Angelus News | January 26, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 2

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
In Crete our faith
Around this time every year, my mind returns to the
island of Crete. Around a dozen years ago I led a
pilgrimage there, in the midst of a cruise “in the
footsteps of St. Paul.”
There’s no detailed scriptural account of the apostle’s
visit there. All we know is that he “left” his disciple Titus
on Crete (Titus 1:5),
ordaining him to lead
the Church there. He
had surely “laid hands”
on Titus, as he had on
Timothy (2 Timothy 1:6).
Both men had received
the grace of holy orders,
and then they lived up to
it. Thus we honor them
together on the feast they
share, January 26.
In a letter to Titus, Paul
aims an insult at the people
of Crete: “Cretans,”
he says, “are always liars,
evil beasts, lazy gluttons”
(Titus 1:12).
Ouch. That hurts, even
after 2,000 years. But Paul
was quoting a Cretan
poet when he said it.
The poet’s name is Epimenides
— a pagan! —
and Paul actually quotes
him more than once in
the New Testament. He
even refers to him as a
prophet.
Epimenides was a
semi-mythical, semi-historical
figure who lived on
Crete in the sixth or seventh
century before Christ. He was a shepherd who one day,
according to legend, fell asleep in a cave and awoke 57 years
later. He emerged transfigured, filled with supernatural gifts.
His fame spread far, even to Athens, some 214 miles away.
Athenians, centuries later, remembered Epimenides for
delivering their city from a curse. They had been suffering
“St. Paul,” by Hans Baldung Grien, 1484-1545, German. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
from a series of calamities, so they called upon the poet-prophet
for help. He suggested that perhaps there was a
god yet unknown to them, who would be willing and able
to help if appropriate sacrifices were offered. So the people
of Athens built altars to this nameless deity all over the city,
and the legacy of Epimenides in Athens was an aggregation
of altars dedicated “to an
unknown god.”
Paul spoke about such
an altar when he was
preaching in the city
(Acts 17:23).
In the same speech, Paul
also quoted one of the
poems of Epimenides.
The poem said of a certain
god: “In him we live
and move and have our
being” (see Acts 17:28).
Paul apparently saw this
line as a prophecy of the
divine life that Christians
experience through
baptism.
His citation is no
happenstance. In fact,
the line comes from the
same poem from which
he drew the insult that
appears in his Letter to
Titus. He knew the poem
well.
And he knew well what
he was doing when he
left Titus on Crete. Paul
gave the island something
better than the legendary
Epimenides. He gave the
Cretans a priest after the
image of Jesus Christ. He gave them a bishop who would
lead them away from lying and gluttony — a saint they
would honor forever. When I visited his church in Crete, I
saw his relics encased in silver.
Now his feast is upon us. We’re not in Crete, but we can
invoke his intercession. Please join me in doing so.
32 • ANGELUS • January 26, 2024