Paul in Athens (Acts 17)

Paul's travels take him to Athens in Acts 17, where he preaches the Good News in the cultural center of the Mediterranean world. A rough modern equivalent would be Bishop Barron speaking at Facebook headquarters. 

"Now all the Athenians as well as the foreigners residing there used their time for nothing else but telling or hearing something new" (Acts 17:21).

Athens had produced three of the world's greatest philosophers - Socrates, Plato and Aristotle - whose contributions would influence Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, among other Catholic theologians. Centuries later, Athenians remained keenly interested in debating theology and philosophy. Yet Luke's comment that they were always interested in hearing something new is a revealing one. It suggests that the Athenians enjoyed philosophical debate as an end in itself, rather than as a means to discovering and living out ultimate truths. 

When preaching in the synagogues, Paul situated the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in the context of God's ministry of salvation that began with Abraham and the Jewish people. He frequently appealed to Scripture to show that the whole of salvation history had reached its triumphant conclusion in the ministry of Jesus.

With the cosmopolitan Athenians, Paul takes another approach. He knows that appeals to Jewish scriptures are not likely to resonate with them. He meets them where they are. He begins by noting an altar in the city inscribed "To an Unknown God." What had formerly been unknown, Paul tells them, has now been revealed. That God exists and wills our good is evident in His orderly, intelligible creation, as some of the Greek philosophers and poets had intuited centuries before. "For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring'" (Acts 17:28). The former saying is variously attributed to the poets Epimenides of Knossos (6th century B.C.), Aratus of Soli (third-century B.C.), or Cleanthes of Assos (3rd century B.C.). How mysterious and far-sighted is God's providence that this saying of an ancient Greek poet would find its way centuries later into Paul's speech to the Athenians; from there into Sacred Scripture; and would find its echo in the Liturgy of the Eucharist today: "Through Him and with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor are yours, forever and ever. Amen." 

Since God is in all things and sustaining all things at every moment, Paul argues, we should not worship an idol made by human hands as if it were God, nor should we think that God can be confined to a particular sanctuary. God is calling the Athenians now to repent of their former ways and believe in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom God has raised from the dead and who will come again to render judgement on all. 

Paul is not attacked by an angry mob in Athens. He is not hauled off to prison. He is not beaten and left for dead. But it does not appear he wins many converts. In other places he is attacked; but he gains disciples, and he writes to the communities of believers he established by the power of the Holy Spirit in Corinth, in Thessalonica, in Ephesus. But there is no epistle to the Athenians. A few believers are mentioned by name; but the majority of the Athenians either scoff at the resurrection or are mildly interested in Paul (saying "We would like to hear more about this another time") but take him merely as another philosopher among many. The truth is proclaimed to them, but they do not see it for what it is.

Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day for the salvation of souls.