Damaris

“And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them.

Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Acts 17:32-34

Damaris was one of the few people, and the only woman we know of, who believed the apostle Paul when he taught on Mars Hill in Athens. Paul was had fled to Athens after he and his companion Silas had run into trouble with the Thessalonians, who were unhappy that Paul and Silas were having great success teaching among the Greeks in the neighboring city of Berea  (Acts 17: 1-13) .

Fearing for his life Paul fled to Athens, while Silas and Timothy remained in Berea with a plan to meet up in Athens later. While Paul was waiting in Athens he was very troubled by the wickedness of the people and began to preach to the Jews in their synagogues and to the Greeks in the market place (Acts. 17: 16-17). Athens was known as a center of  learning and philosophy and so when some of the philosophers of the Epicurian  and Stoic ideologies heard Paul’ s teachings they invited him to speak at the Areopagus  where new ideas were often presented and debated, or, as it says in Acts 17:21, where  “all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing”.

The Areopagus, which in Greek means “big piece of rock”, is a large rocky plateau in Athens situated near several temples of Greek Gods. It was  also called Mars Hill because it was thought to be the place where Mars, the Greek god of war, was tried by the god’s for his murder of of he murder of Halirrhothius , the son of Poseidon. It was the place where the civil council of Athens met, and even under Roman rule, was where Greek magistrates judged civil matters.

Dionysius, who was also converted by Paul’s teachings, is described to as an “Areopagite”, meaning he was one of the judges who sat in council at the Areopagus. So while Paul didn’t have much success with the people in Athens, he did convert a very power and important man. Later, Dionysius became the first bishop of Athens.

Christian tradition speculated that the reason Damaris’ name is mentioned along with Dionysius is because she was his wife. The Greek word used for “woman” in the phrase in Acts 17:24, “and a woman named Damaris” is the Greek word γυνή and can be translated as “woman” or “wife”. In the New Testament this word is translated as “woman” 129 times and as “wife” 92 times (see Strong’s number G1135) and some early Christian writers interpreted the word this way. We really don’t know which is correct.

Why was Damaris at the Areopagus?

The reason why Damaris was present at the Areopagus, in which only men were allowed to be present, has long been debated. The simplest answer is that she wasn’t there. Acts 17:34 doesn’t specifically say that Dionysus, Damaris and the other converts mentioned in the verse were converted by Paul’s speech on Mars Hill. It says that they believed. Paul had been preaching in Athens for quite sometime and it is very possible that Damaris could have been converted before.

Yet it is possible that she was present at the Areopagus, which would have been highly unusual for respectable Greek woman. While Athens was a center of learning,education, and politics Athenian women (while educated) were not were invited to participate in civic discourses. Since respectable women were not allowed in the Areopagus some scholars have speculated that she must not have been a respectable woman, perhaps being foreign or a courtesan to one of the rich Greek men at the Areopagus [i]. As one scholar notes,

” It has been noticed that unlike with the reports of female converts in Berea, Thessalonica, and Pisidian Antioch, the text does not grace Damaris’ name with a qualification of special honor. Reflecting on the traditional ancient strictures regarding the public roles of women in Athens has led some interpreters to conclude that, since respectable Athenian women would not have been welcome…  Damaris may have been a foreigner— or perhaps one of the hetairai, an intellectual and sexual companion for the sophisticated male elites of the city… [Although] Growing uncertainty as to whether female roles in ancient Athens could have been so tightly controlled and predictable as some have presumed further calls the hetaira-theory into question.” [1]

Another theory is that Damaris was a member of one of the groups of philosophers present at the Areopagus. specifically the Stoics who thought to have have included women in their groups (also see Stoicism, Feminism and Autonomy by Scott Aikin and Emily McGill-Rutherford). It is not impossible that a female philosopher, like Damaris could have been present during Paul’s speech. If that were true it paints an even more intriguing and dynamic picture of her and her conversion to Christianity. As Ivoni Reimer wrote,

“It was possible for philosophically engaged women to join early Christianity, in whatever form, for, because of her independence and her association with the Areopagus, Damaris should be regarded as a philosopher. It is marvelous that we can conclude from this that such women were also able to devote themselves to the service of God’s righteousness… [and] in the Christian community of equals.”[2]

Despite the debate about who Damaris was, a wife, a mistress, a Greek, a foreigner a philosopher, or just an ordinary woman, the one thing we know for sure about her is that she was a believer. In a city swirling with many different types of religious and intellectual philosophies Damaris heard and recognized the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She believed.

For Further Reading

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1. A Reluctant Bride: Finding a Life for Damaris of Athens (Acts 17:34) by  J. W. Childers, Abilene Christian University

2. Ivoni Reimer, Women in the Acts of the Apostles, 247–48.

Mars Hill Sermon Explained on Mars Hill (video link) by Religion For Breakfast

Looking Beyond the Mark, Elder Quentin L. Cook, Ensign, March 2003