Oscar Cullmanns Petrusbuch — es ist jüngst neu erschienen1 — verdient die Anerkennung, die es gefunden hat. Es liest sich glänzend. Der Aufbau ist durchsichtig, die Beweisführung eindrucksvoll, die Polemik vornehm. Aber auch in seiner vervollkommneten Gestalt läßt das Werk noch Raum für Fragen, die freilich zum Teil über seinen Bereich hinausragen. Wir beschränken uns hier auf den Abschnitt, welcher die überschrift trägt: ‘Petrus der Apostel’, und greifen Probleme heraus, die das Verhältnis zwischen Petrus und Paulus betreffen.

Discussions of this chapter tend to show the need for background knowledge. Much as commentators disagree as to the meaning of the parable of the Steward,1 all are agreed as to the embarrassment it has caused.2 Attempts to connect the parable with earlier and subsequent matter have been few, and scarcely convincing. Because the parable has not been understood, keys to the connexion between the verses which complete the chapter, and indeed between the parable, them, and the first two verses of the next chapter, have been overlooked.

However interesting ‘The Gospel According to Thomas’1 may be to students of the primitive Church, it seems at first sight highly improbable that this strange farrago of sayings will make any contribution to our knowledge of Jesus' teaching. And yet to the New Testament scholar the Gospel according to Thomas is perhaps the most interesting of all the manuscripts found near Nag Hammadi in 1945, inasmuch as some of its contents have affinities with the sayings and parables of Jesus which are found in the canonical gospels. A comparison of the parables and similitudes found in Thomas with parallel material in the synoptic gospels2 raises fascinating and fundamental problems of higher criticism.

Cette note ne prétend pas offrix une étude exhaustive du chiasme dans le quatriè, e évangile; elle veut, à l'aide de trois exemples, attirer l'attention des critiques sur cette figure de style. Elle s'en tient volontairement au texte actuel, refusant provisoirement d'examiner les sources utilisées et de développer les considerations exégétiques et théologiques qui découlent des constations littéraires.

ʿι πτπχοī τῷ πνΕύματι has been given a number of interpretations due to the number of different meanings that have been attached to the two terms in the phrase. No attempt is made here to give an exhaustive discussion of earlier work, but rather a new interpretation is tentatively suggested.

The question of the High Priest: ‘Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?’, and the answer of Jesus, mark the culmination of the trial of Jesus. At least this is how it has generally come to be regarded among Christians. This conception, however, is supported by the accounts of Mark and Matthew only. In John we have neither question nor answer. In Luke we have the question, but it is not asked by the High Priest himself; but by the chief priests and scribes (xxii. 6). Furthermore, in Luke the single question in Mark and Matthew: ‘Art thou the Christ, the Son of God?’ is divided into two questions: first, ‘Art thou the Christ?’, and then, ‘Art thou then the Son of God?’ Moreover, the crime of Jesus in Luke is not described as ‘blasphemy’.