St. Paul in Athens

After we viewed the Parthenon and other monuments on the Acropolis, we walked a short distance to a lower hill, the Areopagus, also known as Mars Hill. It was here that St. Paul made a speech to the Athenians that is one of my favorite readings in Scripture, in the Acts of the Apostles.

Paul didn't stay long in Athens and in terms of converting Jews or Gentiles, his time there cannot be described as successful. As our spiritual director Fr. Michael said, "There is no Letter to the Athenians." But his speech is a powerful piece of rhetoric.

I love the idea of the highly educated Paul, strolling around Athens, taking in all of the beautiful architecture and shrines to all the gods, appreciating the intellectual and cultural legacy and contributions of Athens, and then giving it to the Athenians in his speech, using their own monument and words to reveal the living God to them.

I did not get very many good photos of this site. By this time, the crowds had arrived. Above, Alexandra, our tour guide, stands at the base of the Areopagus in front of the plaque with the words of Paul's speech in Greek.

View from on top of the Areopagus.

We would often sing and pray at these holy sites. Here Father Bob, our other spiritual director, leads us in "How Great Thou Art." Toward the end of the video you can see a slightly better perspective of the Areopagus.

Acts 17:22-34

Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said: “You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious. For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’ as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination. God has over looked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world with justice’ through a man he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.”

When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We should like to hear you on this some other time. And so Paul left them. But some did join him and become believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the court of the Areopagus, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.