252 John Kilgallen has his reader reach Rome — and that historically with Paul’s arrival there in 61AD — he has fulfilled his literary promise (Acts 1,8) that ‘the witness to Jesus will reach to the end of the earth’, for from Rome, the center and apex of the known world, the word of the Lord can be easily imagined to reach all other peoples. While this traditional answer to our double question regarding the end of Acts is reasonable and has been widely used in commentaries, it remains a hypothetical answer. In short, there is room for another hypothesis. 2. An Hypothesis What alternatively would make good sense is this: the book of Acts ends when and where it does because Luke had in mind that his story reach only to the time and place in which Theophilus’ community was founded. What considerations might support this hypothesis? 1. The story of Gospel-Acts is directed to one person, or group of Christians, called Theophilus. The story is very precise in terms of its destination. To tell a story so thoroughly directed to one ‘person’ strongly suggests that the book’s end would be tied in very tightly to that person, to the needs of that person. 2. The underlying structure (4) of the two volumes is movement, from the Jerusalem temple to Rome. Such a vital structure must be a key to the interpretation of the Lucan work – and it is, for many specialists describe Luke’s work as principally the manifestation of God’s will to save all peoples (5). The attentive reader can follow the triumph of the divine will as God offers to various peoples and generations, in a sequence of places which begins in Jerusalem and gradually reaches Rome, the assurance of salvation through belief in Jesus (6). This conscious structure of continued geographical and temporal movement most logically brings Theophilus to find his place in (4) Throughout this essay we hold that Luke-Acts is the equivalent of two volumes of one work; the structure, noted materially as geographic and temporal movement and theologically as the continued offer of salvation even to Rome, is the basis of our assertion. “…there is so much that unites the two works in theological conception, in overall structure, in the repetition of motifs, and in the literary foreshadowings in the Gospel, of matters which only come into their own in Acts, that it is only reasonable to agree…that he [Luke] is [with Acts] writing a sequel to a Gospel”; however the author notes, “To say that we have part one and part two of a single work would, however, be an exaggeration”, J. NOLLAND, Luke 1–9,20 (WBC 35A; Dallas 1989) xxxiii. (5) “These passages [Luke 2:20-32; 3,6] explicitly indicate the purpose that stretches from the beginning of Luke to the end of Acts…the progressive realization of God’s purpose of salvation or the human resistance to this purpose”, R. TANNEHILL, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts (Minneapolis 1990) II, 7. “Le parole di Simeone [Lc 2, 32] sintetizzano bene la prospettiva dell’evangelista espressa nell’intera sua opera: Gesù è al centro della storia della salvezza…una salvezza destinata ad estendersi a tutte le nazioni…”, G. ROSSÉ, Il Vangelo di Luca (Roma 1992) 100. We note that G. Schneider has dedicated an entire book to discussing, as his title indicates, Lukas. Theologe der Heilsgeschichte: Aufsätze zum lukanischen Doppelwerk (Bonn 1985). (6) The picture of Jesus in Luke-Acts is drawn to serve the overall intention of Luke to make clear to Theophilus the offer of salvation ‘to the ends of the earth’; “Il Dieu…poursuit di toute éternité son dessein de salut…L’œuvre de Jésus est la tentative ultime et définitive du Dieu miséricordieux de s’attacher Israël e d’atteindre les païens”, F. BOVON, L’Évangile selon Luc (CNT 3a; Genève 1991) I, 29.