What Has Athens To Do With Jerusalem?

April DeConick, professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University, has called for a Blog Post Co-Op on Tertullian’s famous rhetorical question, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Athens represents Greek philosophy; Jerusalem represents the revelation from God—the Holy Scriptures. Tertullian seems to be warning against corrupting Christian doctrine and practice with philosophy (Colossians 2:8). Opinions are divided as to Tertullian’s estimation of the value of Greek philosophy in its place. He himself was trained in the classics and was very familiar with that culture.

I’d like to offer an opinion as a possible answer to his question. Athens has quite a lot to do with Jerusalem, but in a subservient way. It’s well known that Greek culture was widespread before, during, and after the New Testament era. Not only was our New Testament originally written in Greek, but the Old Testament had been translated into Greek (the Septuagint, or LXX) and was in wide use in the time of Christ and the apostles.

What may not be as well known is that certain concepts and exhortations in the NT find their counterpart in Greek philosophy. That doesn’t mean that Christian doctrine came from pagan philosophy or was somehow influenced by it. Rather, Christian doctrine came from God, and the better elements of Greek philosophy came from minds groping for truth. Those minds, like ours, are darkened through the fall into sin and are prone to much error and resistance to light. But shafts of God’s light occasionally pierce the darkness.

For example, the Apostle Paul seems to demonstrate this in the sermon he preached at Athens in Acts 17. (This chapter records Jerusalem having to do with Athens!) Paul proclaimed to the Athenians that God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children’” (Acts 17:26-28). Paul, of course, is not preaching Universalism here. But he finds common ground in this point of Greek philosophy, which he can use to communicate Scriptural truth to a heathen audience, because all truth is God’s truth.

In its proper subservient place Athens has plenty to do with Jerusalem; not for formulating or even understanding God’s truth, but as a vehicle for spreading God’s truth.

What Has Athens To Do With Jerusalem?