Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
CRETE, now Candia, a large island in the Mediterranean Sea, midway between Syria and Italy. It is about 140 miles long by 35 miles wide. Its surface is mountainous, the classic Mount Ida being one of its peaks, but there are fertile valleys. It was formerly possessed by a rich and powerful people; Virgil speaks of its hundred cities. But the people were proverbially liars, Tit 1:12-a character they are said still to bear. "Homer dates all the fictions of Ulysses from Crete, as if he meant to pass a similar censure on the Cretans to that quoted by Paul-Kp^re? " -COWPER: Odyssey, b. xiii.
Cretans were at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:11; Paul was shipwrecked near the island, and he left Titus there as the first pastor and superintendent, who was "to ordain elders in every city" of the island. Tit 1:5. It is now under the tyranny of the Turks, but thoroughly Greek in nationality and sympathy, and will probably ere long be annexed to the kingdom of Greece. It is supposed to have been first settled by the Philistines. See Gaphtorim.