Texts in Conversation
Titus quotes the Hymn to Zeus, from either Epimenides or Callimachus, which mocks the Cretans for claiming to have built a tomb for an immortal god. In its original setting, the verse ridiculed local myths about Zeus’s birth and death.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Callimachus, Hymn 1.8
Classical
When we pour out wine as an offering to Zeus, what better subject is there to sing about than the god himself? He is powerful forever and king for all time. He drove back the Pelagonians, and he hands down justice to the children of Heaven. How should we sing about him: as lord of Dicte or of Lycaeum? I can’t decide, because people disagree about where he was born. Zeus, some say you were born in the hills of Ida, and others, Zeus, say Arcadia. Which of them lied, Father? “Cretans are always liars.” The Cretans even built a tomb for you, Lord, but you did not die, because you live forever. Rheia gave birth to you in Parrhasia, on a hill covered in dense brush. Ever since, the place has been sacred. No woman, and no four-legged animal that needs Eileithyia’s help in giving birth, goes near it, and the Apidanians call it Rheia’s ancient birthplace. After your mother set you down from her lap, she immediately went looking for a stream, so she could wash herself clean after the birth and bathe your body.
Date: 290–250 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Titus 1:12
New Testament
10 For there are many rebellious people, idle talkers, and deceivers, especially those with Jewish connections, 11 who must be silenced because they mislead whole families by teaching for dishonest gain what ought not to be taught. 12 A certain one of them, in fact, one of their own prophets, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 Such testimony is true. For this reason rebuke them sharply that they may be healthy in the faith 14 and not pay attention to Jewish myths and commands of people who reject the truth.
Date: 90–100 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... so prestigious were the Cretans that whereas normally a tribe preferred to be known as autochthonous, the Caunians (Herodotus 1.172) actually preferred to be known as originally from Crete rather than of native stock, as Herodotus believed them to be. Moreover, inasmuch as they wanted to impress Euhemerus, the priests in Panchaia, the imaginary island in the Indian Ocean that is presented as a kind of utopia, informed Euhemerus (Euhemerus 63, frag. 1, FGH, part 1) of their Cretan origin. The famous statement of the Cretan religious teacher and miracle worker Epimenides (fragment 1, quoted by Callimachus’s Hymn to Zeus 8 and the New Testament’s Epistle to Titus 1:12) of the sixth century B.C.E., that the Cretans are always liars would seem to indicate that the Cretan reputation was not unmixed. But aside from the logical puzzle this remark raises, because the author himself is a Cretan, we may note that at least among the Greeks lying was hardly a negative attribute but rather an indication of cleverness ..."
Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 515.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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In the summary of Callimachus Hymns his Hymn to Demeter is "considered mimetic" and also "viewed as non-mimetic"
In the summary of Callimachus Hymns his Hymn to Demeter is "considered mimetic" and also "viewed as non-mimetic"