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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Acts 17:34 - 17:34
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Howbeit certain men clave unto him - Instead of mocking or politely waiving the subject, having listened eagerly, they joined themselves to the apostle for further instruction; and so they “believed.”
Dionysius the Areopagite - a member of that august tribunal. Ancient tradition says he was placed by the apostle over the little flock at Athens. “Certainly the number of converts there and of men fit for office in the Church was not so great that there could be much choice” [Olshausen].
a woman named Damaris - not certainly one of the apostle’s audience on the Areopagus, but won to the faith either before or after. Nothing else is known of her. Of any further labors of the apostle at Athens, and how long he stayed, we are not informed. Certainly he was not driven away. But “it is a serious and instructive fact that the mercantile populations of Thessalonica and Corinth received the message of God with greater readiness than the highly educated and polished Athenians. Two letters to the Thessalonians, and two to the Corinthians, remain to attest the flourishing state of those churches. But we possess no letter written by Paul to the Athenians; and we do not read that he was ever in Athens again” [Howson].