Atti 17:28 Commento

We have here a further account of the travels of Paul, and his services and sufferings for Christ. He was not like a candle upon a table, that gives light only to one room, but like the sun that goes its circuit to give light to many. He was called into Macedonia, a large kingdom, Act 16:9. He began with Philippi, because it was the first city he came to; but he must not confine himself to this. We have him here, I. Preaching and persecuted at Thessalonica, another city of Macedonia (Act 17:1-9). II. Preaching at Berea, where he met with an encouraging auditory, but was driven thence also by persecution (Act 17:10-15). III. Disputing at Athens, the famous university of Greece (Act 17:16-21), and the account he gave of natural religion, for the conviction of those that were addicted to polytheism and idolatry, and to lead them to the Christian religion (Act 17:22-31), together with the success of this sermon (Act 17:32-34).

Now when they had passed through Amphipolls,.... A city of Macedonia, where it is placed by Pliny (q); according to Ptolomy (r), it was in that part of Macedonia, which is called Edonis, and was near Philippi, and lay in the way from thence to Thessalonica; Harpocratian (s) says, it was a city of Thrace, formerly called "the Nine Ways"; it was upon the borders of Thrace, and had its name Amphipolis from the river Strymon running on both sides of it, making it a peninsula; it was also called Crademna, and Anadraemum; it is now in the hands of the Turks, and by them called Empoli; this city was originally built by Cimon the Athenian, into which he sent ten thousand Athenians for a colony, as the writer of his life reports (t). The apostle only passed through this place; it does not appear that he at all preached in it, or at any other time, nor do we read of it in ecclesiastical history, nor of the following place: and Apollonia; this is also placed by Pliny (u) in Macedonia, and is said by him to have been formerly a colony of the Corinthians, and about seven miles from the sea; and by Ptolomy (w), in that part of Macedonia called Mygdonia, and with him its name is Apollonia of Mygdonia; it was situated by the river Echedorus, and was famous for Augustus Caesar's learning Greek here, and is now called Ceres: there was another of this name in the region of Pentapolis, and was one of the five (x) cities in it; and another in Palestine mentioned by Pliny (y), along with Caesarea; and by Josephus (z), with Joppa, Jamnia, Azotus, &c. but this was near Thessalonica; it is said to be about twenty miles from it: here also the apostle did not stay to preach the Gospel, nor is there any mention made of it elsewhere in the Acts of the Apostles, and yet Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas, is said to be bishop of Apollonia; See Gill on Luk 10:1, but whether the same place with this, or whether fact, is not certain; they came to Thessalonica; a free city of Macedonia (a); it was formerly called Halis (b), and sometimes Therme; it had its name of Thessalonica from the victory which Philip king of Macedon obtained over the Thessalians; and not from his daughter Thessalonica, the wife of Cassander, who also had her name from the same victory: in this place a sedition being raised, and some magistrates killed, Theodosius the Roman emperor suffered seven thousand men to be slain; and when he came to Milain, Ambrose bishop of that place having heard of it, would not suffer him to enter into the church and receive the Lord's supper, until he repented of his sin, and made public confession of it (c). Thessalonica has been since the head of a new kingdom erected by Boniface marquis of Montferrat; it was for some time in the hands of the Venetians, but was taken from them by Amurath emperor of the Turks (d). The Italians call it now Saloniki; it has been since inhabited by Christians, Turks, and Jews, and chiefly by the latter, their number, according to their own account, is fourteen thousand, and their synagogues fourscore. There always were many Jews in this place, and so there were when the apostle was here, for it follows; where was a synagogue of the Jews; it seems as if there was none, neither in Philippi, nor in Amphipolis, nor in Apollonia: why these two last places should be passed through by the apostle, without making any stay at them, cannot be said; it is very likely he had, as in some other instances before, some particular directions from the Spirit of God, there being none of the chosen vessels of salvation to be called there, at least, at this time, when there were many at Thessalonica. (q) Nat. Hist. l. 4. c. 10. (r) Geograph. l. 3. c. 13. (s) Lexic. Decem. Orat. p. 20, 104. Vid. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 10. c. 8. (t) Cornelius Nepos in Vita Cimon. c. 2. (u) Nat. Hist. l. 3. c. 23. (w) Geograph. l. 8. c. 13. Vid. Plin. l. 4. c. 10. (x) Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 5. (y) Ib. c. 13. (z) Antiqu. l. 13. c. 15. sect. 4. & de Bello Jud. l. 1. c. 8, sect. 3. (a) Plin. l. 4. c. 10. (b) Ptolom. l. 3. c. 13. (c) Magdeburg. Hist. Eccles. cent. 4. c. 3. p. 82. (d) Petav. Rationar. Temp. par. 1. p. 462, 475.

For in him we live, and move, and have our being,.... The natural life which men live is from God; and they are supported in it by him; and from him they have all the comforts and blessings of life; and all motions, whether external or internal, of body or of mind, are of God, and none of them are without the concourse of his providence, and strength assistance from him; though the disorder and irregularity of these motions, whereby they become sinful, are of themselves, or of the devil; and their being, and the maintenance of it, and continuance in it, are all owing to the power and providence of God. As certain also of your own poets have said; the Syriac version reads in the singular number, "as a certain one of your wise men has said"; but all others read in the plural; and some have thought, that the apostle refers to what goes before, that being an Iambic verse of some of the poets, as well as to what follows, which is a citation from Aratus (x) and whom the apostle might have called his own, as he was his countryman; for Aratus was a native of Solis, a city of Cilicia, not far from Tarsus yea, some say (y) he was of Tarsus, where the apostle was born: but Aratus being an Heathen, and the apostle speaking to Heathens, calls him one of them; and the rather, that what is cited might be the more regarded by them: though the expression is also (z) said to be in an hymn to Jove, written by Cleanthes, who taught at Athens; and so the apostle addressing the Athenians, might, with greater propriety, say, "as certain of your own poets say": it is also said to be in Aratus the astronomer, and in the poet Homer; so that the plural number may well be used. Which is, for we are also his offspring; the offspring of Jove, says Aratus; which the apostle applies to the true Jehovah, the Creator of all men, by whom, and after whose image, they are made, and so are truly his offspring; upon which the apostle argues as follows. (x) In Phaenomenis, p. 1. (y) Vid. Fabricii Biblioth. Gr. l. 3. c. 18. p. 451. (z) Vid. Fabricii Biblioth. Gr. l. 3. c. 18. p. 453.

Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, is recorded to have said to the Areopagites, "I perceive that ye are more than ordinarily religious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with the inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him; though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we also are His offspring." Whence it is evident that the apostle, by availing himself of poetical examples from the Phenomena of Aratus, approves of what had been well spoken by the Greeks; and intimates that, by the unknown God, God the Creator was in a roundabout way worshipped by the Greeks; but that it was necessary by positive knowledge to apprehend and learn Him by the Son.

It is clear that by using poetic examples from the Phaenomena of Aratus [Paul] approves the best statements of the Greeks. Besides, he refers to the fact that in the person of the unknown god the Greeks are indirectly honoring God the Creator and need to receive him and learn about him with full knowledge through the Son. “I sent you to the gentiles for this purpose,” says Scripture, “to open their eyes, for them to turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, for them to receive release from sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” So these are the “opened eyes of the blind,” which means the clear knowledge of the Father through the Son, the direct grasp of the thing to which the Greeks indirectly allude.

“Being as one outside the law to those outside the law.” He came to Athens, he found philosophers, and he did not use the words of the prophets or from the law, but as one perhaps recalling this pagan teaching from a school of rhetoric he spoke to the men of Athens. For [Paul] said, “Just as some of your poets have said, ‘For we are his offspring too.’ ” In this place, he was as one outside the law to those outside the law, in order to gain the lawless. It is as if he were to say “I was doing nothing contrary to the law in making this concession to them, but I was keeping myself bound by the law of Christ, in order to gain the lawless.”

I believe that if He is given the name ‘Son’, it is because He is of the same essence as the Father and also because He comes from the Father… He is called Logos (Word) because He is, in relation to the Father, what the word is to the mind… The Son makes known the nature of the Father quickly and easily, because everything begotten is an unspoken definition of the one who got it. If, on the other hand, we wish to call Him ‘Word’ because He is in everything, we shall not be mistaken: did not the Word create all that is?… He is called ‘Life’… because He gives life to everything. Indeed, ‘in Him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17.28)… It is from Him that we all receive the breath of life and the Holy Spirit Whom our soul contains to the limit of its openness. - "Fourth Theological Oration, 20-21"

"As certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring." This is said by Aratus the poet. Observe how he draws his arguments from things done by themselves, and from sayings of their own.

"In him;" to put it by way of corporeal similitude, even as it is impossible to be ignorant of the air which is diffused on every side around us, and is "not far from every one of us," nay rather, which is in us. For it was not so that there was a heaven in one place, in another none, nor yet a heaven at one time, at another none. So that both at every "time" and at every "bound" it was possible to find Him. He so ordered things, that neither by place nor by time were men hindered. For of course even this, if nothing else, of itself was a help to them - that the heaven is in every place, that it stands in all time. See how he declares His Providence, and His upholding power; the existence of all things from Him, from Him their working, from Him their preservation that they perish not. And he does not say, "Through Him," but, what was nearer than this, "In him."

That poet said nothing equal to this, "For we are His offspring." He, however, spake it of Jupiter, but Paul takes it of the Creator, not meaning the same being as he, God forbid! but meaning what is properly predicated of God: just as he spoke of the altar with reference to Him, not to the being whom they worshipped. As much as to say, "For certain things are said and done with reference to this true God, but ye know not that they are with reference to Him."

"For in him we live and move and have our being." Just as, in a bodily example, it is impossible to be unaware of the air poured everywhere, and of its not being far from any one of us, indeed even being within us, so likewise is the creator God of all. For from him is our being, our activity, our not perishing. [CHRYSOSTOM]

Then he even brings in a use for them from Aratus, one of their poets, in the construction of his own discourse. "For we too are his offspring," he says. And this passage he takes about the Creator himself, although some say that this was said about Zeus, not meaning the same as that Zeus, but saying that this expression most properly fits him. For something has been said and is directed to him, but the Greeks do not know this, for they have conceived these things of another, just as also the phrase "To the Unknown God," and something different. But Paul says that we are of the race of God, not as those say, but in another sense of mind, that is, relatives, nearest, as one might say, dwellers nearby or neighbors. [CHRYSOSTOM]

For in Him we live and move and have our being. This verse, because it is difficult to understand, should be explained by the words of blessed Augustine. "The Apostle shows," he says, "that God works unceasingly in the things He has created. For indeed we do not exist in Him as in His substance, as it is said that He has life in Himself; but certainly, since we are something other than Him, we exist in Him only because He works this. And this is His work by which He contains all things, and which His wisdom extends from end to end mightily and orders all things sweetly. Through this arrangement, we live, move, and exist in Him. From this it is inferred that if He withdrew this work from things, we would neither live, nor move, nor exist." And a little later: "For neither heaven nor earth, and all things in them, namely the whole of spiritual and bodily creation, remain in themselves, but surely in Him of whom it is said: For in Him we live and move and have our being. For although each part can exist in the whole, which it is a part of, the whole itself does not exist except in Him by whom it was made." The same blessed Augustine elsewhere says: "This, if the Apostle were speaking according to the body, could also be understood of this corporeal world. For in it according to the body we live, move, and exist." Hence, according to the mind which is made in His image, this should be taken in a certain more excellent and not visible but intelligible mode. For what is not in Him, of whom it is divinely written: For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things (Rom. XI)?

As some of your poets have said. This is what he says elsewhere: I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. For to those who did not accept the faith of the prophets, not Moses, not Isaiah, or any of the prophets, but he speaks by the testimonies of their own authors, citing the verse of Aratus, confirming his truth from their falsities, which they could not contradict. Indeed, it is of great knowledge to give food to fellow servants at the right time, and to consider the persons of the hearers.

For we are indeed his offspring. We are most rightly called the offspring of God, not born of His nature, but voluntarily created through His spirit, and recreated by adoption.

"In Him we live and move and have our being." He proves the nearness of the Lord by means of a sensory example: it is impossible, he says, not to know that air is diffused everywhere and is not only near each one of us, but also within us ourselves. The fact that we have received life from God, that we act and do not perish — all of this he calls the providence and care of God for us.

Paul and his company, passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, come to Thessalonica, were they preach the Gospel to the Jews, several of whom believe, Act 17:1-4. Others raise a mob, and bring Jason, who had received the apostles, before the magistrates, who, having taken bail of him and his companions, dismiss them, Act 17:5-9. Paul and Silas are sent away by night unto Berea, where they preach to the Jews, who gladly receive the Gospel, Act 17:10-12. Certain Jews from Thessalonica, hearing that the Bereans had received the Gospel, come thither and raise up a persecution, Act 17:13. Paul is sent away by the brethren to Athens, where he preaches to the Jews, Act 17:14-17. He is encountered by the Epicureans and Stoics, who bring him to the Areopagus, and desire him to give a full explanation of his doctrine, Act 17:18-20. The character of the Athenians, Act 17:21. Paul preaches to them, and gives a general view of the essential principles of theology, Act 17:22-31. Some mock, some hesitate, and some believe, and, among the latter, Dionysias and Damaris, Act 17:32-34.

For in him we live, and move, and have our being - He is the very source of our existence: the principle of life comes from him: the principle of motion, also, comes from him; one of the most difficult things in nature to be properly apprehended; and a strong proof of the continual presence and energy of the Deity. And have our being - Και εσμεν, And we are: we live in him, move in him, and are in him. Without him we not only can do nothing, but without him we are nothing. We are, i.e. we continue to be, because of his continued, present, all-pervading, and supporting energy. There is a remarkable saying in Synopsis Sohar, p. 104. "The holy blessed God never does evil to any man. He only withdraws his gracious presence from him, and then he necessarily perisheth." This is philosophical and correct. As certain also of your own poets - Probably he means not only Aratus, in whose poem, entitled Phaenomena, the words quoted by St. Paul are to be found literatim, του γαρ και γενος εσμεν; but also Cleanthus, in whose Hymn to Jupiter the same words (Εκ σου γαρ γενος εσμεν) occur. But the sentiment is found in several others, being very common among the more enlightened philosophers. By saying your own poets, he does not mean poets born at Athens, but merely Grecian poets, Aratus and Cleanthus being chief. We are also his offspring - Του γαρ και γενος εσμεν The Phaenomena of Aratus, in which these words are found, begins thus: - Εκ Διος αρχωμεσθα, τον ουδεποτ' ανδρες εωμεν Αρῤητον· μεϚαι δε Διος πασαι μεν αγυιαι, Πασαι δ' ανθρωπων αγοραι· μεϚη δε θαλασσα, Και λιμενες· παντη δε Διος κεχρημεθα παντες· ΤΟΥ ΓΑΡ ΚΑΙ ΓΕΝΟΣ ΕΣΜΕΝ ὁ δ' ηπιος ανθρωποισι Δεξια σημαινει. κ. τ. λ. With Jove we must begin; nor from him rove; Him always praise, for all is full of Jove! He fills all places where mankind resort, The wide-spread sea, with every shelt'ring port. Jove's presence fills all space, upholds this ball; All need his aid; his power sustains us all. For we his offspring are; and he in love Points out to man his labor from above: Where signs unerring show when best the soil, By well-timed culture, shall repay our toil, etc., etc. Aratus was a Cilician, one of St. Paul's own countrymen, and with his writings St. Paul was undoubtedly well acquainted, though he had flourished about 300 years before that time.

AT THESSALONICA THE SUCCESS OF PAUL'S PREACHING ENDANGERING HIS LIFE, HE IS DESPATCHED BY NIGHT TO BEREA, WHERE HIS MESSAGE MEETS WITH ENLIGHTENED ACCEPTANCE--A HOSTILE MOVEMENT FROM THESSALONICA OCCASIONS HIS SUDDEN DEPARTURE FROM BEREA--HE ARRIVES AT ATHENS. (Act 17:1-15) when they had passed through Amphipolis--thirty-three miles southwest of Philippi, on the river Strymon, and at the head of the gulf of that name, on the northern coast of the Ægean Sea. and Apollonia--about thirty miles southwest of Amphipolis; but the exact site is not known. they came to Thessalonica--about thirty-seven miles due west from Apollonia, at the head of the Thermaic (or Thessalonian) Gulf, at the northwestern extremity of the Ægean Sea; the principal and most populous city in Macedonia. "We see at once how appropriate a place it was for one of the starting-points of the Gospel in Europe, and can appreciate the force of what Paul said to the Thessalonians within a few months of his departure from them: "From you, the word of the Lord sounded forth like a trumpet, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place,"" (Th1 1:8) [HOWSON]. where was a synagogue of the Jews--implying that (as at Philippi) there was none at Amphipolis and Apollonia.

For in him we live, and move, and have our being--(or, more briefly, "exist").--This means, not merely, "Without Him we have no life, nor that motion which every inanimate nature displays, nor even existence itself" [MEYER], but that God is the living, immanent Principle of all these in men. as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring--the first half of the fifth line, word for word, of an astronomical poem of Aratus, a Greek countryman of the apostle, and his predecessor by about three centuries. But, as he hints, the same sentiment is to be found in other Greek poets. They meant it doubtless in a pantheistic sense; but the truth which it expresses the apostle turns to his own purpose--to teach a pure, personal, spiritual Theism. (Probably during his quiet retreat at Tarsus. Act 9:30, revolving his special vocation to the Gentiles he gave himself to the study of so much Greek literature as might be turned to Christian account in his future work. Hence this and his other quotations from the Greek poets, Co1 15:33; Tit 1:12).