Acts 17:18

Philosophers. Literally, “lovers of wisdom,” a term used of those who were given to the pursuit of wisdom, or learning.

Epicureans. The two philosophic schools, the Epicureans and the Stoics, were at this time the great representatives of Greek thought. Epicureanism took its name from its founder, Epicurus, who lived a long and quiet life at Athens, from about 342 to 270 B.C.

In harmony with its founder’s will, meetings were held in a garden, and hence the Epicureans were sometimes known as the School of the Garden. The speculations of Epicurus included both a physical and an ethical solution of the problems of the universe. In company with most thoughtful men of the time, he rejected the popular polytheism, which he did not yet dare openly renounce, and taught that the gods in their serenity were too far removed from men to be bothered about men’s sorrows or sins. They needed no sacrifices and answered no prayers. The great evil of the world was superstition, which was enslaving the minds of most men, and was the source of most crime and misery. Man’s goal was the attainment of happiness, and the first step toward it was emancipation from the idea of future punishment. The next step was to recognize that happiness consisted in pleasurable emotions. Experience showed that what some call pleasure is frequently more than offset by the pain that follows; consequently he taught that one should avoid sensual excesses. The life of Epicurus himself seems to have been marked by self-control, kindliness, generosity, piety, and patriotism (Diogenes Laertius x. 10).

But he regarded human laws as merely conventional arrangements, and found no place for a higher moral law. Each man was therefore left to arbitrate on the lawfulness of his own pleasures, and most men chose a life of ease and self-indulgence. Sometimes, but all too rarely, careful thinking balanced an Epicurean’s tendency to sink into animalism. More often those who devoted themselves to the indulgence of the sense of taste, on the one hand, and of sexual freedom, on the other, provided sorry exhibits of the depth of degradation to which such a philosophy permitted men to sink.

Epicurus has been credited with foreseeing some of the so-called discoveries of modern science in the world of physics. He excluded the idea of both creation and control. He taught that matter had existed from eternity, and that the infinite atoms of which matter was composed had by a process of attraction and repulsion entered into manifold combinations, out of which had issued the world of nature as men see it. The poem of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, is perhaps the loftiest expression of this negative and virtually atheistic system, for it does possess a certain nobility of indignant protest against the superstition that so firmly gripped the pagan world.

Epicurean poetry gives characteristic examples of the ethical teaching of this system. Says Horace: “Cease to ask what the morrow will bring forth, and set down as gain each day that Fortune grants” (Odes i. 9; Loeb ed., 29).

“Show wisdom. Strain clear the wine; and since life is brief, cut short far-reaching hopes! Even while we speak, envious time has sped. Reap the harvest of to-day, putting as little trust as may be in the morrow!” (ibid. 11; Loeb ed., p. 33).

Paul was now brought face to face with this philosophy. In vs. 22-31 we learn how he dealt with it. He asserted the personality of the living God, as Creator, Ruler, Father; the binding force of a divine law written in the heart; the nobility of a life raised above a frantic search for pleasure, and spent, not for itself, but for others and for God. Finally, he pointed to man’s moral accountability in the light of the resurrection and the judgment. Such teaching set the apostle apart from the pagan professors of higher philosophy.

Stoicks. This school of philosophy took its name, not from its founder Zeno (c. 340-c. 260 B.C.), of Citium in Cyprus, but from the Stoa Poikile, the painted porch in the agora at Athens, where Zeno used to teach. Josephus (Life 2 [12]) states that there are points of similarity between the Stoics and the Pharisees. Indeed it may be said that their attitude toward the moral life of heathenism at this time presented many features similar to that of the Pharisees. They taught that true wisdom consists in being the master, and not the slave, of circumstances. The things that are not in our power are neither to be coveted nor avoided, but are to be accepted with equanimity. The seeker after wisdom was taught to be indifferent alike to pleasure or pain, and to maintain an intellectual neutrality. Stoic theology was nobler than that of the Epicureans. The Stoics conceived of a divine mind pervading the universe and ordering its affairs. They recognized its authority in the affairs of nations and in the lives of individual men, yet held a practical belief in freedom of man’s will. The Manual of Ethics, a record of the philosophy of Epictetus, the ex-slave, and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the emperor, show how the slave and the emperor are, in a sense, considered as equals according to this system of philosophy. The writings of Seneca show that the ethics of the Stoics were similar to those of Christians. Many of the Stoics became tutors for the sons of noble families, and exercised influence comparable to that of Jesuit confessors in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

There were several drawbacks to the ethical effectiveness of their philosophy: (1) In aiming at unconcern for themselves they also lost sympathy for others; (2) in aspiring to ethical perfection through the operation of their own will, they falsely assumed that men are able to work out their own salvation; (3) in stressing the perfect life, the high ideal — like the Pharisees — they made it a mask for selfish and corrupt lives. Like the Pharisees, they were too often “hypocrites” (or, “play-actors”), acting a part before the world to which their inward character did not correspond. In the language of the satirist:

“People who ape the Curii and live like Bacchanals dare talk about morals” (Juvenal Satires ii. 2, 3; Loeb ed., p. 17).

Obviously there were numerous points of similarity between the better representatives of this school of thought and Paul, nevertheless, even for them the basic principles that he represented would seem to them an idle dream. When Paul spoke of Jesus and the resurrection, and of a judgment to come, the Stoics shrank from the thought that they needed pardon and redemption.

Encountered. Gr. sumballo, “to bring together,” not necessarily with bad intent, but as a casual meeting.

Babbler. Gr. spermologos, literally, “seed picker,” often used of birds that picked up stray seeds. Here the philosophers applied the term to Paul, as one who, having picked up stray scraps of knowledge, was overready to instruct those who were better informed.

Strange gods. That is, foreign deities. The Greek word here translated “gods” (daimonia) is used by NT writers for “demons,” or “devils” (see on Mark 1:23), malign supernatural beings, unworthy of man’s worship. But pagan writers used daimonia for an inferior order of divine beings, not necessarily evil, who claimed men’s adoration. It was one of the accusations brought against Socrates, the charge on which he was condemned, that he introduced new daimonia (Xenophon Memorabilia i. 1. 1, 2). But the intellectual atmosphere at Athens had changed since the prosecution of Socrates, for it was not anger but curiosity that prompted Paul’s challengers. They were not assailing Paul for his teaching; amid the abundance of idols they probably felt no difficulty in allowing Jesus a place, provided that He would not seek to overthrow their own divinities.

It has been thought by some that the Athenians, by using the plural word “gods,” understood that “Jesus” was one new divinity and Anastasis (Greek for “resurrection”) another. The Athenians had dedicated temples and altars to Concord, and Epimenides had bidden them erect altars to Insolence and Disgrace (Cicero De Legibus ii. 11), the two demons they blamed for bringing their city to ruin. It would be natural for the Greeks to think of the Christian preacher as a setter forth of new “divinities.” They also saw that he had more to say that they had yet heard.

Jesus. The Saviour was the constant theme of apostolic preaching (cf. chs. 2:22; 3:13; 5:30, 42; 8:5, 35; 9:20; 11:20; 13:23; etc.). Paul boldly proclaims the same Jesus to the skeptical intellectuals of Athens.

Resurrection. This was also a central theme in the preaching of the early church (cf. chs. 2:24; 3:15; 4:2, 10; 10:40; etc.). Paul had personal experience to prove Christ’s resurrection, for he had conversed with the risen Lord (ch. 9:4-6). But the apostle was also teaching the final resurrection of all men (cf. on Acts 17:32; 1 Cor. 15:51; 1 Thess. 4:14-16), and this is what startled the philosophers of Athens. They already believed in the immortality of the soul, but were astonished to hear anyone teaching the literal resurrection of the body. In 1 Cor. 15:35-44 we see the nature of the objections raised to this doctrine, and the manner in which Paul answered them.