(16) His spirit was stirred in him.--The verb is the root of the noun from which we get our "paroxysm," and which is translated by "sharp contention" in Acts 15:39. Athens, glorying now, as it had done in the days of Sophocles (?dip. Col. 1008), in its devotion to the gods, presented to him, even after seeing Tarsus and Antioch, a new aspect. The city was "full of idols;" Hermes-busts at every corner, statues and altars in the atrium or court-yard of every house, temples and porticos and colonnades, all presenting what was to him the same repulsive spectacle. He looked on the Theseus and the Ilissus, and the friezes of the Centaurs and Lapithae on the Parthenon, as we look on them in our museums, but any sense of art-beauty which he may have had (and it was probably, in any case, but weak) was over-powered by his horror that men should bow down and worship what their own hands had made. The beauty of form which we admire in the Apollo or the Aphrodite, the Mercury or the Faun, would be to him, in its unveiled nakedness, a thing to shudder at. He knew too well to what that love of sensuous beauty had led in Greek and Roman life (Romans 1:24-27), when it had thrown aside what, to a Jew, were not only the natural instincts of purity, but the sanctions of a divine command (Genesis 9:22).

Verse 16. - Provoked within for stirred in, A.V. (παρωξύνετο: see Acts 15:29, note); as he beheld for when he saw, A.V.; full of idols for wholly given to idolatry, A.V. The Greek κατείδωλος occurs only here, either in the New Testament or elsewhere. But the analogy of ether words similarly compounded fixes the meaning "full of idols" - a description fully borne out by Pausanias and Xenophon and others (Steph., 'Thesaur.;' Meyer, etc.).

17:16-21 Athens was then famed for polite learning, philosophy, and the fine arts; but none are more childish and superstitious, more impious, or more credulous, than some persons, deemed eminent for learning and ability. It was wholly given to idolatry. The zealous advocate for the cause of Christ will be ready to plead for it in all companies, as occasion offers. Most of these learned men took no notice of Paul; but some, whose principles were the most directly contrary to Christianity, made remarks upon him. The apostle ever dwelt upon two points, which are indeed the principal doctrines of Christianity, Christ and a future state; Christ our way, and heaven our end. They looked on this as very different from the knowledge for many ages taught and professed at Athens; they desire to know more of it, but only because it was new and strange. They led him to the place where judges sat who inquired into such matters. They asked about Paul's doctrine, not because it was good, but because it was new. Great talkers are always busy-bodies. They spend their time in nothing else, and a very uncomfortable account they have to give of their time who thus spend it. Time is precious, and we are concerned to employ it well, because eternity depends upon it, but much is wasted in unprofitable conversation.Now while Paul waited for them at Athens..... That is, for Silas and Timotheus:

his spirit was stirred in him; not only his soul was troubled and his heart was grieved, but he was exasperated and provoked to the last degree: he was in a paroxysm; his heart was hot within him; he had a burning fire in his bones, and was weary with forbearing, and could not stay; his zeal wanted vent, and he gave it:

when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry; or "full of idols", as the Syriac and Arabic versions render it. So Cicero says (x) that Athens was full of temples; and Xenophon (y) observes that they had double the feasts of other people; and Pausanias (z) affirms, that the Athenians far exceeded others in the worship of the gods, and care about religion; and he relates, that they had an altar for Mercy, another for Shame, another for Fame, and another for Desire, and expressed more religion to the gods than others did: they had an altar dedicated to twelve gods (a); and because they would be sure of all, they erected one to an unknown god; in short, they had so many of them, that one (b) jestingly said to them, our country is so full of deities, that one may more easily find a god than a man: so that with all their learning and wisdom they knew not God, 1 Corinthians 1:21.

(x) De responsis Aruspicum. (y) De Athen. Polit. (z) Attica, p. 29, 42. (a) Thucydides Bell. Peloponness. l. 6. (b) Petronius.