16 - The Unknown God

The ship that carried Paul and his faithful Berean followers to Athens was still a long way from the port of Phalerum when they first saw the mighty statue of Athena towering over the Acropolis. This most beloved daughter of Zeus was the goddess the Greeks held in highest honor, for she’d sprung forth complete from his head, that is, from his wisdom. Zeus never refused her a favor. And it was because she was always on the side of the strong and triumphant that she was considered the goddess of wisdom.

Like their beloved goddess, the Greeks recognized only the achieved, the known, the tangible, that which they could hold in their hand. Only what was in one’s possession could be said to have value. So they divided the substance of human achievement into departments and set a genius over each department. Thus, the night belonged to Artemis, and she glided through its darkness in the company of her nymphs and fauns. So, too, Apollo, the sun, ruled the day. Mounted on his fiery chariot he rolled through the heavens, and the spears of his radiance rained down. Darkness and death fled before him.

And so each god ruled in his domain over all that man’s intelligence had achieved.

Now a sick man is about to appear among them, bringing the discovery that the achieved, tangible, and compartmentalized, was not the template of truth. Truth lay beyond the tangible. It lay in the great realm of the inconceivable, the unachievable, where the God of Israel had his domain.


In Phalerum Paul embraced the Jews who had accompanied him, and as he sent them back to Berea, he asked them to send Timothy back to him as soon as possible. In spite of his unshakeable faith in his mission, Paul, like an artist, was still nervous whenever he approached a new work. He also felt heavy-hearted over the fate of the Thessalonica community after having had to flee while its foundations were still so insecure. He’d had such hopes about a spiritual conquest of Macedonia.

“Pray with me,” he said to his departing friends, “that God may see fit to bless the work of our hands. Pray with me that the seed we planted is not carried away by the wind to lodge in barren sand. Guard the young shoots diligently, for with it grows the hope of Israel. And send me my son!”

Having said his farewells, Paul picked up the bundle that contained his clothing, the tools of his trade, and his manuscripts of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Psalms, and started walking down the road toward Athens.


There were two high walls on either side of the road from Phalerum to Athens, dating, it was said, from the days of the Trojan wars. The road was paved with stone blocks for the passage of carriages. It was an early morning in the month of Elul, the time of year when the sirocco blew across the landscape, leaving a fine film of dust on the lips and eyelids of everyone. Long caravans of donkeys and mules, driven by slaves and carrying bales of goods from the port to the capital stirred up even more dust.

As Paul strode towards Athens he could make out, through the swirling, stinging dust, one temple after another on either side of the road, their facades and pillars covered as with a fine snow. For the most part these temples were deserted. Here and there a lonely priest stood on the steps swinging a bell. In one place the priest had surrounded himself with flutists and girl dancers to try to draw attention. But there were so many temples; there just weren’t enough travelers to give them any quota of worshippers. And so it seemed to Paul that he wasn’t walking between temples, but rather through a cemetery of forgotten deities.

He was familiar with all of these gods, both from his native city and from his travels. There were temples for Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, and Artemis, among many others. These were not the grotesque idols of Asia, those monstrous demons whose wild priests brought down to the lowest unimaginable levels of debasement, drunkenness, and sexual perversity, to a population only too ready to make the descent. These gods were born of the intellect. They represented some sort of search and experience, the expression of man’s desire to create order in the chaos of human environment. They had a measure of creativity and purpose, or at least as much purpose as could be envisioned by the senses.

The hierarchy of the gods indicated their functions and powers. But their attributes were no more than what man could attribute to them. And how, the apostle asked himself, can the sense of man comprehend both the known and the unknown senses? These gods are earthy, insect-like, even as man is. Man has endowed them with his own attributes, both good and bad, making them the outward bearers of his own desires and passions. What man cannot attain with his own strength, he strives to attain by attributing to his gods.

There are both legitimate and illegitimate gods in this system. There are gods begotten by Zeus through his spouse Hera, and bastard gods, begotten through his many lovers, some even the wives of men. And the function of each god corresponds to his position in the hierarchy. To legitimate children, Zeus relegated the government of the day and night, creation, the weaving of life, and the powers that sleep in the depths of the earth. To the bastard gods, he gave minor heritages, smaller functions.

Now isn’t it strange that this should come from the clever and experienced minds of the Greeks, searching for the foundations of experience? Why is it that the clever Greeks can’t see that the Father in heaven, who has created all things, is the one living God of Israel? Can we say that only the powers locked in the earth, and the murmuring powers of the night, are hidden from us? Are we not hidden even from ourselves? Man, do you know yourself? How foolish are you wise of Athens! Like mites who work on a tattered garment hung away in a closet, so you crawl about and believe you have built a ladder to heaven.


Paul came to a well, built into a semicircular wall, which also enclosed the figure of Hermes-Mercury on a pillar, for he was always represented at roadway intersections. A group of veiled girls and women sat by the well with their vases. Some donkey drivers also came up to water their beasts. Paul borrowed a pitcher from one of the young women so that he could wash his hands and eyelids.

He asked her if it was far yet to the city. No. After the first statue of Hera, he would reach the gates. He asked if the women knew of any Jewish houses of prayer. No, they didn’t know of any, but if there was one it would most likely be near the entrance to the Street of the Camel Drivers by the temple of Demeter. The women told him he would easily recognize that street, because he would see a high pillar there with the statue of Mercury on top. Then the women resumed the conversation Paul had interrupted.

Paul rested and listened. It seems that Aglaia, one of the women at the well, was married to a certain Demetrius, a teacher of sword fighting. A young Roman nobleman of the house of Caesar had begun a friendship with him and had taken him to Rome, and his wife hadn’t seen him since. His contract had been for one year, and since he was a freedman, he could have returned at the end of that period. But some two or three years had passed and he still hadn’t come back. Every day Aglaia came out with her friends to draw water from the well, and everyday she continued her complaint.

Her friends comforted her and told her she should find another man, but she wouldn’t be comforted. She’d already done everything to conjure her husband back. Every day, she brought a wreath of flowers to the well and laid it before the statue of Vesta, the goddess of the family hearth, begging her to send her man home. But it had done no good.

Recently a man who had known Demetrius returned from Rome and told her that her husband had hired himself out as a gladiator after his contract ended. He didn’t know if the man was still alive or not. But then the man made advances to her, so she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. In any case her heart yearned for Demetrius, and she would wait for him until the gods returned him to her.

“Why didn’t you offer a rich sacrifice to Hera?” said one of her friends. “Remember, she’s the guardian of the home and also a sorely tried wife, considering everything she’s had to endure from old Zeus, who’s betrayed her a thousand times with others. She’ll hear the cry of your heart, Aglaia.”

Aglaia answered that Hera was the first one she went to. She offered almost all that remained to her after her husband left. She’d given white meal, cruses of oil, and a fat suckling pig. She even sacrificed her long braids of hair to the wigmakers. Now she was afraid that even if Demetrius came back, he wouldn’t want her, for her hair hadn’t grown back yet. Oh yes, she’d certainly tried Hera, but to no avail.

“And what about Aphrodite?”

“Aphrodite? I served in her temple for two months. That didn’t help. I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from my experience with the gods. The great ones don’t have time for us little people. They’re all taken up with the affairs of the world, and directing the lives of the rich and mighty, who demand all their time and strength. Oh yes, the rich keep the gods busy, with their wars and loves, with their struggle for government and power. So the poor can only go to the little gods, the ones not held in high esteem by the great gods. So I’m looking for one of the fauns or satyrs, and I’ll tell him my troubles. I know the little gods mean well. They don’t deceive us.”

“Let me tell you,” said an elderly woman, whose eyes gleamed with a peculiar luster. “My best experience has been with a certain foreign goddess, Isis, from Egypt. Her ritual has much to offer to married women. I come away from those services edified and cleansed, and all my wishes are granted. I tell you, worshipping Isis is altogether different from worshipping our home gods. You become bound up with the goddess in the ritual, and women who have lost their man, or one of their children, are much comforted by her.”

Another woman said, “Lately I’ve found much comfort in the services of Adonis. When I press his image to my heart, I become like Aphrodite herself, and my heart is filled with yearning for my dead husband. I wander to him in the underworld, and I’m united to him in my sorrow and lamentation. All my longings are satisfied. Oh, you don’t know how sweet is the lament for the god Adonis.”

A woman who had just come by, and was busy drawing water for the many vessels she carried, called out, “All the gods are good as long as you bring them rich offerings.”

The other women, remembering their tasks, rose.

“Take me with you to the worship of Isis,” said Aglaia to the Isis worshiper. “I’ve been longing for her lately.”

The women scattered, and the apostle remained seated on a stone under the figure of the god Hermes-Mercury. His heart was filled with sadness for these women. He raised his eyes to heaven and prayed.

“Father in heaven, have compassion on your poor creatures. Let them see that there is just one God in heaven and just one intermediary between God and man, Christ Jesus.”

Finally, he got up and moved on. But as he continued to walk he noticed one altar that seemed abandoned and forlorn more than any other altar he’d seen so far. It was thickly covered with dust and its desolation seemed to speak to Paul. A power he couldn’t understand compelled him to turn aside and approach the stone altar. There was no image or likeness of any god or goddess, and Paul was filled with wonder over who might have erected it. On the side of the altar there was a brief inscription. He bent down to read the half-obliterated words.

“To an unknown god.”

Paul was astounded. What was this humble, anonymous altar in the middle of these vast and opulent temples of Ares, Zeus and Aphrodite? What was this forlorn and modest tribute to an unknown god? And suddenly it dawned on him, as though a sign had been given, the answer to the prayer he had just prayed.

“No!” he cried. “Not to an unknown god. But to the unknown God.”

So Paul corrected the faded lettering in his mind.

Then he saw something he hadn’t noticed before. On one corner of the altar lay a tiny wreath of fresh flowers. Somehow he was convinced that this was the wreath he had seen in the hand of one of the women at the well. His heart blossomed.

He raise his eyes again and cried out, “See, O God, it is You, and You alone, that they seek in their blindness. Even when they worship their idols, it is to You that their hearts are turned.”