Les ‘addresses’ présidentielles de mes honorables prédépré cesseurs ont imposé à ce genre littéraire un certain esprit auquel je voudrais rester fidéle. Elles n'ont pas la pr'tention de présenter un programme ou d'imposer une méethode. Elles usent largement de la liberté de choix touchant les matiéres traitées. Elles évitent d'aborder des sujets trop techniquement spécialisés sans se diluer en considérations générales. Parfois elles n'hésitent pas ` déboucher sur des conclusions touchant de larges ensembles. Elles sont en tout cas des points d'aboutissement d'etudes antérieures autant que des ouvertures sur de nouveaux horizons. M'inspirant, selon mes moyens, de cette tradition déjà longue, je voudrais revenir vers cette église de Thessalonique, une des premiéres communautés européennes évangélisée par l' Apôtre, qui a occupé plusieurs années de ma pensée et ne l'a jamais quittée totalement. Tout en abordant une péricope bien délimitée, je compte marquer la distance qui sépare une exégése vieille de vingt ans des perspectives actuelles.

Die folgenden Erwägungen halten sich in einem engen Rahmen; sie befassen sich mit einer historischen Einzelfrage der sog. ‘Parteien’ in Korinth, mit denen sich Paulus I Cor. i-iv auseinandersetzt: mit der Kephaspartei und ihrem Verhältnis zu Paulus. Ich behalte den traditionellen Ausdruck ‘Parteien’ bei, gebrauche ihn aber in neutralem Sinn, d. h. ohne die theologische und kirchenpolitische Füllung, die F. C. Baur ihm gegeben hat; er dürfte das Phänomen der σχ⋯σματα und ἔριδɛς und der dazu gehörenden Bekenntnisse zu bestimmten Personen⋯γώ εἰμι Πα⋯;λοu κτλ. (i. 10–12) angemessener bezeichnen als etwa der Ausdruck ‘Gruppe’, der soziologisch vorbelastet ist, oder etwa der Ausdruck ‘Clique’, der ein depravierendes Voruteil enthält.

When discussing commentaries friends have repeatedly suggested to me that the commentary genre is at present not the most creative format within which to work. This may or may not be true, but the enterprise certainly provides for some strange experiences. It has been my experience that things go smoothly as long as one does not ask too many questions. The present paper, however, is the preliminary outcome of asking too many questions about how to arrive at an ‘outline’ of the letter to the Galatians. Nearly all commentaries and Introductions to the New Testament contain such an outline, table of contents, or paraphrase of the argument. However, despite an extensive search, I have not been able to find any consideration given to possible criteria and methods for determining such an outline.

Some recent writing both on the gospels and on some of the Pauline epistles has shown a certain tendency to work with presuppositions in which a circularity in reasoning can be detected. On the basis of arguments (of varying power to convince) making use of a selection of passages in the work concerned, the work itself – the gospel or epistle as it now stands in the Canon – has been made the subject of hypotheses about the situation which evoked its composition, and about resultant polemical or other intentions determining the nature of the work as a whole. All individual passages within this larger whole then tend to be pressed into service so as to provide further evidence in support of these hypotheses. This trend in recent exegesis is illustrated by some interpretations of II Corinthians iii published during the last decade. Theories about the identity and doctrines of Paul's opponents in Corinth having been arrived at on the basis of evidence found elsewhere in the epistle, the difficult third chapter has been found to shed corroborative or even additional light on both. It is perhaps fair to say that these studies, from Georgi's influential treatment of this chapter onwards, indicate great ingenuity on the part of their authors (as well as claiming an even greater ingenuity for Paul himself, and attributing remarkable exegetical sensitivity to his readers in Corinth), but leave one with the impression that the wrong questions have been asked of the text.