Of these meetings between the Apostle and the philosophers of his native city, if they took place, we have no record. The first account we have of the contact of the religion of Christ and the wisdom of men is given us by the writer of the Acts of the Apostles, in the seventeenth chapter of the history. We are told that, while St Paul waited at Athens for Silas and Timotheus, “his spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout persons; and in the market (τῇ ἀγορᾷ) daily with them that met him. Then certain of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him. And some said, ‘What will this babbler say?’ Other some, ‘He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods;’ because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.” It seems necessary in passing, to notice here the two sects of philosophers who encountered the Apostle. They were then the two most prominent in Greece; one might say they divided between them the adherence of all thoughtful minds. The Epicureans were advocates of the doctrine of the absolute freedom of the human will to choose what is agreeable to it. They denied the providence of GOD, or that he concerns himself at all about human affairs. According to them, the universe was neither formed, nor created, by an intelligent being; but was merely the fortuitous concourse of infinite atoms. They taught that happiness consisted in the pursuit of pleasure, and, as all wish to be happy, all should seek after the greatest amount of pleasure to be obtained. Although Epicurus was fiercely assailed by the disciples of the opposite school, and “the garden,” where he taught, was held to be a hot-bed of sensuality, there was probably much exaggeration in the reports that were spread. Epicurus meant by his teaching, perhaps, not that men should seek after every momentary gratification, but for the greatest enjoyment of a whole life. Yet as this doctrine left man to be his own judge, it is not to be wondered at if the moderation of the founder of the sect was little imitated by his disciples. Men took pleasures as they came, not knowing what pleasure might be in the future, and not caring for the morrow; so vice and profligacy were the result, instead of virtue and contentment and true enjoyment.