Epimenides

“ They extolled him not merely as a sage and a spiritual purifier, but also as a poet,—very long compositions on religious and myth [p. 87] ical subjects being ascribed to him; according to some accounts, they even worshipped him as a god. Both Plato and Cicero considered Epimenidês in the same light in which he was regarded by his contemporaries, as a prophet divinely inspired, and foretelling the future under fits of temporary ecstasy: but according to Aristotle, Epimenidês himself professed to have received from the gods no higher gift than that of divining the unknown phenomena of the past. ”

“ Paul knew a great deal of Greek classical literature, but these three quotations, from Epimenides, from some Greek tragedian, and from Cleanthes or Aratus, do not at all prove the point. In all three cases the source of the quotation is not certain. In the one before us the Apostle no doubt tells us that he is quoting a Cretan “prophet,” and therefore quotes the line as coming from Epimenides. But a man may [225] know that “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” is Shakespeare, without having read a single play. ”

“ It was in the spirit of this wisdom that, among the ancient Hebrews, it was believed the gates of Heaven would be inevitably opened to that sinner, or saint, who, with good lungs and implicit confidence, should vociferate the word "Amen!" It was in the spirit of this wisdom that, when a great plague raged at Athens, and every means had been in vain attempted for its removal, Epimenides, as Laertius relates, in his second book, of that philosopher, advised the erection of a shrine and temple "to the proper God." ”

“ Ardalus inquires: Epimenides, to abstain from all other victuals, and to content himself with a little composition of his own, which the Greeks call [Greek omitted] (HUNGER-RELIEVING) ? This he takes into his mouth and chews, and eats neither dinner nor supper. This instance obliged the whole company to be a little while silent, until Thales in a jesting way replied, that Epimenides did very wisely, for hereby he saved the trouble and charge of grinding and boiling his meat, as Pittacus did. ”

“ The religious mission of Epimenidês to Athens, and its efficacious as well as healing influence on the public mind, deserve notice as characteristics of the age in which they occurred. [152] If we transport ourselves two centuries forward, to the Peloponnesian war, when rational influences and positive habits of thought had acquired a durable hold upon the superior minds, and when practical discussions on political and judicial matters were familiar to every Athenian citizen, no such uncontrollable religious misery could well have subdued the entire public ”

“ He told the Athenians that the Persian host would not come for ten years, and would go away again, having suffered more harm than they had inflicted. Now Epimenides was of my family, and when he visited Athens he entered into friendship with your forefathers.' I see that you are willing to listen, and I have the will to speak, if I had only the ability. But, first, I must define the nature and power of education, and by this road we will travel on to the God Dionysus. The man who is to be good at anything must have early training ”

“ III. It used to be a common saying of his that men ought not to seek for things in words, but for words in things; for that things are not made on account of words, but that words are put together for the sake of things.
IV. He died when he had lived ninety-seven years.
LIFE OF EPIMENIDES.
I. Epimenides, as Theopompus and many other writers tell us, was the son of a man named Phædrus, but some call him the son of Dosiadas; and others of Agesarchus. He was a Cretan by birth, of the city of Gnossus; but because he let his hair grow long, he did not look like a Cretan. ”

“ According to others he put an end to the plague by the sacrifice of two human victims. The Athenian senate, full of gratitude to their benefactor, tendered him the gift of a talent. But Epimenides refused all compensation, and only required, as an acknowledgment of what he had done, that there should be perpetual peace between the Athenians and the people of Gnossus, his native city. [80] He is said to have died shortly after his return to his country, being of the age of one hundred and fifty-seven years. [81]
EMPEDOCLES. Empedocles has also been mentioned as a disciple of Pythagoras. ”

“ Nothing is more remarkable about Empedocles than his versatility and comprehensiveness. Other men of his age were as nobly born, as great in philosophic power, as disti [Pg 208] nguished for the part they bore in politics, as celebrated for poetic genius, as versed in mystic lore, in medicine, and in magic arts. But Parmenides, Pythagoras, Pausanias, and Epimenides could claim honor in but one, or two at most, of these departments. Empedocles united all, and that too, if we may judge by the temper of his genius and the few legends handed down to us about his life, in no ordinary degree. ”

“ The ancient Greek writers, especially Lucian, have left biographical notices concerning several centenarians of their country, and mention philosophers, moralists, poets, and artisans who reached and even passed one hundred years, among them the following: Solon, Thales, Pittacus, Epimedes, four of the seven wise men of Greece, lived more than a hundred years according to Lucian, who fixed the date of their death at about b. c. 600. Epimenides, poet and historian, according to Pliny, died at one hundred and fifty-four ”

“ Authors of heavenly love to many men.
LOVE.
The circumstances, too, that happened to Cratinus the Athenian, are very notorious. For he, being a very beautiful boy, at the time when Epimenides was purifying Attica by human sacrifices, on account of some old pollution, as Neanthes of Cyzicus relates in the second book of his treatise on [Pg 961] Sacrifices, willingly gave himself up to secure the safety of the woman who had brought him up. And after his death, Apollodorus, his friend, also devoted himself to death, and so the calamities of the country were terminated. ”

“ Pe. Do you think that a Divine dream'd so many Years? For it is storied that he was a Divine.
Ch. I am with Child to hear.
The Answer.
Pe. What is it more than what Scotus and the School-men did afterwards? But Epimenides, he came off pretty well, he came to himself again at last; but a great many Divines never wake out of their Dreams.
Ch. Well go on, you do like a Poet; But go on with your Lye.
Pe. Epimenides waking out of his Sleep, goes out of his Cave, and looks about him, and sees all Things chang'd, the Woods, the Banks, the Rivers, the Trees, the Fields ”

“ Near the Skias was another circular building erected by Epimenides, containing statues of Olympian Zeus and Aphrodite. On the other side apparently of the street, in front of the Skias, were the tombs of Idas and Lynceus, the temple of Kora Soteira, said to have been built by Orpheus, or Abaris the Hyperboræan, the tomb of Cynortas and the temple of Castor. Near these were the statues of Apollo Carneios, and Aphetæos, the latter of which marked the point whence the suitors of Penelope started in their race for a wife, running up the street Aphetæ, whence the name. ”

“ For my part, I never heard mention of her in story or otherwise, although her son, the winged Eros, is often named in the love-songs which form a large part of the popular poetry.
Vows and offerings which would in former days have been made to Aphrodite are now made either to suitable saints who have taken her place, such as S. Catharine [265] , or to the Fates (Μοίραις) , who were from of old associated with her. According to a fragment of Epimenides [266] , ‘golden Aphrodite and the deathless Fates’ were daughters of Cronos and Euonyme. Their sisterly relation was recognised also in cult. ”

“ Epicúrus: 342-270 B.C. Athenian philosopher and founder of the Epicurean school, of which the aim was ‘peace of mind’ or ‘freedom from emotional disturbance’. His own life (as his tenets required) was simple and wholesome, and the self-indulgence of the sect in later days was either a parody or a misconception of his teachings. A voluminous writer on physics and ethics, but with a bad style.
Epiménȋdes: priest-prophet and bard of Crete, with peculiar knowledge of medicine and methods of purification. ”

“ So Epimenides of Crete is said to have spent forty-five years in a cavern, and Minos descends into the sacred cave of Jupiter to receive from him the elements of law. The awe attached to woods and caverns, it may be observed, is to be found in the Northern as well as Eastern superstitions. And there is scarcely a nation on the earth in which we do not find the ancient superstition has especially attached itself to the cavern and the forest, peopling them with peculiar demons. Darkness, silence, and solitude are priests that eternally speak to the senses ”

“ Epimenides has an epistle to Solon, to invite him to Crete, under the tyranny of Pisistratus.'
'Epimenides often pretended that he rose from death to life.'
The above notes are sufficient to shew that he read the ancients with attention, and knew how to select the most curious passages, and most deserving the reader's observation.
About the year 1711 the Dr. published a piece called the British Palladium, or a welcome of lord, Bolingbroke from France. Soon after this, Dr. Swift, Dr. Friend, Mr. Prior, with some others of lord Bolingbroke's adherents, paid a visit to Dr. ”

“ I have retained the original word here, because it appears most appropriate to the passage; but the reader must be warned, by a reference to the familiar example in Epist. Tit. I. 12, that with the ancients the characters of poet and prophet were confounded in a way that belongs not at all to our modern usage of the same words. Epimenides of Crete, in fact, to whom the Apostle Paul alludes, was not only a prophet, but also a physician, like Apollo (ἱατρόμαντις, Eumen. v. 62) . In the same way the Hebrew word Nabah, prophetess, is applied to Miriam, Exod. xv. 20 ”

“ These things are sufficient to justify the epithet of prophet, given him here by St. Paul. It may also be remarked that vates and poeta, prophet and poet, were synonymous terms among the Romans.
The Cretians are always liars - The words quoted here by the apostle are, according to St. Jerome, Socrates, Nicephorus, and others, taken from a work of Epimenides, now no longer extant, entitled Περι χρησμων· Concerning Oracles. The words form a hexameter verse: - Κρητες αει ψευσται, κακα θηρια, γαστερες αργαι.
The Cretans are always liars; destructive wild beasts; sluggish gluttons. ”

“ The military merits alone of Epaminondas, had they merely belonged to a general of mercenaries, combined with nothing praiseworthy in other ways,—would have stamped him as a man of high and original genius, above every other Greek, antecedent or contemporary. But it is the peculiar excellence of this great man that we are not compelled to borrow from one side of his character in order to compensate deficiencies in another. ”

“ For when we follow the facts as he himself narrates them, we shall find them much more in harmony with the reproaches which he puts into the mouth of Epaminondas. Epaminondas had first marched into Peloponnesus (in 369 B.C.) at the request of both Arcadians and Eleians, for the purpose of protecting them against Sparta. He had been the first to give strength and dignity to the Arcadians, by organizing them into a political aggregate, and by forming a strong frontier for them against Sparta, in Messênê and Megalopolis. ”

“ For the Lacedemonian and the Athenian leaders enjoyed the ancient reputation of their cities, while their soldiers were men of a spirit, but the Thebans, whom Epaminondas raised to the highest position, were a disheartened people, accustomed to obey others.
8.11.10 Epaminondas had been told before by an oracle from Delphi to beware the sea (pelagos) . So he was afraid to step on board a man-of-war or to sail in a merchant-ship, but by “pelagos” the god indicated the grove “Pelagos” and not the sea. Places with the same name misled Hannibal the Carthaginian, and before him the Athenians also. ”

“ So with Epimetheus's consent she opened the lid once more, and out fluttered a tiny little creature with beautiful gauzy wings. She flew straight to Pandora, then to Epimetheus, and at her touch all their hurts were healed and all their pain forgotten.
The name of this gentle messenger was Hope; and she had been hidden in the chest secretly by one of the pitying gods, who grieved that Jupiter was sending so many ills to fret mankind. The host of evil beings, once set free, could never again be shut up in their narrow prison ”

“ Epaminondas employed all his eloquence to impress upon his countrymen, that, Sparta being now humbled, Athens was their actual and prominent enemy. He reminded them,—in language such as had been used by Brasidas in the early years of the Peloponnesian war, and by Hermokrates at Syracuse, [653] —that men such as the Thebans, brave and trained soldiers on land, could soon acquire the like qualities on shipboard; and that the Athenians themselves had once been mere landsmen, until the exigencies of the Persian war forced them to take to the sea. ”

“ It seemed as if the box were bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big enough to hold it without Pandora's continually stumbling over it and making Epimetheus stumble over it likewise, and bruising all four of their shins.
Well, it was really hard that poor Epimetheus should have a box in his ears from morning till night; especially as the little people of the earth were so unaccustomed to vexations in those happy days that they knew not how to deal with them. Thus a small vexation made as much disturbance then as a far bigger one would in our own times. ”