Epimenides

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Epimenides of Knossos

Epimenides of

philosopher-poet, from Knossos or Phaistos
.

Life

While tending his father's sheep, Epimenides is said to have fallen asleep for fifty-seven years in a

Alcmeonidae, and that the seer's expertise in sacrifices and reform of funeral practices were of great help to Solon in his reform of the Athenian state. The only reward he would accept was a branch of the sacred olive, and a promise of perpetual friendship between Athens and Knossos (Plutarch, Life of Solon, 12; Aristotle, Ath. Pol
. 1).

Athenaeus also mentions him, in connection with the self-sacrifice of the erastes and eromenos pair of Cratinus and Aristodemus, who were believed to have given their lives in order to purify Athens. Even in antiquity there were those who held the story to be mere fiction (The Deipnosophists, XIII. 78–79). Diogenes Laërtius preserves a number of spurious letters between Epimenides and Solon in his Lives of the Philosophers. Epimenides was also said to have prophesied at Sparta on military matters.

He died in Crete at an advanced age; according to his countrymen, who afterwards honoured him as a god, he lived nearly three hundred years. According to another story, he was taken prisoner in a war between the Spartans and Knossians, and put to death by his captors, because he refused to prophesy favourably for them.

ephores in Sparta, conceivably as a good-luck charm. Epimenides is also reckoned with Melampus and Onomacritus as one of the founders of Orphism
.

According to Diogenes Laërtius, Epimenides met Pythagoras in Crete, and they went to the Cave of Ida.[1]

Works

Epimenides from "Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum"

Several prose and poetic works, now lost, were attributed to Epimenides, including a

Rhadymanthus
.

Cretica

Epimenides' Cretica (Κρητικά) is quoted twice in the

Isho'dad of Merv on the Acts of the Apostles, discovered, edited and translated (into Greek) by Prof. J. Rendel Harris in a series of articles.[2][3][4]

In the poem, Minos addresses Zeus thus:

J. Rendel Harris' hypothetical Greek text:[3]

Τύμβον ἐτεκτήναντο σέθεν, κύδιστε μέγιστε,
Κρῆτες, ἀεὶ ψευδεῖς, κακὰ θηρία, γαστέρες ἀργαί.
Ἀλλὰ σὺ γ᾽ οὐ θνῇσκεις, ἕστηκας γὰρ ζοὸς αίεί,
Ἐν γὰρ σοὶ ζῶμεν καὶ κινύμεθ᾽ ἠδὲ καὶ ἐσμέν.
Translation:

They fashioned a tomb for you, holy and high one,
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.

The "lie" of the Cretans is that Zeus was mortal; Epimenides considered Zeus immortal. "Cretans, always liars," with the same theological intent as Epimenides, also appears in the Hymn to Zeus of Callimachus. The fourth line is quoted (with a reference to one of "your own poets") in Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17, verse 28.

The second line is quoted, with a veiled attribution ("a prophet of their own"), in the Epistle to Titus, chapter 1, verse 12, to warn Titus about the Cretans. The "prophet" in Titus 1:12 is identified by Clement of Alexandria as "Epimenides" (Stromata, i. 14). In this passage, Clement mentions that "some say" Epimenides should be counted among the seven wisest philosophers.

Chrysostom (Homily 3 on Titus
) gives an alternative fragment:

For even a tomb, King, of you
They made, who never died, but ever shall be.

Epimenides paradox

It is not clear when Epimenides became associated with the Epimenides paradox, a variation of the liar paradox. Epimenides himself does not appear to have intended any irony or paradox in his statement "Cretans, always liars." In the epistle to Titus, there is a warning that "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." In the Middle Ages, many forms of the liar paradox were studied under the heading of insolubilia, but these were not associated with Epimenides.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Hicks, R.D. (1972). "PYTHAGORAS (c. 582-500 B.C.)". Diogenes Laertius.
  2. ^ Rendel Harris, J. (Oct 1906). "The Cretans always liars". The Expositor. Seventh Series. 2: 305–17. Retrieved 9 April 2020.
  3. ^ a b Rendel Harris, J. (April 1907). "A further note on the Cretans". The Expositor. Seventh Series. 3: 332–337. Retrieved 9 April 2020.
  4. ^ Rendel Harris, J. (April 1912). "St. Paul and Epimenides". The Expositor. Eighth Series. 4: 348–353.

References

Further reading

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