A Text centred rhetorical analysis of Paul's Letter to Titus

Excursus: Cumulative-complimentary versus individualistic-contrastive. Causal theory
for conclusions on authorial presuppositions of the Pastorals
All scholars build their case, whether for or against Pauline authorship, on data derived from the texts
of the three letters. In this regard certain peculiarities surface as to the methodology these authors
adopt, whether consciously or unconsciously, in order to prove the correctness of their particular
positions. The most common approach I have categorised as the cumulative-complimentary reading
principle. An emergent variation is what I call the individualistic-comparative reading principle.
In the cumulative-complimentary category, the author interprets the three letters as one, with each letter
understood to complement the data of the other. Thus, any “gaps” in one letter are filled with reference
to the others. Subsequent interpretation regarding, for example, authenticity or inauthenticity is then
based on a cumulative picture derived from a collation of data from the three individual letters. The
majority of scholars, irrespective of their position on authorship, apply this first principle when
interpreting the Pastorals.
In the individualistic-comparative category, the author treats each book in the corpus on an individual
basis, accentuating the distinctiveness of each book, through comparative analysis with the rest of the
corpus. Conclusions on, inter alia, authorship are primarily based on the unique and individualistic
content of each letter. Only after the individual discourse has been analysed on its own, similarities are
considered on a comparative basis with all other literature of a similar nature, i.e. letters.
Operation of the cumulative-complimentary reading principle
The operation of the cumulative-complimentary reading principle goes back to the first time doubts
were raised about the integrity of the letters. Ferdinand Baur and Julius Holtzmann evaluated the
Pastoral corpus from a comparative perspective when they eventually concluded that the style,
ecclesiology, theology and the identity of the false teachers point to an author later than Paul (Harding,
1998:9). As more points of contention and divergence were added, scholars simply focused on the
issues of contention. In the early nineteen seventies Dibelius and Conzelmann (1972:5) drew attention
to the affinities between the letters and on that basis spoke about the “literary character of the Pastoral
Epistles”. Interestingly, they correctly observe the different character of 2 Timothy as opposed to the
other two (Dibelius and Conzelmann, 1972:7). Donald Hagner (1998:558) put it bluntly when he stated
that “these letters need ultimately to be considered together”. Quinn goes so far as to declare the three
one. He regards the Letter to Titus as the introductory letter of the entire corpus while viewing the two
letters addressed to Timothy as complimentary to one another (Quinn, 1990:7, 19-20).
The language employed is very insightful. Commentators and the like speak about “the theology of the
Pastorals” or of their ecclesiology or of the false teachers in the Pastorals, and so forth. The only
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