During our honeymoon on the sunny island of Crete, my wife and I rented a car for three days. We had set out early in the morning to visit the high plateau of Lassithi in the Ida Mountains. There is a cave where the supreme god Zeus was hidden by his mother shortly after his birth and later reared by caring nymphs, according to Greek mythology. On the way there, we quickly stocked up on some provisions at a local shop. Much to our consternation we noticed I had left my wallet there. What a shock as soon as we found out! Returning in a hurry, I enquired of the shopkeeper about my lost wallet, but without much hope that my wallet would still be there. Much to my surprise, the wallet had been neatly placed in a drawer under the wooden counter until the legal owner would return. Honest people, those Cretans!

Why did I really expect so little about the honesty of the people on the island of Crete? Because in the Bible Paul calls all Cretan liars in his pastoral letter of instruction to Titus, a church leader, missionary, and a companion and disciple of the apostle Paul. That is a strong statement, especially for someone who had probably never been to Crete himself. We do not get the impression that the apostle Paul knew the situation there from his own experience. He had just positioned his associate Titus on the island, with orders to support and assist the Christian congregations there and to appoint elders in all cities. One of the reasons was that certain opponents in the churches were active in Crete, causing confusion and unrest everywhere. Titus's mission had to silence these opponents and their false teaching. With a remarkable quote about the Cretan national character, still originating from a famous Cretan, the apostle Paul indicates how necessary the latter is:

One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own prophet, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beast, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. (Titus 1:12).

This quotation forms an idyllic emphasis in Greek, which is a line of poetry with a fixed rhythmic pattern of six meter. Many ancient epic poems, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid, were written in this form.

Paul's quote about Cretans is attributed to Epimenides of Knossos (in Crete), a fifth or sixth century BC poet-philosopher. (This is done for the first time by Clement of Alexandria, Weaves, 1594). Sadly, the original context has been lost, but it is widely believed that the quote comes from a work by Epimenides whose title must have been either “Theogony” or “Oracles”. The first part, about the deception of the Cretans, returns in the well-preserved Hymn to Zeus by the Greek court poet Callimachus from the third century BC. Yet it is implausible that Callimachus was the source of the whole quotation and it would therefore be incorrect to seek its application exclusively in Cretan deception (Faber).

Epimenides was regarded in ancient times as a “divine man”, displaying both prophetic and priestly traits (Plato explicitly calls him a figure of the Apocrypha in his dialogue Laws I 642 D-E). By calling him their prophet, Paul probably first agrees with the Cretans’ own pretensions and then asserts without objection that Epimenides's prophetic words are true. A born Jew but at the same time drenched in the Hellenistic culture of the city of Tarsus, Paul frequently gives evidence of thorough education in Greek literature (Acts 17: 8a; 1 Cor. 15:33; Titus 1:12; see further Hock as well as Vegge). So, he may very well have received lines of poetry like Epimenides's “from his schooling” and he was undoubtedly able to extract such wisdom from memory at the right time. In this case, it is especially striking that a Greek poet of Cretan descent has formulated a criticism of the Cretans that could be applied by Paul effortlessly in the situation that his co-worker Titus was confronted with on the island of Crete. All three poetic qualifications of Epimenides, on closer inspection, appear to hold true for the Cretans in a general sense as well as for the Cretan contradictors in particular:

• Incorrigible liars (aei pseusthai). In Greek there is even a verb, krètizein, which means: to lie like a Cretan. Here the use by Callimachus can be enlightening. In his Hymn to Zeus, he refers to the claim that the supreme god Zeus was not only raised on Crete but also died there. "The Cretans have constructed a tomb for you, but you did not die, for you are eternal" (annotated translation in Van der Horst). Because they oppose the traditional myths about the Olympian gods, all Cretans are notorious liars! And that while of the only true God it had already been said at the introduction of this letter that he is the God who never lies (Titus 1: 2). Titus must stand up for the truth of the gospel. The contradictors are Cretan liars, so long as they willfully and knowingly oppose the truth proclaimed by the only true God in the world.
• Wild beasts. According to various ancient authors, there are no wild animals to be found on the island of Crete. There were no wolves, bears or other predators, only a poisonous crab species. (Pliny, a naturalist and natural philosopher, who wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia, calls the island "animal-less", void of animals. The wild beasts on Crete are therefore not animals; but are people who act in a beastly manner. This ties in with the bad reputation of the Cretans which had built up over time because of their barbaric behavior. It can also be said of these opponents that they carry on like wild animals. In verse 10 they were called in subordinate. The accusation of unfair profit may be related to this. They are dangerous predators, always looking for prey. In contrast, Titus should propagate self-control in Crete (Titus 1: 6; 2:4.6).
• Lazy gluttons, (literally: “bellies without work” (gasteres argai)). The belly is a model for gluttony. Anyone who does not work will consequently become a lazy glutton. Compare what Paul writes about the enemies of the cross of Christ: Their god is their belly, their honor is shamelessness, and their attention is focused only on earthly things (Phil. 3:19). This earthiness is also reflected in the text that presumably served as a model for Epimenides's line of poetry, namely the Theogony of Hesiod from the eighth century BC. His teaching poem on the origins of the Olympian gods begins with the singing daughters of Zeus who address people with the claim, "Shepherds of the wilderness, reproachable evildoers, you are nothing more than bellies." For Cretans, the stomach comes first. What does this say about the gainsayers? Perhaps reference is made to the dietary regulations implied in verse 15; the cleansing of both their mind and their conscience is necessary (De Viiers). Verse 16 emphatically says that the opponents are unfit for any good work. Conversely, Titus must tell the people of Crete that the people who follow Christ Jesus ought to be zealous for good works.

If someone lies, is what he says the truth or not? This question, known in logic as the liar paradox, has occupied many minds since ancient times. The line of Epimenides, quoted by Paul, is often cited as an early example of such a liar paradox. The poet says that all Cretans are liars. Being from Crete, he would be one of those liars himself. But then suddenly all Cretans become truth-speakers...

Is a Cretan quote about Cretans being liars true or not? In this connection it becomes interesting that the letter to Titus immediately goes on to say, this is a true testimony. Hanson suggests that the author wants to avoid logical confusion by stating explicitly that this Cretan at least spoke the truth. Gray defends another possibility. The addition could also be ironically intended by the author; according to him, such paradoxical reasoning can only lead to useless discussions which the eloquent false teachers in Crete gladly used (see Thiselton). In the text, however, a connection between this prophet among the Cretans and his testimony (marturia) is most obvious: the quotation is presented by the apostle Paul as a prophetic testimony to the situation in Crete in which the truth comes to light, as there have been more prophets who have spoken true words against their will (for example, of Balaam and Caiaphas).

The fact that all Cretans are liars is therefore neither a touristic wisdom of experience nor a logical train breaker. It is the statement of one of the islanders himself, quoted by Paul as a prophetic testimony revealing the truth. Namely, the truth is about a lying society, it is about people who behave beastly, and about the veneration of the belly. Does that only occur in Crete, so that only there were gainsayers who spoke up? According to Kidd, the three negative qualities that emerge here are, as it were, positively mirrored in the trio of Hellenistic but at the same time Christian virtues that Paul lists in Titus 2:12: we must be self- controlled (soophronous), upright (dikaioos) and live godly (euseboos) lives in this present world. Apparently, living like that is not limited to a sunny island. Hopefully, that is why not only Cretans, but also many other citizens of the world allow themselves to be addressed by the truth of God, who indeed never lies.