Galatians 5:12

12. I am so far from preaching circumcision, that I would they might inflict upon themselves excision. There is clearly an antithesis between the circumcision and the excision; but the question is, what excision is meant? A large number of modern expositors understand, with our English translators, excision from the Church. And Bengel sustains the antithesis under this interpretation in words which we shall leave in their original Latin: “Quemadmodum preputium per circumcisionem abscinditur, ut quiddam, quo carere decet Israelitam; ita isti tanquam preputium rejiculum de communione sanctorum rejicientur et anathema erunt.”

But those who best knew the true meaning of the Greek term for this excision the old Greek commentators give another sense of the word; a sense which the decency which Christianity has created in modern times induces many to believe that the apostle could hardly have intended. The same Greek word is in the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy xxiii, 1, for one made a eunuch. The rite of circumcision undoubtedly symbolized the cutting off the sensual from our nature; and it is wonderful that among some heathen the same rite was so increased in severity, perhaps with a similar meaning, at first, as to produce a complete, relentless emasculation. Now in Galatia it was probably no more repulsive to name this excision than to speak of circumcision. The city of Pessinus, capital of Galatia, was the seat of the worship of Cybele, whose priests mutilated themselves as a religious rite. In literature, in public discourse, and in conversation, the thought and the name were familiar. St. Paul, therefore, in language at that time entirely inoffensive, indignantly preferred that these circumcisionists should go the whole extent, and turn excisionists, priests of Cybele, and the salvation of his Church would no longer be endangered. Circumcision was now as useless as this excision; both had better be abandoned to pagans, and Christians abstain from and contemn both alike. And this indignant expression of contempt for both Paul now follows with a lesson of Christian spiritual purity.