But the people of the city were divided; some were siding with the Jews, and some with the apostles.

And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to engage in conversation with him. And some said, “What could this idle babbler [with his eclectic, scrap-heap learning] have in mind to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities”—because he was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

But some men joined him and believed; among them were Dionysius, [a judge] of the Council of Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Now some shouted one thing and some another, for the gathering was in confusion and most of the people did not know why they had come together.