For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
All Commentaries on Acts 17:23 Go To Acts 17
John Chrysostom
AD 407
On which was inscribed, To an Unknown God. The Athenians, namely, as on many occasions they had received gods from foreign parts also— for instance, the temple of Minerva, Pan, and others from different countries— being afraid that there might be some other god not yet known to them, but worshipped elsewhere, for more assurance, forsooth, erected an altar to that god also: and as the god was not known, it was inscribed, To an Unknown God. This God then, he tells them, is Christ; or rather, the God of all. Him declare I unto you. Observe how he shows that they had already received Him, and it is nothing strange, says he, nothing new that I introduce to you. All along, this was what they had been saying: What is this new doctrine spoken of by you? For you bring certain strange matters to our ears. Immediately therefore he removes this surmise of theirs: and then says, God that made the world and all things therein, He being Lord of heaven and earth— for, that they may not imagine Him to be one of many, he presently sets them right on this point; adding, dwells not in temples made with hands
