AgnŌstos Theos
AGNŌSTOS THEOS. The phrase agnōstōn theōn (nominative singular, agnōstos theos) was found inscribed on Greek altars dedicated "to the unknown gods." The inscription had no mystical or theosophical meaning, but arose out of a concern for cultic safety: no one wanted to incur the wrath of gods whose names were unknown but who just might exist and be vexed by the lack of honors.
The meaning of the designation agnōstos is indeed ambiguous: it could mean "unknowable" or "unknown," depending upon the context. God could in fact be "unknown" without necessarily being "unknowable." Even from a philosophical standpoint, "unknowable" does not require an absolute or irreconcilable meaning. God can be unknowable by the ordinary means of cognition or by discursive reason yet still be knowable by means of divine grace in contemporary or mystical intuition. This semantic uncertainty beclouds our understanding of the ancient usage.
The distinguished philologist Eduard Norden (1913) attempted to show that the notion of agnōstos theos was foreign and even contrary to the Classical Greek spirit. The term did not appear until late in the Classical period, and then only in texts clearly under Oriental influence: Jewish, Gnostic, Neoplatonic, and Christian writings. Further, the expression would imply "a renunciation of inquiry" (p.
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