Acts. 17:16-34 -  What Paul said 

Paul's evangelistic dialogue with the Jews, God-fearers, passers by and philosophers may well have continued for many days. It led to one of the greatest opportunities of his whole ministry, the presentation of the gospel to the world-famous, supreme council of Athens, the Areopagus. How did this come about? The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers reacted to Paul's message in two ways. *Some of them* insulted him. They *asked, `What is this babbler trying to say?'* (18b). *Babbler* translates  *spermologos*, which Ramsay calls `a word of characteristically Athenian slang'. Its literal meaning is a `seed-picker', and it is used of various seed-eating or scavenging birds, the rook for instance in Aristophanes' comedy *The Birds*. Hence the suggested rendering `cock sparrow'. From birds it was applied to human beings, vagrants or beggars who live off scraps of food they pick up in the gutter, `gutter-snipes'. Then thirdly, it was used particularly to describe teachers who, not having an original idea in their on heads, unscrupulously plagiarize from others, picking up scraps of knowledge here and there, `zealous seekers of the second-rate at second hand', until their system is nothing but a ragbag of other people's ideas and sayings. Hence this `ignorant plagiarist', `this charlatan' (NEB), `this parrot' (JB), this `intellectual magpie'. 

*Others (among the philosophers) remarked, `He seems to be advocating foreign gods'*, which was one of the charges brought against Socrates 450 years previously. *They said this*, Luke comments, *because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the Resurrection* (18c). The word for *gods* here is *daimonia*, which did not always mean `demons', but could be used of `lesser gods', in this case `foreign divinities' (RSV). It is possible that the philosophers, grasping that the essence of Paul's message was *ton Jesoun kai ten anastasin (Jesus and the resurrection)* thought that he was introducing into Athens a couple of new divinities, a male god called `Jesus' and a female consort `Anastasis'. Chrysostom was the first to make this suggestion,  and a number of commentators have followed him. F.F.Bruce goes further and writes: `In the ears of some frequenters of the Agora these two words sounded as if they denoted the personified and deified powers of "healing" (*iasis*) and "restoration".' It is interesting, as Dr. Conrad Gempf has pointed out to me, that both Paul's speeches to pagans in the Acts seem to have been occasioned by a misunderstanding. "the Athenians imagine two new gods, while the Lystrans think they are seeing two old ones! Could Luke be warning his readers of the ways in which pagans misunderstand?' 

Whatever the precise motives of the philosophers may have been, *they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, `May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? (19). You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean' (20).  (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas)* (21). 

The word `Areopagus' means literally `the Hill (*pagos*) of Ares (the Greek equivalent of Mars)', so `Mars Hill'. Situated a little north-west of the Acropolis, it was formally the place where the most venerable judicial court of ancient Greece met. For this reason the name came to be transferred from the place to the court. By Paul's day, although cases were sometimes heard here, the court had become more a council, with its legal powers diminished. Its members were rather guardians of the city's religions, morals and education, and it normally met in the `Royal Porch' of the Agora. Two questions now face us. First, was Paul brought to the hill, or before the court/council , or both? Various answers are given, but surely the expression that he stood `in the midst' of the Areopagus (22, literally) and later went out `from their midst' (33, literally) would more naturally refer to people than a place. It seems almost certain, then, that he addressed that august senate, and it does not matter much where the meeting took place. 

Secondly, was Paul's speech before the court of the Areopagus a defence or a sermon? Some students, especially those who consider his address to have been an inadequate presentation of the gospel (since the cross does not appear to have been central to it), try to protect Paul's reputation by arguing that he was defending himself, not preaching Christ. This is certainly a possibility, since the court did still have some judicial functions. In particular, it had jurisdiction over religion in the city and, since Paul was being accused of introducing new gods (18), it would have to take cognizance and adjudicate. So the statement in verse 19 that *they took him* could be translated `they took hold of him' (RSV) in the sense of arresting him. But the case against this proposal is strong. The `context is without a vestige of judicial process'. There seem to have been no legal charge, no prosecutor, no presiding judge, no verdict and no sentence. At the same time, although Paul was not subjected to any

formal interrogation, he was asked to give an account of his teaching. One may therefore regard the situation as `an informal inquiry by the education commission', who regarded him with `slightly contemptuous indulgence', so that `he might either receive the freedom of the city to preach or be censored and silenced'. Consequently, he told the court what he believed and taught, but in so doing made quite a personal statement of the gospel. As we have already seen when Peter and John stood before the Sanhedrin, and as we shall see again in the trial scenes in Jerusalem and Caesarea, the apostles seemed incapable of defending themselves without at the same time preaching Christ. As for Paul in Athens, it required an uncommon degree of courage to speak as he spoke, for it would be hard to imagine a less receptive or more scornful audience.  

*Then Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: `Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious (22). For as I walked around  and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with the inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you'* (23). The apostle took as his text, or rather as his point of contact with them, the anonymous altar he had come across. Reference to such altars,

inscribed to an unknown god, have been found in ancient literature. Pausanias, for example, who travelled extensively in about AD 175 and wrote in his *Tour of Greece* his admiring account of the glory, history and mythology of that country, began his itinerary in Athens. Landing on the rocky peninsular called Piraeus, five miles south-west of the city, he found near the harbour a number of temples, together with `altars of the gods named Unknown'. Having seen such an altar himself, Paul was able to make his opening courteous remark about their religiosity. He was not ready yet to challenge the folly of Athenian idolatry. But he did take up their own acknowledgement of their ignorance. How then shall we interpret his statement that `what' they were worshipping `as something unknown' he was about to proclaim to them? Was he thereby acknowledging the authenticity of their pagan

worship, and should we regard with equal charity the cultus of non-Christian religions? For example, is Raymond Panikkar justified, in *The Unknown Christ of Hinduism*, in writing: `In the footsteps of St. Paul, we believe that we may speak not only of the unknown God of the Greeks but also of the hidden Christ in Hinduism'? Is he further justified in concluding that `the good and bona fide Hindu is saved by Christ and not by Hinduism, but it is through the sacraments of Hinduism, through the message of morality and good life, through the mysterion that comes down to him through Hinduism, that Christ saves the Hindu normally'?  

No, this popular reconstruction cannot be maintained. We certainly agree that there is only one God. It is also true that converts, who turn to Christ from a non-Christian religious system, usually think of themselves not as having transferred their worship from one God to Another, but as having begun now to worship in truth the God they were previously trying to worship in ignorance, error or distortion. But N.B.Stonehouse is right that what Paul picked out for comment was the Athenians' open acknowledgement of their ignorance, and that `the ignorance rather than the worship is thus underscored'. Moreover, Paul made the bold claim to enlighten their ignorance (a Jew presuming to teach ignorant Athenians!), using the *ego* of apostolic authority, and insisting thereby that special revelation must control and correct whatever general revelation seems to disclose. He then went on to proclaim the living and true God in five ways, and so to expose the errors, even horrors, of idolatry.

First, God is the creator of the universe: *The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built with hands* (24). This view of the world is very different from either the Epicurean emphasis on a chance combination of atoms or the virtual pantheism of the Stoics. Instead, God is both the personal Creator  of everything that exists and the personal Lord of everything he has made. It is absurd, therefore, that he who made and supervises everything lives in shrines which human beings have built. Any attempt to limit or localize the Creator God, to imprison him within the confines of manmade buildings, structures or concepts, is ludicrous.

Secondly, God is the Sustainer of life: *And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else* (25). God continues to sustain the life which he has created and given to his human creatures. It is absurd, therefore, to suppose that he who sustains life should himself need to be sustained, that he who supplies our need should himself need our supply. Any attempt to tame or domesticate God, to reduce him to the level of a household pet dependent on us for food and shelter, is again a ridiculous reversal of roles. We depend on God; he does not depend on us.  

Thirdly, God is the Ruler of all nations: *From one man* (the Western text `of one blood' is surely mistaken; Adam is in view as the single progenitor of the human race) *he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live (26). God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us (27). `For in him we live and move and have our being*' (28a). Some commentators think that Paul's reference here to `times' and `places' (26) is to God's preparation of the planet earth to be our human habitation, and to his provision of the regular seasons, which Paul mentioned in Lystra (14:17). The nations' `times' and `places', however, seem to be more particular than this, and to refer rather to `the epochs of their history and the limits of their territory' (NEB). Thus, although God cannot be held responsible for the tyranny or aggression of individual nations, yet both the history and the geography of each nation are ultimately under his control. Further, God's purpose in this has been so that the human beings he had made in his own image might *seek him, and perhaps reach out for him*, or `feel after him' (RSV), a verb which `denotes the groping and fumbling of a blind man', *and find him*. Yet this hope is unfulfilled because of human sin, as the rest of Scripture makes clear. Sin alienates people from God even as, sensing the unnaturalness of their alienation, they grope for him. It would be absurd, however, to blame God for this alienation, or to regard him as distant, unknowable, uninterested. For *he is not far from each one of us*. It is we who are far from him. If it were not for sin which separates us from him, he would be readily accessible to us. For `*in him we live and move and have our being*' - a quotation from the 6th century BC poet Epimenides of Cnossos in Crete.  

Fourthly, God is the Father of human beings: *As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring' (28b). Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone - an image made by man's design and skill* (29). This second quotation comes from the 3rd century Stoic author Aratus, who came from Paul's native Cilicia, although he may have been echoing an earlier poem by the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes. It is remarkable that Paul should thus have quoted from two pagan poets. His precedent gives us the warrant to do the same, and indicates that glimmerings of truth, insights from general revelation, may be found in non-Christian authors. At the same time we need to exercise caution, for in stating that `we are his offspring', Aratus was referring to Zeus, and Zeus is  emphatically not identical with the living and true God. But is it right that all human beings are God's offspring (*genos*)? Yes it is. Although in redemption terms God is the Father only of those who are in Christ, and we are his children only by adoption and grace, yet in creation terms God is the Father of all humankind, and all are his offspring, his creatures, receiving their life from him. Moreover, because we are his offspring, whose being derives from him and depends on him, it is absurd to think of him as *like gold or silver or stone*, which are lifeless in themselves and which owe their being to human imagination and art. Paul quotes their own poets to expose their own inconsistency.  

These are powerful arguments. All idolatry, whether ancient or modern, primitive or sophisticated, is inexcusable, whether the images are metal or mental, material objects of worship or unworthy concepts in the mind. For idolatry is the attempt either to localize God, confining him within limits which we impose, whereas he is the Creator of the universe; or to domesticate God, making him dependent on us, taming him and taping him, whereas he is the Sustainer of human life; or to alienate God, blaming him for his distance and silence, whereas he is the Ruler of Nations, and not far from any of us; or to dethrone God, demoting him to some image of our own contrivance or craft, whereas he is our Father from whom we derive our being. In brief, all idolatry tries to minimize the gulf between the Creator and his creatures, in order to bring him under our control. More than that, it actually reverses the respective positions of God and us, so that, instead of our humbly acknowledging that God has created and rules us, we presume to imagine that we can create and rule God. There is no logic in idolatry; it is a perverse, topsy-turvy expression of our human rebellion against God. It leads to Paul's last point.  

Fifthly, God is the Judge of the world: *In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent (30). For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead* (31). Paul reverts at he end of his address to the topic with which he began: human ignorance. The Athenians have acknowledged in their altar inscription that they are ignorant of God, and Paul has giving evidence of their ignorance. Now he declares such ignorance to be culpable. For God has never `left himself without testimony' (14:17). On the contrary, he has revealed himself through the natural order, but human beings `suppress the truth by their wickedness' (Rom. 1:18). *In the past God overlooked such ignorance*. It is not that he did not notice it, nor that he acquiesced in it as excusable, but that in his forbearing mercy he did not visit upon it the judgement it deserved (cf. Rom. 3:25). *But now he commands all people everywhere to repent*. Why? Because of the certainty of the coming judgement. Paul tells his listeners three immutable facts about it. First, it will be universal: God *will judge the world*. The living and the dead, the high and the low, will be included; nobody will be able to escape. Secondly, it will be righteous: *he will judge...with justice*, All secrets will be revealed. There will be no possibility of any miscarriage of justice. Thirdly it will be definite, for already the day has been set and the judge has been appointed. And although the day has not been disclosed, the identity of the judge has been (10:42). God has committed the judgement to his Son,  (cf. Jn 5:27), and *he has given proof of this* publicly to everybody *by raising him from the dead*. By the resurrection Jesus was vindicated, and declared to be both Lord and Judge. Moreover this divine judge is also *the man*. All nations have been created from the first Adam; through the last Adam all nations will be judged.  

This mention of the resurrection, which had prompted the philosophers to ask to hear more (18), was now enough to bring the meeting to an abrupt end. *When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered*, even `burst out laughing' JB), perhaps the Epicureans, *but others said*, whether sincerely or not, perhaps the Stoics, *We want to hear you again on this  subject*' (32). *At that Paul left the Council* (33), for the meeting was adjourned. However, * a few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus*, whom Eusebius later identified (though on insufficient evidence) as Athens' first Christian bishop and martyr, *also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others* (34). These must all have responded to the summons to repent, and `turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God'.  

As we reflect on Paul's address to the Areopagus, we have to face two criticisms of it, first that it was not authentic, and secondly that it was not adequate. Earlier in this century Martin Dibelius concluded that the speech was intended by Luke to be a sample of the kind of preaching to pagans which he considered appropriate, that it was composed by Luke not Paul, and that it is a `Hellenistic' speech about the knowledge of God, which is not Christian until its conclusion. Some years later Hans Conzelmann wrote: `In my own opinion the speech is the free creation of the author (sc. Luke), for it does not show the specific thoughts and ideas of Paul'. In 1955, however, the Swedish scholar Bertil Gartner decisively answered Dibelius in an essay entitled *The Areopagus Speech and Natural Revelation*. His thesis was (i) that the background to the speech is to be found rather in Hebrew than in Greek thought, and especially in the Old Testament; (ii) that it has parallels in the apologetic preaching of Hellenistic Judaism; and (iii) that it is genuinely Pauline in the sense that its main features reflect Paul's thought in his letters (e.g. Rom. 1:18ff), although of course Luke has abbreviated it and put it into its present literary form. So it is not difficult to affirm with a  good conscience that the voice we hear in the Areopagus address is the voice of the authentic Paul. Nor is it difficult to find Old Testament passages which anticipate the main themes of the sermon - God as Creator of heaven and earth, in whose hand  is the breath of all living things, who does not live in man-made temples, who overrules the history of nations, who is not to be likened to graven or carved images, which are dead and dumb, and who warns of judgement and summons to repentance.  

The second criticism concerns the adequacy of the sermon as a gospel presentation. Ramsay popularized the notion in his day that Paul `was disappointed and perhaps disillusioned by his experience in Athens', since the results are negligible. So `when he went on from Athens to Corinth, he no longer spoke in the philosophic style', but "determined not to know anything save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2)'. This is a gratuitous theory, however, which I think Stonehouse was fair to pronounce `quite untenable'. First, there is no trace in Luke's narrative that he is displeased with Paul's performance in Athens, whether we are to regard his address to the Areopagus as a defence or a sermon or a bit of both. On the contrary, Luke records three of Paul's speeches in the Acts as samples respectively of his proclamation to Jews and God-fearers (Pisidian Antioch, chapter 13), to illiterate pagans (Lystra, chapter 14) and now to cultured philosophers (Athens, Chapter 17), Secondly, it is inaccurate to dub Paul's visit to Athens a failure. In addition to the two named converts, Luke says that there were `a number of others' (34). Besides, `it is most precarious to engage in rationalizing from the number of converts to the correctness of the message'. Thirdly, I believe Paul did preach the cross in Athens. Luke provides only a short extract from his speech, which takes less that two minutes to read. Paul must have filled out this outline considerably, and his conclusion (30-31) must have included Christ crucified. For how could he proclaim the resurrection without mentioning the death which preceded it? And how could he call for repentance without mentioning the faith in Christ which always accompanies it? Fourthly, what Paul renounced in Corinth was not the biblical doctrine of God as Creator, Lord and Judge, but the wisdom of the world and the rhetoric of the Greeks. His firm `decision' to preach nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified was taken because of the anticipated challenges of the proud Corinth, not because of his supposed failure in Athens. Besides, as Luke shows in his narrative, Paul did not change his tactic in Corinth, but continued to teach, argue and persuade. (18:4-5).