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Bible Dictionaries
Athens
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Athens (ăth'enz). The chief town of Attica (now Greece); was visited by Paul on his second missionary journey, after he had been Bent away, for safety, from Berea. Acts 17:13-15. Athens, in the time of the apostle, was included in the Roman province of Achaia, but was a free city, retaining some of the forms which had belonged to it in its palmy days. The Athenians, curious and inquisitive, as they had ever been, mockingly desired Paul to give them some account of the new doctrine he was Betting forth. For both in the Jews' synagogue, and also in the agora or marketplace, he had disputed with those who came to him, and had preached the gospel of Jesus, raised by God's mighty power from the dead. Within the city were four notable hills, three northward, forming almost a semicircle. The Acropolis, or citadel, was the most easterly of these: it was a rock about 150 feet high. Next, westward, was a lower eminence, the Areopagus or Mars' Hill, and then the Pnyx, where the assemblies of the people were held. To the south of these three hills was a fourth, the Museum. The agora lay in the valley between the four. It has been supposed that there were two market-places, but it is now satisfactorily proved that there was but one. The localities, therefore, which Paul frequented, are readily understood. He was taken from the agora, and brought up to the Areopagus, where he delivered his wonderful address. Acts 17:18-31. His preaching made no great impression: the philosophers despised it Some, however, clave to him; and a Christian community was formed of whom were Dionysius the Areopagite, Acts 17:32-34, Damaris and others. Modern Athens, situated about five miles from the sea, its port being the Piraeus, has been made the capital of the present kingdom of Greece.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Athens'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/a/athens.html. 1893.
