There was in all this something that profoundly disturbed
Idolatry 117 of his business at Athens. He has other work in mind. It is not the improving of himself in their philosophy that he aims at.
He has learned to call it a vain thing, and is above it (Col. ii. 8). His business is in God's name, to correct their disorders in religion, and to turn them from the service of idols, and of Satan in them, to the service of the true living God in Christ.
Here is the impression which the abominable ignorance and superstition of the Athenians made upon Paul's spirit. It was "wholly given to idolatry'.
This agrees with the account which the heathen writers give of it. There were more idols in Athens, so they said, than there were in all Greece beside put together, and they had twice as many sacred feasts as others had. Whatever strange gods were recommended to them they admitted them, and allowed them a temple and an altar—'"'so that they had almost as many gods as men''. And this city, after the empire became Christian, continued incurably addicted to idolatry, and all the pious edicts of the Christian emperors could not root it out, till, by the corruption of the Goths, that city was in a particular manner laid waste, and there are now scarce any remains of it. It is to be observed that there, where human learning most flourished, idolatry most abounded, and the most absurd and ridiculous idolatry. This confirms what the apostle said, that when "they professed themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Rom. 1. 22); and, in the business of religion, were of all others most vain in their imaginations. "The world by wisdom knew not God" (1 Cor. i. 21). They might have reasoned against polytheism and idolatry, but it seems the greatest pretenders to reason were the greatest slaves to idols. It is necessary to the re-establishing even of natural religion, that there should be a divine revelation, and that centring in Christ.
4. PAUL AND THE IDOLATORS
There was in all this something that profoundly disturbed the Apostle Paul. He was not willing to appear publicly till Silas and Timothy came to him, that "out of the mouth of two or three witnesses the word might be established"'. In the meantime, "his spirit was stirred within him"'. He was filled with concern for the glory of God, which he saw given to idols, and with compassion for the souls of men, which he saw thus enslaved to Satan and led captive by him at his will. He had holy