Paul and Zeus
A Universalizing Thread in Acts
The majority of the literary borrowing in the New Testament draws on Jewish scripture, but there are cases where an author quotes something entirely outside that tradition. In Acts 17, Paul addresses a group of philosophers in Athens and quotes a line from a Greek hymn to Zeus, telling his audience that “your own poets” have already spoken a truth about God. The line, “for we too are his offspring,” comes from the poet Aratus of Soli, and it was written about Zeus, not the God of Israel. The speech does not correct or dismiss this source but treats what was said about Zeus as a valid statement from Paul’s perspective. That Paul quotes a Greek poet is fairly well known, but what tends to get less attention is what it means theologically for a speech about the God of Israel to incorporate what would sometimes be called “pagan”.
From Zeus let us begin; him do we mortals never leave unnamed; full of Zeus are all the streets and all the market-places of men; full is the sea and the havens thereof; always we all have need of Zeus. For we are also his offspring; and he in his kindness unto men giveth favourable signs and wakeneth the people to work, reminding them of livelihood. He tells what time the soil is best for the labour of the ox and for the mattock, and what time the seasons are favourable both for the planting of trees and for casting all manner of seeds. For himself it was who set the signs in heaven, and marked out the constellations, and for the year devised what stars chiefly should give to men right signs of the seasons, to the end that all things might grow unfailingly. Wherefore him do men ever worship first and last. Hail, O Father, mighty marvel, mighty blessing unto men. Hail to thee and to the Elder Race! Hail, ye Muses, right kindly, every one! But for me, too, in answer to my prayer direct all my lay, even as is meet, to tell the stars. (Aratus, Phaenomena)
The Phaenomena is a poem about reading the stars to help with planning farming and navigation, and it opens with this hymn to Zeus as the source of all human activity and life. The claim that humanity is the “offspring” of Zeus reflects a Greek philosophical view in which the divine fills everything, from the streets and marketplaces to the sea. Zeus in this poem is less than the traditional character from mythology than a way of personifying the forces behind the universe, the god responsible for the seasons, the stars, and the conditions of daily life. The poem was widely read across the Greek-speaking world, and its opening lines would have been familiar to an educated audience in Athens.1
From one man he made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth, determining their set times and the fixed limits of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope around for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move about and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ So since we are God’s offspring, we should not think the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human skill and imagination. Therefore, although God has overlooked such times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he designated, having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:26-31)2
Paul’s speech names the borrowing openly, referring to “your own poets” before quoting the line. The speech describes a God who made the world and everything in it, who does not live in temples and is not served by human hands, and who placed every nation on earth so that people might “search for God and perhaps grope around for him.” Into this description of the God of Israel, Paul drops a reference from a hymn to Zeus, not to argue against it, nor even to make a sarcastic reference, but to underline his point. The quotation works as evidence that Greek poets had already said something true about the God Paul is talking about, and the speech then draws a practical conclusion from that shared idea: if humanity is God’s offspring, then the divine cannot be captured in images of gold, silver, or stone.
Paul does not argue that Aratus was wrong about Zeus or that the Greek poets were talking about a false god. He takes what was said about Zeus and applies it directly to the God of Israel, suggesting that the Greeks, through their own poetry and philosophy, had already stumbled onto something real about God. The implication is that genuine theological knowledge is not limited to Jewish scripture but can be found in other cultures and their ways of thinking about the divine. The speech accepts that Greek thinkers recognized and described real truths and insists that those truths point towards a universalizing theme, claiming the best of Greek thought while arguing it only makes full sense in the context of what Paul is preaching.3
They fashioned a tomb for you, holy and high one,
Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies.
But you are not dead: you live and abide forever,
For in you we live and move and have our being. (Epimenides, Cretica)4
The first half of Acts 17:28 strengthens this reading, since the phrase “in him we live and move about and exist” likely comes from yet another Greek poet, Epimenides of Crete, whose poem was also addressed to Zeus.5 The verse in Acts therefore contains not one but two echoes of Greek poetry about Zeus, both repurposed to describe the God of Israel. Two separate poetic traditions about Zeus are folded into a single verse about the Christian God, and neither is dismissed or corrected, with the text treating both borrowings as honest expressions of a truth the Greek poets had grasped independently.
What Acts 17 reveals is that early Christian thinking could treat non-Jewish, non-Christian sources as real witnesses to God, even while arguing against Greek religious practice.6 If humanity is truly God’s offspring, as Aratus wrote about Zeus, then representing God through statues and images misses the point of that relationship entirely. The argument only works if the Greek poets were right about something essential, and that is a significant move for understanding how early Christianity saw itself within its intellectual world. What Paul is depicted describing in Athens is not a rejection of Greek thinking about God but a universalizing claim that it was always, without knowing it, about the creator God.
Poochigian, Aaron Aratus: Phaenomena, Translated with an Introduction and Notes (pp. ix-xxxi) Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010
Jipp, Joshua W. “Paul’s Areopagus Speech of Acts 17:16–34 as Both Critique and Propaganda” (pp. 567-588) Journal of Biblical Literature, 2012
Cousland, J.R.C. “The Choral Crowds in the Tragedy According to St. Matthew” in Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative (p. 255-273) Society of Biblical Literature, 2005
Jipp, Joshua W. "Paul's Areopagus Speech of Acts 17:16–34 as Both Critique and Propaganda" (pp. 567-588) Journal of Biblical Literature, 2012
This is quite beautiful, and it reminds me of missionaries through history who sometimes used the people’s own traditions to point them to universal truths about God
Yes I agree, such polemic occurs throughout the bible and has an interesting and consistent characteristic in that it is revealed only in the historical and cultural contexts of the time it was written. An example is that in the creation story the polemic is mostly against Babylonian creation myths and not those of Egypt, Assyria, Akkadia or Sumeria indicating that it was committed to writing after the Exodus against the pervasive and perverse theological rebellion of Canaan and the surrounding pagan nations.
Just as you have indicated polemic does not detract from the truth. Importantly, when researched and understood it consistently provides better context toward more accurately translating the intended meaning of the biblical writers from their own time in history.
Surprisingly in my own studies, I've found that while the earliest history of twisted pagan ideas about creation paint a forboding picture of the world before the flood, at the same time they act like a dark canvas of an artist that paints over it with the divine brilliance and vivid colours of the true creation story.
The emergent biblical themes are much much deeper than I could ever have imagined and pervade both the Old and New Testaments in ways that are obscure in modern translations.
For example, despite the shared pre-scientific cosmology of both pagans and the biblical writers the latter used what they perceived to be the layered heavens above them to reveal layered supernatural concepts. A very important one is the differences in the levels of divine radiance of the members of the Godhead. They then use these layers to reveal the many characters and roles in the pre-existing world and then also the closely related plan for faithful humanity to become like the angels.
However, this is not merely Jewish mysticism, the ancient Hebrew worldview is much deeper and for example forms the foundation of the new covenant in ways modern western thinking has completely missed.
Now like you, even when I read about the Greek language and culture from the time of the first century I'm looking for the Hebraic mindset in the minds of the writers. While complicated at first such polemic has helped me find their deeply imbrdded intended meanings.