The Famous Liar and the Apostolic Truth 67 and the world which really existed. Zeno tried to prove the deceptibility of perceptions by presenting logical problems. They were later common in smaller Socratic schools, which cannot be classified with certainty; at any rate Diodorus of Iasus mediated the tradition to his pupil Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic school37. The oldest form of the liar- paradox is connected with Eubulides of Miletus (fourth century B.C.)38, and a form of it was known to Cicero39. It was famous, and, according to Seneca (Ep. 45,10), “countless works were written about it”40. The para- dox was commonly known, but it had historically nothing to do with Epimenides. To connect it with a man who lived about 600 B.C. requires pushing the date of these kinds of paradoxes to a much earlier one than we otherwise know of them. 3) Later, the paradox was connected with Epimenides, and the sec- ondary link is easily explained. Apparently, the bad reputation of Cre- tans preceded the paradox: Because the Cretans were known as liars, they were an ideal subject for the liar-paradox, and later the word was connected with the most famous Cretan philosopher, who was an ideal person to take the role of the famous liar, who told the truth – or did he? Traditionally, most commentators have assumed that “Paul” has used the word only to denigrate his opponents, or Cretans generally41. Quinn still claims that the writer uses the Cretan sage to characterize his coun- trymen42. In this interpretation, the writer was fully unaware of the logi- cal problem involved in the line. However, THISELTON has convincingly shown that the writer recognized the logical problem: To say the maxim in the first person means a different thing than to say it in the third. To be true, the verse itself contains no paradox, but it does, when the writer attributes it to a Cretan “prophet”. OBERLINNER accepts THISELTON’s inter- pretation and it seems to be correct: If so, the writer uses a well-known 37 See H. WEIDEMANN, “Diodoros: Logik und Common Sense”, Philosophen des Alter- tums von der Frühzeit bis zur Klassik. Eine Einführung (eds. M. ERLER and A. GRAESER. Darmstadt 2000) 182–184. 38 On Eubulides, see K. DÖRING, ”Eubulides”, DNP 4 (1998) 211 39 Haec vera an falsa sunt: ‘Si te mentiri dicis idque verum dicis, mentiris?’ (Ac. 2,95). 40 See Diog. Laert. 2,108; 7,196–198; the passages in M. Tulli Ciceronis Academica, the text revised and explained by J.S. REID ( Hildesheim 1966) 290–291. 41 See the detailed survey of 24 commentaries in THISELTON, ”The Logical Role”, 208–214. O. KNOCH (1. und 2. Timotheusbrief. Titusbrief [Die Neue Echter Bibel: Kommentar zum Neuen Testament mit der Einheitsübersetzung 14; Würzburg 1988] 75) claims that Tit “zitiert einen Hexameter des angesehenen kretischen Dichters Epimenides (6. Jh. v. Chr.), der über seine Landsleute ein vernichtendes Urteil fällte”. This quotation would have been, according to the writer, “im Munde des Apostels Paulus undenkbar”. KNOCH, as one of several commentators, is thus not at all aware that the verse contains a paradox. 42 QUINN, The Letter to Titus, 108.