254 John Kilgallen 4. The disparity between the time of Paul’s arrival in Rome (and thus the end of the Lucan work) and Luke’s writing his story to Theophilus — generally agreed to be at least a 20 year period — is notable. Why did Luke end his work with 62AD, in Rome? Luke admittedly was interested in witness; witness is a primary structural element of Acts (cf. Acts 1, 8). It seems best to conclude, however, that witness, so notable in the martyrdom of Paul, is not of sufficient interest that it should be included in Acts. Thus, witness is subject to something more important, and this ‘something more important’ is most reasonably explained as Luke’s desire to bring his story about God’s saving plan to an end with the account of the beginnings of the community of which Theophilus is a later member. With the book ending in this way, Theophilus can understand the reliability of the things he has been taught — how the message of God reached the shores on which would be built his church. He can follow, through the deft accounting of Luke, the causes which ultimately led to the origin of his community. 5. Was it a reasonable decision to omit the rest of the Roman- community-story that ranges from 62AD to the writing of Acts? If the goal of Luke is to show Theophilus how the word of God reached to the beginnings of Theophilus’ community, it was a reasonable decision. With this limited goal in mind, we can understand why Luke omitted a number of possible stories, including the development of Christianity through such a person as the Ethiopian eunuch and the spread of Christianity to Spain or northern Europe or the lands east of Palestine. Though clearly Luke thinks it valid to understand that God wants His word to reach “to the end of the earth” (13), he does not feel obliged to detail that complete journey of the word. It is enough if he can show Theophilus how Christianity came to his church and what Christianity means for this Gentile Christian. 6. We have considered the hypothesis that Luke intended to bring the story of God’s salvation to the origins of the Roman church, in which Theophilus is a later participant. The alternative hypothesis, very popular, is that Luke was satisfied to end his story in Rome 61-63AD because from Rome, the center of the Mediterranean world, one can imagine that the word of God radiated outward, in all directions and with some ease, to reach all nations. The justification for this view consists solely in concluding that Paul’s speaking freely in Rome means to imply that the witness which will reach “to the end of the earth” will, once Rome is reached, surely reach that goal. The arrival in Rome in 61AD is, essentially and substantially, the arrival of the word to the ends of the earth. But there is little justification for claiming that this was the implied intention of the author; we have here rather a “prudent guess” that he intended that we think that from Rome will proceed the word of God to the ends of the earth. Certainly this claim about Luke’s (13) “…some commentators (Baljon, Handelingen, 5; Loisy, Actes, 159; Foakes- Jackson, Acts, 4; Conzelman, Acts, 7 ) maintain that Luke is alluding to Rome with this phrase [e{w" ejscavtou th'" gh'"]. If so, this would explain why Acts ends where it does, with the story of Paul’s testimony in the capital of the Roman empire”, FITZMYER, Acts, 206-207. We would support Fitzmyer, except that we prefer to say that Luke ends in Rome because that is where one finds the beginnings of the church to which Theophilus, the object of Luke’s writing, belongs.