NEW TESTAMENT

Acts 17:16

The Holy Bible · English
All chapters

Read all chapter notes ↗

Bilingual reading
Text

Open an explanation beneath verses with notes. Your notes and highlights stay on this device.

16

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols.

ExplanationCommentary
EXPLANATION

Verse 16. Lactanius ridicules the folly of idolatry in a neat strain of irony, which he introduces by the following verses from Lucilius:

Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena

Vivere et esse homines; sic isti omnia ficta

Vera putant, and so forth

—The poet compares these fools to children. I think them worse; for the latter only take the statues for men, they for gods. Age causes the error of the one, folly of the other. These soon cease to be deceived, but the folly of those lasts and increases always. Lact. de fals. Relig. lib. i.

Read all chapter notes
Read the whole chapter