Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

664 The Significance of the Bull

These lines, quoted from a lost hexameter poem by Epimenides (P)1,
seem at first sight to be a flat negation of the Cretan faith, opposing
to it a later and nobler conception of the deity. But, as spoken by
Minos, they more probably preserve to us the view taken by the
genuine mystic of Idaean Zeus. If so, we may be very sure that
they contain no vague transcendental philosophy, but the main
point and purpose of the Cretan cult. In early days the child that
represented the god re-born, in later times the bull that served as
his surrogate, was essentially a focus of divine force. Those who
tasted of the sacred flesh and blood thereby renewed their life, their
movement, their very being ; for they became one with the god
whom they worshipped. Such a belief, though primitive in its
inception, was obviously capable of further development. Paul,
when preaching at Athens, quoted the words of Minos and attached
to them in perpetuity a significance at once deeper and higher.
He must have been aware that the fine concluding phrase referred
originally to the Cretan Zeus ; for elsewhere2 he cites Minos'
description of the Cretans as given in the same context. Nay
more, with the next breath3 he adduces from Aratos a line in which

So the blessed Paul took this sentence from Minos; and he took the quotation,

"We are the offspring of God,"
from Aratus, a poet who wrote about God, and about the seven [planets] and the twelve
[signs]; saying, "From God we begin, from the Lord of heaven, that is Zeus; for all
markets, and seas, and havens are filled with His name; and also in every place, all men
are in want of Him, because we are His offspring; and He out of His goodness giveth
good signs to us and to all men. He moves us to come forward to work; and He ordains
all that is visible and invisible; and because of this we all worship Him, and say, 1 Hail
to thee, our Father, wonderful and great !' "

" Plato also and others say that souls are by nature from God." '

1 Dr Rendel Harris refers them to the poem of 4000 lines written by Epimenides
irepi Mti/w /cat 'Fada/xdvdvos (Diog. Laert. 1. 112). H. Diels Die Fragmente der Vorso-
kratikerz Berlin 1912 ii. 188 f. conjectures that the line KprjTes dei xf/evarai, Kana dypia,
yaarepes dpyai, cited by Paul in Tit. 1. 12, came from the prooimion of Epimenides'
Theogony (Diog. Laert. I. in eiroiiqae 5e Kovpr)Tti>i> Kai 'Kopvfidvruv yeveo~iv /cat deoyoviav,
'iiry] trevraKicrxihia) ; and O. Kern in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. vi. 176 agrees with him.
But Dr Rendel Harris in the Expositor 1907 p. 336f. acutely conjectures 'that the early
Cretans ate their deity sacramentally under the form of a pig: and...that, as in so many
similar cults, they ate the animal raw. This would at once explain why Epimenides
called them not only liars, but also beasts and gluttons.'

Putting together Kallim. h. Zeus 8 f., Acts 17. 28, and Tit. 1.12, we may venture to
restore the original text in some such form as the following: croi fxev ereKT-qvavro rdcpou,
TrawrrepTare dai/xov, | Kprjres dei xpevcrraL, KaKa drjpia, yacrre'pes dpyai- | dWd yap ov crxi
daves, faeis 8e Kai icrraaai. aleL, | ev croi yap ^Cojiev /cat Kiveop-eada Kai ei/nev. Dr Rendel
Harris in the Expositor 1907 p. 335 f. (cp. ib. 1912 p. 350) restores : rv/xfiov ereKTrjvavTo
credev, kv5ktt€, fxeyiaTe, \ Kprjres, dei \j/ev8eis, KaKa diqpia, yacrrepes dpyai. | dAAa av y ov
dvffGKet.s, eo~t7)Kas yap foos aiei, | Iv yap croi £&pLev /cat KLvdjaeB' ijde Kai ecr/iev.

2 Tit. 1. 12.

3 Acts 17. 28 ev avTtp yap £&iJ.ev /cat Kivovfxeda Kai iapiev, ths Kai nves tGiv /ca^' iifxas