Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary: Acts
Ver. 19. To the Areopagus. In this place sat the Athenian judges: but some think that by this word may be here signified, some large hall or court, joining to the Areopagus, where all sorts of people met. (Witham) --- The Areopagus was the supreme and most famous tribunal of all Greece, before which all great causes were tried. The persons who composed it were much renowned for their wisdom. Cicero, and many other Romans, were ambitious of the honour of being an Areopagite; but the power of Athens being now much diminished, this court had sunk in importance, and was now not much more than the shadow of a great name. (Calmet)
Ver. 22. Over-religious.[4] Or very superstitious. To be superstitious, or given to superstition, is commonly taken for a vain and groundless religious worship, but it is also sometimes used in a good sense. And perhaps St. Paul, in the beginning of his speech to so many men of learning, does not so openly blame them for being vainly and foolishly superstitious, but by their inscription, to the unknown[5] God, he takes notice how nice and exact they pretended to be, in not omitting to pay some kind of homage to any god, or gods of all other nations, whom they might not know. For some interpreters think, that by this altar they designed to worship every god of any nation, who was not come to their knowledge: or to worship that great God hinted at in the writings of Plato: or as others conjecture, that God of the Jews, of whom they might have heard such wonders, and whose name the Jews themselves said to be unknown and ineffable. However, from this inscription St. Paul takes an occasion, with wonderful dexterity, with sublime reflections, and with that solid eloquence, of which he was master, and which he employed, as often as it was necessary, to inform them, and instruct them, concerning the works of the one true God, of whom they had little knowledge, by their own fault: that this one true God made the world, and all things in it: that from one man he raised all mankind: that his presence is not confined to temples made by the hands of men, being every where, and in all creatures, preserving them every moment: that in him we live, move, and have our being, or subsist: that it is he, who hath determined the time, limits, or bounds of every empire, and kingdom, and of every man's life: that this true God, who made, preserves, and governs all things in heaven and on earth, cannot be like to gold, silver, or any thing made by the art, or fancy of men. He puts them in mind that according even to one of their own heathen poets, Aratus, men themselves are the offspring of God, being blessed with a being and knowledge above all other creatures in this world: who by the light of reason ought to seek God, and by considering the visible effects of Providence over the world, and the creatures in it, might come to the knowledge of this one God, the author of all, at least to an imperfect knowledge of him, as men find out things by feeling, or as it were, groping in the dark. He then adds, (ver. 30.)
that having, as it were, overlooked, and permitted men for many ages to run on in this ignorance and blindness, in punishment of their sins, (this their ignorance of one true God, the author of all things, being wilful and inexcusable) now the same true God hath been pleased to announce to all men, that henceforward they acknowledge, and worship him, that they repent, and do penance for their sins. (Witham)
Ver. 23. It may be asked, why they had not implicit faith, worshipping the true, though unknown, God?[5] 1st. because the worship of the true God can never exist with the worship of idols; 2nd. because an explicit faith in God is required of all; 3rd. because it is repugnant to implicit faith, to admit any thing contrary to it, as comparing this unknown God with the pagan idols; for God to be at all, must be one. Lucan towards the end of his 2nd book, hath these words:
----------Et dedita sacris
Incerti Judæa Dei.
--- What, therefore, you improperly worship, that I preach to you, and instruct you in the true worship, far different from what you pay to your strange gods.
Ver. 24. God...dwelleth not in temples. He who is infinite cannot be confined to space; nor stand in need of what human hands can furnish. Temples are not for God, but for man. It is the latter who derives assistance from them. The same may be observed of all exterior acts of worship. They are serviceable, inasmuch as they proceed from, or powerfully assist, interior devotion, by the impressions which exterior objects leave upon the soul. The reciprocal action of one upon the other, in our present state of existence, is great and inevitable. (Haydock) See chap. vii. above, ver. 48. --- God, indeed, dwelleth in the temple, yes, and in the soul of the just man, but he is not confined there, as the idols were to their temples. Hence the prayer of Solomon at the consecration of the temple: if heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thy immensity, how much less this house, which I have erected? God dwelleth there, then, to receive the prayers and sacrifices of the faithful, but not as though he needed any thing. See ver. 25. --- God is not contained in temples; so as to need them for his dwelling, or any other uses, as the heathens imagined. Yet by his omnipresence, he is both there and every where. (Challoner)
Ver. 27. Feel after him. Si forte attrectent eum, ei arage pselapheseian. It signifies palpare quasi in tenebris. (Witham)
Ver. 28. St. Paul here cites Aratus, a Greek poet, and his own countryman, a native of Cilicia.
Ver. 29. Cherubim, with extended wings, were ordered by God to be made, and placed over the propitiatory; (Exodus xxxvii. 7.) the brazen serpent is declared by Jesus Christ himself to have been a figure of him; therefore to blame the universally received practice of the Catholic Church, with regard to pictures and images, betrays either great prevention, or great ignorance. St. Gregory says: "What writing does for readers, that a picture does for the ignorant; for in it they see what they ought to follow, and in it they read, who know no letters." And he sharply rebukes Serenus's indiscreet zeal for removing pictures, instead of teaching the people what use may be made of them. (lib. ix. ep. 9.)
Ver. 30. Overlooked. Despiciens, uperidon. It may either signify looking down on the ignorant world, and so taking pity of it; or rather that God having overlooked, and permitted mankind to go on so long in their sins, now invites them to repentance, by sending Jesus, their Saviour and Redeemer. See the Analysis, dissert. xxxiv. (Witham)
Ver. 31. Because he hath appointed a day for judging all men with equity, by the man, to wit, Christ Jesus, a man, and also his true Son, whom he has appointed to be their judge; and by raising him (Jesus) from the dead, he hath made it credible, and given sufficient proofs of this truth, that every one shall rise from death. (Witham)