Acts 7 and Stephen's Speech
In regular Greek
usage, ειδωλον means an “insubstantial phenomenon,” a “phantom,” or a “mental image,” yet the
translators used this term to reference the material images of Gentile gods,
suggesting that these images are at best elusive reflections of concrete
reality. In other instances, idol polemic drew boundary lines between the God
of Israel as Creator versus the created order (a move that bears some affinity
with a Platonic Creator/creation divide). Idol parodies in particular draw this
distinction, and in the LXX, the term “made with human hands,” or “hand-made” (χειροποιητος), appears in
reference to divine images in order to highlight the difference between God the
Creator and humans who attempt to create gods, or at least images of the gods
(e.g., the LXX of Lev 26:1, 30; Isa 2:18; 10:11; 16:12; 19:1; 21:9; 31:7; 46:6;
Dan 5:4, 23; 6:28; Wis 14:8). (Brittany E. Wilson, The Embodied God: Seeing
the Divine in Luke-Acts and the Early Church [New York: Oxford University
Press, 2021], 29)
. . . rather than
critiquing the visuality of divine images, Luke more consistently
critiques the tactility of idol making. Luke does take issue with (at
least some) divine images, but he uses the sense of touch, not sight, to level
his critique. In doing so, Luke suggests not that visual images incorrectly
represent an invisible God but that the act of creating images effaces the
distinction between God and humanity, or Creator and creation. In other words,
Luke focuses less on the visibility of images and more on their human
construction, the letter of which expresses his central concern with such
images.
Luke lifts up the
tactility of idols by incorporating “hand” (χειρ) and “to make” (ποιεω)
language throughout all three of his idol passages. In Acts 7, Stephen
repeatedly references the human manufacture of foreign gods. The Israelites
commanded Aaron to “make” (ποιησον) gods for them (7:40); they also “made a
calf [εμοσχοποιησαν[“ (7:41), “reveled in the works of their hands [χειρων αυτων]”
(7:41), and worshiped images that they “made [εποιησατε]”
(7:43). With the meaning of reveling “in the works of their hands,” Stephen
also links t his idolatrous act to the building of the Jerusalem temple:
Stephen explains that though Solomon built a “house” (οικος) for God, “the Most
High does not dwell [κατοικει] in things made by human hands [χειροποιητοις]” (7:47-48), echoing
a sentiment expressed in 1 Chr 17:4 (In Acts 7, Stephen uses the golden calf
incident to transition to his discussion of the temple: his mention of the “tent”
[σκηνη] of Rephan and the “images} [τυποι] the Israelites worship [7:43] leads to
his discussion of the “tent” [σκηνη] of testimony that Moses made according
to a “pattern” [τυπος] [7:44-45], which then leads to his discussion of God’s “house” [οικος] [7:46-50]). God is
not contained by the temple or other things crafted by human hands; instead,
God’s “hand” (χειρ) makes all, as Stephen makes clear in his citation from Isa 66:1 (Acts
7:50; cf. Isa 66:1-2). (Ibid., 38-39)
Acts 17 and Paul's Speech at the Areopagus
To be clear, Luke in
his effort to signal the difference between “the Way” and other “ways,”
incorporates philosophical discourse against divine images from the wider
Greco-Roman world and reflects an adept understanding of his pagan context.
This is nowhere more evident than in Paul’s Areopagus speech. Paul, for
example, is careful not to use the term “idol” in his speech. The narrator uses
this word when he says that Paul was distressed to see that the city was “full
of idols” [κατειδωλον]” (Acts 17:16), but Paul himself calls these images “your objects of
worship [σεβασματα]” (17:23). Paul is also careful to depict images as representations of
the divine, merely saying that God is not “like” (ομοιον) an image (Since χαραγματι [“image”] stands in
apposition to the four dative nouns that precede it, which are complements of ομοιον [“like”],
we should read “like” [ομοιον] before “images” [χαραγματι] as well). (And though
Demetrius will later accuse Paul of saying that “gods made with hands are not
gods” [19:26], note that we never actually witness Paul saying this.) Yet while
Paul’s Areopagus speech demonstrates an awareness of the philosophical critique
against images, it nowhere draws upon the rationale concerning God’s invisibility
as found in some philosophical circles. Paul does provide a rationale, but he
does so by citing a well-known Greek proverb that depicts the divine in anthropomorphic
terms, namely, as a parent (To be clear, the idea of God as a parental figure
was also well known in philosophical circles, even among philosophers who
advocated for God’s invisibility). In 17:28, Paul says, “For we too are his
offspring [γενος],’” a quotation that derives from the poet Aratus’s Phaenomena
(v. 5) but had gained proverbial status by Luke’s time, and he goes on to say
that “therefore [ουν], being the offspring [γενος] of God, we ought not to think that deity
is like gold . . .” (17:29). With his “therefore” (ουν), Paul links the
Aratus quotation to his rejection of images and argues that we ought not to
liken God to gold, silver, or stone, because we are God’s γενος, a word that means “offspring,”
or “family,” or “descendants.” Luke interestingly refrains from saying that humans
are the image of God (Pervo identifies Luke’s reticence here as an instance of
enthymeme, a rhetorical device in which a premise or conclusion is not expressed but
implied [Acts 439]. Cf. Gen 1:26-27; 1 Cor 11:7; 15:49; 2 Cor 3:18; 4:4;
Col 1:15; 3:10), but he fastens on to a familiar term that points to the
relationship between God and humanity. God’s paternity—not God’s invisibility—serves
as the reason to reject images; Luke nowhere indicates that humans should avoid
images due to God’s lack of a visible form. (Ibid., 34-35)
. . . while Luke’s
narrative as a whole paints a picture of an embodied God, some may be quick to
argue that Luke is against the idea of humans holding a mental conception of God’s
form. In Acts 17, Paul declares during his Areopagus speech that God does not
resemble “an image of human craft and thought [χαραγματι τεχνης και ενθυμησεως ανθρωπου]” (17:29), which
some interpreters take to mean images that are both made and imagined. Richard
Pervo even suggests that the manuscript 𝔓74 omits “and of human thought”
(και ενθυμησεως ανθρωπου) because an Alexandrian editor would have thought that humans can form
a mental conception of God (Pervo, Acts, 423). Paul’s comment can
certainly be interpreted in this manner, but his main critique seems to be directed
at manually constructed images that derive from a person’s craft and
creativity. Mikeal Parsons and Martin Culy’s discussion of the grammar in Acts
17:29 furthers this sense, for they argue that the genitives τεχνης and ενθυμησεως denote the means of
the implicit verb “made” (hence their translation: “we should not think that
the divine one is . . . [like] an image [made] by a person’s skill and
creativity” (Parsons and Culy, Acts, 332, 341). Given that Paul is
reacting to material images in his speech (17:22-25; cf. 17:16), coupled with
the fact that Luke’s narrative encourages us to envision God’s imaginal body
elsewhere, it seems more likely that Paul’s main issue in 17:29 lies with
material images that arise from linguistic representation. (Ibid., 47-48)
