Preparations for a gentile mission-the calling of a new apostle

Act . True Nobility of Mind. Evinced in three things.

I. Readiness to receive the word.

II. Diligence in searching the Scriptures.

III. Faith in the person of Jesus of whom the word speaks.

Act . The Elements of a Truly Noble Spirit.—

1. Attention to religion. It is the highest kind of truth and the grandest object of pursuit.

2. Candour in religious inquiry. Prejudices are bars to fair dealing. Idols. Cobwebs.

3. The exercise of the right of private judgment. It is mean to surrender this right to a Pope or a priest. It is not less mean to surrender it to great thinkers and great dreamers.

4. Deference to the authority of Scripture. Man never occupies a more noble position than when, like a little child, he submits his own feeble faculties to the guidance of the oracles of Him that cannot lie. It is not worship of the Book, but of the infallible Author of the Book.—G. Brooks.

Searching the Scriptures.

I. A blessed right.—

1. Conferred by God.

2. Due to man.

3. Not to be withheld by either State or Church.

II. A holy duty.—

1. Commanded by God.

2. To be faithfully performed.

3. Not to be neglected without sin.

III. An inestimable privilege.—Considering,

1. Whose word the scriptures is.

2. The benefit resulting therefrom.

3. The unworthiness of its recipients.

IV. A rare art.—To be practised—

1. Daily.

2. With intelligence.

3. In faith.

4. Diligently.

5. With prayer.

Act . The Noble Berœans.

I. Heard the gospel.—

1. With devout attention.

2. With impartial candour.

3. With careful investigation.

II. Experienced its effects.—

1. They believed its statements.

2. They enjoyed its privileges.

3. They obeyed its precepts.

III. Exhibited their own nobility.—

1. Adopted a noble conduct.

2. Displayed a noble spirit.

3. Presented a noble example.

Docility of Temper in Relation to the Truth.

I. The teaching, the recognition of which the writer commends.—

1. The "word," more fully expounded in the opening verses of the chapter, contained two propositions—viz.,

(1) that the Messiah, when He appeared in accordance with the Scriptures, was to appear as a suffering Messiah; and

(2) that the Jesus whose history and crucifixion Paul was then recounting, was, in fact, that Messiah. This a position which he only would take, who was sure of his ground, and who felt that he could make it good by the most indubitable proofs.

2. The truth of this word the apostle established by an appeal to the highest authority—viz., the Scriptures, "the Old Testament documents in whose inspiration he and his Jewish hearers equally believed." "By a careful comparison of your inspired Scriptures with the veritable facts of which our whole nation is cognisant," he practically said, "we have found, beyond all doubtful disputation, that all that was foreshown, typified, and promised, concerning the Messiah of our ancient hope, has met its fulfilment in the person and history of this Jesus whom I preach unto you."

II. The spirit in which this teaching was received.—"With all readiness of mind." Here is—

1. The docility of temper which belongs to the right reception of truth. "The Berœans were in that balanced equipoise of mind which, equally removed from a listless indifference on the one hand and a self-complete and haughty presumption on the other, left them at liberty to listen with attention to the apostle's reasoning, to think dispassionately on it, and, finally, to draw logically their own conclusions from it.

2. The fearless honesty and manly independence of spirit which ought to mark inquirers after the truth. "The great question with which the Berœans charged themselves was, whether those things were true as the apostle put them, whether they were founded on fact, and were therefore accessible to the ordinary methods of moral conviction. It was not whether they were agreeable or in harmony with their preconceptions, or with their beliefs and customs; whether they were ably reasoned by the apostle or ill; but whether they were true."

III. The result which followed on this procedure—"Therefore many of them believed." This result was—

1. The logical consequence of the antecedent procedure. "Faith, waiting on the light of evidence, is met by the evidence of light, and following that, is led into the liberty of truth; as it always will be in the things of God. "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." Will to do first; know afterwards. Obedience is the spirit in which to seek. Knowledge its after product.

2. The outcome of a mental process in which several things were combined. "There was, in the case of these Berœans, first of all a clear presentation of the truth to the mind; there was then the actual personal contact of the mind, of the individual thought of the hearer, with the truth, and a process of reflection upon it. There was a readiness to surrender all old convictions to the authority of evidence, at whatever cost of personal state or attainment, and following directly in the course of this ingenuousness of intent and act, the light came, and they believed."

Learn.—

1. The fitness of the gospel to deal with dissimilar classes of men.

Act . Stirring up the Multitudes.

I. Of a true sort.—

1. By the gospel.

2. Of noble minds.

3. To the exercise of faith.

4. For the warfare of the Spirit.

II. Of a false sort.—

1. By wicked men.

2. Of lewd fellows.

3. To resist the truth.

4. For the persecution of the saints.

Act . Silas and Timothy in Berœa.—"The question naturally occurs, Why did Paul go on from Berœa alone, leaving Silas and Timothy behind, and yet send orders immediately on reaching Athens that they were to join him with all speed? There seems at first sight some inconsistency here. But again comparison between Acts and Thessalonians solves the difficulty: Paul was eager ‘once and again' to return to Thessalonica, and was waiting for news that the impediment placed in his way was removed. Silas and Timothy remained to receive the news (perhaps about the attitude of the new magistrates) and to bring it on to Paul. But they could not bring it on to him until they received his message from Athens."—Ramsay, St. Paul, etc., p. 234.

Verses 16-21

Act . Athens.—Described by Milton (Paradise Regained, Act 4:20) as "the eye of Greece," and "the mother of arts and eloquence." The capital of Attica was situated about five miles from the harbour of Piræus, partly on a group of rocky hills, and partly upon the low land surrounding these, and separating them one from the other. Of these rocky eminences the loftiest was the Acropolis, which stood almost in the middle of the town, and to which a magnificent marble staircase led up through the Propylæum, built by Pericles. Here were, besides other works of art, the colossal statue of Athene Promachus, the glorious Parthenon, or Virgins' house, replete with the masterpieces of Phidias, and "the colossal statue (of Athens) of ivory and gold, the work of Phidias, unrivalled in the world, save only by the Jupiter Olympius of the same artist" (Conybeare and Howson, 1:330).

Act . In the market.—The Agora, richly decorated with statues, lying between the two hills, Pnyx on the west and Museum on the south-west of the Acropolis, was "the centre of a glorious public life, when the orators and statesmen, the poets and artists, of Greece found there all the incentives of their noblest enthusiasm" (Ibid., i. 326).

Act . This babbler.— ὁ σπερμολδγος. Lit., sted-picker, properly a bird, in which sense it is used by Aristophanes (Birds, 232); hence one who prowls about the market-place picking up and retailing gossip, or one who lives by his wits; hence, again, "a contemptible and worthless person." Or the allusion may be to the chattering of such birds, whence the word may denote "a babbler." Zeno called by this name one of his disciples, who had more words than wisdom (Diog. Laert., Zeno, c. 19); and Demosthenes used this expression of ready-tongued opponents. "Many an Athenian is likely to have babbled all the week through about this babbler at the Areopagus" (Stier). "Probably the nearest and most instructive parallel in modern English life to Spermologos is ‘Bounder' allowing for the difference between England and Athens. In both there lies the idea of one who is ‘out of the swim,' out of the inner circle, one who lacks that thorough knowledge and practice in the rules of the game, that mould the whole character and make it one's nature to act in the proper way and play the game fair" (Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 243).

Act . Areopagus.—This ancient college of justice in Athens, whose province it was to pronounce judgment on the worst criminal cases, had its name from the elevation, Mars' Hill (Act 17:22), upon the east end of which it had its sittings. It was approached from the market-place by a flight of steps cut in the rock, and on its summit had, also cut in the rock, a row of seats, in which the judges sat, and room for a considerable number of spectators and listeners. Ramsay (St. Paul, etc., pp. 241 ff.), thinks Paul was brought before the Council of Areopagus, neither to be tried by the city judges, nor to address the Athenian people, nor to discuss with the philosophers, but to explain to the university court the nature of his doctrines. (See Hints on Act 17:19.)

Act . Either to tell or to hear some new thing.—Compare Demosthenes: "Is it your sole ambition to wander through the public places, each inquiring of the other, what new advices?" (Philippic, Act 1:11); and Thucydides (3:38): "And so you are the best men to be imposed upon with novelty of argument," etc. "It is just the same to-day with the upper and lower classes in our great cities. It is ever καινὁτερόν τι; or, as they are wont to say, One new thing supplants another" (Stier).

Paul at Athens; or, Alone in a Heathen City

I. Waiting for Silas and Timothy.—

1. Alone. These two friends having been left behind in Macedonia, Silas in Berœa, and perhaps Timothy in Thessalonica, to carry forward the spiritual movement which had there been initiated when those who had brought the apostle as far as to Athens had departed, he naturally began to realise the isolation of his position as a stranger in a large heathen city. Nor is it likely that the brilliant scenes on which he gazed in that fair metropolis of the ancient world did much to relieve his depression. Besides, largely on account of bodily weakness, the apostle may have felt himself in need of friendly sympathy and assistance in order to effective working in Athens. Hence, on sending back his conductors to Barœa, he deemed it prudent to entrust them with instructions for both Silas and Timothy to rejoin him with all speed. Doubtless he expected to await their arrival at Athens; but as the turn of events once more constrained him to leave the Achaian capital sooner than he had anticipated, it was not till he had reached Corinth that his esteemed colleagues overtook him (Act ).—Silas coming from Berœa, and Timothy from Thessalonica, to which city (as above conjectured, though see "Critical Remarks," and "Hints" on Act 17:14) he had been despatched from Berœa, instead of Paul (1Th 2:18). Meanwhile the apostle found himself in Athens alone (1Th 3:1). Yet,

2. Not alone. Like his glorified Master, who, in the days of His flesh, when forsaken by His disciples, affirmed that though alone He was yet not alone, because the Father was with Him (Joh ), the apostle in his solitude enjoyed first the companionship of that gracious Lord on whose business he had come to Athens, who had said, "Lo! I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Mat 28:20), and whose "comforts," it need not be doubted, in that season of "thoughtfulness" delighted his soul (Psa 94:19). Then, like him who said he was "never less alone than when alone," the apostle had the fellowship of his own thoughts, which, if they had much to depress, were fitted also in no small measure to cheer. The recollection of the toils and sufferings he had passed through since entering on his lifework of preaching the gospel to the heathen could hardly fail at times to cast "the pale hue of sickly thought" upon his spirit, though even that could not daunt his heroic soul. But, on the other hand, the remembrance of how he had been sustained throughout his arduous warfare, and of how astonishingly the work of the Lord had prospered in his hand, would more than counterbalance his depressing reminiscences. Lastly, he might have found, though it is doubtful if he did, in the fresh scenes upon which he gazed in that brilliant capital, the means of relieving the tedium of his lonely hours. "It was at Athens," writes Farrar, "that the human form, sedulously trained, attained its most exquisite and winning beauty; there that human freedom put forth its most splendid power; there that human eloquence displayed its utmost subtlety and grace; there that art reached to its most consummate perfection; there that poetry uttered alike its sweetest and its sublimest strains; there that philosophy attained to the most perfect music of human expression, its loftiest and deepest thoughts"; but it may be questioned if these considerations affected Paul with the like enthusiasm they inspire in the breast of modern travellers.

II. Surveying the Athenian city.—

1. The spectacle he beheld. That which arrested Paul's attention, presumably from the moment of his landing at the harbour of Piræus, as he walked up slowly between the ruins of the Long Walls towards the shining city, and while he, later on, sauntered through its streets and lingered in its market-place, was not its geographical situation, or its architectural beauty, or its air of culture and refinement, but its religious condition. Like Babylon of old, which was "a land of graven images," and whose people were "mad upon idols" (Jer ), the Athens of Paul's day was "wholly given over to idolatry," literally stuffed full of idols. "A person could hardly take his position at any point in ancient Athens where the eye did not range over temples and statues of the gods almost without number" (Hackett). Petronius (Satires, 17) was wont to say that it was easier to find a god at Athens than a man; while, according to Pausanias, Athens had more images than all the rest of Greece put together. Some of the streets were so crowded with those who sold idols that it was almost impossible to make one's way through them. "Every god in Olympus found a place in the Agora; and as if the imagination of the Attic mind knew no bounds in this direction, abstractions were deified and publicly honoured. Altars were erected to fame, to modesty, to energy, to persuasion, to pity" (Conybeare and Howson, i. 328, 329). Finally, lest any divinity should be overlooked, the inhabitants had erected an altar with this inscription, "To the unknown God." It is of course objected that ancient writers, such as Pausanias and Philostratus, only knew of altars "to unknown gods" not "to an, or the, unknown god"; but neither can their ignorance be allowed to invalidate the testimony of Paul, nor can it be incontrovertibly demonstrated that the "altars of unknown gods mentioned by the above writers referred to a plurality of deities, and not to a plurality of altars; while, even if the former supposition be accepted as correct, it does not follow that Paul may not have observed one inscribed as Luke reports. There is even a "great probability that by ‘the unknown God' was actually meant Jehovah" (Lewin).

2. The feeling it aroused. "His spirit was stirred within him," provoked or filled with indignation;

(1) at the profanation of the holy name of God implied, in the very existence of an idol;

(2) at the prostitution of manhood exhibited in the worship of a graven image;

(3) at the unspeakable source of moral corruption opened in the degrading rites by which such divinities were honoured; and

(4) at the terrible display of Satanic power given in the subjection of a whole city to such a caricature of religion as idolatry really was. Nor would the apostle's indignation be lessened, but immensely heightened, by the fact that in Jerusalem he had never witnessed an idol.

III. Disputing with its inhabitants.—

1. Where, and when?

(1) In the synagogue on the Sabbath. Although "no trace of any building which could have been a synagogue has been found at Athens" (Farrar), there is no ground for calling in question the accuracy of Luke's statement that one existed there in Paul's day, and that Paul, according to his wont (Act ), entered it on the Sabbath.

(2) In the market-place on the other days of the week. Located at the foot of the Acropolis and the Areopagus, the market-place of Athens was a busy scene. "Around were porticoes fitted up as bazaars for the sale of a thousand articles of commerce; here and there were circular sheds, one for the sale of slaves, another of provisions. In one place was the flesh market, in another the horse market; here the mart of books, there the stalls of fruit and flowers" (Lewin).

2. With whom, and about what?

(1) On the Sabbath day or days in the synagogue with the Jews and devout persons or proselytes there assembled; and the fact that there were Jews and proselytes in the Greek capital shows that even in that idolatrous city the name of Jehovah could not have been utterly unknown. On the week days in the market-place with those encountered there, amongst whom mingled representatives of the various schools of philosophy for which Athens was celebrated (see below).

(2) With the former his theme of disputation would be the Messiahship of Jesus, which, as on other occasions, he would endeavour to establish from the Scriptures (Act ); with the latter he would reason not about philosophy or science, politics or trade, but about religion and theology, and, in particular, about the true knowledge of God and about the folly of idol worship, about the true wisdom which descended from heaven, and about the resurrection and eternal life.

IV. Confronting the philosophers.—

1. Their designations.

(1) Epicureans. The founder of this sect, Epicurus, born 342 B.C.—i.e., six years after the death of Plato, in his thirty-sixth year—opened at Athens a philosophical school, over which he presided till his death in B.C. 270. The principal tenets of his philosophy were, that the summum bonum of human life consisted in happiness or pleasure; that this happiness was to be found in sobriety and temperance, contentment with little and a life generally in accord with nature; that death was not an evil to be feared; that man has no moral destiny; and that the gods which in his system were more phantoms than gods, took no manner of interest in mundane affairs (Schwegler's History of Philosophy, pp. 131-134). With his followers happiness became convertible with sensual pleasures (1Co ), belief in inert and shadowy divinities degenerated into practical atheism, and man's soul, if he had one, was nothing but a body composed of finer atoms than the fleshly tabernacle in which it was enshrined. They were thus the Greek Sadducees of their day.

(2) The Stoics. Followers of Zeno, who was born in Citium, a town of Cyprus about 340 B.C., and opened a school in an Athenian arcade (Stoa, whence the name Stoic), these were virtually pantheists, who believed that the world was God's body, and God the world's soul, that the highest law of human action was to live in accordance with nature, and that virtue, apart from all personal ends, was man's sole good; but in point of fact they were commonly nothing better than fatalists, who boasted of their indifference to the world, and affected an ideal of morals which in practice became unreal (Schwegler, pp. 123-131).

2. Their exclamations.

(1) What will this babbler say? Better, what might this seed picker, this idle prater mean? I.e., if he has any meaning. These depositaries of the world's wisdom looked upon the apostle as only another specimen of those market-place loungers and gossips who picked up scraps of information and retailed them to others, and whom the quick-witted humorists of the day likened to a sparrow, rook, or other bird which hopped about the streets and squares of the city picking up crumbs (see "Critical Remarks" on Act ).

(2) He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods (or daemons)—the very charge preferred against Socrates (Xen., Mem., i. 1, § 1)—"because," Luke explains, "he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection." This, the reason advanced by the philosophers for their exclamation, Luke must have learnt from Paul himself. The philosophers, it has been thought, mistook Anastasis for the name of a second divinity in addition to Jesus (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Spence, Plumptre, Holtzmann); but it is more likely that the gods referred to were the God of the Hebrews, the true God and His Son Jesus Christ (Alford, Hackett, De Wette).

3. Their interrogations.

(1) Where these were put. At the Areopagus or Mars' Hill, "where the most awful court of judicature had sat from time immemorial, to pass sentence on the greatest criminals, and to decide the most solemn questions connected with religion. The judges sat in the open air upon seats hewn out in the rock, on a platform ascended by a flight of stones immediately from the ‘Agora'" (Conybeare and Howson, i. 346).

(2) How these were put! "May we know what this new doctrine or teaching is that is spoken by thee?" "We would know what these things mean." The questions do not indicate that Paul was formally arraigned, but merely that he was called upon to furnish an explanation of the theological novelties to which they had listened—which, all things considered, was a fair enough demand. The words in which their demand was couched do not resemble those in which a prisoner at the bar is addressed by a judge; nor does the speech, made by Paul in reply, in the least degree resemble a defence.

(3) Why these were put. Partly out of a desire for information—the teaching sounded strange to their ears—but chiefly out of idle curiosity, which was a notorious characteristic of the Athenians (see, however, "Critical Remarks" and "Hints" on Act ).

Learn.—

1. The essential loneliness of God's people in a sinful world.

3. The natural incapacity of the human heart to comprehend the gospel.

4. The two principal obstacles to the reception of the truth, pleasure and pride.

5. The comparative frivolity of all earthly engagements in comparison with the business of salvation.

Act . Athens: A Microcosmus.—A city—

I. Of degraded idolaters, who worshipped the creature more than the Creator.

II. Of ignorant philosophers, who professed themselves to be wise, but were all the while fools.

III. Of arrant triflers, who had no just conception of the seriousness of life.

Act . Strange Gods.

I. Senseless images.—Dumb idols such as were and are worshipped by the heathen.

II. Local divinities.—Such deities as were supposed to be restricted to particular lands and peoples—e.g., the gods of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Phœnicians, etc.

III. Impersonal abstractions.—Such as are worshipped by philosophers and others, both ancient and modern; as e.g., the All, the Great Unknown, the Power behind the Visible, etc.

IV. Material possessions.—Such as are worshipped under the names of Mammon, Wealth, Riches, by all classes of society.

Jesus and the Resurrection. Jesus—

I. The efficient cause (Joh ).

II. The personal principle (Joh ).

III. The archetypal pattern (Php ).

IV. The first fruits of the Resurrection (1Co ).

The Athenian Philosophers and their Relation to Christianity.

I. The Epicureans.—"The Epicurean system was essentially materialistic. The senses formed the only source of knowledge. The world was traced back to atoms, out of whose accidental concurrence all things were formed. Even the soul was said to be only a body of ethereal and fiery substance fashioned out of fine atoms. Hence the immortality of the soul was a delusion, the freedom of the will a deception, and the gods superfluous; only quite illogically Epicurus allowed them to exist, but denied them all world-government and participation in the fortunes of men. The highest good of man, placed as he is in this senseless and heartless existence, is pleasure; wisdom to attain to the highest measure of this in life; and virtue, the conduct leading to this aim."

II. The Stoics.—"The Stoical system, on the other hand, was essentially pantheistic. It distinguished in the world—all, matter and force. It named the latter in relation to the whole, it is true, Reason, Providence, Godhead, but thought of it only as not self-existent, in personal, and therefore also not truly spiritual essence, as an all-forming and all-animating fire which brings forth the creatures and the worlds and again destroys them. The human soul, a spark of this impersonal godhead, and consequently without immortality, has, according to the Stoics, its highest good in virtue; but virtue is a life in accordance with nature, the agreement of the human will with the law of the world, consequently above all resignation in presence of world-governing fate."

III. Their relation to Christianity.—"According to these doctrines of the Epicureans and Stoics, which present numerous resemblances to modern un-Christian modes of thinking, it is conceivable that both, notwithstanding their different views of the world and of morals, should have agreed, with reference to the gospel of the apostle, to see in it a new Oriental enthusiasm desirous of being admitted to Greek philosophical rank and especially in the resurrection message, a fable to be laughed at."—Beyschlag.

Act . The Teaching of Christianity at Once, Old and New.

I. Old, as the fall of man, being contained in the first promise; New, as the latest need of man, being able to adapt itself to the ever-varying phases of human civilisation.

II. Old, as the outgrowth of the Hebrew dispensation; New, as the substance of a fresh revelation.

III. Old, as being the subject of prophetic anticipation; New, as being the burden of a specially sent teacher, Christ.

IV. Old, as gathering up and crowning all God's utterances in the past; New, as exhibiting all that is required to meet the exigencies of the future.

The New Doctrines of Christianity.

I. The unity of God.—Though not new to the Jews it was new to the Athenians.

II. The brotherhood of man.—Even to the Jews as well as Greeks this was an unheard-of idea.

III. The resurrection of Christ.—To both Jew and Greek this was a stumbling block and a strange thing.

IV. The reality of a judgment day.—The conception of such a general assize had never before entered into the world's mind.

V. The duty of repentance.—Men may previously have admitted the necessity in certain cases of reformation. Repentance in the sense of godly sorrow for sin against God was a novelty.

Unto the Areopagus; or, In the University at Athens.—"Two questions have to be answered in regard to the scene that follows: Why was Paul taken before the council? and what were the intentions of the philosophers in taking him there?

1. It is clear that Paul appeared to the philosophers as one of the many ambitious teachers who came to Athens hoping to find fame and fortune at the great centre of education. Now, certain powers were vested in the council of Areopagus to appoint or invite lecturers at Athens, and to exercise some control over the lecturers in the interests of public order and morality. There is an almost complete lack of evidence what were the advantages and the legal rights of a lecturer thus appointed, and to what extent or in what way a strange teacher could find freedom to lecture in Athens. There existed something in the way of privileges vested in the recognised lecturers; for the fact that Cicero induced the Areopagus to pass a decree inviting Cratippus, the peripatetic philosopher, to become a lecturer in Athens, implies that some advantage was thereby secured to him. There certainly also existed much freedom for foreigners to become lecturers in Athens, for the great majority of the Athenian professors and lecturers were foreign. The scene described in Act seems to prove that the recognised lecturers could take a strange lecturer before the Areopagus, and require him to give an account of his teaching, and pass a test as to its character.

Verses 22-34