1 Corinthians 1:23

1:23 Regardless of what unbelieving Jews and Gentiles desired, Paul refused to give them anything but the simple message of the cross. To many Jews, the idea of a crucified Messiah was a contradiction in terms because crucifixion expressed not the power and blessing of God but his curse (see Gal 3:13; cp. Deut 21:23).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Co 1:23. Ἡμεῖς, we) Paul, Apollos.—κηρύσσομεν, we preach) rather historically, than philosophically.—Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον, Christ crucified) without the article. The cross is not mentioned in the following verse. The discourse begins with the cross of Christ, 1Co 2:2; those who thus receive it are made acquainted with all connected with Christ and His glory, those who do not receive it, fall short of the whole, Act 25:19; Act 17:32.—σκάνδαλον, a stumbling-block) As folly and wisdom, so a stumbling-block and a sign are opposed to each other, for a sign is an attractive work of Omnipotence, as a sign and power are often synonymous, but a stumbling-block, properly applied to a snare or trap, is a very weak thing. [So things extremely worthless in the present day come under the name of trifles. Germ. Schwachherten.—V. g.] To such a degree do the Jews and Greeks[11] dread the cross of Christ, that along with it they reject even a sign and wisdom.

[11] The Germ. Ver. prefers the reading of ἔθνεσι, equal, according to the margin of both editions, to Ἕλλησι, which is doubtless more passable with German readers.—E. B.ABC corrected later, D corr. l. Gfg Vulg. Orig. Cypr. Hilary have ἔθνεσιν. Rec Text, with Orig. 1, 331e, reads Ἕλλησι.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co 1:23 . Instead of working miracles to satisfy the Jews, or propounding a philosophy to entertain the Greeks, “we, on the other hand, proclaim a crucified Christ” Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον , i.e. , Christ as crucified (predicative adjunct), not “Christ the crucified,” nor, strictly, “Christ crucified”; cf. , for the construction, 2Co 4:5 , κηρύσσομεν Χ . Ἰ . κύριον , “We preach (not ourselves but) Christ Jesus as Lord”. Not a warrior Messiah, flashing His signs from the sky, breaking the heathen yoke, but a Messiah dying in impotence and shame (see 2Co 4:10 ; 2Co 13:4 : hattalúy , Deu 21:23 the hangéd He is styled in the Talmud) is what the app. preach for their good news! “To Jews indeed a σκάνδαλον ”: this word (cl [237] σκανδάληθρον ) signified first the trap-stick , then any obstacle over which one stumbles to one’s injury, an “offence” (syn [238] with προσκοπή , πρόσκομμα : see 1Co 8:9 ; 1Co 8:13 ), a moral hindrance presented to the perverse or the weak (see parls.). τοῖς δὲ ἔθνεσιν μωρίαν : for the “folly” of offering the infelix lignum to cultured Gentiles, see Cicero, pro Rabirio , v.: “Nomen ipsum crucis absit non modo a corpore civium Romanorum, sed etiam a cogitatione, oculis, auribus”; and Lucian, De morte Peregrini , 13, who mocks at those who worship τὸν ἀνεσκολοπισμένον τὸν σοφιστήν , “that gibbeted sophist!” For reff. in the early Apologists see Justin ., Tryph. , lxix., and Apol. , i., 13; Tertull., adv. Jud. , § 10; Aristo of Pella, in Routh’s Rel. Sacr. , i., 95; and the graffito of the gibbeted ass discovered on the wall of the Pædagogium in the Palatine. To Jews the λόγος τοῦ σταύρου announced the shameful reversal of their most cherished hopes; to Greeks and Romans it offered for Saviour and Lord a man branded throughout the Empire as amongst the basest of criminals; it was “outrageous,” and “absurd”.

[237] classical.

[238] synonym, synonymous.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co_1:22, 1Co_1:23

For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.

This passage is parallel to the preceding. Since the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe and since the Jews ask a sign and the Greeks seek wisdom, we preach, etc. That is, since human reason in all its developments, Jewish or Grecian, had failed, we preach Christ.

The Jews require, or, ask (αἰτοῦσι) a sign.‹2› This was characteristic of the Jews. They required external supernatural evidence as the ground of their faith. Their constant demand was, What sign showest thou? Mat_12:39. Mar_8:11. Joh_6:30. To this disposition our Savior referred when he said, A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas, Mat_16:4. The Greeks, on the other hand, seek after wisdom. They required rational evidence. They would receive nothing as true which they could not understand, and see the rational grounds of. These are types of permanent classes of men.

But we preach Christ crucified. This doctrine met the demands of neither class. It satisfied neither the expectations of the Jews, nor the requirements of the Greeks. On the contrary, it was to the Jews a stumbling-block. They had anticipated in the Messiah a glorious temporal prince, who should deliver and exalt their nation. To present to them one crucified as a malefactor as their Messiah, was the greatest possible insult. He was to them, therefore, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, Rom_9:33; 1Pe_2:8. To the Greeks this doctrine was foolishness. Nothing in the apprehension of rationalists can be more absurd than that the blood of the cross can remove sin, promote virtue, and secure salvation; or that the preaching of that doctrine is to convert the world.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

we--Paul and Apollos.

Christ crucified--The Greek expresses not the mere fact of His crucifixion, but the permanent character acquired by the transaction, whereby He is now a Saviour (Gal 3:1) crucified was the stone on which the Jews stumbled (Mat 21:44). The opposition of Jew and Gentile alike shows that a religion so seemingly contemptible in its origin could not have succeeded if it had not been divine.

unto the Greeks--the oldest manuscripts read "unto the Gentiles."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 23. But we] Apostles, differing widely from these Gentile philosophers:-

Preach Christ crucified] Call on men, both Jews and Gentiles, to believe in Christ, as having purchased their salvation by shedding his blood for them.

Unto the Jews a stumbling block] Because Jesus came meek, lowly, and impoverished; not seeking worldly glory, nor affecting worldly pomp; whereas they expected the Messiah to come as a mighty prince and conqueror; because Christ did not come so, they were offended at him. Out of their own mouths, we may condemn the gainsaying Jews. In Sohar Chadash, fol. 26, the following saying is attributed to Moses, relative to the brazen serpent: "Moses said, This serpent is a stumbling block to the world. The holy blessed God answered: Not at all, it shall be for punishment to sinners, and life to upright men." This is a proper illustration of the apostle's words.

Unto the Greeks foolishness] Because they could not believe that proclaiming supreme happiness through a man that was crucified at Judea as a malefactor could ever comport with reason and common sense; for both the matter and manner of the preaching were opposite to every notion they had formed of what was dignified and philosophic. In Justin Martyr's dialogue with Trypho the Jew we have these remarkable words, which serve to throw light on the above. "Your Jesus," says Trypho, "having fallen under the extreme curse of God, we cannot sufficiently admire how you can expect any good from God, who place your hopes επ ανθρωπον σταυρωθεντα, upon a man that was CRUCIFIED." The same writer adds: "They count us mad, that after the eternal God, the Father of all things, we give the second place, ανθρωπω σταυρωθεντι, to a man that was crucified." "Where is your understanding," said the Gentiles, "who worship for a god him who was crucified?" Thus Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness. See Whitby on this verse.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(23) But we preach.—The gospel of Christ crucified made its way by those very qualities which they regarded as “weakness and folly,” vindicating itself as “the power of God,” more mighty than any “sign” a Jew might ask for; and “the wisdom of God” surpassing any merely intellectual “wisdom” which a Greek might desire.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23. but we preach Christ crucified] The Christian doctrine was the very reverse of what Jews and Greeks demanded. Instead of Messiah upon an earthly throne, triumphant over his enemies, instead of a skilful and original disputant, the Christian preachers speak of a condemned criminal. As a temporal Prince He had no pretensions to notice. To the title of philosopher, at least in the Corinthian sense of the term, He had no claim. His one argument was His Life and Death. What wonder if this doctrine were to the Jews an offence, and sheer nonsense in the ears of the inquisitive and argumentative Greek?

a stumblingblock] The expression used here is the same as in the Septuagint version of Isa_8:14.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But we preach Christ crucified,.... Regardless of the sentiments and opinions of Jews and Gentiles, of what the one required and the other sought after; and in opposition to all their senseless and groundless cavils, the apostle and his fellow ministers continued preaching the doctrine of salvation by a crucified Christ, and him only; though it was

unto the Jews a stumblingblock; as was prophesied it should be, and as it came to pass; for they not only stumbled at the meanness of his birth, parentage, and education, at his ministry, miracles, company and audience; but especially at his sufferings and death: it was a stumbling to them that he should die at all, for they understood out of their law, that Christ should abide for ever; and it was more so that he should die the death of the cross, by which, according to their law, he appeared to be accursed; and most of all this was stumbling to them, because they expected a temporal kingdom to be set up by him:

and unto the Greeks foolishness; as that the Son of God should be crucified; that riches should come through his poverty, and men be brought to a kingdom and glory through one so mean and abject; that there should be life for men in his death, and salvation through his crucifixion, or the shameful death of the cross; that blessings should come through his being made a curse; and that his death should be an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of men; and that justification should be by one that was condemned; and peace and pardon should be by his blood; and that he should be raised again from the dead. These things were the subject of their ridicule and banter, and, in their opinion, deserved rather to be laughed at than credited. The Alexandrian copy, and others, and the Vulgate and all the Oriental versions, read, "unto the Gentiles".

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

Ver. 23. But we preach Christ] We not only preach of him, but we preach him, we give what we preach. It is the special office of the ministry to lay Christ open, to hold up the tapestry, to untold the hidden mysteries of Christ. The Holy Ghost in them taketh of that which is Christ’s, and showeth to men, Joh 16:15.

Unto the Jews a stumblingblock] These Philistines cannot conceive how out of the eater should come meat, and out of the strong, sweet.

Unto the Greeks] These jeered at Jesus and the resurrection, as at a couple of strange gods, Act 17:18. Cato profanely saith, Stultitia est morte alterius sperare salutem: It is a folly to expect safety by the death of another. The gospel was to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks a laughing-stock. They both stumbled on the bridge, and so fell into the ditch of destruction.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But we - We who are Christian preachers make Christ crucified the grand subject of our instructions and our aims in contradistinction from the Jew and the Greek. They seek, the one miracles, the other wisdom, we glory only in the cross.

Christ crucified - The word Christ, the anointed, is the same as the Hebrew name Messiah. The emphasis in this expression is on the word “crucified.” The Jews would make the Messiah whom they expected no less an object of glorifying than the apostles, but they spurned the doctrine that he was to be crucified. Yet in that the apostles boasted; proclaiming him crucified, or “having been crucified” as the only hope of man. This must mean more than that Christ was distinguished for moral worth, more than that he died as a martyr; because if that were all, no reason could be given why the cross should be made so prominent an object. It must mean that Christ was crucified for the sins of people, as an atoning sacrifice in the place of sinners. “We proclaim a crucified. Messiah as the only redeemer of lost people.”

To the Jews a stumbling-block - The word “stumbling-block” (σκάνδαλον skandalon) means properly anything in the way over which one may fall; then anything that gives offence, or that causes one to fall into sin. Here it means that to the Jews, the doctrine that the Messiah was to be crucified gave great offence; excited, irritated, and exasperated them; that they could not endure the doctrine, and treated it with scorn. Compare the Rom 9:33 note; 1Pe 2:8 note. It is well known that to the Jews no doctrine was more offensive than this, that the Messiah was to be put to death, and that there was to be salvation in no other way. It was so in the times of the apostles, and it has been so since. They have, therefore, usually called the Lord Jesus, by way of derision, “תלוי Tolwiy, the man that was hanged,” that is, on a cross; and Christians they have usually denominated, for the same reason, צבדי תלוי 'Abday Tolwiy, servants of the man that was hanged.” The reasons of this feeling are obvious:

(1) They had looked for a magnificent temporal prince; but the doctrine that their Messiah was crucified, dashed all their expectations. And they regarded it with contempt and scorn, just in proportion as their hopes had been elevated, and these high expectations cherished.

(2) They had the common feelings of all people, the native feelings of pride, and self-righteousness, by which they rejected the doctrine that we are dependent for salvation on one who was crucified.

(3) They regarded Jesus as one given over by God for an enormous attempt at imposition, as having been justly put to death; and the object of the curse of the Almighty. Isa 53:4, “we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God.” They endeavored to convince themselves that he was the object of the divine dereliction and abhorrence; and they, therefore, rejected the doctrine of the cross with the deepest feelings of detestation.

To the Greeks - To the Gentiles in general. So the Syriac, the Vulgate, the Arabic, and the Aethiopic versions all read it. The term “Greek” denotes all who were not Jews; thus the phrase, “the Jews and the Greeks” comprehended the whole human family, 1Co 1:22.

Foolishness - See the note at 1Co 1:18. They regarded it as folly:

Because they esteemed the whole account a fable, and an imposition; It did not accord with their own views of the way of elevating the condition of man; They saw no efficacy in the doctrine, no tendency in the statement that a man of humble birth was put to death in an ignominious manner in Judea, to make people better, or to receive pardon.

(4)They had the common feelings of unrenewed human nature; blind to the beauty of the character of Christ, and blind to the design of his death; and they therefore regarded the whole statement as folly.

We may remark here, that the feelings of the Jews and of the Greeks on this subject, are the common feelings of people. Everywhere sinners have the same views of the cross; and everywhere the human heart, if left to itself, rejects it, as either a stumbling-block or as folly. But the doctrine should be preached, though it is an offence, and though it appears to be folly. It is the only hope of man; and by the preaching of the cross alone can sinners be saved.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

But we preach Christ crucified; we that are the ministers of Christ, come and preach to them, that there was one hanged upon a cross at Jerusalem, who is the Saviour of the world, and was not cut off for his own sins, but for the sins of his people.

Unto the Jews a stumblingblock; the Jews are stumbled at this, looking for a Messiah that should be a great temporal Prince; and besides, accounting it an ignominious thing to believe in one as their Saviour whom they had caused to be crucified.

And unto the Greeks foolishness; and the Greeks, the most learned among the Gentiles, look upon it as a foolish, idle story, that one who was and is God blessed for ever, should be crucified.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Christ crucified; rather perhaps, a crucified Messiah. It was only by slow degrees that the title "the Christ," i.e. the Anointed, the Messiah, passed into the name Christ. A stumbling block. They had for centuries been looking for a regal and victorious Messiah, who should exalt their special privileges. The notion of a suffering and humiliated Messiah, who reduced them to the level of all God"s other children, was to them "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence" (Rom_9:33; comp. Isa_8:14) These two verses, translated into Syriac, furnish a marked play on words (miscol, stumbling block; mashcal, folly; seed, cross); and some have seen in this a sign that St. Paul thought in Syriac. Unto the Greeks; rather, unto Gentiles; a, A, B, C, I). Unto the Jews unto the Greeks. Both alike had failed. The Jew had not attained ease of conscience or moral perfectness; the Greek had. not unriddled the secret of philosophy; yet both alike rejected the peace and the enlightenment which they had professed to seek. Foolishness. The accent of profound contempt is discernible in all the early allusions of Greeks and Romans to Christianity. The only epithets which they could find for it were "execrable," "malefic," "depraved," "damnable" (Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, etc.). The milder term is "excessive superstition." The heroic constancy of martyrs appeared even to M. Aurelius only under the aspect of a "bare obstinacy." The word used to express the scorn of the Athenian philosophers for St. Paul"s "strange doctrine" is one of the coarsest disdain (ejcleuazon), and they called him "a seed pecker", (Act_17:18, Act_17:32) i.e. a mere picker up of "learning"s crumbs."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We go on to preach, in a plain and historical, not rhetorical or philosophical, manner, Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumblingblock - Just opposite to the "signs" they demand. And to the Greeks foolishness - A silly tale, just opposite to the wisdom they seek.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

23. “But we preach Christ having been crucified.” This constituted the entire curriculum of the Pauline gospel message, i. e., the Christhood of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, the Shiloh of prophecy, the Redeemer of Israel, and the Savior of the world. The crucifixion, followed by the resurrection and ascension, constituted the grand salient confirmation of His Christhood, exemplifying and illustrating not only the great fact of the vicarious atonement by which a lost world is redeemed, but the ostensible and momentous experimental reality, confirmatory of the irrefutable conclusion that all who would avail themselves of this wonderful expiatory mercy must follow Jesus in the great salient facts of His experimental Christhood, i. e., to the cross, there to have the sinful Adamic nature in us crucified and destroyed (Rom 6:6), after the similitude of the sinless Adamic nature in our great Prototype. “To the Jews indeed a stumbling block.” It is a matter of fact that the Jewish church stumbled over the crucifixion of Christ, then and there ejected by Jehovah from the election of grace, and plunging headlong into that awful apostasy which has culminated in infidelity, and even atheism. In a similar manner in all subsequent ages whenever the gospel church has rejected the experimental crucifixion of Adam the first in entire sanctification, which is the work of the Holy Ghost to prepare us for Heaven, in so doing she has grieved Him away (1Th 4:8), following Judaism in the awful apostasy, plunging headlong into spiritual darkness, worldliness, rationalism and infidelity. “And to the Gentiles foolishness.” The great Gentile world at that time was dominated by the Greek philosophy and Roman power. Crucifixion on a cross, being the normal capital punishment throughout the universal Roman Empire, standing precisely in lieu of hanging in America, was the shibboleth of popular odium and disgust. Consequently, the very idea that they were to be saved by an obscure man who had been crucified at Jerusalem, under charges of high treason, impressed them as climacteric folly.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness ;

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

23. But we preach Christ crucified. Not merely Christ, but Christ Crucified; a Crucified Savior. Unto the Jews a stumbling-block. Because they had an entirely different conception of the Christ. Yet it was predicted that he should be “a stone of stumbling” (Matt. 21:42). Unto the Greeks foolishness. It seemed to the Greeks that a being who died so ignominious a death could not be divine.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

23. ἡμεῖς δέ. We, on the contrary.

Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον. The Christian doctrine was the very reverse of what Jews and Greeks demanded. Instead of Messiah upon an earthly throne, triumphant over His enemies, instead of a skilful and original disputant, the Christian preachers speak of a condemned criminal. As a temporal Prince He had no pretensions to notice. To the title of philosopher, at least in the Corinthian sense of the term, He had no claim. His one argument was His Life and Death. What wonder if this doctrine were to the Jews an offence, and sheer nonsense in the ears of the inquisitive and argumentative Greek? Moreover the curse pronounced in Deu 21:23 was a great difficulty in the way of the reception of the Gospel by Jews.

σκάνδαλον. The A.V. translation stumblingblock is most probably incorrect. σκάνδαλον is properly a trap to catch birds, and it is ordinarily used in the LXX. as equivalent to snare. See Jdg 2:3; 1Sa 18:21. It is, however, used to translate a word equivalent to stumblingblock in Lev 19:14. Cf. Gal 5:11.

μωρίαν. Folly. The A.V. foolishness hardly gives a strong enough sense, since the word has gone out of common use and remains for us only in the Scriptures.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23.] Still the expansion of ἡ μωρ. τ. κηρύγ. Now, σκάνδ. as regards the Jews, and μωρία as regards the Gentiles, correspond to the general term μωρία before. The δέ after ἡμεῖς is that so often found in clauses following the temporal conjunctions ἐπεί, ἕως, ὄφρα, &c., in Homer, and ὅς, ὡς, ὥσπερ, εἰ, &c., in Attic writers: e.g. Od. ξ. 178, τὸν ἐπεὶ θρέψαν θεοί, ἔρνεϊ ἶσον …, τοῦ δέ τις ἀθανάτων βλάψε φρένας ἔνδον ἐΐσας,—and Xen. Cyr. viii. 5. 12, ὥσπερ οἱ ὁπλῖται, οὕτω δὲ καὶ οἱ πελτασταὶ κ. οἱ τοξοταί. See many other examples in Hartung, Partikellehre, i. 184 f. It serves to give a slight prominence to the consequent clause, as compared with the antecedent one.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23. Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον. ‘A crucified Messiah’ (2:2; Gal 3:1). ‘We preach a Christ crucified’ (RV. marg.), the very point at which the argument with a Jew encountered a wall of prejudice (Act 26:23, εἰ παφητὸς ὁ Χριστός. Cf. Gal 2:21, Gal 5:11). The Jews demanded a victorious Christ, heralded by σημεῖα, who would restore the glories of the kingdom of David and Solomon. To the Jew the Cross was the sufficient and decisive refutation (Mat 27:42; cf. Luk 24:21) of the claim that Jesus was the Christ. To the first preachers of Christ, the Cross was the atonement for sin (15:3, 11). On this subject the Jew had to unlearn before he could learn; and so also, in a different way, had the Greek. Both had to learn the divine character of humility. Christ was not preached as a conqueror to please the one, nor as a philosopher to please the other: He was preached as the crucified Nazarene.

ἔφνεσιν δὲ μερίαν. The heathen, prepared to weight the ‘pros and cons’ of a new system,’ lacked the presuppositions which might have prepared the Jew for simple faith in the Christ. To him, the Gospel presented no prima facie case; it was unmeaning not even plausible: he was not, like the Jew, bent on righteousness (Rom 9:30-3). Compare Cicero’s horror of crucifixion (Pro Rabir. 5), Lucian’s reference to our Saviour (De mort. Peregr. 13) as τὸν ἀνεσκολοπισμένον ἐκεῖνον σοφιστήν, and the well-known caricature, found on the Palatine, of a slave bowing down to a crucified figure with an ass’s head, inscribed Αλεξαμενος θεον σεβεται.

A few authorities (C3 D3, Clem-Alex.) have Ἕλλησι instead of ἔθνεσιν. Orig. seems to have both readings.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.