NLT Illustrated Study Bible - Book of Acts - Flipbook - Page 55
2011
ATHENS
For centuries Athens was the chief city of the province of Attica. Athens’ most famous land
mark is the Acropolis, a steep flat rock that rises about 200 feet above the plain around it.
Athens began its rise to glory in the 500s bc. In this golden age, Athens became the center
of philosophy, art, architecture, and drama. By the time Paul brought the Christian mes
sage to Athens (Acts 17:15-34), the city had only a portion of its former glory and prestige.
Roman emperors provided for new buildings and the restoration of the Agora (market
place). Athens continued to be the home of the most prominent university in the Greek
world.
THE AREOPAGUS
Northwest of the Acropolis, the Areopagus (hill of Ares, or Mars Hill) overlooks the market
place (Acts 17:19). “Areopagus” also refers to the Athenian high council that met there.
Trials were held at the Areopagus; there Socrates had faced those who accused him of
defaming the Greek gods. By Paul’s day the council of the Areopagus oversaw political,
educational, philosophical, and religious matters for Athens.
(TOP) The School of Athens, Raffaello
Sanzio, 1509, detail showing Plato
(left) and Aristotle (right).
(ABOVE) The Women of Amphissa,
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1886,
portraying a group of young women
who had been driven mad by
Dionysus.
(BELOW) Menelaus, husband of
Helen, was a prominent character
in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the
founding heroic legends of Greece.
SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN ATHENS
There were a wide variety of philosophical ideas current in Athens when Paul visited,
but two main schools of thought dominated, Stoicism and Epicureanism (Acts 17:18).
S TOI CI S M
Zeno of Citium
(334~262 bc) founded
Stoicism. Stoics studied
nature’s laws and believed
in the Logos, a pervasive orga
nizing and sustaining force that gives all
things their essential nature and so gives
life and reason to humanity. The good
life is one in which reason rules, and
peace of mind and harmony with nature
prevail. Many prominent statesmen were
Stoics or influenced by Stoicism, includ
ing Cicero, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius.
Stoic ideas proved attractive to some
Christians because of the similarities
between the Stoic logos and the divine
Logos (John 1:1-18), and between the
idea of natural law and the law of God.
EPIC U REAN ISM
Those who followed
Epicurus (341–270 bc)
were empiricists;
they relied upon sense
experience (as opposed to
reason) for knowledge. Epicureans
were concerned with natural evidence
and were unenthusiastic about math
ematics. Their focus was ethics, the
study of right behavior; they judged
the value of an action or thing in
terms of the pleasure or pain it
brought. Epicurus saw belief in gods
(meddling and powerful beings who
terrified ordinary mortals) as a serious
threat to tranquility. For him and his
followers: neither the gods nor death
(which is the end) should be feared.
