which the eastern stranger had brought to their ears. The apostle raised his eyes to all the monuments of Athenian devotion which met the view on every side. Before him on the high Acropolis was the mighty temple of the Athenian Minerva; on the plain beyond was the splendid shrine of the Olympian Jove; on his right was the temple of Theseus, the deified ancient king of Attica, who laid the first foundation of her glories; and near were the new piles which the later Grecian adulation had consecrated to the worship of her foreign conquerors—to the deified Caesars. Beginning in that tone of dignified politeness, which always characterized his address towards the great ones of earth, he won their hearts and their attention by a courteously complimentary allusion to the devout though misguided zeal, whose solid tokens everywhere surrounded him. "Ye men of Athens! I see in all places that you are VERY RELIGIOUS. For passing along and gazing at the shrines of your devotion, I found an altar on which was written,—'To the unknown God;'—Him therefore, whom, not knowing, you worship, I preach to you." The rest of this splendid, though brief discourse, need not be repeated, because it is given with tolerable fidelity in the common English translation; but it deserves notice how readily and completely, on all occasions, Paul accommodated himself to the circumstances of his hearers. His style on this occasion is remarkably protracted and rounded in its periods, highly cumulative in structure, and harmonious in its almost rhythmical flow;—the whole bearing the character which was best suited to the fancy and fashion of the Athenians,—though still very decidedly marked by the peculiarities of his eastern origin. Here too, he gave them a favorable impression of his knowledge of the Grecian classics, by his apt and happy quotation from Aratus, the philosophical poet of his native province, Cilicia. "For we also are his offspring."
Very religious.—This is unquestionably the just meaning of xvii. 22. See Bloomfield
and all the standard commentators. "Too superstitions" is insulting.
"'To the Unknown God.' (xvii. 23.)—It is very evident from the testimony of Laertius, that the Athenians had altars in their public places, inscribed to unknown gods or demons. He informs us, that when Athens was visited with a great plague, the inhabitants invited Epimenides the philosopher, to lustrate their city. The method adopted by him was to carry several sheep to the Areopagus; whence they were left to wander as they pleased, under the observation of persons sent to attend them. As each sheep lay down, it was sacrificed on the spot to the propitious god; (In vita Epimen. lib. xi.) and as the Athenians were ignorant of what god was propitious, they erected an altar with this inscription, [Greek: THEOIS ASIAS, KAI EURÔPÊS, KAI AIBÊUS, THEÔ AGNÔSTÔ KDI XENÔ]:—To the gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa, to the strange and unknown god.
"On the architrave of a Doric portico at Athens, which was standing when that city was visited about sixty years since, by Dr. Chandler and Mr. Stuart, is a Greek in-
