Acts 17:33

Acts 17:33. So Paul departed from among them. We never hear of his visiting Athens again, nor does he ever in any of his subsequently written letters make mention of the beautiful idol city. Meyer suggests that the speech of Paul at Athens contains three divisions: (a) Theology, Acts 17:24-25; (b) Anthropology, Acts 17:26-29; (c) Christology, Acts 17:30. This third division was never developed, but was abruptly brought to a conclusion owing to Paul being requested to defer the rest of his address until some future time. Milman (History of Christianity, vol ii.) beautifully observes upon the effect the apostle's words must have had upon his philosophic audience: ‘Up to a certain point in this high view of the Supreme Being, the philosopher of the Garden as well as of the Porch might listen with wonder and admiration. It soared indeed high above the vulgar religion; and in the lofty and serene Deity who disdained to dwell in the earthly temple and needed nothing from the hand of man, the Epicurean might almost suppose that he heard the language of his own teacher. But the next sentence which asserted the providence of God as the active creative energy, as the conservative, the ruling, the ordaining principle, annihilated at once the atomic theory and the government of blind chance to which Epicurus ascribed the origin and preservation of the universe.'

It is interesting to remember that Paul was alone at Athens, and that therefore the report of the speech must have been given to the writer of the ‘Acts' by the apostle himself.