Paul's flight from Berea was sudden and unexpected because of violent persecution. The brethren "promptly sent Paul down to the sea-coast" (Acts 17:14, Weymouth), a distance of twenty-five miles by road. Did Paul go to Athens by land or sea? This text would have little meaning if his journey had been overland. The Greek Church has a tradition that when Paul was hurried from Berea, he was first taken to A eginion, and then to the coastal village of Methoni, and that there he found a boat sailing for Athens. (H. V. MORTON, In the Steps of St. Paul, p. 254.)
With snow-crowned Olympus to the starboard the ship moved into the Sea of Thrace. As it slowly passed southward, two courses were open to the captain. At the northern end of the island of Euboea he might turn right into landlocked inlets, at the westernmost end of which lay Thermopylae. Paul would recall that there a handful of Greeks had defied the hordes of Asia and earned undying glory. Perhaps he rededicated his life to serve his Master, too. Ten miles in from the open sea the ship turned into the Straits of Euboea, and for 150 miles sailed in a southeasterly direction. Opposite Marathon, where the Greeks routed the Persian forces, its course was due south. Twenty miles below lay Cape Colonne, the most southerly tip of Attica. This they rounded and passed into the Saronic Gulf.
This point would also be reached should the captain keep to the east of Euboea. On arriving at the southern end of the isle he would turn west, passing north of the island of Ceos, south of Cape Colonne, and into the Saronic Gulf. At Colonne the white ruins of the Temple of Minerva, like bleaching bones, told the mariners it was time to turn northwestward toward the island of Salamis, and to prepare for the landing at Piraeus twenty-five miles away, completing a journey of two hundred miles from Berea.
Appearance of the City
The apostle must first have caught sight of the masts and rigging of the ships tied up at Piraeus. There he found vessels from every port on the Mediterranean. Beyond the harbor, with its clustering houses, the plain of Athens rose slightly, revealing the city spread against its backdrop of hills. In the center of the scene was the Acropolis, five hundred feet above the roofs. Without this, Athens would hardly be Athens.
Shouldering aside the lesser hummocks of rock, this mass of brown stone, with its tonsure of olive trees, climbs high above the city, holding to view its coronet of temples, presided over by the Parthenon. Ancient travelers ten us that their first glimpse of the Parthenon was the light of the sun shimmering on the golden spear in the hand of Minerva Promachus, giant statue of Athens' patron deity, dominating the court of the Parthenon. Perhaps Paul, too, saw this with eager eye!
Athens lies with its back to the mountains and its face to the sea. Ancient Attica, of which Athens was the principal city, is a triangular peninsula, jutting into the Aegean in a southeasterly direction toward the Saronic Gulf. Its southern and eastern shores meet in the Cape of Sunium, while its northern boundaries are the mountains. Athens occupies the center of a plain some five miles long and three wide. On the east it is shadowed by the deeply ravined hills of Hymettus (3,370 feet). To the northeast is Pentelicus, scarred by the picks of ancient quarrymen (3,639 feet). This mountain still provides, as it did in earliest times, great quantities of the famous white Pentelic marble with which most of the venerable buildings and statuary of Athens were made. To the northwest Parnes (4,631 feet) dominates the skyline, crowned by snow in winter, veiled by clouds in summer. The highest point of the range makes a gentle decline westward toward Mount A egaleos (1,535 feet), which dips its feet in the Gulf of Salamis.
In the center a ridge known anciently as Anshesmus, but now called Turcovuni, marches gently toward the Acropolis. Here an extinct volcano rises into the summit of Mount Lycabettus (909 feet). This hill is now called Hagios Georgios because of the tiny whitewashed Greek Orthodox church that crowns its summit. Lycabettus is the second most prominent feature of the Athenian landscape. Although twice as high as the Acropolis, its top was too small and its ascent too steep to be useful as a part of the city. It was never incorporated within the ancient walls. From it, a magnificent view of the entire city, with the harbor of Piraeus beyond, and the mountains and the sea, may be obtained.
The hills around Athens are similar in appearance to those of southwestern Arizona or southern California. They appear tawny, ribbed and veined with the weathering of centuries, treeless and stark, burning to a rich amber in the glow of setting sun, with valleys filled with blue light. These mountains seem to throw protective arms about the city, and form with the circling sea its natural defense. Two small rivulets, the Cephisus and the Ilissus, both rising in the Pentelic hills, flowed into the Gulf of Phalerum not far from Piraeus. Both these have a mere trickle of water at certain rainy seasons today, owing to the destruction of the trees from the hills around Athens. Plato was the first to point out the fact that the forests of Attica were being cut down at too fast a rate. Today there are no trees on the mountains, and the plain is dry.
While Athens has its back to the mountains and its heart in the plain, its feet are in the sea. The harbor of Piraeus has always been connected with Athens. Anciently, the walls of the city were extended in two double lines of fortifications the five miles to the port, and enclosed the harbor. These walls were known as The Long Legs, and protected the road up from the sea to the city.
From Lycabettus, Athens looks tawny. The russet-brown tiles on the low-pitched roofs of the houses, the sun-tanned grass, the hills the color of a lion's skin—everything blends into the glow of rich honey. In cultivated patches the drab green of olive orchards, sentineled with cypress trees in their green-black liveries, are in marked contrast, while along the roads and in the parks and gardens crimson hibiscus, scarlet geraniums, red, pink, and white oleanders, gleam like jewels. Around the Acropolis are stunted pines so typical of the Greek landscape. Today the roads are lined with pepper trees from California, eucalyptus trees from Australia, and palms from Florida. In Paul's time plane trees and oaks also thrived. The climate seldom reaches freezing or goes above 95 degrees. It is a pleasant place in which to live.
With what excitement must Paul have stepped ashore at Piraeus and begun the journey of four and a half miles to the city of Athens, the cultural capital of his world! The size and height of the Acropolis are deceiving. It appears much nearer than it is! As Paul traveled toward the city the ruins of the ancient defensive walls, The Long Legs, would be seen here and there to his right and left. Stores and the offices of merchants lined the roads, with temples and altars to multitudes of gods at each street corner. Perhaps Paul passed the venerable olive tree, called today The Olive of Socrates, halfway to the city. It might very well be nineteen centuries old.
Paul probably entered Athens on foot. To this Hebrew scholar, versed in Greek language, history, and literature, student of the university of Tarsus as well as the theological seminary of Jerusalem, the journey must have been lively with mental pictures of what he had studied coming alive with every mile. His arrival in Athens, queen of the arts, mother of science, cradle of European civilization, to a man as sensitive and full of understanding as Paul, must have been a memorable occasion.
On his arrival at Athens, Paul must quite soon have visited the Agora, or market square. To its north, where the railway now runs, was the road to the Sacred Gate, lined with oleanders and pines. At right angles to this, to the east of the Agora, lay the Stoa of Attalus. This rich gift of the famous king of Pergamurn and ancient admirer of Athens, would be filled with philosophers and their disciples. The visitor may today wander in its porticoes and halls, for it has been completely restored. The original extant pieces have been neatly fitted into the new Pentelic marble. They glow like old ivory in the facade of snow. Paul would pass the Odeion, shrines of the temple of Ares, and public buildings. As he moved up the slight incline to the west he saw the Temple of Hephaestus, today called the Theseum. It is the best preserved of all Greek temples. From the Agora a steep path, four hundred yards long, leads southeastward past the Pnyx on the south and the Areopagus on the north, up to the Acropolis. Mounting more very steep steps to the heights of this great rock, Paul must have stood entranced at the magnificent panorama that spread before him in every direction.
Paul's Thoughts and Feelings
The feelings of the apostle in Athens might be likened to those of a student of Yale or Harvard on his first visit to London and Oxford. Perhaps his sentiments might be compared with those of an Adventist student on his first visit to the New England States and to the towns and villages made important in his mind by connections with the pioneers of this movement and the stalwarts of American literature and history.
As a graduate of the university of Tarsus, Paul was versed in Greek history and philosophy. The educated tourists in Athens visited the Academy of Plato, the Lyceum of Aristotle, the Porch of Zeno the Stoic, and the Garden of Epicurus. To these the solitary Paul must have gone, his mind crowded by the wisps of philosophy connected with each that he remembered. He would recall phrases from the authors and poets of Athens. The Athenian poet Aratus, who was, like Paul, originally from Cilicia, coined a sentence, "We are also His offspring," which elbowed its way back into his memory. The beliefs of the main schools of thought were known to Paul, and he was on familiar ground with the Stoics and Epicureans who discussed the problems of life in the porticoes of the Agora.
But after the initial thrill of seeing all the sights of the great city of Athens, Paul's spirit was provoked within him at sight of the numberless deities worshiped in the city. An ancient cynic observed that there were more gods in Athens than men! The word translated "provoked" is the root from which we get our English word "paroxysm." In the midst of all the beauty and art and history and literature and theater of wonderful Athens, Paul was in a paroxysm, a rage. He noted the genius of man to produce material wonders. He saw this genius devoid of any thought of God while devoted to gods galore. And his soul was in a rage. The zeal of God was eating him up! It was a rage of truth in conflict with a lie, of life in mortal combat with death, of the true God against idols, the way of eternal life displacing the dead philosophies of man's invention.
Paul joined himself to those who were ever ready to discuss any topic in the open Agora, and was soon locked in arguments with the Epicureans, the Sadduccees of Greek philosophies, and the Stoics, those sticklers for virtue who might be compared with the Pharisees of the Hebrew schools of thought.
In the Agora, Demosthenes had rebuked the Athenians for idleness; Solon had explained his legislation; Plato had propounded his views on life and death. In the theater the plays of the comics and tragedians had been performed. The poets had declaimed and the artists in marble and mosaic, in pottery and pigment, had adorned this queen of Greek cities. What would an educated Christian do and say? In spite of himself Paul would remember the methods of the men whom he had studied, who had lived and written in Athens. The rounded phrases of the great orators, replete with poetical quotations and local allusions, would subconsciously crowd his mind. The arguments of the old teachers and lawyers would color his method. And so he joined issue with Athens, which had made a tremendous impact on this learned Greek Jew.
What effect had Paul on Athens? The Athenian reaction was both interested and curiously cynical. Some asked, "What doth this babbler say?" The expression used was one of extreme contempt. It means literally "seed picker or gatherer," and described a pigeon meandering about the street or market square picking up stray seeds for food from the refuse of the passers-by. It described a "beachcomber" of thought, one who was content to pick up tidbits of discarded philosophy and present them as his own! Others said, "May we know what this new teaching is?"
To get away from the noisy Agora, Paul was conducted to the top of Areopagus, or Mars' Hill. Pausanias described this as "the stone of impudence," where men were requested to defend their facts while others sat around and listened. The hills of Attica, drenched with history, looked down on Paul. The Acropolis, proudest memorial to the arts of man, threw her shadow about this Christian apologist. The memory of Socrates, who had been tried and condemned on this very spot, must have pulsed in Paul's brain. The changing views of the philosophers and authors and playwrights, with their emphases on the mutations of semantics, must have disturbed Paul. Alone in Athens, he stood alone on Mars' Hill, yet strangely not alone, as he presented "Jesus, and the resurrection."
