| Geneva Study Bible {m} One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. (m) Epimenides, who was considered a prophet amongst them. See Laertius, and Cicero in his first book of divination. People's New Testament Titus 1:12 One of themselves. Of the Cretans. A prophet of their own. A Cretan sage, seer and teacher, Epimenides by name, who lived about 500 B.C. The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. The hard testimony of his countrymen is quoted from a poem now lost. Wesley's Notes 1:12 A prophet - So all poets were anciently called; but, besides, Diogenes Laertius says that Epimenides, the Cretan poet, foretold many things. Evil wild beasts - Fierce and savage. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 12. One-Epimenides of Phæstus, or Gnossus, in Crete, about 600. He was sent for to purify Athens from its pollution occasioned by Cylon. He was regarded as a diviner and prophet. The words here are taken probably from his treatise "concerning oracles." Paul also quotes from two other heathen writers, Aratus (Ac 17:28) and Menander (1Co 15:33), but he does not honor them so far as even to mention their names. of themselves . their own-which enhances his authority as a witness. "To Cretanize" was proverbial for to lie: as "to Corinthianize" was for to be dissolute. alway liars-not merely at times, as every natural man is. Contrast Tit 1:2, "God that cannot lie." They love "fables" (Tit 1:14); even the heathen poets laughed at their lying assertion that they had in their country the sepulchre of Jupiter. evil beasts-rude, savage, cunning, greedy. Crete was a country without wild beasts. Epimenides' sarcasm was that its human inhabitants supplied the place of wild beasts. slow bellies-indolent through pampering their bellies. They themselves are called "bellies," for that is the member for which they live (Ro 16:18; Php 3:19). Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 1:10-16 False teachers are described. Faithful ministers must oppose such in good time, that their folly being made manifest, they may go no further They had a base end in what they did; serving a worldly interest under pretence of religion: for the love of money is the root of all evil. Such should be resisted, and put to shame, by sound doctrine from the Scriptures. Shameful actions, the reproach of heathens, should be far from Christians; falsehood and lying, envious craft and cruelty, brutal and sensual practices, and idleness and sloth, are sins condemned even by the light of nature. But Christian meekness is as far from cowardly passing over sin and error, as from anger and impatience. And though there may be national differences of character, yet the heart of man in every age and place is deceitful and desperately wicked. But the sharpest reproofs must aim at the good of the reproved; and soundness in the faith is most desirable and necessary. To those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; they abuse, and turn things lawful and good into sin. Many profess to know God, yet in their lives deny and reject him. See the miserable state of hypocrites, such as have a form of godliness, but are without the power; yet let us not be so ready to fix this charge on others, as careful that it does not apply to ourselves. | 
