WORKS OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [HOMILY III. HOMILY III TITUS i. 12-14. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bel lies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith ; Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth." THERE are several questions here. First, who it was that said this ? Secondly,why Paul quoted it ? Thirdly, why he brings forward a testimony that is not correct? Let us then offer a season able solution of these, having premised some other things. For when Paul was discoursing to the Athenians, in the course of his harangue he quoted these words, " To the Unknown God " : and again, " For we also are His offspring, as certain also ofyour own poets have said." (Acts xvii. 23, 28.) It was Epimenides 1 who said this, himself a Cretan, and whence he was moved to say it is necessary to mention. It is this. The Cretans have a tomb of Jupiter, with this in scription. " Here lieth Zan, whom they call Jove." On account of this inscription, then, the poet ridiculing the Cretans as liars, as he pro ceeds, introduces, to increase the ridicule, this passage. For even a tomb, O King, of thee They made, who never diedst, but aye shalt be. If then this testimony is true, observe what a difficulty ! For if the poet is true who said that they spoke falsely, in asserting that Jupiter could die, as the Apostle says, it is a fearful thing ! Attend, beloved, with much exactness. The poet said that the Cretans were liars fcr saying that Jupiter was dead. The Apostle confirmed i his testimony : so, according to the Apostle, j Jupiter is immortal : for he says, " this witness is true " ! What shall we say then? Or rather how shall we solve this? The Apostle has not said this, but simply and plainly applied this testimony to their habit of falsehood. Else why has he not added, " For even a tomb, O king, of thee, they made "? So that the Apostle has not said this, but only that one had well said, " The Cretians are always liars." But it is not only from hence that we are confident that Jupiter is not a God. From many other arguments we are able to prove this, and not from the testi mony of the Cretans. Besides, he has not said, 1 The words here quoted are found in Callimachus, Hymn ad Jov. v. 8, to whom Theodore! ascribes them. The "evil beasts," &c., is found in Hesiod, Theogon. v. 26, applied to shepherds. Downes suggested that Epimenides may have borrowed from Hesiod, and Callimachus from him. that in this they were liars. Nay and it is more probable that they were deceived as to this point too.2 For they believed in other gods, on which account the Apostle calls them liars. And as to the question, why does he cite the testimonies of the Greeks? It is because we put them most to confusion when we bring our testimonies and accusations from their own writers, when we make those their accusers, who are admired among themselves. For this reason he elsewhere quotes those words, "To the Unknown God." For the Athenians, as they did not receive all their gods from the beginning, but from time to time admitted some others, as those from the Hyperboreans, the worship of Pan, and the greater and the lesser mysteries, so these same, conjecturing that besides these there might be some other God, of whom they were ignorant, that they might be duly devout to him also, erected to him an altar, with this inscription, "To the Unknown God," thereby almost implying, " if there might be some God unknown to them." He therefore said to them, Him whom you have by anticipation acknowl edged, I declare to you. But those words, "We also are His offspring," are quoted from Aratus, who having previously said, " Earth s paths are full of Jove, the sea is full " adds, " For we too are His offspring," in which I conceive he shows that we are sprung from God. How then does Paul wrest what is said of Jupiter to the God of the universe? He has not trans ferred to God what belongs to Jupiter. But what is applicable to God, and was neither justly nor properly applied to Jupiter, this he restores to God, since the name of God belongs to Him alone, and is not lawfully bestowed upon idols. And from what writers should he address them ? From the Prophets ? They would not have be lieved them. Since with theJews too he does not argue from the Gospels, but from the Prophets. For this reason he says, " Unto the Jews I be came as a Jew, to them that are without law, as without law, to those that are under the Law, as under the Law." (i Cor. ix. 20, 21.) Thus does God too, as in the case of the wise men,He does not conduct them by an Angel, nor a Prophet, nor an Apostle, nor an Evangelist, but how? By a star. For as their art made them conversant with these, He made use of such 2 He seems to mean in thinking Jupiter a God.