Paul speaks at the Areopagus in Athens
Distressed by the idols of Athens, Paul reasoned in the synagogue and the marketplace. Brought before the Areopagus, he proclaimed the unknown God whom they worshiped in ignorance, the Creator who now commands all people to repent.
‘For in him we live, move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
Acts 17:28 (World English Bible)
Paul began with an altar he had seen inscribed “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD” and quoted their own Greek poets. When he spoke of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but a few believed, among them Dionysius, a member of the council, and a woman named Damaris.
Places
Dating notes
Ussher: AD 54. Dates for Paul's journeys follow the conventional chronology, anchored by an inscription at Delphi, found in 1905, that dates Gallio's term as proconsul of Achaia (Acts 18:12) to AD 51–52; Ussher, who could not have known it, runs two to three years later.