The pastoral letter in early Christianity up to the early fifth century C.E.

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:This dissertation aims to trace a Christian letter tradition, i.e. the pastoral letter type, during the firstfive centuries of this era. With this in mind I outlined the problem statements, goals, theoreticalpoints of departure, research questions, hypotheses, methodologies and structures in Chapter I of thedissertation.I surveyed the history of modern studies on Greco-Roman epistolography in Chapter II. There Ilooked at how the study of Christian letters was related to Greco-Roman epistolography and what itcontributed to the history of modern study on Greco-Roman epistolography. In the process I alsofocused on the study of the Christian letter tradition that flourished especially during the middle ofthe twentieth century. I pointed out some weaknesses in the preceding studies, such as limiting theanalysis of letters to certain periods, failure to consider generic features and lack of attention topsychagogical intention. At the end of the chapter I concluded by pointing out what still remains tobe done, such as considering a broader range of sources and periods, and paying more attention tohow the pastoral letter continued to function during the first five centuries of our era.On the basis of the preceding survey I then focused in Chapter III on the generic features of Greco-Roman hortatory letters and their psychagogical functions to provide the background of a broaderhortatory tradition for explaining the generic features and functions of the earliest Christian letters,i.e. the letters in the NT. From this research I concluded that Greco-Roman hortatory lettersfollowed the pattern of common Greco-Roman letters in terms of structural and formal features.However, they not only focused on the guidance or education of the recipients in terms of function,but for effective persuasion the authors also employed various rhetorical devices which are oftenfound in the other genres of hortatory works.In Chapter IV I analysed the letters in the NT in order to show that these letters resonate with thehortatory letters that were composed for psychagogy (viz. pastoral care). Firstly, I focused on the analysis of Paul's first letter, i.e. 1 Thessalonians, to show that the author of the first Christian letterwas as pastor above all concerned with pastoral care, and for effective pastoral care he borrowedfrom the Greco-Roman hortatory letter tradition. From this analysis I concluded that 1Thessalonians can be located in the hortatory letter tradition, but has its own distinct characterdiffering from common hortatory letters. These features must have resulted from Paul's efforts totake care of his believers in the Christian faith. In the remainder of this chapter I analysed the rest ofthe letters in the NT, considering the outcome of the analysis of 1 Thessalonians together with thebroader hortatory tradition. I found that the rest of the letters in the NT could be classed as hortatoryletters for the purpose of psychagogy, i.e. pastoral letters, in terms of both their structural andformal features, and of their composition, purpose and function.In Chapter V I analysed a number of selected pastoral letters from early Christian authors. Firstly, Isurveyed the history of Christian letters and their authors to provide a general background for thischapter. From these authors and their letters, I chose sixteen pastoral letters from fifteen Christianleaders based on stated criteria, and analysed them, considering both the earliest Christian pastoralletters (viz. the letters in the NT) and the broader Greco-Roman hortatory letter tradition. As a resultof this analysis I found that these selected letters had features in common with the earliest Christianpastoral letters, especially in terms of their purpose and function, as well as distinctly Christiancharacteristics. I then compared the outcome of this analysis with selected letters from non-pastoralChristian letter types (viz. the festal or paschal letter type, the synodic letter type, the papal lettertype and the 'essay in letter form). I found that, though the selected pastoral letters and nonpastoralletters had some literary features in common, such as structure and form, and employedrhetorical devices, they nevertheless differed in terms of purposes and function.In the last chapter, Chapter VI, I briefly summarised the entire dissertation

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University