Acts 17:16-21
Morning Prayer
In the Daily office Lectionary, ch. 17 of Acts was read over the weekend. But Paul’s confrontation in Athens is too important, and too deep, to ignore. So, we’ll be spending at least a couple of days on this passage.
Athens. If you have any sense of history, the mere mention of that city should make you pause. Rome may have had the Empire. But their culture – even their gods – were basically borrowed from the Greeks. Greece’s Zeus was Rome’s Jupiter; Greece’s Aphrodite, Rome’s Venus; Greece’s Odysseus, Rome’s Ulysses; and so on. Athens: the birthplace of drama, democracy, philosophy. No city had a prouder intellectual heritage than Athens. So, on the one hand, many “foreigners,” hungry for the food of wisdom, made their way to Athens, and no doubt, brought many different “idols,” and “new” ideas. A very cosmopolitan place, Athens was, always open to the “latest novelty” (v. 21, Rev. Eng. Bible).
On the other hand, Athens was already an old, old city, with the cynicism that can come with old age, and very protective of its heritage. Athens was the city of philosophers that had condemned the father of philosophy to death. And for what crime had Socrates been condemned? Infecting the minds of Athenian youth with “foreign divinities.” So when the Athenians said of Paul, “He would appear to be a propagandist for foreign deities” (v.18, REB), that was no innocent comment, but an accusation. And the Aeropagus was a court. For all the Athenians’ love of new ideas, the cynicism of their old age also made them very resistant to new ideas that hadn’t been vetted through the old wisdom. And in one of the plays written by Aeschylus, the god Apollo had himself dedicated the Aeropagus, telling human beings that when they died, and their blood was spilled, there was no resurrection.
This is Paul’s challenge as he begins to address the Athenians: to present this new idea of resurrection, clearly a challenge to the wisdom of Athens, but in a way that builds on the wisdom that Athens has received, so that Paul will not share the fate of Socrates. Tune in for tomorrow’s episode.
Morning Prayer
In the Daily office Lectionary, ch. 17 of Acts was read over the weekend. But Paul’s confrontation in Athens is too important, and too deep, to ignore. So, we’ll be spending at least a couple of days on this passage.
Athens. If you have any sense of history, the mere mention of that city should make you pause. Rome may have had the Empire. But their culture – even their gods – were basically borrowed from the Greeks. Greece’s Zeus was Rome’s Jupiter; Greece’s Aphrodite, Rome’s Venus; Greece’s Odysseus, Rome’s Ulysses; and so on. Athens: the birthplace of drama, democracy, philosophy. No city had a prouder intellectual heritage than Athens. So, on the one hand, many “foreigners,” hungry for the food of wisdom, made their way to Athens, and no doubt, brought many different “idols,” and “new” ideas. A very cosmopolitan place, Athens was, always open to the “latest novelty” (v. 21, Rev. Eng. Bible).
On the other hand, Athens was already an old, old city, with the cynicism that can come with old age, and very protective of its heritage. Athens was the city of philosophers that had condemned the father of philosophy to death. And for what crime had Socrates been condemned? Infecting the minds of Athenian youth with “foreign divinities.” So when the Athenians said of Paul, “He would appear to be a propagandist for foreign deities” (v.18, REB), that was no innocent comment, but an accusation. And the Aeropagus was a court. For all the Athenians’ love of new ideas, the cynicism of their old age also made them very resistant to new ideas that hadn’t been vetted through the old wisdom. And in one of the plays written by Aeschylus, the god Apollo had himself dedicated the Aeropagus, telling human beings that when they died, and their blood was spilled, there was no resurrection.
This is Paul’s challenge as he begins to address the Athenians: to present this new idea of resurrection, clearly a challenge to the wisdom of Athens, but in a way that builds on the wisdom that Athens has received, so that Paul will not share the fate of Socrates. Tune in for tomorrow’s episode.
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