Epimenides
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Epimenides of Knossos (or Epimenides of Crete) (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Langx) was a semi-mythical 7th- or 6th-century BC Greek seer and philosopher-poet, from Knossos or Phaistos.
LifeEdit
While tending his father's sheep, Epimenides is said to have fallen asleep for fifty-seven years in a Cretan cave sacred to Zeus, after which he reportedly awoke with the gift of prophecy (Diogenes Laërtius i. 109–115). Plutarch writes that Epimenides purified Athens after the pollution brought by the Alcmeonidae, and that the seer's expertise in sacrifices and reform of funeral practices were of great help to Solon in his reform of the Athenian state. The only reward he would accept was a branch of the sacred olive, and a promise of perpetual friendship between Athens and Knossos (Plutarch, Life of Solon, 12; Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 1).
Athenaeus also mentions him, in connection with the self-sacrifice of the erastes and eromenos pair of Aristodemus and Cratinus, who were believed to have given their lives in order to purify Athens. Even in antiquity there were those who held the story to be mere fiction (The Deipnosophists, XIII. 78–79). Diogenes Laërtius preserves a number of spurious letters between Epimenides and Solon in his Lives of the Philosophers. Epimenides was also said to have prophesied at Sparta on military matters.
He died in Crete at an advanced age; according to his countrymen, who afterwards honoured him as a god, he lived nearly three hundred years. According to another story, he was taken prisoner in a war between the Spartans and Knossians, and put to death by his captors, because he refused to prophesy favourably for them. Pausanias reports that when Epimenides died, his skin was found to be covered with tattooed writing. This was considered odd, because the Greeks reserved tattooing for slaves. Some modern scholarsTemplate:Who have seen this as evidence that Epimenides was heir to the shamanic religions of Central Asia, because tattooing is often associated with shamanic initiation.Template:Citation needed The skin of Epimenides was preserved at the courts of the ephores in Sparta, conceivably as a good-luck charm.
According to Diogenes Laërtius, Epimenides met Pythagoras in Crete, and they went to the Cave of Ida.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
WorksEdit
Several prose and poetic works, now lost, were attributed to Epimenides, including a theogony, an epic poem on the Argonautic expedition, prose works on purifications and sacrifices, a cosmogony, oracles, a work on the laws of Crete, and a treatise on Minos and Rhadymanthus.
CreticaEdit
Epimenides' Cretica (Κρητικά) is quoted twice in the New Testament. Its only source is a 9th-century Syriac commentary by Isho'dad of Merv on the Acts of the Apostles, discovered, edited and translated (into Greek) by Prof. J. Rendel Harris in a series of articles.<ref name="RendelHarris1906">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="RendelHarris1907">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In the poem, Minos addresses Zeus thus:
Τύμβον ἐτεκτήναντο σέθεν, κύδιστε μέγιστε, |
They fashioned a tomb for you, holy and high one, |
The "lie" of the Cretans is that Zeus was mortal; Epimenides considered Zeus immortal. "Cretans, always liars," with the same theological intent as Epimenides, also appears in the Hymn to Zeus of Callimachus. The fourth line is quoted (with a reference to one of "your own poets") in Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17, verse 28.
The second line is quoted, with a veiled attribution ("a prophet of their own"), in the Epistle to Titus, chapter 1, verse 12, to warn Titus about the Cretans. The "prophet" in Titus 1:12 is identified by Clement of Alexandria as "Epimenides" (Stromata, i. 14). In this passage, Clement mentions that "some say" Epimenides should be counted among the seven wisest philosophers.
Chrysostom (Homily 3 on Titus) gives an alternative fragment:
- For even a tomb, King, of you
- They made, who never died, but ever shall be.
Epimenides paradoxEdit
The Epimenides paradox refers to a saying attributed to Epimenides: "All Cretans are liars."Template:Efn This statement creates a paradox of self-reference similar to the liar paradox. This quote is referenced in the New Testament Epistle to Titus, which indirectly alludes to Epimenides as a "prophet" of the Cretans.
See alsoEdit
FootnotesEdit
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NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
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Further readingEdit
- Demoulin, Hubert (1901). Épiménide de Crète. Bruxelles. New edition with updates: Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2024.
- Dodds, Eric R., The Greeks and the Irrational, University of California Press, 2004. Template:ISBN. pp. 140–147.
- Template:Cite LotEP
- Parker, Robert, "Epimenides", in Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Antiquity, Volume 4, Cyr – Epy, edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, Brill, 2004. Template:ISBN.
- Zaykov, Andrey. Epimemdes' activities in Sparta (In Russian + English summary). In: Journal of Ancient History. Moscow, 2002. No 4. P. 110-130.