Acts 17:16

Was stirred (παρωξύνετο) Better, as Rev., was provoked. See on the kindred word contention (παροξυσμὸς), Acts 15:39. Saw (θεωροῦντι) Better, beheld. See on Luke 10:18. Wholly given to idolatry (κατείδωλον) Incorrect. The word, which occurs only here in the New Testament, and nowhere in classical Greek, means full of idols. It applies to the city, not to the inhabitants. "We learn from Pliny that at the time of Nero, Athens contained over three thousand public statues, besides a countless number of lesser images within the walls of private houses. Of this number the great majority were statues of gods, demi-gods, or heroes. In one street there stood before every house a square pillar carrying upon it a bust of the god Hermes. Another street, named the Street of the Tripods, was lined with tripods, dedicated by winners in the Greek national games, and carrying each one an inscription to a deity. Every gateway and porch carried its protecting god. Every street, every square, nay, every purlieu, had its sanctuaries, and a Roman poet bitterly remarked that it was easier in Athens to find gods than men" (G. S. Davies, "St. Paul in Greece").

Acts 17:16-17 . While he waited for them at Athens — Namely, for Silas and Timothy; his spirit was stirred in him — Greek, παρωξυνετο , was disquieted, vexed, filled with grief and indignation; when he saw the city (a city which was thought to be more enlightened than any other, and in which learning and arts were carried to greater perfection than anywhere else in the world) wholly given to idolatry — Greek, κατειδωλον , full of idols, enslaved to idolatry in the most gross and shameful manner. That this was the case, all ancient writers attest.

Pausanias says that “there were more images in Athens than in all Greece besides;” and that “they worshipped the gods,” or expressed more piety to them “than all Greece:” and presently adds, as an evidence of their piety, that “they had altars ( αιδους , φημης , και ορμης ) erected to shame, fame, and desire;” and again, that “they exceeded all in their zeal for the gods.” Sophocles bears the same testimony, observing, “This city exceeds all others in worshipping and honouring the gods.” Hence Ælian called Athens the altar of Greece; and Xenophon said, that “it had twice as many sacred festivals as any other city.” And no wonder, for the Athenians always imported the deities and superstitions of every nation along with their arts and learning; and, as Strabo says, “their hospitality to strangers extended to the gods too, being very ready to receive any strange objects or forms of worship.” So that, as Petronius humorously says, “It was easier to find a god than a man there.” Here then we have a full proof of the insufficiency of science and philosophy to guide men in matters of religion. “The barbarous Scythians, the wild Indians, nay, the stupid Hottentots,” as Mr.

His spirit was stirred in him; moved, and sharpened, being highly affected with divers passions: 1. With grief, for so learned, and yet blind and miserable a place. 2. With zeal, and a holy desire to instruct and inform it. 3. With anger and indignation against the idolatry and sin that abounded in it. Wholly given to idolatry; or, as the marginal reading hath, full of idols. For we read, that there were more idols in Athens than in all Greece besides; and that it was easier to find a god there (that is, an idol) than a man; their images being as numerous as their inhabitants.

Acts 17:16 . Ἐκδεχομένου , whilst Paul was waiting for them) He had not intended to speak immediately at Athens; but nevertheless presently, without waiting for his companions, stimulated by a remarkable and extraordinary zeal, this soldier of Christ commences the action at once. So he often carried on the Christian warfare alone: Galatians 2:13-14 ; 2 Timothy 4:16 .—[ παρωξύνετο , was stirred up with zeal ) He was impatient that idolatrous practices should prevail, and still he had not at the time as yet a handle for attacking them.—V. g.]— κατείδωλον ) crowded with idols . Κατάκαρπος and κατάσκιος are compounds of the same form.

{9} Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was {f} stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to {g} idolatry. (9) In comparing the wisdom of God with man's wisdom, men scoff and mock at that which they do not understand: and God uses the curiosity of fools to gather together his elect. (f) He could not forbear. (g) Slavishly given to idolatry: Pausanias writes that there were more idols in Athens than in all Greece; yea they had altars dedicated to Shame, and Fame, and Lust, whom they made goddesses.

Ac 17:16-34. Paul at Athens. 16, 17. wholly given to idolatry—"covered with idols"; meaning the city, not the inhabitants. Petronius, a contemporary writer at Nero's court, says satirically that it was easier to find a god at Athens than a man. This "stirred the spirit" of the apostle. "The first impression which the masterpieces of man's taste for art left on the mind of St. Paul was a revolting one, since all this majesty and beauty had placed itself between man and his Creator, and bound him the faster to his gods, who were not God. Upon the first contact, therefore, which the Spirit of Christ came into with the sublimest creations of human art, the judgment of the Holy Ghost—through which they have all to pass—is set up as "the strait gate," and this must remain the correct standard for ever" [Baumgarten].

Verse 16. - Provoked within for stirred in , A.V. ( παρωξύνετο : see Acts 15:29 , note); as he beheld for when he saw , A.V.; full of idols for wholly given to idolatry , A.V. The Greek κατείδωλος occurs only here, either in the New Testament or elsewhere. But the analogy of ether words similarly compounded fixes the meaning "full of idols" - a description fully borne out by Pausanias and Xenophon and others (Steph., 'Thesaur.;' Meyer, etc.). Acts 17:16

16–21 . Paul, provoked by the prevalence of idolatry at Athens, first addresses the Jews and then the Gentiles. Some of the philosophers question him on his teaching, and bring him to the areopagus that they may hear him more at full 16 . his spirit was stirred in him ] But the stirring was of the sharpest. The verb is akin to the noun which in Acts 15:39 is used of the paroxysm of contention between Paul and Barnabas. His spirit was provoked within him, till he could not forbear to speak, could not wait till Timothy and Silas arrived. when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry ] Better (with R. V. ) “ as he beheld the city full of idols .” This, the marginal rendering of the A. V., appears, from the analogy of similar words, to be the closer meaning, and it agrees somewhat better with the facts. What St Paul beheld was the numerous statues erected some to one god, some to another. That the city was wholly given to idolatry was the inference from this abundance of idols. The mutilation of the busts of Hermes before the Sicilian expedition in the Peloponnesian war shews how numerous were the statues erected to one divinity only. Time had added many to the number before St Paul’s visit.

Acts 17:16 . Παρωξύνετο ] was irritated ( 1 Corinthians 13:5 ; Dem. 514. 10 : ὠργίσθη καὶ παρωξύνθη ) at the high degree of heathen darkness and perversity ( Romans 1:21 ff.) which prevailed at Athens. τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ] comp. John 11:33 ; John 11:38 . The genitive θεωροῦντος , mentally attached to αὐτοῦ (see the critical remarks): because he saw . κατείδωλον ] fall of images, of idols , not preserved elsewhere in Greek, but formed according to usual analogies ( κατάμπελος , κατάδενδρος , κατάχρυσος , κατάλιθος , al. ). Athens , the centre of Hellenic worship and art, united zeal for both in a pre-eminent degree, and was—especially at that period of political decay, when outward ritual and show in the sphere of religion and superstition flourished among the people alongside of the philosophical self-sufficiency of the higher scholastic wisdom among people of culture—full of temples and altars, of priests and other persons connected with worship, who had to minister at an innumerable number of pompous festivals. See Paus. i. 24. 3; Strabo, x. p. 472; Liv. xlv. 27; Xen. Rep. Ath . iii. 2; and Wetstein in loc .

(16) His spirit was stirred in him. —The verb is the root of the noun from which we get our “paroxysm,” and which is translated by “sharp contention” in Acts 15:39 . Athens, glorying now, as it had done in the days of Sophocles ( Œdip. Col. 1008), in its devotion to the gods, presented to him, even after seeing Tarsus and Antioch, a new aspect. The city was “full of idols;” Hermes-busts at every corner, statues and altars in the atrium or court-yard of every house, temples and porticos and colonnades, all presenting what was to him the same repulsive spectacle. He looked on the Theseus and the Ilissus, and the friezes of the Centaurs and Lapithæ on the Parthenon, as we look on them in our museums, but any sense of art-beauty which he may have had (and it was probably, in any case, but weak) was over-powered by his horror that men should bow down and worship what their own hands had made. The beauty of form which we admire in the Apollo or the Aphrodite, the Mercury or the Faun, would be to him, in its unveiled nakedness, a thing to shudder at. He knew too well to what that love of sensuous beauty had led in Greek and Roman life ( Romans 1:24-27 ), when it had thrown aside what, to a Jew, were not only the natural instincts of purity, but the sanctions of a divine command ( Genesis 9:22 ).