God Testified Through Nature (Acts 14:16–17)
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Turning from Idols in Acts 14:15–17
It is a privilege for me to be able to contribute this essay in honor of my friend, colleague, and mentor, Ben Witherington. Soon after I had finished my PhD at Duke, Ben introduced me to publishers and scholars I would not have met on my own. He has continued to model for me both scholarship and kindness, looking out for me and treating me as a colleague well before I joined the faculty at his seminary. In honor of his excellent work on both Acts and rhetoric, I offer here an essay on a speech in Acts.
Given the word count allotted, I have focused on a particularly brief speech, the Lystra speech in Acts 14:15–17.⁷¹³ Because this is merely a speech summary, and because Barnabas and Paul address here a predominantly rural audience with less exposure to urban rhetoric than some audiences later in Acts, I focus less on specific rhetorical devices than on how the speech’s content would resonate with and challenge religious thought in antiquity. The themes in this speech would likely appeal to Luke’s ideal audience, knowledgeable of gentile polytheism, rudimentary philosophic currents available in an urban setting, and the monotheism they as Jesus’s followers had inherited from Israel. The exhortation to monotheism here would strike chords familiar to many of Luke’s contemporaries.
The Lystra Speech, Lukan Speeches and Pauline Preaching
Despite generally shared style and common theological interests, the speeches in Acts vary in many respects. They reflect, for example, a range of rhetorical levels, with speeches normally appropriate to the individual speakers and audiences in the narrative world. Likewise, readers may also find in the speeches’ details a range in probability in terms of modern historiographic analysis. For example, many scholars believe that the speech of Gamaliel (Acts 5:36–37) and especially the conversation of Festus with Agrippa and Berenice (25:13–22) reflect Luke’s reconstruction of what could have been said on such occasions for which available witnesses would be few.⁷¹⁴ At the opposite end of the spectrum, one speech in the we-material contains even some elements of Paul’s own style when exhorting Christians (20:18–35).⁷¹⁵ Likewise, summaries of defense speeches (especially Acts 24–26) could reflect dependence on the sorts of court summaries normally available in forensic cases.⁷¹⁶ Nevertheless, speeches throughout Acts are normally appropriate to the audiences in the narrative world, fitting the expectations of rhetoric and of ancient historical composition.
The speech in Acts 14:15–17 suits its narrated audience. A comparison of Paul’s⁷¹⁷ speeches in 13:16–47 (a synagogue audience), 14:15–17 (a rural community; see especially comment on 14:17), and 17:22–31 (urban philosophers) reveals Paul’s adaptability to diverse audiences. Although such adaptability could be viewed negatively by critics,⁷¹⁸ the ability to adapt one’s form to one’s audience was essential for good rhetoricians (Quintilian Inst. 3.7.24).⁷¹⁹ Although the language is thoroughly biblical (see comments below), it omits direct quotations of Scripture, which would be irrelevant for this audience (in contrast to Acts 13:16–47).⁷²⁰ Some elements of the speech may even contextualize Paul’s message specifically for an audience in this region, suggesting authentic tradition that Luke has compressed here.⁷²¹
The speech’s setting fits a Lukan theme that has apologetic value. Ancients considered it virtuous for humans to reject divine honors.⁷²² Luke thus depicts positively the refusal of the apostles (here; Peter in 10:26; cf. 3:12), and contrasts the opposite behavior of a tyrannical persecutor (12:22–23, whose acceptance of divine honor is also noted by Josephus).⁷²³
Like all speeches in Acts, this speech is Lukan; yet, like the other Pauline speeches, it is also compatible with Pauline thought. Robert Grant could be right that the speech “may not be what Paul would have said,” but rather, what Luke thinks “he should have said.”⁷²⁴ While the wording and choice of terse elements that survive Luke’s editing are Luke’s, however, the approach is more Pauline than scholars often recognize. In contrast to these Lukan speeches, most of Paul’s letters address believers; substantial overlap appears, however, in their brief treatments of natural theology (Rom 1:19–22), idolatry (Rom 1:23–25; cf. 1 Cor 8:5–6; 10:20–21), and repentance from idolatry (1 Thess 1:9).
The hostility toward deity images here resembles 1 Thess 1:9, the Pauline passage offering the closest approximation of what Paul demanded for polytheists’ conversion.⁷²⁵ The natural theology in Luke’s two Pauline speeches that address it is consistent with the natural theology expressed in Rom 1:19–25.⁷²⁶ Both authors, however, qualify their brief examples of natural theology. In Romans, the revelation in nature makes humanity culpable for idolatry (Rom 1:18–23); but this revelation contrasts with the revelation in the gospel, which provides salvation (Rom 1:16–17).⁷²⁷ In fact, Acts 14:15–17 and Rom 1:19–25 might even echo the same source in Wisdom 13–15,⁷²⁸ although the connection is much clearer in the somewhat longer Romans passage.⁷²⁹ Wisdom of Solomon used God’s revelation in nature to make idolatry morally indefensible,⁷³⁰ and apparently drew from Stoic models.⁷³¹
As with the speech in Acts 17:22–31, in 14:15 Paul begins by establishing common ground with his audience (mentioning shared nature in 14:15; cf. also the agricultural imagery of 14:17). The approach here resembles the apologetic in Josephus and many diaspora Jewish writers, and Luke’s presentation of it would appeal to many philosophic currents in his day.⁷³² The similarities with 17:22–31 might suggest that both reflect a pattern of Hellenistic Jewish apologetic as found in Wisdom of Solomon or Philo,⁷³³ though Paul’s more directly confrontational summons to repentance (14:15; 17:30; cf. 19:26; 1 Thess 1:9) goes beyond the approach of most of his contemporaries.
Challenging Idolatry
Themes in the Lystra speech would resonate with Jewish people and some gentiles. Nevertheless, Barnabas and Paul speak more boldly than most diaspora Jews and more strictly than even the vast majority of ancient philosophers. The wording at points appears diplomatic (especially in 14:16–17), but the speech summary’s beginning suggests that the apostles’ ultimate goal was not simply to make a successful oration by rhetorical standards. Rhetoricians advised securing hearers’ favor by praising their ancestors,⁷³⁴ which 14:16 does not do. Identifying their common humanity might help build rapport at the beginning of a speech, as rhetoricians advised,⁷³⁵ but the opening verse nevertheless challenges some of ancient gentiles’ most deeply held beliefs.
Jewish Views
This concise speech summary confronts idolatry more bluntly than apologists often did. Although Jewish critiques of idolatry circulated more among themselves than in public preaching to polytheists, the critique here would sound familiar. Jewish literature often mocked paganism,⁷³⁶ following the lead of some biblical prophets (1 Kgs 18:27; Isa 44:12–17; 46:6–7; Jer 10:3–5; Ps 115:4–8).⁷³⁷ Luke’s anti-idolatry polemic develops ideas already found in Isaiah.⁷³⁸
From a Jewish perspective, idolatry was one of the worst sins⁷³⁹—possibly the worst.⁷⁴⁰ Later rabbis envisioned it as one of the great sins before the flood.⁷⁴¹ Jewish tradition depicted Abraham’s⁷⁴² hostility toward idolatry;⁷⁴³ after destroying household idols,⁷⁴⁴ he faced conflict with his family.⁷⁴⁵ Later rabbis declared that Abraham was the first person to leave idolatry.⁷⁴⁶
Jewish polemic emphasized that false gods, far from being creators, were created by humans (Sipre Deut. 43.6.9). Later Christian writers echoed this approach. Far from being innate, for example, an emperor’s “divinity” was dependent on mortals’ decision and support (Tertullian Apol. 5.2). Not surprisingly, gentiles thought that converts to Judaism hated gentiles’ deities (e.g., Josephus Ant. 20.77) and that converts to the Christian movement denied them (Lucian Peregrinus 13).
Many Jewish people would have affirmed this speech’s teaching that nature revealed God’s unity and character (cf. 14:17). Nevertheless, Jewish apologetic rarely confronted gentiles directly, publicly demanding that they turn from false gods.⁷⁴⁷ Most Jewish sources denouncing idolaters apparently directly (e.g., Isa 44:11; 46:12; Sib. Or. 3.547–48) were not designed to be read by the statue venerators themselves.⁷⁴⁸ Paul and Barnabas here escalate the rhetoric of Old Testament prophets by confronting the worshipers directly.
Gentile Concerns About Traditional Polytheism
Yet even some gentiles ridiculed features of mythology they considered incongruous with moral reason.⁷⁴⁹ Such criticisms applied most widely to the worship of animals, since northern Mediterranean peoples associated this practice with Egyptians, whom Greeks and Romans often looked down on in their own day. God specifically warned Israel to reject images of animals (Deut 4:17–18),⁷⁵⁰ and it is not surprising that Jewish people criticized these practices.⁷⁵¹
Nevertheless, not only Jews but also many Greeks and Romans mocked this behavior as superstition.⁷⁵² This was especially the case “after they heard of a Roman emissary who accidentally killed a cat and apparently was murdered by an Egyptian mob in 59 B.C.”⁷⁵³ Pliny complains about those who worship animals, especially “loathsome ones.”⁷⁵⁴ Philostratus’s Apollonius attacks Egyptian worship of animal shapes, arguing that by contrast Greek portrayal of the gods as humans honors the gods.⁷⁵⁵ (One who wished to mock Greek myths might similarly point out Zeus’s transformation into a bull and other animals.)⁷⁵⁶
Criticisms of polytheism and statue veneration were not, however, limited to Egyptian practices. More than most gentile contemporaries, the second-century satirist Lucian ridiculed popular notions about the gods and fate,⁷⁵⁷ contending that the myths’ gods are, like mortals, slaves to Fate.⁷⁵⁸ The gods of myths, far from being blissful immortals, can be wounded, imprisoned, and tortured.⁷⁵⁹ Thus, for example, Diomedes, backed by Athena, could wound the deities Aphrodite or Ares.⁷⁶⁰ For Lucian, those who took the myths seriously were like children or the deranged.⁷⁶¹ Apollonius, too, was said to have dismissed stories of divine immorality as senseless fictions fit only for children or old women.⁷⁶²
Some other gentiles complained about deities proliferated so as to correspond to all human characteristics or needs.⁷⁶³ Since anything and everything could be personified and deified, why worship any deities in particular?⁷⁶⁴ Some asked why particular immortals in the myths remained old while others remained young;⁷⁶⁵ others mocked their conflicts with fellow deities.⁷⁶⁶ Many ridiculed mythical deities’ extramarital affairs;⁷⁶⁷ in one satire, for example, Zeus requested that Helios the sun god take a break for three days, allowing Zeus an extended time to commit adultery.⁷⁶⁸ In another satire Zeus has to defend lust.⁷⁶⁹
Others challenged mythical deities’ weakness. How could a woman elude a divine pursuer, given that even a man could normally overpower a woman?⁷⁷⁰ How could deities prove unable to rescue mortals they loved?⁷⁷¹ Some noted Zeus’s weakness, when Hera put him to sleep so the Greeks could win a battle.⁷⁷² Other inconsistencies elicited criticism. How could gods sleep even though the bright god Helios spent the night with them?⁷⁷³ How could Hephaistos remain perpetually disabled?⁷⁷⁴ Some thinkers also saw little sense in carrying deities on one’s fingers (i.e., rings)⁷⁷⁵ and many noticed that oracles often hedged their responses to prevent being mistaken.⁷⁷⁶ Many mocked Cretans’ claims to possess Zeus’s tomb.⁷⁷⁷ Few philosophers took the ancient myths literally;⁷⁷⁸ some charged with slander the poets who depicted deities as immoral.⁷⁷⁹
Mythical portrayals of deities played into such criticisms by moralists. Newly-born Hermes stole property⁷⁸⁰ and killed someone whom he believed would betray this secret.⁷⁸¹ Divinities could become animals to mate with each other.⁷⁸² Likewise deities—whether single or married—seduced and raped various women⁷⁸³ and sometimes boys;⁷⁸⁴ yet they might slay mortals who proved unfaithful.⁷⁸⁵ (Jewish and Christian critics often focused on these features of immorality.)⁷⁸⁶ Jealous about Zeus’s affairs, Hera sought vengeance on his paramours.⁷⁸⁷ Angry at humans’ neglect⁷⁸⁸ or disrespect,⁷⁸⁹ divinities also sought their deaths.⁷⁹⁰ Gods could deceive with divine effectiveness.⁷⁹¹
Mortals also sometimes questioned the justice of deities (although not the purer, idealized deities of many philosophers).⁷⁹² They could even threaten to disbelieve in deities if they failed to act!⁷⁹³ Polytheists could also pit some deities against others;⁷⁹⁴ the most prominent literary example, known to virtually all Greeks, was the Trojan War.⁷⁹⁵ Different deities could have competing agendas.⁷⁹⁶ To become ruler, Zeus had overthrown his own father.⁷⁹⁷
Such depictions of divine morality, probably reflecting what their human creators would do if they had divine power, in turn offered models for human behavior.⁷⁹⁸ Recognizing the connection, Jewish and Christian apologists proclaimed the superiority of their God, contrasting the immorality of pagan deities.⁷⁹⁹ Early Christian apologists, denounced especially for their monotheism, sought to differentiate their foundational stories from the tales of polytheistic deities.⁸⁰⁰
Eager to evade the negative model, many later intellectuals allegorized the myths or even attributed the worst divine acts to lesser beings merely named after the higher deities who were their leaders.⁸⁰¹ Thus Heraclitus salvages the story of Hera putting Zeus to sleep by allegorizing it,⁸⁰² and allegorizes deities’ extramarital affairs⁸⁰³ and Hephaistos’s continuing disability.⁸⁰⁴ The Neoplatonist Proclus notes that the poets were wrong to depict heroes and deities like mortals;⁸⁰⁵ such beings should rather be praised as wholly pure.⁸⁰⁶ Thus it is bad to depict their “thievery . . . , rapes, wanderings, adulteries, wars, plotting . . . ,”⁸⁰⁷ or “crimes against fathers and tying them up and castrating them.”⁸⁰⁸ Such scenes, they observed, prove problematic for the schooling of young hearers.⁸⁰⁹ Yet Proclus claims not to attack the myths but to defend their true meaning against impious people who ignorantly criticize the gods’ immorality.⁸¹⁰ His criticism may have applied to Epicureans;⁸¹¹ some scholars think that he directed it at least partly against Christian critics.⁸¹²
Granted, Homer’s myths do not inculcate virtue in the young,⁸¹³ Proclus notes, but mature hearers can catch the stories’ “mystical” significance.⁸¹⁴ Thus the fall of Hephaistos from heaven merely depicts the movement of the divine from high to low; binding Kronos depicts creation’s unity with its origin; Ouranos’s castration reflects degeneration from the original order, and the like.⁸¹⁵ War among deities simply signifies the original united creation versus fragmentation and ultimately matter.⁸¹⁶ Both Ares and Hephaistos partnering with Aphrodite in some manner signifies the presence of beauty in each of their spheres;⁸¹⁷ even the intercourse of Zeus and Hera is symbolic.⁸¹⁸ Clearly, literal depictions of deities’ immorality in Greek myths constituted a problem for moral instruction noticed by others besides monotheistic critics.
Jews and early Christians resisted not only polytheism, but also the attachment of images to the divine. In reality, cult statues were not the dominant feature of Greco-Roman religious practice⁸¹⁹ the way they had been in the ancient Near Eastern milieu against which Old Testament prophets polemicized⁸²⁰—though, as we shall note below, they did remain significant.⁸²¹ Most intellectuals recognized a difference between a divinity and its image;⁸²² the statues merely symbolized the deity, a reminder to worshipers.⁸²³ Although cult statues ideally should depict a deity’s character appropriately,⁸²⁴ mere statues could only illustrate, not communicate the essence of, deities.⁸²⁵
Still, even those who recognized these distinctions often felt that images helped humans to appreciate their gods concretely.⁸²⁶ Some Platonists tried to reconcile their emphasis on the supreme good (an emphasis that later Christian Platonists used to promote monotheism) with deity images. Though northern Mediterranean peoples often ridiculed Egyptians’ veneration of animal figures (see comments above), some Platonists argued that deities sanctified lower (material) forms by using these forms to represent themselves.⁸²⁷ Maximus of Tyre, for example, thought even animal images acceptable if they turned people’s thoughts toward God.⁸²⁸ Some writers later appealed to this understanding against Christians, contending that the supreme deity allowed the worship of additional deities.⁸²⁹ Christians’ strict monotheism and total aversion to deity images would alienate Christians from public life in their communities.⁸³⁰
Turning from False Deities
In Acts 14:15, the apostles emphasize that they share a common humanity with those who wish to venerate them; their language evokes and challenges the crowd’s claim in 14:11 that the apostles have become merely “like” people.⁸³¹ Greek-speaking Jews already employed this term to designate shared humanity (4 Macc 12:13) or createdness (Wis 7:3).
A rhetorical connection within the same sentence is also possible, although the frequency of the verb poieô (156 times in Luke-Acts) reduces the certainty of this connection. Paul and Barnabas may contrast what the crowd is “doing” with what God “did” in creating heaven, earth, the sea and all that is in them. In this case, the wording underlines that the crowd’s action is sacrilegious, responding to God’s benevolence with betrayal rather than the appropriate gratitude. Because gratitude was a necessary response to benefaction in antiquity,⁸³² such betrayal appeared heinous.
In view of Luke’s general usage (Luke 1:16–17; 22:32; Acts 9:35; 11:21; 15:19; 26:18; 28:27), the speech’s summons to “turn” is functionally equivalent to a call to “repent” (see e.g., 2:38); note the essential equivalence of the language in 3:19 and 26:20.⁸³³ Other diaspora Jewish sources also depict “repentance” as a necessary response to idolatry (e.g., Jos. Asen. 9:2), even for Egyptian priests (Sib. Or. 5.497).⁸³⁴ Although historians usually summarized (as presumably here) or, more often, elaborated speeches in their own words, the language also fits what we know of the historical Paul. He describes gentiles’ conversion in terms of “turning from idols” to a “living God” (1 Thess 1:9).
“Living God” in this context emphasizes God’s active concern for people.⁸³⁵ Although the title “living God” was frequent in early Judaism,⁸³⁶ Jewish sources sometimes contrasted the “living God” (as here) with the lifeless deities of polytheism (e.g., Jer 10:10 [cf. 10:8–10];⁸³⁷ Jos. Asen. 8:5). In denouncing the worship of these false deities as “vain” (mataios), Barnabas and Paul evoke biblical language⁸³⁸ also echoed in other diaspora Jewish sources.⁸³⁹ Paul employs a cognate verb with reference to idolatry in one of his letters (mataioô, Rom 1:21).⁸⁴⁰
Heaven, Earth, and Sea
The speech’s “maker of heaven, earth, and sea” (Acts 14:15) fits Luke’s style (see 4:24; cf. “Lord of heaven and earth” in 17:24; Luke 10:21) and is not unexpected in a Lukan speech summary. Because speakers typically gestured toward visible objects they mentioned,⁸⁴¹ Luke’s audience may envision Paul and/or Barnabas instinctively gesturing toward heaven and earth when mentioning these locations. Where the same formula appears earlier, in Acts 4:24, its setting in prayer would probably reinforce for Luke’s audience the allusion to the words’ original setting in Ps 146:6 (cf. also allusions in Rev 5:13; 10:6; 14:7; 21:1). Luke’s use here might evoke the psalm’s context: God has healed in Acts 14:10, and Ps 146:8 praises God as the healer; that the Septuagint is less clear on this point, however, may weaken the argument. Although Paul nowhere uses this full formula from the psalm, the idea would not be foreign to him (cf. 1 Cor 8:5; 10:26; Eph 3:15; Col 1:16, 20; especially Phil 2:10). Certainly he argues about God from creation (Rom 1:20),⁸⁴² with moral implications concerning idolatry (Rom 1:25).
The Lystra speech’s formula may echo Scripture, but gentiles would not find the language unfamiliar. Already in the Augustan era, for example, Roman poets spoke of the supreme God ruling heaven, earth, and the sea.⁸⁴³ Later orators could speak of Apollo’s glory filling these same three spheres at his birth.⁸⁴⁴ Typical gentile conceptions diverged from those articulated by the apostles here, however: in polytheism, heaven, earth, and the sea were actual deities themselves.⁸⁴⁵ Although the originating issue may have been appeal to Zeus and Hermes (Acts 14:12), Paul would have known the wider polytheistic system of belief to which that appeal belonged.
Most striking to the hearers in the narrative world may be the challenge to local Phrygian beliefs, beliefs that other people in the ancient Mediterranean world (likely including Luke’s real audience) also widely associated with Phrygia. Many ancient sources portray the earth as mother,⁸⁴⁶ or mention the earth mother or mother earth,⁸⁴⁷ “Great Mother,”⁸⁴⁸ “Mother of the gods,”⁸⁴⁹ “Mother of all,”⁸⁵⁰ the Idaean Mother,⁸⁵¹ or “Mother Cybele.”⁸⁵² Yet it was Phrygia in particular that was especially known for the worship of Earth as a mother goddess.⁸⁵³ Technically, Lystra was in Lycaonia rather than Phrygia; the Phrygian language was spoken in nearby Iconium (cf. Acts 13:51—14:1), but not in Lystra.⁸⁵⁴ Nevertheless, Lystra was close enough to the shifting border that it was influenced by and associated with Phrygia. Euripides already associated “Mother Rhea” (Zeus’s mother) with Phrygia,⁸⁵⁵ and some spoke of the “mother of the gods” as Phrygian.⁸⁵⁶ Even in the Egyptian Isis cult, later syncretism recognized Phrygians as the first to honor the mother of the gods.⁸⁵⁷ The mother goddess Cybele’s music was distinctly Phrygian.⁸⁵⁸ Although Cybele was by this period more hellenized, she remained “mother.”⁸⁵⁹
Of course, the worship of neither mother goddesses in general nor Cybele in particular was limited to Phrygia.⁸⁶⁰ By this period, even Romans honored the mother goddess;⁸⁶¹ being fairly ecumenical, they had brought her cult to Rome itself,⁸⁶² though Roman citizens were initially barred from participating in it. (Rome welcomed the associated rites of Attis only during the reign of Claudius—the period Luke’s narrative here depicts—though they became popular thereafter.)⁸⁶³
The apostles’ biblical preaching would naturally challenge more than local worship of the earth mother. The crowds equated Barnabas with Zeus (Acts 14:12), mythically deemed ruler of heaven. According to the traditional myth, Zeus received the rule of heaven, Hades of the underworld, and Poseidon of the sea.⁸⁶⁴ The apostles proclaim instead the single, uncreated God as both ruler and creator of the entire cosmos.
God Testified Through Nature (Acts 14:16–17)
Given the article’s focus on polytheism and statue veneration, it should suffice to merely summarize points in the rest of the Lystra speech. God, though merciful, disapproved of their idolatry. Claiming that God permitted past eras of wrong behavior (14:16) probably means that he “overlooked ignorance” (17:30), unhappily putting up with it. This passage, 17:30, and Rom 3:25 might all echo Wis 11:23, where God mercifully overlooks people’s sins “for repentance,” probably meaning that he spares them destruction to allow them to repent.
Despite God’s patience, he had revealed himself benevolently all along through the gifts of nature. Rhetorically prudent speakers would appeal to what their hearers valued (Aristotle Rhet. 1.9.30, 1367b), as here. Although much of Lycaonia was inhospitable to agriculture (Strabo 12.6.1), in contrast to nearby Phrygia (Horace Ode 2.12.22), Lystra was primarily a rural community, for whom more urban rhetoric might have been alienating.⁸⁶⁵ Stephen Mitchell emphasizes the radical contrast between urban life and that of rural villages in Asia Minor, including in matters of “[l]anguage and nomenclature, diet and lifestyle, cults and patterns of authority.”⁸⁶⁶
Although mostly polytheists, ancient hearers would have readily associated talk about fertility with deities. Greeks invoked Demeter before sowing (e.g., Epictetus Diatr. 3.21.12), for example, and temples included rituals to ensure fertility.⁸⁶⁷ Phrygians looked to their goddess of justice for fertility,⁸⁶⁸ but especially to Zeus.⁸⁶⁹ Ancient speakers could go further: at least in a later era, some sycophantic rhetors credited rains and harvests (Menander Rhetor 2.1–2, 377.22–24) and all prosperity (377.20–22) to the emperor. Neither Luke’s audience nor, likely, Luke himself, would have been aware how relevant the apostles’ reported words were to hearers in southern Asia Minor: Phrygian and Pisidian inscriptions honor Zeus Kalakagathios, giver of good benefits and fruitfulness.⁸⁷⁰ By contrast, Luke’s biblically informed ideal audience understood the one God as provider of fruitfulness (Gen 1:12, 29–31) and as sovereign over seasons and fruitfulness (1 En. 2:1—5:3, especially 5:2). It was he who bestowed agricultural productivity (e.g., Deut 28:3–12; T. Iss. 5:4).
What was true of fertility in general was also true of the specific sorts of blessings noted in this speech—rain and fruitful seasons. In attempts to secure rain, people employed a variety of religious rituals,⁸⁷¹ including some rituals commonly perceived as magic.⁸⁷² Although gentile worshipers viewed Zeus and local surrogates as the chief storm deities,⁸⁷³ worshipers also could attribute rains to various other deities.⁸⁷⁴ (More “secular” explanations also existed, although they were less pervasive.)⁸⁷⁵
Monotheists naturally reserved this activity for the one God. Scripture already emphasized his benevolence in sending rain and sustaining creatures (Lev 26:4; Ps 145:15; 147:8–9; rain in its [rainy] seasons, Jer 5:24).⁸⁷⁶ In early Jewish sources, God alone sent rain (1 En. 2:3), despite the proliferation of subordinate angels in Jewish tradition.⁸⁷⁷ God sent rain in response to prayers (whether public⁸⁷⁸ or those of holy persons),⁸⁷⁹ obedience to the Torah,⁸⁸⁰ festivals⁸⁸¹ (including prayers at the Festival of Tabernacles,⁸⁸² and possibly the water-drawing ceremony at that festival),⁸⁸³ the temple service,⁸⁸⁴ sacrifices,⁸⁸⁵ and other acts.⁸⁸⁶ God benevolently created people so that he could care for them (Sipre Deut. 38.1.3).
Seasons governed the work cycle for the vast majority of the Empire’s people, and naturally invited religious consideration. Thus, for example, seasons figured heavily in myths about rising deities.⁸⁸⁷ Luke’s informed audience, however, understood that God governed the seasons (Gen 8:22; Ps 74:17; Philo Creation 59).⁸⁸⁸
Although God also “testified” more specifically to his salvific message through signs, as in Acts 14:3,⁸⁸⁹ his long-term testimony to humanity here comes by means of his generous benefactions to humanity through creation. The litotes “not without witness” is typically Lukan (Acts 12:18; 19:23, 24; 21:39; 27:20),⁸⁹⁰ but Luke presumably condenses a more comprehensive early monotheistic apologetic here. Divine testimony in creation (cf. Ps 19:1–6) ensured humanity’s moral responsibility (Wis 13:1). This is true also in the epistolary Paul’s theology (Rom 1:20), where, as here, God’s kindness should encourage repentance (Rom 2:4).
This Jewish apologetic approach was able to exploit some similar ideas found among a number of philosophers, especially Stoics. Stoics saw in both the order of the universe and tokens of divine benevolence an indication of the divine mind.⁸⁹¹ One may also compare one of the Cynic epistles, in which night and day and the fruit-bearing earth attest God’s character (Heraclitus Ep. 4). Presumably the Lystran crowd, many of whom spoke the local Lycaonian dialect as their first language, lacked much direct acquaintance with Stoic philosophy. Nevertheless, this basic idea informed a traditional diaspora Jewish apologetic bridge with which both Paul and Luke were presumably familiar. Indeed, for ancient hearers in general, agricultural blessings naturally raised the issue of divine benevolence. Locals who came to the market may have even heard extemporaneous speeches by traveling speakers before on a related concept; one practice topic in declamation schools was “Whether the gods exercise providential care for the cosmos.”⁸⁹²
Conclusion
Many intellectuals expressed concerns about traditional mythology and sometimes polytheism and the worship of statues; Jewish people repeated Isaiah’s denunciations of idolatry, but not normally in public proclamation to gentiles themselves. Luke’s depiction of the monotheistic proclamation of Paul and Barnabas therefore strikes chords that would be familiar to much of his audience, but the apostles’ direct and public appeal to gentiles to turn from idolatry goes beyond what was usual. It is consistent with Paul’s description of some gentiles’ response to his early ministry—“the way that you turned to God from idols to serve the living and genuine God” (1 Thess 1:9).