Chapter Seventeen

Paul in Thessalonica and Beroea (1–14). Paul in Athens (15–34).

Acts 17:1. Having passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. “Amphipolis” — an Athenian colony, at that time the chief city of the first district of Macedonia, on the river Strymon, to the southwest of Philippi. “Apollonia” — a small city to the southwest of Amphipolis, at that time counted among the Macedonian province of Mygdonia. “Thessalonica” or Solun (formerly Therma) — the chief city of the second district of Macedonia, on the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea, the residence of the Roman praetor, a commercial and densely populated city. There were very many Jews here, and a synagogue existed.

Acts 17:2. Paul, according to his custom, went to them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, “As was his custom.” Everywhere Paul went to preach, he turned first to the Jews, and only afterward to the pagans (cf. Acts 13:46 and others). “He went in to them” — that is, into the synagogue.

Acts 17:3. explaining and demonstrating to them that it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and that this Christ is Jesus, whom I am proclaiming to you. “The writer has set forth only the substance of the discourse — so he is not verbose and does not always present Paul’s complete speeches” (Chrysostom).

Acts 17:4. And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great multitude of the Greeks who worshiped God, and quite a number of prominent women. Among those persuaded by Paul’s preaching, besides Jews, there were a great many “Greeks who worshiped God,” that is, proselytes, to whom the women mentioned here probably also belonged.

Acts 17:5. But the Jews who did not believe, being jealous, rounded up some wicked men from the marketplace and formed a mob and set the city in an uproar and, rushing to the house of Jason, were trying to bring Paul and Silas out to the people. Who exactly was Jason — in whose house, as is evident, the apostles were staying — is unknown: since Jews of the diaspora readily adopted Greek names, he could have been either a Hellenist Jew or a pure-blooded Hellene proselyte, in both cases a believer in Christ, though this is not stated explicitly.

Acts 17:6. Not finding them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting that these troublers of the whole world have come here too, Acts 17:7. and Jason has taken them in, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king — Jesus. Not finding the apostles in Jason’s house — they had probably departed in advance — the mob drags Jason himself along with some believing brothers before the court, accusing him of having given shelter to the “troublemakers” of the whole world — an exaggeration expressing the extreme agitation of the crowd and its hatred for the preachers of the Gospel and for all Christians. For better effect in their accusations, the embittered Jews give them a political coloring — the same device so successfully employed against Jesus (John 19 and parallels) — claiming that the Christians honor not the Roman Caesar as king but Jesus.

Acts 17:9. But they, having taken bail from Jason and the others, released them. “But..., having taken security” — καί λαβόντες τό ικανόν — Slavonic: “having taken sufficient” — taking enough, that is, apparently, money as a pledge or fine, or still more accurately — having received sufficient information that the accused were by no means criminals against the majesty of the emperor, but entirely peaceful people.

Acts 17:10. The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea; and on arriving there they went to the Jewish synagogue. The brothers sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroea, since the unrest could have flared up again at any moment with fresh force. Beroea — a city to the southwest of Thessalonica, in the third part of Macedonia (whose chief city was Pella) and at its southernmost boundary.

Acts 17:11. These were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians: they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. “Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica...” — Greek: οῦτοι δέ ῆσαν ευγενέστεροι — Slavonic: “more noble” — nobler in character and spirit. “Whether these things were so,” that is, as Paul had preached.

Acts 17:12. And many of them believed, along with a good number of prominent Greek women and men. Acts 17:13. But when the Thessalonian Jews learned that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Berea as well, they came there too, stirring up and inciting the crowds. Acts 17:14. Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off as though he were heading to the sea; but Silas and Timothy remained there. The brothers send away only Paul. Why? Because, evidently, it was against him in particular that the disturbance being prepared by the Thessalonian agitators was directed. “They send away (Chrysostom says) only Paul, because they feared for him, lest he should suffer something, since he was their leader. Thus, grace did not always act, but left them to act in a human way as well, rousing them and disposing them to vigilance and attention.” “As if going to the sea” — Greek: εξαπέστειλαν πορεύεσθαι ως επί τήν θάλασσαν — Slavonic: “they sent him off to go toward the seashore” — they sent him off to go in the direction of the sea (ως with a preposition extends the meaning of the latter, making it less definite). Paul probably traveled to Athens by sea; in this way he better concealed his trail from the Jews who were pursuing him closely and hampered their pursuit. “Athens” — the chief city of Greece, the center of Greek science, art, civilization, commerce, and luxury of that time.

Acts 17:15. Those who escorted Paul brought him all the way to Athens and, having received instructions for Silas and Timothy to come to him as quickly as possible, they departed. Paul was waiting for Silas and Timothy to come to him in Athens, but encountered them only in Corinth (Acts 18:5), having been compelled, no doubt, to leave Athens earlier than he had originally intended. From 1 Thess 2:18-3:2 one may, it is true, conclude that Timothy did come to Paul in Athens, but was sent back by him to Macedonia — specifically to Thessalonica — and then, together with Silas who had remained in Beroea, arrived to Paul in Corinth.

Acts 17:16. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was stirred within him at the sight of the city full of idols. Acts 17:17. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God, and daily in the marketplace with those he encountered. “He reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God,” that is, with proselytes. This was evidently on the Sabbaths, but in the intervals between Sabbaths Paul was also not idle, “every day” entering into conversation “in the marketplace with those who happened to be there.” How restless was his great soul!

Acts 17:18. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers started to argue with him; and some were saying: ‘What is this babbler trying to say?’, while others said: ‘He seems to be proclaiming foreign deities,’ because he was proclaiming to them Jesus and the resurrection. “Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers...” who at that time enjoyed the greatest popularity and stood in the sharpest contrast to Christianity. At the foundation of the first system — the Epicureans — lay, as is well known, the crudest materialism and nihilism; at the foundation of the second — self-enclosed pride and self-delusion.

Acts 17:19. And, taking him, they led him to the Areopagus and said: May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? Acts 17:20. For you are putting some strange things into our ears. We therefore want to know what these things mean. “They took him and brought him” — not by force, but evidently with Paul’s consent, since he accepted their invitation. “The Areopagus” — the meeting place and seat of the Supreme Council of Greek democracy for deliberating on state, public, and judicial matters. This institution retained its significance, though not in all respects, even after Greece’s subjection to Rome. This Supreme Council consisted of the best and most distinguished citizens. The place of assembly — the Hill of Ares, adjoining the great marketplace (Acts 17:17) — was conveniently situated so that all the multitude of people from the adjacent square could hear Paul. It was here that he was brought — not for trial, but out of a desire to hear a more detailed account of his teaching in view of its novelty, of which the Athenians were generally very fond (Acts 17:21). “And they said, may we know?” Refined irony seasoned with Athenian courtesy, presupposing the insignificance of the new teaching before Athenian wisdom. The same irony resounds in the further phrase: “you bring some strange things to our ears.”

Acts 17:21. Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living among them spent their time in nothing else but telling or hearing something new. The Athenians’ love of novelties revealed their instability and the absence of a deep and serious desire to know the truth. “Their city was a city of idle talkers” (Chrysostom).

Acts 17:22. And Paul, standing in the middle of the Areopagus, said: Athenians! I see that in every respect you are especially devout. Paul’s speech in the Areopagus to the Athenians presents a supreme example of apostolic wisdom and eloquence, and of his constant application of his own rule — to be to the pagans as though a pagan, in order to win the pagans for the Gospel (1 Cor 9:19-22). With careful, supremely subtle, and restrained expressions he circumvents everything that might irritate the pagan pride of these representatives of worldly wisdom, having with remarkable resourcefulness found a point of contact between his teaching and this wisdom in the altar to “the unknown God,” which gave him so splendid an opening for a brilliant speech — a speech whose spiritual power found a worthy outward expression satisfying all the requirements of a well-crafted secular address. Gradually, from the simpler to the more complex, with irrefutable consistency, he unfolds the system of Christian teaching, preaching: 1) about the one God, Creator of the world and of humanity (Acts 17:22-26), 2) about the purpose and laws of human life (Acts 17:27-29), which make so natural also the teaching about redemption and the coming judgment (Acts 17:30-31). “Very religious” — ως δεισιδαιμονεστέρους... Δεισαίμων — one who fears demons, who worships everything — wood and stone and spirits alike. It appears that the apostle is, as it were, praising the Athenians, but at the same time repaying their irony with his own — no less subtle and bitter — characterizing their religiosity with a word that expresses the essence of all pagan piety: superstition, demon-fear. This refined irony is intensified further by the “praise” of their “especially” devout quality, by which they surpassed all other Greeks. This comparative devoutness of the Athenians is attested also by Greek writers themselves, such as Isocrates, Plato, Sophocles, and Xenophon.

Acts 17:23. For as I was passing through and observing your objects of worship, I found also an altar on which was inscribed: ‘To an unknown God.’ This One, whom you worship without knowing, I proclaim to you. “To the unknown God.” The full inscription on the altar, according to Theophylact’s testimony, read as follows: “To the gods of Asia, Europe, and Libya. To the unknown and foreign God.” By this inscription the Athenians wished to say: “Perhaps there is yet some other god whom we do not know, and since we do not know him, though he is a god, we are making a mistake by neglecting and not honoring him.” Therefore they erected a temple and made the inscription “to the unknown God,” saying by this inscription: if there is yet some other god whom we do not know, then him also shall we honor (Theophylact). “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” The Athenians were accusing Paul of introducing new teaching, new gods. Therefore, wishing to free himself from suspicion and to show that he is proclaiming not a new god but the One whom they had already honored with worship before him, he says: you anticipated me, your worship of him preceded my proclamation, because I am announcing to you that god whom you honor without knowing him. “I am proposing nothing strange, nothing new,” he says. They kept telling him: what is this new teaching that you are presenting? (Acts 17:19). Therefore he immediately removes their prejudice” (Chrysostom).

Acts 17:24. The God who made the world and everything in it, He, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by human hands, Acts 17:25. nor is served by human hands as though He were in need of anything, since He himself gives to all things life and breath and everything. “The God who made the world.” “He said one thing and overturned all the philosophers’ positions. The Epicureans maintain that everything came about of itself and from atoms, but he says that the world and everything in it is the work of God” (Theophylact). “Does not live in temples made by human hands.” Lest anyone should think a mere one of their many gods was being proclaimed, Paul corrects what has been said, adding: “he does not live in temples made by human hands,” but in the human soul, and does not require service by human hands, such as the offering of sacrifices and so forth. “How? Did not God dwell in the temple in Jerusalem? No, he only acted there. Did he not receive the service of human hands among the Jews? Not of hands, but of the soul — and even this he required not because he needed it” (Chrysostom). “Giving to all” — διδούς πᾶσι — Slavonic: “giving to all,” that is, to people above all, and then to all creatures. “Life” — the principle of existence, life-force. “Breath” — the capacity to sustain life through breathing. “Everything” — everything necessary for life.

Acts 17:26. From one blood He made the entire human race to inhabit the whole face of the earth, having appointed predetermined times and the boundaries of their habitation, “From one blood” — from one man, the progenitor, from one pair of first parents. Since blood — both according to the biblical view (Lev 17:11) and according to the view of the ancients generally — was considered the seat of the soul, the expression about the origin of all from one blood means origin not only in body but also in soul from the same common ancestors — in contrast to the pagan fables about the origin of different peoples from different progenitors. Presenting all humanity as a single whole, by virtue of descent from one blood, the narrator rightly calls it created by the one God, Creator of the whole world, by virtue of the immediate origin of the first pair from the hands of the Creator himself. “Having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” — a remarkable thought of the apostle, that the Lord is not only the Creator of humanity but also its Providence — the Creator of its history, within limits that do not deprive humanity of the freedom it needs.

Acts 17:27. so that they might seek God, if perhaps they might feel after Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us: The supreme purpose of the person and of humanity is the seeking of God, the entering into a living, heartfelt communion with him — for which the person has been given not only such reliable guides as the Word of God, but also one’s own inner promptings and inclinations, ranging from barely perceptible ones to the most reliable and evident, explained by the very immediate nearness of the Deity to each one of us.

Acts 17:28. for in Him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said: ‘for we are indeed His offspring.’ “In him we live” — Εν αντῶ — more precisely — in him — (Slavonic: “in him”), so that outside of him there is and can be neither life, nor motion, nor space, nor time. Chrysostom explains it thus: “As though pointing to an analogous material example: just as it is impossible not to know the air, which is spread everywhere and is not far from any one of us, or rather — is present within us ourselves, so too is the Creator of all things. See how Paul attributes everything to him — care, preservation, existence, activity, and continuation. And he did not say ‘through him,’ but — what indicates greater closeness — ‘in him.’” “We live, move, and have our being” — an emphatic expression meaning that outside of God, no kind of existence whatever is possible to conceive. The words quoted from “certain poets” — “we are his offspring” — are found, among other places, in Aratus of Cilicia, hence Paul’s fellow-countryman, who lived in the 3rd century BC, in his astronomical poem (Φαινόμενα), from which they appear to have been taken with literal precision. A similar saying is found in the poet Cleanthes, a disciple of Zeno (in his Hymn to Zeus — “we are your offspring”). In both poets mentioned the reference is properly to Zeus, but Paul, with the same bold rhetorical device as above (“to the unknown God”), applies this saying to the One True God, “meaning, in Chrysostom’s words, not the same thing that Aratus meant by it — God forbid! — but applying to him what was properly said of another; just as he also attributed the altar (with the inscription ‘to the unknown God!’) to him, and not to the one they worshiped. He called us the offspring of God, that is, his very close kinsmen, since from our race God was pleased to be born on earth. And he did not say: we must not think the Deity is like gold or silver, but used a more humble turn of phrase: ‘we must not.’” “See how he draws proofs from what was done and said by them themselves...”

Acts 17:29. Being therefore the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold or silver or stone, shaped by human artistry and imagination. If we are God’s offspring, it is contrary to sound reason to think that the Deity is like that which is not kindred to him — just as it is not kindred to us, his offspring — that is, to gold, silver, and so on. The Deity can only be like us, people who constitute his offspring: in human beings one must seek this divine likeness, from them ascend in thought to their Prototype and Likeness (which shone forth in its highest perfection in the God-Man). The inadequacy of paganism is thus exposed in two ways: from the incompatibility of the material of the venerated “gods” with the nature of the Deity, and from the actual non-existence of the depicted gods themselves. From this one can also see the vast difference between Christian icon veneration and pagan idol worship: in holy icons, the nature of the Deity is depicted not by material substance but by the character of the images, by their idea; and this idea is drawn not from the inventions of fantasy but from the world of reality, from the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, his saints, from the whole content of the Word of God and the living, real life of humanity.

Acts 17:30. The times of ignorance God has therefore overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, “The times of ignorance” — of divine truth — “overlooking,” that is, without imputation, on condition of what is proposed further — “God now commands... all everywhere to repent.” “Now” — from this time forward, which has the significance of a turning point in history. “He commands” — as the sovereign Lord of all humanity. “All everywhere” — this designates the universality of Christianity’s calling for the whole human race, regardless of whether one is a Greek or a Jew, a barbarian or a free person. “To repent” — to acknowledge one’s errors and to reject them.

Acts 17:31. because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world with justice by a Man whom He has appointed for this purpose, having given proof of this to all by raising Him from the dead. As the most powerful incentive to repentance and to the fulfillment of God’s will, the establishment by God of a fixed day for the future judgment of all humanity is pointed out. “By the appointed” — that is, in the eternal council of God — “Man,” that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, the assurance of whose authority is his own resurrection from the dead.

Acts 17:32. When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said: We will hear you about this again at another time. “We will hear you again about this” — an ironically polite expression of unwillingness to listen to the apostle’s preaching.

Acts 17:34. Some men, however, joined him and believed; among them was Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. “Some” — apparently “few.” “Joined him” — entering into closer communion (Acts 5:12). “Dionysius the Areopagite...” — that is, a member of the Areopagus, and therefore a distinguished and educated man, of the kind from whom members of the Areopagus were customarily chosen. According to church tradition, he became the most devoted disciple of the Apostle Paul, was appointed bishop of Athens by him, then preached the Gospel in Gaul and died a martyr’s death in Paris. “Damaris” — according to tradition — the wife of Dionysius.