Pt1-14-AN UNENVIABLE REPUTATION

AN UNENVIABLE REPUTATION "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, idle gluttons"--Titus 1:12. THIS severe indictment by "a prophet of their own", which is quoted by the Apostle Paul, arouses curiosity. It may be a matter of surprise that a dignified apostle of Jesus Christ should pen such a judgment. Certainly there is that in it which demands some investigation. One recent commentator has written: "However such words may have befitted the pagan seer, it is not pleasant to regard them as taken up and endorsed by the great Christian apostle, who is thus made to stigmatise as liars, beasts and gluttons a whole people, among whom he had so successfully laboured that several churches had been founded in a short time. They are strange words from a venerable Christian minister to a younger minister to whom he had entrusted the care of those very souls; and in any case are superfluous, as addressed to one who must have known the characteristics of the Cretans quite as well as the writer himself." Other writers consider Paul’s utterance as "unpastoral tactlessness". These strictures, like the statement criticised, urge the Bible student to investigation. As a starting point we may take the profane quotation itself, and trace it to its source. Who was the "prophet of their own"? In the sixth century B.C. Epimenides, a Cretan poet, prophet and philosopher, wrote a poem on "Oracles" in which was the line quoted by Paul. Various magic powers were assigned to this writer, and his reputation as a prophet led to the circulation of many strange legends concerning him. After his death his name was greatly honoured among the Cretans, so that they even sacrificed to him as a god. It is said that the particular lie Epimenides had in mind was the statement that the tomb of Zeus. the supreme god of the Greeks, was on the island of Crete! Callimachus, keeper of manuscripts in the famous library of Alexandria about 250 B.C., quoted the first part of the line in his "Hymn to Zeus":

Cretans are always liars"; thy grave, has been claimed by the Cretans, Thine, O King immortal, who livest and reignest for ever. "

There is abundant support for giving a bad name to the Cretans. Polybius, the Greek historian, who wrote a lengthy work on the period 220-146 B.C., described the inhabitants of the island thus: "The Cretans, on account of their innate avarice, live in a perpetual state of private quarrel and public feud and civil strife . . . and you will hardly find anywhere characters more tricky and deceitful than those of the Cretans."

Plutarch, speaking of the flight of Perseus, King of Macedonia, from L. Æmilius Paulus, says that "of the common soldiers there followed him only those from Crete, not out of any good-will, but because they were as constant to his riches as the bees to their hive". Indeed, so bad was the reputation of these islanders that a proverb, in an alliterative line, classifies them amongst the three very bad K’s of antiquity:

Kretes, Kappadokai, Kilikes, tria kappa kakista. In Greek, the letter K is used as the initial letter of all such words as "Crete", there being no C in the language. To put the above line into modern form, we may write:

Cretans, Cappadocians, Cilicians, the three worst C’s.

Other testimonies can be cited against the character of the Cretans. An epigram asks, as if demanding the impossible, "Who knows of a righteous Cretan?" and describes the race as always robbers and pirates, and unjust. As a climax to this unsavoury array, let it be said that, just as a Greek verb formed from the word Corinth meant "to act the wanton", so a word formed from Cretan came to mean "to cheat" or "to lie".

Paul, then, used a quotation concerning the Cretans which must have been often on the lips of those who had dealings with them. But in what sense did he make use of the expression? Did he mean to imply, as his critics seem to have thought, that every person on the island was worthy of this damaging description? Surely not; else, where would be found those worthy to be ordained elders in every city? Much of the advice given by Paul to Titus receives point for us when we know of the general environment of these Christians, but the special application the apostle has in mind is to those Judaising teachers who everywhere hampered his work. These false teachers seem to have exercised their evil influence with peculiar power in Crete, and not a few were listening to Jewish "fables" rather than to sound doctrine. Amongst the Cretans, it was an easy matter for those seekers after "filthy lucre" to overthrow "whole houses" from the faith, for they had but to appeal to the very passions most common among the people of their race.

Hence, such outspokenness on the part of Paul is not a lowering of his dignity, or an example of "pastoral tactlessness", or an instance of superfluous abuse. Rather is it, as Dr. Horton says, "the privilege of an apostle who has ’felt the spirit of the Highest’". If Paul could write to the Philippians concerning the same class: "Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers; beware of the concision" (Php 3:2), we need not be surprised that he used strong language when these false teachers were at work amongst a community such as that in Cretan cities. He had the authority to praise or to blame, and he used it in the name of the Lord.

Perhaps it would be well for us to be reminded of the fact that the words of Epimenides did not give a complete picture of Cretan civilisation. He was speaking of his own time, and subsequent criticisms show that the evil name clung to the people, but in earlier times they had characteristics of a nobler type. Recently Crete has become a place of great interest, particularly to those concerned with the study of antiquities, through the efforts of archæologists to unearth evidence of early civilisation in the Mediterranean. Not only has the famous palace of Cnossus been identified--in itself sufficient to show that on the island in early times a comparatively advanced civilisation existed--but it has now been proven that Crete was an important centre of the Mediterranean world in the pre-Homeric period. It was a land of flourishing communities, and a considerable sea-power. One scholar writes: "The remains of this period at Cnossus, Phæstus, Hagia Triada, and other lesser sites, mostly situated in East Crete, show us a luxurious, sport-loving people whose princes lived in elaborately decorated structures of stone, with well-developed systems of lighting, ventilation, drainage, and sanitation; while even the common folk had good stone houses. The dress of both men and women among the better class was full and rich. The precious metals were abundant; the arts of sculpture, painting and engraving were far advanced; and a system of writing in linear syllabic or alphabetic characters was perfected. The clay tablets, found in great numbers, prove that book-keeping was understood, and that a decimal system of reckoning was in use." Professor

Bury says. "The Cretans hold a distinct place in the history of civilisation by inventing the first method of writing that was ever practised in Europe." Crete is thought to be the link between Egypt and Greece in the development of European civilisation, and this makes many scholars regard the island as of great importance.

It would seem, then, that in early times the Cretans were more than "idle gluttons", whatever other undesirable epithets they merited. But moral decay often sets in in the midst of material prosperity, and perhaps their degeneration is another occasion for the lament, "How are the mighty fallen!"