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The Acts of the Apostles is universally seen as a history of the Church in the years immediately following the resurrection of Jesus, with its focus on the lives and works of St Peter and St Paul. Chapters 13 to 28 are most clearly about the Apostle Paul, as well as small amounts elewhere. Thus, approximately half of Acts of is about Paul.

From another perspective, almost the entire book is about Paul. An important, well disguised theme of Acts appears to be the primacy of St Peter over St Paul during the period of their respective ministries. For example, if Luke attributed a previously unknown miracle to Paul, then his followers or admirers were unlikely to complain, but quite comparable miracles were also associated with Peter, and the miracles associated with Paul were always less impressive those associated with Peter.

According to Acts, Paul's first miraculous cure was improbably similar to Peter's first cure. In both cases, a man who had been lame since birth was immediately cured by being commanded to stand and walk. Peter's first miracle cure was performed in the name of Jesus, at the Temple, where the faithful saw the healed beggar praising God, and was the opportunity for some outstanding proselytising. Paul's first cure was clumsy and without apparent purpose, given that Paul did not tell the man about Jesus and he was even mistaken for a pagan god. And so the comparisons go on. Peter was released from prison twice by an angel, who accompanied him out of the prison, but Paul was only released by an earthquake that was not necessarily of divine origin, and did not even make good his escape. Whenever we read about Peter, the author is really creating a comparison with Paul. Even the trial and execution of St Stephen was really an introduction to the callow youth, Saul, who approved of the stoning but would not take part. This is the only known mention of Stephen and Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that we can never verify his existence and martyrdom.

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14y ago

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