To readers who have been impressed with the exquisite courtesy and consummate skill of Paul’s address at Athens, it comes as a shock to learn that some Bible students have seriously suggested that it was in fact a great mistake. For once, they say, Paul trusted his excellency of speech and wisdom and omitted the central fact of the gospel. No wonder, they add, if the speech was a failure.
Here is an example of this view: “At no point is publicity given to the distinctive Christian message. In this studied omission of the cross is the secret of his comparative failure at Athens and his subsequent change at Corinth. He writes penitently, ‘I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified'” (The Originality of the Christian Message, by Mackintosh, quoted on p. 38 of The Christ of The Indian Road ).
Before examining this question in detail we would make two observations:
First, if this speech is a warning rather than an example, is it not astonishing that Luke has not told us? Second, in the very epistle (1 Cor.) which is relied on to support this theory, Paul emphasized in chapter 9 that it was his policy to adapt himself to the mental and spiritual conditions of his hearers. To the Jews he became as a Jew, to those without law as without law, and, we might add, to the Athenians as an Athenian.
In the first part of the speech Paul referred to their altar, spoke of God’s work in creation and providence, made some allusions to the tenets of their philosophers, and quoted from their poets (as he also did in Titus 1:12), but in all this he was merely making contact with his audience and preparing the way for a challenging message at the close. In the first part he was getting his guns into position; at the end he began to fire them.
If we compare Paul’s addresses in other parts of the Acts we shall find that in every case they were carefully adapted to the audience. In the synagogue at Antioch (ch. 13) he rehearsed the history of the nation, as Stephen had done; at Lystra (ch. 14), to a heathen audience, he spoke of divine providence, in much the same way as he did at Athens.
But what of Paul’s insistence in 1 Corinthians 2:1, that he avoided excellence of speech and wisdom at Corinth? We must not overlook the words “among you” (v. 2). There was a great difference between Corinth and Athens. At Athens learning and eloquence were as natural as a good suit for a gentleman. Corinth, on the other hand, was a mercantile city, and there the use of wisdom and eloquence would have diverted them from the message. Besides, Paul did not say that he avoided these things because he had found them ineffective but lest the Corinthians should trust them rather than God (v. 5).
In confirmation of the above we quote the following from Sir W. M. Ramsay: “Most dangerous was it to talk philosophically among the Corinthians, a middle-class audience who possessed that half-education…which is worse than a lesser degree of education…Incidentally, I may take this opportunity of acknowledging that I went too far in my book called St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 252, when I declared that the Apostle ‘was disappointed and perhaps disillusioned by his experience in Athens. He felt that he had gone as far as was right in the way of presenting his doctrine in a form suited to the current philosophy; and apparently the result had been little more than naught.’ I did not allow sufficiently for adaptation to different classes of hearers, in one case the tradesman and middle-classes of Corinth, in the other the more strictly university and philosophic class in Athens. It is true (as is there shown) that Luke recognized and recorded the change in style of preaching at Corinth; but on the other hand it is improbable that Luke would have preserved a careful report of the address at Athens, if he had not considered it typical of Paul’s method when speaking to an educated Hellenic audience” (The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day, pp. 109, 111).
The question as to how far a preacher may go in adapting the message to his hearers is not an easy one. It cannot be answered by a simple rule of thumb, but only by devoted hearts as they are taught by the Word and the Spirit. The best preachers are those who are able to combine the spiritual power of 1 Corinthians 2 and the adaptation of chapter 9.
But what of the omission of the cross? Certainly the cross is not mentioned in the address, but the resurrection is mentioned, and that is meaningless without the cross. Let us notice also that Paul had previously been disputing with the Athenians daily in the marketplace. He had told them of Jesus and the resurrection (17:18), and when he was taken to the Areopagus many of the audience must have been familiar with the main facts concerning the Lord.
Besides, with respect to Sir W. M. Ramsay who thinks differently, the address was evidently broken off at verse 31, when Paul mentioned the resurrection. It was in connection with the doctrine of Jesus and the resurrection that the philosophers took Paul to Areopagus, and he was just coming to the exposition of the doctrine, but the audience could not bear it. He had not yet even mentioned the name of Jesus. To us it is incredible that Paul would have been content with the vague words of verse 31, “the man whom He hath ordained,” and I suggest that but for the interruption he would have continued with an exposition of the Saviour’s person and work.
But what of Paul’s assertion that at Corinth he determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2)? Let us observe first that it is as logical to infer from Acts 17:18 that Paul did not speak of the cross at Athens as it would be to infer from 1 Corinthians 2:2 that he did not speak of the resurrection at Corinth; 1 Cor. 15:1-4 would show us our mistake.
In 1 Corinthians 1:23, Paul records that the cross is to the Greeks foolishness. Is that the language of a man who regrets that he has not made enough of it at Athens? They could not bear the resurrection. Would the cross have been more to their taste?
As to the result, we must not exaggerate Paul’s failure, for we are told that “certain men clave unto him and believed; among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.” Campbell Morgan has enumerated several notable men who came from the church at Athens in the first four centuries (The Corinthian Letters of Paul, p. 43). The fact is a welcome corrective to exaggerated statements about Paul’s failure. Nevertheless it is true that Paul appears to have left Athens soon after, that he is not said to have founded a church there or to have made further contact with the city, and competent historians describe the church at Athens as weak for the first three centuries at least. But even if Paul’s failure was greater than it was, we believe that the explanation is very simple. The two words ‘Epicurean’ and ‘Stoic’–Pleasure and Pride–are enough.
“From the outset the church at Athens was small and small it remained, for in this city of philosophers Christianity could find little room” (Harnack). “No background for a new religion could have been more fatal. The Parthenon was nearly five centuries old, the symbol of eternal and universal religion. All mankind, except the Jews and Druids, were of one mind, with small variations. Here was an unknown Jew, down there on Mars’ Hill, pleading for a wholly new view of life, and telling an incredible story. His listeners only needed to lift the eyes to realize how absurd it all was” (Glover). “The Athenian University was the home of dilettantism and of the cultivated, critical intellect, which had tried all things and found all wanting, and in it there were few hearers and no open door for the new teaching” (Ramsay).
We must remember that the Lord too found some hearts harder than others. “He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Mt. 13:58). So Paul could do no mighty works in Athens because of their self-sufficiency. There more than anywhere he learned that “not many wise men after the flesh…are called” (1 Cor. 1:26).