“I bear on my body the marks of Jesus”
Galatians 6:17
Cultural referenceSettledPaul
From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. (Galatians 6:17 BSB)
* Greek: stigmata, the brands burned into slaves and soldiers to show whose they were.
What it sounds like today
Vague spiritual scarring; later tradition read in miraculous wounds.
The cultural key
The word is stigmata, and in the first century it meant the brand or tattoo that marked a body as owned: slaves were marked by masters, and devotees of some gods bore the deity's mark. Paul's 'marks of Jesus' are his scar tissue, the receipts of the stonings and the five sets of thirty-nine lashes (see the 2 Corinthians 11:24 entry), read as ownership brands. The jab completes the letter: his opponents boast of a mark cut into other men's flesh; Paul's marks were cut into his own.
Recovered meaning
'Stop troubling me; my body already carries its owner's brand.' Against the circumcision argument, Paul submits his scars as the only body-mark that certifies whose he is.
Parallels: 2 Corinthians 11:24–25; 2 Corinthians 4:10