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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Acts 17:23 - 17:23
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
For (gar). Paul gives an illustration of their religiousness from his own experiences in their city.
The objects of your worship (ta sebasmata humōn). Late word from sebazomai, to worship. In N T. only here and 2Th 2:4. The use of this word for temples, altars, statues, shows the conciliatory tone in the use of deisidaimonesterous in Act 17:22.
An altar (bōmon). Old word, only here in the N.T. and the only mention of a heathen altar in the N.T
With this inscription (en hōi epegegrapto). On which had been written (stood written), past perfect passive indicative of epigraphō, old and common verb for writing on inscriptions (epigraphē, Luk 23:38).
To an Unknown God (AGNOSTO THEO). Dative case, dedicated to. Pausanias (I. 1, 4) says that in Athens there are “altars to gods unknown” (bōmoi theōn agnōstōn). Epimenides in a pestilence advised the sacrifice of a sheep to the befitting god whoever he might be. If an altar was dedicated to the wrong deity, the Athenians feared the anger of the other gods. The only use in the N.T. of agnōstos, old and common adjective (from a privative and gnōstos verbal of ginōskō, to know). Our word agnostic comes from it. Here it has an ambiguous meaning, but Paul uses it though to a stern Christian philosopher it may be the “confession at once of a bastard philosophy and of a bastard religion” (Hort, Hulsean Lectures, p. 64). Paul was quick to use this confession on the part of the Athenians of a higher power than yet known to them. So he gets his theme from this evidence of a deeper religious sense in them and makes a most clever use of it with consummate skill.
In ignorance (agnoountes). Present active participle of agnoeō, old verb from same root as agnōstos to which Paul refers by using it.
This set I forth unto you (touto ego kataggellō humin). He is a kataggeleus (Act 17:18) as they suspected of a God, both old and new, old in that they already worship him, new in that Paul knows who he is. By this master stroke he has brushed to one side any notion of violation of Roman law or suspicion of heresy and claims their endorsement of his new gospel, a shrewd and consummate turn. He has their attention now and proceeds to describe this God left out of their list as the one true and Supreme God. The later MSS. here read hoṅ̇touton (whom--this one) rather than hȯ̇touto (what--this), but the late text is plainly an effort to introduce too soon the personal nature of God which comes out clearly in Act 17:24.