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

amounts to a complete denial of the foundational teachings of Christianity and
Judaism.
The verse concludes with an instance of polysyndetic emphatic clustering to
complete this phase of vilification. The illegitimate teachers are bdeluktoi;
(o[nte") kai; ajpeiqei`" kai; (pro;" pa`n e[rgon ajgaqo;n) ajdovkimoi. The underlined
words are all adjectives, masculine, nominative plural and are linked by
conjunctions. Contrary to their appearance of purity, Paul describes the false
teachers as ajdovkimo~ (abominable or detestable). This interesting word is a
New Testament harpax legomenon. It denotes that which is an abomination to
God (Zodhiates, 1992:330; Mounce, 2000:403). ajpeiqhv" denotes
unwillingness to be persuaded, unbelieving, disobedient (Zodhiates,
1992:549). The last word in the trilogy, ajdovkimo~, means unapproved,
unworthy, spurious or worthless (Zodhiates, 1992:96). An ironic picture
concludes this section. Those who profess to know God is considered an
abomination (to God). Having earlier referred to them as ajpivsto~, the apostle
now uses the word ajpeiqhv" to express a similar thought but in stronger terms:
they are beyond persuasion. The final word concludes the picture by
accentuating the illegitimacy of these false teachers. The expression pa`n
e[rgon ajgaqovn is a transitionary device in lieu of the next section and will be
developed in the subsequent sections. The point is that such works cannot be
expected from the false teachers and also not from those who subscribe to
their teaching.
Conclusion
In this section Paul’s dominant rhetorical objective has been to discredit the
illegitimate leaders. His primary rhetorical strategy involves vilification of the
opposition. Paul uses several techniques to facilitate his objective, reducing
the opposition to a less than human state. Through the technique called
emphatic clustering, he immediately and directly focuses the attention upon
the impostors. This strategy magnifies the illegitimacy of the false teachers
and provides justification for the apostolic vitriol that they receive in this
section. The vilification is furthermore intensified through techniques like
PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com
87