Now while Paul waited for them at Athens..... That is, for Silas and Timotheus:
his spirit was stirred in him; not only his soul was troubled and his heart was grieved, but he was exasperated and provoked to the last degree: he was in a paroxysm; his heart was hot within him; he had a burning fire in his bones, and was weary with forbearing, and could not stay; his zeal wanted vent, and he gave it:
when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry; or "full of idols", as the Syriac and Arabic versions render it. So Cicero says x that Athens was full of temples; and Xenophon y observes that they had double the feasts of other people; and Pausanias z affirms, that the Athenians far exceeded others in the worship of the gods, and care about religion; and he relates, that they had an altar for Mercy, another for Shame, another for Fame, and another for Desire, and expressed more religion to the gods than others did: they had an altar dedicated to twelve gods a; and because they would be sure of all, they erected one to an unknown god; in short, they had so many of them, that one b jestingly said to them, our country is so full of deities, that one may more easily find a god than a man: so that with all their learning and wisdom they knew not God, 1 Corinthians 1:21.
x De responsis Aruspicum. y De Athen. Polit. z Attica, p. 29, 42. a Thucydides Bell. Peloponness. l. 6. b Petronius.