Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 17:28

"for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." — Acts 17:28 (ASV)

For in him we live, and move, and have our being.—Better, we live, and are moved, and are. Each of the verbs used has a definite philosophical significance. The first points to our animal life; the second—from which is derived the Greek word used by ethical writers for passions, such as fear, love, hate, and the like—not, as the English verb suggests, to a person’s power of bodily motion in space, but to our emotional nature; the third, to that which constitutes our true essential being, the intellect and will of humankind.

What the words express is not merely the Omnipresence of the Deity; they tell us that the power for every act, sensation, and thought comes from Him. They set forth what we may venture to call the true element of Pantheism, the sense of a “presence interposed,” as in nature, “in the light of setting suns,” so even more in humankind. As a Latin poet had sung, whose works may have been known to the speaker, the hearers, and the historian:—

“Deum namque ire per omnes
Terrasque tractusque maris, cœlumque profundum,
Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum,
Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas,
Scilicet hinc reddi deinde ac resoluta referri
Omnia; nec morti esse locum sed viva volare
Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere cælo.”
[“God permeates all lands, all tracts of sea,
And the vast heaven. From Him all flocks and herds,
And humans, and creatures wild, draw, each apart,
Their subtle life. To Him they all return,
When once again set free. No place is found
For death, but all mount up once more on high
To join the stars in their high firmament.”]
—Virgil, Georgics 4:221-225.

In the teaching of St. Paul, however, the personality of God is not merged, as in that of the Pantheist, in the thought of the great Soul of the World, but stands forth with awe-inspiring distinctness in the character of King and Judge. Traces of similar thoughts are found in the prophetic vision of a time when God shall be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28), the discords of the world’s history harmonised in the eternal peace.

As certain also of your own poets have said.—The quotation has a special interest as being taken from a poet who was a countryman of St. Paul’s. Aratus, probably of Tarsus (circa 272 BC), had written a didactic poem under the title of Phenomena, comprising the main facts of astronomical and meteorological science as then known. It opens with an invocation to Zeus, which contains the words that St. Paul quotes. Similar words are found in a hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes (300 BC). Both passages are worth quoting:—

1. “From Zeus begin; never let us leave
   His name unloved. With Him, with Zeus, are filled
   All paths we tread, and all the marketplaces of people;
   Filled, too, the sea, and every creek and bay;
   And in all things we need the help of Zeus,
   For we too are his offspring.”
   —Aratus, Phaenomena 1–5.

2. “Most glorious of immortals, many-named,
   Almighty and forever, you, O Zeus,
   Sovereign over Nature, guiding with your hand
   All things that are, we greet with praises. You
   It is fitting that mortals call with one accord,
   For we your offspring are, and we alone,
   Of all that live and move upon this earth,
   Receive the gift of imitative speech.”
   —Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus.

The fact of the quotation would at once capture the attention of the hearers. They would feel that they were not dealing with an illiterate Jew, like the traders and exorcists who were so common in Greek cities, but with a cultured person like themselves, acquainted with the thoughts of at least some of their great poets.

We are also his offspring.—We too often think of the quotation only as happily introduced at the time; but the fact that it was quoted shows that it had impressed itself, perhaps long years before, on St. Paul’s memory. As a student at Tarsus, we may well believe, it had helped to teach him the meaning of the words of his own Scriptures: “I have nourished and brought up children” (Isaiah 1:2).

The method of St. Paul’s teaching is one from which modern preachers might well learn a lesson. He does not begin by telling people that they have thought too highly of themselves, that they are vile worms, creatures of the dust, children of the devil. The fault which he finds in them is that they have taken too low an estimate of their position. They too had forgotten that they were God’s offspring, and had counted themselves, even as the unbelieving Jews had done (Acts 13:46), “unworthy of eternal life.”