UNKNOWN GOD

Part of an inscription on an altar seen by the apostle Paul while at Athens. The Athenians expressed their fear of deities by building many temples and altars. They even went so far as to deify the abstract, erecting altars to Fame, Modesty, Energy, Persuasion and Pity. Perhaps fearing that they might possibly omit a god and thereby incur that one’s disfavor, the men of Athens had erected an altar inscribed with the words, “To an Unknown God.” At the outset in his discourse to the Stoics, Epicureans and others assembled at the Areopagus (Mars Hill), Paul tactfully drew their attention to this altar “To an Unknown God,” telling them that it was this God, heretofore unknown to them, about whom he was preaching.—Acts 17:18, 19, 22-34.

That altars of this nature existed in Greece is testified to by the Greek writers Philostratus (170?-245 C.E.) and Pausanias (2d century C.E.). Pausanias mentions altars of “gods called unknown,” and Philostratus, in his work Life of Apollonius of Tyana, writes: “It is more prudent to speak well of all the gods, and especially at Athens, where are found also altars of unknown deities.”