Homilies on Acts

<!--<span class="stiki"></span>-->Acts XVII. 16, 17

“Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.”

Observe how he meets with greater trials among the Jews than among the Gentiles. Thus in Athens he undergoes nothing of this kind; the thing goes as far as ridicule, and there an end: and yet he did make some converts: whereas among the Jews he underwent many perils; so much greater was their hostility against him.— “His spirit,” it says, “was roused within him when he saw the city all full of idols.” Nowhere else were so many objects of worship to be seen. But again “he disputed with the Jews in the synagogue, and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain of the philosophers of the Stoics and Epicureans encountered him.” It is a wonder the philosophers did not laugh him to scorn, speaking in the way he did. “And some said, What does this babbler mean to say?” insolently, on the instant: — this is far from philosophy. “Other some said, He seems to be a setter forth of strange gods,” from the preaching, because he had no arrogance. They did not understand, nor comprehend the subjects he was speaking of— how should they? affirming as they did, some of them, that God is a body; others, that pleasure is the (true) happiness. “Of strange gods, because he preached unto them Jesus and the Resurrection:” for in fact they supposed “Anastasis” (the Resurrection) to be some deity, being accustomed to worship female divinities also. “And having taken him, they brought him to the Areopagus” — not to punish, but in order to learn — “to the Areopagus” where the trials for murder were held. Thus observe, in hope of learning (they ask him), saying, “May we know what is this new doctrine spoken of by you? For you bring certain strange matters to our ears”: everywhere novelty is the charge: “we would fain know therefore, what these things may mean.” It was a city of talkers, that city of theirs. “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. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars hill, and said, You men of Athens, I look upon you as being in all things” (v. 21, 22)— he puts it by way of encomium: (the word) does not seem to mean anything offensive— δεισιδαιμονεστέρους, that is, εὐλαβεστέρους, “more religiously disposed. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with his inscription, To an Unknown God. What therefore ye ignorantly worship, this declare I unto you.” — “On which was inscribed, To an Unknown God.” The Athenians, namely, as on many occasions they had received gods from foreign parts also— for instance, the temple of Minerva, Pan, and others from different countries— being afraid that there might be some other god not yet known to them, but worshipped elsewhere, for more assurance, forsooth, erected an altar to that god also: and as the god was not known, it was inscribed, “To an Unknown God.” This God then, he tells them, is Christ; or rather, the God of all. “Him declare I unto you.” Observe how he shows that they had already received Him, and “it is nothing strange,” says he, “nothing new that I introduce to you.” All along, this was what they had been saying: “What is this new doctrine spoken of by you? For you bring certain strange matters to our ears.” Immediately therefore he removes this surmise of theirs: and then says, “God that made the world and all things therein, He being Lord of heaven and earth”— for, that they may not imagine Him to be one of many, he presently sets them right on this point; adding, “dwells not in temples made with hands”, “neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything”— do you observe how, little by little, he brings in the philosophy? How he ridicules the heathen error? “seeing it is He that gives to all life, and breath, and all things; and has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.” This is peculiar to God. Look, then, whether these things may not be predicated of the Son also. “Being Lord,” he says, “of heaven and earth”— which they accounted to be God's. Both the creation he declares to be His work, and mankind also. “Having determined,” he says, “the times assigned to them, and the bounds of their habitation,” (v. 25, 26), “that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might 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 are also His offspring.” (v. 27, 28.) This is said by Aratus the poet. Observe how he draws his arguments from things done by themselves, and from sayings of their own. “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art.” And yet for this reason we ought. By no means: for surely we are not like (to such), nor are these souls of ours. “And imagination of man.” How so? * * But some person might say, “We do not think this.” But it was to the many that he was addressing himself, not now to Philosophy. How then did they think so unworthily of Him? Again, putting it upon their ignorance, he says, “Now the times of ignorance God overlooked.” Having agitated their minds by the fear, he then adds this: and yet he says, “but now he commands all men everywhere to repent.” “Because He has appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He has ordained; whereof He has given assurance unto all men, in that He has raised Him from the dead.” But let us look over again what has been said.