AREOPAGUS (Ὁ Ὄρειος Πέλαγος 'Hill of Mars'). - A rocky hill in Athens, southwest of the Acropolis, where, according to mythology, Mars was acquitted of the murder of Halirrhothius, son of Neptune. A Council (βουλή) resided there, and later (from the time of Aristotle) a tribunal charged with protecting public morality and the constitution of the State. St. Paul, having arrived in Athens (v.), disgusted by the idolatry of the city, after having debated with the Jews and proselytes in the synagogue, conversed in the agora with Epicureans and Stoics about Jesus and the Resurrection. He was brought by these to the A. (Acts 17:19, 22: the term a. here probably designates not a place but an assembly) as an announcer of foreign divinities (ἔξνα δαυτόνια) and of a new doctrine (κατὴ διδάχη); thus Socrates had been accused of introducing δαυτόνια κατὰ into Athens (Plato, Apol. Socr., 26b, 27c). The Apostle in his speech (Acts 17:22-31) does not address judges with a personal apology, but a large public, among whom were the wise men of Athens, adapting himself to the Hellenic mentality. v. AGNOSTOS THEOS.
Appealing to the Athenian religiosity, which had multiplied temples and statues (especially in the agora), Paul promises to solve the enigma and to satisfy the yearning that he saw expressed on an altar dedicated to an unknown god. Pausanias and Philostratus (2nd century) mention three altars to unknown divinities (in the plural; St. Jerome, In epist. ad Titum, 1, 12, holds that Paul transposed them to the singular) in Athens or its surroundings and at Olympia; one was discovered (1909) at Pergamon, and in Rome on the Palatine the inscription "sei deo sei deivare."
Paul proclaims the one God, creator of the invisible and infinite universe, who from a single man produced all peoples, so that men might find him, God being the intimate vivifier of each one: "in Him we live, we move and have our being," Aratus (v.) had said; and more arcane still another poet, the Stoic Cleanthes of Assos, sang in his hymn to Zeus: "of Him we are offspring." After this exordium, Paul sets forth the evangelical theme, then develops it (condemnation of idolatry, mercy of God, conversion so as not to incur the sanctions of his judgment, redemption in a Man who died and rose again); but before he had concluded he was interrupted by mockery concerning the "Resurrection." Few, in that frivolous and pretentious environment, were converted, among them the Areopagite Dionysius (v.) and a notable woman, Damaris (Acts 17:16-32).
E. Curtius, Paulus in Athen, in Sitzungsber. Akad. Wissenschaft. zu Berlin, 26 (1893), pp. 925-38, and in The Expositor, 7th series, 4 (1907), pp. 436-55, holds that at the time of Paul the a. assembled in the royal hall (royal portico), on the agora, where Demosthenes once spoke. This hypothesis, quite probable, is today accepted by many, although combated by M. Dibelius.
E. Norden, Agnostos Theos, Leipzig 1913 (reprint 1929), denied the historicity of the Pauline speech, attributing it to a late compiler (90-120 A.D.) inspired by the writing of Apollonius of Tyana περὶ θυστῶν. The bold thesis was accepted by R. Reitzenstein, P. Corssen, J. Weiss, J. Wellhausen, W. Jäger, O. Weinreich, A. Loisy, but was well refuted by A. Harnack, Die Rede des Paulus in Athen, in Texte und Untersuchungen, 39, 1, Leipzig 1913; by A. Wikenhauser, Die Apostelgeschichte und ihr Geschichtswerk, Munich 1921, pp. 369-94; by Th. Zahn, *Die Apostelgeschichte des Lukas, II, Leipzig 1921, pp. 599-631, 870-882; by L. Murillo, Paulus et Pauli scrispta, I, Rome 1926, pp. 41-48; by E. Jacquier, Actes des Apôtres, Paris 1926, pp. cclxxi-cclxxxi, who vindicate with historical, archaeological, psychological, and literary arguments the authenticity of the speech.