Acts 17:16

ἐκδεχομένου, cf. 1 Corinthians 11:33; 1 Corinthians 16:11, rare in classical Greek in this sense. παρωξύνετο : “was provoked,” R.V., only found elsewhere in N.T. in St. Paul's own description of ἀγάπη, 1 Corinthians 13:5; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:39 (see note) and Hebrews 10:24 for the cognate noun, see on the latter, Westcott, in loco. In LXX both verb and noun are used for burning with anger, or for violent anger, passion, Hosea 8:5; Zechariah 10:3; Deuteronomy 29:28; Jeremiah 39 (32):37; cf. Dem., 514, 10; ὠργίσθη καὶ παρωξύνθη (Meyer-Wendt). τὸ πνεῦμα : expression principally used in Paul, cf. 1 Corinthians 2:11; Romans 1:9; Romans 8:16, etc. Blass calls it periphrasis hebraica, and cf. Luke 1:47. θεωροῦντες : “beheld,” R.V., as of contemplation in thought, Latin, contemplari. κατείδωλον : “full of idols,” R.V. the rendering “wholly given to idolatry” was not true, i.e., idolatry in the sense of worshipping the innumerable idols. If the city had been sincerely devoted to idol worship St. Paul might have had more to appeal to, “verum monumenta pietatis reperiebat Paulus, non ipsam, quæ dudum evanuerat,” Blass. A.V. follows Vulgate, “idololatriæ deditum”. The adjective is found only here, but it is formed after the analogy of κατάδενδρος, κατάμπελος, so Hermann, ad Vig., p. 638 (1824), “ κατείδωλος πόλις non est, uti quidam opinantur, simulacris dedita urbs, sed simulacris referta ”. No word could have been more fitly chosen to describe the aspect of Athens to St. Paul as he wandered through it, a city which had been described as ὅλη βωμός, ὅλη θῦμα θεοῖς καὶ ἀνάθημα, see below on Acts 17:17. Before he actually entered the city, as he walked along the Hamaxitos road, St. Paul would have seen altars raised at intervals to the unknown gods, as both Pausanias and Philostratus testify, see “Athens,” F.C. Conybeare, in Hastings' B.D. “He took these incomparable figures for idols,” writes Renan (Saint Paul, p. 172) as he describes the beautiful sculptured forms upon which the eyes of the Apostle would be fixed, but the man who could write Romans 1 must have been keenly alive to the dangers which followed upon “the healthy sensualism of the Greeks”.