Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
Ver. 16. His spirit was stirred] The word παρωξυνετο signifies, he was almost beside himself (such was his zeal) to see the idolatry of the Athenians. So was William Gardiner, an English merchant and martyr in Portugal, who, when the cardinal, in a mass before the king, began to take the ceremonial host, to toss it to and fro round about the chalice, making certain circles and semicircles, he not being able to suffer any longer, went to the cardinal, and in the presence of the king and all his nobles and citizens, with the one hand he snatched the cake from the priest, and trod it under his feet, and with the other hand overthrew the chalice, &c. See the like history of William Flower, who wounded the mass priest at Westminster, &c. (Acts and Mon. fol. 1430.) There are those who tell us that this book of the Acts is discerned to be written by Luke, by his physician's language here, παρωξυνετο, he "was in a fever fit," and Acts 15:39, εγενετο ουν παροξυσμος, "the contention was so sharp between them." The word signifies such sharpness as is in vinegar; and it is used by physicians to denote the sharpness of the feverish humour when it is acting in a fit. It troubled St Paul, that the fountain was so troubled, the eye of Greece so darkened, a the "ornament of the world" so slurred with "abominable idolatries," as St Peter expresseth it, 1 Peter 4:3 .
Wholly given to idolatry] Pausanias reckons up more idols almost in Athens than in all Greece besides. And Xenophon saith that the Athenians kept double the holy days and festivals to what others did. "Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone," q.d. there is no hope of him, Hosea 4:17. They that make them are like unto them, so are all they that worship them, as blockish as those Balaami-blocks they worship. No Church could be founded at Athens; they for their idolatry were given up to strong delusions, vile affections, just damnation. They were too wise to be saved by the foolishness of preaching.
a Της ‘ Ελλαδος σφθαλμος. Diod.