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The Unknown God

—Paul’s Address at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22-31)

My dear Athenians, this I surveilled
While passing by: you’re quite religious men!
I scanned what you are worshiping, and then
I stopped before an altar that regaled
A god herewith: “This to an unknown god.”
As to this unknown god by whom you’re awed—
Let me unveil this deity you spin.

The God who made the world and all therein,
Who is the Master of both heaven and earth,
Lives not in man-made temples of great worth.
Nor is he served by human hands, wherein
He were by human requisites confined,
For he has granted all of humankind
Their very life and breath and everything.

God made the archetypal man to spring
Into a panoply of nation-states
That to this day on earth proliferates.
This God has set the times and seasoning
And boundaries of terrain on which they dwell,
That they should search for God, and hope may swell
That reaching out to him they’ll find him, too.

Yet he is not beyond our mind’s purview:
“In him we live and move and have our being.”
As some of your own poets are agreeing,
“We all are his offspring.” So, if that’s true,
As God’s own offspring, we ought not condone
The thought of God as gold, silver, or stone—
An image from the mind and craft of man.

Could God remit naivety? He can,
And he commands all everywhere: Repent!
For he has set a future day to vent
His righteous judgment on the world. His plan
Will use a man he has appointed. He
Has given evidence: This appointee
Was raised up from his own fatality.

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Jeff Kemper has been a biology teacher, biblical studies instructor, editor, and painting contractor. He lives in York County, Pennsylvania.

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11 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    This worthwhile poem is a perfect prequel to Easter that juxtaposes the one who rose from the dead against those who have been imagined and set in stone or gold, there to repose.

    Reply
    • Jeff Kemper

      Roy, that is an interesting connection that hadn’t occurred to me before. Assuming no prior knowledge of the Judeo-Christian God, this address is an apt introduction to the crux (the empty cross) of Christianity. Thanks for the suggestion.

      Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    Paul didn’t have much success with highly educated Hellenistic Greeks in Athens, or elsewhere. For them he seemed to be preaching “foolishness” and “absurdity.” In Ephesus he was nearly lynched for denigrating the city’s patroness goddess, Diana of Ephesus, and had to skip town quickly. You can experience something similar if you go into Boston and start bad-mouthing the Red Sox.

    Paul didn’t seem to realize that the altar dedicated “to an unknown god” was merely an apotropaic device of protection, set up as a cautionary redundancy in case some minor deity had been overlooked and slighted in the official civic ceremonies.

    As a reader, I have a problem with recognizing who the speaker is in this poem. The first two stanzas are obviously in the voice of Paul. The third is not so clear, since it is more discursive rather than oratorical. The fourth is definitely Paul again, since he speaks of “your own poets” to the Greek audience. But the fifth stanza is confusing — are these the words of Paul to the audience, or are they the comments of the poet? Who is the “man he has appointed”? Is it Paul as an appointed preacher, or perhaps Christ as the one who “was raised up”?

    Reply
    • Jeff Kemper

      What Paul knew or didn’t know was not the point. He was always ready to find an opportunity to give testimony to the truth, and his address here did elicit interest. His duty was to be faithful, not to get results. The latter was up to God.

      The whole poem is a paraphrase of the text in Acts, as indicated, and follows the words of Paul throughout. The phrase, “a man [Jesus] he [God] has appointed,” is from verse 31 and is the previous reference to “this appointee.” Paul did not mention Jesus by name. Nor did most of his listeners understand what he meant. Some of the audience, following their inquisitiveness, did convert, doubtless learning the identity of “this appointee.”

      Reply
  3. Mike Bryant

    “The Unknown God” is very skillfully done. Paul’s Areopagus speech has always appealed to me and you’ve been faithful to the text with artistic flair. You retell Paul’s message and revitalize it through rhythm and rhyme. I think it’s interesting that the speech was so short, and the last lines more like a “teaser” to interest the Greeks in a more thorough look into this Jesus, who was raised up. And… it apparently worked!
    A great tribute!

    Reply
    • Jeff Kemper

      Thanks, Mike. I used to have part of the speech memorized.
      Yes, it did work, or rather, God used it to bring a few converts to the knowledge of the truth.

      Reply
  4. Cynthia Erlandson

    I love the way you’ve put this famous speech into rhyme and meter, Jeff. I’ve just re-read the speech from Acts, and I think you’ve been very accurate in your portrayal of its content, and it looks to me as if you’ve included each of Paul’s ideas.
    I particularly liked that you linked the stanzas together with the last-line-to-first-line rhymes.

    Reply
  5. Margaret Coats

    Jeff, yours is a splendid choice of material for versifying, as the Areopagus speech took place at a significant moment in history, and quotes verses by a once-popular poet. Thanks to Paul, the lines by Aratos have resonated through millennia. As they are part of Holy Scripture, I would say they’re as divinely inspired as the rest of God’s word. What a marvel to think a pagan poet could produce such!

    Your Pauline style seems to be just what the Apostle might have used: an easy colloquial manner unafraid of learned vocabulary. He wanted to impress the Athenians and win them over, if they could respond to God’s grace. I like your thoughtful use of “seasoning” in line 18, and even more, your carefully placed subjunctive “He were” in line 12, to demonstrate the non-existent “as if” condition of God’s confinement by human requisites.

    Reply
    • Jeff Kemper

      Thanks, Margaret. I appreciate your observations. And yes, I agree that pagan quotes in Scripture are indeed inspired as is the rest of Scripture.

      Reply

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