V. ALTAR at Athens, inscribed To the Unknown God. St. Paul being come from Thessalonica to Athens, disputed every day, either in the synagogue with the Jews, or in the market-place with the Philosophers. As he discoursed on the Resurrection of the dead, and declared Christ crucified to be both God and Man, some of the Philosophers brought him before the Judges of the Areopagus, there to give an account of his opinions. While therefore he stood before these Judges, he spoke to them in the following Acts xvii. 22, 23.words: Ye Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious; for as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an Altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God; whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
The question is, what this Altar was thus consecrated to, the Unknown God? St. Jerom1 informs us, that it was not inscribed upon exactly as St. Paul relates, but that the words were these, To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa; to the unknown and strange Gods; and that the Apostle purposely changed the plural into the singular, because it was necessary for his design to demonstrate only to the Athenians, that they adored an Unknown God.
Others2 believe, that St. Paul proposed to speak of those Altars which were to be seen in several places of Attica, without any particular inscription, erected after a solemn expiation for the Country, made by the Philosopher Epimenides3.
Others affirm this Altar to the Unknown God to be that mentioned by Pausanias and Philostratus4. These Authors tell us, that there were Altars at Athens consecrated To the Unknown Gods. There were probably several Altars, each with an Inscription, To the Unknown God; for which reason they mention them in the plural number, as Altars inscribed To the Unknown Gods. Lucian, in his dialogue intitled Philopatris, swears by the Unknown God of Athens. He adds, Being come to Athens, and finding there the Unknown God, we worshiped him, and gave thanks to him with hands lifted up to Heaven.
Peter Comestor, Author of the Historia Scholastica, relates that Dionysius the Areh. i. The hearth of twenty four cubits, or opagite observing while he was at Alexanthirty six foot square. dria, the Eclipse which, contrary to Nature, k. The horns of the Altar, of one cubit, and happened at the death of our Saviour, from hollow, half a cubit square. thence concludes, that some unknown God l. The sloping ascent to the Altar, of thirty suffered; and not being then in a condition to two cubits in length. learn more of the mat ter, he erected, at his return to Athens, this Altar to the Unknown God, which gave occasion to St. Paul of making the discourse at the Areopagus, which is related to us by him.
Theophylact accounts in another manner for the occasion of this Altar. After a battle which the Athenians had lost, a spectre appeared to them, and told them, that he was the cause of the misfortune which had happened to them, out of an aversion he had to their celebrating Games in honour of all the other Gods, and none to him: After this he disappeared, without declaring his name. The Athenians, to repair their fault, immediately erected an Altar to the Unknown God.
Oecumenius reports this matter something differently. The Athenians being seized with a burning distemper, which would not allow them to endure any thing upon their bodies, addressed themselves in vain to all the Gods which were honoured in their City. As they saw that they received no relief from hence, they bethought themselves of erecting an Altar to the unknown God, out of an apprehension that some strange Deity had in his indignation smitten them. To this Unknown God they attributed the cure of their disease.
Others say, that during the war between the Persians and Greeks, the latter sent Philippides to desire succour of the Lacedæmonians. Upon Mount Parthenius the God Pan appeared to him, and complained that he was the only God to whom they did not pay their Adorations, and at the same time promised them his assistance, provided they admitted him into the number of their Gods. They did so, and erected an Altar to him; and left there should be any other God dissatisfied with their indifference, they built an Altar to the unknown God.
Every one of these opinions has its particular difficulties. The Altar intitled, To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa, to the unknown strange Gods, is not in all probability that mentioned by St. Paul. The Areopagites would never have understood it by the bare name of the unknown God.
One of the Altars set up by Epimenides, which had no inscription to any Deity, can never be that which we enquire after. The Histories related by the Author of the Historia Scholastica, Theophylact, and Oecumenius, have no warrant from Antiquity. It is therefore probable enough that the Athenians, a People extremely superstitious, apprehensive that they had forgotten some Divinity, and had not paid their worship to it, erected Altars in some part of their City inscrib’d to the unknown God; from whence St. Paul took occasion to preach Jesus Christ to them, a God with respect to them truly unknown, and already in some sort adored by them without their knowing him.
These are St. Chrysostom’s thoughts upon the matter5, founded on what we have above mentioned from Philostratus, Pausanias, and Lucian.
St. Austin never questions but the Athenians, under the name of the unknown God, adored the true one. He compares their Worship with that which Schismaticks, who are not within the pale of the Church, pay to God. The Apostle’s intention therefore was, to induce them to adore that wisely and profitably in the Church which they blindly and vainly worshipp’d out of the Church, Ut eundem Deum quem præter Ecclesiam ignoranter, atque inutiliter colebant, in Ecclesia sapienter & utiliter colerent. See our Dissertation on the Altar to the unknown God prefixed to the Acts of the Apostles.
Read this article in its place on the printed pages