Other festivals there were in Greece besides the one at Athens in honour of Athéné, where similar athletic games and feats of skill were performed before the altars of other tutelary gods. There were the far-famed Olympic games in honour of Zeus (Jupiter), in which all the Greek States competed. The Odes of Pindar have immortalised the Olympic chariot races. There were also the Delphic games in honour of Apollo, the sun god, the god of poetry. The practice of these games lasted in Greece, and were in use in Rome, till long after Christian times. How popular they were in those times we may infer from the many references to them in the Epistles and Acts of the Apostles.
Professor Jebb observes, in one of the admirable series of Shilling Primers now publishing, the one on “Greek Literature:” “The Greeks were not the first people who found out how to till the earth well, or to fashion metals, or to build splendid houses and temples. But they were the first people who tried to make reason the guide of their social life. Greek literature has an interest such as belongs to no other literature. It shows us how men first set about systematic thinking.” And, he proceeds, “neither the history of Christian doctrine, nor the outer history of the Christian Church, can be fully understood without reference to the character and work of the Greek mind. Under the influence of Christianity, two principal elements have entered into the spiritual life of the modern world. One of these has been Hebrew; the other has been Greek.”
Of all the many beautiful things which the Greeks produced, the Greek language itself is considered to have been the first and most wonderful; and “no one,” continues the professor, “who is a stranger to Greek literature, has seen how perfect an instrument it is possible for human speech to be.”
We may remember that the whole of the New Testament was given to the world in this beautiful and expressive language; that St. Paul was well versed in Greek philosophy, and that many of his Epistles were to Greek cities, and many of his first disciples among the Gentiles were Greeks.
We can also be sure that he must often have been present at Greek games such as we have been describing. The frequent references and metaphors referring to them prove this. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians the references to the foot-races run in the Isthmean games, celebrated at Corinth, occur again and again. “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain” (ch. ix. 24); and in the following verse, “They strive for a corruptible” (or perishable) “crown, but we an incorruptible”—referring to the fragile crowns or garlands of fresh leaves awarded to the victors in the games we have been describing.
And again, in the Epistle to the Philippians, iii. 14, “I press towards the mark” (or goal) “for the prize.” In the first Epistle to Timothy, vi. 12, “Fight the good fight before many witnesses.”
The first preaching to the Gentiles was to Greek-speaking peoples, either noted Greek cities, as Athens itself and Corinth, or Greek colonies in Asia Minor. We find (Acts xii.) how St. Paul actually visited this same beautiful City of Athens, whose early legends, like quaint fairy stories, we have been describing; how he stood on the Areopagus (the Hill of Mars) facing the Parthenon, and must have seen all its lovely statues and grand monuments still perfect; and how he “thought it good to be left at Athens alone,” when he there preached to her wise men and philosophers, and found followers and disciples from among them, whose hearts were opened to a higher wisdom than any that the worshippers of the famed Athenian goddess knew.
THE INTERIOR OF THE PARTHENON.
(The Giving of the Prizes. Conjectural Arrangement.)