Galatians 6:12-13

Paul impugns the sincerity of the agitators: their affected zeal for the Law was a pretext with a view to disarming Jewish enmity: they urged the circumcision of Gentiles also to gratify their own vanity. They had probably, like the Jewish Christians at Antioch (cf. Galatians 2:13), been guilty of inconsistency in their practice: but Paul apparently relies also on his argument in Galatians 2:16 that Jewish converts had by the mere act of embracing Christ confessed their own inability to keep the Law, and could not therefore be sincere in preaching to others obedience to its rules. τῷ σταυρῷ. This dative cannot surely mean for (i.e., by reason of) the cross. If this had been the meaning, it would have been expressed by διὰ τὸν σταυρόν. The correct translation seems to be, persecuted with the cross, i.e., the cross of outward suffering which was in those days the lot of so many converted Jews, and notably of Paul himself. The Cross of Christ is here identified with persecution as it is in Philippians 3:18 with self-denial.