One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. One - Epimenides, priest, bard, and seer of Gnossus, in Crete, about 600 BC, sent for to purify Athens from the pollution occasioned by Cylon. The words here are probably from his treatise 'concerning oracles.' Paul also quotes from two other pagan writers, Aratus () and Menander (), but does not honour them so far as even to mention their names.

Of themselves ... their own - which enhances his authority as a witness. 'To Cretanize' was proverbial for to lie; as 'to Corinthianise' for to be dissolute. Alway liars - not merely at times, as every natural man is. Contrast , "God that cannot lie." They love "fables" (); even the pagan poets laughed at their lying assertion that they had in their country Jupiter's sepulchre.

Evil beasts - savage, cunning, greedy. Crete was a country without wild beasts. Epimenides' sarcasm was, that its human inhabitants supplied their place.

Slow bellies - indolent through pampering their bellies. They themselves are called "bellies," for that is the member for which they live (; ).

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