Dionysius Areopagita, who was Converted by Paul

We read in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17, verse 34, that among those who clung to the doctrine of Paul there was also Dionysius, one of the Athenian council, and a woman named Damaris.

It is testified of this Dionysius, surnamed the Areopagite, that he grew so much in the Christian religion that Paul afterward appointed him bishop at Athens. Yet at last, after he had made a most glorious confession of faith and had suffered many severe torments, he was crowned, as a victorious hero of Jesus Christ, with the martyr's crown, when he had become a very old man and had commended his spirit into the hands of his heavenly Father. He now carried out what he had often been accustomed to repeat during his life: "The last words of my Lord Jesus, while on the cross, will also be my last words in this temporal life, namely: 'Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.'" Then he was put to death, and so fell asleep happy in the Lord. Compare A. Mell., 1st book of the Histor. der vervolg. en Mart., printed in the year 1619, folio 26, column 2, from Adone in Martyrol. ex Arist., book de Relig. Christ.; and Suida in Dion. Areopag.; and Seger., in Chron. 10. Strac. in Pass., part S., Homil. 2, with W. Baudart, in Apophthegm. Christian., 1st book, 7th edition, in the year 1640, chapter 17, on the name Dionysius Areopagita. [n140-1]

NOTE. As to the manner of the death, or martyrdom, of Dionysius the Areopagite, we find nothing stated in ancient, trustworthy writers; therefore we have said nothing about it, though some have written that he was beheaded at Paris. For that statement we let them be responsible, since their accounts of this event differ both in the manner in which, and in the time when, it is said to have happened. See in the above-mentioned Apophthegm. Baudartii.