The Use of the Aorist Imperative in the Pastoral Epistles 91 makes absolutely no comment about the nature of the action but simply command it, regardless of whether or not it is something to be done continuously or only once. Thus an aorist imperative does not attempt to comment on how long or how frequently an action should be done; it simply says that it should be done. Conceivably, then, the 1st century Greco-Roman subordinate who hears his general, master, or mistress use an aorist imperative may have to look elsewhere to determine whether he is supposed to do an action once, twice, continuously, or habitually. All he knows at that point is that he must do it. In contrast, the present imperative would probably give the Greco-Roman subordinate a bit more information to work with. Finally, it must once again be argued that the overwhelming use of present imperatives (and the present tense in general) in the Pastoral Epistles would seem to argue against the aorist as the background tense while not necessarily arguing against its use as the default tense. The difference lies in the fact that the “background” tense would, by its very definition, seem to lose its status as the background tense when completely overwhelmed by another tense (as is the case in the PE). The concept of a background tense by its very nature would seem to require that it stay unobtrusively in the background; this becomes difficult when the background tense becomes so rare that its usage is an anomaly. A “default” tense, however, may still remain the “default” choice even when a non-default tense is preferred; its status as the generic tense would simply serve to amplify the propensity of a non-generic tense. In other words, since the author’s choice of a non-default tense may be due to some inherent meaning in that (non-default) tense rather than for (solely) stylistic reasons, the generic tense still remains the generic tense even when it is in the minority69. In summary, then, the use of the present imperative is significant, but the use of the aorist is not. Or, perhaps, one should say that the significance of the aorist imperative in the Pastoral Epistles lies solely in the fact that Paul uses it so little. The relative absence of the aorist imperative thus functions to highlight Paul’s extensive use of the present imperative. The main theological point that can be drawn from the use of the imperative in the Pastorals is that Paul’s commands are overwhelmingly focused on a continuous performance or consistent attitude; Paul mostly deliberately avoids the general sense of the aorist imperative, even when it would have been appropriate, in favor of focusing on consistent, continual, or 69 This paper’s thesis, then, differs significantly from Baugh’s. Whereas Baugh seems to argue that each verb has its own default tense, depending on the lexical meaning of the verb, this writer prefers to view the aorist as always the default or generic tense.