XVII. (1) NOW WHEN THEY HAD PASSED THROUGH AMPHIPOLIS AND APOLLONIA. — The two cities were both on the great Roman roads known as the _Via Egnatia._ Amphipolis, formerly known as Ennea Hodoi, or the Nine Ways, was famous in the Peloponnesian War as the scene of the death of Brasidas, and had been ma... [ Continue Reading ]
PAUL, AS HIS MANNER WAS ... — What we read of as occurring in the Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:14), was, we may believe, now reproduced. That he was allowed to preach for three Sabbaths in succession, shows the respect commanded by his character as a Rabbi, and, it may be, by his earnest eloquence. Tho... [ Continue Reading ]
OPENING AND ALLEGING. — The latter word is used in the sense of bringing forward proofs, and the two words imply an argument from the prophecies of the Messiah, like in kind to that at the Pisidian Antioch. In the intervals between the Sabbaths, the Apostle worked, as usual, for his livelihood, prob... [ Continue Reading ]
AND SOME OF THEM... — Obviously but a few in comparison with the “great multitude of the Greek proselytes of the gate. The Thessalonian Church was predominantly Gentile, some, apparently, won from idolatry without passing through Judaism (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Some good MSS., indeed, express this, b... [ Continue Reading ]
THE JEWS WHICH BELIEVED NOT. — The latter words are wanting in many MSS., as “filled with envy” are in others. CERTAIN LEWD FELLOWS OF THE BASER SORT. — The word “lewd” is used in its older sense, as meaning vile, worthless. At a still earlier stage of its history, as in Chaucer and the Vision of P... [ Continue Reading ]
UNTO THE RULERS OF THE CITY. — The Greek term here, _politarchæ,_ is a very peculiar one, and occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, nor, indeed, in any classical writer. Aristotle, whose _Politics_ well-nigh exhausts the list of all known official titles in Greek cities, does not mention it, alt... [ Continue Reading ]
THESE ALL DO CONTRARY TO THE DECREES OF CÆSAR. — Thessalonica, though a free city, was yet under the imperial government, and the Jews therefore appeal to the emperor’s decree, probably to the edict of Claudius (Acts 18:2), as at least showing the drift of the emperor’s policy, even though it was no... [ Continue Reading ]
AND WHEN THEY HAD TAKEN SECURITY OF JASON. — The Greek noun, probably used as an equivalent for the Latin _satis accipere,_ in common use in legal language, is a technical one (literally, _the sufficient sum_) for the bail which Jason was required to give for the good conduct of his guests, and for... [ Continue Reading ]
SENT AWAY PAUL AND SILAS BY NIGHT UNTO BEREA. — Timotheus apparently remained behind, partly to help the Thessalonian converts under their present trials, partly to be able to bring word to St. Paul as to their condition. At Berœa Paul and Silas were alone. The city lay to the south of Thessalonica,... [ Continue Reading ]
THESE WERE MORE NOBLE THAN THOSE IN THESSALONICA. — The word for “noble” (literally, _well-born,_ as in 1 Corinthians 1:26) had. like most words of like origin (such, _e.g.,_ as the Latin _ingenuus_)_,_ a wide latitude of meaning. Here it stands for the generous, loyal temper which was ideally suppo... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE MANY OF THEM BELIEVED. — The narrator dwells with satisfaction on the fact that at Berœa there were many Jewish as well as Gentile converts. Among the latter there were, as at Thessalonica, women of the upper class.... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY CAME THITHER ALSO, AND STIRRED UP THE PEOPLE. — To the unbelieving Jews of Thessalonica the conversions at Berœa were simply a cause of offence. It is apparently with reference to this that St. Paul says of them that “they please not God and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to th... [ Continue Reading ]
TO GO AS IT WERE TO THE SEA. — The English version conveys the impression that the movement was a feint in order to baffle the pursuers. Many of the better MSS., however, give “as far as the sea,” and this is probably the meaning even of the reading followed by the Authorised version. The absence of... [ Continue Reading ]
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 afte... [ Continue Reading ]
AND IN THE MARKET DAILY. — To teach in the synagogue, and to gather the devout persons, _i.e.,_ the proselytes to whom the Law had been a schoolmaster, leading them to Christ, was after the usual pattern of St. Paul’s work. The third mode of action, disputing in the market-place, the _agora,_ which... [ Continue Reading ]
CERTAIN PHILOSOPHERS OF THE EPICUREANS, AND OF THE STOICKS. — The two schools were at this time the great representatives of Greek thought. The former took its name from its founder, Epicurus, who lived a long and tranquil life at Athens, from B.C. 342 to 270. As holding their meetings in a garden,... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY TOOK HIM, AND BROUGHT HIM UNTO AREOPAGUS. — The name may stand either for the Hill of Mars, simply as a locality, or for the Court which sat there, and was known as the Court of the Areopagus, and which, as the oldest and most revered tribunal in Athens, owing its origin to Athena, and connecte... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU BRINGEST CERTAIN STRANGE THINGS. — The adjective stands for a Greek participle, _things that startle,_ or _leave an impression of strangeness. _... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR ALL THE ATHENIANS AND STRANGERS. — The restless inquisitiveness of the Athenian character had been all along proverbial. In words which St. Luke almost reproduces, Demosthenes (_Philipp._ i., p. 43) had reproached them with idling their time away in the _agora,_ asking what news there was of Phi... [ Continue Reading ]
PAUL STOOD IN THE MIDST OF MARS’ HILL. — Better, _Areopagus,_ as before. The Court sat in the open air on benches forming three sides of a quadrangle. A short flight of sixteen steps, cut in the rock, led from the _agora_ to the plateau where the Court held its sittings. If it was actually sitting a... [ Continue Reading ]
I PERCEIVE THAT IN ALL THINGS YE ARE TOO SUPERSTITIOUS. — Better, _I observe you as being in all things more fearful of the gods than others._ It is not easy to express the exact force of the Greek adjective. “Superstitious” is, perhaps, too strong on the side of blame; “devout,” on the side of prai... [ Continue Reading ]
GOD THAT MADE THE WORLD... — The masculine form of the pronoun and participles throughout the sentence presents an emphatic contrast to the neuter pronoun of the previous verse. SEEING THAT HE IS LORD. — Better, _He, being Lord._ DWELLETH NOT IN TEMPLES MADE WITH HANDS. — We note with special inter... [ Continue Reading ]
NEITHER IS WORSHIPPED WITH MEN’S HANDS, AS THOUGH HE NEEDED ANY THING. — Literally, _as needing anything in addition._ The previous words had struck at a false theory of temples, this strikes at a false theory of worship. Men have to think of God as the supreme Giver, not as requiring anything at th... [ Continue Reading ]
AND HATH MADE OF ONE BLOOD ALL NATIONS OF MEN. — Literally, _every nation._ The previous verses had given what we may venture to call St. Paul’s Philosophy of Religion. This gives his Philosophy of History. And the position was one which no Greek, above all, no Athenian, was likely to accept. For hi... [ Continue Reading ]
SHOULD SEEK THE LORD, IF HAPLY THEY MIGHT FEEL AFTER HIM, AND FIND HIM. — The word for “feel after” expresses strictly the act of groping in the dark. From the Apostle’s point of view, anticipating in part the great _Theodikæa_ — the vindication of the ways of God — in the Epistle to the Romans, the... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR IN HIM WE LIVE, AND MOVE, AND HAVE OUR BEING. — Better, _we live, and are moved, and are._ Each of the verbs used has a definite philosophical significance. The first points to our animal life; the second — from which is derived the Greek word used by ethical writers for passions, such as fear,... [ Continue Reading ]
FORASMUCH THEN AS WE ARE THE OFFSPRING OF GOD. — One consequence from the thought of son-ship is pressed home at once. If we are God’s offspring our conception of Him should mount upward from what is highest in ourselves, from our moral and spiritual nature, instead of passing downward to that which... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE TIMES OF THIS IGNORANCE GOD WINKED AT. — Better, perhaps, _overlooked,_ the English phrase, though vivid, being somewhat too familiar, and suggesting; strictly taken, not merely tolerance, but connivance and concurrence. The thought is one in which St. Paul manifestly found comfort. He sees... [ Continue Reading ]
BECAUSE HE HATH APPOINTED A DAY. — Here the speaker would seem, to both sets of hearers, to be falling back into popular superstition. Minos and Rhadamanthus, and Tartarus and the Elysian Fields, — these they had learnt to dismiss, as belonging to the childhood of the individual and of mankind, — “... [ Continue Reading ]
SOME MOCKED: AND OTHERS SAID, WE WILL HEAR THEE AGAIN. — The word “mocked” implies look and gesture, as well as words, of derision. (See Note on Acts 2:13.) We may venture to assume that the mockers were found chiefly among the Epicureans, and that the inquirers, perhaps putting off the inquiry to a... [ Continue Reading ]
CERTAIN MEN CLAVE UNTO HIM. — The word implies practically both companionship and conversion. There was an attractive power in the Apostle’s character that drew men unto him. DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE. — As the constitution of the Court of the Areopagus required its members to have filled a high mag... [ Continue Reading ]