Acts 17:23

For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found an altar with the inscription TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto you.

Polytheism is here manifested in one of its most pitiful characteristics. Some poor worshiper, having placated all the gods that he knew, still felt no certainty or confidence, but went out and erected an altar to the god who was unknown. The proliferation of idols in Athens, coupled with the amazing example of it here, prompted Alexander Campbell to write:

They had gone beyond their contemporaries in erecting an altar to "the unknown God." ... No other people or city had thus confessed their ignorance and their devotion. It was a grand conception to erect an altar to the GREAT UNKNOWN in the center of Greek civilization.[38]

It was the inspired genius of Paul that seized upon such a circumstance and made the inscription the text of his address.

That Paul should have placed a proper construction upon words which were obviously, in context, of pagan intention is remarkable. "Paul treats the worship of deities by pagans as a misdirected form of a natural and correct religious impulse."[39]

[38] Alexander Campbell, op. cit., p. 119.

[39] Sir William M. Ramsay, op. cit., p. 197.