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merits of wicked men. a) Caution requires that we should qualify our condemnation of those who are accused of crime; for they may have been too hastily and harshly condemned, and we should not bring false charges against our fellow-beings, even if they be sinners. b) Love requires that we ascribe to base men, all the good qualities with which their heavenly Father has endued them. c) Prudence requires that we pay due regard to their excellences, so that we may derive profit from them. They who do much evil are capable of doing much good, are sometimes the ablest of our race. We should recognize their ability and make a prudent use of it. d.) The example of God and Christ requires that we properly appreciate the good qualities of bad men. Notwithstanding their transgressions, their Father in heaven blesses, in his providence, the mental power, the natural virtues, the industrious efforts of his enemies. Christ looked with favor upon certain characteristics of the Samaritans, the heathen, publicans and sinners.

But let us, in the third place, prescribe some rules which we must never lose sight of in paying the merited respect to the wicked. a) We must by all means guard against that indifference toward the sins of bad men which is apt to arise from an esteem for their good qualities. They are dangerous persons to associate with, for their shining accomplishments often blind our eyes to their dark faults. b) We should guard against intimate connections with them. We should esteem whatever is estimable in their characters, and at the same time cherish an abhorrence of their perverseness, and therefore refuse to admit them to a near intercourse with us. c) We should remember that no man can be a true Christian while he allows any one sin to have dominion over him. We are tempted to palliate the wickedness of some, by imagining that they atone for it by certain noble virtues. But if they habitually indulge in any single violation of the law, they cannot be disciples of Christ.

ARTICLE VI.

THE DISCOURSE OF PAUL AT ATHENS. A COMMENTARY ON ACTS 17: 16-34.

By Professor H. B. Hackett, Newton Theological Institution.

It was in the course of his second missionary tour that the apostle Paul came to Athens. From Troas in Asia Minor, he had crossed the northern part of the Egean Sea into Europe, landing at Neapolis in Thrace, but passing on thence directly to Philippi in Macedonia where he remained and labored for some time. From there he followed the course of the great military road leading from the north of Greece to the south, as far as to Berea; whence having been driven away after a short residence by the machinations of the Jews, he set forward again, and proceeded, in all probability by sea, to Athens. It is at this point that we take up the narrative in the present Article.

The antecedent Circumstances.

Vv. 16-21. Effect of the idolatry at Athens on the mind of Paul. V. 16. Exdezoμérov avrovs, while he was waiting for them, viz. Silas and Timothy whom he had left at Berea, and to whom he had sent a message that they should rejoin him as soon as possible; see v. 15. The most natural inference from 1 Thess. 3: 1, is that Timothy, at least, soon arrived in accordance with Paul's expectation, but was immediately sent away by the apostle to Thessalonica. As Silas, however, is not mentioned in that passage, it has been supposed that he may have failed for some reason to come at this time, or if he came, that like Timothy, he may have left again at once, but for a different destination; which last circumstance would account for the omission of his name at this place in the letter. Our next notice of them in the Acts, occurs in 18: 5, where they are represented as coming down from Macedonia to Corinth, which is consistent either with the supposition just stated,-the intermediate journey having been passed over here in silence, or with the view that they went directly to Corinth from Berea without having gone to Athens at all. Still other combinations are possible. παρωξύνετο — ἐν αὐτῷ, his spirit was aroused in him, comp. 15: 39. 1 Cor. 13: 5. The verb expresses not merely a strong but specific emotion: He was deeply moved with a

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feeling allied to that of indignation, at such a profanation of the worship due to God as he saw presenting itself to his view at every point. zarɛídwkov, an objective term, full of idols. The word is otherwise unknown to the extant Greek, but is formed after a common analogy, e. g. κατάμπελος, κατάδενδρος, κατάφοβος, etc. On the force of such compounds, see Herm. ad Vig. p. 638. The Peschito has given the exact sense by 1 o, idolis refertam. A person could hardly take his position anywhere in ancient Athens, where the eye did not range over temples, altars and statues of the gods almost without number. One ancient writer says satirically, that it was easier to find a god at Athens than a man. Another says that there were streets there through which it was almost impossible for one to make his way, they were so crowded at all times with the sellers of the articles of idol worship. Pausanias affirms that Athens had more images than all the rest of Greece put together. Cicero, Livy, Lucian and several others still, testify expressly to this preeminence of Athens in the possession of the outward symbols of idolatry. It deserves notice, therefore, that Luke has not applied here the epithet full of idols, at random. The Greek language offered to him a hundred other terms which would have stated what was true in relation to a heathen city; but we see that he has chosen among them all the very one which describes the precise external aspect of Athens, which would be the first to strike the eye of a stranger like Paul. This mark of accuracy in the writer our English translators have obliterated, or at least, very nearly obliterated in making the expression refer to the devotion of the Athenians to idolatry.

V. 17. Some place this verse in a closer, others in a looser connection with the one preceding. De Wette regards our as progressive merely now. Meyer adheres to the stricter sense therefore. The apostle's excitement of mind did not permit him to pursue the ordinary course, which was to address himself exclusively at first to his own countrymen and the heathen proselytes to Judaism. He is now moved by the spectacle around him, to commence preaching simultaneously to Jews and Greeks. Some who take our as illative, propose to restrict it to the second clause, which is evidently forced. Schneckenburger, Ueber den Zweck, etc., p. 84. v ty dyoga, in the market. Kuinoel's remark, plura erant Athenis fora, which Bloomfield also repeats, is incorrect; unless they mean by the plural the different divisions of the market, which were set apart to different sorts of traffic. It is now generally admitted that there was but one ayoga, properly so called at Athens, although Leake has shown it to

So

be probable that "during the many centuries of Athenian prosperity, the boundaries of the Agora, or at least of its frequented part, underwent considerable variation." See his Athens and Demi, p. 217. The notices in ancient writers in regard to its course and extent, have not been so arranged as to produce as yet an entire agreement of opinion among scholars. See Winer, Realw., p. 112. It is certain, however, that the site of the market was never so changed as to exclude the famous σroù zoxin, which according to Forchammer's Plan stood off against the acropolis on the west. In this porch as is well known, the philosophers, rhetoricians and others were accustomed to meet for conversation and discussion; and hence it lay entirely in the course of things that some of these men should fall, as Luke states, in the way of the apostle.

V. 18. τῶν Επικουρείων. The frivolous spirit of this sect may be traced as some think, in the first of the interrogatories addressed to the apostle. The Epicureans were the "minute philosophers," the Greek Sadducees of the age; they admitted the existence of gods, but regarded them as indolent beings who paid no attention to the actions or affairs of men; they did not believe in a providence, or in accountability, or in any retribution to come. Their great practical dogma was, that a wise man will make the most of every means of enjoyment within his reach. Epicurus, the founder of the sect, had taken some pains to guard his definition of pleasure against too gross abuse, but it served only to secure to his followers a more specious name for their profligacy. The Stoics were distinguished in some respects for a more reflecting turn of mind; but their religion, at bottom, was nothing but the rankest fatalism; and it was eminently characteristic of their philosophy, that it led them to entertain a high conceit of their own self-sufficiency, both as to progress in virtue and the attainment of happiness. They praised morality, insisted on the subjection of the passions to reason, and boasted of the perfection to which they raised themselves by this discipline. With some good elements which are not to be denied, Stoicism was yet intensely proud, self-complacent, dogmatizing; so that, on the whole, it offered quite as many points of opposition to the gospel as Epicureanism itself. It might have seemed very much to the credit of Christianity, if it had been ́represented as having gained, on this occasion, at least, a few proselytes from among these representatives of the highest forms of Grecian culture and learning; but no such triumphs are recorded. The manner in which these Epicureans and Stoics are described as having treated the message of the apostle, is precisely what we should look for as the natural result of their peculiar systems of belief; and, in

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this point of view, the narrative bears on it, again, the stamp of historical truth. συνέβαλλον αὐτῷ sc. λόγους, which is sometimes inserted in this phrase; they interchanged words, disputed or conversed with him, comp. 4: 15. Bengel renders congrediebantur, met with him, as in 20:14. The manner in which xai ëλɛyov follows, agrees best with the first sense, but cannot be said to be decisive. τί ἄν θέλοι, etc., what would this babbler say, does he mean to say?

av with the optative if his words have any

pra

here, may refer to the suppressed condition meaning; see 2: 12. Comp. Win. § 43. 1. Cr. § 604. σπερμολόγος denotes strictly a seed-gatherer, and then as used here, one who picks up and retails scraps of knowledge without sense or aim, an idle ter. Eérov dauovíar, foreign gods, hitherto unknown to us. As the expression is cited from the mouth of the Greeks, we are to attach to it, of course, their sense of dauóvior, and not that of the Jews. The plural may be the generalized one of the class or category, comp. Win. § 27. 2. St. § 95. 2; or it may be founded on what Paul had said to them concerning the agency of God in raising up Christ from the dead; see v. 31. Meyer and others understand it in the first way; De Wette, Bloomfield, and others, in the last. Some of the older critics explained the plural as embracing avάoraois, supposing the Athenians to have understood Paul to speak of some goddess when he preached to them the resurrection. But one can hardly conceive that the apostle would have expressed himself so obscurely on this subject as to have given them any occasion for falling into so gross a mistake; and we are not authorized by any intimation in the narrative to impute to them anything like a wilful perversion of his language. Yet a few modern writers adhere still to this view. Bauer admits that the Athenians could have had no fair pretence in any obscurity of Paul's statement, for giving this turn to it; but he thinks nevertheless, that it is what they are represented as having said, and that they said it ironically. But even irony, if it has any point, must have its show of justification.

The Place where Paul spoke.

Vv. 19-21. Paul is conducted to Areiopagus and requested to explain his doctrine. V. 19. inihaßóμevoí re avrov, and taking hold upon him, not necessarily with violence, which would be at variance with the general spirit of the transaction, though the word involves often that idea; but rather by the hand, for the purpose of leading him onward; comp. 9: 27. Mark 8:23, Luke 9: 47. ènì ròv "Aqɛiov nayov, unto Mars Hill, to the top of it. On the force of έní, see 10: 9.