Paul at Athens. Athens was at this time no longer the intellectual centre of the world, nor the best of the leading schools of philosophy; but the fame of the city drew many to it, and a visit to Athens gave finish to the education of a Roman. With no great seriousness, all matters were discussed there, and it offered no promising soil for the Gospel. See Renan's chapter on Athens in his St. Paul.
Acts 17:16. The images of Athens were multitudinous; the pillaging of Greek masterpieces by Roman magistrates was not yet far advanced, and what Paul saw might have suggested reflections on the magnificent achievements of Greek art. But to his Jewish eye they were the aberrations of men who did not see God in His works but tried to make representations of Him to worship; he would consider they were all there for that purpose (Romans 1:23; 1 Thessalonians 1:9).
Acts 17:17. reasoned: or preached. The Jews and God-fearers in the synagogue did not need to be convinced of the true nature of idols; he had as usual begun with them, but he also preached in the market-place, in the low ground N. of the Acropolis; to those he met with, where all the life of the city, intellectual and otherwise, had its centre.
Acts 17:18. It was a matter of course that he would meet with philosophers there; Epicureans and Stoics (pp. 633 ff.) were by no means the only schools in Athens, though they were the oldest, and there is nothing characteristic in their questions and replies (cf. Acts 2:12 f.). babbler: lit. seed picker, then of one picking up crumbs of wisdom and applying them without skill. Ramsay renders bounder (St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 243 ff.). a setter forth of strange gods: this was the charge brought against Socrates. He does not count those gods whom the city counts such, but introduces new demons. The new gods Paul introduced were Jesus and Anastasis, i.e. Resurrection; how this was picked from his words we cannot tell, but the resurrection is treated throughout Ac. as Paul's principal doctrine (see Acts 23:6, p. 777). He is taken to the court, not the hill, Areopagus; the court could meet elsewhere, and it also had charge in Roman times of matters of religion and education (p. 614). What follows is not a criminal proceeding but an inquiry. The speech is not calculated for philosophers; it is a popular discourse against idolatry with a Christian conclusion. It is the apparent newness of his doctrine that arouses interest; it is aptly remarked how eagerly new things were sought after at Athens.