{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-5546","native_reference":{"book_number":550,"chapter_from":6,"chapter_to":6,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":17,"verse_to":17},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrosiaster</b>: He does not wish to be annoyed any longer by people advocating circumcision—people who would force him to write another letter. He wants the Galatians to respond quickly to his letter and get rid of their mistakes. This hard work will result in genuine rest. If, however, they show themselves to be reluctant and stubborn, refusing to change, Paul wants to be left alone. Let the Galatians spend their time and effort trying to please the Judaizers in an empty search for temporary reward.<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 6.17</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: This man was the first in the struggle of our days; he was the leader among Christ's soldiers; he, in the midst of the burning beginnings of the persecution, engaged with the very chief and author of the disturbance, in conquering with invincible firmness the adversary of his own conflict. He made a way for others to conquer; a victor with no small amount of wounds, but triumphant by a miracle, with the long-abiding and permanent penalties of a tedious conflict. For nineteen days, shut up in the close guard of a dungeon, he was racked and in irons; but although his body was laid in chains, his spirit remained free and at liberty. His flesh wasted away by the long endurance of hunger and thirst; but God fed his soul, that lived in faith and virtue, with spiritual nourishments. He lay in punishments, the stronger for his punishments; imprisoned, greater than those that imprisoned him; lying prostrate, but loftier than those who stood; as bound, and firmer titan the links which bound him; judged, and more sublime than those who judged him; and although his feet were bound on the rack, yet the serpent was trodden on and ground down and vanquished. In his glorious body shine the bright evidences of his wounds; their manifest traces show forth, and appear on the man's sinews and limbs, worn out with tedious wasting away. Great things are they-marvellous things are they-which the brotherhood may hear of his virtues and of his praises. And should any one appear like Thomas, who has little faith in what he hears, the faith of the eyes is not wanting, so that what one hears he may also see. In the servant of God, the glory of the wounds made the victory; the memory of the scars preserves that glory.<br/><i>— Epistle XXXIII</i></p><p><b>Gaius Marius Victorinus</b>: Paul's point is this: \"All that Christ experienced on the cross—the imprint of the nails, the spear thrust in his side, the other marks of the crucifixion—I bear in my own body. I too have suffered. Therefore you too ought to endure much—indeed all—adversity, since you will be with Christ if you suffer with Christ and begin by your own act, in the face of adversaries, to suffer what Christ suffered.\" Through these words Paul reveals what he himself was suffering, how much he shared with Christ and what we also ought to suffer if we wish to live in Christ.<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 2.6.17</i></p><p><b>Gregory of Nyssa</b>: \"Rejoicing in these lacerations,\" Paul says, \"I bear the marks of Christ in my own body.\" He readily yields to his weakness in all these misfortunes, through which the power of Christ is being perfected in virtue.<br/><i>— ORATION 12 ON SONG OF SONGS 5.7</i></p><p><b>Ignatius of Antioch</b>: I have learned that certain of the ministers of Satan have wished to disturb you, some of them asserting that Jesus was born [only] in appearance, was crucified in appearance, and died in appearance; others that He is not the Son the Creator, and others that He is Himself God over all. Others, again, hold that He is a mere man, and others that this flesh is not to rise again, so that our proper course is to live and partake of a life of pleasure, for that this is the chief good to beings who are in a little while to perish. A swarm of such evils has burst in upon us. But ye have not \"given place by subjection to them, no, not for one hour.\" For ye are the fellow-citizens as well as the disciples of Paul, who \"fully preached the Gospel from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum,\" and bare about \"the marks of Christ\" in his flesh.<br/><i>— Epistle of Pseudo-Ignatius to the Tarsians</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: Anyone who after Christ's coming is circumcised in the flesh does not carry the marks of the Lord Jesus. Rather he glories in his own confusion. But the one who was flogged beyond what the law required, frequently was in prison, was beaten three times with rods, was once stoned and suffered all the other things that are written in his catalog of boasting—this is the one who carries on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Perhaps also the ascetic today who keeps his body under control and subjects it to servitude so that he will not appear reprobate as he preaches to others may in some way carry the marks of the Lord Jesus on his own body.<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 3.6.17</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: (Verse 17.) From now on, let no one bother me. Not as if he has failed in teaching; but so that even a farmer will have this labor, if the little plants he has planted wither; and a shepherd will have worry, if the sheep he has gathered are torn apart. Therefore, it is better read in Greek, 'From now on, let no one present me with labor;' lest of course I have the need to work among you again. It is better for the teacher to excel in labor, who lives and feels differently than the teacher who has taught and done otherwise. He can also preempt their argument, if anyone should wish to contradict thereafter, by mentioning that he has addressed the issue of women covering their heads and men not covering theirs among the Corinthians, saying: But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Church of God (I Cor. XI, 16): that is, we have expressed what seemed fitting and just to us; but if anyone refuses to accept the truth, let them consider what answer to make and on what grounds to oppose, knowing that they are not worthy of a response, as they are more inclined to argue than to learn.</p><p>But I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body. For whoever is circumcised after the coming of Christ does not bear the marks of the Lord Jesus; but he has glory in his shame. But those who endure wounds beyond measure, who are frequently beaten with rods in prisons, who once were stoned, and who have other things written in the catalog of boasting, they bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in their body. And perhaps he who afflicts his own body and subjects himself to servitude, lest while preaching to others he himself should become reprobate, bears the marks of the Lord Jesus in his body (1 Corinthians 9). The apostles rejoiced because they had been considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Jesus (Acts 5).<br/><i>— Commentary on Galatians</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"From henceforth let no man trouble me.\"</p><p>This he says not as though he were wearied or overpowered; he who chose to do and suffer all for his disciples' sake; he who said, \"Be instant in season, out of season;\" (2 Tim. iv: 2.) he who said, \"If peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth, and they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil;\" (2 Tim. ii: 25, 26.) how shall he now become relaxed and fall back? Wherefore does he say this? it is to gird up their slothful mind, and to impress them with deeper fear, and to ratify the laws enacted by himself, and to restrain their perpetual fluctuations.</p><p>\"For I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus.\"</p><p>He says not, \"I have,\" but, \"I bear,\" like a man priding himself on trophies and royal ensigns. Although on a second thought it seems a disgrace, yet does this man vaunt of his wounds, and like military standard-bearers, so does he exult in bearing about these wounds. And why does he say this? \"More clearly by those wounds than by any argument, than by any language, do I vindicate myself,\" says he. For these wounds utter a voice louder than a trumpet against my opponents, and against those who say that I play the hypocrite in my teaching, and speak what may please men. For no one who saw a soldier retiring from the battle bathed in blood and with a thousand wounds, would dare to accuse him of cowardice and treachery, seeing that he bears on his body the proofs of his valor, and so ought ye, he says, to judge of me. And if any one desire to hear my defence, and to learn my sentiments, let him consider my wounds, which afford a stronger proof than these words and letters. At the outset of his Epistle he evinced his sincerity by the suddenness of his conversion, at its close he proves it by the perils which attended his conversion. That it might not be objected that he had changed his course with upright intentions, but that he had not continued in the same purpose, he produces his trials, his dangers, his stripes as witnesses that he had so continued.<br/><i>— Homily on Galatians 6</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: \"From now on let no one trouble me.\" He does not say this out of reluctance, God forbid. But intending that the laws he has put in place remain unalterable, so that nothing may be added to or taken away from them after him.</p><p>— [PHOTIUS] \"let no one trouble me.\" Let no one bring against me an accusation for the things I do. For even in silence I have a greater defense through my deeds. For the marks of Christ, that is, the wounds and scars for Christ's sake, themselves testify to his path and zeal on his behalf, and to the sincere and pure and unstained nature of the preaching.</p><p>\"Let no one trouble me concerning my labors.\" To what extent do you afflict and trouble me, he says, being agitated do you offer? Be ashamed, if nothing else, but at least of the marks of Christ, which for your sake and because of the proclamation to you I carry about in my body. And when he says the marks of Christ, he at once reminds that he also suffered for us. And therefore in every way it was fitting to abandon the law and be established in faith. [end of the Photius excerpt] —</p><p>\"the marks of the Lord Jesus.\" By \"marks\" he means the sores, the wounds, the sufferings for the Lord and for the preaching.</p><p>\"for I bear in my body.\" As if he said: Let no one slander me among you as a hypocrite. For these very wounds and the blows suffered for the Lord bear witness that I live sincerely. For he was slandered, doing everything as if from hypocrisy, sometimes proclaiming circumcision, at other times not.<br/><i>— Commentary on Galatians</i></p><p><b>Peter of Alexandria</b>: But since the fourth passover of the persecution has arrived, it is sufficient, in the case of those who have been apprehended and thrown into prison, and who have sustained torments not to be borne, and stripes intolerable, and many other dreadful afflictions, and afterwards have been betrayed by the frailty of the flesh, even though they were not at the first received On account of their grievous fall that followed yet because they contended sorely and resisted long; for they did not come to this of their own will, but were betrayed by the frailty of the flesh for they show in their bodies the marks of Jesus, and some are now, for the third year, bewailing their fault: it is sufficient, I say, that from the time of their submissive approach, other forty days should be enjoined upon them, to keep them in remembrance of these things.<br/><i>— The Canonical Epistle</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: The world, in the apostle's sense, here means life and conversation according to worldly principles; it is in renouncing these that we and they are mutually crucified and mutually slain. He calls them \"persecutors of Christ.\" But when he adds, that \"he bare in his body the scars of Christ\"-since scars, of course, are accidents of body -he therefore expressed the truth, that the flesh of Christ is not putative, but real and substantial, the scars of which he represents as borne upon his body.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: However, let me meanwhile add that in the same passage Paul \"carries about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus; \" he also forbids our body to be profaned, as being \"the temple of God; \" he makes our bodies \"the members of Christ; \" and he exhorts us to exalt and \"glorify God in our body.<br/><i>— On the Resurrection of the Flesh</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"b1c58a5c55d493715a929e8d17932cd2b75dba7e7c24ed56ec1925a523148ab7","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":5546,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"fb9da679ea01a2265abf5633b3ecb05ec65204d563c1caf76443131d97c9f8b5","translator":null,"work":null}