ed-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 addrest his audience. There are, I believe, even some
respectable commentators who transfer their own estimate of St. 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. This is 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' 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 chose 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.

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 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 slight touch of irony, that he finds them very religious indeed,
so religious that he even found an altar to a God professedly unknown,
or perhaps unknowable....

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 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 Chr