One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.
All Commentaries on Titus 1:12 Go To Titus 1
Jerome
AD 420
You ask me at the close of your letter why it is that sometimes in my writings I quote examples from secular literature and thus defile the purity of the church with the foulness of heathenism…. For who is there who does not know that both in Moses and the prophets there are passages cited from Gentile books and that Solomon proposed questions to the philosophers of Tyre and answered others put to him by them…. The apostle Paul also, in writing to Titus, has used a line of the poet Epimenides: “The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.” Half of this line was afterward adopted by Callimachus.
