"Thus also Minutius Felix says, 'When they stretch out their hands to heaven they mention only God; and these forms of speech, _He is great_, and _God is true_, and _If God grant_(which are the natural language of the vulgar), are a plain confession of the truth of Christianity.' And also Lactantius testifies, 'When they swear, and when they wish, and when they give thanks, they name not many gods, but God only; the truth, by a secret force of nature, thus breaking forth from them whether they will or no;' and again he says, 'They fly to God; aid is desired of God; they pray that God would help them; and when one is reduced to extreme necessity, he begs for God's sake, and by his divine power alone implores the mercy of men.'"[121] The account which is given by Diogenes Laertius[122] of the erection of altars bearing the inscription "to the unknown God," clearly shows that they had their origin in this general sentiment of dependence on a higher Power. "The Athenians being afflicted with pestilence invited Epimenides to lustrate their city. The method adopted by him was to carry several sheep to the Areopagus, whence they were left to wander as they pleased, under the observation of persons sent to attend them. As each sheep lay down it was sacrificed to _the propitious God_. By this ceremony it is said the city was relieved; but as it was still unknown what deity was propitious, an altar was erected _to the unknown God_ on every spot where a sheep had been sacrificed."[123] [Footnote 121: Cudworth, vol. i. p. 300.] [Footnote 122: "Lives of Philosophers," book i., Epimenides.] [Footnote 123: See Townsend's "Chronological Arrangement of New Testament," note 19, part xii.; Doddridge's "Exposition;" and Barnes's "Notes on Acts."] "The unknown God" was their deliverer from the plague. And the erection of an altar to him was a confession of their absolute dependence upon him, of their obligation to worship him, as well as of their need of a deeper knowledge of him. The gods who were known and named were not able to deliver them in times of calamity, and they were compelled to look beyond the existing forms of Grecian mythology for relief. Beyond all the gods of the Olympus there was "one God over all," the Father of gods and men, the Creator of all the subordinate local deities, upon whom even these created gods were dependent, upon whom man was absolutely dependent, and therefore in times of deepest need, of severest suffering, of extremest peril, then they cried to the living, supreme, eternal God.[124]