteristic. During life a diagnosis of phthisis is continually made, and only a microscopic examination after death renders the true nature of the disease apparent. The nature of the skin lesion is the most evident, and here the parasite can be detected early in the illness. The only drug which appears to have any beneficial influence on the course of the disease is potassium iodide, and this has occasionally been used with great benefit. Surgical interference is usually needed, either excision of the part affected, or, where possible, a thorough scraping of the lesion and free application of antiseptics.
ACTINOZOA, a term in systematic zoology, first used by H. M. D. de Blainville about 1834, to designate animals the organs of which were disposed radially about a centre. De Blainville included in his group many unicellular forms such as Noctiluca (see PROTOZOA), sea-anemones, corals, jelly-fish and hydroid polyps, echinoderms, polyzoa and rotifera. T. H. Huxley afterwards restricted the term. He showed that in de Blainville's group there were associated with a number of heterogeneous forms a group of animals characterized by being composed of two layers of cells comparable with the first two layers in the development of vertebrate animals. Such forms he distinguished as Coelentera, and showed that they had no special affinity with echinoderms, polyzoa, &c. He divided the Coelentera into a group Hydrozoa, in which the sexually produced embryos were usually set free from the surface of the body, and a group Actinozoa, in which the embryos are detached from the interior of the body and escape generally by the oral aperture. Huxley's Actinozoa comprised the sea-anemones, corals and sea-pens, on the one hand, and the Ctenophora on the other. Later investigations, whilst confirming the general validity of Huxley's conclusions, have slightly altered the limits and definitions of his groups. (See ANTHOZOA, COELENTERA, CTENOPHORA and HYDROZOA.) (P. C. M.)
ACTION, in law, a term used by jurists in three different senses: (1) a right to institute proceedings in a court of justice to obtain redress for a wrong (actio nihil aliud est quam jus prosequendi in judieio quod alicui debetur, Bracton, de Legibus Angliae, bk. iii. ch. i., f. 98 b); (2) the proceeding itself (actionn n'est auter chose que loyall demande de son droit, Co. Litt. 285 (a)); (3) the particular form of the proceeding. The term is derived from the Roman law (actio), in which it is used in all three senses. In the history of Roman law, actions passed through three stages. The first period (terminated about 170 B.C. by the Lex Aebutia) is known as the system of legis actiones, and was based on the precepts of the XII. tables and used before the praetor urbanus. These actiones were five in number —sacramenti, per judicis postulationem, per condictionem, per manus injectionem, per pignoris captionem. The first was the primitive and characteristic action of the Roman law, and the others were little more than modes of applying it to cases not contemplated in the original form, or of carrying the result of it into execution when the action had been decided. The legis actiones were superseded by the formulae, originated by the praetor peregrinus for the determination of controversies between foreigners, but found more flexible than the earlier system and made available for citizens by the Lex Aebutia. Under both these systems the praetor referred the matter in dispute to an arbiter (judex), but in the later he settled the formula (i.e. the issues to be referred and the appropriate form of relief) before making the order of reference. In the third stage, the formulary stage fell into disuse, and after A.D. 342 the magistrate himself or his deputy decided the controversy after the defending party had been duly summoned by a libellus.
The classifications of actiones in Roman law were very numerous. The division which is still most universally recognized is that of actions in rem and actions in personam (Sohm, Roman Law, tr. by Ledlie, 2nd ed. 277). An action in rem asserts a right to a particular thing against all the world. An action in personam asserts a right only against a particular person. Perhaps the best modern example of the distinction is that made in maritime cases between an action against a ship after a collision at sea, and an action against the owners of the ship.
In English law the term ``action'' at a very early date became associated with civil proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas, which were distinguished from pleas of the crown, such as indictments or informations and for suits in the Court of Chancery or in the Admiralty or ecclesiastical courts. The English action was a proceeding commenced by writ original at the common law. The remedy was of right and not of grace. The history of actions is the history of civil procedure in the courts of common law. As a result of the reform of civil procedure by the Judicature Acts the term ``action'' in English law now means at the High Court of Justice ``a civil proceeding commenced by writ of summons or in such other manner as may be prescribed by rules of court'' (e.g. by originating summons). The proceeding thus commenced ends by judgment and execution. This definition includes proceedings under the Chancery, Admiralty and Probate jurisdiction of the High Court, but excludes proceedings commenced by petition, such as divorce suits and bankruptcy and winding-up matters, as well as criminal proceedings in the High Court or applications for the issue of the writs of mandamus, prohibition, habeas corpus or certiorari. The Judicature Acts and Rules have had the effect of abolishing all the forms of ``action'' used at the common law and of creating one common form of legal proceeding for all ordinary controversies between subjects in whatever division of the High Court. The stages in an English action are the writ, by which the persons against whom relief is claimed are summoned before the court; the pleadings and interlocutory steps, by which the issues between the parties are adjusted; the trial, at which the issues of fact and law involved are brought before the tribunal; the judgment, by which the relief sought is granted or refused; and execution, by which the law gives to the successful party the fruits of the judgment.
The procedure varies according as the action is in the High Court, a county court or one of the other local courts of record which still survive; but there is no substantial difference in the incidents of trial, judgment and execution in any of these courts. The initial difference between actions in the High Court and the county court is that the latter are commenced by plaint lodged in the court, on which a summons is prepared by the court and served by its bailiff, whereas in the High Court the party prepares the writ and lodges it in court for sealing, and when it is sealed, himself effects the service.
An action is said to ``lie'' when the law provides a remedy for some particular act or omission by a subject which infringes the legal rights of another subject. An act of such a character is said to give a ``cause of action.'' In the action the person who alleges himself aggrieved claims a judgment of the court in his favour giving an adequate and appropriate remedy for the injury or damage which he has sustained by the infraction of his rights. As to the time within which an action must be brought, see LIMITATION, STATUTES OF. When the rights of a subject are infringed by the illegal action of the state, an action lies in England against the officers who have done the wrong, unless the claim be one arising out of breach of a contract with the state, or out of an ``Act of State.'' For a breach by the state of a contract made between the state and a subject the remedy of the subject is, as a general rule, not by action against the agents of the state who acted for the state with reference to the making or breach of the contract, but against the Crown itself by the proceeding called Petition of Right (see PETITION).
While as a generic term ``action'' in its proper legal sense includes suits by the Crown and ``criminal actions'' (see Co. Litt. 284b; Bracton, de Legibus Angliae, bk. iii. ch. v. f. 1046; Bradlaugh v. Clarke, 1883, 8 App. Cas. 354, 361, 374), in popular language it is taken to mean a proceeding by a subject and is now rarely applied in England even by lawyers to criminal proceedings. What are now known as ``penal actions,'' i.e. proceedings in which an individual who has not suffered personally by a breach of the law sues as a common informer for the statutory penalty either on his own benefit or on behalf also of the Crown (qui tam pro rege quam pro se ipso), bear some analogy to the actio popularis of Roman law, from which they are derived (see the statute 4 Hen. VII. 1488); but they are now treated for most purposes as civil and not as criminal proceedings. The law of Scotland follows the lines of the civil law, and the expression ``criminal action'' is in use to distinguish proceedings to punish offences against the public as distinguished from civil action, brought to enforce a private right.
In the United States, and the British colonies in which English law runs by settlement, charter, proclamation or statute, the nature of an action is substantially the same as in England. The differences between one state of the Union and another, and one colony and another, depend mainly on the extent to which the old procedure of the common law has been abolished, simplified or reformed by local legislation.
AUTHORITIES.—Roman Law: Sohm, Institutes of Roman Law,W. G. Ledlie (2nd ed., 1901). English Law: Pollock andMaitland, English Law; Holmes, The Common Law; Bullenand Leake, Prec. Pleadings (3rd ed.: 6th ed. 1905).
ACTIUM (mod. Punta), the ancient name of a promontory in the north of Acarnania (Greece) at the mouth of the Sinus Ambracius (Gulf of Arta) opposite Nicopolis, built by Augustus on the north side of the strait. On the promontory was an ancient temple of Apollo Actius, which was enlarged by Augustus, who also, in memory of the battle, instituted or renewed the quinquennial games called Actia or Ludi Actiaci. Actiaca Aera was a computation of time from the battle of Actium. There was on the promontory a small town, or rather village, also called Actium.
History.-Actium belonged originally to the Corinthian colonists of Anactorium, who probably founded the worship of Apollo Actius and the Actia games; in the 3rd century it fell to the Acarnanians, who subsequently held their synods there. Actium is chiefly famous as the site of Octavian's decisive victory over Mark Antony (2nd of September 31 B.C.). This battle ended a long series of ineffectual operations. The final conflict was provoked by Antony, who is said to have been persuaded by Cleopatra to retire to Egypt and give battle to mask his retreat; but lack of provisions and the growing demoralization of his army would sufficiently account for his decision. The fleets met outside the gulf, each over 200 strong (the totals given by ancient authorities are very conflicting). Antony's heavy battleships endeavoured to close and crush the enemy with their artillery; Octavian's light and mobile craft made skilful use of skirmishing tactics. During the engagement Cleopatra suddenly withdrew her squadron and Antony slipped away behind her. His flight escaped notice, and the conflict remained undecided, until Antony's fleet was set on fire and thus annihilated.
AUTHORITIES— Dio Cassi us, 50.12-51.3; Plutarch, Antonius, 62-68; Velleius Paterculus, ii. 84-85. C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, iii. pp. 313-325 (London, 1851); V. Gardthausen, Augustus und seine Zeit, i. pp. 369-386, ii. pp. 189-201 (Leipzig, 1891 ): G. Ferrero in the Revue de Paris, Mar. 15, 1906, pp. 225-243; b. Kromayer, in Hermes, xxxiv. (1899), pp. 1-54. (M. O. B. C.)
1 Where the grant is not of supply, the preamble varies a little, e.g. in the Prince of Wales's Children Act 1889.
ACTON (JOHN EMERICH EDWARD DALBERG ACTON), IST BARON (1834-1902), English historian, only son of Sir Richard Acton, 7th baronet, and grandson of the Neapolitan admiral, Sir J. F. E. Acton, 6th baronet (q.v.), was born at Naples on the 10th of January 1834. His grandfather, who had succeeded in 1791 to the baronetcy and family estates in Shropshire, previously held by the English branch of the Acton family, represented a younger branch which had transferred itself first to France and then to Italy, but by the extinction of the elder branch the admiral became head of the family; his eldest son, Richard, had married Marie Louise Pelline, the daughter and heiress of Emerich Joseph, duc de Dalberg (q.v.), a naturalized French noble of ancient German lineage who had entered thc French service under Napoleon and represented Louis XVIII. at the congress of Vienna in 1814, and after Sir Richard Acton's death in 1837 she became (1840) the wife of the 2nd Earl Granville. Coming of a Roman Catholic family, young Acton was educated at Oscott till 1848 under Dr (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman, and then at Edinburgh, and at Munich under Dollinger, whose lifelong friend he became. He had wished to go to Cambridge, but for a Roman Catholic this was then impossible. By Dollinger he was inspired with a deep love of historical research and a profound conception of its functions as a critical instrument. He was a master of the chief foreign languages, and began at an early age to collect a magnificent historical library, with the object, never in fact realized, of writing a great History of Liberty. In politics he was always an ardent Liberal. Without being a notable traveller, he spent much time in the chief intellectual centres of Europe, and in the United States, and numbered among his friends such men as Montalembert, De Tocqueville. Fustel de Coulanges, Bluntschli, von Sybel and Ranke. He was attached to Lord Granville's mission to Moscow, as British representative at the coronation of Alexander II. in 1856. In 1859 Sir John Acton settled in England, at his country house, Aldenham, in Shropshire. He was returned to the House of Commons in that year for the Irish borough of Carlow, and became a devoted admirer and adherent of Mr Gladstone; but he was practically a silent member, and his parliamentary career came to an end after the general election of 1865, when, having headed the poll for Bridgnorth, he was unseated on a scrutiny; he contested Bridgnorth again in 1868, but without success. Meanwhile he had become editor of the Roman Catholic monthly paper, the Rambler, in 1859, on J. H. Newman's retirement from the editorship; and in 1862 he merged this periodical in the Home and Foreign Review. His contributions at once gave evidence of his remarkable wealth of historical knowledge. But though a sincere Roman Catholic, his whole spirit as a historian was hostile to ultramontane pretensions, and his independence of thought and liberalism of view speedily brought him into conflict with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. As early as August 1862, Cardinal Wiseman publicly censured the Review; and when in 1864, after Dollinger's appeal at the Munich Congress for a less hostile attitude towards historical criticism, the pope issued a declaration that the opinions of Catholic writers were subject to the authority of the Roman congregations, Acton felt that there was only one way of reconciling his literary conscience with his ecclesiastical loyalty, and he stopped the publication of his monthly periodical. He continued, however, to contribute articles to the North British Review, which, previously a Scottish Free Church organ, had been acquired by friends in sympathy with him, and which for some years (until 1872, when it ceased to appear) actively promoted the interests of a high-class Liberalism in both temporal and ecclesiastical matters; he also did a good deal of lecturing on historical subjects. In 1865 he married the Countess Marie, daughter of the Bavarian Count Arco-Valley, by whom he had one son and three daughters. In 1869 he was raised to the peerage by Gladstone as Baron Acton; he was an intimate friend and constant correspondent of the Liberal leader, and the two men had the very highest regard for one another. Matthew Arnold used to say that ``Gladstone influences all round him but Acton; it is Acton who influences Gladstone.''
In 1870 came the great crisis in the Roman Catholic world over the promulgation by Pius IX. of the dogma of papal infallibility. Lord Acton, who was in complete sympathy on this subject with Dollinger (q.v.), went to Rome in order to throw all his influence against it, but the step he so much dreaded was not to be averted. The Old Catholic separation followed, but Acton did not personally join the seceders, and the authorities prudently refrained from forcing the hands of so competent and influential an English layman. In 1874, when Gladstone published his pamphlet on The Vatican Decrees, Lord Acton wrote during November and December a series of remarkable letters to The Times, illustrating Gladstone's main theme by numerous historical examples of papal inconsistency, in a way which must have been bitter enough to the ultramontane party, but demurring nevertheless to Gladstone's conclusion and insisting that the Church itself was better than its premisses implied. Acton's letters led to another storm in the English Roman Catholic world, but once more it was considered prudent by the Vatican to leave him alone. In spite of his reservations, he regarded ``communion with Rome as dearer than life.'' Thenceforth he steered clear of theological polemics. He devoted himself to persistent reading and study, combined with congenial society. With all his capacity for study he was a man of the world, and a man of affairs, not a bookworm. Little indeed came from his pen, his only notable publications being a masterly essay in the Quarterly Review of January 1878 on ``Democracy in Europe''; two lectures delivered at Bridgnorth in 1877 on ``The History of Freedom in Antiquity'' and ``The History of Freedom in Christianity''—these last the only tangible portions put together by him of his long-projected ``History of Liberty''; and an essay on modern German historians in the first number of the English Historical Review, which he helped to found (1886). After 1879 he divided his time between London, Cannes and Tegernsee in Bavaria, enjoying and reciprocating the society of his friends. In 1872 he had been given the honorary degree of doctor of philosophy by Munich University; in 1888 Cambridge gave him the honorary degree of LL.D., and in 1889 Oxford the D.C.L.; and in 1890 he was made a fellow of All Souls. His reputation for learning had gradually been spread abroad, largely through Gladstone's influence. The latter found him a valuable political adviser, and in 1892, when the Liberal government came in, Lord Acton was made a lord-in-waiting. Finally, in 1895, on the death of Sir John Seeley, Lord Rosebery appointed him to the Regius Professorship of Modern History at Cambridge. The choice was an excellent one. His inaugural lecture on ``The Study of History,'' afterwards published with notes displaying a vast erudition, made a great impression in the university, and the new professor's influence on historical study was felt in many important directions. He delivered two valuable courses of lectures, on the French Revolution and on Modern History, but it was in private that the effects of his teaching were most marked. The great Cambridge Modern History, though he did not live to see it, was planned under his editorship, and all who came in contact with him testified to his stimulating powers and his extraordinary range of knowledge. He was taken ill, however, in 1901, and died on the 19th of June 1902, being succeeded in the title by his son. Richard Maximllian Dalberg Acton, 2nd Baron Acton (b.1870). Lord Acton has left too little completed original work to rank among the great historians; his very learning seems to have stood in his way; he knew too much and his literary conscience was too acute for him to write easily, and his copiousness of information overloads his literary style. But he was one of the most deeply learned men of his time, and he will certainly be remembered for his influence on others. His extensive library, formed for use and not for display, and composed largely of books full of his own annotations, was bought immediately after his death by Mr Andrew Carnegie, and presented to Mr John Morley, by whom it was forthwith given to the university of Cambridge.
See Mr Herbert Paul's excellent Introductory Memoir to the interesting volume of Lord Acton's Letters to Mrs Drew (1904), and the authorities cited there; also Dom Gasquet's Lord Acton and his Circle (1906). A Bibliography of the works of Lord Acton, by W. A. Shaw, was published by the Royal Historical Society in 1903. The Edinburgh Review of April 1903 contains a luminous essay; and Mr Bryce has a chapter on Acton in his Studies of Contemporary Biography (1903). Lord Acton's Lectures on Modern History, edited by J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence, appeared in 1906; and his History of Freedom and other Essays and Historical Essay's and Studies (by the same editors) in 1907. (H. CH.)
ACTON, SIR JOHN FRANCIS EDWARD, BART. (1736—1811). prime minister of Naples under Ferdinand IV., was the son of Edward Acton, a physician at Besancon, and was born there in 1736, succeeding to the title and estates in 1791, on the death of his cousin in the third degree, Sir Richard Acton of Aldenham Hall, Shropshire. He served in the navy of Tuscany, and in 1775 commanded a frigate in the joint expedition of Spain and Tuscany against Algiers, in which he displayed such courage and resource that he was promoted to high command. In 1779 Queen Maria Carolina of Naples persuaded her brother the Grand-Duke Leopold of Tuscany to allow Acton, who had been recommended to her by Prince Caramenico, to undertake the reorganization of the Neapolitan navy. The ability displayed by him in this led to his rapid advancement. He became commander-in-chief of both services, minister of finance, and finally prime minister. His policy was devised in concert with the English ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, and aimed at substituting the influence of Austria and Great Britain for that or Spain, at Naples, and consequently involved open opposition to France and the French party in Italy. The financial and administrative measures which were the outcome of a policy which necessitated a great increase of armament made him intensely unpopular, and in December 1798 he shared the flight of the king and queen. For the reign of terror which followed the downfall of the Parthenopean Republic, five months later, Acton has been held responsible. In 1804 he was for a short time deprived of the reins of government at the demand of France; but he was speedily restored to his former position, which he held till, in February 1806, on the entry of the French into Naples, he had to flee with the royal family into Sicily. He died at Palermo on the 12th of August 1811.
He had married, by papal dispensation, the eldest daughter of his brother, General Joseph Edward Acton (b. 1737), who was in the Neapolitan service, and left three children, the elder son, Sir Richard, being the father of the first Lord Acton. The second son, Charles Januarius Edward (1803-1847), after being educated in England and taking his degree at Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1823, entered the Academia Ecclesiastica at Rome. He left this with the rank of prolate, in 1828 was secretary to the nuncio at Paris and was made vice-legate of Bologna shortly afterwards. He became secretary of the congregation of the Disciplina Regolare, and auditor of the Apostolic Chamber under Gregory XVI., by whom he was made a cardinal in 1842. Cardinal Acton was protector of the English College at Rome, and had been mainly instrumental in the increase, in 1840, of the English vicariates-general to eight, which paved the way for the restoration of the hierarchy by Pius IX. in 1850. He died on the 23rd of June 1847.
ACTON, an urban district in the Ealing parliamentary division of Middlesex, England, suburban to London, 9 m. W. of St. Paul's Cathedral. Pop. (1861) 3151; (1901) 37,744. Its appearance is now wholly that of a modern residential suburb. The derivation offered for its name is from Oak-town, in reference to the extensive forest which formerly covered the locality. The land belonged from early times to the see of London, a grant being recorded in 1220. Henry III. had a residence here. At the time of the Commonwealth Acton was a centre of Puritanism. Philip Nye (d. 1672) was rector; Richard Baxter, Sir Matthew Hale (Lord Chief-Justice), Henry Fielding the novelist and John Lindley the botanist (d. 1865) are famous names among residents here. Acton Wells, of saline waters, had considerable reputation in the 18th century.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. This book of the Bible, which now stands fifth in the New Testament, was read at first as the companion and sequel of the Gospel of Luke. Its separation was due to growing consciousness of the Gospels as a unit of sacred records, to which Acts stood as a sort of appendix. Historically it is of unique interest and value: it has no fellow within the New Testament or without it. The so-called Apocryphal Acts of certain apostles, while witnessing to the impression produced by our Acts as a type of edifying literature, only emphasize this fact. It is the one really primitive Church history, primitive in spirit as in substance; apart from it a connected picture of the Apostolic Age would be impossible. With it, the Pauline Epistles are of priceless historical value; without it, they would remain bafflingly fragmentary and incomplete, often even misleading.
1. Plan and Aim.—-All agree that the Acts of the Apostles is the work of an author of no mean skill, and that he has exercised careful selection in the use of his materials, in keeping with a definite purpose and plan. It is of moment, then, to discover from his emphasis, whether by iteration or by fulness of scale, what objects he had in mind in writing. Here it is not needful to go farther back than F. C. Baur and the Tubingen school, with its theory of sharp antitheses between Judaic and Gentile Christianity, of which they took the original apostles and Paul respectively as typical. Gradually their statement of this position underwent serious modifications, as it became realized that neither Jewish nor Gentile Christianity was a uniform genus, but included several species, and that the apostolic leaders from the first stood for mutual understanding and unity. Hence the Tubingen school did its chief work in putting the needful question, not in returning the correct answer. Their answer could not be correct, because, as Ritschl showed (in his Altkath. Kirche, 2nd ed., 1857 ), their premisses were inadequate. Still the attitude created by the Tubingen theory largely persists as a biassing element in much that is written about Acts. On the whole, however, there is a disposition to look at the book more objectively and to follow up the hints as to its aim given by the author in his opening verses. Thus (1) his second narrative is the natural sequel to his first. As the earlier one set forth in orderly sequence (kathexes) the providential stages by which Jesus was led, ``in the power of the Spirit,'' to begin the establishment of the consummated Kingdom of God, so the later work aims at setting forth on similar principles its extension by means of His chosen representatives or apostles. This involves emphasis on the identity of the power, Divine and not merely human, expressed in the great series of facts from first to last. Thus (2) the Holy Spirit appears as directing and energizing throughout the whole struggle with the powers of evil to be overcome in either ministry, of Master or disciples. But (3) the continuity is more than similarity of activity resting on the same Divine energy. The working of the energy in the disciples is conditioned by the continued life and volition of their Master at His Father's right hand in heaven. The Holy Spirit, ``the Spirit of Jesus,'' is the living link between Master and disciples. Hence the pains taken to exhibit (i. 2, 4 f. 8, ii. I ff., cf. Luke xxiv. 49) the fact of such spiritual solidarity, whereby their activity means His continued action in the world. And (4) the scope of this action is nothing less than humanity (ii. 5 ff.), especially within the Roman empire. It was foreordained that Messiah's witnesses should be borne by Divine power through all obstacles and to ever-widening circles, until they reached and occupied Rome itself for the God of Israel—now manifest (as foretold by Israel's own prophets) as the one God of the one race of mankind. (5) Finally, as we gather from the parallel account in Luke xxiv.46-48, the divinely appointed method of victory is through suffering (Acts xiv. 22). This explains the large space devoted to the tribulations of the witnesses, and their constancy amid them, after the type of their Lord Himself. It forms one side of the virtual apologia for the absence of that earthly prosperity in which the pagan mind was apt to see the token of Divine approval. Another side is the recurring exhibition of the fact that these witnesses were persecuted only by those whose action should create no bias against the persecuted. Their foes were chiefly Jews, whose opposition was due partly to a stiff-necked disinclination to bow to the wider reading of their own religion —to which the Holy Spirit had from of old been pointing (cf. the prominence given to this idea in Stephen's long speech)—and partly to jealousy of those who, by preaching the wider Messianic Evangel, were winning over the Gentiles, and particularly proselytes, in such great numbers.
Such, then, seem to be the author's main motifs. They make up an account fairly adequate to the manifoldness of the book; yet they may be summed up in three ideas, together constituting the moral which this history of the expansion of Christianity aims at bringing home to its readers. These are the universality of the Gospel, the jealousy of national Judaism, and the Divine initiative manifest in the gradual stages by which men of Jewish birth were led to recognize the Divine will in the setting aside of national restrictions, alien to the universal destiny of the Church. The practical moral is the Divine character of the Christian religion, as evinced by the manner of its extension in the empire, no less than by its original embodiment in the Founder's life and death. Thus both parts of the author's work alike tend to produce assured conviction of Christianity as of Divine origin (Luke i. 1, 4; Acts i. 1 f.).
This view has the merit of giving the book a practical religious aim—a sine qua non to any theory of an early Christian writing. though meant for men of pagan birth in the first instance, it is to them as inquirers or even converts, such as ``Theophilus,'' that the argument is addressed. In spite of all difficulties, this religion is worthy of personal belief, even though it mean opposition and suffering. Among the features of the occasion which suggested the need of such an appeal was doubtless the existence of persecution by the Roman authorites, perhaps largely at the instigation of local Judaism. To meet this special perplexity, the author holds up the picture of early days, when the great protagonist of the Gospel constantly enjoyed protection at the hands of Roman justice. It is implied that the present distress is but a passing phase, resting on some misunderstanding; meantime, the example of apostolic constancy should yield strong reassurance. The Acts of the Apostles is in fact an Apology for the Church as distinct from Judaism, the breach with which is accordingly traced with great fulness and care.
From this standpoint Acts no longer seems to end abruptly. Whether as exhibiting the Divine leading and aid, or as recording the impartial and even kindly attitude of the Roman State towards the Christians, the writer has reached a climax. ``He wished,'' as Harnack well remarks, ``to point out the might of the Holy Spirit in the apostles, Christ's witnesses; and to show how this might carried the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome and gained for it entrance into the pagan world, whilst the Jews in growing degree incurred rejection. In keeping with this, verses 26-28 of chapter xxviii. are the solemn closing verses of the work. But verses 30, 31 are an appended observation.''
Yet the writer is, in fact, ending up most fitly on one of his keynotes, in that he leaves Paul preaching in Rome itself, ``unmolested.'' ``Paulus Romae, apex Evangelii.''
The full force of this is missed by those who, while rejecting the idea that the author had in reserve enough Pauline history to furnish another work, yet hold that Paul was freed from the imprisonment amid which Acts leaves him (see PAUL). But for those, on the other hand, who see in the writer's own words in xx. 38, uncontradicted by anything in the sequel, a broad hint that Paul never saw his Ephesian friends again, the natural view is open that the sequel to the two years' preaching was too well known to call for explicit record. Nor would such silence touching Paul's speedy martyrdom be disingenuous, any more than on the theory that martyrdom overtook him several years later. The writer views Paul's death (like the horrors of Nero's Vatican Gardens in 64) as a mere exception to the rule of Roman policy heretofore illustrated. Not even by the Roman authorities were some of Nero's acts regarded as precedents.
2. Authorship.—External evidence, which is relatively early and widespread (e.g. Muratorian Canon, Irenaeus, Tertullian,Clement and Origen), all points to Luke, the companion and fellow-worker of Paul (Philem. 24), who probably accompanied him as physician also (Col. iv. 14). It must be noted too that evidence for his authorship of the third Gospel counts also for Acts. This carries us back at least to the second quarter of the 2nd century (Justin, Dial. 103, and most probably Marcion), when Loukan no doubt stood at the head of the Gospel, especially where it was used side by side with the others. We have every reason to trust the Church's tradition at this time, particularly as Luke was not prominent enough as an associate of Paul to suggest the theory as a guess. Nor does Eusebius, who knew the ante-Nicene literature intimately, seem to know of any other view ever having been held. If, then, the traditional Lucan authorship is to be doubted, it must be on internal evidence only. The form of the book, however, in all respects favours Luke, who was of non-Jewish birth (see Col. iv. 12-14 compared with 10 f.), and as a physician presumably a man of culture. The medical cast of much of its language, which is often of a highly technical nature, points strongly the same way;1 while the early tradition that Luke was born in the Syrian Antioch admirably suits the fulness with which the origin of the Antiochene Church and its place in the further extension of the Gospel are described (see LUKE). Again, the attitude of Acts towards the Roman Empire is just what would be expected from a close comrade of Paul (cf. Sir W. M. Ramsay, St Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen, 1895), but was hardly likely to be shared by one of the next generation, reared in an atmosphere of resentment, first at Nero's conduct and then at the persecuting policy of the Flavian Caesars (see REVELATION). Finally, the book itself seems to claim to be written by a companion of Paul. In chap. xvi. 10 the writer, without any previous warning, passes from the third person to the first. Paul had reached Troas. There he saw a vision inviting him to go to Macedonia. ``But when he saw the vision, straightway we sought to go forth into Macedonia.'' Thenceforth ``we'' re-emerges at certain points in the narrative until Rome is reached. Irenaeus (iii. 14. 1) quotes these passages as proof that Luke, the author, was a companion of the apostle. The minute character of the narrative, the accurate description of the various journeyings, the unimportance of some of the details, especially some of the incidents of the shipwreck, are strong reasons for believing that the narrative is that of an eyewitness. If so, we can scarcely help coming to the conclusion that this eye-witness was the author of the work; for the style of this eye-witness is exactly the style of the writer who composed the previous portions (see Harnack, op. cit., reinforcing the argument as already worked out by B. Weiss, 1893, and especially by Sir J. C. Hawkins in Horae Synopticae, 1899, pp. 143-147). Most scholars admit that the ``we'' narrative is that of a personal companion of Paul, who was probably none other than Luke, in view of his traditional authorship of Acts. But many suppose that the tradition arose from confused remembrance of the use by a later author of Luke's ``we'' document or travel-diary. This supposition would compel us to believe either that the skilful writer of Acts was so careless as to incorporate a document without altering its form, or that ``we'' is introduced intentionally. In the latter case we must suppose either that the writer was an eye-witness, or that he wished to be thought an eye-witness. E. Zeller, a follower of Baur, adopted this latter alternative, and P. W. Schmiedel adheres to it. Indeed it is hard to see how it can be avoided on the theory that the author of Acts used a travel-document by another hand (see below, Sources). On the whole, then, the most tenable theory is that the writer of the ``we'' sections was also the author of Acts; and that he was Luke, Paul's companion during most of his later ministry, and also his ``counterpart,'' ``as a Hellene, who yet had personal sympathy with Jewish primitive Christianity'' (Harnack, op. cit. p. 103; see also LUKE).
3. Sources.—So far from the recognition of a plan in Acts being inimical to a quest after the materials used in its composition, one may say that it points the way thereto, while it keeps the literary analysis within scientific limits. The more one realizes the standpoint of the mind pervading the book as a whole, the more one feels that the speeches in the first part of Acts (e.g. that of Stephen)—-and indeed elsewhere, too—are not ``free compositions'' of our author, the mere outcome of dramatic idealization such as ancient historians like Thucydides or Polybius allowed themselves. The Christology, for instance of the early Petrine speeches is such as a Gentile Christian writing c. 80 A.D. simply could not have imagined. Thus we are forced to assume the use of a certain amount of early Judaeo-Christian material, akin to that implied also in the special parts of the Third Gospel. Paul Feine (Eine vorkanonische Ueberlieferung des Lukas, 1891) suggested that a single document explains this material in both works, as far as Acts xii. Others maintain that at any rate two sources underlie Acts i.-xii., or even i.-xv. (see A. Harnack, Die Apostelgeschichte, p. 131 ff.). In particular we can recognize a source embodying the traditions of the largely Hellenistic Church of Antioch, a secondary gloss from which may survive in the Bezan addition to xi. 27, ``when we were assembled.'' Further, if our author was a careful inquirer (Luke i. 3), especially if he was in the habit of taking down in writing what he heard from different witnesses, this may explain some of the phenomena. Such a man as Luke would have rare faculties for collecting Palestinian materials, varying no doubt in accuracy, but all relatively primitive, whether in Antioch or in Caesarea, where he probably resided for some two years in contact with men like Philip the Evangelist (xxi. 8). There and elsewhere he might also learn a good deal from John Mark, Peter's friend (1 Pet. v. 13; Acts xii. 12). In any case the study of sources (Quellenkritik) is a comparatively new one, and the resources of analysis, linguistic in particular, are by no means exhausted. One important analogy exists for the way in which our author would handle any written sources he may have had by him, namely, the manner in which he uses Mark's Gospel narrative in compiling his own Gospel. Guided by this objective criterion, and safeguarded by growing insight into the author's plastic aim, we need not despair of reaching large agreement as to the nature of the sources lying behind the first half of Acts.
In the second or strictly Pauline half we are confronted by the so-called ``we'' passages. Of these two main theories are possible: (1) that which sees in them traces of an earlier document—whether entries in a travel-diary, or a more or less consecutive narrative written later; and (2) that which would regard the ``we'' as due to the author's breaking instinctively into the first person plural at certain points where he felt himself specially identified with the history. On the former hypothesis, it is still in debate whether the ``we'' document does or does not lie behind more of the narrative than is definitely indicated by the formula in question (e.g. cc. xiii.-xv., xxi. 19-xxvi.). On the latter, it may well be questioned whether the presence or absence of ``we'' be not due to psychological causes, rather than to the writer's mere presence or absence.2 That is, he may be writing sometimes as a member of Paul's mission at the critical stages of onward advance, sometimes rather as a witness absorbed in his hero's words and deeds (so ``we'' ceases between xx. 15 and xxi. 1). Naturally he would fall into the former attitude mostly when recording the definitive transition of Paul and his party from one sphere of work to another (xvi. 10 ff., xx. 5 ff., xxvii. 1 ff.). At such times the whole ``mission'' was as one man in its movements.
4. Historical Value.—-The question of authorship is largely bound up with that as to the quality of the contents as history. Acts is divided into two distinct parts. The first (i.-xii.) deals with the church in Jerusalem and Judaea, and with Peter as central figure—-at any rate in cc. i.-v. ``Yet in cc. vi.-xii.,'' as Harnack3 observes, ``the author pursues several lines at once. (1) He has still in view the history of the Jerusalem community and the original apostles (especially of Peter and his missionary labours); (2) he inserts in vi. 1 ff. a history of the Hellenistic Christians in Jerusalem and of the Seven Men, which from the first tends towards the Gentile Mission and the founding of the Antiochene community; (3) he pursues the activity of Philip in Samaria and on the coast . . .; (4) lastly, he relates the history of Paul up to his entrance on the service of the young Antiochene church. In the small space of seven chapters he pursues all these lines and tries also to connect them together, at the same time preparing and sketching the great transition of the Gospel from Judaism to the Greek world. As historian, he has here set himself the greatest task.'' No doubt gaps abound in these seven chapters. ``But the inquiry as to whether what is narrated does not even in these parts still contain the main facts, and is not substantially trustworthy, is not yet concluded.'' The difficulty is that we have but few external means of testing this portion of the narrative (see below, Date). Some of it may well have suffered partial transformation in oral tradition belore reaching our author; e.g. the nature of the Tongues at Pentecost does not accord with what we know of the gift of ``tongues'' generally. The second part pursues the history of the apostle Paul; and here we can compare the statements made in the Acts with the Epistles. The result is a general harmony, without any trace of direct use of these letters; and there are many minute coincidences. But attention has been drawn to two remarkable exceptions. These are, the account given by Paul of his visits to Jerusalem in Galatians as compared with Acts; and the character and mission of the apostle Paul, as they appear in his letters and in Acts.
In regard to the first point, the differences as to Paul's movements until he returns to his native province of Syria-Cilicia (see PAUL) do not really amount to more than can be explained by the different interests of Paul and our author respectively. But it is otherwise as regards the visits of Gal. ii. 1-10 and Acts xv. If they are meant to refer to the same occasion, as is usually assumed,4 it is hard to see why Paul should omit reference to the public occasion of the visit, as also to the public vindication of his policy. But in fact the issues of the two visits, as given in Gal. ii. 9 f. and Acts xv. 20 f., are not at all the same.5 Nay more, if Gal. ii. 1-10=Acts xv., the historicity of the ``Relief visit'' of Acts xi. 30, xii. 25, seems definitely excluded by Paul's narrative of events before the visit of Gal. ii. 1 ff. Accordingly, Sir W. M. Ramsay and others argue that the latter visit itself coincided with the Relief visit, and even see in Gal. ii. 10 witness thereto.
But why, then, does not Paul refer to the public charitable object of his visit? It seems easier therefore to admit that the visit of Gal. ii. 1 ff. is one altogether unrecorded in Acts, owing to its private nature as preparing the way for public developments—-with which Acts is mainly concerned. In that case it would fall shortly before the Relief visit, to which there may be tacit explanatory allusion, in Gal. ii. 10 (see further PAUL); and it will be shown below that such a conference of leaders in Gal. ii. 1 ff. leads up excellently both to the First Mission Journey and to Acts xv.
We pass next to the Paul of Acts. Paul insists that he was appointed the apostle to the Gentiles, as Peter was to the Circumcision; and that circumcision and the observance of the Jewish law were of no importance to the Christian as such. His words on these points in all his letters are strong and decided. But in Acts it is Peter who first opens up the way for the Gentiles. It is Peter who uses the strongest language in regard to the intolerable burden of the Law as a means of salvation(xv. 10 f., cf. 1). Not a word is said of any difference of opinion between Peter and Paul at Antioch (Gal. ii. 11 ff.). The brethren in Antioch send Paul and Barnabas up to Jerusalem to ask the opinion of the apostles and elders: they state their case, and carry back the decision to Antioch. Throughout the whole of Acts Paul never stands forth as the unbending champion of the Gentiles. He seems continually anxious to reconcile the Jewish Christians to himself by personally observing the law of Moses. He circumcises the semi-Jew, Timothy; and he performs his vows in the temple. He is particularly careful in his speeches to show how deep is his respect for the law of Moses. In all this the letters of Paul are very different from Acts. In Galatians he claims perfect freedom in principle, for himself as for the Gentiles, from the obligatory observance of the law; and neither in it nor in Corinthians does he take any notice of a decision to which the apostles had come in their meeting at Jerusalem. The narrative of Acts, too, itself implies something other than what it sets in relief; for why should the Jews hate Paul so much, if he was not in some sense disloyal to their Law?
There is, nevertheless, no essential contradiction here, only such a difference of emphasis as belongs to the standpoints and aims of the two writers amid their respective historical conditions. Peter's function in relation to the Gentiles belongs to the early Palestinian conditions, before Paul's distinctive mission had taken shape. Once Paul's apostolate—-a personal one, parallel with the more collective apostolate of ``the Twelve''—has proved itself by tokens of Divine approval, Peter and his colleagues frankly recognize the distinction of the two missions, and are anxious only to arrange that the two shall not fall apart by religiously and morally incompatible usages (Acts xv.). Paul, on his side, clearly implies that Peter felt with him that the Law could not justify (Gal. ii. 15 ff.), and argues that it could not now be made obligatory in principle (cf. ``a yoke,'' Acts xv. 10); yet for Jews it might continue for the time (pending the Parousia) to be seemly and expedient, especially for the sake of non-believing Judaism. To this he conformed his own conduct as a Jew, so far as his Gentile apostolate was not involved (1 Cor. ix. 19 ff.). There is no reason to doubt that Peter largely agreed with him, since he acted in this spirit in Gal. ii. 11 f., until coerced by Jerusalem sentiment to draw back for expediency's sake. This incident it simply did not fall within the scope of Acts (see below) to narrate, since it had no abiding effect on the Church's extension. As to Paul's submission of the issue in Acts xv. to the Jerusalem conference, Acts does not imply that Paul would have accepted a decision in favour of the Judaizers, though he saw the value of getting a decision for his own policy in the quarter to which they were most likely to defer. If the view that he already had an understanding with the ``Pillar'' Apostles, as recorded in Gal. ii. 1-10 (see further PAUL), be correct, it gives the best of reasons why he was ready to enter the later public Conference of Acts xv. Paul's own ``free'' attitude to the Law, when on Gentile soil, is just what is implied by the hostile rumours as to his conduct in Acts xxi. 21, which he would be glad to disprove as at least exaggerated (ib. 24 and 26). What is clear is that such lack of formal accord as here exists between Acts and the Epistles, tells against its author's dependence on the latter, and so favours his having been a comrade of Paul himself.