Agnostos Theos (Unknown God)

AGNOSTOS THEOS (Unknown God). - Pausanias (I, 1, 4) knows at Phaleron βωμοί θεῶν ὀνομαζομένων ἀγνώστων, that is, "altars of gods called unknown" (thus Weinreich, in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, 18 [1915], p. 28; whereas Th. Birt, in Rhein. Museum, 69 [1920], pp. 349, 389, thinks of an altar of one unknown god, or even of several altars; similarly Hoefer, in Roscher, Mythol. Lexicon, V, col. 680). At Olympia an ἀγνώστων θεῶν βωμός has been found, according to the same Pausanias (V, 14, 8). The meaning of this designation in Pausanias is not clear. If it meant that the names of these divinities were no longer remembered (thus, e.g., W. Goeber, s. v. Theoi agnostici, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl., 2nd series, X, col. 1988 ff.) one would expect the word ἀνώνυμος and not ἀγνώστος. Others have interpreted the "unknown gods" in the sense of "local divinities" (v. C. Pascal, Studi di antichità, Milan 1896, pp. 85 ff.) or of "chthonic divinities" (Weniger, in Klio, 14 (1920), p. 414). There exist other possibilities of an explanation, e.g. the text of an Nadim (v. Chwolsohn, Die Stabier und der Stabshaus, II, St. Petersburg 1856, p. 33) which speaks of sacrifices for the gods "hidden, far off and absent". The conjecture of Hepding, who would complete the lacunose text of a dedication at Pergamon in the sense of a mention of "Agnostoi Theoi", is very weak (cf. Athenische Mittel., 35 [1910], p. 456; Ad. Deissmann, Paulus, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1925, pp. 226 ff.) and the hypothesis of S. Ferri (Divinità ignote, Florence 1929, p. 66) of attributing the faceless busts found at Cyrene to the Agnostoi Theoi is erroneous (v. Gerkan, Philol. Wochenschrift, 51 [1931], p. 1535 and J. Kroll, in Deutsche Literatur Zeitung, 53 [1932], p. 1407).

The problem of the ἄγνωστοι θεός arose following the mention of an altar dedicated to an ἄγνωστοι θεός (singular!) in Athens, in the discourse addressed by St. Paul to the Areopagus (Acts 17, 23). The various problems are well brought out by Ed. Norden in his great work Agnostos Theos (Leipzig 1912, 2nd ed. 1929). A discussion from the Catholic point of view is found in A. Wikenhauser, Die Apostelgeschichte und ihr Geschichtswert, in Neutestam. Abhandlg. (VIII, III-V, Münster 1921, pp. 369-90). Wikenhauser has collected all the patristic texts concerning the inscription of Athens. Norden's assertion that the idea of the ἄγνωστοι θεός in Neoplatonism is of Gnostic or Oriental origin (pp. 84, 109) has been contested by E. R. Dodds, in his edition of Proclus' Elementa theologica (Oxford 1933, app. 1, p. 310), and A. I. Festugière (Contemplation et vie contemplative selon Platon, Paris 1936), in a penetrating note, has well clarified not only the historical problem regarding Platonic doctrine, but also the different meanings that the word ἄγνωστοι θεός can have (pp. 227 ff.). If, as Dodds thinks, the Neo-Pythagoreans of the 1st century A.D. already affirmed the idea of the unknowability of God, the literary problem of the dependence of St. Luke and of Philostratus, in the Vita Apollonii (VI, 3), on a common Pythagorean source loses a little of the importance that was given to it by Norden in a forced construction.

Erik Peterson