The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-04-25
THE OLYMPIC GAMES AT
ATHENS.
BY RICHARD BRATHwAIT.
PLAIN CITY, U

The revival of the ancient Olympic
games at Athens, Greece, is an event of
unique interest in our modern world so
largely indebted to the civilization and
literature OF Greece. The single word
Greece opens to every educated mind
the portals OF temple of the beautiful
and recalls names and events that stand
as landmarks in the history of civiliza-
ton, literature and philosophy. And
when it is remembered that the games
being revived at Athens, part of them at
least. belong to the heroic age Of Greece
and recall the splendors of the Olympic
festival at time when Greece was the
glory OF the ancient world, some concep.
ton OF the unique interest attaching to
the event is obtained. To the Christian,
also. as we'll as to the classic scholar and
student OF history, this modern revival
OF the greatest of ancient festivities is
unusually significant. Throughout the
epistles of Paul. who travelled in Greece,
spoke on Mars Hill. and was thoroughly
familiar with the wonderful literature
of that land of poetry. philosophy and
heroism, are to be found illusions and
figures borrowed from the ancient games
of Greece and the contests in the stad-
ium. The "cloud of witnesses" to which
the apostle refers in Hebrews clearly
indicates the spectators in the amphi.
theatre, and his exhortation to "lay
aside every weight" and to run with
patience the race that is set before u.s."
brings before us the race course of the
stadium at Athens, at which, no doubt,
he had seen the runners almost naked,
contending for the olive crown. Those
contests we're heroic and noble in char
acter and the great Apostle to the Gen.
tiles has, in many places. shown what
hold they had taken upon him by his
application Of figures drawn from them
to the Christian life.
"The desire Of an Olympic crown"
says Gillies in his History of Greece"
restrained alike those weaknesses which
form the disgrace. and those vices which
form the guilt and misery of undisci.
plined minds; and an object of earthly
and perishable ambition led to the same
external purity and temperance that is
recommended by the precepts, and en-
forced by the sanctions, of divine and
immutable religion. The oil, the crown,
the robes and the palms, compose not
the only resemblance between the
Christian and Olympic victors. These
visible images have been borrowed in.
deed by the sacred writer's, to assist our
imperfect conception OF divine truths;
but they have been borrowed from an
institution which resembles Christian.
ity. not in the honors and rewards
which it proposed, but in the efforts and
duties which it required"
There lie, therefore. special interest
even to the Christian, in this revival of
the greatest festivals of Greece, stripped
now Of its pagan character, and conse-
Grated in its beginning by the services
of that religion which Paul first pro-
claimed to Athens, standing on the
Areopagus.
The same stadium upon which Paul
looked has been restored as nearly as
possible to what it was 1000 years ago.
The ancient stadium Panathenaique
was excavated from under the debris of
fifteen centuries in 1869 and 1870, and
by the munihcence of Nj. Averoff, a
wealthy Greek of Alexandria, it has been
restored at an expense of nearly 81 600.
600, to at least a suggestion of what it
was in the days when Herodes Atticus
finished it in the marble of Mount Pen
telikon.
At present only the first three rows OF
the seats OF the ampitheatre have been
finished in marble, the remainder of the
seats, said to be capable Of accommodate.
ing 10000 spectators. being in wood and
stone. Eventually, it is promised, the
great ampitheatre will be finished in