Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Acts: Chapter 17]
Athens (1Th 3:1,6) from Thessalonica and was sent back to them
from Athens. If Silas also came to Athens, he was also sent away,
possibly to Philippi, for that church was deeply interested in
Paul. At any rate both Timothy and Silas came from Macedonia to
Corinth with messages and relief for Paul (Ac 18:5; 2Co
11:8f.). Before they came and after they left, Paul felt lonely
in Athens (1Th 3:1), the first time on this tour or the first
that he has been completely without fellow workers. Athens had
been captured by Sulla B.C. 86. After various changes Achaia, of
which Corinth is the capital, is a separate province from
Macedonia and A.D. 44 was restored by Claudius to the Senate with
the Proconsul at Corinth. Paul is probably here about A.D. 50.
Politically Athens is no longer of importance when Paul comes
though it is still the university seat of the world with all its
rich environment and traditions. Rackham grows eloquent over Paul
the Jew of Tarsus being in the city of Pericles and Demosthenes,
Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Euripides. In its
Agora Socrates had taught, here was the Academy of Plato, the
Lyceum of Aristotle, the Porch of Zeno, the Garden of Epicurus.
Here men still talked about philosophy, poetry, politics,
religion, anything and everything. It was the art centre of the
world. The Parthenon, the most beautiful of temples, crowned the
Acropolis. Was Paul insensible to all this cultural environment?
It is hard to think so for he was a university man of Tarsus and
he makes a number of allusions to Greek writers. Probably it had
not been in Paul's original plan to evangelize Athens, difficult
as all university seats are, but he cannot be idle though here
apparently by chance because driven out of Macedonia. {Was
provoked} (\par•xuneto\). Imperfect passive of \paroxun•\, old
verb to sharpen, to stimulate, to irritate (from \para, oxus\),
from \paroxusmos\ (Ac 15:39), common in old Greek, but in N.T.
only here and 1Co 13:5. It was a continual challenge to Paul's
spirit when he beheld (\the•rountos\, genitive of present
participle agreeing with \autou\ (his), though late MSS. have
locative \the•rounti\ agreeing with \en aut•i\). {The city full
of idols} (\kateid•lon ousan t•n polin\). Note the participle
\ousan\ not preserved in the English (either the city being full
of idols or that the city was full of idols, sort of indirect
discourse). Paul, like any stranger was looking at the sights as
he walked around. This adjective \kateid•lon\ (perfective use of
\kata\ and \eid•lon\ is found nowhere else, but it is formed
after the analogy of \katampelos, katadendron\), full of idols.
Xenophon (_de Republ. Ath_.) calls the city \hol• bomos, hol•
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