We are not to think here of the council or court, renowned in the oldest Athenian history, which took its name from Mars' Hill, but only of the elevated spot where the council met, not covered in, but arranged with benches and steps of stone, so as to form a conven- ient place for a public address. Here the apostle de- livered that wonderful discourse rejjorted in Acts xvii, 22-31, which seems as fresh and instructive for the in- tellect of the 19th century as it was for the intellect of the 1st. In this we have the Pauline Gospel as it ad- dressed itself to the speculative mind of the cultivated Greeks. How the " report" was obtained by the writer of the history we have no means of knowing. Possibly we have it in notes Mritten down before or after the delivery of this address by Paul himself. Short as it is, the form is as perfect as the matter is rich. The loftiness and breadth of the theology, the dignity and delicacy of the argument, the absence of self, the straight- forward and reverent nature of the testimony delivered — all the characteristics so strikingly displayed in this speech — help us to understand what kind of a teacher had now appeared in the Grecian world. Paul, it is well understood, did not begin with calling the Athenians " too superstitious." " I perceive you," he said, " to be eminently religious" (fi'j^ai^ioj'fcrrfpoi, see Conybeare and Howson, ad loc.'). He had observed an altar inscribed ' AyviocTt}) Bt'p, " To an unknown God." It meant, no doubt, " 'To so)ne unknown God." '• I come," he said, "as the messenger of that unknown God." He then proceeded to speak of God in terms which were not altogether new to (Jrecian ears. They had heard of a God who had made the world and all things therein, and even of One who gave to all life, and breath, and all things. But they had never learned the next lesson which was now taught them. It was a special truth of the new dispensation that " God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him." See Unknown Gor>.
Comparing this with the teaching given to other audi- ences, we perceive that it laid hold of the deepest con- victions which had ever been given to Greeks, while at the same time it encountered the strongest prejudices of Greeks. We see, as at Lystra, that an apostle of Christ had no need to refer to the Jewish Scriptures when he spoke to those who had not received them. He could speak to men as God's children, and subjects of God's educating discipline, and was only bringing them further tidings of him whom they had been al- ways feeling after. He presented to them the Son of Man as acting in the power of him who had made all nations, and who was not far from any single man. He began to speak of liim as risen from the dead, and of the
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power of a new life which was in him for men ; but his audience would not hear of him who thus claimed their personal allegiance. Some mocked, others, more courte- ously, talked of hearing him again another time. The apostle gained but few converts at Athens, and he soon took his departure and came to Corinth. A.D. 49. See Atiiexs.
Athens still retained its old intellectual predominance; but Corinth was the political and commercial capital of Greece. It was in places of living activity that Paul labored longest and most successfully, as formerly at Antioch, now at Corinth, and afterwards at Ephesus. The rapid spread of the Gospel was obviously promoted by the preaching of it in cities where men were contin- ually coming and going; but, besides this consider- ation, we may be sure that the apostle escaped gladly from dull ignorance on the one side, and from philo- sophical dilettanteism on the other, to places in which the real business of the world was done. The Gospel, though unworldly, was yet a message to practical and inquiring men, and it had more affinity to work of any kind than to torpor or to intellectual frivolity. One proof of the wholesome agreement between the follow- ing of Christ and ordinary labor was given by Paul himself during his stay at Corinth. Here, as at Thes- salonica, he chose to earn his own subsistence by work- ing at his trade of tent -making. This trade brought him into close connection with two persons who became distinguished as believers in Christ, Aquila and Priscilla. They were Jews, and had lately left Kome in consequence of an edict of Claudius [sec Claudius]; and as they also were tent -makers, Paul "abode with them and wrought." Laboring thus on the six days, the apostle went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and there by expounding the Scriptures sought to win both Jews and proselytes to the belief that Jesus was the Christ.
He was testifying with unusual effort and anxiety (^(jvvtixtTO T<i) Xoyii/), when Silas and Timothy came from INIacedonia and joined him. We are left in some uncertainty as to what the movements of Silas and Tim- othy had been since they were with Paul at Beroea. From the statements in the Acts (xvii, 15, 1(5) that Paul, when he reached Athens, desired Silas and Timotheus to come to him icith all speed, and waited for them there, compared with those in 1 Thess. (iii, 1, 2), "When we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone, and sent Timotheus, our brother and min- ister of God, and our fellow - laborer in the Gospel of Christ, to establish you and to comfort you concerning your faith," Paley (Horce Petvlime, 1 Thess. No. iv) reasonably argues that Silas and Timothy had come to Athens, but had soon been despatched thence, Timothy to Thessalonica, and Silas to Philippi, or elsewhere. From Macedonia they came together, or about the same time, to Corinth, and their arrival was the occasion of the writing of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians.