And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offense of the cross ceased.
All Commentaries on Galatians 5:11 Go To Galatians 5
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Ver. 11. Then has the stumbling block of the cross been done away.
That is, if this which you assert be true, the obstacle, the hindrance, is removed; for not even the Cross was so great an offense to the Jews, as the doctrine that their father's customs ought not to be obeyed. When they brought Stephen before the council, they said not that this man adores the Crucified, but that he speaks against this holy place and the Law. Acts 6:13 And it was of this they accused Jesus, that He broke the Law. Wherefore Paul says, If Circumcision be conceded, the strife you are involved in is appeased; hereafter no enmity to the Cross and our preaching remains. But why do they bring this charge against us, while waiting day after day to murder us? It is because I brought an uncircumcised man into the Temple Acts 21:29 that they fell upon me. Am I then, he says, so senseless, after giving up the point of Circumcision, vainly and idly to expose myself to such injuries, and to place such a stumbling-block before the Cross? For you observe, that they attack us for nothing with such vehemence as about Circumcision. Am I then so senseless as to suffer affliction for nothing at all, and to give offense to others? He calls it the offense of the Cross, because it was enjoined by the doctrine of the Cross; and it was this which principally offended the Jews, and hindered their reception of the Cross, namely, the command to abandon the usages of their fathers.
