Here then was the place where that physical philosophy was disseminated which first gained a few advanced thinkers; then, through Euripides, leavened the drama, once the exponent of ancient piety; then, through the stage, the Athenian public, till we arrive at those Stoics and Epicureans who came to teach philosophy and religion not as a faith, but as a system, and to spend their time with the rest of the public in seeking out novelties of creed and of opinion as mere fashions with which people choose [pg 141]to dress their minds. And it was on this very Areopagus, where we are now standing, that these philosophers of fashion came into contact with the thorough earnestness, the profound convictions, the red-hot zeal of the Apostle Paul. The memory of that great scene still lingers about the place, and every guide will show you the exact place where the Apostle stood, and in what direction he addressed his audience. There are, I believe, even some respectable commentators, who transfer their own estimate of S. Paul’s importance to the Athenian public, and hold that it was before the court of the Areopagus that he was asked to expound his views.[54] This is [pg 142]more than doubtful. The blases philosophers, who probably yawned over their own lectures, hearing of a new lay preacher, eager to teach and apparently convinced of the truth of what he said, thought the novelty too delicious to be neglected, and brought him forthwith out of the chatter and bustle of the crowd, probably past the very orchestra where Anaxagoras’s books had been proselytizing before him, and where the stiff old heroes of Athenian history stood, a monument of the escape from political slavery. It is even possible that the curious knot of idlers did not bring him higher than this platform, which might well be called part of Mars’ Hill. But if they choose to bring him to the top, there was no hindrance, for the venerable court held its sittings in the open air, on stone seats; and when not thus occupied the top of the rock may well have been a convenient place of retirement for people who did not want to be disturbed by new acquaintances and the constant eddies of new gossip in the market-place.
Mars’ Hill, Athens
It is, however, of far less import to know on what spot of the Areopagus Paul stood, than to understand clearly what he said, and how he sought to conciliate as well as to refute the philosophers who, no doubt, looked down upon him as an intellectual [pg 143]inferior. He starts naturally enough from the extraordinary crowd of votive statues and offerings, for which Athens was remarkable above all other cities of Greece. He says, with a touch of irony, that he finds them very religious indeed,[55] so religious that he even found an altar to a God professedly unknown, or perhaps unknowable.[56] Probably S. Paul meant to pass from the latter sense of the word ἄγνωστος, which was, I fancy, what the inscription meant, to the former, which gave him an excellent introduction to his argument. Even the use of the singular may have been an intentional variation from the strict text, for Pausanias twice over speaks of altars to the gods who are called the ἄγνωστοι (or mysterious), but I cannot find any citation of the inscription in the singular form. However that may be, our version does not preserve the neatness of S. Paul’s point: “I find an altar,” he says, “to an unknown God. Whom then ye unknowingly worship, [pg 144]Him I announce to you.” But then he develops a conception of the great One God, not at all from the special Jewish, but from the Stoic point of view. He was preaching to Epicureans and to Stoics—to the advocates of prudence as the means, and pleasure as the end, of a happy life, on the one hand; on the other, to the advocates of duty, and of life in harmony with the Providence which governs the world for good. There could be no doubt to which side the man of Tarsus must incline. Though the Stoics of the market-place of Athens might be mere dilettanti, mere talkers about the ἀγαθόν and the great soul of the world, we know that this system of philosophy produced at Tarsus as well as at Rome the most splendid constancy, the most heroic endurance—I had almost said the most Christian benevolence. It was this stern and earnest theory which attracted all serious minds in the decay of heathenism.
Accordingly, S. Paul makes no secret of his sympathy with its nobler features. He describes the God whom he preaches as the benevolent Author of the beauty and fruitfulness of Nature, the great Benefactor of mankind by His providence, and not without constant and obtrusive witnesses of His greatness and His goodness. But he goes much further, and treads close upon the Stoic pantheism when he not only asserts, in the words of Aratus, that we are His offspring, but that “in Him we live, and move, and have our being.”
His first conclusion, that the Godhead should not be worshipped or even imaged in stone or in bronze, was no doubt quite in accordance with more enlightened Athenian philosophy. But it was when he proceeded to preach the Resurrection of the Dead, that even those who were attracted by him, and sympathized with him, turned away in contempt. The Epicureans thought death the end of all things. The Stoics thought that the human soul, the offspring—nay, rather an offshoot—of the Divine world-soul, would be absorbed into its parent essence. Neither could believe the assertion of S. Paul. When they first heard him talk of Jesus and Anastasis they thought them some new pair of Oriental deities. But when they learned that Jesus was a man ordained by God to judge the world, and that Anastasis was merely the Anastasis of the dead, they were greatly disappointed; so some mocked, and some excused themselves from further listening.
Thus ended, to all appearance ignominiously, the first heralding of the faith which was to supplant all the temples and altars and statues with which Athens had earned its renown as a beautiful city, which was to overthrow the schools of the sneering philosophers, and even to remodel all the society and the policy of the world. And yet, in spite of this great and decisive triumph of Christianity there was something curiously prophetic in the contemptuous rejection of its apostle at Athens. Was it not the [pg 146]first expression of the feeling which still possesses the visitor who wanders through its ruins, and which still dominates the educated world?—the feeling that while other cities owe to the triumph of Christianity all their beauty and their interest, Athens has to this day resisted this influence; and that while the Christian monuments of Athens would elsewhere excite no small attention, here they are passed by as of no import compared with its heathen splendor.[57] [pg 147]There are very old and very beautiful little churches in Athens, “ces délicieuses petites églises byzantines,” [pg 148]as M. Renan calls them. They are very peculiar, and unlike what one generally sees in Europe. [pg 149]They strike the observer with their quaintness and smallness, and he fancies he here sees the tiny model [pg 150]of that unique and splendid building, the cathedral of S. Mark at Venice. But yet it is surprising how little we notice them at Athens. I was even told—I sincerely hope it was false—that public opinion at Athens was gravitating toward the total removal of one, and that the most perfect, of these churches, which stands in the middle of a main street, and so breaks the regularity of the modern boulevard! Let us hope that the man who lashes himself into rage at the destruction of the Venetian tower may set his face in time against this real piece of barbarism, if indeed it ever ventures to assert itself in act.[58]
I have now concluded a review of the most important old Greek buildings to be seen about Athens. To treat them exhaustively would require a far longer discussion, or special knowledge which I do not possess; and there are, moreover, smaller buildings, like the so-called Lantern of Demosthenes, which is really the Choragic monument of Lysicrates, and the Temple of the Winds, which are well worth [pg 151]a visit, but which the traveller can find without a guide, and study without difficulty. But incompleteness must be an unavoidable defect in describing any city in which new discoveries are being made, I may say, monthly, and when the museums and excavations of to-day may be any day completely eclipsed by materials now unknown, or scattered through the country. Thus, on my second visit to Athens, I found in the National Bank the wonderful treasures exhumed by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ, which are in themselves enough to induce any student of Greek antiquity to revisit the town, however well he may have examined it in former years. On my third visit, they were arranged and catalogued, but we have not yet attained to any certainty about the race that left them there, and how remote the antiquity of the tombs. These considerations tend not only to vindicate the inadequateness of this review, but perhaps even to justify it in the eyes of the exacting reader, who may have expected a more thorough survey.