The life and work of St. Paul

302 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
His work among the Jews was slight.
He discoursed, 1
indeed, not unfre-
qnently with them and their proselytes in the synagogue or meeting-room*
which they frequented ; but it is probable that they were few hi number, and
we find no traces either of the teaching which he addressed to them or of the
manner in which they received it. It was in the market-place of Athens the
very Agora in which Socrates had adopted the same conversational method of
instruction four centuries 3 before him that he displayed his chief activity in
a manner which he seems nowhere else to have adopted, by conversing daily
and publicly with all comers. His presence and his message soon attracted
attention. Athens had been in all ages a city of idlers, and even in her
prime her citizens had been nicknamed Gapenians, 4 from the mixture of eager
curiosity and inveterate loquacity which even then had been their conspicuous
characteristics. Their greatest orator had kurled at them the reproach that,
instead of flinging themselves into timely and vigorous action in defence of
their endangered liberties, they were for ever gadding about asking for the
very latest news;' and St. Luke every incidental allusion of whose brief
narrative bears the mark of truthfulness and knowledge repeats the same
characteristic under the altered circumstances of their present adversity.
Even the foreign residents caught the infection, and the Agora buzzed with
inquiring chatter at this late aud decadent epoch no less loudly than in the
days of Pericles or of Plato.
Among the throng of curious listeners, some of the Athenian philosophers
were sure, sooner or later, to be seen. The Stoa Pceeile, which Zeno had
made his school, and from which the Stoics derived their name, ran along one
side of the Agora, and not far distant were the gardens of Epicurus. Besides
the adherents of these two philosophical schools, there were Academics who
followed Plato, and Peripatetics who claimed the authority of Aristotle, and
Eclectics of every shade. 6 The whole city, indeed, was not unlike one of our
leges, warned
means them, fuf rat tvv oAAwv iQvCiv jeKrtSat.uocuif eov6eviet.>i (Jos. Antt. XJX, 5. S).
is "full________ of idols," not ________ as in the ___ E. __ V., "wholly _____ given ____ to _ _ idolatry;" ______ "noc
, ,
"
timulacris dedita, Bed simulacris refcrta (Henn. ad Vig. p. 638) of. Kardfin-eAoc, K*T&Sfv&pos.
The word receives most interesting illustration from Wetstein, from whom all succeeding
commentators have freely borrowed.
1 Acts xvii. 17, tA'yrro, not " disputed," but " conversed."
2 No trace of any building which could have been a synagogue has been found at
Athens. It has been inferred from passages in the Talmud that Jews were numerous in
but these passages apply to a much later period, and in any case the Talmud is
Athens ;
perfectly worthless as a direct historic guide.
3 Socrates died B.C. 399.
4
Kt\riva.loi, AT. Eg., 1262. Demades said that the crest of Athens ought to be a great
"
tongue. Alexander qui quod cuique optimum est eripuit Lacedaemona tervire jubet,
Atxheuas facerc" (Sen. Ep. 94; see Demosth. Phil, iv.) njv v6\iv ivavrt\ ruv 'EAA^i-
viro\a.fiftavovariv tut AcAdXoydv T itrriv K 'y;* (Plat. Lcgg. i. 11).
* Kaivortpov (ci. Matt. xiii. 52). "hi ova statim sordebant, novivra quaerebantur "
(Bengel). Gill says that a similar question Nmn TO was common in the Rabbinic schools
(Bammidbar Italia, f. 212, 4).
' " From whooe mouth i.-.aued forth
Mellifluous strenrr.s that watered all the achooli
Of Academics old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the school
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe." (Milton, Par. Btg,)