Unknown God

The '''Unknown God''' or '''Agnostos Theos''' ({{langx|grc|Ἄγνωστος Θεός}}) is a theory by Eduard Norden first published in 1913 that proposes, based on the Christian Apostle Paul's Areopagus speech in Acts 17:23, that in addition to the twelve main gods and the innumerable lesser deities, ancient Greeks worshipped a deity they called "Agnostos Theos"; that is: "Unknown God", which Norden called "Un-Greek".<ref>{{cite book|last=van der Horst|first=Pieter Willem|title=Hellenism, Judaism, Christianity: essays on their interaction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tv0t4pqrbZsC&pg=PA187|volume=The Altar of the 'Unknown God' in Athens (Acts 17:23) and the Cults of 'Unknown Gods' in the Graeco-Roman World|year=1998|publisher=Peeters Publishers|isbn=9789042905788|pages=187–220}}</ref> In Athens, there was a temple specifically dedicated to that god and very often Athenians would swear "in the name of the Unknown God" ({{lang|grc|Νὴ τὸν Ἄγνωστον}}, {{Transliteration|grc|Nē ton Agnōston}}).<ref>Pseudo-Lucian, Philopatris, 9.14</ref> Apollodorus,{{Citation needed|date=March 2012}} Philostratus<ref>Philostratus, ''Vita Apollonii'' 6.3</ref> and Pausanias wrote about the Unknown God as well.<ref>''Pausanias' Description of Greece'' in 6 vols, Loeb Classic Library, Vol I, Book I.1.4</ref>

== Paul at Athens == [[File:V&A - Raphael, St Paul Preaching in Athens (1515).jpg|thumb|280px|Saint Paul delivering the ''Areopagus Sermon'' in Athens, by Raphael, 1515.]] According to the book of Acts, contained in the Christian New Testament, when the Apostle Paul visited Athens, he saw an altar with an inscription dedicated to that god (possibly connected to the Cylonian affair),<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=IKsNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA211 Plutarch's Lives]''</ref> and, when invited to speak to the Athenian elite at the Areopagus, gave the following speech:

{{blockquote|{{sup|22}}Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said, "You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things. {{sup|23}}For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you. {{sup|24}}The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, {{sup|25}}neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things. {{sup|26}}He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, {{sup|27}}that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. {{sup|28}}'For in him we live, and move, and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also his offspring.' {{sup|29}}Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man. {{sup|30}}The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent, {{sup|31}}because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead."|source=Acts 17:22-31 (WEB)}}

Because Paul's God could not be named, according to the customs of his people, it is possible that Paul's Athenian listeners would have considered his God to be "the unknown god par excellence".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Tomson|first1=Peter J.|last2=Lambers-Petry|first2=Doris|title=The image of the Judaeo-Christians in ancient Jewish and Christian literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9bbWbMGekWoC&pg=PA235|year=2003|publisher=Mohr Siebeck|isbn=3-16-148094-5|page=235}}</ref> His listeners may also have understood the introduction of a new god by allusions to Aeschylus' ''The Eumenides''; the irony would have been that just as the Eumenides were not new gods at all but the Furies in a new form, so was the Christian God not a new god but rather the god the Greeks already worshipped as the Unknown God.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kauppi|first=Lynn Allan|title=Foreign but familiar gods: Greco-Romans read religion in Acts|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9dYTX9CQm04C&pg=PA83|year=2006|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|isbn=0-567-08097-8|pages=83–93|chapter=Acts 17.16-34 and Aeschylus' Eumenides}}</ref> His audience would also have recognized the quotes in verse 28 as coming from Epimenides and Aratus, respectively.

From Aratus (poet educated in the Stoic philosophy), Paul borrowed his poem ''Phaenomena 5'' and compared it with Acts 17:28, stating that indeed humans are the offspring of Zeus (the Creator according to the Stoics and other philosophical schools) but in order for humans to know him in a personal relationship, they must first follow the teachings of his son, the Logos incarnated, Jesus Christ.<ref>https://spindleworks.com/library/rfaber/aratus.htm</ref>

{{quote|From Zeus let us begin; him do we mortals never leave unnamed; full of Zeus are all the streets and all the market-places of men; full is the sea and the havens thereof; always we all have need of Zeus. '''For we are also his offspring; and he in his kindness unto men giveth favourable signs and wakeneth the people to work, reminding them of livelihood.''' He tells what time the soil is best for the labour of the ox and for the mattock, and what time the seasons are favourable both for the planting of trees and for casting all manner of seeds. For himself it was who set the signs in heaven, and marked out the constellations, and for the year devised what stars chiefly should give to men right signs of the seasons, to the end that all things might grow unfailingly. Wherefore him do men ever worship first and last. Hail, O Father, mighty marvel, mighty blessing unto men. Hail to thee and to the Elder Race! Hail, ye Muses, right kindly, every one! But for me, too, in answer to my prayer direct all my lay, even as is meet, to tell the stars.|}}

== Archaeology == thumb|Altar to an unspecified god

There is an altar, perhaps dedicated to an unspecified god or goddess,{{cn|date=September 2025}} which was unearthed in 1820<ref>{{cite book |last=Lanciani |first=Rodolfo |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/Lanciani/LANPAC/2*.html#image72 | page=72 |title=Pagan and Christian Rome |publisher=Houghton, Mifflin and Company |year=1892 |place=Boston and New York}}</ref> on the Palatine Hill of Rome. It contains a Latin inscription:

{{poemquote|{{lang|la|SEI·DEO·SEI·DEIVAE·SAC G·SEXTIVS·C·F·CALVINVSPR DE·SENATI·SENTENTIA RESTITVIT|italics=no}}}}

This could be translated into English as: "Whether sacred to god or to goddess, Gaius Sextius Calvinus, son of Gaius, praetor, restored this on a vote of the senate."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dillon |first1=Matthew |title=Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook |last2=Garland |first2=Lynda |author2-link=Lynda Garland |publisher=Routledge |year=2013 |isbn= |page=132}}</ref>

The altar is currently exhibited in the Palatine Museum.

== In Ancient Egypt == The idea of an unknown god, however, seems to predate the Greeks. For in Ancient Egypt, Amun was an unknowable god, not only in the sense of his name being unknown, but also his identity or essence.{{citation needed|reason=This is linking ancient Egyptian mythology wit a Twentieth century theory about Greco- Christian ideas of divinity which should be definitely linked to meet Wikipedia guidelines about not drawing conclusions without sources|date=December 2025}}

== In Neoplatonism == For Plotinus, the first principle of reality is "the One", an utterly simple, ineffable, unknowable subsistence which is both the creative source of the Universe<ref name="Brenk 2016">{{cite book |last=Brenk |first=Frederick |date=January 2016 |title="Theism" and Related Categories in the Study of Ancient Religions |chapter=Pagan Monotheism and Pagan Cult |chapter-url=https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/147/abstract/pagan-monotheism-and-pagan-cult |publisher=Society for Classical Studies (University of Pennsylvania) |series=SCS/AIA Annual Meeting |location=Philadelphia |volume=75 |issue=4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170506035740/https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/147/abstract/pagan-monotheism-and-pagan-cult |archive-date=6 May 2017 |url-status=live |access-date=14 October 2020 |quote=Historical authors generally refer to "the divine" (''to theion'') or "the supernatural" (''to daimonion'') rather than simply "God." [...] The Stoics, believed in a God identifiable with the ''logos'' or ''hegemonikon'' (reason or leading principle) of the universe and downgraded the traditional gods, who even disappear during the conflagration (''ekpyrosis''). Yet, the Stoics apparently did not practice a cult to this God. Middle and Later Platonists, who spoke of a supreme God, in philosophical discourse, generally speak of this God, not the gods, as responsible for the creation and providence of the universe. They, too, however, do not seem to have directly practiced a religious cult to their God.}}</ref> and the teleological end of all existing things.

==See also== * {{lang|la|Si deus si dea}} * {{lang|la|Primum Movens}} * {{lang|la|Dii involuti}} * General revelation

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{commons category|Unknown god}} *{{cite web|url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe32/sbe3215.htm| title=Vedic Hymn To the Unknown God}} Translated by Max Mueller {{Greek religion}}

Category:1913 introductions Category:Theories Category:Greek deities Category:Names of God Category:New Testament words and phrases Category:Christianity in Roman Athens Category:Christianity and Hellenistic religion Category:Deities of classical antiquity Category:Christian terminology Category:Paul the Apostle Category:Acts of the Apostles Category:Conceptions of God