ACC ~ Acts 17 v16 - 21

OVERVIEW:

Most commentators consider this speech at Athens, which Luke still regards, despite its faded glory, as the center of the pagan world’s self-understanding, as a model of the confrontation of two outlooks on reality. They are the biblical understanding of reality, as this biblical understanding has been raised to a new level by the reality of Jesus Christ, especially his resurrection, and that of the surrounding culture, with its sophisticated but nontranscendent understanding of the universe. Commentators enquire about background (such as Is 45:18-25, Wis 13-14) and point to similar modes of thought in the Pauline writings. It must be borne in mind, moreover, that for the ancients a speech was an event every bit as much as a battle or any other action and was to be interpretatively presented in the same way as any other action. Thus questions regarding sources and other matters have a different significance. The Fathers instinctively knew the literary world within which Luke and Paul are moving and their attention is elsewhere. The schools of philosophy that Paul encountered in Athens, the Epicureans and the Stoics, contemplated the means to human happiness in this life. Bede provides a caricature of what these schools taught, and he shows that his knowledge of them is secondhand. The Epicureans were materialists and aimed at an undisturbed existence that was erroneously labeled by some as hedonism. The Stoics aimed at becoming a sage, the ideal wise person who saw the greatest human good to be in a virtuous soul. Bede’s simplifications aside, his point that Christianity looks beyond a dualism of body and soul to a perfection never achievable here, but found only by God’s grace in a resurrection from the dead, marks a major shift in how human wholeness and happiness can be conceived of as only beginning here. This revelation opens up human contemplation to the hope of a new world and radically transforms leisure by lifting it out of idle curiosity to a constant state of preparation for God’s gifts (BASIL). Here, the oddity of the resurrection to these people comes out most clearly in that they misunderstand it to be a new divinity along with Jesus. Despite these miscommunications, Paul’s conversations, though slow to bear fruit, begin a process of cleansing a city possessed by demons (CHRYSOSTOM).

17:18 | Some Philosophers Met Paul

CERTAIN EPICUREAN AND STOIC PHILOSOPHERS. BEDE: The Epicureans, following the stupidity of their teacher, put the happiness of humanity in the pleasure of the body alone, while the Stoics placed it solely in the virtue of the mind. Although indeed they disagreed with each other, they nevertheless were united in opposition to the apostle with respect to [his belief that] a human being subsists in soul and body. Thus he taught that [one] ought to be happy in both [body and soul] but that this will not be achieved in the present time or by human power but by the grace of God through Jesus Christ in the glory of the resurrection. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 17.18A.

A NEW GOD. CHRYSOSTOM: By the term resurrection the Athenians understood a god, for they were accustomed even to worship females. … They called their gods daimones, for their cities were full of daimones. CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 17.18.

17:21 | Telling or Hearing Something New

GOOD AND BAD LEISURE. BASIL THE GREAT: “Be at leisure and know that I am God.” To the extent that we take our leisure in matters apart from God, we cannot attain knowledge of God. For who, concerned over the things of the world and immersed in fleshly distractions, can pay attention to discourses concerning God and measure up to the rigid discipline of contemplations so long and great? Don’t you see that the Word that falls among thorns is choked by the thorns? Now the thorns are fleshly pleasures and wealth and glory and cares of this life. The one who seeks knowledge of God must become separated from all these things, and, being at leisure apart from passions, thus receive the knowledge of God. For how can contemplation about God enter a mind crowded by thoughts that preoccupy it? Even Pharaoh knew that being at leisure is proper to the search for God, and for this reason he mocked the Israelites, “You are idling about, you men of leisure, and you say, ‘We will pray to the Lord our God.’” While this leisure is good and profitable for the one in leisure as it brings peace for the reception of the Savior’s teachings, the leisure of the Athenians was evil, since “they devoted their leisure to nothing more than saying or listening to something new.” HOMILY ON PSALM 45.