Unknown God
|
In addition to the twelve main Gods and the innumerable lesser deities, ancient Greeks used to worship an Unknown God (spelt Agnostos Theos in Greek). In Athens, there was a temple specifically dedicated to that God and very often Athenians used to swear "in the name of the Unknown God" (Νή τόν Άγνωστον). Apollodorus, Philostratus and Pausanias wrote about that God as well.
According to the Bible, when the Apostle Paul visited Athens, he saw an altar with an inscription dedicated to that god, so when he gave his speech on the Areopagos, he told the crowd that he was there to talk about that same Unknown God. However, the Unknown God was not so much a specific deity, but a placeholder, for whatever god or gods actually existed but were not known about, especially if they are actually important ones. The Unknown God served a similar purpose to that served in modern times by The Unknown Warrior.
Template:Myth-stub Template:Hist-stub