self-consciousness, he goes on to say; since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to believe that the divinity is like any earthly material, or any image of human art. This negative assertion manifestly includes a positive one; we must strive to rise to the divinity by means of that within us which is related to him. Instead of carrying on the argument against idolatry, the apostle leaves his hearers to decide for themselves-and presupposing the consciousness of sin-without attempting to develope it-he proceeds with the annunciation of the gospel. After God had with great long-suffering

endured the times of ignorance,* he now revealed the truth to all men, and required all to acknowledge it and repent. With this was connected the annunciation of the Redeemer, of the forgiveness of sins to be obtained through him, of his resurrection as the confirmation of his doctrine, and a pledge of the resurrection of believers to a blessed life, as well as of the judgment to be passed by him on mankind.† As long as the apostle confined himself to the general doctrine of Theism, he was heard with attention by those who had been used to the lessons of Grecian philosophy. But when he touched upon that doctrine which most decidedly marked the opposition of the Christian view of the world to that entertained by the heathens, when he spoke of a general resurrection,

*Paul here gives us to understand, that not merely negative unbelief in reference to truth not known, but only criminal unbelief of the gospel offered to men, would be an object of the divine judgment. This agrees with what he says in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, that Heathens as well as Jews would be judged according to the measure of the law known to them; and with what he says in Rom. iii. 25, of the παρεσις τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων.

† It is very evident from the form of the expressions in Acts xvii. 31, as well as from verse 32, where the mention of the general resurrection in Paul's speech is implied, that, in the Acts, we have only the substance given of what he said.

This is expressed in the words of the heathen Octavius, in Minucius Felix, c. xi.: Cœlo et astris, quæ sic relinquimus ut invenimus, interitum denuntiare, sibi mortuis, exstinctis, qui sicut nascimur et interimus, æternitatem repromit

he was interrupted with ridicule on the part of some of his hearers. Others said, we would hear thee speak at another time on this matter; whether they only intended to hint in a courteous manner to the apostle that they wished him to close his address, or really expressed a serious intention of hearing him again.* There were only a few individuals who joined themselves to the apostle, listened to his further instructions, and became believers. Among these was a member of the Areopagite council, Dionysius; who became the subject of so many legends. The only authentic tradition respecting him appears to be, that he was the principal instrument of forming a church at Athens, and became its overseer.†

While Paul was at Athens, Timothy returned from Macedonia, but the anxiety of Paul for the new church

tere. The doctrine of the Stoics, of an avaσTOWσis, the regeneration of the universe in a new form after its destruction, has no affinity to the doctrine of the resurrection, but is strictly in accordance with the pantheistical views of the Stoics.

*From the silence of the Acts, we are not to infer with certainty that Paul never addressed these persons again.

† See the account of the Bishop Dionysius of Corinth in Eusebius, in his Eccles. Hist. iv. 23.

On this point there is much uncertainty. According to the Acts, Silas and Timothy first rejoined Paul at Corinth. But 1 Thess. iii. 1 seems to imply the contrary. This passage may indeed be thus understood, that Paul sent Timothy, before his departure for Athens, to the church in Thessalonica, although he knew that he should now be left in Athens without any companions, for he wished to leave Silas in Berca. If he came from Bercea alone, he would rather have said, έρχεσθαι εἰς ̓Αθηνας μονοι. But this he could not say, since he did not depart to Athens alone, but with other companions. Still the most natural interpretation of the passage is, that Paul, in order to obtain information respecting the Thessalonians, preferred being left alone in Athens, and sent Timothy from that city. Also, in the Acts, xvii. 16, it is implied that he waited at Athens for the return of Silas and Timothy; for though the words iv rais 'Anvas may be referred, not to exdexoμevov, but to the whole clause, still we cannot understand the passage otherwise. If we had merely the account in the Acts, we should be led to

at Thessalonica, induced him to send his young fellowlabourer thither, that he might contribute to the establish

the conclusion, by a comparison of the xvii. 16, and xviii. 5, that Silas and Timothy were prevented from meeting with Paul at Athens, and they first found him again in Corinth, as he had given them notice that he intended to go thither from Athens. But by comparing it with what Paul himself says, 1 Thess. iii. 1, we must either rectify or fill up the account in the Acts. We learn from it that Timothy at least met with Paul at Athens, but that he thought it necessary to send him from thence to Thessalonica, and that he did not wait for his return from that city to Athens, which may be easily explained. But Luke, perhaps, had not so accurate a knowledge of all the particulars in this period of Paul's history; he had perhaps learned only that Paul met again at Corinth with Timothy and Silas, and hence he inferred, as he knew nothing of the sending away of Timothy in the mean time from Athens to Thessalonica, that Paul, after he had parted from his two companions at Bercea, rejoined them first at Corinth. As to Silas, it is possible that, on account of the information he brought with him, he was sent back by Paul with a special commission from Athens to Bercea, or, what is more probable, that he had occasion to stay longer than Timothy at Beroa, and hence could not meet him at Athens. It might also be the case that Luke erroneously concluded,since Silas and Timothy both first met Paul again at Corinth, that he left both at Bercea,-it would be possible that he left only Silas behind and brought Timothy with himself to Athens. It favours, though it does not establish this opinion, that Paul, in 1 Thess. iii. 1, alleges as the reason for sending away Timothy, not the unpleasant news brought by Timothy from Macedonia, but the hindrances intervening, which rendered it impossible for him to visit the church in Thessalonica according to his intention. Schneckenburger, in his learned essay on the date of the Epistles to the Thessalonians (in the Studien der Evangelischen Geistlichkeit Wurtumburg, vol. vii. part 1, 1834, p. 139), (with which in many points I am happy to agree), maintains that Paul might have charged his two companions to follow him quickly from Beroa, because he intended soon to leave Athens, where he expected no suitable soil for his missionary labours. But we have no sufficient reason for supposing this. Paul found at Athens a synagogue for the first scene of his ministry as in other cities; he felt himself compelled, as he says, to publish the gospel to Greeks and to Barbarians; he knew it was the

ment of their faith and their consolation under their manifold sufferings; for Timothy had communicated to him many distressing accounts of the persecutions which had befallen this church.

He travelled alone from Athens, and now visited a place most important for the propagation of the gospel, the city of Corinth, the metropolis of the province of Achaia. This city, within a century and a half after its destruction by Julius Cæsar, once more became the centre of intercourse and traffic to the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire, for which it was fitted by its natural advantages, namely, by its two noted ports, that of Keyxgear towards Lesser Asia, and that of Asxaior towards Italy. Being thus situated, Co.. rinth became an important position for spreading the gospel in a great part of the Roman Empire, and hence Paul chose this city, as he had chosen others similarly situated, to be the place where he made a long sojourn. But Christianity had here also, at its first promulgation, peculiar difficulties to combat, and the same causes which counteracted its reception at first, threatened at a later period, when it had found entrance, to corrupt its purity, both in doctrine and practice. The two opposite mental tendencies, which at that time especially

power of God, which would conquer the philosophical blindness of the Greeks as well as the ceremonial blindness of the Jews, though he well knew that on both sides the obstacles were great. At all events, by some not improbable combinations, the narrative in the Acts and the expressions of Paul may easily be reconciled, and we are not therefore justified with Schrader in referring the passage in 1 Thess. iii. 1, to a later residence of Paul at Athens. All the circumstances mentioned seem best to agree with the period of his first visit. Paul having been obliged, contrary to his intention, to leave Thessalonica early, wished on several occasions to have revisited it; his anxiety for the new church there was so great, and in his tender concern for it, he showed the great sacrifice he was ready to make for it, by saying that he was willing to remain alone at Athens. In later times, when there was a small Christian church at Athens, this would not have been so great a sacrifice.

opposed the spread of Christianity, were, on the one side, an intense devotedness to speculation and the exercise of the intellect, to the neglect of all objects of practical interest, which threatened to stifle altogether the religious nature of men, that tendency which Paul designates by the phrase, "seeking after wisdom;" and, on the other side, the sensuous tendency mingling itself with the actings of the religious sentiment; the carnal mind which would degrade the divine into an object of sensuous experience; that tendency to which Paul applies the phrase," seeking after a sign.' The first of these tendencies predominated among the greater number of those persons in Corinth, who made pretensions to mental cultivation, for new Corinth was distinguished from the old city, chiefly by becoming, in addition to its commercial celebrity, a seat of literature and philosophy, so that a certain tincture of high mental culture pervaded the city.* The second of these tendencies was found among the numerous Jews, who were spread through this place of commerce, and entertained the common sensuous conceptions respecting the Messiah. And finally, the spread and efficiency of Christianity was opposed by that gross corruption of morals, which then prevailed in all the great cities of the Roman Empire, but especially in Corinth was promoted by the worship of Aphrodite, to which a farfamed temple was here erected, and thus consecrated the indulgence of sensuality, favoured as it was by the incitements constantly presented in a place of immense wealth and commerce.f

The efficiency of Paul's ministry at Corinth, was

* In the 2d century, the rhetorician Aristides says of this city: σοφον δε δη και καθ ̓ ὁδον ἐλθων ἂν εὗροις και παρὰ τῶν ἀψυχων μαθοις ἂν καὶ ἀκουσειας τοσοῦτοι θησαυροι γραμματων περὶ πᾶσαν ἀυτην, ὅποι και μονὸν ἀποβλεψεις τις, και κατα τας όδους αύτας και τας στοας. ότι τα γυμνασία, τα διδασκαλεῖα, και μαθηματα τε και ἱστορηματα. Aristid. in Neptunum. ed Dindorf, vol. i. p. 40.

The rhetorician Dio Chrysostom says to the Corinthians : πολιν οἰκεῖτε τῶν οὐσῶν τε καὶ γεγενημένων ἐπαφροδιτοτατην. Orat.37, vol. ii. p. 119, ed. Reiske.