1. Miracle Workers

1.

The Miracle Workers

If only one question were asked, how the author of the Acts of the Apostles comes to portray the apostle, who only defeated his opponents with the force of his religious dialectic, as a magician, the man who led his historical work through sufferings, struggles and temptations, as a miracle-worker, who won followers and blinded his opponents through the splendour of his magical works, the answer *) that the author does not want to give a “complete” description of the apostle’s experiences, not an “exhaustive” account of his personal circumstances, and that instead of the dark and sorrowful side he rather “only allows the opposite side” of his life, distinguished by miracles and divine interventions, to “come to the fore”, would be far from satisfactory.

*) which, for example, Schneckenburger, op. cit. p. 60, has raised

If the man who disarmed the opponents by the “proof of the spirit” and opened a new era of world history and the sorcerer form an antithesis, where is the spiritual hero if only the adversary appears?

If the weakness that formed the glory of the apostle and the night of the miracle-worker are opposed to each other – when the earthen and frail vessel in which the apostle of the epistles delivered the heavenly treasure to his congregations, and the mighty hand of the miracle-worker, which with one blow throws the adversaries to the ground and convinces them by fear, are essentially different from each other – where is the Master, who was strong in his weakness, when only the man of fear casts awe?

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One steps back – the other steps forward!

So only back? Is the One still present in itself? He is only in the background of the painting which the author of the Acts of the Apostles sets up? Behind the picture ——- in hiding?

But behind the picture of the Acts of the Apostles there is no space for this hiding place – in the back of the painting there is an unconditional emptiness in which no living being can breathe, no historical person can work and function.

Only the miracle-worker and sorcerer emerges – no! he stands alone there and there- the hiding place in which the spiritual fighter and religious dialectician can still hold on to necessity, can only assert himself by force, is only in the consciousness of the apologist who knows the apostle of the letters and still wants to keep him – absolutely wants to keep him – next to the hero of the Acts of the Apostles.

In vain! – the magician knows nothing of the religious dialectician, – the miracle-worker denies the spiritual hero – the painting of the Acts of the Apostles excludes the ideal of apologetic consciousness – the shining picture of the Acts of the Apostles wants to know nothing of a dark hiding place in which another Paul lives.

The opposite side of the apostle’s personality, which the apologist in the Acts of the Apostles alone brings to the fore,

The opposite side of the apostle’s personality, which the apologist finds in the Acts of the Apostles alone, is rather, according to the presupposition of this Scripture, that characteristic definiteness which expresses the nature of the apostle.

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It is the opposite side according to the view of the apologist who compares his other knowledge and view of the apostle with the account of the Acts of the Apostles – according to the presupposition of this scripture, it is not a single page, but the characteristic expression in which the whole being of the apostle is exhausted – the whole, which excludes every other view.

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The question becomes more complicated for the apologist, and his attempt at a solution even more violent, when he observes how the miraculous activity of the apostle Paul has such an exact parallel to that of Peter that the latter cannot perform any miracle which the latter has not previously performed.

The lame man whom Paul heals in Lystra is like the one Peter healed at the temple, lame from his mother’s womb *); Peter as well as Paul look their lame man in the face with the same firmness before they proceed to the miracle **); the success that the lame man jumps up and walks is described both times with the same words ***), both times the people finally proved the greatness and reality of the miracle by the impression it made.

*) C. 3, 2. 14, 8. Χολος εκ κοιλιας μητρος αυτου. 

**) C, 3, 4. ατενισας εις αυτον.
C. 14, 9. ατενισας αυτω.

***) C. 3, 8.και εξαλλομενος εστη και περιεπατει.
C. 14, 10. και ηλλετο και τεριεπατει.

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Pray to the saints at Lydda – so on a journey and in a friendly house Peter heals a gout-ridden man (C. 9, 32. 33.); so Paul rewards the hospitality with which a citizen of Malta accommodated him on his journey to Rome by healing his fever-stricken father (C. 28, 8) – both times names are mentioned: – the sick man whom Peter healed was called Aeneas, the man whose father Paul heals, Publius. 

Whereas Peter healed the sick, who were being dragged out into the street in anticipation of his coming, by passing his shadow over them, Paul’s sweatcloth and aprons demonstrated the same miraculous power when they were removed from his skin and held over the sick *).

*) Even the construction of the corresponding sentences is consistent:
5:15 ωστε . . . εκφερειν
19:12 ωστε . . . . επιφερεσθαι

Peter casts out the unclean spirits (C. 5, 16) – the same power Paul showed when he cast out the spirit of divination from the maid in Philippi (C. 16, 18-18), and in Ephesus it showed that the unclean spirits acknowledge him as the master who can become their master.

Peter awakens Tabitha from death in Joppa (C. 9, 36-41) – Paul (C. 20, 9-12) in Troas, Eutychus; – when finally Paul strikes the magician Elymas with blindness (C. 13, 6-11), he refutes the power of pagan magic just as Peter did when he fought with the magician Simon, and at the same time he inflicts a corporal punishment on his opponent that corresponds to the one Peter inflicted on Ananias (C. 8, S-24. C. S, 4. 5 ).

This is a part of that “side” of the apostle Paul’s personality which is only opposed to the picture of his character which he draws of himself in the epistles, but which is otherwise, as the apologist assumes, thoroughly “historical” – a part of those features from the life of the apostle, which the author of the Acts of the Apostles “included” *)  in his work only for the reason of making the image of his hero perfectly similar to that of Peter – a part of those features which the author alone could use, since he was only concerned with this “similarity of the” image of both apostles and since he did not want to present “a complete historical image of Paul”, but one that was as brilliant as possible’ **).

*) Schneckeuburger a. a. O. p. 57. 58. 

**) The same ibid.

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For the apologetic point of view, on which alone this separation of a historical personality into two, still more into two opposite sides is possible, our question would be incomprehensible: “How did Paul come to portray only the one in his own writings, and whether his historian was allowed to portray only the other? The apologist will not even listen to the question whether the picture which the historian draws up when he omits the features which the hero has exhibited in his own writings as the characteristic – indeed the only characteristic of his picture – whether this picture can still be called historical and correct. The same apologist will answer the question whether the lives of two personalities, whose character is by nature quite different and almost “without” any points of contact, and who are active in “utterly different” spheres of life, can be so congruent that a geometrically exact parallel can be formed from their deeds and destinies, by leaving it as an absurdity.

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At the most, he will reject the assumption of the possibility that the author of the Acts of the Apostles, in order to make the image of both apostles similar, has “interwoven” unhistorical features “into the image of Paul” as a “misinterpretation” *) – namely, he starts from the premise, that the shining image of Peter as certainly historically vouched or from the tradition of the author from the outset was fixed or handed down and that the same has now borrowed the corresponding traits from his common view of the image of the apostle Paul.

*) The same ibid.

This presupposition of the historical basis of the Acts of the Apostles, namely of the pre-existence of the miracle-worker Peter before the magician Paul,- i. e. The presupposition that the historical picture of the miracle-worker Peter already existed and was completed before the later historian formed a parallel to it from the life of Paul, we shall immediately resolve by showing which is the original of both miracle-workers and that the same creator who made the one after-image also made the other.

The original Peter and Paul of the Acts of the Apostles is the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels. The author of the Acts of the Apostles had the latter – to put it cautiously at first: the Ur gospel, which is preserved in the writing of Mark, Luke’s gospel and the related evangelical sources – “in mind” when he borrowed from them the features from which he put together the picture of both apostles; – the literal coincidence betrays him and the faulty processing of some key words, which only have meaning and context in the writing of Mark, testifies against him.

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The proof will overcome all the apologist’s presuppositions and make those questions, which he is not able to answer, together with all possible answers – even the correct answer, which would still be unsuccessful within the limited presupposition in which that “question” is held – unnecessary.

Peter’s healing of the lame man is modelled on the Gospel account of the healing of the gout-ridden man. “Get up and walk”, Peter calls to the lame man – “get up and take up your bed”, is the call with which Jesus lifts up the gout-ridden man – since the author of the Acts of the Apostles could not mention the bed in the healing of the lame man, he makes up for this omission when Peter heals the gout-ridden man in Lydda and calls to him: “get up and make your own bed ” *). Finally, both times when Jesus heals the gout-ridden man and Peter heals the lame man, it is said that the people present were amazed **).

*) Acts 3, 6: ‘Εγειραι και περιπατει.
Mark 2, 11: εγειραι και αρον τοω κραββατοω σου.
Acts 9, 33: κατακειμενον επι κραββατω. V. 34: αναστηθι και στρωσον σεαυτω.

**) Mark 2, 12: ωστε εξιστασθαι παντας.
Acts 3, 10: εκλησθησαν . . . εκστασεως.

While the healing of the lame man by Paul is simply modelled on the miracle performed by Peter on his lame man, the parallel healings of the gout-ridden Aeneas and the fever-stricken father of Publius have the opposite effect: the latter miracle of Paul is most carefully modelled on the Gospel original, and the author already had this later version in mind when he sketched out the side piece to the healing of Aeneas in brief. He was content to let Peter also reward the hospitality of the circle in which he found shelter by a miraculous healing, and relied on the reader recognising in this event the side piece to Paul’s later deed.

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Paul did to the father of Publius what Jesus did to Peter’s mother-in-law when he stopped at her house – he healed him of a fever, only his act is a mere reward for hospitality, while Jesus’ act had a more far-reaching purpose and served to secure him a hospitable welcome in Capernaum for ever – i.e. in the Gospel this miracle is justified, in Acts it is an extraordinary splendour: Paul did the same thing for a one-time friendly welcome. i.e. in the Gospel the miracle is justified, in the Acts of the Apostles it is an extraordinary splendidness: – Paul did the same for a one-time kind reception that Jesus did in order to buy you “permanent” hospitality in Capernaum. More! The splendidness of Paul goes even further, the generosity of the “disciples” goes much further than the “behaviour” of the “Master” – it is not enough for Paul to free the “father of the public” from fever; immediately afterwards all the “sick” of the island come and are also all healed by him. Fortunately, this splendidness did not cost the apostle much, since his historian only had to copy the evangelical account of Jesus’ “first” entry into Capernaum, and after he had formed the side piece of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, he only had to copy *) the miracles that Jesus performed on all the sick people of Capernaum. But he was not happy. He lets all the sick of the island come, while the evangelist still knew that the sick were to be brought to the miracle-worker, – he could not make it comprehensible how the miracle, which the apostle performed in the interior of a private house, could alarm the whole community and bring all the sick to their feet, whereas in the Gospel the gathering of all the sick in front of Jesus’ house is economically motivated by the miracle that was performed in the synagogue on the “man possessed with the devil” before everyone’s eyes, and the haste with which the sick were brought that very evening by the fact that Jesus, as far as anyone knew, had only stayed as a guest in Capernaum. The author of the Acts of the Apostles finally attributes to the evangelist the phrase that the miracle-worker “joined” the sick person who belonged to his host **), and because he does not create the original, thus does not know the need for the economic context, he forgets to borrow the explanation from the original that the miracle-working guest was reported to the sick family member ***).

*) Mark 1, 32: εφερον προς αυτον παντας τους κακως εχοντας . . . . και εθεραπευσε.
Acts 28, 9. οι λοιποι οι εχοντες ασθενειας προσηρχοντο και εθεραπευοντο

**) Acts 28, 8 . . . . πυρετοις κατακεισθαι, προς ον προςελθωω.
Mark 1, 30. κατεκειτο πυρεσσουσα . . . , και προσελθων.

***) Mark 1, 30. και ευθεως λεγουσιν αυτω περι αυτης, και προσελθων.

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The mass gathering of people from the surrounding towns to bring their sick to Peter in Jerusalem is modelled on the account of Mark, according to which the sick were brought to Jesus from the surrounding towns *) – that the sick were brought out into the streets and placed on stretchers so that when Peter passed, even if only his shadow overshadowed some of them, is a literal copy of the Gospel account, according to which, as soon as Jesus arrived in a town or village, the sick were taken to the market and asked to touch the hem of his garment **), – after the miraculous power had finally been transferred from the hem of Jesus’ garment to Peter’s shadow, it had become possible to impart the same miraculous power to Paul’s sweatcloths and aprons, and thus a kind of manifoldness to the parallel of both apostles.

*) Acts 5,16. συνηρχετο δε και το πληθος των περιξ πολεων . . . φεροντες ασθενεις . . .
Mark 6, 55. περιδραμοντες ολην την περιχωρον εκεινην ηρξαντ . . . . . τους κακως εχοντας περιφερει.

**) Acts 5, 15. ωστε κατα τας πλατειας εκφερειν τους ασθενεις και τιθεναι επι κλινων και κραββατων, ινα ερχομενου πετρου καν η σκια επισκιαση τινι αυτων.
Mark 6, 56. και οπου αν εισεπορευετο εις κωμας η πολεις . . . εν ταις αγοραις ετιθουν τους ασθενουντας και παρεκαλουν, ινα καν του κρασπεδου του ιματιου αψωνται.
That the sick (Mark 6, 55) were brought on beds (επι τοις κραββατοις) is replicated in Act. 5, 15.
The corresponding construction ωστε Acts 5, 15. 19, 12, especially with the following ινα C. 5, 15 is the topic of the evangelical report Mark 3, 10: ωστε επιπιπτειν αυτω ινα αυτου αψωνται.

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If Peter and Paul are equal to their Master in this, yes, even superior to him in this, through the clumsiness of their historian, who did not see that the touch of Jesus’ garment healed only of sickness, while the demonic spirits only departed at the express commandment, that their shadow and their sweatcloths deliver people from “sickness” and demonic spirits *), only two single cases are reported by Paul – how he fought with the evil spirits – both nothing but variations on a Gospel theme’- both cases, however, also evidence that the author did not understand one of the most important Gospel phrases.

*) Acts 19, 12 is at least expressly said of Paul’s sweat cloths that before them the sicknesses departed and the evil spirits went out. When Peter, C. 5, 16, heals the sick and the possessed, it is not expressly said that it was through his shadow, as in v. 15, but this healing is just as little expressly described as being mediated by the will. In each case the author confuses what Marcus very strictly separates: the healing of the sick and the casting out of demons. Compare Mark 6:55-56. 3:10-12. 1:34.

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The demons of the Gospels know Jesus as the Son of God, but Jesus “threatens them severely that they do not reveal him” (Mark 3, 11. 12), because only at the end of his public activity does he want to unmask himself as the Son of the Most High. When, therefore, the seven sons of a Jewish high priest in Ephesus, unknown in the real world, sought to exorcise the possessed by calling upon the name of Jesus, “whom Paul preaches” (C. 49, 13.14), when then, with an unmotivated transition to a special event, “the pure spirit (B. 15) replies”: I know Jesus well “and who Paul is, I know, and when finally “the possessed man” falls upon the seven summoners, maltreats them and puts them to flight, then the wonderful knowledge of the demons, which Jesus does not want to use for his person, is “a” glaring spectacle and exploited for an unattractive comparison between the superiority of the apostolic sorcerer and the impotence of some Jewish exorcists.

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The other case, that a soothsayer *) who owned a maid in Philippi cries out to Paul and his companions: “these men find servants of God the Most High”, that Paul became annoyed by this incessant crying, that the apostle finally commands the soothsaying spirit to leave the maid, is likewise a copy of the Gospel original, but again a copy that misses the meaning of the original. When Jesus forbids the unclean spirits to make him manifest, he does so because he does not want to use their testimony for himself – when he casts them out, he does so not because he finds their cries annoying, but because he wants to have mercy on the “possessed” – when he finally also finds a host of sick and possessed people annoying, it is not their cries that annoy him, but their urging **), in that both the possessed and the sick best him regularly, – the latter because they were healed by the touch of his body. The author’s greatest oversight, however, is that he believes he must presuppose a spirit of divination, a special Pythonic kind of demon, in order to explain and make possible its knowledge of Paul and his divine destiny, whereas the demons of the Gospels as such, as “supernatural” beings, know whom they have before them.

*) πνευμα πύθωνος.

**) Mark 3, 11. ὅταν αὐτὸν ἐθεώρουν, προσέπιπτον αὐτῷ καὶ ἔκραζε λέγοντα.
Acts 16, 17.  κατακολουθοῦσα . . . ἔκραζεν λέγουσα.

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When the author created the two revivals of the dead by Peter and Paul, he had in mind above all the account by Mark of the revival of Jairus’ daughter. As Jesus, on entering the house of Jairus, finds the swarm of weeping and wailing, so Peter finds the weeping and wailing widows in the house of Tabitha; Jesus drives the swarm of wailers out of the house, then goes to the corpse, grasps the hand of the child and calls out the awakening words to him; Peter does the same *). But if Jesus had a real reason for driving the strangers out of the house (for he wanted to keep the mystery of the following miracle away from profane curiosity, did not want the miracle as such” to become public), the apostle has no reason to drive away the complaining widows; – If Jesus, on awakening the child, has the parents at hand and can immediately instruct them to give the child food, Peter stands alone in his miraculous deed, and if he wants to bring the revived girl back into the circle of her own, he must, with the saints, call back the same widows whom he has just driven away. Even the name of the girl whom Peter awakens is derived from the account of Mark: for the evangelist gives the words with which Jesus overcame death in Hebrew: “Talitha kumi” and adds the explanation that this means interpreted: The author of the Acts of the Apostles also remarks that Talitha is translated as Gazelle, and thus leads us even through the consonance of the foreign word and through the concordant structure of the interpretation of the same *) to the source from which he has borrowed both – a result which retains its certainty, even if the author has made Gazelle, originally a tender metonymy for girls, an economic proper name.

*) Mark 5, 40. ὁ δὲ ἐκβαλὼν πάντας . . .  V. 41. καὶ κρατήσας τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ παιδίου λέγει αὐτῇ . . .
Acts 9, 40. ἐκβαλὼν δὲ ἔξω πάντας . . .  καὶ ἐπιστρέψας πρὸς τὸ σῶμα εἶπε . . . .

*) Mark 5:40: Ταλιθὰ κούμ ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον τὸ κοράσιον . . . .
Acts 9, 36: Ταβιθά, ἣ διερμηνευομένη λέγεται δορκάς.

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The fact that the dead woman finally raises herself up and sits down, that Peter gives her back to her own, is borrowed verbatim from the account of the revival of the youth from Nain **).

**) Acts 9, 40: ἀνεκάθισε . . . . V. 41: παρέστησεν αὐτὴν ζῶσαν.
Luke 7,15: ἀνεκάθισεν . . . . καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτὸν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ.

The “purpose” and meaninglessness of a phrase in Paul’s account of the revival of Eutychus likewise leads us back to the Gospel account of the revival of the daughter Jairus. “Make no noise,” Paul cries, “for his soul is in him” – but why does he deny the real occurrence of death, why does he want to create the impression that Eutychus is not really dead? why, especially in the presence of the people who had picked up the young man who had fallen from the balcony, “dead” – really dead? He had no reason for this turn of phrase, nor could he hope to convince the eyewitnesses of the untruth of what they themselves saw. In the report of Mark, on the other hand ***), the denial of death has meaning, purpose and significance: – it is prepared, for Jesus, before entering the house of Jairus, rejected the people and his disciples except the three favoured ones – it is addressed to the right people, to the wailers who were in the porch of the house – it has real consequences, for Jesus drives the wailers out of the house and goes only with the parents, who knew the real facts only too well, and with the three disciples, who alone were worthy to see the most monstrous miracle with their own eyes, into the death chamber – it has its real purpose, for Jesus did not want the whole crowd to be drawn into the mystery.

***) Mark 5, 39: τί θορυβεῖσθε, . . . . τὸ παιδίον οὐκ ἀπέθανεν ἀλλὰ καθεύδει.
Acts 20, 10: μὴ θορυβεῖσθε, ἡ γὰρ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐστιν.

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Finally, just as for the miraculous deed of Peter, apart from the account of Mark, the account of Luke of the revival of the young man of Nain is used, so the circumstance that Paul rushed over the dead Eutychus and embraced him lengthwise is modelled on the procedure followed by Elijah and Elisha in similar cases *).

*) 1 Kings 17, 21.  2 Kings 4, 34, 35.

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Now that the original text has fallen prey to criticism and has been recognised as a free, late creation, even one word about the historical character of the copy would be superfluous.

Therefore, instead of engaging in a useless argument with the apologist about the historical credibility of the miracle reports in the Acts of the Apostles, we can immediately add the remark, after the evident proof of their origin, that the godlike impression which the author ascribes to the personality of both apostles is only his own and free work.

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When the miracles of Peter and the other apostles caused the people who “thought highly of them” to keep at a distance out of reverence and to leave them standing alone and exalted like a holy group in the temple hall (C. 5, 12. 13), the people of Malta shied away from Paul (C. 28, 6) as from a god.

When Cornelius pays homage to Peter as to a divine being and the latter has to raise him up with the words: “stand up, I am also a man” (C. 10, 25. 26), it is not as an event of the author that the “homage” of the citizens of Lystra, who want to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas after the healing of the lame man, bring both to despair, so that they have to shout to the overzealous (C. 14, 15): “we are mortal men like you!”

The writer of history, who has made his heroes into godlike miracle-workers, finally found it easy to instil in a part of their opponents the fear that in them they have to do with God Himself, that therefore also unconditional resistance against their value and their person might in the end be a struggle against God Himself. Therefore, when Gamaliel, as head of the Pharisees, confronted the “Sadducees” when Peter was on trial and urged them to be careful so that they would not end up fighting God himself, it was fitting that in Paul’s case the Pharisees also paralysed the Sadducees’ zeal for the same reason *).

*) Acts 5, 39. μήποτε καὶ θεομάχοι εὑρεθῆτε.
Acts 23, 9. μη θεομαχωμεν

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By pointing out afterwards how Peter’s victory over the magician Simon and Paul’s victory over the magician Elymas also touch each other in that both are the first foreign deeds and successes of both apostles, how furthermore the circumstance that just when the apostle converts the proconsul Sergius Paulus, his former name Saul gives way for the first time to the name Paul (C. 13, 9), seems to indicate that the great deed to the Roman, like Peter’s confession, earns him a new name, we note how another parallel, through the clumsiness of its execution, likewise betrays itself as a fabricated one.

Just as Peter completed the work of Philip on the Samaritans, a controversial mixed people who were undecided between Jews and Gentiles, by giving them the gift of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands (C. 8, 14-17), Paul also completed the work of a mixed family that occupied an uncertain position between Jews and Christians, the disciples of John at Ephesus, by “baptising” them and endowing them with the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands – so he was also like Peter in that he completed the work of another, Apollos, in these disciples of John. But it is precisely the wavering attitude that the author gave to the figure of the “latter” that proves both his intention and their weakness and powerlessness.

By letting Apostle Apollos, a man who (C. 18, 25) only knew the baptism of John, work there before the arrival of the Apostle in Ephesus, and by letting the Apostle find the disciples of John immediately thereafter (C. 19, 1), he wants to connect both, “those” Jewish teachers and “these” disciples, but he did not really make the connection and he could not, because immediately before he had Apollos introduced to all the secrets of the new teaching by Aquila and Priscilla.

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In the disciples of John and their teacher Apollos he also wanted to set up the side piece to the Samaritans, who had received baptism, knew the Christian doctrine and only lacked the last perfection, the gift of the Holy Spirit – what does he do? He lets “Apollo”, although he only knew about the baptism of John *), nevertheless at the same time preach “thoroughly” about the Lord (C. 18, 25) – he calls the disciples of John, whom Paul finds and to whom the first elements of the Christian doctrine are unknown, disciples (C. 19, 1). 19, 1), disciples of the church, – as if a man who only knew the baptism of John could preach the Lord, as if the people who (C. 19, 2) had not yet heard a word of the Holy Spirit could be counted as disciples to the church!

*) Acts 18, [25 – corrected from 5]. ἐπιστάμενος μόνον τὸ βάπτισμα Ἰωάννου.
C. 8, 16. μόνον βεβαπτισμένοι . . . . εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ

The parallel (referring to a biblical reference) has failed and had to fail, as the Samaritans who received Christian baptism and doctrine could not be compared to those who only knew the baptism of John. To make the parallel somewhat possible, he had to bring Apollos and the disciples of John in the community so close that they were only lacking the Holy Spirit for completion. But they lacked more than that if they only knew John’s baptism. He wanted to create a hybrid species in the disciples of John like the Samaritans, but he forgets that the latter, when Peter took them under his hands, had already received the first Christian consecration, which was lacking in the former when Paul should only give them the last completion. And he has also not been able to explain how it was possible for Apollos, with his limited knowledge of divine salvation, to preach so “thoroughly” from the beginning that Aquila and Priscilla only needed to “explain” the way of God to him more “thoroughly” *).

*) Acts 18, 25. ἀκριβῶς  V. 26. ἀκριβέστερον

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Instead of a mixed race, the author has created chimerical beings. That there were disciples of John he learned from the Gospels (Mark 2, 18) – he could not find them anywhere in the real world.

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