[241] 2. IN THE UNIVERSITY AT ATHENS. (XVII 18 AND CERTAIN ALSO OF THE STOIC AND EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHERS ENGAGED IN DISCUSSIONS WITH HIM; AND SOME SAID, "WHAT WOULD THIS SPERMOLOGOS [ignorant plagarist] SAY?" AND OTHERS, "HE IS APPARENTLY AN EXPONENT OF FOREIGN DIVINITIES"[BECAUSE HE WAS GIVING THE GOOD NEWS OF "JESUS"AND "RESURRECTION "]. (19) AND THEY TOOK HOLD OF HIM AND BROUGHT HIM BEFORE THE Council of AREOPAGUS, SAYING, "MAY WE LEARN WHAT IS THIS NEW TEACHING WHICH IS SPOKEN BY THEE? (20) FOR THOU BRINGEST SOME THINGS OF FOREIGN FASHION TO OUR EARS; WE WISH THEREFORE TO LEARN WHAT IS THEIR NATURE." (21) BUT THE WHOLE crowd of ATHENIANS AND RESIDENT STRANGERS who formed the audience WERE INTERESTED ONLY IN SAYING OR HEARING SOMETHING NEW and smart. (22) AND PAUL STOOD IN THE MIDST OF THE Council of AREOPAGUS AND SAID . . . [242] (33) THUS PAUL WENT FORTH FROM THE MIDST OF THEM.

The explanatory clause in v. 18 is wanting in the Bezan Text and an old Latin Version, and is foreign to Luke's fashion of leaving the reader to form his own ideas with regard to the scene. It is apparently a gloss, suggested by v. 32, which found its way into the text of almost all MSS.

The different opinions of the philosophers in v. 18 are purposely placed side by side with a touch of gentle sarcasm on their inability, with all their acuteness, to agree in any opinion even about Paul's meaning. The first opinion is the most interesting. It contains a word of characteristically Athenian slang, Spermológos, and is clearly caught from the very lips of the Athenians (as Dr. Blass happily puts it). This term was used in two senses-(1) a small bird that picks up seeds for its food, and (2) a worthless fellow of low class and vulgar habits, with the insinuation that he lives at the expense of others, like those disreputable persons who hang round the markets and the quays in order to pick up anything that falls from the loads that are carried about. Hence, as a term in social slang, it connotes absolute vulgarity and inability to rise above the most contemptible standard of life and conduct; it is often connected with slave life, for the Spermológos was near the type of the slave and below the level of the free man; and there clings to it the suggestion of picking up refuse and scraps, and in literature of plagiarism without the capacity to use correctly. In ancient literature plagiarism was not disapproved when it was done with skill, and when the idea or words taken from another were used with success: [243] the literary offence lay in the ignorance and incapacity displayed when stolen knowledge was improperly applied.

To appreciate fully a term of social slang requires the greatest effort to sympathise with and recreate the actual life of the people who used the term. Probably the nearest and most instructive parallel in modern English life to Spermológos is "Bounder,"allowing for the difference between England and Athens. In both there lies the idea of one who is "out of the swim,"out of the inner circle, one who lacks that thorough knowledge and practice in the rules of the game that mould the whole character and make it one's nature to act in the proper way and play the game fair. The English term might be applied to a candidate for a professorship, whose life and circumstances had lain in a different line and who wanted knowledge and familiarity with the subject; and that is the way in which St. Paul is here called a Spermológos, as one who aped the ways and words of philosophers. Dean Farrar's rendering, "picker-up of learning's crumbs,"is happy, but loses the touch of slang.

The general tendency of recent opinion is that Paul was taken to the Hill of Ares, in order to give an address in quiet surroundings to a crowd of Athenians on the spot where the Council that derived its name from the hill sat to hold solemn trials for murder; and the view taken in the Authorised Version and the ancient authorities, such as Chrysostom and Theophylact, that Paul was subjected to a trial before the Council, is rejected on the ground that in the proceedings there is nothing of a judicial type, no accuser, no accusation, and no defensive character in Paul's speech, which is addressed not to a court but to a general Athenian audience. These reasons [244] quite disprove the view that the scene described in vv. 19-34 was a trial. But the idea that the assembly of Athenians went up to the hill-top as a suitable place for listening to an address is even more unsatisfactory. The top of the little hill is a most unsuitable place from its small size and its exposed position; and it is quite out of keeping with the habits of the people to go to such a place for such a purpose. Curtius has led the way to a proper view of the whole incident, which lies wholly in the agora.

Further, it is inconsistent with the patriotism and pride of the Athenians that they should conduct a foreigner for whom they expressed such contempt to the most impressive seat of Athenian religious and national history, in order that he might there talk to them. The Athenians were, in many respects, flippant; but their flippancy was combined with an intense pride in the national dignity and the historic glory of the city, which would have revolted at such an insult as that this stranger should harangue them about his foreign deities on the spot where the Athenian elders had judged the god Ares and the hero Orestes, where the goddess Athena had presided in the highest court of her chosen people, and where still judgment on the most grave cases of homicide was solemnly pronounced.

Nor would it be a permissible interpretation that a small number of philosophic inquirers retired to this quiet spot for unimpeded discussion. The scene and the speech breathe the spirit of the agora, and the open, free, crowded life of Athens, not the quiet atmosphere of the philosophic study or class-room; while the tone of the opinions expressed in v. 18 is not one of philosophic [245] interest and careful discussion, but of contempt, dislike, and jealousy. Moreover, it would be an insult to address philosophic inquirers in the language of vv. 22 -3. The philosophers did not dedicate altars to an Unknown God, but regarded all such proceedings as the mere superstition of the vulgar. Paul's speech is an exceedingly skillful one, if addressed to a popular audience; but to philosophers it would be unskillful and unsuitable.

But the language shows clearly that Paul was brought before the Council and not simply conducted to the Hill. He stood "in the midst of the Areopagus,"v. 22, and "he went forth from the midst of them": he that went forth from the midst of them must have been standing in the midst of them. In this scene, full of the Attic spirit and containing typical words of Athenian slang like Spermológos, we require some distinctly Greek sense for each detail; and "Paul stood in the middle of the Hill"is in Greek an absurdity. He stood in the middle of the Council, a great and noble, but not a friendly assembly, as in IV 7 Peter stood "in the midst"of the Sanhedrim; and in Acts and the Gospels many similar expressions occur. (See note, p. 260.)

The philosophers took hold of Paul. When a man, especially an educated man, goes so far as to lay his hands on another, it is obvious that his feelings must be moved; and the word must have some marked sense in a writer whose expression is so carefully studied as Luke's. It occurs as a sign of friendly encouragement to a person in a solitary and difficult position, IX 27, XXIII 19; but more frequently it denotes hostile action, as XXI 30, XVIII 17, XVI 19. There must have been some stronger feeling among the philosophers than mere [246] contempt mingled with some slight curiosity, before they actually placed their hands on Paul. Now they certainly did not act as his friends and sponsors in taking him before the Council, therefore we must understand that they took him there from dislike and with malice.

What then was their object? Every attempt to explain the scene as a trial has failed, and must fail (p. 243). Even the idea of a preliminary inquiry is unsuitable; for, if it were so, none of the marked features of the scene are preserved in the narrative, which would be contrary to our experience in Luke's descriptions. In estimating the situation, we must remember that in vv. 18, 19, Paul is among the lecturers and professors of the university. Therein lies the chief interest of the scene, which is unique in Acts. We have seen Paul in various situations, and mixing in many phases of contemporary life. Here alone he stands amid the surroundings of a great university, disputing with its brilliant and learned teachers; and here, as in every other situation, he adapts himself with his usual versatility to the surroundings, and moves in them as to the manner born.

Two questions have to be answered in regard to the scene that follows: why was Paul taken before the Council? and what were the intentions of the philosophers in taking him there? It is clear that Paul appeared to the philosophers as one of the many ambitious teachers who came to Athens hoping to find fame and fortune at the great centre of education. Now, certain powers were vested in the Council of Areopagus to appoint or invite lecturers at Athens, and to exercise some general control over the lecturers in the interests of public order and morality. There is an almost complete lack of evidence [247] what were the advantages and the legal rights of a lecturer thus appointed, and to what extent or in what way a strange teacher could find freedom to lecture in Athens. There existed something in the way of privileges vested in the recognised lecturers; for the fact that Cicero induced the Areopagus to pass a decree inviting Cratippus, the Peripatetic philosopher, to become a lecturer in Athens, implies that some advantage was thereby lectured to him. There certainly also existed much freedom for foreigners to become lecturers in Athens, for the great majority of the Athenian professors and lecturers were foreign. The scene described in vv. 18-34 seems to prove that the recognised lecturers could take a strange lecturer before the Areopagus, and require him to give an account of his teaching and pass a test as to its character.

When they took him to the court to satisfy the supreme university tribunal of his qualifications, they probably entertained some hope that he would be overawed before that august body, or that his teaching might not pass muster, as being of unsettling tendency (for no body is so conservative as a University Court).

The government in Greek cities exercised a good deal of control over the entire system of education, both for boys and for young men, who were trained in graduated classes and passed on from one to another in regular course. There is good reason for thinking that in Athens this control was exercised by the Council of Areopagus, in the case both of boys and of young men: it rises naturally out of their ancient charge of the manners and morals of the citizens, of the public hygiene and the state physicians, and of offences against religious ritual (though serious charges of impiety and of introducing foreign [248] religion were not tried before the Areopagus but before the popular courts);and it is, in ancient view, related to the control of peace and order which they exercised in the Roman period. Moreover, Quintilian mentions that the Areopagus punished a boy who used to pluck out the eyes of quails, which implies their jurisdiction over the young.

In the rhetorical displays of that period, the general audience (corona) was an important feature. The influence of the audience is familiar to every reader of the literature of that time; and the younger Pliny says that even the lawyers of his time spoke more to gain the approval and applause of the audience than to influence the opinion and judgment of the court. Owing to the difficulty in multiplying copies of literary productions, public opinion could not be so well appealed to or expressed in any other way; and the applause or disapproval of the circle of hearers came to represent to a great extent the public verdict on all intellectual achievements. Luke, therefore, could not well omit the audience, even in this brief account; and he touches it off in v. 21, where the force of the imperfect tense is important: Luke is not describing the general character of the Athenian people (which would require a present tense): he places another element in the scene alongside of those already described. While the philosophers insisted with some malevolent intention on having a test applied, the general crowd of Athenians and resident strangers were merely moved by curiosity.

The unmistakable tone of contempt in the description suits a Macedonian describing an Athenian crowd (for the two peoples always disliked and despised each other); and it is not undeserved. As Mr. Capes says in his University Life in Ancient Athens: "the people [249] commonly was nothing loath to hear: they streamed as to a popular preacher in our own day, or to an actor starring in provincial towns: the epicures accepted the invitation to the feast of words, and hurried to the theatre to judge as critics the choice of images, and refinement of the style, and all the harmony of balanced periods ". As Luke says, they were as eager to make smart criticisms as to listen.