evil workers”; they work, he means, but for a bad end, and a work that is much worse than idleness, plucking up what is laid in goodly order. “Beware,” he says, “of the concision.” The rite of circumcision was venerable in the Jews’ account, forasmuch as the Law itself gave way thereto, and the Sabbath was less esteemed than circumcision. For that circumcision might be performed the Sabbath was broken; but that the Sabbath might be kept, circumcision was never broken; and mark, I pray, the dis- pensation of God. This is found to be even more solemn than the Sabbath, as not being omitted at certain times.648 When then it is done away, much more is the Sabbath. Wherefore Paul makes a concision of the name, and says, “Beware of the concision”; and he did not say “that circumcision is evil, that it is superfluous,” lest he should strike the men with dismay, but he manages it more wisely, withdrawing them from the thing, but gratifying them with the word, nay, rather with the thing too, in a more serious way. But not so in the case of the Galatians, for since in that case the disease was great, he forthwith adopts the remedy of amputation with open front and with all boldness; but in this case, as they had done nothing of the sort, he vouchsafes them the gratification of the title, he casts out the others, and says, “Beware of the concision; for we are the circumcision”—how?—“who worship God in spirit,649 and have no confidence in the flesh.” He said not that “we test the one circumcision and the other, which is the better of the two”; but he would not even allow it a share in the name; but what does he say? That that circumcision is “concision.” Why? Because they do nothing but cut the flesh up. For when what is done is not of the law, it is nothing else than a concision and cutting up of the flesh; it was then either for this reason that he called it so, or because they were trying to cut the Church in twain; and we call the thing “cutting up” in those who do this at random, without aim and without skill. Now if you must seek cir- cumcision, he says, you will find it among us, “who worship God in spirit,” i.e. who worship spiritually. For answer me, which is superior, the soul or the body? Evidently the former. Therefore that circumcision is also superior, or rather, no longer superior, but this is the only circum- cision; for while the type stood, He rightly brought it forward in conjunction, writing, “For ye shall circumcise the foreskins of your hearts.” (Jerem. iv. 4.) In the same way in the Epistle to the Romans he does away with it, saying, “for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one in- 648 [The text is very obscure. Field, by altering two words without documentary evidence, makes it “even that of the Sabbath, which is more to be reverenced, is found not to be adopted at certain times”; or possibly, “even that which is more to be reverenced than the Sabbath, is found not to be adopted,” etc.—J.A.B.] 649 [Field here reads (with all his mss.) as in Rev. Ver. πνεύματι θεοῦ, “worship by the Spirit of God.” But Chrys.’s explanation (below) indicates that he read θεῷ, “worship God in spirit,” as in the common printed text of Chrys. and the Textus Rec. of the N.T.—J.A.B.] 409 Philippians 3:1-3