One of themselves—a prophet of their own— Epimenides, whose words St. Paul here quotes, is said by Diogenes Laertius to have been a great favourite of the gods; but Aristotle says, he never foretold any future event: which is a plain argument, that the word prophet is sometimes used in a very large sense. Indeed, the words poet and prophet were often used promiscuously by the Greeks and Romans; perhaps, because their poets pretended to be inspired, and were by some believed to be so: see Acts 17:28. From this, as well as other places, it appears, that St. Paul had been well read in the Greek poets; probably in his younger days he was brought up in the schools of Tarsus, before he went to Jerusalem, to sit at the feet of Gamaliel: and even after he was an inspired apostle, he did not think that he acted out of character, when, as apostle of the Gentiles, he quoted their poets. Perhaps it might have been, in some points of view, more proper to have translated the Greek verse before us in such a manner, that it might have read as a verse in English:
"False Cretans! savage beasts, with bellies slow."
The poet here seems to suggest a remarkable contrast, to shew what a mixture there was of fierceness and luxury in the character of the Cretans. Savage beasts are generallyactive and nimble; but these men, while they had the fury of lions and tygers, indulged themselves so much in the most sordid idleness and intemperance, that they grew all belly as it were, and like to a breed of swine common in the Eastern countries, which were oftenso burdened with fat, that they could hardly move. As for their proneness to falsehood, it is well known, that the word Κρητιζειν, "to talk like a Cretan," was a proverb for lying; as the word Κορινθιαζειν, "to live like a Corinthian," was for a luxurious and debauched life; and it is remarkable, that Polybius scarcely ever mentions the Cretans without some severe censure. Bishop Warburton accounts for the origin of this character of the Cretans in the following manner: "I supposed the view was enlarged, and the Cretans were called liars upon more accounts in St. Paul's time; but the rise of this proverb seems to have been this: while the other Greeks, in their lesser mysteries, concealed the origin of the gods, who were dead mortals raised to divine honour, for public benefits done to their country, or to mankind; the Cretans proclaimed this to all the world, by shewing the tomb of
Jupiter himself, and boasting that 'the father of gods and men' was a native of that country. This so exasperated all Greece against them, that they called them eternal liars. Thus Lucan, lib. 8 and so Callimachus, with a variety of other authors. The reason why they wereso exasperated at the Cretans for publishing this, seems to have been the affront it gave to the worshippers of idols, or the publishing what the politic protectors of the mysteries would have kept secret."