Acts 17:34

Acts 17:34. Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed. There is no doubt that Paul failed in his attempt to found a Christian church at Athens. His stay does not appear to have been a prolonged one. While we possess five of Paul's letters addressed to Greek cities, two to Thessalonica, two to Corinth, one to Philippi, we have none written to the famous capital. Paul never seems to have revisited the city. Never again, either in the ‘Acts' or in the contents of any of his subsequently written epistles, do we meet with the name of Athens.

The city of the ‘violet crown' was one of the last of the great European centres really to accept Christianity. Even after the days of Constantine the Great, Athens was the rallying-point of the dying Pagan party, the last home of the old schools of heathen philosophy (see for an able and picturesque account of Athens in the first days of Christianity, Renan, St. Paul, chap. vii.).

Among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite. This Dionysius must have been a man of power and distinction, for the Areopagites were chosen from the noblest families of Athens. The number of these judges seems to have varied at different periods. Eusebius and other ancient authors relate how this Dionysius subsequently became Bishop of Athens, and according to one tradition suffered martyrdom. The mystical writings attributed to him really belong to another Dionysius who flourished in the fourth century.

And a woman named Damaris. Nothing is known of this Damaris. Considering the seclusion in which Greek women lived, the mention of her name as if she had been present at the meeting on the Hill of Mars is singular. Chrysostom supposes that she was the wife of Dionysius. Stier suggests she was an Hetaira, one of that unhappily famous Athenian sisterhood who like Mary Magdalene was called to repentance.