Lives of Scripture

Damaris is named among the small number of Athenians who believed Paul's message at one of the most famous speeches in the New Testament. Paul, waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy, was distressed to see the city "full of idols" and began reasoning both in the synagogue and in the marketplace, eventually being brought before the Areopagus (the city's court of philosophers) to explain his teaching (Acts 17:16-21). There he delivered his address on the "unknown god," declaring the LORD as Creator who "made the world and all things in it," who commands all people everywhere to repent because He has fixed a day of judgment through the Man He raised from the dead (17:22-31). The response was mixed: some sneered at the idea of resurrection, others said they would hear him again later -- a polite deflection -- "but some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them" (17:32-34, NASB). Scripture gives no further detail about Damaris -- her social standing, family, or later life are unrecorded. Her brief, named appearance stands simply as evidence that even in a sophisticated, skeptical city largely resistant to the gospel, God's word did not return empty, and at least a few, including this one named woman, believed.