> fm ~ ee r can εὐσεβεῖτε, τοῦτον ἐγὼ καταγγέλλω ὑμῖν.
24. 6 Θεὸς 6 ποιήσας τὸν
a Φιν A ‘ ~ κόσμον καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ, οὗτος οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς κύριος ὑπάρχων,
to sacrifice τῷ προσήκοντι θεῷ, and so the plague ceased, with the result that we find in Athens many βωμοὺς ἀνωνύμους, see the passage quoted in full in Wetstein ; from this it is not an unfair inference that in case of misfortune or disaster, when it was uncertain what god should be honoured or propitiated, an altar might be erected ἀγνώστῳ Θεῷ. (It is curious that Blass although he writes ἀγνώστῳ Θεῷ in B thinks that the true reading must have been the plural.) To draw such an inference is much more reason- able than to suppose with Jerome, Tit., i., 12, that the inscription was not as Paul asserted, but that he used the singular number because it was more in accordance with his purpose, the inscrip- tion really being ‘‘ Diis Asiz et Europe et Africe, Diis ignotis et peregrinis,” cf. the inscription according to Oecu- menius θεοῖς ᾿Ασίας καὶ Εὐρώπης καὶ Λιβύης Θεῷ ἀγνώστῳ καὶ ξένῳ. But at the very commencement of his speech the Apostle would scarcely have made a quotation so far removed from the actual words of the inscription, otherwise he would have strengthened the suspicion that he was a mere σπερµολόγος. St. Chrysostom, Hom., xxxviil., sees in the inscription an indication of the anxiety of the Athenians lest they should have neglected some deity honoured elsewhere, but if we connect it with the story men- tioned above of Epimenides, it would be quite in accordance with the religious character of the Athenians, or perhaps one might rather say with the super- stitious feeling which prompted the for- mula so often employed in the prayer of Greeks and Romans alike Sz deo si dea, or the words of Horace (Efod., v., 1), ‘At deorum quidquid in coelo regit”’. There is no reason for the view held amongst others by Mr. Lewin that the inscription refers to the God of the Jews. But in such an inscription St. Paul wisely recognised that there was in the heart of Athens a witness to the deep unsatisfied yearning of humanity for a clearer and closer knowledge of the unseen power which men worshipped dimly and im- perfectly, a yearning expressed in the sacred Vedic hymns of an old world, or in the crude religions of a new, cf. Max Miller, Selected Essays, i., p. 23 ff.; Zockler, in loco, ‘ Altar,” B.D.?; Plump- tre, Movements of Religious Thought, p. 78 ff.—dv οὖν ayvootvres, see critical
notes. If we read 6 for 6v, we may render with R.V., “what therefore ye worship in ignorance”: Vulgate, quod colitis, The mere fact of the erection of such an inscription showed that the Athenians did reverence to some divine existence, although they worshipped what they knew not, St, John iv. 22; not ‘‘ignorantly worship as in A.V., this would have been alien to the refinement and tact of St. Paul.— εὐσεβεῖτε: used here as elsewhere of genuine piety, which St. Paul recognised and claimed as existing in the existence of the altar—the word throws light on the meaning which the Apostle attached to the δεισιδαιµονία of ver. 22; in N.T. only in Luke and Paul, cf. 1 Tim. v. 4, of filial piety (cf. pietas), cf. Susannah, ver. 64 (LXX), and 4 Macc. xi. 5, 8, 23, xviii. 2. ‘‘ That divine nature which you worship, not knowing what it is” (Ram- say).—rettov ἐγὼ καταγγέλλω ὑμῖν: in these words lay the answer to the charge that he was a σπερµ. ΟΙ a καταγγελεύς of strange gods. ἐγὼ, emphatic; 1 whom you regard as a mere babbler proclaim to you, or set forth, the object which you recognise however dimly, and worship however imperfectly. Since the days of St. Chrysostom the verse has been taken as a proof that the words of St. Paul were addressed not to a select group of philo- sophers, but to the corona of the people. Ver. 24. 6 Θεὸς 6 ποιήσας: “the God Who made all,” R.V., the definite- ness of the words and the revelation of God as Creator stand in marked contrast to the imperfect conception of the divine nature grasped by the Athenian populace, or even by the philosophers: ἐφθέγξατο φωνἣν µίαν, δι ἧς πάντα κατέστρεψε τὰ τῶν φιλοσόφων. οἱ μὲν γὰρ Ἐπικούρειοι αὐτόματά hac εἶναι τὰ πάντα, καὶ ἀπὸ ἀτόμων συνεστάναι: οἱ δὲ Στωϊκοὶ σῶμα καὶ ἐκπύρωσιν: ὁ δὲ ἔργον Θεοῦ λέγει κόσμον καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ. ‘Opas συντοµίαν, καὶ ἐν συντοµίᾳ σαφήνειαν. St. Paul’s language is that of a Jew, α Monotheist, and is based upon Gen. i. 1, Exod. xx. 11, Isa. xlv. 7, Neh. ix. 6, etc., but his use of the word κόσμος (only here in Acts, only three times in St. Luke's Gospel) is observable. The word is evi- dently not used in the moral sense, or in the sense of moral separation from God, which is so common in St. John, and which is sometimes employed by the Synoptists, and it may well have been