St Paul's Encounter with Athenian Stoics and Epicureans

Abstract

The account in Acts 17 is approached from an historical point of view in the context of Athens’ situation as an ‘autonomous’ city in a province of the Roman Empire. Despite the allusions to the trial of Socrates, the circumstantial evidence suggests that Paul was not formally put on trial, and if the hearing was more of a public debate then one might have expected more of a three-cornered exchange. Commentaries on Acts 17 generally focus on Christological issues reflected in Luke’s account of Paul’s encounter with Stoics and Epicureans in Athens, and naturally treat the episode as a chapter in the history of Christianity, but the aim here is to approach the episode more from an historical point of view in the context of Athens’ situation in a province of the Roman Empire.1 It is argued, if only in summary form, that Luke’s text is not meant to be taken as referring to a formal trial, especially when one allows for literary influences and Luke’s structuring of Paul’s challenges in this period in Greece.