Acts 17
So, St. Paul criticized the Greeks for believing in gods which “dwelt” in the altars and temples.
However, we Catholics also believe that Our Lord is fully present in the Host and, in some way, “dwells” in the church tabernacles.
I can imagine the Protestants potentially using this fragment against the Catholic faith, accusing us of “idolatry”, etc… How should we respond?
With kindness and charity… As a former Protestant I know that getting around the actual presence of the Body and Blood of Christ is a major stumbling block, as is the idea of Catholic idolatry, So, we turn to learned men like John Martignoni or Scott Hahn. There are a number of audio recordings out there of those two and many others that you might point a skeptical non-Catholic to. But always with kindness, love and charity.
However, where God dwells is not really in question. Paul’s issue with all of the Greek Gods was their plurality and their physical existence as statues that were worshiped directly as the God himself. Paul was also using Greek legend from hundreds of years earlier to show his knowledge of the local people.
Paul was trying to convey to them that the unknown God was not Zeus but the true God, Jesus Christ. The true God who created all things and every man.
Paul was quoting Epimenides who stated in his work entiled Cretica “They fashioned a tomb for thee. O holy and high one. But thou art not dead, thou livest and abidest forever. For in thee we live and move and have our being.”
The Greek writer, Diogenes Laurtius writes: “Altars may be found all over Attica which have no names inscribed upon them, which are left as memorials to this atonement.”
Paul uses this history to introduce the Greeks to the death and resurrection of the true God, Jesus Christ.
The historical account of Epimenides would also tie in nicely with presenting Christ to the Greeks for the first time. In the 6th century B.C., when Epimenides lived, there was a plague which went throughout all Greece. The Greeks thought that they must have offended one of their gods, so they began offering sacrifices on altars to all their various false gods. When nothing worked they figured there must be a God who they didn’t know about whom they must somehow appease.
So Epimenides released hungry sheep into the countryside and instructed men to follow the sheep to see where they would lie down. Since hungry sheep would not naturally lie down but continue to graze, if the sheep were to lie down it must be a sign from God that this place was sacred. To everyone’s surprise, many sheep did lay down and the Athenians built an altar at each spot and sacrificed the sheep on it. Afterward the plague stopped which they attributed to this unknown God accepting the sacrifice.
This story is not found in the Bible or in Hebrew scriptures but was a local history known to the well educated Paul who put it to good use. Here he comes knowing who this previously unknown God is and filling in a long standing mystery. Perfect!.
So, easily appease your non Catholic brothers and sisters about this passage. God did not instruct the building of those many altars, Epimenides did trying to cover all the bases, and when it worked, and the plague was lifted, the altars to the unknown God remained. God did not dwell in these altars, any more than he dwells in the altars of our churches, rather, he dwells in everything about us. No Christian will deny that God dwells in the trees, the rocks, the mountains and in every living thing on earth but we do not worship those things, we worship the God who made them.
God bless…
