This abrupt ending, then, is the great argument for dating the book about A.D. 60; but it is supported by several others. In the first place, the journey to Rome itself, especially the shipwreck, is described with such minute and graphic details, that it seems likely to have been written down very soon afterwards, probably in that city.
Secondly, the Roman judges and officials are always represented as treating the Christians with fairness, and even kindness; and the writer leaves St. Paul appealing to Cæsar, with every hope of a favourable verdict. There is no sign of bitterness or ill-feeling anywhere. And all this would have been most unlikely after the great persecution in A.D. 64; when Christians regarded Rome with the utmost horror.[264] Compare the somewhat similar case of the Indian Mutiny. Can we imagine an Englishman in India writing soon after the Mutiny a history, say of Cawnpore, up to 1854, and then closing it, without ever letting a hint fall that he was aware of the terrible tragedy which happened in 1857, or showing the slightest ill-feeling towards its perpetrators? The only reasonable conclusion would be that such a history must have been written _before_ the Mutiny. In the same way the Acts must have been written _before_ Nero's great persecution.
Thirdly, the same sort of argument is afforded by the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Had the book been written after this, it is strange that the writer should seem to be entirely unaware of it; more especially as it had so close a bearing on the events described in the Acts, such as the Jewish law not being binding on Gentile Christians. And it is the more significant, because he records the prophecy of the event in his Gospel,[265] but nowhere hints that the prophecy had been fulfilled.
Lastly, an early date is implied by the passage, where St. Paul tells his friends near Ephesus, that they would not see him again. It was quite natural for him to have said so at the time, as his feelings were very despondent; but no one, writing many years later, would have recorded it _without comment_; since it is almost certain that St. Paul, after his release from Rome, did revisit Ephesus.[266]
[Footnote 266: Acts 20. 25, 38; 2 Tim. 4. 20.]