EPIMENIDES AWAKENS

(The title of this entry takes its cue from Goethe’s poem Des Epimenides Erwachen.)

Epimenides was a very important pre-Socratic figure, although neither Nietzsche nor Russell discuss him in any serious way. Ironically and unfairly, the most famous allusion to Epimenides is in the Bible courtesy of Apostle Paul:

“One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. 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.” (Titus 1:12-14.)

From this passage of the Scriptures, logicians have come up with the so-called Epimenides Paradox, which is also known as the paradox of self-reference. Epimenides the Cretan calls the Cretans liars; does it mean that he is a liar too, and what he says about the Cretans can’t be taken as true, contradicting Apostle Paul’s Biblical statement?

Here is one of the dangerous cases of religion getting mixed up with history, and conflicting with it. I am not going to take the position of scriptural fundamentalist here, and I would rather quote that odd Epimenidean fragment, which may not necessarily belong to Epimenides at all, but, assuming that it does, there can be an explanation here, which does not have to generate a paradox:

They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one,

The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!

But thou are not dead: thou livest and abidest forever,

For in thee we live and move and have our bidding.

The correct contextual meaning of this stanza is to denounce those Cretans who deny the immortality of the God Zeus. It is exactly in this sense that the poet Callimachus cites this alleged Epimenidean poem, and the so-called paradox quickly evaporates.

But quite enough of this para-Epimenidean talk. Let us get to Epimenides proper, to the extent that it can be done. Here is the Epimenides entry from Webster’s Biographical Dictionary:

“Epimenides. Cretan philosopher, prophet, and poet, of 7^th century BC. According to legend, he fell asleep as a lad in a cave and awoke after fifty-seven years to find that his soul, freed from the burden of the flesh, had studied philosophy and medicine and made him a great scholar in the new world around him. He sometimes replaces Periander as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. Goethe makes the legend subject of his poem Des Epimenides Erwachen.”

Aristotle, with his usual scientific matter-of-factness, explains Epimenides’ prophetic gift by his ability to delve into the mysteries of the past and interpret them with relevance to the future. There was a great bond connecting Epimenides to Athens. He was in special esteem in the city, on a par with the immortals. When the Athenians needed to purify the city from a curse of civil war, they invited him to perform the cleansing sacrifice, asking for no reward, except for a branch from the olive tree dedicated to the goddess Athena.

Epimenides, as a philosopher, was allegedly the author of an original cosmogony, but the details are vague. Generally speaking, he is a semi-legendary figure, and the stories about his 57-year sleep, or about his old age at the time of death (157 years, or even older), are pure legends. Nietzsche and Russell are right in their neglect of him as an actual philosopher and scientist. But for us to ignore him in this PreSocratica section would have been unseemly. After all, we are talking about an age where legend and truth are always mixed and virtually indistinguishable.