Chapter 12: Knowledge of the True God Amid Idolatry

Knowledge of the true God — He who alone can be known was called unknown — The well-known superstition of the city of Athens — The division of the city according to the names and worship of idols — The twofold superstition among the Jews — What "Pagos" signifies — Most people acknowledge one natural God — Antisthenes, the Brahmins — Sophocles — Menander — The Books of Numa discovered and burned — Valerius Soranus — Orpheus — Homer — Prudentius — The name "unutterable."

I. Nevertheless, amid these great darknesses and this confusion of all things and all religions, it is clear that very many retained some knowledge and memory of the one true God, infinitely removed from all those fictitious gods whom they worshiped superstitiously. This is taught by the writings of nearly all historians and philosophers. For who among the ancient

wise men who does not celebrate some divine nature existing above all things, governing all, preserving all, and disposing all things according to His own will? But although this one true God alone exhibits in all things what can be known of Him, so much so that He alone can be known because He alone exists, and cannot be wholly unknown because He is God — yet, because they did not see fit to retain this one true God in their knowledge, He alone was called "unknown." Hence, whenever mention had to be made of the God of the Jews, it was customary to add, "Whoever He finally may be," as in Dio, History, book 36. And in Lucian, in the Philopatris: "By the unknown one worshiped in Athens" — and again, "What do you say? Are the altars of the unknown gods set up in Athens?" as Philostratus says in the Life of Apollonius, book 6, chapter 1. "And these things at Athens, where altars are set up to unknown gods." The inscription read "God" (singular); Philostratus substituted the plural, after the manner of the Pythagoreans. The origin of this religious observance is attributed to Socrates. He, as Justin Martyr testifies in Apology 1, urged the Athenians "toward the knowledge of that unknown God through the inquiry of reason."

II. But whatever Socrates did, it is most certain that Paul seized the occasion of preaching the true God from the inscription on the altar of Epimenides, which among others was dedicated "to the unknown." And these things were at Athens, where almost nothing was not sacred, since the very city was, as Xenophon testifies in his work on the Athenian Republic, entirely devoted to the gods and full of holy things. For they divided the entire city into districts designated by the names of gods: 1. the Pagos of Cronus; 2. the Pagos of Ares; 3. the Pagos of Poseidon; 4. the Pagos of Ares; 5. the Pagos of Hermes, constituted the city. Now "Pagos" among the Greeks signifies not a Latin village (pagus) but a rock. The districts of the city were called thus because upon each was placed some rock (that is, a column or stele) consecrated to this or that idol. From this the use of the word was first transferred to signify some part of the city. The same thing was done at Jerusalem as at Athens: Jeremiah 11:13, "For according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah! and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars of shame, altars to offer incense to Baal."

III. But altars to the unknown God were not set up at Athens alone: "And here there is an altar to unknown gods," as Pausanias says in the Eliaica. They sometimes acknowledged that this unknown God was the one God. "Many gods by popular convention, one by nature," said Antisthenes, as cited by Cicero in On the Nature of the Gods, book 1, chapter 13. "That great living being, and the soul of the world," the Pythagoreans called Him. To this God all assigned, at least, the supreme place in the heavens. So the Brahmins instruct Apollonius, as related by Philostratus, book 1, chapter 11: "The first and most perfect seat must be assigned to God, the generator of this living universe, and the second to the gods who govern its several parts" — "The first and most perfect seat is indeed to be assigned to God, the creator of this living being; and the second to the gods who govern its parts."

IV. Indeed, some advanced so far under the auspices and guidance of reason

that, for the sake of this one God the Maker, they judged that all idolatrous worship ought to be rejected. Sophocles says this admirably. See Soph. Frag.:—

There is one God, in truth one God, etc.;—

"There is one God, who alone constructed the fabric of heaven, the azure backs of the sea, and the unbridled south winds.

And we poor wretches, wandering with restless heart,

have invented a consolation for our calamities; the stony or wooden forms of gods,

wrought in gold, or cast in metal, or fashioned in ivory — while we sacrifice to these, while on the appointed solemn day

"We render honors, and we account ourselves pious." And Justin in his Apology to the Emperor: "That which ought not to be worshipped by human hands, to Menander the comic poet and to those who said the same things, we add our agreement" — "That the works of men's hands ought not to be worshipped, with Menander

the comic poet, and with those who said the same things, we agree."

V. It is also probable that those books of Numa Pompilius — which, having been found beneath the Janiculum in the year 556 from the founding of the city, the senate ordered to be burned in a public assembly, because, after reading them, Q. Petilius the city praetor gave his sworn word that they tended to the dissolving of religion — taught that one God was to be worshipped, and that without images.

VI. Moreover, that the gentiles of his time contended that this one, supreme God was to be called Jupiter, Lactantius demonstrates. Hence Valerius Soranus:

"Jupiter almighty, begetter of kings, of all things, and of the gods, and mother of the gods, God one and all." Concerning him, that most celebrated golden ode of Orpheus to Musaeus is well known: "[You alone, the lord of the whole world, I address... self-begotten; from you all things take their origin, all things are shaken...]"

"And He himself contains all things, and no one has ever seen Him, yet He himself sees all things —"

"Him alone, the king of this world, worship: He is unique, self-existent, who created all things, and is Himself present among them; never perceived by the eye of any mortal, yet He perceives all mortals." And again: "One is Zeus, one is Hades, one is the Sun, one is Bacchus, one God in all things" — "Jupiter is one, Pluto one, and Bacchus one, one Sun, one God in all things." This is he of whom Virgil, following Homer, so often intones that solemn refrain:

"Father of gods and king of men." They also wished him to be Serapis; as in the epigram: "Seven vowels praise the great, infinite image of God, the lord of imperishable fire of immortal men; the immense, unbounded ruler of all things, whom the celestial echo, responding to Amphion, heralded." For Serapis is a name written in transposed letters; and it was so called, as Hesychius attests — unless one should prefer to think that the name Jehovah is indicated by those seven vowels. Tertullian therefore rightly teaches (Apol. ch. xvii.), "Even worshippers of idols, when they are in distress, lift their eyes to heaven, and, forgetting their gods, invoke the one God by nature." Similar things are found in Justin, On the Monarchy of God and in his Apologies; Athenagoras in his Legation; Clement, Strom. iii.; Arnobius, bk. ii. Against the Nations; Lactantius, bk. xi., Preparation for the Gospel, ch. ix.; Theodoret, On the Cure of Greek Affections, bk. ii. Admirably in the Apotheosis, Prudentius, lines 268–277:

"Consult the ravings of bearded Plato, consult also the goatish Cynics whom he dreams of, and those whose sinews Aristotle wrapped in twisted gyration; all these, though a treacherous labyrinth and circling error may drive them, though they themselves are accustomed to promise a hen, or a cock, that the divine Physician may deign to provide an equal remedy for the dying — yet when it comes to the standard of reason and method, they conclude their turbid notions and their contentious arguments, noisy as they are, in one divine being."

But that the wisest among the gentiles held all these notions of one God enclosed within themselves, and yet did not glorify Him with worship and obedience as God, the apostle shows clearly in his Epistle to the Romans, ch. 1.