Epimenides - WikiHQ

thumb|200px|Epimenides of Knossos

Epimenides of Knossos (or Epimenides of Crete) (; ) was a semi-mythical 7th- or 6th-century BC Greek seer and 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 Cretan cave sacred to Zeus, after which he reportedly awoke with the gift of prophecy (Diogenes Laërtius i. 109–115). Diogenes Laërtius relates that when a pestilence raged in Athens, the Pythonic oracle told the Athenians to bring Epimenides from Crete to give advice. When he came, he set sheep on Mars Hill and where they lay down had altars erected "to the suitable god", explaining the existence of these anonymous altars. One of these was apparently mentioned by Saint Paul in his speech on that hill (Acts 17).

Works

175px|thumb|Epimenides from "[[Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum|Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum"]]

Several prose and poetic works, now lost, were attributed to Epimenides, including a theogony, an epic poem on the Argonautic expedition, prose works on purifications and sacrifices, a cosmogony, oracles, a work on the laws of Crete, and a treatise on Minos and Rhadymanthus.

Cretica

Epimenides' Cretica (Κρητικά) is apparently quoted twice in the New Testament. Prof. James Rendel Harris found a passage in a Nestorian Scriptural commentary in Syriac, quite possibly written by Theodore of Mopsuestia, on Acts 17:18 saying:

Rendel Harris argued that this was in fact based on the poem of Epimenides, and that therefore both the phrase "in Him we live and move and have our being" in Acts and the phrase "Cretans, always liars..." in Titus are based on Epimenides. He offered the following suggestion for the original Greek:

{| style="border: 0px; margin-left:100px;"

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: J. Rendel Harris' hypothetical Greek text: