Acts 17
ButlerLydia, with hearts now opened by the Lord, heard and heeded, believed and rejoiced.
33,34. The Good Works that follow the Transformed Keeper’s Faith.—The rude, harsh, almost brutal nature becomes at once tender and sympathetic. Before they apply the baptismal water, to seal by outward sign his sacramentum or oath of allegiance to his new spiritual Lord, he washes their wounds left by the scourge. Then in humble, thankful gladness of spirit he makes them welcome guests at his table and in his home. And this change from previous reckless inhumanity to kind treatment and generous hospitality gave full assurance of the inward change wrought in his heart. These first-offering duties fulfilled, were the fruit and proof of that faith which worketh by love.
35-40. The Release of the Missionaries, and their Departure from Philippi.—Early the next morning the magistrates—as the result either of reflection upon their hasty and illegal procedure or of relapse into indifference about the matter—sent a message, in careless or contemptuous tone, dismissing the prisoners. This message was joyfully communicated by the keeper to Paul. But now the Christian principle, properly self-respecting and mindful of the ends of human justice, stands manfully for the vindication of outraged personal rights. Yet not merely for their own sake. For Christ’s sake they had silently borne the suffering; but for Christianity’s sake they make the protest against the infraction of law by its appointed administrators. Paul’s main object was to honor and help Christianity; to secure respect and protection for the Christian believers in Philippi. These believers he would encourage and embolden to fidelity. Upon the magistrates and people he would impress a higher estimate and respect for the Christian movement. All this he effectually accomplished by proclaiming their Roman citizenship; by denouncing the injustice of a punishment without trial and condemnation; and by demanding an acknowledgment of the inflicted wrong as open, and a release as public, as had been their arrest and imprisonment.
Very willing were these now alarmed magistrates to humble themselves by coming to the prison; and publicly to confess their own injustice by personally entreating these Roman citizens to come forth to liberty. For Roman law, so harsh to others, was very partial to the interests and jealous for the rights of Roman citizens. And that law, under penalty of death to the magistrate infringing it absolutely forbade the application of the scourge to the person of a Roman, and that a Roman should be punished without trial and judgment.
Thus the Christian leaders were justified before all; and in their persons Christianity was honored. Through these occurrences and the apostle’s generous forbearance in declining all appeal to Rome against the magistrates, the infant Church at Philippi started upon high vantage-ground in the compelled respect of the rulers and people. Beginning with these two households—of Lydia and the nameless prison-keeper—it seems to have well maintained the spirit and teaching of the great Apostle.
Going from the prison as innocent men, for their own dignity’s sake as well as to leave parting words of instruction and comfort with the new disciples, they tarried awhile at the house of Lydia. Then, leaving these first Macedonian converts to the care of Luke (and, perhaps, Timothy), Paul and Silas set forth on their journey. B.—We do not see Luke again in the Apostle’s company till the third missionary journey and the second visit to Macedonia. At this exact point of separation, we observe that he drops the style of an eye-witness and resumes that of a historian, until the second time of meeting, after which he writes as an eye-witness till the arrival at Rome and the very close of the Acts. He appears again on a voyage from Philippi to Troas (Acts 20: 56), as now he has appeared on a voyage from Troas to Philippi. H.
Of all the churches which Paul founded, the Philippians seem to have been the most free from fault, and the most attached to himself. In the Epistle which he wrote to them we find no censure and much praise; and so zealous was their love for Paul, that they alone (of all the churches which he founded) forced him from the very beginning to accept their contributions for his support. We might suppose from this that they were a wealthy church; yet Paul tells us that “in the heavy trial which had proved their steadfastness, the fullness of their joy had overflowed out of the depth of their poverty, in the richness of their liberality.” C.
1. Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalo- 2 nica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, 3 and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, 4 whom I preach unto you, is Christ. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. 5 But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted 6 the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These 7 that have turned the world upside down are come hither also: whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Cæsar, saying that there is another king, one 8 Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these 9 things. And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go. 10 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who com- 11 ing thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the 12 scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed; also of 13 honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few. But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they 14 came thither also, and stirred up the people. And then immediately the brethren sent 15 away Paul to go as it were to the sea: but Silas and Timotheus abode there still. And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens: and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him with all speed, they departed.
WHAT true nobleness is and how it manifests itself, according to God’s estimate, is here disclosed by the Holy Ghost. It is that open-heartedness that searches, and ponders, and receives God’s own word of in- struction and direction. It is that childlike receptiveness of heart that not only believes and trusts in God, but habitually delights in his truth and tests his promises. The truth of God is adapted to the whole spiritual being, and is the only thing that meets and satisfies all its needs. As its reception is necessary to the knowledge of God, so the heart-appropriation of its promises is essential to their actual experience. Therefore, of all searching and study, this in itself best rewards the soul; while it alone, through an in- wrought faith and hope, insures the rich return of God’s continual blessing. B.
I believe that the Bible is to be understood and received in the plain and obvious meaning of its pas- sages; since I can not persuade myself that a book intended for the instruction and conversion of the whole world should cover its true meaning in such mystery and doubt that none but critics and philoso- phers can discover it; and that he is the most accomplished Christian scholar who hath been educated at the feet of Jesus. Daniel Webster.
THE vast territory subject to Rome was covered with a network of magnificent roads, which moved in straight lines, crossing mountains and bridging rivers, binding together the most remote cities, and connecting them all with the capital. The deep ruts, worn in the hard, basaltic pavement, and still visible even in places far from the metropolis, show to what extent they were used. Five main lines went out from Rome to the extremities of the em- pire. These, with their branches running in what- ever direction public convenience required, were connected at the seaports with the routes of mari- time travel. A journey might have been made upon Roman highways, interrupted only by brief trips upon the sea, from Alexandria to Carthage, thence through Spain and France, and northward to the Scottish border; then back through Leyden, Co- logne, Milan, eastward by land to Constantinople and Antioch, and thence to Alexandria; and the distance traversed would have exceeded seven thousand miles. The traveler could measure his progress by the mile-stones along all these roads. G. P. F.
1-4. At Thessalonica Paul preaches Christ and founds a Church.—From Philippi to Thessalonica —one hundred miles a little south of west—Paul traversed one of the great Roman roads. The Via Egnatia extended across Macedonia nearly east and west, five hundred miles, from the Adriatic to the river Hebrus in Thrace. Thessalonica was about midway between these points. Amphipolis, an his- toric city, thirty-three miles from Philippi and Apollonia, a further thirty miles, were convenient tarrying places on the three days’ journey; the third bringing them thirty-seven miles to Thessa- lonica. (See map, p. 112.)
Thessalonica, at the head of the Thermaic Gulf, was then the capital and chief city of the Roman province of Macedonia. Originally called Thermae, it was renamed by Cassander, who rebuilt it in honor of his wife Thessalonica, the sister of Alexander the Great. This name had been given her by Philip as a memorial of a signal victory in Thessaly. Fronting the sea, built in successive tiers upon a steep, rocky ascent, it was a beautiful city; and, under the Romans, a populous and wealthy commercial center. B.—Before the founding of Constantinople, it shared the trade of the Ægean with Ephesus and Corinth. Through the middle ages, it never ceased to be important; and it is at the present day, under the name Salonica, the second city in European Turkey. The reason of this continued preëminence is found in its geographical position:
Salonica—Ancient Thessalonica. (See map, p. 112.)
on the inner bend of the Thermaic Gulf; on the sea-margin of a vast plain watered by several rivers; and at the entrance of the pass which commands the approach to the other great Macedonian level. We see at once how appropriate a place it was for one of the starting-points of the Gospel in Europe; and we can appreciate the force of Paul’s expression a few months later, when he says that from them “the word of the Lord had sounded forth like a trumpet, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place.” H.—Attracted by the great advantages for trade, the number of Jews was large; and it has remained so until the present day, when it is estimated at nearly one third in a population of seventy thousand.
Into their synagogue, “as his manner, or custom, was,” Paul went upon the first Sabbath after his arrival. His theme was Christ—a suffering Messiah—and one risen from the dead. His sole authority, his only ground both of argument and appeal, was the Jewish Scriptures. As at Antioch (ch. 13) so here—and everywhere—always “out of the Scriptures,” he “opens” or explains, and “alleges” or proclaims, “Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” His basis of statement, like his Master’s, is, “It is written.” And responsive to the risen Master’s expression to the two disciples on the road, “Ought not Christ to have suffered?” is this of Paul, “that Christ must needs have suffered!” Doubtless, too, responsive to the Master’s proof from “Moses and the Prophets” was Paul’s unfolding of the Christ; in the types, the sacrifices, the promises and the prophecies of the old covenant. The meaning of the ought and the must needs, as applied to Christ’s suffering, was explained, as he has reasoned it in his Epistles: that God might be just and yet the justifier of the sinner, penitent and believing in Jesus.
Three weeks he continued his ministry in the synagogue. Then, although a few of the Jews believed, the greater number arrayed themselves against Paul. Compelled to desist from preaching in their synagogue, he remained for a considerable period—at least three or four months—laboring among the Gentiles, and with great success. Besides the few Jews, “a great multitude” of Greek proselytes, and many of the “chief women,” believed, and were divinely led to cast in their lot with Paul and Silas. In so comparatively brief a period was created and organized that Church of the Thessalonians to whom not long after Paul addressed his two Epistles. As we learn from these Epistles, a chief topic of his preaching at this time had been the second coming of Christ in regal majesty. It is not, therefore, surprising that the unbelieving Jews (who had listened to purpose) should instigate the mob to accuse these Christians of setting up another king, one Jesus.
5-9. Jason and Other Disciples dragged before the Rulers and accused, but released on Bail.—The Jews were again the persecutors, and from the same cause as at Antioch—envy that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs to the promises of God. Yet their pride neither disdained nor scrupled to employ the worst elements of the populace, the vagabond and vile idlers around the market-place. This rabble they stirred up to gather at the house of Jason and demand the surrender of Paul and Silas. When these could not be discovered, they seized the disciples found in the house and dragged them before the rulers. Their exaggerated statement respecting Paul and Silas, in the introduction to their charge against Jason and the rest, affords striking evidence of the widespread and deep impression made by the Gospel in the few years of Paul’s ministry. “These men have turned the world upside down!” is the testimony by which, while designing to calumniate and injure these preachers of Jesus, they only prove their fidelity and success. The charge is the old one against Christ—of disloyalty to Cæsar. Yet the loyalty of these accusing Jews, like those before Pilate, was only a cloak and pretense.
The charge had a peculiar significance in Thessalonica. For it was, by special favor of the Roman emperors, a free city, with elective magistrates and a representative legislature. And these high privileges of self-government were conditioned upon strict fidelity to Rome. Hence the charge of committing or inciting treason would be jealously heeded by magistrates and people. But unlike the magistrates (prætors) of Philippi, who yielded to the mob’s demands, these rulers, or politarchs (a term meaning “governors of the citizens,” also accurately used by Luke, and a title still existing in an inscription upon an entrance archway), acted as became their judicial character. Either they received the explanation that Christ had given Pilate of His kingship over the empire of truth with the heart as the sphere of his rule, or they were satisfied that no treason was intended. For they released Jason and his companions, after receiving security for their pledge that no more trouble should ensue. Partly in compliance with this pledge, but chiefly for the safety of Paul and Silas, and the prosperity of the infant Church, “the brethren immediately sent them away by night to Berea.”
10-12. The Berean Jews compare the Apostle’s Preaching with the Word of God. Their Consequent Faith.—In Berea Paul keeps up “his manner” of going first to the synagogue, notwithstanding his discouraging reception by the Thessalonian Jews. This city, forty-five miles southwest of Thessalonica, still remains under the name of Verria, with a population of eighteen or twenty thousand.
The record of the Jews of Berea—a considerable body—is most honorable. The mass of the nation, especially the highest in office and culture, had everywhere before rejected the claims of Christ without investigation, through contempt and pride. These Bereans were characterized by a far different temper and a nobler spirit. What Christ had vainly urged upon the Jews at Jerusalem (John 5 : 39), they did; and as a body for the first time was this “searching” done in the spirit of candid and earnest inquiry. Their nobleness—so is their spirit characterized by the Holy Ghost—was evinced in a mind attent to hear and awake to perceive, and a heart willing to receive the new truths and thoroughly to investigate their authority and their claims. Therefore, day by day, as Paul taught, they tested his teaching by its agreement with the Scriptures to which he appealed. Thus going to the divine source, without any bias of prejudice or partisanship, they honestly sought for truth, applied their minds to its test, and formed their own judgment upon the evidence divinely furnished. So they most honored the Word, and best seconded the efforts of its preachers. And so searching, as Christ commanded, they found, as Christ had promised: they believed! Would that all thoughtful souls were thus noble! Would that preachers in the study and the pulpit, hearers in the pew, and readers in the home, were all free from the unconscious trammels of preconceived opinions, of educated prejudice or trained partisanship, respecting the truths of the Divine Word! Would that all were habituated to simple, honest, earnest, prayerful search to know nothing but the mind of God, as disclosed in the Scriptures He has given us by inspiration.
13,14. Paul sent away from Berea, because of Persecution stirred up by Jews from Thessalonica.—Only a few weeks, at the most, did he probably remain in Berea. During this period he sought, but was unable, to revisit Thessalonica (1 Thes. 2 : 18). With the same spirit and purpose as in his First Journey he was pursued to Lystra, the envious, hating Jews sought to break up his good work in Berea. And they employed their usual method, of instigating the people to mob violence. But the “brethren” anticipated their plans by sending away Paul. Many of them escorted him (not “as it were,” but) even down to the sea, as the quicker and safer way of escape, and the more direct and expeditious route to some place of destination. Some went with him as far as Athens, and returned with his message to Silas and Timothy. B.
That the apostle had no deliberate purpose of going to Athens seems clear from the statement that the brethren at Berea sent him away to go to the sea; and then his conductors, guided no doubt by circumstances, such as what vessels happened to be sailing, brought him to Athens. The distinctive divine call which appointed him the Apostle of the Gentiles is made all the clearer from the slowness, not to say reluctance, with which he is urged on from Jerusalem to Cilicia and Syria, from Asia Minor to Europe, from the Jewish settlements in Macedonia to Athens and Corinth, as if the voice were repeated at every step, “Depart! for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.” Paul was no rash adventurer, rushing forward in his own strength to the conflict with Greek philosophy and Roman force. S.
Of the future of this Berean church we are not informed. Silas remained with it for a considerable period longer. And Timothy took part in his care of it, until Paul sent the youthful evangelist (in his stead) to exhort and confirm in their faith the Thessalonian believers. But the noble character of its members, their remarkable freedom from prejudice, and their instant hearty acceptance of the Word, seem to authorize the belief that theirs was an unusually attractive history; developing no peculiarities of doctrine or practice that required a distinctive epistle from their great Christian founder. B.
16. Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw 17 the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, 18 and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange 19 gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof 20 thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know 21 therefore what these things mean. (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) 22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that 23 in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye 24 ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with 25 hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he 26 giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, 27 and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might 28 feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we 29 are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s de- 30 vice. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men 31 every where to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assur- ance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. 32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, 33 We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. Howbeit 34 certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
By no means so strange to the ear of the ancient world was the doctrine of the future life, and of the resurrection of the body, as was this doctrine, That Truth is every man’s concernment, every man’s right, and every man’s most necessary possession. The apostolic voice, sounding throughout the ancient world, and calling upon “all men everywhere to repent, and to believe the gospel,” besides its direct religious import, carried an inevitable, though latent inference, which has effected the greatest of all the revolutions that have marked the intellectual condition of mankind. This challenge to repent and to believe awakened in every bosom a sense of responsibility altogether new, putting as it did every human being in a position of direct relationship to God, the Judge of all, and fixing in the minds of all a deep conviction that the difference between truth and error is of infinite consequence to men individually. Never, until it was proclaimed by the apostles, had it been surmised, either by Greek or Jew, that Truth, sacred Truth, the brightest daughter of the skies, might be vulgarized, and offered to the acceptance of the mass of mankind. In the ancient world, Truth, whether theological or physical, was, like the costly perfumes of the East, an exquisite luxury, which should be found only within marble palaces. But in the modern world, and this vast change is attributable mainly to the spread of Christianity, truth has become, like the very breezes of heaven, common property, and is everywhere sweet, salutary, free. I. T.
THE order and course of Paul’s Second Journey is easily remembered by noting its three geographical divisions—the first including Asia Minor; the second, Macedonia, with the cities of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea; the third (upon which we now enter), Greece, then called Achaia. Athens and Corinth were its principal cities. (See map, p. 129.)
16,17. Athens, forty-six miles east of Corinth, was situated three to four miles from the coast of the Saronic Gulf, though connected by a wall-inclusive with its seaport, Piraeus. It had long been distinguished above other ancient cities in art and philosophy, in learning and culture; noted, too, for its statesmen and warriors. Even in its subject and
1. The Agora, or market, upon a low level in a central locality—a place of concourse for traffic, for worship, and for public discourse or discussion. 2. The Museum, upon a hill (south of the Agora). 3. The Pnyx, an inclosed rocky eminence (on the west of the Agora) where political assemblages met. 4. The Acropolis, a towering temple-crowned height on the east, with a table summit (1,000 by 500 feet), long appropriated to the structures and offices of worship. 5. Another separate rocky eminence (on the north of the Agora, between the Pnyx and the Acropolis), the Areopagus, or Mars Hill—so called from the legendary trial of that god. A flight of sixteen steps, cut in the stone, led up from the
Agora to the Areopagus. Here was the seat of the supreme tribunal, which sentenced eminent State criminals, and adjudicated upon questions of religion. No other place was so appropriate for the proposed theme of Paul’s discourse.
All these five centers of popular interest were still great sanctuaries of art, religion, and history. They were still resplendent with temple - structures, porticoes, and altars; edifices of the rarest architectural beauty, consecrated to the gods and to the glory of
Athens—the Acropolis.
declining condition under the Romans, it was still outwardly magnificent—still famous for its trophies of art, its schools of science and philosophy. It was still the university of the world, and its people retained all their pride of knowledge and culture.
There were mainly five great centers of public attraction, centers of renowned historic transactions.
the nation. They were filled with the master-pieces of statuary, by Phidias and his creative successors, representing all mythical and imaginary divinities, and all memorable persons and events in the long brilliant history of this widely known and famous city. But all this glory of art and history was perverted to the uses and corrupting effects of idolatrous worship. Appreciating, as Paul could, the grandeur and beauty of its architecture and sculptures, the high culture and renowned deeds represented in its monumental statuary, his heart was yet profoundly saddened by the waste and misuse of these products of genius in their subservience to a worship which was the medium of all selfish and vile gratification. Destitute of all knowledge of God and of sin, without any high aim or object in living, their religious sentiments, beliefs, and ceremonies of worship, nay more, the very ministry of art, taste, and culture, encouraged and wrought only a shameless profligacy. The popular estimate of the character of their gods was such that Seneca said, “that no other effect could possibly be produced, but that all shame on account of sin must be taken away from men, if they believe in such gods.”
Beholding the multitude of idols, to which such a character was attributed and such worship rendered, no wonder that Paul’s spirit was stirred within him. No wonder that with the Jews in the synagogue, and with the Greeks in the Agora or market, he reasoned (not disputed), and preached his old theme—Jesus and the Resurrection.
18 21. Here, first, Christianity came in contact with human philosophy: especially with the two systems most at variance with its pure and elevating principles. Daily, for many days, he entered this new arena, where men congregated for worship or gossip, for trade or discussion; and in temple, bazaar, or cloister, boldly avowed and pressed home the Christian truth upon all of every creed and class who would listen. Of the four great schools of philosophy, which had their origin and seat in the city of Socrates, only the representatives of two seem to have here encountered Paul. No reference is made to disciples of the two more distinguished philosophers, Plato and Aristotle; the former, as pupil of Socrates, founder of the Lyceum, and the latter of the Academy. B.—It is observable that no mention is here made of the Peripatetics, Academics, or Platonists, whose doctrines were not so much opposed to Christianity as those of the Stoics and Epicureans. Indeed, they may be said to have in some degree prepared the better part of the world for the reception of the gospel. W.
In a remarkable conception respecting the Teacher from heaven whom the world needs, occurs this prophetic utterance of Plato: “This just person must be poor, and void of all qualifications but those of virtue alone. A wicked world will not bear his instructions and reproofs; and therefore, within three or four years after he begins to preach,
Plan of Athens, showing the Agora, or Market, the Pnyx, the Areopagus, the Acropolis, and the Museum.
he should be persecuted, imprisoned, scourged, and at last be put to death.” B.
Epicureans, or Philosophers of the Garden, owed their name to Epicurus, who died at Athens in B. C. 270, leaving his house and garden to be the constant seat of his philosophy; which was accordingly maintained there till the time of which we are now reading. He taught that the highest good and great end of existence was serene enjoyment, which his followers interpreted as meaning pleasure, and that often of the grossest kind. He ascribed the creation of the world to chance; and, although he acknowledged the existence of the gods, described them as indifferent to human interests and human conduct. The Stoics, or Philosophers of the Porch, were so called from the Stoa Pæcile, or Painted Porch, adjoining one of the Athenian squares or markets, where their founder taught at the same time with Epicurus. The Stoics acknowledged the supremacy of moral good, and even affected to deny the difference between pain and pleasure. They also acknowledged a supreme God and a providence; but the former confounded with the world or universe, the latter governed by a fatal necessity. In later times, the Epicurean system was a favorite with the Greeks, and the Stoicai with the Romans, as suiting their national characters respectively; but each had adherents in both races. J. A. A.—In Epicureanism, it was man’s sensual nature which arrayed itself against the claims of the gospel; in Stoicism, it was his self-righteousness and pride of intellect; and it is difficult to say which of the two systems rendered its votaries the more indisposed to embrace the truth. Hackett.
With mixed curiosity and scorn, Paul was heard by these disciples of Epicurus and Zeno. Some called him “babbler,” literally, a bird that picks up seeds; then, a scrap-beggar about the marketplace; and last, a reporter of idle tales picked up anywhere. Others, according to the Greek notion of peopling all worlds with spiritual powers or demons, said, He is telling us of new demons or deities. Still they were so much interested in Paul’s teaching that they asked him to address them more formally and at length, from the inclosure of the Areopagus adjoining, and led him up the stony steps to a rock-hewn platform. B.
He had brought the new truth, to proclaim it in this capital of men’s intellectual life. In his person, on his landing at the Piraeus, the morning light of the new age rose on a second continent. Yet everything about him was appallingly bleak, every face was unfriendly. Any courage less valiant than that of the Son of God in his heart must have quailed before the overpowering splendor and despotism of the old heathenism, in the very stronghold of its dominion. Athens was the brain of the world. The apostle had come to it, as fearless of its sophistries and arrogance as he had been of the swords and dungeons of Syria. He had come to say: “You classic Greeks, artists, poets, philosophers, are seeking after wisdom; but the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisest of you. One
The Areopagus and the Acropolis.
God made you; one Saviour died for you. Your Olympus is a fiction. I preach unto you Christ, and him crucified, the wisdom of God and the power of God; your Saviour, if you will be saved.” How right that this should have been spoken from the Athenian Areopagus, the hill-top of that luminous center of the old pagan civilization: where Stoics and Epicureans and soldiers—philosophy and pleasure and power—Alexandria and Corinth and Rome, and the three continents, could hear! F. D. H.
Not only in Athens, but no doubt often in his circuit through Greece and its colonies, he stood surrounded by the sarcastic curiosity of Stoics, Epicureans, and Academicians. He knew, on such occasions, in what spirit he was listened to, as a busy and babbling zealot of the Jewish superstition. He could penetrate—nay, he could feel a sympathy with the erudite scorn of his auditors: he understood the sentiment with which men of high culture give ear, for a moment, to a tale of wonder which they have condemned as absurd before it is commenced. In the oblique glance of the half-closed eye, in the sneer that played on the lip, he read the mind and the malice of every sophist. He could mentally change positions with his auditors, and at the moment while uttering the “strange things” of the gospel could feel as they felt—the harsh and abhorrent character both of the principles and of the facts which he had to announce—Jesus, the Galilean teacher—crucified—raised to life—constituted Lord and Judge of men, and now giving repentance for remission of sins. This was his burden, at Antioch, at Ephesus, at Nicopolis, at Corinth, and at Athens! I. T.
22,23. The Introduction and Theme of Paul’s Discourse on Mars Hill.—The outlook upon the city from the memorable rocky height upon which he stood, the character of his audience, and the special purpose for which they were now gathered about him, help us to some just appreciation of the courage of the man, and of his wonderful skill in shaping his discourse. In it we find a rare combination of prudence and courtesy, of wisdom, fidelity, and boldness. Never was Paul’s own counsel to Timothy (2 Tim. 2: 24), especially its one particular, apt to teach, more signally illustrated than in this introduction and in the plan of his address. He does not (as our translation unhappily expresses it) charge them with being “superstitious” or with “ignorantly” worshiping. He simply speaks of their exceeding devoutness or reverence for their gods; and characterizes their worship by borrowing the very term inscribed on their altar. As a wise and model reformer, he knows that truth expels error as light banishes darkness. He seizes his oppor-
Ancient Altars: 1, 2. Egyptian. 3, 5. Assyrian. 4. Babylonian.
tunity, not to denounce heathen priestcraft and impure worship, but to proclaim the true God and explain true worship. With a divine guidance he masters the peril of his position by turning its very difficulties into a means of education and of conviction. As often before, in the manner of Christ, he uses things familiar to the Athenians to teach them great and sublime truths they had never apprehended. With this purpose and in this spirit he refers to the multitude of altars (not devotions, but objects of devotion), and takes his theme from an inscription upon one: (literally) TO GOD UNKNOWABLE. This God, whom they unknowingly worshiped, and whom they thought to be unknowable, Paul proclaims to them. And he addresses them as men of intelligence, and of capable judgment, in all things showing them proper respect and courtesy. B.
The religion of the Greek had in it a kind of attractiveness, but it took all the grandeur out of the universe. Instead of seeing the supreme God and Father everywhere and in all things—shining in the beauty, dazzling in the glory, giving in the fruitfulness, speaking in the truth—he saw himself imaged there. It was man’s universe, not Jehovah’s. He humanized the clouds, the forests, the rivers, the seas; peopled them with deities and half deities, with satyrs and fauns, with muses and nymphs, each of which represented some side of man’s nature. He set upon everything his own image and superscription. If there was any real and mighty God, any power irresistibly making for righteousness and yet overflowing with love, the Greek had pushed him afar off and out. At best there remained but a horrible dream of God in his conception of all-comprehending and relentless fate. The altar “to the unknown God” became the only Greek altar which was in any sense an altar to the true God. D. S. G.—Paul declared the unknown God, whom the Athenians ignorantly worshiped, to be the great Creator of the world, in whom and by whom all things were made, and exist. From the visible proofs of his providence, in his government of the world, he leads them to the consideration of his spiritual nature; and thus condemns the idolatrous worship of the Athenians, while he gradually unfolds to his philosophical audience the important truths of their accountableness and immortality, which were demonstrated by the fact of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. G. T.
24,25. God, the Creator, Ruler, and Life of the Universe needeth no Service of Men’s Hands.—The independent, unlimited, absolute source and controller of all manifest existences is separate from and superior to all. In this implied statement, without directly controverting the polytheism of the Greeks, or particular notions of Epicurean or Stoic, Paul yet overturns the main points of all their systems. For he announces a personal God, against the Greek belief in material deities; he declares “the unity of the Godhead, against Polytheism; the creation of all things by him, against the Epicurean theory of a fortuitous concourse of atoms; of his government of the world, against the Stoical doctrine of Fate and the Epicurean notion of indifference” (Wordsworth).
With temples on every side, majestic and beautiful, but structures of human hands, he yet boldly asserts (as Stephen before him to the Jews) that in hand-made temples the Lord—the Master—of heaven and earth does not dwell; to them he is not confined. Nay, more, with thousands of altars smoking with offerings, and ten thousand idol-shrines laden with costly gifts and with food and drink, from those who thus supplied their dependent deities’ needs, Paul as boldly announces the new and elevating truth, that the Maker and Giver of all needs no ministry of those He has made. And amid innumerable forms of idol gods, wrought in gold and silver and stone with every ingenious device of finest human art, he hesitates not to tell them that the Godhead is not to be conceived of or symbolized under such graven or chiseled forms. So boldly and wisely Paul disclosed the positive and fundamental conceptions relating to the one only living and true God. Having thus declared the unity of God, with his creatorship and control of the universe, he turns to consider the corresponding unity of man, and his place and work in God’s plan. B.
Up to a certain point in this high view of the Supreme Being, the Philosopher of the Garden, as well as of the Porch, might listen with wonder and admiration. It soared, indeed, high above the vulgar religion; but in the lofty and serene Deity, who disdained to dwell in the earthly temple, and needed nothing from the hand of man, the Epicurean might almost suppose that he heard the language of his own teacher. But the next sentence, which asserted the providence of God as the active, creative energy—as the conservative, the ruling, the ordaining principle—annihilated at once the atomic theory, and the government of blind chance, to which Epicurus ascribed the origin and preservation of the universe. Milman.—And when the Stoic heard the apostle say that we ought to rise to the contemplation of the Deity without the intervention of earthly objects, and that we live and move and have our being in him—it might have seemed like an echo of his own thought—until the proud philosopher learned that it was no pantheistic diffusion of power and order of which the apostle spoke, but a living center of government and love—that the world was ruled, not by the iron necessity of Fate, but by the providence of a personal God—and that from the proudest philosopher repentance and meek submission were sternly exacted. H.
26-29. Mankind one in Nature, limited and controlled as to Time and Place; yet Children of God, supplied by his Providence, and designed for his Companionship.—Heathenism had never attained the conception of unity in the origin or in the history of the race. According to the common belief, different races or nations had a different origin, and each its independent mission and history. Humanity had no common ties of interest, association, and destiny. This erroneous belief, which suggested and fostered the idea of many gods, Paul corrects by the assertion that God had made all nations of one blood. Especially he cuts up by the root the conceit of the Athenians that they came of an aboriginal stock, and were thus distinct from and superior to all others. B.—The Greeks were a fine race of men; and they knew it. They trusted in themselves that they were intellectually and physically beautiful, and despised others. Mankind were divided in their conception into two great sections—Greeks and Barbarians. They would not admit a community of race with other peoples. Arnot.—Paul tells them that they belong to the one race, made and controlled by the one God; that this God is not far from them; that he can be sought and found by them; nay, more, that he has made them in order that they might seek his fellowship, and so find that supreme good for which their souls had long been craving and unconsciously groping. B.
Till Christ came, this majestic fact in our condition, that our little human tent here is overarched by an infinite heaven of light and love which really opens and pours down a living influence upon us, scarcely anywhere broke through the pagan shadows. Here and there, in some half-awakened soul, there was a religious dream or guess—some glimmer of the light that was to rise on rich and poor alike—some Athenian thinker, such as Paul found “feeling after God, if haply he might find him”—some solitary flash like the Stoic maxim, “Deny thyself and aspire,” almost worthy of the Son of man—some morning-star like the reason of Plato. But these harbingers of the day only cast slender streaks on a few hill-tops, showing how broad and deep the darkness lay on all the lands below. F. D. H.
Not far from any one of us. Paul purposely calls this to mind in addressing the men of Athens, who were accustomed to represent their gods as in Olympic rest and self-satisfaction, throning it high above earth and her puny inhabitants. He was really within reach of their hand; they had not to climb to the height of heaven, or to descend into the depths of earth, but merely to look within their own bosoms, in order to discover unmistakable traces of him. Van O.
Then he advances to the idea of the fatherhood of God. To conciliate their minds toward this grand truth, he cites one of the many vague conceptions of this fatherly relation (of Jove), found in passages of the Greek mythical poetry. The words quoted are found in an astronomical poem of Aratus, a native of Soli in Paul’s own province of Cilicia; and also in a hymn to Jupiter by Cleanthes of Lycia.
The point which Paul makes (v. 29) of our childship to God, as proving image-worship to be irrational, is presented in the same conciliatory spirit. “As we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think,” etc. But he puts his point clearly and strongly. If we, possessing such intellectual and spiritual forces, are sprung from Him, we must conceive of God as something other and higher than a mere metal or stone image. This human spirit can not proceed from the stone or metal forms which human hands have shaped. Human hands can not create the Creator of this breathing, moving, living fabric of body and soul.
30, 31. Their Past Ignorance God had overlooked; but now, in the Light from the Incarnation, the Cross, and the Resurrection of Christ, all are enjoined to Repentance and Trust; and Disobedience must encounter only Stern Condemnation.—Two further instances of Paul’s moderation and forbearance occur in the simple phrase, “the times of this ignorance.” One, that the weightiest charge he makes against corrupt heathenism is its ignorance. The other, that he does not make even this a personal charge against his listeners; he only includes them in a general way with the cultured heathen of many centuries. Yet, though so courteous and conciliatory, he is faithful. For he does charge these intelligent and polished Athenians with ignorance. And, while intimating that God forbore with (not “winked at”—a figure the word will not bear) the ignorance of past generations, suffering it to pass without special interference of his grace or reproof, sending no messengers to them as he did to the Jews, yet, in God’s name, he now commands their repentance, as sharing the common guilt of men. In his previous daily preaching, the apostle had taught some of them about repentance and faith in the crucified and risen Christ. Now he presses the obligation upon all to confess and turn from sin; and enforces God’s command by the great, decisive fact that they, with all mankind, must stand before Christ in an appointed day of judgment. And, in completion of his appeal, he adds, that Christ, now impliedly the Saviour, is proven by the resurrection to be then the Judge! B.
There is a day appointed wherein the Son of man will appear in sensible glory, and exercise his judicial power upon angels and men. He is now “seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” and the celestial spheres are under his feet: universal nature feels the power of his scepter: he reigns in the hearts of the saints by his Word and Spirit, and restrains the fury of his enemies in what degrees he pleases: but still his servants are in distress, and his rebellious enemies insolently break his laws; and the curtains of heaven conceal his glory from us: therefore a time is prefixed when in the face of the world he will make an eternal difference by rewards and punishments between the righteous and the wicked, and his government shall have its complete and glorious issue. Bates.
32-34. Results of Paul’s Discourse to the as-
sembled Athenians.—Wise, forbearing, and conciliatory as was his address, the indirect preaching of personal guilt, accountability, and condemnation to the haughty self-righteous Stoic and the pleasure-seeking Epicurean, and especially the mention of a resurrection—counted by all classes an impossible absurdity—at once broke up the audience, and “Paul departed from among them.” B.
Paul rightly divided that day the Word of Truth, and the Word divided the hearers into distinct and well-defined groups: into mockers, hesitators, and cleaving believers. The mockers, whether socially higher or lower, were in spirit the hardest and coldest of the company. They were fast and free livers. They enjoyed life, and kept the thought of death away. They went away laughing at the truth of God and the God of truth. The hesitators, convinced in their consciences that the testimony of the apostle had all the air of truth, did not dare to scoff; but, wedded to their own case and pleasure, they were not willing to take up the cross and follow Christ. Accordingly they made a respectful apology to the preacher and went away. The third class cleaved to him and believed; that is, while this man’s lips were the channel through which the Word of Life reached them, the ultimate longing of their hearts—their ultimate grasp—reached and rested on Christ crucified, whom Paul preached. They cleaved to Paul, but they believed in Christ. Arsad.
A few converts were gained; but one of the large and intelligent class whom he had aimed to reach. With his name is intimated his membership of that most ancient Athenian tribunal comprising only men of the highest integrity and greatest distinction. The lesson of this failure was of great value to Paul; and he has written it in full in the first three of his Epistles. Among communities of the ignorant, the hardened, and even the wealthy and profligate, as in Asia Minor and Macedonia, and afterward in Corinth and Ephesus, the gospel found ready and abundant entrance. But in this city, which represented the highest attainments in human wisdom and genius, it could obtain no foothold. Paul’s utter failure here to found a church of Christ not only showed that “the world by wisdom knew not God,” but that mere human wisdom is the mightiest hindrance to the introduction of the knowledge of God, and to the acceptance of a gracious salvation.
Is every age, the same two states of mind comprise the chief hindrances to the entrance and converting energy of the truth of God. On the one hand, a worldly heart and the love of pleasure, exemplified by the Sadducees among the Jews and the