Bede : Therefore Jonathan rose from the table in a fit of anger, etc. When persecution arose because of the word, the apostles and the foremost teachers of the Church gradually withdrew from the very custom of Judaizing, which they had maintained for some time to avoid scandalizing the persecutors, as both the Epistle to the Galatians and the Acts of the Apostles bear fuller witness. And to those who did not refuse to listen to the words of the law that sounded carnally (which is, as we have explained above, the beginning of intellectual new moon), they neither wished to agree nor be absent in observing these things carnally. For there was great sorrow and continuous grief over Christ in their hearts, because their brothers and kinsmen, who did not believe in Him, did not listen to them when they taught. He, who was blessed God over all forever, had been born among them according to the flesh and had deigned to become a curse for the good of others, in order to rescue us from the curse of the law. — Commentary on Samuel