Acts 17:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What then? Does he say that the Athenians wrote this for Christ? If the Athenians had written it for Christ, Paul's success would not have been so wondrous.

What is wondrous is that they wrote this with one intention, while he had power to change it into another.

First it is necessary to say for whom the Athenians wrote, "To an unknown God." They had many gods and still more divinities, for "all the gods of the nations are idols" (Ps 95:5), both local and foreign.

You see what mockery this is. If there is a god, he cannot be foreign, because he is master of the whole universe.

Some gods they had received from their fathers, others from neighboring peoples, from the Scythians, Thracians, and Egyptians.

What then? They erected an altar and wrote, "To an unknown God." By such an inscription they said, "If there is also another god not yet known to us, let us honor him."

See what superstition this is. Therefore Paul first says, "I perceive that in all things you are, as it were, especially religious."

This means, "You honor not only the divinities known to you, but also those not known to you." For this reason they wrote, "To an unknown God."

For the unknown God is none other than Christ.

See how they, though they were leaders of the nations, shepherds and teachers, nevertheless barely moved the heavy stone away from the well.

They thought they were acting piously by showing reverence to the Deity, while they were in fact very far removed from the truth.

Having built an altar, they carved on it the inscription, "To an unknown God," that is, to a demon not yet known. Yet they thought that they had conceived excellently of God.

The divine Paul wisely interprets this inscription and most skillfully leads them to what is profitable. He says that the God unknown to them is Christ.

"The One," he says, "whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you." Do you see how he opened the well, rolled away the stone, and showed them life-giving knowledge?

Thus the difference in the shepherds' discernment is incomparable. Some, though very numerous, did not have a true opinion of God.

Conquered by the obscurity of teaching, they are carried away toward what pleases them. The other, though he was alone, nevertheless offered the truth.

When we name God by certain names, saying, for example, that He is the One, or the Good, or Mind, or Self-Existent, or Father, or God, or Creator, or Lord, we do not do this in the proper sense.

Being unable to express His proper name, we use the best of these names. Thus reason may not wander among all the rest, but may have support in them.

Yet none of these names expresses God. All of them together show the power of the Almighty.

He cannot be known, since such knowledge would have to be based on first and better-known principles. But nothing precedes the Unbegotten.

Only by the power of divine grace and through His Word is the unknown revealed to us. In the Acts of the Apostles the evangelist Luke mentions Paul's words.

"Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are especially religious. For as I passed by and observed your objects of worship, I found also an altar on which was written, 'To an unknown God.' Therefore the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you."

When speaking with the Jews, in whom the consciousness of God under the influence of divine revelation had constantly been elevated to a clear and pure idea of the Messiah, Paul could refer to the whole history of the theocracy.

He could refer to the law and the prophets. Here he referred to the undeniable natural demand for the Deity not yet fully known.

He began his speech with the thought that the religious zeal of the Athenians expressed a truly religious feeling. It did so wrongly, yet not without foundation.

It expressed the invincible attraction of the heart toward the divine.

Indeed, the very fact that led the apostle to this conclusion about the Athenians was the existence in Athens of an altar with the inscription, "To an unknown God."

On the one hand, this is praiseworthy as a testimony to the special piety of the Athenians. They were not satisfied with honoring the gods of their homeland, however numerous their company was.

They strove to render service also to a god whose name was unknown, but whose existence they supposed possible.

On the other hand, this manifestation of piety bears witness to the pitiful religious condition of the pagan. It reveals in his soul a feeling of dissatisfaction with his own religion.

It also reveals an involuntary awareness of his religious ignorance. Because of this, he cannot by himself escape his pitiful condition.

He experiences only superstitious fear at the thought that he might leave without proper honor gods unknown, yet existing. This condition of the pagan is the starting point of the apostle's preaching.

In the pagan's striving to please the unknown God, he sees a presentiment of the existence of such a God and a desire to know Him.

Now coming to his aid, the apostle begins to preach to him this God unknown to him. "Therefore," he says to the Athenians, "the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you."

The Athenians, in creating an altar "to an unknown God" or "to unknown gods," did not, of course, understand by this the one true God. Secular Greek writers testify that this inscription appeared in such form on several Athenian altars.

Yet the apostle applies the inscription to the one true God. By this he wishes to say that the inscription, false in their pagan sense, contains truth in itself.

For the one true God truly exists, whom they do not know and whom he preaches.

At the same time, they touched all the listeners so closely that all involuntarily looked at one another.

Had great Plato risen before them, who alone could speak with such power and in such language that the gods themselves would have used if they had come down to earth?

Or had mighty-tongued Demosthenes been reborn before them, at whose speeches kings trembled?

The apostle's speech sounded like the speech of these heroes of Greek eloquence. Before the brilliant assembly of the Areopagus there truly stood Plato, but Plato of the higher evangelical philosophy.

There truly stood Demosthenes, but Demosthenes of the divine word.

For some listeners, namely the philosophers, the orator's final words thundered with a terrible irony.

These vain and arrogant wise men, shining with idle and useless phrase-making, had stopped in dull perplexity before the mysterious inscription on the altar.

They could not answer the instinctive question of the people's thought. Now a preacher had appeared who, with bold confidence and irresistible power of conviction, resolved the riddle.

Malice boiled in them with new fury. But that malice was now completely powerless.

With one word the apostle deprived it of any legal ground. He said that he was not preaching foreign gods, but only shedding the light of knowledge upon the God whom the people already unconsciously worshiped.

Thus the treacherously prepared trial against the messenger of divine truth fell back with all its force of condemnation upon his enemies.

"He said": Paul's speech in the Areopagus before the wise of this world is a great example of both his apostolic wisdom and his eloquence.

It also shows his application of his constant rule: to be for the Gentiles as though a Gentile, that he might win the Gentiles for the Gospel (1 Cor 9:19-22).

The apostle preaches first about the one God, Creator of the world and mankind (Acts 17:22-26). Second, he preaches about the purpose and laws of mankind's life (Acts 17:27-29).

Third, he preaches about redemption and the coming judgment (Acts 17:30-31). In outward composition the speech is adapted to the demands of ordered secular education.

In expression it is eloquent, and in spirit strong. Yet it is also subtle and restrained, so as not to irritate the pagan pride of these representatives of worldly wisdom.

"In all things I perceive," and so forth: more exactly, "I perceive that you are most religious in everything, in every respect."

"As though praising them, he seems to say nothing unpleasant to them. 'I perceive,' he says, 'that in all things you are, as it were, especially religious,'" says Chrysostom.

"Religious": the expression is deliberately and very subtly chosen. The Greek word means both piety, or religiousness, and superstition arising from fear before the objects honored.

Without offending the delicate ear of his listeners and without sacrificing truth, Paul wisely characterizes the piety of the Athenians by a word expressing the essence of all pagan piety: superstition.

At the same time, this choice of word may be regarded as subtle irony in answer to the irony of those who invited him to preach (verses 19-20). Let those who had ears to hear, hear.

"Most religious" is a comparative expression, meaning more religious than the Greeks living in other cities.

Greek secular writers themselves testify to this comparative religiousness of the Athenians: Isocrates, Plato, Sophocles, and Xenophon.

"I perceive" means according to all the observations Paul had made in the city while inspecting it.

According to Saint John Chrysostom’s explanation, “As though praising them, Paul seems to say nothing unpleasant to them. ‘I perceive in every way,’ he says, ‘that you are, as it were, especially devout.’

The Athenians at different times received different gods, even foreign ones, such as the goddess Minerva, Pan, and others from other lands.

Fearing that there might be some other god, unknown to them but worshiped somewhere else, they set up an altar for him also, to be safer.

Since this god was unknown, they wrote, ‘To an unknown God.’ This God, Paul said, is Jesus Christ, or rather, the God of all.

See how he proves that they had already received Him before. ‘I offer nothing strange or new,’ he says.

They kept saying to him, ‘What is this new teaching which you proclaim?’ (v. 19). Therefore he at once destroys their prejudice and says, ‘The God who made the world and everything in it, He is Lord of heaven and earth.’”

When the apostle delivered his speech, the Acropolis lay before his eyes, with its full collection of the most famous works of art. Below and to one side stood the magnificent temple of Theseus.

Around him were many temples, altars, and statues of various gods. All this found a subtle reflection in his speech.

“The expression ‘devout’ was deliberately and very finely chosen. The Greek word δεισιδαιμονεστέρους means both piety, or devotion, and superstition arising from fear of the objects venerated.

Without offending the sensitive ears of his hearers, and without sacrificing the truth, Paul wisely characterizes the devotion of the Athenians by a word that expresses the essence of every pagan devotion: superstition.

Paul inferred the Athenians’ special and comparatively greater devotion especially from this fact. As he passed through and examined their sacred objects, their temples, altars, and statues of gods, he found an altar on which was written, ‘To an unknown God.’

As we see from the testimony of the Greek writers themselves, especially Pausanias and Philostratus, there were several such altars in Athens.

‘This One, whom you worship without knowing’: the indefinite instead of the definite, the impersonal instead of the personal, in accordance with their ignorance, that is, ‘without knowing.’

What for you constitutes an unknown Deity, an object of worship, is the personal and living God, the Creator of the world, whom I proclaim to you.

This is plainly a powerful rhetorical turn, defining the indefinite and placing concrete meaning into an abstract concept.

Properly speaking, such meaning was not present in the listeners’ indefinite notion, since it had not been recognized as the one true meaning in the indefinite phrase, ‘to an unknown God.’

And since the God proclaimed by Paul is a Being distinct from their gods, ‘unknown to them,’ he could rightly say, by this rhetorical turn, that the Being unknown to them and worshiped by them is the God whom he proclaims.

This was so even though such a thought had not been in their minds. This is the fundamental thought and speech of Paul in the Areopagus, boldly and most wisely drawn from the circumstances around him, or applied to them.

One must also note Paul’s wisdom here. While the Athenians expected to hear from him a discourse about foreign gods (v. 18), Paul lays as the foundation of his preaching their own feeling about God, only not yet consciously recognized by them.”