Damaris
1:
DAMARIS (PERSON) [Gk Damaris (Δαμαρις)]. A convert of Paul in Athens portrayed in Acts 17:34. That she is mentioned by name suggests that Luke or his sources considered her a prominent convert, perhaps one who made a name for herself in the Christian community. Since it was uncommon for an ordinary Athenian citizen-woman to be present at such public gatherings as Paul addressed in Athens, W. M. Ramsay (1920: 252) suggests that Damaris was one of the Athenian heitarai, i.e., women who provided companionship for Athenian men in public as well as in private. Normally these “companions” were foreigners and some were better educated than citizen-women (Witherington 1988: 6–9). Beyond this possible conjecture we know nothing of Damaris’ life or background. If Luke’s audience considered Damaris a “companion,” then this story may be included in Acts to show that the gospel frees one from such a lifestyle. Finally, we do see at Acts 17:34 the typical Lukan male-female parallelism, where Luke attempts to show that the gospel affects and benefits men and women equally.
The name Damaris is not found elsewhere in Gk literature with the spelling we find here, and thus some scholars have suggested that it is a mistaken reading for the common name Damalis (found in the African Latin ms Codex h at Acts 27:34). Other forms of the name Damaris are known in the relevant Gk literature, and the later Latin evidence is too slender a basis for concluding that the text originally read Damaris (Foakes Jackson and Lake 1933: 220). It is noteworthy that the Western text of Acts, on which the KJV is based, does have a marked antifeminist bias (Witherington 1984: 82–84), e.g., Codex D omits any reference to Damaris at all and focuses only on Dionysius. On the other hand, Codex E attaches the description “of honorable station” to Damaris, not to Dionysius (Bruce Acts NICNT, 363).
Bibliography
Foakes Jackson, F. J., and Lake, K. 1933. The Beginnings of Christianity. Vol. 4. London.
Ramsay, W. M. 1920. St. Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen. 14th ed. Grand Rapids.
Witherington, B. 1984. Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the “Western” Text of Acts. JBL 103: 82–84.
———. 1988. Women in the Earliest Churches. Cambridge.
Ben Witherington, III
Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992). The Anchor Bible Dictionary (2:5). New York: Doubleday.
2:
Damaris — a heifer, an Athenian woman converted to Christianity under the preaching of Paul (Acts 17:34). Some have supposed that she may have been the wife of Dionysius the Areopagite.
Easton, M. (1996, c1897). Easton's Bible dictionary. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
3:
DAMARIS Woman mentioned (Acts 17:34) as one of the first converts in the city of Athens, following Paul’s preaching there. Since Luke singles her out by name, she may have been a person of importance (see Acts 13:50; 17:12).
Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). Tyndale Bible dictionary. Tyndale reference library (345). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
4:
DAM´ARIS (damʹa-ris; “gentle”). An Athenian woman converted to Christianity by Paul’s preaching (Acts 17:34). Chrysostom and others believed her to have been the wife of Dionysius the Areopagite but apparently for no other reason than that she is mentioned with him in this passage.
Unger, M. F., Harrison, R. K., Vos, H. F., Barber, C. J., & Unger, M. F. (1988). The new Unger's Bible dictionary. Revision of: Unger's Bible dictionary. 3rd ed. c1966. (Rev. and updated ed.). Chicago: Moody Press.
5:
Damaris (damʹuh-ris), a woman who was one of Paul’s few converts in Athens (Acts 17:34).
Achtemeier, P. J., Harper & Row, P., & Society of Biblical Literature. (1985). Harper's Bible dictionary. Includes index. (1st ed.) (203). San Francisco: Harper & Row.
6:
Damaris (Gk. Dámaris)
A woman of Athens singled out in Acts 17:34 (omitted in Codex D) as a believer in Paul’s message concerning the Resurrection (cf. vv. 16–32). She is paired with the only other named believer, Dionysius, a member of the chief Athenian council (Areopagus). This immediate association with a civic official and the wider focus in Acts 17 on Paul’s outreach to high-ranking Greek women (vv. 4, 12) suggest that Damaris herself was a person of some social standing.
Bibliography. I. Richter, Women in the Acts of the Apostles (Minneapolis, 1995), 246–48.
F. Scott Spencer
Freedman, D. N., Myers, A. C., & Beck, A. B. (2000). Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (308). Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans.
