Acts 17:16

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 provokedwithin 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.