Early Christianity and Greek philosophy

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The passage in Acts (17:16-34) depicting the apostle Paul debating with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers and delivering a speech to the Areopagus in Athens constitutes the oldest account of a confrontation between Christianity and Graeco-Roman religion and philosophy.1 Situated in the ancient cultural capital of Greece and penned with literary skills which have often drawn superlatives from exegetes, 2 this well-known scene has become a symbol of the encounter between Christianity and Graeco-Roman culture and its wisdom. 3 In the book of Acts, this pericope is indeed one of the two sole descriptions of a Christian speech delivered to a broader Gentile audience.4 This quasi-unique status in a narrative which describes the spread of Christianity from Jerusalem (Acts 1) to Rome (Acts 28) led many past and current exegetes to the conclusion that the speech in Athens is 'the' or at least 'a' climax in the whole book