3. No man of ordinary taste and culture could stand in thei midst of its glories without a feeling of aesthetic enthusiasm. Yet St. Paul was moved only by an intense pity and indignation. There was the Parthenon, beautified by the skill of Phidias and
i54 AN UNKNOWN GOD
Praxiteles ; there the Areopagus, crowned with its colossal image of Mars ; there were the famous schools of philosophy by the Ilissus. On every hand were images of gods and heroes. Pliny says that the city contained three thousand such effigies. It was a proverb, "There are more gods than men in Athens." The Apostle possibly walked down the Street of Hermes, where a winged figure adorned the front of every house, or along the Avenue of Tripods, lined on every side with votive offerings made by grateful athletes to the gods who had helped them in the games. Gods everywhere : gods on pedestals, in niches, at the corners of the streets — gods and demigods, good, bad, and indiffer- ent— a wilderness of gods ! And the heart of the Apostle was moved within him as he saw the city full of idols.
4. Over all was the breath of moral decay. Citizens and all comers alike were having leisure for nothing else than to tell or to hear some "newer thing." The latest novelty was the most welcome — quid nunc ? Aristotle and Plato were long dead, and less noble forms of thought now ruled this city of discussion. And this degeneracy of thought showed the incompetency of even the loftiest type of unleavened human reason to resist the sensual- ism that seeks its end in pleasures, and the fatalism whose pride of aspiration finds its conclusion in despair. What philosophy as such could do, had there been done. Idolatry had exhausted invention. Priests, sacrifices, shrines, festal days, were always in evidence; but this capital of aesthetics was still hopelessly un- satisfied and restless — unhappy and impatient — and ritual had lost its earnestness.
When love begins to sicken and decay, It useth an enforced ceremony.
5. There was no difficulty in getting an audience in this paradise of gossips and saunterers, with its shibboleth, " What's the news ? " The Athenians quickly gathered about the Apostle — men, women, priests, and philosophers, all sorts and conditions of people. And he spoke to them of Jesus and the Resurrection, or as the Greeks had it, Jesus and Anastasia — a pair of new deities. He who introduced a god into Athens was counted a public bene- factor. The interest of his audience was thus enchained at once.
ACTS xvii. 22, 23 155
To know, therefore, more of this peculiar doctrine, they led St. Paul to the Areopagus, a little rising ground within the city to the north-west of the market-place, so called from a celebrated temple upon it dedicated to Ares or Mars, in which was wont to meet a venerable body of senators, who formed a political and judicial council which also went by the name of the Areopagus. Eastward from this hill and temple of Mars was the acropolis or citadel, overlooking the whole city and crowned with the magnifi- cent temple of Athene Promachos, the guardian or tutelary god- dess, and other public edifices of rare architectural beauty. In every other quarter there were numerous temples and fanes filled with images of their gods. To win over the learned philosopher as well as the other intelligent and cultured citizens, St. Paul accommodated himself, as was his wont, to the time, place, and people.
I.
Gods Many.
"In all things I perceive that ye are somewhat superstitious" (or "very religious," E.V. mg.).
1. Let us look at this word which St. Paul uses. It is very difficult to represent the meaning of the Greek word in our language. The Eevised Version has modified the Authorized Version by introducing " somewhat " instead of " too," according to the classical idiom by which the comparative of an adjective may be used to express the deficiency or excess (slight in either case) of the quality contained in the positive. But the quality in this case may be good or bad, since the adjective deisidaimon and the cognate noun may be used of reverence or of superstition. In classic use the word appears very often in a good sense, and many authorities are agreed in taking it so here. But there is no reason to suppose that St. Paul's words were an accommodation to the usual practice of Athenian orators to commence with a mere compliment. At the same time it is possible that with delicate tact the Apostle made use of a word of doubtful meaning, which could not possibly provoke hostility at the outset, while it left unexpressed " with kindly ambiguity " his own judgment as to the nature of this reverence for the Divine.
156 AN UNKNOWN GOD
2. Our modern atmosphere is charged to saturation with temptations to overestimate tlie value of natural religions. Let us all the more carefully arm ourselves against them. In warning us against this overestimate of natural religions, St. Paul may perhaps be allowed to give us also a name for it, by the employ- ment of which we may possibly be able to put a new point on our self -admonitions. He calls it " Deisidaimonism." And perhaps, in the absence of a good translation, we may profitably adopt the Greek term to-day, with all its uncouthness of sound and its unlovely associations, and so enable ourselves to make a recog- nizable distinction between that general natural religiosity and its fruits, which we may call " deisidaimonism," and true religion, which is the product of the saving truth of God operating upon our native religious instincts and producing through them phenomena which owe all their value to the truth that gives them form.