of Poly Lystra, Philippi, was arrested by the calm voice of Paul, and to his wonder he found the prisoners remaining quietly in their cells. His fears and his admiration wrought together; and the jailor of Philippi, with his whole family, embraced the Christian faith. The magistrates, when they found that Paul had the privilege of Roman citizenship, were in their turn alarmed at their hasty infringement of that sacred right, released them honourably from the prison, and were glad to prevail upon them to depart peacefully from the city. Thus, then, we have Contrast already seen Christianity in collision with Polytheism, under two of theism at its various forms: at Lystra, as still the old poetic faith of a barbarous people, insensible to the progress made elsewhere in the human mind, and devoutly believing the wonders of their native religion; in Philippi, a provincial town in a more cultivated part of Greece, but still at no high state of intellectual advancement, as connected with the vulgar arts, not of the established priesthood, but of itinerant traders in popular superstition. In Athens Paganism has a totally different character, inquiring, argumentative, sceptical, Polytheism in form, and that form embodying all that could excite the imagination of a highly polished people; in reality admitting and delighting in the freest discussion, altogether inconsistent with sincere belief in the ancient and established religion. and Athens.. nica, Passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, Paul and his companions arrived at Thessalonica; but in this city, as well as in Berea, Thessalotheir chief intercourse appears to have been with the Jews. The riot by which they were expelled from Thessalonica, though blindly kept up by the disorderly populace, was instigated by Jason the chief of the Jewish community. Having left his companions, Timotheus and Silas, at Berea, Paul arrived alone at Athens. At Athens, the centre at once and capital of the Greek philosophy Athens. and Heathen superstition, takes place the first public and direct conflict between Christianity and Paganism. Up to this time there is no account of any one of the Apostles taking his station in the public street or market-place, and addressing the general multitude (1). Their place of teaching had invariably been the synagogue of their nation, or, as at Philippi, the neighbourhood of their customary place of worship. Here, however, Paul does not confine himself to the synagogue, or to the society of his countrymen and their proselytes. He takes his stand in the public market-place (probably not the Ceramicus, but the Eretriac Forum) (2) which, in the reign of Augustus, had begun to be more frequented, and at the top of which was the famous portico, from which the Stoics assumed their name. In Athens, the appearance of a new public teacher, instead of offending the popular feelings, was too familiar to excite astonishment, (1) This appears to be intimated in the expression, Acts, xvii. 16. "His spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city, wholly given (2) Strabo, x. 447. and was rather welcomed, as promising some fresh intellectual excitement. In Athens, hospitable to all religions and all opinions, the foreign and Asiatic appearance, and possibly the less polished tone and dialect of Paul, would only awaken the stronger curiosity. Though they affect at first (probably the philosophic part of his hearers), to treat him as an idle "babbler," and others (the vulgar, alarmed for the honour of their deities) supposed that he was about to introduce some new religious worship, which might endanger the supremacy of their own tutelar divinities; he is conveyed, not without respect, to a still more public and commodious place, from whence he may explain his doctrines to a numerous assembly the Areo. Without disturbance. On the Areopagus (1), the Christian leader pagus. takes his stand, surrounded on every side with whatever was noble, Paul on beautiful, and intellectual in the older world, temples, of which the materials were only surpassed by the architectural grace and majesty; statues, in which the ideal Anthropomorphism of the Greeks had almost elevated the popular notions of the Deity, by embodying it in human forms of such exquisite perfection; public edifices. where the civil interests of man had been discussed with the acuteness and versatility of the highest Grecian intellect, in all the purity of the inimitable Attic dialect, where oratory had obtained its highest triumphs by "wielding at will the fierce democracy; " the walks of the philosophers, who unquestionably, by elevating the human mind to an appetite for new and nobler knowledge, had prepared Speech of the way for a loftier and purer religion. It was in the midst of these elevating associations, to which the student of Grecian literature in Tarsus, the reader of Menander, and of the Greek philosophical poets, could scarcely be entirely dead or ignorant, that Paul stands forth to proclaim the lowly yet authoritative religion of Jesus of Nazareth. His audience was chiefly formed from the two prevailing sects, the Stoics and Epicureans, with the populace, the worshippers of the established religion. In his discourse, the heads of which are related by St. Luke, Paul, with singular felicity, touches on the peculiar opinions of each class among his hearers (2); he expands the popular religion into a higher philosophy; he imbues philosophy with a profound sentiment of religion (3). Paul. It is impossible not to examine with the utmost interest the whole course of this, (if we consider its remote consequences, and suppose it the first full and public argument of Christianity against the (1) It has been supposed by some that Paul was summoned before the Court of the Areopagus, who took cognizance of causes relating to religion. But there is no indication, in the nar rative, of any of the forms of a judicial proteeding. (2) Paulus summa arte orationem suam ita temperat, ut modo cum vulgo contra philosophos, inodo cum philosophis contra plebem, modo contra utrosque pugnet. Rosenmuller in loco. (3) The art and propriety of this speech is con siderably marred by the mistranslation of one word in our version, δεισιδαιμονεστέρους, which does not imply reproof, as in the render ing" too superstitious." Conciliation, not of fence, of the public feeling, especially at the opening of a speech, is the first principle of all oratory, more partieularly of Christian teaching. heathen religion and philosophy,) perhaps the most extensively and permanently effective oration ever uttered by man. We may contemplate Paul as the representative of Christianity, in the presence, as it were, of the concentrated religion of Greece; and of the spirits, if we may so speak, of Socrates, and Plato, and Zeno. The opening of the apostle's speech is according to those most perfect rules of art which are but the expressions of the general sentiments of nature. It is calm, temperate, conciliatory. It is no fierce denunciation of idolatry, no contemptuous disdain of the prevalent philosophic opinions; it has nothing of the sternness of the ancient Jewish prophet, nor the taunting defiance of the later Christian polemic. "Already the religious people of Athens had, unknowingly indeed, worshipped the universal deity, for they had an altar to the Unknown God (1). The nature, the attributes of this sublimer being, hitherto adored in ignorant and unintelligent homage, he came to unfold. This God rose far above the popular notion; he could not be confined in altar or temple, or represented by any visible image. He was the universal father of mankind, even of the earth-born Athenians, who boasted that they were of an older race than the other families of man, and coeval with the world itself. He was the fountain of life, which pervaded and sustained the universe; he had assigned their separate dwellings to the separate families of man." Up to a certain point in this higher view of the Supreme Being, the philosopher of the Garden, as well as of the Porch, might listen with wonder and admiration. It soared, indeed, high above the vulgar religion : but in the lofty and serene Deity, who disdained to dwell in the earthly temple, and needed nothing from the hand of man (2), the Epicurean might almost suppose that he heard the language of his own teacher. But the next sentence, which asserted the providence of God as the active, creative energy, as the conservative, the ruling, the ordaining principle,―annihilated at once the atómic theory, and the government of blind chance, to which Epicurus ascribed the origin and preservation of the universe, "This high and impassive deity, who dwelt aloof in serene and majestic superiority to all want, was perceptible in some mysterious manner by man his all pervading providence comprehended the whole human race; man was in constant union with the Deity, as an offspring with its parent." And still the Stoic might applaud with complacent satisfaction the ardent words of the Apostle; he might approve the lofty condemnation of idolatry. "We, thus of divine descent, ought to think more nobly of our universal Father than to suppose that the Godhead is like unto inscription had been effaced by time: on these the piety of later ages had engraven the simple words, "To the Unknown God." (1) Of all the conjectures (for all is purely conjectural,) on the contested point of the "altar to the Unknown God," the most ingenious and natural, in our opinion, is that of Eichhorn. There were, he supposes, very ancient altars, older perhaps than the art of writing, or on which the (2) Needing nothing: the coincidence with the "nihil indiga nostri" of Lucretius is curious; even if accidental. gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art or man's device." But this divine Providence was far different from the stern and all-controlling Necessity, the inexorable Fatalism of the Stoic system. While the moral value of human action was recognised by the solemn retributive judgment to be passed on all mankind, the dignity of Stoic virtue was lowered by the general demand of repentance. The perfect man, the moral king, was deposed, as it were, and abased to the general level; he had to learn new lessons in the school of Christ; lessons of humility and conscious deficiency, the most directly opposed to the principles and the sentiments of his philosophy. and The great Christian doctrine of the resurrection closed the speech of Paul; a doctrine received with mockery, perhaps by his Epicurean hearers, with suspension of judgment, probably, by the Stoic, with whose theory of the final destruction of the world by fire, his tenet of future retribution, it might appear in some degree to harmonise. Some, however, became declared converts; among whom are particularly named Dionysius, a man of sufficient distinction to be a member of the famous court of the Areopagus, and a woman, named Damaris, probably of considerable rank and influence. At Athens, all this free discussion on topics relating to the religious and moral nature of man, and involving the authority of the existing religion, passed away without disturbance. The jealous reverence for the established faith, which, conspiring with its perpetual ally, political faction, had in former times caused the death of Socrates, the exile of Stilpo, and the proscription of Diagoras the Melian, had long died away. With the loss of independence, political animosities had subsided, and the toleration of philosophical and religious indifference allowed the utmost latitude to speculative inquiry, however ultimately dangerous to the whole fabric of the national religion. Yet Polytheism still reigned in Athens in its utmost splendour: the temples were maintained with the highest pomp; the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which religion and philosophy had in some degree coalesced, attracted the noblest and the wisest of the Romans, who boasted of their initiation in these sublime secrets. Athens was thus, at once, the head-quarters of Paganism, and at the same time the place where Paganism most clearly betrayed its approaching dissolution. From Athens, the Apostle passes to Corinth. Corinth was at this time the common emporium of the eastern and western divisions of the Roman Empire. It was the Venice of the Old World, in whose streets the continued stream of commerce, either flowing Corinth, from, or towards the great capital of the world, out of all the eastern A. . D. 52. territories, met and crossed (1). The basis of the population of (1) After its destruction by Mummius, Corinth was restored, beautified, and colonised by Julius Corinth was Roman, of very recent settlement; but colonists from all quarters had taken up their permanent residence in a place so admirably adapted for mercantile purposes. In no part of the Roman empire were both the inhabitants and the travellers through the city so various and mingled; no where, therefore, would a new religion, at the same time spread with so much rapidity, and send out the ramifications of its influence with so much success; and at the same time excite so little observation amid the stir of business and the perpetual influx and afflux of strangers, or be less exposed to jealous opposition. Even the priesthood, newly settled, like the rest of the colony, could command no ancient reverence; and in the perpetual mingling and confusion of all dresses and dialects, no doubt there was the same concourse of religious itinerants of every description (1). At Corinth, therefore, but for the hostility of his countrymen, the Christian Apostle might, even longer than the eighteen months which he passed in that city, have preserved his peaceful course. The separation which at once took place between the Jewish and the Christian communities in Corinth-the secession of Paul from the synagogue into a neighbouring house, might have allayed even this intestine ferment, had not the progress of Christianity, and the open adoption of the new faith by one of the chiefs of the synagogue, reawakened that fierce animosity which had already caused the expulsion of both parties from Rome, and the seeds of which no doubt rankled in the hearts of many. Here, therefore, for the first time, Christianity was brought under the cognisance of a higher authority than the municipal magistrate of one of the Macedonian cities. The contemptuous dismissal of the cause by the Proconsul of Achaia, as beneath the majesty of the Roman tribunal; his refusal to interfere, when some of the populace, with whom the Christians were apparently the favoured party, Gallio, on the repulse of the accusing Jews from the seat of justice, fell. D. 53. upon one of them, named Sosthenes, and maltreated him with con Cæsar.-Strabo, viii. 381. For its history, wealth, and commercial situation, Diod. Sic. Fragm. The profligacy of Corinthian manners was likewise proverbial:-πóλiv oixeîte Tavoury τε καὶ γεγενημένων ἐπαφροδιτοτάτην. Dio. Chrysost. Orat. 37. v. ii. p. 110. (1) Corinth was a favourite resort of the Sophists (Aristid. Isthm. Athenæus, 1. xiii.), and in an oration of Dio Chrysostom there is a lively and graphic description of what may be called one of the fairs of antiquity, the Isthmian games, which happily illustrates the general appearance of society. Among the rest, the Cynic philosopher, Diogenes, appears, and endeavours to attract an audience among the vast and idle multitude. He complains, however, "that if he were a travelling dentist or an oculist, or had any infallible remedy for the spleen or the gout, all who were afflicted with such diseases would have thronged around him; but as he only professed to cure mankind of vice, ignorance, and profligacy, no one troubled himself to seek a -- remedy for those less grievous maladies." " And |