CRESCENS (Kir/507ms), an assistant of St. Paul, and generally supposed to have been one of the seventy disciples of Christ. It is alleged in the Apostolical Constitutions (vii. 46), and by the fathers of the church, that he preached the gospel in Galatia, a fact probably deduced conjecturally from the only text (2 Tim. iv. 10) in which his name occurs. There is a less ancient tradition (in Sophronius), according to which Crescens preached, went into Gaul, and became the founder of the church in Vienna ; but it deserves no notice, having probably no other foundation than the resemblance of the names Galatia and Gallia.—J. K.
CRETE one of the largest islands in the Mediterranean, now called Candia, and by the Turks Kidd. It is 16o miles long, but of very un equal width, varying from thirty-five to six miles. It is situated at the entrance of the Archipelago, having the coast of the Morea to the south-west, that of Asia-Minor to the north-east, and that of Lyhia to the south. Great antiquity was affected by the inhabitants, and it has been supposed by some that the island was originally peopled from Egypt, but this is founded on the conclusion that Crete was the Caphthor of Dent. ii. 23, etc., and the country of the Philistines, which seems more than doubtful [CAPHTHOR]. Surrounded on all sides by the sea, the Cretans were excellent sailors, and their vessels visited all the neighbouring coasts. The island was highly prosperous and full of people in very ancient times ; this is indicated by its ` hundred cities' alluded to in the epithet &a 7b1,0roXzr, applied to it by Homer (II. ii. 649). The chief glory of the island, however, lay in its having produced the legislator Minos, whose institutions had such important influence in softening the man ners of a barbarous age, not in Crete only, but also in Greece, where these institutions were imitated. The natives were celebrated as archers. Their character was not of the most favourable descrip tion ; the Cretans or Kretans being, in fact, one of the three K.'s against whose unfaithfulness the
Greek proverb was intended as a caution—Kappado kia, Krete, and Kilikia (7- pia rtdsrsra KaKlova Karaa Sorcla, Kai Kpv)rq, sal KiXixta)• In short, the ancient notices of their character fully agree with the quo tation which St. Paul produces from 'one of their own poets,' in his Epistle to Titus (i. rz), who had been left in charge of the Christian church in the island The Cretans are always liars (del Vtetio-rat, eternalliars), evil beasts (nand ()via, Angl. ` slow bellies' (-yao-repes rip-rat, gorbellies, bellies which take long to fill). The quotation is usually supposed to have been from Calimachus's Hjwzn on yove, 8 ; but Callimachus was not a Cretan, and he has only the first words of the verse, which Jerome says he borrowed from Epimenides, who was of Crete. Ample corroboration of the descrip tion which it gives may be seen in the commentators.
Crete is named in r Maccab. x. 67. But it de rives its strongest scriptural interest from the cir cumstances connected with St. Paul's voyage to Italy. The vessel in which he sailed being forced out of her course by contrary winds, was driven round the island, instead of keeping the direct course to the north of it. In doing this, the ship first made the promontory of Salmone on the eastern side of the island, which they passed with difficulty, and took shelter at a place called Fair Havens, near to which was the city Lasea. But, after spending some time at this place, and not finding it as they supposed sufficiently secure to winter in, they resolved, contrary to the advice of St. Paul (the season being far advanced), to make for Phcenice, a more commodious harbour .on the western part of the island, in attempting which they were driven far out of their course by a furious east wind called Euroclydon, and wrecked on the island of Melita (Acts xxvii.)—J. K.