Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seems to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached to them Jesus, and the resurrection.
philosophers.
Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
1 Corinthians 1:20,21 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? …
Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
encountered.
Acts 6:9 Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.
Mark 9:14 And when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them.
Luke 11:53 And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things:
babbler.
Proverbs 23:9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.
Proverbs 26:12 Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.
1 Corinthians 3:18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
Jesus.
Acts 17:31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
Acts 26:23 That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.
Romans 14:9,10 For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living…
Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?”
The term "babbler" translates from the Greek word "spermologos," which literally means "seed picker." It was a derogatory term used to describe someone who picks up scraps of knowledge and presents them without understanding. This reflects the philosophers' dismissive attitude towards Paul, perceiving him as an amateur or a charlatan. This skepticism is reminiscent of how prophets and messengers were often received with scorn or disbelief, as seen in the Old Testament (e.g., Jeremiah 20:7-8).
Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.”
The accusation of advocating foreign gods was serious in Athens, a city with a pantheon of established deities. Introducing new gods was often met with suspicion and could lead to legal repercussions, as seen in the trial of Socrates. This charge against Paul echoes the challenges faced by early Christians who proclaimed a message that was perceived as subversive to traditional religious practices. The reference to "foreign gods" also underscores the exclusivity of the Christian message, which proclaimed Jesus as the one true God, in contrast to the polytheistic beliefs of the time.
They said this because Paul was proclaiming the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.
Paul's message centered on the "good news" or gospel, which is the core of Christian teaching. The resurrection of Jesus is a foundational doctrine, affirming His divinity and the promise of eternal life for believers. This concept was particularly challenging for Greek philosophers, as the idea of bodily resurrection was foreign to their understanding of the afterlife. The resurrection is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies (e.g., Psalm 16:10) and is central to the apostolic preaching (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). It also serves as a type of Christ's victory over death, offering hope and redemption to humanity.
• Athens was a hub of ideas (Acts 17:21), so Paul’s gospel proclamation naturally invited scrutiny.
• Epicureans aimed for pleasure through freedom from fear and pain; Stoics sought virtue through reason and self-discipline. Both systems are man-centered, contrasting with a God-centered worldview (Romans 1:21-23).
• Paul’s willingness to engage shows that the gospel speaks into every worldview (1 Peter 3:15). He never shrank back from dialogue, certain that “the word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12).
• “Babbler” (literally “seed-picker”) was a dismissive label for someone viewed as piecing together scraps of second-hand ideas—an attempt to belittle Paul’s authority.
• Opposition or ridicule is normal when truth confronts worldly wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:20-25).
• Paul suffered similar disdain elsewhere (Acts 26:24; 2 Corinthians 10:10), yet he relied on the Spirit’s power, not human eloquence (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).
• The plural “gods” reveals misunderstanding; they thought Jesus and the resurrection (anástasis) were two deities. This confusion underscores how unfamiliar the biblical message was to pagan ears (1 Corinthians 2:14).
• To protect civic order, Athens required new deities to be vetted (cf. the charge against Socrates). Their remark signals concern that Paul might destabilize accepted religion—echoing the charge in Thessalonica: “These men … are turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
• Scripture consistently warns that true proclamation will unsettle cultural norms (John 15:19-20).
• Luke pinpoints the core: Paul “was proclaiming the good news.” The gospel is not philosophy but a historical message—Jesus crucified and risen (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
• “Resurrection” confronts both Epicurean denial of afterlife and Stoic cyclical fatalism. Only Christ offers concrete hope beyond death (John 11:25-26; 1 Thessalonians 4:14).
• Paul’s focus mirrors his later resolve in Corinth: “I decided to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
Acts 17:18 shows Paul entering the marketplace of ideas with confidence in the gospel’s power. Philosophers debated him, mocked him, and misunderstood him, yet he stayed on message: Jesus and the resurrection. Worldly systems—whether pleasure-seeking or reason-driven—cannot answer humanity’s deepest need. Only the risen Christ does.
(18) Certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks.--The two schools were at this time the great representatives of Greek thought. The former took its name from its founder, Epicurus, who lived a long and tranquil life at Athens, from B.C. 342 to 270. As holding their meetings in a garden, which he had left by his will in trust as a place of study for his disciples, they were sometimes known as the School of the Garden, and as such were distinguished from those of the Porch (Diog. Laert. Epic. c. 10). His speculations embraced at once a physical and an ethical solution of the problems of the universe. Rejecting, as all thinking men did, the popular Polytheism, which yet they did not dare openly to renounce, he taught that the gods, in their eternal tranquillity, were too far off from man to trouble themselves about his sorrows or his sins. They needed no sacrifices and answered no prayers. The superstition which enslaved the minds of most men was the great evil of the world, the source of its crimes and miseries. The last enemy to be destroyed was with him, as in our own time with Strauss, the belief in an immortality of retribution. A man's first step towards happiness and wisdom was to emancipate himself from its thraldom; the next was to recognise that happiness consisted in the greatest aggregate of pleasurable emotions. Experience taught that what are called pleasures are often more than counterbalanced by the pains that follow, and sensual excesses were therefore to be avoided. Epicurus's own life seems to have been distinguished by generosity, self-control, and general kindliness, and even by piety and patriotism (Diog. Laert. Epic. c. 5). But as no law was recognised as written in the heart, and human laws were looked on as mere conventional arrangements, each man was left to form his own estimate of what would give him most pleasure, and most men decided for a life of ease and self-indulgence; sometimes balanced by prudential calculations, sometimes sinking into mere voluptuousness. The poetry of Horace presents, perhaps, the most attractive phase of popular Epicureanism; the sense which has come to be attached to the modern word "Epicure," as applied to one whose life is devoted to the indulgence of the sense of taste, shows to what a depth of degradation it might sink.In the world of physics, Epicurus has been claimed as anticipating some of the results of modern science. The ideas of creation and control were alike excluded. Matter had existed from eternity, and the infinite atoms of which it was composed had, under the action of attractive and Tepelling forces as yet unknown, entered into manifold combinations, out of which had issued, as the last stage of the evolution, the world of nature as it now lies before us. The poem of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, may be regarded as the grandest utterance of this negative and practically atheistic system, but its real nobleness lies chiefly in its indignant protest against the superstition which had cast its veil of thick darkness over all the nations.
It may be well to give one or two characteristic examples of each of these phases. On the one side we have the ever-recurring advice of the popular poet of society to remember that life is short, and to make the most of it:--
"Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere: et,
Quern Fors dierum cunque dabit, lucro
Appone."
["Strive not the morrow's chance to know,
But count whate'er the Fates bestow
As given thee for thy gain."]--Hor. Od. i. 9.
"Sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
Spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
'tas. Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero." . . .
Verse 18. - And certain also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers for then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, A.V.; would for will, A.V.; preached for preached unto them, A.V. and T.R. The Epicureans (so called from Epicurus, their founder) and the Stoics (so called from the στοά, the colonnade or piazza where Zeno their founder taught) were the most numerous sects at Athens at this time; and their respective tenets were the most opposite to the doctrines of the gospel. Encountered him; σύνεβαλλον. In Acts 4:15 it is followed by πρός, and is properly rendered "conferred;" here it is followed by the dative, and may be understood to mean "disputed" (συμβάλλειν λόγους). It may, however, not less properly be taken in the sense of a hostile encounter of words, as Luke 14:31, and frequently in classical Greek. This babbler (σπερμολόγος); literally, a picker-up of seeds, applied to a crow (Aristoph., 'Ayes,' 232, 579). Plutarch too ('Demet.,' 28) has σπερμολόγοι ὅρνιθες, birds picking up seeds. Hence it is used of idle hangers-on in the markets, who get a livelihood by what they can pick up, and so generally of empty, worthless fellows. Hence it is further applied to those who pick up scraps of knowledge from one or another and "babble them indifferently in all companies" (Johnson's 'Dictionary,' under "Babble"). A setter forth of strange gods. There does not seem to be the least ground for Chrysostom's suggestion that they took Anastasis (the Resurrection) for the name of a goddess. But the preaching of Jesus the Son of God, himself risen from the dead (ver. 31), and hereafter to be the Judge of quick and dead at the general resurrection, was naturally, to both Stoics and Epicureans, a setting forth of strange gods. Χένα δαιμόνια are "foreign deities," or "daemons," inferior gods. The word καταγγελεύς, a setter forth, does not occur elsewhere. But the nearly identical word κατάγγελος is used by Plutarch.