ARD (7"!?).— Benjamin's son, Gn 46=', but his gr;uulson; Nu 26<" = 1 Ch 8^ {Addar). Patronymic Ardites (Nu 26*"). G. Hakfoud-Batteksby.
ARDAT (2 Es 9^6 AV Ardath), 'a field' in an unknown situation.
ARDON (t'-'-;!?).— A son of Caleb (1 Ch 2i8).
ARELI ('':?■'? 'lion' or 'hearth of El').— A son of Gad (Gn 46", Nu 26i')- Patronymic Arelites
(N'U 26"). G. HARFOr.D-BATTEliliBY.
AREOPAGITE('Apf07ro7(r7)s, Ac 17'* only),applied to Dionysius (wh. see) as member of the Council of the Areopagus.
AREOPAGUS ('Ap6ioj n<{7oj, AV 'Areopagus' Ac 17'«, ' Mars' hill ' 17=2) .—The hUI of Mars is an
eminence nearly due west of the Athenian Akro- polis, and separated therefrom by a low, narrow declivity. Here sat from the earliest antiquity the council of the Areopagus, at first a mainly judicial body composed of Eupatrid;e recruited annually from the retiring arehons. After the Macedonian subjugation of Athens, and under the Roman rule, this council probably retained more authority within Attica than any other representative body, and references to it in later Attic inscriptions are numerous. The hill rises gradually from the W., but drops abruptly on N. and E. On the summit remain the benches cut out of the rock on which the Areopagites sat in the open air ({jirai$pioi 4StKa- CopTo, Pollux, viii. 118). Sixteen worn steps cut in the rock lead to the summit ; and the two stones, called the ipyol \iSoi, the a(9os avatStlas 'of im- placability,' and v3i>(as 'of ill-doing,' still remain, on one and the other of which sat the accuser and the accused of murder. The council is termed in Inscr. Attic, iii. 714, ' the most holy,' to <reiJii>6TaTov (TuvfSpiov ; and to us the awful a.ssociations, which attached to the hill and to the cave of the Furies at its foot, made it a fitting background for St. Paul's solemn declaration of a new faith in the unknown God. However, there is no reason to suppose that the curious idlers who led St. Paul tliither had any other end in view than to gain a quiet spot, far removed from the hum of the busy Agora below, where they might hear in peace what this newest of enthusiasts had to say. The state- ment of St. Luke, that the philosophers took St. Paul by the hand («Vi\ai3((,ucTOi, Ac 17'% cf. Ac 9-' 2313, also Mt. 14^', Mk 8'^^), is not appropriate to accusers bringing to trial a religious innovator. Nor, if the meeting which St. Paul addressed had been a judicial court, would it have dispersed in the way related ; some mocking, while others said, ' We will hear thee again of this matter.' There- fore Chrysostom's view, that St. Paul was formally arraigned before the Areopagite council, must be dismissed. There is every reason, moreover, for believing that in Ac 17=^-'' we have the actual gist of what St. Paul said, and in tone it is not the defence of a man forcibly apprehended and put on his trial for blasphemy.*
Standing on the Areopagus and facing N., St. Paul had at his feet the Theseion, and on his right hand the Akropolis, with its splendid temples intact. Such surroundings would fill with en- thusiasm every cultured Christian of to-day. Wherever St. Paul turned, his glance must have fallen on the severe and lovely works of art which still adorned the decadent city. Thus a table was spread before him of which nineteenth century humanists are laboriously but thankfully gather- ing up the scattered crumbs. To St. Paul's Semitic imagination nothing of all this appealed. It was to him just gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's device, the work of a period of ignorance at which God had mercifully winked.
For a fuller disquisition on this point, and for a description of the view of Athens from the Hill of Mars, see Conybeare and Howson, Life and Ep. of St. Paul, ch. X. F. C. Conybeaue.
ARES ('Ape's), 1 Es 51". — 756 of his descendants returned with Zerub. : they coiTespond to the 775 (Ezr 2*) or 652 (Neh T'") children of Arab C^??). H. St. J. Tuackehay.
ARETAS (Aram, .nnn, Gr. 'Aperas, more correctly 'ApfBas, as in the name of the famous bishop of Cajsarea Mazaca ; the analogy of ciperij probably influenced the commoner spelling). — 1. King of the ' .\rabians,' 2 Mac 5* (see below). 2. King of the Nabatajan Arabs, whose 'ethnarci' rvr gover-
• See, however, Ramsay in Eirpoa. 5th Ser. U. 209 f., '261 f.
AKETAS
AKGOB
145
nor, apparently at the instance of the Jews (Ac gu. M, fa^ [jis ^vjfg may ^ygH have been a proselj-te), was guarding the city of Damascus to capture {■niaai, 2 Co 1 1") and destroy (Ac 9) St. Paul. He escaped the ethnarch's hands by tlie aid of the disciples, who lowered him in a basket from a window in the wall. This was shortly after St. Paul's conversion, which event, rather than his escape from Damascus, would seem to be the terminus a quo of the juexd rpia. (r-q of Gal 1" (see Lightf. in luc). If so, the escape may have taken place at any point of time during the three years. If the escape itself is the point from which they are reckoned, the conversion can hardly lie far behind.
How Damascus, a town within the Rom. prov. of Syria, came to be guarded by the officer of an Arab king, is a much-debated question. The most probable solution is the hypothesis of a temporary extension of the Arab kingdom to Damascus. The facts are as follows : —