Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church history.

Last week we were visiting in the city of Athens.

And this week I want to talk about one of those residents of Athens.

In fact, he was such a resident that his name is Athens. It's two things. It's the city of Athens and the

Agora, which is the marketplace, put together as a compound name we have Athenagoras. Well, before we get to

Athenagoras and who he is, we mentioned last week Paul was there in 51 AD, briefly.

Of course, he spent more time in cities like Corinth and Ephesus, but he was there.

He did deliver his speech on Mars Hill.

And Luke tells us in Acts chapter 17 that Dionysius and Demaris were converted through Paul's

ministry.

We know that after them and in the earlys, came Quadratus and Aristides, these, of course,

keeping in that tradition of philosophy of the city of Athens, these were early apologists.

And Quadratus wrote an apology for Christianity that was specifically written for Hadrian during Hadrian's

visit to Athens. And then there is Athenagoras. Athenagoras wrote his classic text,

plea for the Christians, in 176 or 177. And his dates are 133 to 190. He addresses his book to Marcus Aurelius

and his son Commodus. These were emperors. In fact, as Athenagoras calls them,

conquerors and emperors. And then Athenagoras says, and above all, philosophers.

Athenagoras himself was a philosopher. He introduces himself as the author of this book,

Athenagoras, Athenian, philosopher, and Christian. And we believe that

Athenagoras was probably a philosopher and then converted to Christianity.

And he brought all of his training and all of his skills with him as he made his case for Christianity.

He begins this very short book by pointing out to Marcus Aurelius that in his empire, different nations have

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