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Titus quotes a Cretan saying about his fellow islanders, not naming him but calling him a prophet. Diogenes Laertius preserves the fullest account of that prophet, Epimenides, a Cretan sage credited with cleansing Athens of plague.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Titus 1:12
New Testament
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
Diogenes Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 1.110
Classical
109 Epimenides, according to Theopompus and many other writers, was the son of Phaestius; some, however, make him the son of Dosiadas, others of Agesarchus. He was a native of Cnossos in Crete, though from wearing his hair long he did not look like a Cretan. One day he was sent into the country by his father to look for a stray sheep, and at noon he turned out of the way, and went to sleep in a cave, where he slept for fifty-seven years. After this he got up and went in search of the sheep, thinking he had been asleep only a short time. And when he could not find it, he came to the farm, and found everything changed and another owner in possession. Then he went back to the town in utter perplexity; and there, on entering his own home, he fell in with people who wanted to know who he was. At length he found his younger brother, now an old man, and learnt the truth from him. 110 So he became famous throughout Greece, and was believed to be a special favourite of heaven. Hence, when the Athenians were attacked by pestilence, and the Pythian priestess bade them purify the city, they sent a ship commanded by Nicias, son of Niceratus, to Crete to ask the help of Epimenides. And he came in the 46th Olympiad, purified their city, and stopped the pestilence in the following way. He took sheep, some black and others white, and brought them to the Areopagus; and there he let them go whither they pleased, instructing those who followed them to mark the spot where each sheep lay down and offer a sacrifice to the local divinity. And thus, it is said, the plague was stayed. Hence even to this day altars may be found in different parts of Athens with no name inscribed upon them, which are memorials of this atonement. According to some writers he declared the plague to have been caused by the pollution which Cylon brought on the citya and showed them how to remove it. In consequence two young men, Cratinus and Ctesibius, were put to death and the city was delivered from the scourge.
Date: 200-300 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
... The quotation’s attribution to Epimenides is possible but uncertain. It would certainly fit the setting; although much of Luke’s ideal audience might not catch a connection, it would have made sense for the historical Paul to offer such a quote if he also mentioned the altars to the unknown gods. It was to Epimenides that one tradition assigned the role of the Athenians’ advisor regarding the altars (Diogenes Laertius 1.110). It has also long been argued that the quote in Titus 1:12, also from the Pauline circle, reflects the same poem of Epimenides: the Cretans built a tomb for Zeus, “liars, evil beasts, slow bellies! But thou art not dead; thou art risen . . . for in thee we live and move and have our being.” The problem is that the earliest extant source for the connection stems from the extended quote of this section of Epimenides in the Syriac father Isho’dad of Merv about 850 CE, though he is probably dependent on the earlier Theodore of Mopsuestia. ...
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