Note (return) — Chapter VIII
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Here, then, in Athens the Apostle was brought into immediate contact with all the phases of philosophic thought which had appeared in the ancient world. "Amongst those who sauntered beneath the cool shadows of the plane-trees in the Agora, and gathered in knots under the porticoes, eagerly discussing the questions of the day, were the philosophers, in the garb of their several sects, ready for any new question on which they might exercise their subtlety or display their rhetoric." If there were any in that motley group who cherished the principles and retained the spirit of the true Platonic school, we may presume they felt an inward intellectual sympathy with the doctrine enounced by Paul. With Plato, "philosophy was only another name for religion: philosophy is the love of perfect Wisdom; perfect Wisdom and perfect Goodness are identical: the perfect Good is God himself; philosophy is the love of God." 382 He confessed the need of divine assistance to attain "the good," and of divine interposition to deliver men from moral ruin. 383 Like Socrates, he longed for a supernatural--a divine light to guide him, and he acknowledged his need thereof continually. 384 He was one of those who, in heathen lands, waited for "the desire of nations;" and, had he lived in Christian times, no doubt his "spirit of faith" would have joyfully "embraced the Saviour in all the completeness of his revelation and advent." 385 And in so far as the spirit of Plato survived among his disciples, we may be sure they were not among the number who "mocked," and ridiculed, and opposed the "new doctrine" proclaimed by Paul. It was "the philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics who encountered Paul." The leading tenets of both these sects were diametrically opposed to the doctrines of Christianity. The ruling spirit of each was alien from the spirit of Christ. The haughty pride of the Stoic, the Epicurean abandonment to pleasure, placed them in direct antagonism to him who proclaimed the crucified and risen Christ to be "the wisdom of God."