The Variant Readings of the Western Text of the Acts of the Apostles (XIII) 115 To conclude from the different names for Jerusalem that the author is carelessly sticking together stories from different sources is to ignore the skilful techniques Luke deliberately uses to create his narrative. He is not simply a compiler of traditions and accounts, putting together what he has gleaned from divergent sources and combining them with what he has observed or heard himself, in order to create a narrative that fulfils some historical purpose. He uses his role as narrator to evaluate what he is relating and to comment on his characters and their actions. 8:2 συνεκόμισαν δὲ (...καὶ ἐποίησαν) B P74 ) rell … συνεκόμισάν τε DE E 917. 1446. 1828. 1874, conportaverunt quae (-que ds.m) d* ‖ συγκομίσαντες D*. The use of δέ with a finite verb in B03 implies a negative contrast between the devout men who grieved over Stephen’s death and took care of his body, and those responsible for the persecution of the believers (v. 1b). A further, neutral, contrast is established between those who were forced to flee because of the persecution (v. 1c) and these pious people who, not having had to flee, took it upon themselves to bury Stephen. An even more forceful contrast is made by the structure of D05: a) the absence of connective conveys a sense of strong dissimilarity with what has gone before; b) the detail in 8:1 D05 that the apostles had stayed in Ierousalem causes them to be included in the element with which the devout men are being contrasted — they did what the apostles could have done but did not; c) the use of a participle leads to a construction typical of the Bezan text: participle + adverbial καί + finite verb, which has the effect of drawing attention to the main action, the great mourning made over Stephen which is set against the ‘great persecution and oppression’ of v. 1b6. 8:3 Σαῦλος δέ B P74 ) rell ‖ ὁ δὲ Σαῦλος D With the omission of the article, B03 creates a contrast between Saul and the devout men, which is possible because of the attenuated contrast implied between the devout men and the participants in the preceding clauses (see above). In D05, however, where a strong contrast was made between the devout men and all the various participants of the previous clauses, Saul is not brought back into the story by way of contrast but as a character already established on stage (cf. 7:58; 8:1a). 6 Read-Heimerdinger, The Bezan Text, pp. 206-10.