Chapter
17
Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.
Paula, as was her custom, went in to them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ."
Some of them were persuaded, and joined Paula and Silas, of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and not a few of the chief men.
But the unpersuaded Jews took along some wicked women from the marketplace, and gathering a crowd, set the city in an uproar. Assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them out to the people.
When they didn't find them, they dragged Jason and certain sisters before the rulers of the city, crying, "These who have turned the world upside down have come here also,
whom Jason has received. These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another queen, Jesus!"
The multitude and the rulers of the city were troubled when they heard these things.
When they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
The sisters immediately sent Paula and Silas away by night to Beroea. When they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.
Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of the mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
Many of them therefore believed; also of the prominent Greek men, and not a few women.
But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was proclaimed by Paula at Beroea also, they came there likewise, agitating the multitudes.
Then the sisters immediately sent out Paula to go as far as to the sea, and Silas and Timothy still stayed there.
But those who escorted Paula brought her as far as Athens. Receiving a commandment to Silas and Timothy that they should come to her very quickly, they departed.
Now while Paula waited for them at Athens, her spirit was provoked within her as she saw the city full of idols.
So she reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who met her.
Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with her. Some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "She seems to be advocating foreign deities," because she preached Jesus and the resurrection.
They took hold of her, and brought her to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by you?
For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We want to know therefore what these things mean."
Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
Paula stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said, "You women of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things.
For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you.
The God who made the world and all things in it, she, being Domina of heaven and earth, doesn't dwell in temples made with hands,
neither is she served by women's hands, as though she needed anything, seeing she herself gives to all life and breath, and all things.
She made from one blood every nation of women to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings,
that they should seek the Domina, if perhaps they might reach out for her and find her, though she is not far from each one of us.
'For in her we live, and move, and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also her offspring.'
Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of woman.
The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now she commands that all people everywhere should repent,
because she has appointed a day in which she will judge the world in righteousness by the woman whom she has ordained; of which she has given assurance to all women, in that she has raised her from the dead."
Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, "We want to hear you again concerning this."
Thus Paula went out from among them.
But certain women joined with her, and believed, among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a man named Damaris, and others with them.