Note 499 — Chapter XI · FAUSTIAN AND APOLLINIAN NATURE-KNOWLEDGE

Few passages in the Acts of the Apostles have obtained a stronger hold on our imagination than Paul’s meeting with the altar of “the Unknown God” at Phalerum (Acts XVII, 23). And yet we have perfectly definite evidence, later than Paul’s time, of the plurality of the gods to whom this altar was dedicated. Pausanias in his guide-book (I, 24) says: “here there are ... altars of the gods styled Unknowns, of heroes, etc.” (βωμοί δε θεῶν τε ὀνομαζομένων Ἀγνώστων καὶ ἡρῴων ... κ.τ.λ.). Such, however, is the force of our fixed idea that even Sir J. G. Frazer, in his “Pausanias and Other Studies,” speaks of “The Altar to the Unknown God which St. Paul, and Pausanias after him, saw.” More, he follows this up with a description of a dialogue “attributed to Lucian” (2nd Cent. A.D.) in which the Unknown God of Athens figures in a Christian discussion; but this dialogue (the Philopatris) is almost universally regarded as a much later work, dating at earliest from Julian’s time (mid-4th Cent.) and probably from that of Nicephorus Phocas (10th Cent.).—Tr.