Journey through Asia Minor to Macedonia. Here we come to the Travel-document, which is followed henceforward. It was till recently the custom to speak of the We-Passages, which are found in Acts 16:10-18; Acts 20:5-16; Acts 21:1-18; Acts 27:1 to Acts 28:16, and to ascribe to these the highest degree of authenticity. The pieces in the third person lying among these were thought to have been written later by the diarist himself when he came to make up his book, or to have been taken from other sources. But see Introd., p. 776. The speeches are to be ascribed to the editor, who also fills up lacunæ in his source, but he employs a more considerable and authentic source than hitherto. The style is short and dry; the writer has a curious power of ignoring what is most interesting in the Pauline churches and in Paul's thought.
What comes first in time in the sentence in Acts 16:6 f. is that the party was prevented, by the higher power that directed their journey, from preaching in Asia, i.e. Ephesus and the W. parts of Asia Minor, including the islands. This, it is plainly intimated, was the intention with which Paul set out on this journey; but when it was frustrated they went through Phrygia and Galatia, a phrase which does not exclude preaching (Acts 9:32; Acts 14:24). But of Paul's experience in Galatia, and of the Galatian churches, should they be in the north, as the present writer believes they were (see on the other hand, pp. 857, 769), the editor is quite silent. The much-debated phrase, the Phrygian and Galatian land conveys no clear impression. Probably the writer is summing up in brief phrases things which had taken place before he joined the party. After passing through Phrygia and Galatia they found themselves near Mysia and tried to go northwards into Bithynia, another land lying on the sea, but this also the guiding power would not allow. Straight west apparently it directed them to go, through Mysia, without lingering in it, to Troas. The district probably is meant, not the town of Alexandria-Troas, which lay on the coast, opposite Tenedos. Paul tells us (2 Corinthians 2:12 f.) of a fruitful mission there a few years later.
Acts 16:9. Who is the person who appears to Paul and brings him finally to the step which the foregoing geographical statement shows to have attracted and yet daunted him? Ramsay thinks it was Luke, already known to Paul, and the reading of the Peshitta, Come over and help me, would agree with that view (p. 770). But a letter would have served the purpose in that case. The party is now complete, diarist and all; As soon as he saw the vision we.