Medieval Scripture Scholar On Acts 17 & “The Unknown God”

Mar 04, 2026

Fr. Willem Hessels van Est (1542-1613), Annotationes In Praecipua Ac Difficiliora Sacrae Scripturae Loca (On Acts 17), 1699, p. 598: “To the unknown god (Acts 17:23)… Here it might be asked, Why then would they not have implicit faith if they worshipped as the true God a god unknown to them? Response: Firstly, because the worship of the true God cannot coexist with the worship of idols. Next, because explicit faith in the one true God is required of all. Thirdly, because it is incompatible even with implicit faith if something is believed that is contrary to it, as it was to place this Unknown God on the same footing with the gods of the pagans, that is, with false gods and therefore demons. For unless He is acknowledged as the one and only God, He is not truly acknowledged…”

This is an interesting and important passage. Fr. Willem Hessels van Est (who is sometimes called Estius) was a noted Dutch scholastic theologian and Scripture scholar who died in 1613. Van Est correctly teaches that the pagans in Acts 17 were not worshipping the true God. He explains that the worship of the true God cannot coexist with the worship of false gods or idols. Since the pagans in Acts 17 were simultaneously worshipping idols, they did not have faith and thus God could not be the actual object of their worship. This is one of many interesting passages that are cited our video that refutes a certain Novus Ordo heretic: Lies, Contradictions & Errors Exposed. In that video we also pointed out that in this passage Van Est uses the Latin word cultus clearly to include the internal act of worship. That fact serves to refute another lie and utterly fallacious argument made by the aforementioned Novus Ordo heretic.