The Shepherd, October 2004
SAINT PAUL’S VISIT TO ATHENS, 2
St Paul in Athens
By virtue of her past glory, Athens was still, in St Paul’s day, the most famous city of Greece, outwardly brilliant, though inwardly in a state of moral and intellectual decline. St Paul would have wandered in the market-place, the Agora, the centre of public and business life, and seen its shops, government buildings, temples, altars and statues of kings, heroes and gods. There were so many of the last, both Greek and foreign deities, that one contemporary wit had declared that it was easier to find gods than men in Athens. Every single god in Olympus had a statue in the Agora. Every single public building was also a sanctuary. The Council Chamber held statues of Zeus and Apollo; the great Theatre was dedicated to Dionysos. Altars were erected to every conceivable abstract idea, such as Fame, Modesty, Energy, Persuasion, Pity.
St Paul certainly found the city “full of idols.” From a religious standpoint the statues were an abomination to him as a Jew, but apart from the vast numbers and the superior quality of the workmanship, they were nothing new to him as he had seen statues all his life in Tarsus, and every day during his stay inAntioch. It was the altar to ANUNKNOWNGOD - Agnosto Theo - which was of special interest to him as something spiritually better than the idols, perhaps a cry from the pagan world for something higher, a “groping after God if haply they might find Him.”
Another visitor to Athens at the same period as St Paul, the influential philosopher-magician, Apollonius of Tyana, also noted that “altars are set up in honour even to unknown divinities.” The Greek historian-traveller Pausanias, who visited Athens fifty years later, again mentions “altars of the gods named UNKNOWN.”
The practice had started in the following way.Six centuries before Christ, Athens had been struck by a severe plague which remained unabated despite sacrifices to every known god and goddess. Help was sought from the Cretan poet and prophet Epimenides, and he was invited to Athens. His solution was to drive a flock of black and white sheep up to the Areopagus (Hill of Ares / Mars Hill). The sheep wandered at will, and where they finally rested they were sacrificed “to the fitting god,” the “unknown god” who needed to be propitiated. The plague ceased, and as a result the custom arose of erecting altars to unknown deities. Several such altars have been found, though none at Athens. Epimenides is thought to be the prophet alluded to by St Paul in his letter to Titus (1:12). “It is said by one of themselves, a prophet of their own - ‘Always liars and beasts are the Cretans, and inwardly sluggish.’” Apparently Epimenides described the Cretans as “liars” because of the national boast that they possessed the tomb of Zeus. St Paul was using his quotation against the Cretan Jews who would especially oppose the authority of Titus, who was a Greek and uncircumcised. Plato called Epimenides “a divinely inspired man.” Plutarch: “a man dear to the gods.”
As always, St Paul first sought out the Jews in the Athens synagogue, but we have no record of how they received him. Daily the Apostle spoke with anyone in the market place who would listen to him, and there were plenty willing to do so. The Agora was crowded with philosophers, tourists - many of whom were stopping off at Athens on their way to visit the ruined temples of Egypt, - rich young Roman aristocrats studying inAthens to put the finishing touches to their education, and pilgrims pouring in for the countless, colourful religious ceremonies. Guides touted for custom and conducted visitors round the famous monuments and antiquities, culminating in the awe-inspiring Acropolis, with its temples ablaze with gold and the bright colours beloved by the Greeks, and the crowning glory of the Parthenon, the masterpiece of Phidias.
The description inActs mirrors that of many other writers both before and after St Paul’s time - “For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.” Centuries before, the great orator Demosthenes, alarmed at the complacency of the Athenians regarding the military danger posed by Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, had warned them, “Instead of guarding your liberties, you are forever gadding about looking for news.” Apollonius of Tyana, an ascetic of the old school, denounced the frivolity and decadence of the male dancers at a festival of Dionysos, which he considered an insult to the memory of the great heroes of the past. He disliked the way in which everything was a subject for chatter and intellectual amusement. Apollonius had been educated at Tarsus, St Paul’s city.
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