EPIMENIDES. — Little is known of the Greek [E.], who lived in the 6th century B.C. According to legend, he was born in Cnossos, on the island of Crete, and was then summoned to Athens by Solon to purify the city from the plague.
Historians, especially relying on Plato (Laws, I, 642), consider him an Athenian seer who lived a few decades before the Persian Wars. According to Diogenes Laertius, he wrote, among other works, a Theogony connected with the legends of Hesiod and the Orphics.
St. Paul, speaking of the Cretans, seems to quote a verse by E. in these terms: "One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said: 'Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons'" (Tit. 1:12). St. John Chrysostom declared that the verse is by E. (In Tit. 1:12; PG 62, 575); St. Jerome adds the title of the work by E. cited: *Liber oraculorum* (PL 26, 571 sg.). Theodore (PG 82, 681), however, thinks that St. Paul is quoting from Callimachus (3rd century B.C.). Indeed, Callimachus also wrote: "Cretans are always liars." But Callimachus was not considered a Cretan, but rather from Cyrene.