Acts 17:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

See how this is arranged while he involuntarily remains here, waiting for his companions.

What does "was stirred" mean? In other words, he was moved with zeal. This gift is far from anger and indignation.

He could not bear it and was grieved in spirit.

Zeal in honoring the gods was the glory of Athens in the ancient world. Each god had his temple and altars there. Each was glorified by monuments of art.

At first Paul intended to wait for the arrival of Timothy and Silas before beginning his work there. Therefore, through the guides who were returning to Berea, he instructed them to come to Athens as soon as possible.

But when he saw himself surrounded by idols, altars, and temples, all works of art usurping the honor due to the one living God, he could not long resist the impulse of holy zeal.

He had to bear witness to Him who calls the erring to repentance and promises them salvation.

He preached not only in the synagogue to Jews and proselytes. Nor did he wait there, as in other cities, to find through the proselytes a path to the Gentiles.

From ancient times it had been customary in Athens to gather under covered porticoes in the public squares. There people discussed matters both trivial and important.

At that time, as in the days of Demosthenes, there gathered a multitude of people who valued nothing so much as news. Therefore Paul came there each day.

He sought somehow to connect his own conversations about the most important things for man with the discussions then current.

The enthusiasm that animated him had nothing in common with the enthusiasm of fanatics. Such enthusiasm is carried away by a one-sided direction of the heart.

It cannot see that this very direction becomes an obstacle for others to recognize as truth what appears so to the fanatic.

Paul knew very well, as he himself says, that preaching the crucified Savior of mankind can seem foolishness to the wise of this age. This is so as long as they themselves remain foolish.

That is, it remains so until they have recognized the insufficiency of their own wisdom for knowing divine things and for satisfying man's religious needs (1 Cor 1:23-9:18).

Yet he was not ashamed, as he again confesses, to bear witness before the wise as well as the ignorant, before Greeks and barbarians.

He bore witness to that in which, from his own experience, he found the power of God making blessed all who receive it with faith (Rom 1:16).

But useful as this helper was, Paul, concerned for the state of the young Thessalonian Church, sent him to Thessalonica and remained alone in Athens.

After this, Silas and Timothy met the apostle in Corinth (Acts 18:5).

Seeing everywhere around him the traces of pagan falsehood and corruption, he began his preaching without helpers.

Through it he strove to oppose the darkness of errors and vices in which he saw the city's inhabitants immersed.

On the Sabbaths he conversed in the synagogue with Jews and proselytes.

But in order not to leave the Gentiles without admonition, he made use of the Athenians' love for novelties and discussions (v. 21), and conversed daily in the marketplace with those who happened to be there.

Such a striking change of position would have troubled anyone. But the divinely inspired preacher of the Cross, clothed with power from above, went fearlessly to meet every danger and even death.

He boldly entered the philosophical city.

As he passed through the streets of the city, the apostle looked with wonder at the richness and variety of its historical and artistic monuments.

Everything here vividly recalled the majestic images of the great past. In the streets and squares stood statues of great men and heroes.

But beside them the apostle's keen gaze noticed a multitude of other statues that represented gods. Before them altars smoked.

There were so many such statues, with temples belonging to them, that the Apostle Paul was stirred in spirit.

His spirit was stirred still more when he looked closely at the Athenians themselves.

Some bowed reverently before the idols. Others passed by them with a smile, and on all there lay the mark of a certain emptiness and frivolity.

No, Athenians, the stirred apostle might have said to himself, you are not the light of the world, but darkness for it.

Not without reason did the eccentric sage light a torch in broad daylight, in order to find among you at least one man.

People always admired them, and even now admire the beauty and elegance of these works in their ruins, fragments, and copies.

But what delights and has delighted men stirred to the highest degree the whole moral being of the greatest and chief of the apostles.

He saw in this the darkening and corruption of human nature (cf. Rom 1:21 and following).

Paul was waiting here for Silas and Timothy, so that with united efforts they might more successfully oppose this darkening and corruption, hidden under captivating forms of beauty and elegance.

Yet Saint John Chrysostom says, "He was rightly grieved, for nowhere could one see so many idols." Here irritation does not mean anger or indignation, but fervor of soul. So also elsewhere it is said, "there arose a sharp contention" (Acts 15:39). He could not endure it, and was grieved in spirit.

The second feature of ancient Athens, as the writer of Acts notes in verse 21, was its passion for public conversations. This was more congenial to Paul. Thus, as though making himself like many others, he spoke daily in the marketplace with all who met him.

His usual preaching in the synagogue before the Jews and proselytes continued in its proper course. "See," says Saint John Chrysostom, "how he again speaks with the Jews. By this he stops the mouths of those who claim that he abandoned them when he turned to the Gentiles."

Having become a follower of the Crucified One, Saint Paul was wholly freed from every trace of Jewish rigorism. Wisely and lovingly he allowed the natural expressions of the human spirit.

Among these belongs the desire to express, in material form, the outward and inward beauty of man. The Apostle Paul sets only one condition: that all things be profitable, and that all things serve edification and salvation (cf. 1 Cor 10:23; 6:12).

Standing before the wondrous statues of the great sculptors of Hellas, the apostle could not fail to know that the art which created these works was a great gift of God.

Yet Paul also saw that here truth had been suppressed by unrighteousness. Beauty had been deeply swallowed up by the shamelessness of vice and poisoned by the venom of vile idolatry. Its incense smoked upon altars before many statues.