"I Left You in Crete": Narrative Deception and Social Hierarchy in the Letter to Titus‪.‬

Behind every letter is a story, but behind a forged letter there are at least two--and one is a lie. The technique of the pseudonymous letter is to bridge surreptitiously the gap between the fiction it tells and the historical situation in which it seeks to have an effect. This is true for the NT letter to Titus. (1) To analyze the rhetoric of Titus is to map this secret crossing in a particular case. The provocative and innovative readings of biblical "love stories" by Mieke Bal raise the question that motivates my treatment of the letter to Titus. (2) In her work Lethal Love, Bal asks the question "Is there a relationship between ideological dominance and specific forms of representation?" (3) With Bal's question and also her methods in mind, I rephrase her question for my purposes and my subject, namely, What is the relationship between (1) the pseudonymity of the letter to Titus, (2) the narrative of interaction between "Paul" and "Titus" that the letter implies, and (3) the social structures of hierarchy that the letter sets up? To put it another way: What happens when the author writes and the audience hears the words "I left you in Crete"--especially if neither has ever been there? To hint at the conclusion this article develops, a narratological reading of the epistle to Titus suggests that the open-ended elements and time shifting of the epistle to Titus ("anachronies" in the terms of a narratological reading), and the relationship portrayed between Paul and Titus inscribe the ideology of the letter so that narrative performs a foundational element in the rhetorical action of the letter. I. METHODOLOGY