Acts 17:34
Read Acts 17:34 Using Other Translations
What does Acts 17:34 mean?
Howbeit, certain men clave unto him, and
believed
There were some who were ordained to eternal life, to whom the
Gospel came in power, and they received the love of the truth,
and their hearts and affections were knit unto the apostle; and
they followed him, and kept to him, and privately conversed with
him, and believed his doctrine, and in Jesus Christ, whom he
preached unto them; to these the Gospel was the savour of life
unto life, when to the scoffers and mockers it was the savour of
death unto death: and this is the fruit and effect of the Gospel
ministry, wherever it comes:
among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite;
a judge in the court of Areopagus: how many judges that court
consisted of, is not certain, nor whether there was one who was
superior to the rest; if there was such an one, Dionysius seems
to have been he, since he is called the Areopagite. The business
of this court was not only to try causes of murder, which seems
to have been the original business of it; but by these judges the
rights of the city were preserved and defended, war was
proclaimed, and all law suits adjusted and decided; and they made
it their business to look after idle and slothful persons, and
inquire how they lived F6: they always heard and judged causes
in the night, in the dark, because they would only know facts,
and not persons, lest they should be influenced by their
afflictions, and be led wrong F7; they were very famous in
other nations for their wisdom and skill, and for their gravity
and strict justice. Dolabella, proconsul of Asia, having a woman
brought before him for poisoning her husband and son, which she
confessed, and gave reasons for doing it, referred the matter to
a council, who refused to pass sentence; upon which he sent the
case to Athens, to the Areopagites, as to judges "more grave" and
"more experienced" F8: and hence these words of Julian the
emperor F9,
``let an Areopagite be judge, and we will not be afraid of the judgment.''This Dionysius the Areopagite is said, by another Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, a very ancient writer F11, to be the first bishop of the Athenians, which is more likely than that he should be a bishop in France. It is reported of him, that being at Heliopolis in Egypt, along with Apollophanes, a philosopher, at the time of Christ's sufferings, he should say concerning the unusual eclipse that then was, that "a God unknown, and clothed with flesh, suffered", on whose account the whole world was darkened; or, as, others affirm, he said, "either the God of nature suffers, or the frame of the world will be dissolved": it is also related of him that when he was converted by the apostle at Athens, he went to Clemens, bishop of Rome, and was sent by him with others into the west, to preach the Gospel; some of which went to Spain, and others to France, and that he steered his course to Paris, and there, with Rusticus and Eleutherius his "colleagues", suffered martyrdom F12. The books ascribed unto him concerning the divine names, and ecclesiastical hierarchy, are spurious things, stuffed with foolish, absurd, and impious notions, and seem to have been written in the "fifth" century.
And a woman named Damaris;
some of the ancients, and also some modern writers, take this
woman to be the wife of Dionysius; but had she been his wife, she
would have been doubtless called so; however, by the particular
mention of her name, she seems to have been a person of some note
and figure: the name is a diminutive from (damar) , Damar, which signifies a wife.
And others with them;
with these two, as the Arabic version renders it; that is, with
Dionysius and Damaris. These laid the foundation of a Gospel
church at Athens. Dionysius, as before observed, was the first
bishop, or pastor of it; it is also said that Narcissus, one of
the seventy disciples, was bishop of this place; (See Gill on
Luke
10:1). In the "second" century Publius was bishop of the
church at Athens, who suffered martyrdom for Christ in the time
of Hadrian; and was succeeded by Quadratus F13, who
was famous for a writing he presented to the said emperor, in
favour of the churches in common, and the success of it, about
the year 128; at the same time, Aristides, a famous philosopher
and Christian, flourished in the church at Athens, who wrote an
apology for the Christian religion; and also Jovius, a presbyter
and martyr, and a disciple of Dionysius; likewise Athenagoras, a
man of great learning and piety, who wrote also an apology for
the Christians, and a treatise concerning the resurrection of the
dead, which are still extant; the former was written to the
emperors Antoninus and Commodus: in the "third" century mention
is made of the church at Athens; and Origen F14 speaks
very honourably of it, as meek and quiet, and desirous of
approving itself to God. In the "fourth" century it appears that
there were Christians there, since Maximus the emperor stirred up
wicked men to molest and distress them; and there was a Christian
school there, in which Bazil and Gregory Nazianzen were brought
up. In the "fifth" century there was a church in this place; and
in the "sixth", a Christian school, in which Boethius Patricius
learned the liberal arts; and in the "seventh" century mention is
made of a bishop of Athens, who was in the sixth council at
Constantinople F15: thus far this church state is to
be traced.
F6 Alexander ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 3. c. 13. & l. 4. c. 11.
F7 Alexander ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 3. c. 5.
F8 A Gellii noctes Attica, l. 12. c. 7.
F9 Orat. 2. p. 112.
F11 Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l. 3. c. 4. & l. 4. c. 23.
F12 Magdeburg. Hist. Eccles. cent. 1. l. 2. c. 10. p. 491.
F13 Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 4. c. 23.
F14 Contra Cels. l. 3. p. 128.
F15 Magdeburg. Hist. Eccles. cent. 2. c. 2. p. 4, 17. & c. 10. p. 151, 152, 153. cent. 3. c. 2. p. 3. cent. 4. c. 7. p. 287. & c. 10. p. 539. cent. 5. c. 2. p. 6. cent. 6. c. 7. p. 205. cent. 7. c. 2. p. 5.
