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

On this episode, we are visiting the ancient city of Athens.

Athens has to be one of the richest cities when it comes to history.

It is considered by many the birthplace of Western civilization. It's certainly

foundational to Greek mythology with the Acropolis and the Parthenon and the Statue of Artemis.

Don't forget, down off the Acropolis in about a kilometer or so away, there was the great

temple of Zeus. Construction first began on that temple in the 6th century

BC and went all the way to the second century AD. That's 800 years in the making. It had 104

colossal columns. It was the largest temple in Greece, and there it was in the center of Athens.

Athens is also clearly the capital city of philosophy.

It was home to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Of course, it was the Athenian Council that would have sentenced Socrates to death in 399 BC.

Plato founded his academy there, and that was the name

that he gave it, and Aristotle, of course, founded the Lyceum. It's also the birthplace of stoicism,

the philosopher Zeno, would teach from the great Stoa, the porch in Agora, and so we have Stoicism.

Epicurus also made Athens his home, so it's the home to Epicureanism.

These two groups, the Stoics and the Epicureans, are mentioned in Acts 17.

And by the way, we have Athens in biblical history when in 51 AD the Apostle Paul made his way to Athens

and stood there on Mars Hill, suspended between the Agora, the marketplace, and the Acropolis,

and delivered his famous speech. Back in 507 BC, Athens gave birth to democracy.

Kleisthenes established a system of democratia, a rule by the people.

And Athens also plays a role in sports history.

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