"CRETANS ARE ALWAYS LIARS" (TITUS 1:12-14)

 Below is an expansion on some of my earlier comments found in the post “Titus 1:12-13a.”

As one indication of the wide learning that Paul possessed, he quotes from a pagan source here to warn Titus concerning the many “rebellious people, idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision; they must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for sordid gain what is not right to teach. It was one of them, their very own prophet, who said...” This is followed by the quotation: “Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.” Paul then endorses this statement and urges Titus to reprove them strongly.

The source of Paul's quote was from Epimenides, a 6th-century BC philosopher and religious prophet who stated in his De Oraculis that Zeus was immortal, in contradiction to the general feeling of those living on the island of Crete:

They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one
The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!
But you are not dead: you live and abide forever,
For in you we live and move and have our being.

As an aside, the final line of this poem may also seem familiar to you since Paul uses it in lecturing to the philosophers gathered on the Areopagus of Athens, as related in Acts 17:16-31. Despite the fact that the quotation in Titus seems to come from Epimenides, Matthews states that Posidonius is more likely the original source upon which Paul was relying. And to further complicate the situation, J.D. Charles notes, “Some NT scholars attribute the proverb to the third-century B.C. Poet Callimachus, whose Hymn to Zeus contains only the expression 'Cretans are always liars.'” The problem with these two attributions is that neither Posidonius nor Callimachus was a native of Crete. So either Paul was incorrect or Epimenides is the author about which Paul is speaking.

Another factor in favor of Epimenides being the original author of the saying is the fact that Paul calls him “one of their own prophets.” In fact, Peisker and others note that Epimenides was considered to be a prophet and wonder-worker by both Plutarch and Plato, and so Paul is not exaggerating in his statement.

Some may be concerned that Paul was so conversant with pagan literature that he even quoted it directly (see also Acts 17:28 and I Corinthians 15:33). But Yamauchi points out, “As these were commonplace sayings, they do not prove that Paul read the literary works or that he attended plays, but they do show that he had enough acquaintance with such works to use them as illustrations in his sermons and in his letters.”

And if you are upset that Paul apparently quoted pagan sources as being authoritative, just keep in mind the current practice of preachers to get their sermon illustrations from TV shows, podcasts, movies, or sports events. That does not in any way indicate that those pastors endorse everything that might be in those sources; it just provides a convenient means of communicating with an audience using things in the current culture with which they are familiar.

The so-called Epimenides Paradox is quite famous among logicians and philosophers. The nature of the supposed paradox goes something like this, as expressed by an Oxford scholar Thomas Fowler in 1869: "Epimenides the Cretan says, 'that all the Cretans are liars,' but Epimenides is himself a Cretan; therefore he is himself a liar. But if he is a liar, what he says is untrue, and consequently, the Cretans are truthful; but Epimenides is a Cretan, and therefore what he says is true; saying the Cretans are liars, Epimenides is himself a liar, and what he says is untrue. Thus we may go on alternately proving that Epimenides and the Cretans are truthful and untruthful."

From the whole context of Titus 1, it is obvious that Paul is not intending to make a blanket condemnation of the whole population of Crete. For one thing, he tells Titus to appoint church leaders from among the people who are “blameless.” (Titus 1:5-9) Secondly, in introducing the quotation, Paul pointedly states that it applies specifically to one portion of the population (vv. 10-11). In doing that, Paul was really following the example of Epimenides himself, who is not condemning the Cretans in lying about everything, just specifically their belief in the death of Zeus. In both cases, we should keep in mind the penchant for hyperbole (purposeful exaggeration) among ancient writers, especially when they had a specific ax to grind, as did both Epimenides and Paul during their respective diatribes.

But even taking the passage literally, there are also logical methods for avoiding the implication that we are facing an insolvable paradox. Some of them depend upon how the original statement was worded:

    a. “Cretans are always liars” – This is the accepted translation from the Greek, and it seems to express the fact that many, but not necessarily all, Cretans cannot open their mouth with out stating a lie.

    b. “All Cretans are liars” – This is how Fowler poses the statement, but at best it expresses the thought that all Cretans tend to lie on a number of occasions, not necessarily in every single statement they make. And it does not seem to be the best translation from the Greek of either Epimenides or Paul. And logicians point out that Fowler and others seem to think that the negation of "all Cretans are liars" is "all Cretans are honest" when in fact the statement might be negated by saying that there exists at least one Cretan who is honest, and thus not all Cretans are liars.

    c. or “All Cretans are always liars.” – This is not really how the original was stated. If it were, it might definitely lead to a true paradox in which one would never really know what the truth was.

As a final comment, I would like to quote a contrary opinion by Thiselton concerning this passage:

“Its inclusion in the Pastorals with the added statement 'this testimony is true' suggests not that the author has misunderstood the philosophical point, but that the Cretan antinomy [paradox] constitutes a valid example of the kind of profitless controversy described above, which makes truth a merely theoretical matter.” It is doubtful whether Thiselton is correct either in his depiction of Paul's misunderstanding of the quotation or in the explanation as to what Paul meant since there is no evidence that the paradoxical nature of Epimenides' statement was of any widespread controversy, and was probably not even recognized as a paradox worth discussion until many centuries later.