Damaris (biblical figure)

For other uses, see Damaris.

Damaris is a woman mentioned in the New Testament, living around 55 AD in Athens, Greece. According to the Acts of the Apostles (17:34), she embraced the Christian faith following the speech of Paul of Tarsus, given in front of the Athenian Areopagus.

She might have been of high social status because only such women were allowed to assist the Areopagus meetings. This may be the reason why her name has been especially recorded.

Modern scholars also speculate that she may have been either a foreigner, since women of Athens would not likely have been present, or a Greek hetaera, an educated woman who provided companionship and intellectual stimulation to public figures.

The calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church describes her instead as a disciple of Dionysius.

Name

There is no universal consensus about the meaning of her name. Apparently it is the Hellenization of the Celtic name Damara, the goddess of fertility. With the subsequent invasions of the Gauls to Asia Minor and their permanent establishment in the Galatia region, the intermixing of both Greek and Celtic cultures may have given birth to the "Graeco-Celtic" name "Damaris".

This was very common in the Hellenistic culture developed by Alexander the Great and his successors. Following this pattern, Artemis of Ephesus, which had previously been assimilated with an ancient local goddess of fertility happens to be the exact parallel with the Celtic deity.

On the contrary, those who support the pure Hellenic origin of the name, state that it is the "modern" Hellenistic form (or contraction) of the classical name "Damarete", like Theron of Acragas's daughter who became the wife of Gelo of Syracuse. Others, instead, find it in the word "damalis" which in Greek language means "a heifer", hence the name.

What is not subject to discussion, is that the Indo-European root of the name comes from the word "dompt" meaning "dominant", so a suggested meaning would be "dominant woman".

Remembrance

In the Greek Orthodox Church, Saint Damaris is celebrated on 3 October, together with Saint Dionysius and two other disciples of Dionysius, who also became martyrs. 3 October in the Julian calendar, which is used by the Old Calendarists. currently coincides with 16 October in the Gregorian calendar.

In modern Athens, Saint Damaris is also honoured by having a street named after her — Odos Damareos — siding the Profitis Ilias Square, which is one of the main urban open spaces in the Pagkrati neighborhood.