PA045-- Copyright Covenant Media Foundation – 1-800/553-3938

The Encounter of Jerusalem With Athens

Greg L. Bahnsen

What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church?... Our instructions come from “the porch of Solomon”.... Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus...!

So said Tertullian in his Prescription against Heretics (VII). Tertullian’s question, what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?, dramatically expresses one of the perennial issues in Christian thought—a problem which cannot be escaped by any Biblical interpreter, theologian, or apologist. We all operate on the basis of some answer to that question, whether we give it explicit and thoughtful attention or not. It is not a matter of whether we will answer the question, but only of how well we will do so.

What does Tertullian’s question ask? It inquires into the proper relation between Athens, the prime example of secular learning, and Jerusalem, the symbol of Christian commitment and thought. How does the proclamation of the Church relate to the teaching of the philosophical Academy? In one way or another, this question has constantly been before the mind of the church. How should faith and philosophy interact? Which has controlling authority over the other? How should the believer respond to alleged conflicts between revealed truth and extrabiblical instruction (in history, science, or what have you)? What is the proper relation between reason and revelation, between secular opinion and faith, between what is taught outside the church and what is preached inside?

This issue is particularly acute for the Christian apologist. When a believer offers a reasoned defense of the Christian hope that is within him (in obedience to 1 Peter 3:15), it is more often than not set forth in the face of some conflicting perspective. As we evangelize unbelievers in our culture, they rarely hold to the authority of the Bible and submit to it from the outset. The very reason most of our friends and neighbors need an evangelistic witness is that they hold a different outlook on life, a different philosophy, a different authority for their thinking. How, then, does the apologist respond to the conflicting viewpoints and sources of truth given adherence by those to whom he witnesses? What should he think “Athens” has to do with “Jerusalem” just here?

Christians have long disagreed over the proper strategy to be assumed by a believer in the face of unbelieving opinions or scholarship. Some renounce extrabiblical learning altogether (“Jerusalem versus Athens”). Others reject Biblical teaching when it conflicts with secular thought (“Athens versus Jerusalem”). Some try to appease both sides, saying that the Bible and reason have their own separate domains (“Jerusalem segregated from Athens”). Others attempt a mingling of the two, holding that we can find isolated elements of supportive truth in extrabiblical learning (“Jerusalem integrated with Athens”). Still others maintain that extrabiblical reasoning can properly proceed only upon the foundation of Biblical truth (“Jerusalem the capital of Athens”).

The Biblical Exemplar

Now it turns out that the Bible has not left us in the dark in answering Tertullian’s important question. Luke’s account of the early church, The Acts of the Apostles, offers a classic encounter between Biblical commitment and secular thought. And appropriately enough, this encounter takes place between a superb representative of “Jerusalem”—the apostle Paul—and the intellectuals of Athens. The exemplary meeting between the two is presented in Acts 17.

Throughout the book of Acts Luke shows us how the ascended Christ established His church through the apostles. We are given a selective recounting of main events and sermons which exhibit the powerful and model work of Christ’s servants. They have left us a pattern to follow with respect to both our message and method today. Thus, it is highly instructive for contemporary apologists to study the way the apostles, like Paul, reasoned and supported their message of hope (cf. 1 Peter 3:15). Paul was an expert at suiting his approach to each unique challenge, and so the manner in which he confronted the Athenian unbelievers who did not profess submission to the Old Testament Scriptures—like most unbelievers in our own culture—will be noteworthy for us.

We know that Paul’s approach to such pagans—for instance, those at Thessalonica, where he had been shortly before coming to Athens—was to call them to turn from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His resurrected Son who would judge the world at the consummation (cf. 1 Thess. 1:1-10). In preaching to those who were dedicated to idols Paul naturally had to engage in apologetical reasoning. Proclamation was inseparable from defense, as F. F. Bruce observes:

The apostolic preaching was obliged to include an apologetic element if the stumbling-block of the cross was to be overcome; the kerygma... must in some degree be apologia. And the apologia was not the invention of the apostles; they had all “received” it—received it from the Lord.[1]

The currently popular tendency of distinguishing witness from defense, or theology from apologetics, would have been preposterous to the apostles. The two require each other and have a common principle and source: Christ’s authority. Paul’s Christ-directed and apologetical preaching to pagans, especially those who were philosophically inclined (as in Acts 17), then, is paradigmatic for apologists, theologians, and preachers alike today.

Although the report in Acts 17 is condensed, Luke has summarized the main points of Paul’s message and method.

But is this Paul at His Best?

Some biblical interpreters have not granted that Acts 17 is an exemplar for the proper encounter of Jerusalem with Athens. Among them there are some who doubt that Paul was genuinely the author of the speech recorded in this chapter, while others think that Paul actually delivered this speech but repudiated its approach when he went on to minister at Corinth. Both groups, it turns out, rest their opinions on insufficient grounds.

A non-evangelical attitude toward the Scripture allows some scholars a supposed liberty to criticize the authenticity or accuracy of its contents, despite the Bible’s own claim to flawless perfection as to the truth. In Acts 17:22 Luke identifies the speaker of the Areopagus address as the apostle Paul, and Luke’s customary historical accuracy is by now well known among scholars of the New Testament. (Interestingly, classicists have been more generally satisfied with the Pauline authenticity of this speech than have modernist theologians.) Nevertheless, some writers claim to discern a radical difference between the Paul of Areopagus and the Paul of the New Testament epistles. According to the critical view, the Areopagus focuses on world-history rather than the salvation history of Paul’s letters, and the speaker at Areopagus teaches that all men are in God by nature, in contrast to the Pauline emphasis on men being in Christ by grace.[2]

These judgments rest upon an excessively narrow perception of the writings and theology of Paul. The Apostle understood his audience at Athens: they would have needed to learn of God as the Creator and of His divine retribution against sin (even as the Jews knew these things from the Old Testament) before the message of grace could have meaning. Thus the scope of Paul’s theological discussion would necessarily be broader than that normally found in his epistles to Christian churches. Moreover, as we will see as this study progresses, there are conspicuous similarities between the themes of the Areopagus address and what Paul wrote elsewhere in his letters (especially the opening chapters of Romans). Johannes Munch said of the sermon: “its doctrine is a reworking of thoughts in Romans transformed into missionary impulse.”[3] Finally, even given the broader perspective on history found in the address of Acts 17, we cannot overlook the fact that it, in perfect harmony with Paul’s more restricted salvation-history elsewhere, is bracketed by creation and final judgment, and that it finds its climax in the resurrected Christ. The speech before the Areopagus was a “plea for the Jewish doctrine of God, and for the specifically Christian emphasis on a ‘Son of Man’ doctrine of judgment”[4] (not an “idealized scene” printing a message about man’s [alleged] “dialectical relation to God”).[5] The Paul on Areopagus is clearly the same Paul who writes in the New Testament epistles.

Did Paul suddenly shift his apologetical strategy after leaving Athens though? It has sometimes been thought that when Paul went on from Athens to Corinth and there determined to know nothing among the people except Christ crucified, repudiating the excellency of wisdom (1 Cor. 2:1-2), he confessed that his philosophical tactics in Athens had been unwise. Disillusioned with his small results in Athens, Paul prematurely departed the city, we are told, and then came to Corinth and became engrossed in the word of God (Acts 18:5), never to use philosophical style again.[6] This outlook, while intriguing, consists of more speculation and jumping to conclusions than hard evidence.

In the first place, Paul is herein portrayed as a novice in Gentile evangelism at Athens, experimenting with this and that tactic in order to find an effective method. This does not square with the facts. For several years Paul had already been a successful evangelist in the world of pagan thought; moreover, he was not of an experimental mindset, and elsewhere he made plain that favorable results were not the barometer of faithful preaching. Besides, in Athens his results were not completely discouraging (17:34). And of a premature departure from Athens the text says nothing. After leaving Athens, Paul can hardly be said to have abandoned the disputing or “dialogue” for which he became known at Athens (cf 17:17); it continued in Corinth (18:4), Ephesus (18:19), and Troas (20:6-7)—being a daily exercise for two years in the school of Tyrannus (19:8-9). It is further inaccurate to project a contrast between post-Athens Paul, engrossed in the word, and Athenian Paul, absorbed in extrabiblical thought. Some Greek texts of Acts 17:24-29 (e.g., Nestle’s) list up to 22 Old Testament allusions in the margin, thus showing anything but a neglect of the Scriptural word in Paul’s Athenian preaching!

Mention can again be made of the enlightening harmony that exists between Paul’s writings, say in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 1, and his speech in Acts 17. The passages in the epistles help us understand the apologetical thrust of the Areopagus address, rather than clashing with it—as the subsequent study will indicate. Finally, it is quite difficult to imagine that Paul, who had previously declared “Far be it from me to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14), and who incisively taught the inter-significance of the death and resurrection of Christ (e.g., Rom. 4:25), would proclaim Christ as the resurrected one at Athens without explaining that He was also the crucified one—only later (in Corinth) to determine not to neglect the crucifixion again. We must conclude that solid evidence of a dramatic shift in Paul’s apologetic mentality simply does not exist.

What Luke portrays for us by way of summary in Acts 17:16-34 can confidently be taken as a speech of the Apostle Paul, a speech which reflected his inspired approach to Gentiles without the Bible, a speech consistent with his earlier and later teachings in the epistles. His approach is indeed an exemplar to us. It was specially selected by Luke for inclusion in his summary history of the early apostolic church. “Apart from the brief summary of the discourse at Lystra..., the address at Athens provides our only evidence of the apostle’s direct approach to a pagan audience.”[7] With respect to the author’s composition of Acts, Martin Dibelius argues: “In giving only one sermon addressed to Gentiles by the great apostle to the Gentiles, namely the Areopagus speech in Athens, his primary purpose is to give an example of how the Christian missionary should approach cultured Gentiles.”[8] And in his lengthy study, The Areopagus Speech and Natural Revelation, Gartner correctly asks this rhetorical question: “How are we to explain the many similarities between the Areopagus speech and the Epistles if the speech did not exemplify Paul’s customary sermons to the Gentiles?”[9] In the encounter of Jerusalem with Athens as found in Paul’s Areopagus address, we thus find that it was genuinely Paul who was speaking, and that Paul was at his best. Scripture would have us, then, strive to emulate his method.

Intellectual Backgrounds

Before looking at Acts 17 itself, a short historical and philosophical background for the speaker of and listeners to, the Areopagus address would be helpful.

Paul was a citizen of Tarsus, which was not an obscure or insignificant city (Acts 21:39). It was the leading city of Cilicia and famed as a city of learning. In addition to general education, Tarsus was noted for its schools devoted to rhetoric and philosophy. Some of its philosophers gained significant reputations, especially the Stoic leaders Zeno of Tarsus (who cast doubt on the idea of a universal conflagration), Antipater of Tarsus (who addressed a famous argument against Carneade’s skepticism), Heraclides of Tarsus (who abandoned the view that “all mistakes are equal”), and Athenodorus the Stoic (who was a teacher of Augustus); Nestor the Academic followed Athenodorus, evidencing thereby the variety of philosophic perspectives in Tarsus. The city surely exercised an academic influence on Paul, an influence which would have been broadened later in Paul’s life when he came into contact with its culture again for some eight years or so, three years following his conversion. In his early years Paul was also educated by Gamaliel in Jerusalem (Acts 22:3), where he excelled as a student (Gal. 1:14). His course of study would have included critical courses in Greek culture and philosophy (as evidence from the Talmud indicates). When we add to this the extensive knowledge of Greek literature and culture which is reflected in his letters, it is manifest that Paul was neither naive nor obscurantist when it came to a knowledge of philosophy and Gentile thought. Given his background, training, and expertise in Scriptural theology, Paul was the ideal representative for the classic confrontation of Jerusalem with Athens.

Athens, the philosophical center of the ancient world, was renowned for its four major schools: The Academy (founded ca. 287 B.C.) of Plato, the Lyceum (335 B.C.) of Aristotle, the Garden (306 B.C.) of Epicurus, and the Painted Porch (300 B.C.) of Zeno.

The outlook of the Academy was radically altered by Arcesilaus and Carneades in the third and second centuries before Christ; respectively, they moved the school into utter skepticism and then probabilism. Carneades relegated the notion of god to impenetrable mystery. When Antiochus of Ascalon claimed to restore the “old Academy” in the first century B.C., in actuality he introduced a syncretistic dogmatism which viewed Stoicism as the true successor to Plato. The Platonic tradition is remembered for the view that man’s soul is imprisoned in the body; at death man is healed, as his soul is released from its tomb.

This anti-materialist emphasis was somewhat challenged by Aristotle’s Peripatetic school, which denied the possibility of immortality and invested much time in specialized empirical study and classification of the departments of knowledge. The influence of this school had greatly weakened by the time of the New Testament. However, its materialistic proclivity was paralleled in the atomism of Epicureanism.

Democritus had earlier taught that the universe consisted of eternal atoms of matter, ever falling through space; the changing of combinations and configurations of these falling atoms was explained by reference to chance (an irrational “swerve” in the fall of certain atoms). This metaphysic, in combination with an epistemology which maintained that all knowledge stemmed from sense perception, led the Epicurean followers of atomism to believe that a naturalistic explanation of all events could and should be given. By their doctrine of self-explanatory naturalism the Epicureans denied immortality thereby declaring that there was no need to fear death. Moreover, whatever gods there may be would make no difference to men and their affairs. Epicurus taught that long-lasting pleasure was the goal of human behavior and life. Since no after-life was expected (at death a person’s atoms disperse into infinite space), human desires should focus on this life alone. And in this life the only genuine long-term pleasure was that of tranquility—being freed from disturbing passions, pains, or fears. To gain such tranquility one must become insulated from disturbances in his life (e.g., interpersonal strife, disease), concentrating on simple pleasures (e.g., a modicum of cheese and wine, conversations with friends) and achieving serenity through the belief that gods never intervene in the world to punish disobedient behavior. Indeed, whatever celestial beings there are, they were taken merely as dream-like images who—in deistic fashion—care nothing about the lives of men. Thus Philodemus wrote: “There is nothing to fear in god. There is nothing to be alarmed at in death.” The Epicureans were, as is evident here, antagonistic to theology. Epicurus had taught them to appeal to right reason against superstition. Accordingly Lucretius denied any need for recourse to “unknown gods” in order to explain the plague at Athens or its alleviation.

Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, agreed that sensation was the sole origin of knowledge, and that the mind of man was a tabula rasa at birth. However, against Epicurean materialism, he taught that reason governs matter in both man and the world, thus making man a microcosm of the universal macrocosm. Man was viewed as integrated with nature—man’s reason seen as being of a piece with the ever-living fire which permeates the world order. This was the “Logos” for the Stoics. As a kind of refined matter that actively permeates all things and determines what will happen, the Logos was the unchanging rational plan of historical change. Nature’s highest expression, then, was reason or the world-soul, being personified eventually as god. In addition to this pantheistic thrust, Zeno expounded a cyclic view of history (moving through conflagration-regeneration sequences) which precluded individual immortality. Being subordinated to immanent forces (the divine world-soul and historical determinism) the individual was exhorted to “live in harmony with nature,” not concerning himself with matters which were beyond his control. If life was to be conducted “conformably to nature,” and reason was nature’s basic expression, then virtue for man was to live in harmony with reason. The rational element in man was to be superior to the emotional. Epictetus wrote that men cannot control events, but they can control their attitude toward events. So everything outside reason, whether it be pleasure, pain, or even death, was to be viewed as indifferent. Stoicism gave rise to a serious attitude, resignation in suffering, stern individualism, and social self-sufficiency. In turn, these achievements produced pride. Aratus and Cleanthes, two pantheistic Stoics of the mid-third century B.C., viewed Zeus as a personification of the unavoidable fate which governs man’s life. Later Stoics either abandoned or modified much of Zeno’s teaching. For instance, a century after Cleanthes, Panaetius essentially became a humanist who saw theology as idle chatter; and a century after Panaetius another Stoic leader, Posidonius (Cicero’s instructor), opted for a Platonic view of the soul, the eternality of the world (contrary to the idea of conflagration), and the dynamic continuity of nature under fate. The famous Roman Stoic, Seneca, was a contemporary of Paul.

A final line of thinking which was influential in Athens in Paul’s day (mid-first century A.D.) was that of the neopythagoreans. In the late sixth century B.C. Pythagoras had taught a mathematical basis for the cosmos, the transmigration of souls, and a regime of purity. Mixed with the thought of Plato, the Peripatetics, and Stoicism, his thought reappeared in the first century B.C. with the neopythagoreans, who emphasized an exoteric and mystical theology which took a keen interest in numbers and the stars. The neophythagoreans influenced the Essene community as well as Philo—Paul’s other philosophical contemporary.[10]

In Paul’s day Athenian intellectual life had come to be characterized by turmoil and uncertainty. Skepticism had made heavy inroads, which in turn fostered various reactions—notably: interaction between the major schools of thought, widespread eclecticism, nostalgic interest in the past founders of the schools, religious mysticism, and resignation to hedonism. Men were turning every which way in search for the truth and for security. On the other hand, over four hundred years of philosophical dispute with its conflicts, repetitions, and inadequacies had left many Athenians bored and thirsty for novel schemes of thought. Thus one can understand Luke’s accurate and insightful aside to the reader in Acts 17:21, “Now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.” The curiosity of the Athenians was indeed proverbial. Earlier, Demosthenes had reproached the Athenians for being consumed with a craving for “fresh news”. The Greek historian, Thucydides, tells us that Cleon once declared, “You are the best people for being deceived by something new which is said.” With this background let us now examine Paul’s apologetic to secular intellectuals.

Paul’s Encounter with the Philosophers

Acts 17:16-21 (American Standard Version)

(16) now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he beheld the city full of idols.

(17) so he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with them that met him.

(18) and certain also of the epicurean and stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, what would this babbler say? Others, he seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.

(19) and they took hold of him, and brought him unto the Areopagus, saying, may we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by thee?

(20) for thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.

(21) (now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.)

In the early 50’s of the first century Paul was on something of a “missionary furlough,” waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy. (Luke’s rehearsal of this situation, Acts 17:14-16, is confirmed by Paul’s own account in 1 Thess. 3: 1-2). However, his brief relief was broken when he became internally provoked at the idolatry of the city, being reminded anew of the perversity of the unbeliever who suppresses God’s clear truth and worships the creature rather than the Creator (Acts 17:16; cf. Rom. 1:25). Paul’s love for God and His standards meant he had a corresponding hatred for that which was offensive to the Lord. The idolatry of Athens produced a strong and sharp emotional disturbance within him, one of exasperated indignation. The Greek word for “provoked” is the same as that used in the Greek Old Testament for God’s anger at Israel’s idolatry (e.g., at Sinai). The Mosaic law’s prohibition against idolatry was obviously binding outside of Old Testament Israel, judging from Paul’s attitude toward the idolatrous society of Athens. Paul was thinking God’s thoughts after Him, and strong emotion was generated by the fact that this “city full of idols” was “without excuse” for its rebellion (Rom. 1:20)—as also had been Israel of old.

The profligate Roman satirist, Petronius, once said that it was easier to find a god in Athens than a man; the city simply teemed with idols. Visitors to Athens and writers (e.g., Sophocles, Livy, Pausanius, Strabo, Josephus) frequently remarked upon the abundance of religious statues in Athens. According to one, Athens had more idols than all of the remainder of Greece combined. There was the altar of Eumenides (dark goddesses who avenge murder) and the hermes (statues with phallic attributes, standing at every entrance to the city as protective talismans). There was the altar of the Twelve Gods, the Temple of Ares (or “Mars,” god of war), the Temple of Apollo Patroos. Paul saw the image of Neptune on horseback, the sanctuary of Bacchus, the forty foot high statue of Athena, the mother goddess of the city. Sculptured forms of the Muses and the gods of Greek mythology presented themselves everywhere around Paul.[11] What is today taken by tourists as a fertile field of aesthetic appreciation—the artifacts left from the ancient Athenian worship of pagan deities—represented to Paul not art but despicable and crude religion. Religious loyalty and moral considerations precluded artistic compliments. These idols were not “merely an academic question” to Paul. They provoked him. As Paul gazed upon the Doric Temple of the patron goddess Athena, the Parthenon, standing atop the Acropolis, and as he scrutinized the Temple of Mars on the Areopagus, he was not only struck with the inalienable religious nature of man (v.22), but also outraged at how fallen man exchanges the glory of the incorruptible God for idols (Rom. 1:23).

Thus Paul could not keep silent. He began daily to reason with the Jews in the synagogue, and with anybody who would hear him in the agora, at the bottom of the Acropolis, the center of Athenian life and business (where years before, Socrates had met men with whom to discuss philosophical questions) (v.17). Paul’s evangelistic method was always suited to the local conditions—and portrayed with historical accuracy by Luke. In Ephesus Paul taught in the “school of Tyrannus,” but in Athens his direct approach to the heathen was made in the marketplace. Paul had already approached the unbelieving Jews and God-fearing Gentiles at the synagogue in Athens. Now he entered the marketplace of ideas to “reason with” those who met him there. The Greek word for Paul’s activity recalls the “dialogues” of Plato wherein Socrates discusses issues of philosophical importance; it is the same word used by Plutarch for the teaching methods of a peripatetic philosopher. Paul did not simply announce his viewpoint; he discussed it openly and gave it a reasonable defense. He aimed to educate his audience, not to make common religious cause with their sinful ignorance.

Paul was well aware of the philosophical climate of his day. Accordingly he did not attempt to use premises agreed upon with the philosophers, and then pursue a “neutral” method of argumentation to move them from the circle of their beliefs into the circle of his own convictions. When he disputed with the philosophers they did not find any grounds for agreement with Paul at any level of their conversations. Rather, they utterly disdained him as a “seed-picker,” a slang term (originally applied to gutter-sparrows) for a peddler of second-hand bits of pseudo-philosophy—an intellectual scavenger (v. 18). The word of the cross was to them foolish (1 Cor. 1:18), and in their pseudo-wisdom they knew not God (1 Cor. 1:20-21). Hence Paul would not consent to use their verbal “wisdom” in his apologetic, lest the cross of Christ be made void (1 Cor. 1:17).

Paul rejected the assumptions of the philosophers in order that he might educate them in the truth of God. He did not attempt to find common beliefs which would serve as starting points for an uncommitted search for “whatever gods there may be.” His hearers certainly did not recognize commonness with Paul’s reasoning; they could not discern an echo of their own thinking in Paul’s argumentation. Instead, they viewed Paul as bringing strange, new teaching to them (vv. 18-20). They apparently viewed Paul as proclaiming a new divine couple: “Jesus” (a masculine form that sounds like the greek iasis) and “Resurrection” (a feminine form), being the personified powers of “healing” and “restoration.” These “strange deities” amounted to “new teaching” in the eyes of the Athenians. Accusing Paul of being a propagandist for new deities was an echo of the nearly identical charge brought against Socrates four and a half centuries earlier.