Crete

Crete enters the story of Scripture twice, once briefly and once at length. At Pentecost, Acts 2:11 lists Cretans among the crowd in Jerusalem who heard the apostles declaring the wonders of God, each in his own language. Scripture says no more about them there. The fuller story comes later, when Paul sailed for Rome as a prisoner. The ship moved slowly against the wind, came to the lee of Crete, and reached a harbor called Fair Havens. Much time had passed, the season for safe sailing was over, and Paul warned that going on would end in disaster, in loss of ship, cargo, and life. The centurion listened instead to the pilot and the ship's owner, and the majority decided to try to reach Phoenix, a better harbor on Crete, to winter there. A gentle south wind seemed to confirm the decision, so they sailed on, hugging Crete's coast. Then a violent wind called the Northeaster swept down and drove the ship off course, past a small island called Cauda, into the storm that Acts describes at length, ending in shipwreck. Paul later reminded the men on board that they should have listened to him and not sailed from Crete at all. Crete also appears as the field where Titus served. Paul's letter to him opens by stating the reason he was left there: to set in order what was unfinished and to appoint elders in every town. The letter lists what an elder must be, blameless, hospitable, self-controlled, holding to sound teaching, because many on the island were rebellious, full of empty talk, and undermining households for dishonorable gain. In that context Paul quotes a Cretan's own words about Cretans: one of their own prophets said Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons, and Paul calls the testimony true. The line is aimed at the specific false teachers troubling the churches, named just before it in the letter, not handed down as the site's own verdict on a people.