For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
23. To the unknown God. I can well grant that this altar was dedicated to all strange gods; yet I cannot yield to that which Jerome saith, that Paul did, by a certain holy wiliness, attribute that to one God which was written of many.
We have here St. Paul's sermon at Athens. Divers sermons we have had, which the apostles preached to the Jews, or such Gentiles as had an acquaintance with and veneration for the Old Testament, and were worshippers of the true and living God; and all they had to do with them was to open and allege that Jesus is the Christ; but here we have...
Commenting on Acts 17:22-31
For as I passed by,.... Or "through"; that is, through the city of Athens: and beheld your devotions; not so much their acts of worship and religion, as the gods which they worshipped; in which sense this word is used in Th2 2:4 and the altars which were erected to them, and the temples in which they were worshipped; and so the Syriac and Arabic...