Did Paul Reach Athenians?
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Dionysius or Stephanas
Did Paul Reach Athenians?
In contrast to those who argue that 1 Corinthians 16 : 15 rules out the possibility of earlier converts in Athens, Athens was a “free city,” hence not officially part of the province of Achaia during this period.
Paul in Athens
Paul preached in Athens (1 Thess 3:1) and Luke explicitly claims that Paul won some converts of status (Acts 17:34). The Areopagus was Athens’ highest court,⁵⁹⁷ so Dionysius as an Areopagite⁵⁹⁸ was a prominent citizen. The Areopagus included about a hundred members⁵⁹⁹ (making Luke’s report of a small number of adherents among the hearers in 17:34 less implausible than some have supposed).⁶⁰⁰ Luke does not identify Damaris, but because Athens had a tradition of restricting women’s public roles, she probably holds some status; while it is unlikely that Athenians would have allowed a woman to sit as a judge on the Areopagus court, she may have been a philosopher, hence part of the group that accompanied Paul to the Areopagus from the marketplace (17:18–19).⁶⁰¹ While Luke is particularly ready to name converts of status (e.g., 13:12; 17:12), he mentions other converts as well (17:34).
Whether these converts formed a church we cannot say for certain (some are doubtful);⁶⁰² though clearly one eventually formed there,⁶⁰³ it did not become a center of the Pauline mission as some other cities did. We have no extant letters to a church in Athens, but it would seem odd for Luke to preserve names if there were in fact no individual converts;⁶⁰⁴ he lacks traditions of many other cities or space for converts’ names there (e.g., 13:48–49; 14:1, 20, 23; 19:9–10; 20:17).
Do Paul’s letters contradict converts in Athens?
Despite Luke’s specificity in naming two converts, some argue against his claim of Athenian converts by highlighting instead a claim in one of Paul’s letters. In a letter to the capital of Achaia, Paul apparently claims that Achaia’s “first convert” is from their own city, Corinth (1 Cor 16:15).⁶⁰⁵ Against the value of this argument against Luke’s information, we might note that Paul speaks explicitly only of the first household conversion there,⁶⁰⁶ allowing for some scattered conversions earlier.⁶⁰⁷ Moreover, Paul seems to have forgotten others (1 Cor 1:14–16), and perhaps has reason only to count converts known in Corinth. Further, while Stephanas was known in Corinth, Paul does not actually specify whether he was originally from there or not (though other factors being equal, it seems more probable than not).
More importantly, from the standpoint of Roman administration, Athens was one of a handful of “free cities” excluded from the province of Achaia until the time of Constantine I.⁶⁰⁸ One might informally include Athens in the Roman province of Achaia,⁶⁰⁹ but we cannot insist on it here. Paul often employs provincial titles, and his extended period of ministry in Corinth would certainly have made him aware of this distinction. Thus the claim that Corinth boasted Achaia’s first convert is irrelevant to the question of prior converts in Athens. It cannot be used to question Luke’s report that at least a few Athenians found Paul’s message persuasive.