Acts 17:34

Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Howbeit certain men clave (or 'attached themselves') unto him, and believed. Instead of mocking or politely waiving the subject, having listened eagerly, they joined themselves to the apostle for further instruction, the consequence of which was that they "believed."

Among the which was Dionysius, [ kai (G2532) Dionusios (G1354)] - even Dionysius, the Areopagite,

a member of that august tribunal. Ancient tradition says be was placed by the apostle over the little flock at Athens. Certainly (as Olshausen says) the number of converts there, and of men fit for office in the church, was not so great that there could be much choice.

And a woman named Damaris - not certainly one of the apostle's audience on the Areopagus, but won to the Faith either before or after. Nothing else is known of her. Of any further labours of the apostle at Athens, and how long he stayed, we are not informed. Certainly he was not driven away. But (as Howson admirably says) 'it is a serious and instructive fact that the mercantile population of Thessalonica and Corinth received the message of God with greater readiness than the highly educated and polished Athenians. Two letters to the Thessalonians, and two to the Corinthians, remain to attest the flourishing state of those churches. But we possess no letter written by Paul to the Athenians; and we do not read that he was ever in Athens again.'

Remarks:

(1) What wonderful powers of adaptation to different classes of minds does the apostle show in his proceedings at Thessalonica and Berea, on the one hand, and on the other at Athens! At Thessalonica, having common ground with the Jews and with the Gentile proselytes, in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, he takes these as his starting-point, establishing the great position that the predicted Messiah was to be a suffering and glorified, a dying and rising Redeemer, and that Jesus of Nazareth, whom he came to proclaim to them-since He alone answered to this character-must be the Christ of God. Having for three successive sabbaths discoursed in this strain, he carried conviction not only to some of his Jewish hearers, who at once attached themselves to the missionaries, but to a great multitude of proselyte Greeks, including not a few women of superior station-not to speak of conquests beyond this circle (1 Thessalonians 1:9). At Berea the same course was pursued, and with the like success, the audience there daily searching the Old Testament Scriptures, to see whether the sense put upon them, and the positions founded on them, were correct. Even at Athens, 'in the synagogue of the Jews, he disputed,' probably much as he had done at the two former places. But in the Agora (G58) (or marketplace) and on the Areopagus, how different his line of procedure! How he dealt with the comers and goers in the place of public concourse we only know from the remarks of his motley hearers: some of them calling him a "babbler," or contemptible teacher, while others thought he was holding forth the merits and claims of some new deities. But from this we may gather that he had confined himself to a simple proclamation of the great facts of Christ's life, death, and resurrection.

Entirely different from both these methods was the line of discourse on the Areopagus, where he had to deal with speculative thinkers, who "by wisdom knew not God;" having speculated themselves out of the first principles of all religious truth, and been for ages wandering in endless mazes of error and uncertainty. In dealing with such minds he first lays down, in a few great strokes, the fundamental truths of all Theism: the personality of God; the relation of the universe to Him as the work of His hands, and every moment upheld, beautified, and blessed by Him; His consequent independence of His creatures, but their absolute dependence upon Him; their need of Him, and obligation to feel after Him as their chief good-with the folly and wickedness of attempting to represent this glorious Being in a visible form by statuary of any kind done by the hands of men. Having done this in a strain of studied courtesy and calm sublimity, he goes on to say that as God had borne with such unworthy treatment only because of the darkness that until then had brooded over men's minds, so the time for such endurance had come to an end, with the new light that had at length burst upon the world by the mission and work, the death and resurrection, of Jesus Christ, and the appointment of Him to be the Righteous Judge of the world.

Now that three stupendous events have taken place-leaving men without excuse-God will endure their estrangement from Him no longer, but requires all men, on hearing these glad tidings, to repent and turn unto Him from whom they have wandered so far astray, and who, by that Man whom He hath ordained, will at length bring them into righteous judgment. Not an illusion is there here to the Old Testament Scriptures, on which he had based all his reasonings and appeals to the Thessalonians and Bereans of the Synagogue; nor does the apostle feed the Athenian pride by indulging in speculative reasoning and rhetorical appeal, which would but have left them where they were. A simple and positive statement of the great fundamental truths of all religion, a brief outline of the facts of the Gospel, and a respectful intimation of the urgency of the matter and the awful responsibility of all who heard such truths, is the substance of this memorable discourse. And who can fail to observe the versatility of the apostle's mind-his rare power of adapting the same truths to every variety of audience he had to address.

And yet one common principle reigns in all his addresses. Though the difference between the Jewish and the Greek point of view, in approaching religious truth, was extreme, the supernatural and authoritative character of the Gospel provision for man's spiritual recovery is that feature of it which to both is made most prominent. Self-commending as the truths of the Gospel are, reasonable in itself as is the service which it requires, soul-satisfying and ennobling as all have found it to be who have made trial of it, it is not on these grounds alone-nor primarily-that the apostle presses the Gospel of Christ upon either Jew or Gentile. It is as the story of a Person divinely gifted to the world, and supernaturally accredited; it is as a series of indisputable facts, supernaturally attested; it is as God's gracious interposition in behalf of a world perishing through estrangement from Himself; it is as His message from heaven, inviting us back to Himself by Jesus Christ. Wonderful, indeed, is the suitableness of the Gospel to our felt necessities, and never does the soul close with it but in the view of this. But as it would be no cure at all for our spiritual maladies, were it not seen to be direct from God Himself, so it is as a message from heaven that the soul in every case embraces it; and in this light did Paul ever hold it forth both to the sign-seeking Jews and the wisdom-loving Greeks.

(2) It will be observed that at Thessalonica the proportion of "Jews" who were won over to the Gospel was much smaller than of the devout Greeks," and that the riot which brought the new converts before the magistrates, and obliged them to despatch Paul and Silas by night to Beroea, was instigated by Jews, out of hatred to the Gospel. To this the apostle alludes in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 2:14) in a tone of melancholy, which, while it gives remarkable confirmation to the history (to which Paley adverts, Horae Paulinae, 9: 5), shows that he regarded it as a premonitory symptom of "the wrath that was coming on them to the uttermost." But the point here specially calling for notice is the contrast between bodies of men who have proved unfaithful to high privileges and those who, with little light, have begun to value and improve what they have. The Jews first manifested the degeneracy into which they had long been sinking by the rejection and crucifixion of their promised Messiah; and from that time their character as a nation rapidly declined-their fanatical adherence to the most distorted conceptions of their own Religion begetting in them intense hatred of spiritual and evangelical truth, and stimulating them to acts of turbulence, which at length intense hatred of spiritual and evangelical truth, and stimulating them to acts of turbulence, which at length brought upon them national destruction.

Those few of them who in almost every place embraced the Gospel-the "remnant according to the election of grace" - were but the exceptions which prove the rule. How different was it with the Gentiles! Those of them who had already taken the important step of embracing the light of the Jewish Faith were the readier to recognize and rejoice in the still brighter light of the Gospel; and so the majority of the earliest disciples of the Lord Jesus (after the first few years of the Gospel) consisted probably of those who had before been proselytes to the Religion of the Old Testament. And the same principle will be found in operation still; and nations, churches, families, and individuals will find that "to him that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have."

(3) From what is said of the mode in which the Beroeans tested the preaching of Paul, three things undeniably follow: First, That the people at large, as well as the ministers of the Church, are both entitled and bound to search the Scriptures-implying both the careful and continuous reading of them, and the exercise of a discriminating judgment as to the sense of them; Secondly, That they are both entitled and bound to try the teaching which they receive from the ministers of the Church, whether and how far it accords with the Word of God; Thirdly, That no faith but such as results from personal conviction that what is taught is truth, according, to the Word of God, ought to be demanded, or is of any avail. Tried by these three tests, what is the Church of Rome but a gigantic Apostasy from the apostolic Faith; withholding, as it does systematically, the Scriptures from the common people, demanding from them, instead, implicit faith in its own teaching, and anathematizing-not to say punishing, even to imprisonment and death, when it can-all who persist in reading the Scriptures for themselves, and trying even its teaching by that standard?

(4) The record of Paul's proceedings at Athens, here given, bears on its face the clearest marks of historic truth, not only in outline, but in detail. Who that knows anything of the Athens of that time is not struck with the lively description of his first impressions of the idolatrous city, of his disputations in the Agora, and of the eagerness of that novelty-hunting people to get a speech from him on the Areopagus? Above all, is not the discourse itself stamped with a Pauline courtesy and frankness; a characteristic breadth, depth, and grasp; a lining off of the dispensation of forbearance, by reason of the darkness in which men had to grope their way to truth, and of the dispensation of peremptory demand for universal and immediate repentance, by reason of the light which has now burst upon the world-all bespeaking the mind and mouth of that one man whose image and superscription are so familiar to the intelligent readers of the New Testament? Yes, the authenticity of the facts, and the truth of this record of them as they stand, carry their own vouchers here.

(5) The impressions produced upon a thoughtful mind by such a scene as that which presented itself to the eye of Paul in Athens and on the Areopagus, are the very best test of its predominant tone and character. That one of such intelligence should be able to survey such a scene without admiration, and to discourse on it without complimenting-without even alluding to-the high culture and exquisite genius stamped upon its architectural forms, and the life that breathed in its statuary-will seem to those who look at such things only in themselves to be evidence of a hard mind, a dull soul, a want of aesthetic culture and poetic sentiment, a want, in short, of all refinement; evidence of a one-sidedness which can see nothing good in anything beyond its own narrow range of vision. But what it proves is simply this, that the perversion of genius, even by the most exquisite creations of art designed to minister to the dishonour of God, so weighed down the apostle's spirit and distressed his soul, that it left neither room nor heart for admiration of the prostituted gifts that gave birth to such productions.

'The' apostle Paul (says Lechler admirably), while he views the works of art in Athens, cannot separate the artistic designs from the thoughts which are expressed by them, and the purposes for which they were made. The beautiful temples, the glorious statues, etc., are essentially the creations of the pagan spirit and the instruments of polytheistic worship; the city adorned with works of art is a "city wholly covered with idols." And therefore the sight of this world of art awakens in him a moral indignation at the error and sin against the living God which is contained therein. The Spirit of God never permits a judgment entirely apart from religion and morality.' Yes, 'the one-sideness' is not Paul's-the 'narrow range of vision' is not his; but it is that of those who look at such things from a sublunary point of view. As objects which appear great when one is close by them dwindle into insignificance when seen from a great height, and in their relation to other objects before unperceived, so those works of art which, when viewed purely as human productions, bespeak transcendent genius and fill the mind with only a feeling of admiration, are, when seen in the light of the dishonour to God to which they were designed to minister, regarded only as evidences of moral obliquity, and produce only an all-absorbing feeling of pain. When David sang,

"One thing have I desired of the Lord, That will I seek after: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life," etc.,

He might be called one-sided-some would say, narrow-minded-but only in that highest and noblest sense which puts every object and every pursuit into its right place and keeps it there, bringing all that is subordinate and fleeting into captivity to that which is primary and enduring. When Mary is commended for "choosing the good part which shall not be taken from her," it was just this all-absorbing, all-consuming "desire of one thing" which is held up to her praise, and He who so commended her made it evident how HE would have regarded the polytheistic creations of Athenian genius; nor will any whose minds and hearts have been steeped, as Paul's was, in the spirit of Christ, think and feel otherwise than in entire unison with the great apostle on this occasion.

(6) It can never be too deeply impressed upon the students of classical literature and ancient philosophy that the idea of Creation is nowhere to be found in it, and was utterly unknown alike to the pagan people and the profoundest thinkers of antiquity. (See Ritter's 'History of Philosophy.' Havernick's 'Introduction to Pentateuch,' and similar works.) With the absence of all idea of Creation-the confusion of nature and of God-there must of course have been the absence of all proper conception of divine rule and human duty, of sin, and of future retribution; nor could the unity of the human family and the history of the world be properly conceived. What a flood of light, then, must have been thrown upon any pagan mind, earnest enough to follow it, and capable of taking it in, by this brief discourse of the great apostle; and how much does the world owe to that "day-spring from on high" which hath visited it, giving light to them that sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide their feet into the way of peace! And, as if to show how entirely we are dependent on Revelation for all the Religious Truth which we possess, it is worthy of notice how prone men are, as soon as they depart from Revealed Truth as their standard of faith, to sink-even under the Gospel-into the very errors of Heathenism. Do we not find the Church of Rome, on the one hand, setting up an elaborate system of image-worship-thus paganizing that which abolished Paganism-while, on the other hand, a subtle Pantheism among metaphysicians, and a gross Materialism among the students of physical science, are undermining in many the sense of a LIVING GOD: a God, that is, having consciousness and personality, the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, and in the exercise of His rectoral authority at once inviting and demanding the subjection and love of all his reasonable creatures.

(7) What thoughts are suggested to the thoughtful mind by that inscription, "to the unknown God!" Multitudes have gods many and lords many, which they "know" well enough, and on whose altars they worship their favourite pursuit-to which they sacrifice time, strength, thought, affection-all that constitutes their proper selves. But what heart is there of all these that has not another altar to Him whose their breath is and whose are all their ways-Whom their conscience craves, though in vain-Who is yearning after them, but finds no response-to Whom they look not as a Friend, and Whom they know not as a Father-Whom they never take into their plans of life, and with Whom they would rather have nothing to do-the "Unknown" God! But far though they are from Him, how near is He to them, "for in Him they live, and move and exist." He is as near to thee (says a German preacher, quoted by Lechler) as the law of the Holy One in thy conscience, as the longing after salvation in thy soul, as the involuntary cry for help and the ceaseless sighing after peace in thy heart and mouth.

(8) What is called. The General Judgment, or a judgment of all mankind at one and the same time, stands out so clearly in this discourse on the Areopagus that one should think it impossible for any Christian to gainsay it. And yet a considerable class of intelligent and warm-hearted Christians of our day contend against it, because it will not harmonize with their view of the relation of Christ's Second Coming to the Millennium-in other words, with their view of the purposes for which Christ is to come the second time. Controversy with such devoted friends of the Gospel is unpleasant, and here, at least, would be out of place. But to fix the proper sense of the text of Scripture is the business of a commentator on it; and in discharge of that duty, let us invite the reader's attention, first, to the objects of this judgment-the world-that is, as the word denotes, 'the inhabited world' [ teen (G3588) oikoumeneen (G3625)], which only prejudice can deny to mean, 'the world of mankind at large;' and next, to the time of this judgment - "He hath appointed a day" for doing it. To reply that a day in Scripture does not necessarily mean a day of twenty-four hours, is to miss the point of the argument for a general judgment from the phrase in question. Nobody thinks of a day of 24 hours when he reads this verse, nor ever naturally inquires what length of time will take to complete this great transaction. What everyone understands by "a day" here is just 'a certain definite time,' on the arrival of which this judgment will begin, and from and after which it will continue uninterruptedly to its close. 'One continuous uninterrupted transaction' is what the words naturally express, and 'the judgment of the whole inhabited world' is that continuous uninterrupted transaction. How consonant this is to the general tenor of Scripture, to the instincts of our spiritual nature, and to all that is august in the divine procedure, let the reader judge.

(9) It is impossible not to be struck with the little fruit which the Gospel had in the metropolis of Greek culture, as compared with commercial communities and rural populations. And as if to invite us to inquire whether there be not a principle in this, history tells us that some of the most sublime writers of the Neo-Platonic school-who wrote hymns in praise of the Godhead, or the great principle of motion, life, and love in the universe, though they lived in the midst of Christians, and had every facility for studying Christianity-never yielded themselves to it, and lived and died outside its pale. The truth is, that where speculation is prosecuted for its own sake-the intellect restlessly active, but the heart and life all neglected-pride only is engendered, and in this state the sharp, definite realities and dread certainties of revealed truth are neither intellectually apprehended nor morally appreciated. On the other hand, the men of action and enterprise, and those of simple purpose, more naturally sympathize with the earnest character and practical aim of Gospel truth. In short, the reception of the Gospel is the grand test of the simplicity of the heart. It is hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes. We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but unto them who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:23).