EPISTLE TO TITUS. 189 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE EPISTLE TO TITUS. 



I. A VERY characteristic circumstance in this epistle is 

 the quotation from Epimenides, chap. 1:12: " One of them- 

 selves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretiaus are 

 always liars, evil beasts, slow belHes." 



KprjTsg ael ipevarai, kcku, ■dripta, yacTipeg apyai. 



I call this quotation characteristic, because no writer in 

 the New Testament, except St. Paul, appealed to heathen 

 testimony ; and because St. Paul repeatedly did so. In his 

 celebrated speech at Athens, preserved in the seventeenth 

 chapter of the Acts, he tells his audience that in God '* we 

 live, and move, and have our being ; as certain also of your 

 own poets have said, For we are also his offspring :" 

 — TOv yap Kal yivog eoftev. 



The reader will perceive much similarity of manner in 

 these two passages. The reference in the speech is to a 

 heathen poet ; it is the same in the epistle. In the speech, 

 the apostle urges his hearers with the authority of a poet 

 of their own; in the epistle, he avails himself of the same 

 advantage. Yet there is a variation, which shows that the 

 hint of inserting a quotation in the epistle was not, as it 

 may be suspected, borrowed from seeing the like practice 

 attributed to St. Paul in the history ; and it is this, that in 

 the epistle the author cited is called a prophet, " one ol 

 themselves, even a propliet of their own." Whatever might 

 be the reason for calling Epimenides a prophet ; whether 

 the names of poet and prophet were occasionally converti- 

 ble ; whether Epimenides in particular had obtained that 

 title, as Grotius seems to have proved; or whether the 

 appellation was given to him, in this instance, as having 

 delivered a description of the Cretan character, which the 

 future state of morals among them verified : whatever was 

 the reason — and any of these reasons will account for the 



