Being nailed to a cross was not only a torturous form of execution but a slow and
humiliating one, during which the onlookers watched dying person’s gasps for breath.
Usually this painful and shameful form of execution was reserved for slaves and
revolutionaries, as a warning to others.
St. Paul’s Gentile listeners would have considered death on a cross as a shame and an
indignity. Nevertheless, Paul is straightforward in affirming: “God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (Gal 6:14).
St. Thomas comments that a person glories in what he or she considers great, some
people glory in wealth, some people glory in friendship with great people. Thomas
explains that Paul found in the Cross the very things that others seek:
… this friendship the Apostle found most of all in the Cross, because there an
obvious sign of divine friendship is shown: ‘God proves His love for us in that
while we were still sinners Christ died for us’ (Rom 5:8). For nothing shows His
mercy to us as much as the death of Christ. Hence Gregory writes, ‘O
inestimable love of charity! To redeem the servant, He delivered His Son’
(Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Letter to the Galatians, 371).
Some glory in knowledge. Paul did not claim to know anything but the Cross:
“For I judged not myself to know anything among you but Jesus Christ and Him
crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). In fact, the Cross contains the most important truths, as
Thomas points out: “For in the Cross is the perfection of all law and the whole art
of living well” (Commentary on Galatians, 371).
Thomas recognizes that some people glory in having power but Paul, on the contrary,
glories in the Cross because ultimately it is investing in God’s own power: “The
message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being
saved it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18).”
Some glory in their freedom but Thomas points to Paul’s assertion that lasting freedom
comes through the Cross: “Our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin may be
destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer” (Rom 6:6).
Some find camaraderie by acceptance into special groups but, as Thomas affirms, Paul
realized that we find acceptance with heavenly beings through the Cross: “Through Him
to reconcile all things for Him, making peace by the blood of His Cross, whether those
on earth or those in heaven” (Col 1:20).
Some rejoice in conquests but Paul saw our real triumphs coming from the Cross: “And
despoiling the principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, leading
them away in triumph by it” (Col 2:15).

Paul chose to glory in what was essential rather than in the superficial values of society:
“… by the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to
the world” (Gal 6:14); “I consider everything as a loss for the supreme good of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider
them to be so much rubbish…” (Phil 3:8).
Thomas affirms:
For a person who glories in something treasures it and desires to make nothing
known except what pertains to the Cross of Christ; therefore he glories in it
alone… As if to say: I carry the marks of the Cross and I am considered dead.
Therefore, as the world abhors the Cross of Christ, so it abhors me; ‘For you are
dead and your life is hid with Christ in God’ (Col 3:3) (Commentary on Galatians,
373).
According to Thomas, Paul set his energies on what is important: “He glories mainly in
that which avails and helps in joining him to Christ; for it is this, the Apostle desires,
namely, to be with Christ” (Commentary on Galatians, 374).
Paul states: “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for
anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). Thomas draws out the
implications of this statement:
Therefore, faith informed by charity is the new creature. For we have been
created and made to exist in our nature through Adam, but that creature is
already old. Therefore the Lord in producing us and establishing us in the
existence of grace has made a new creature… And it is called ‘new’ because by
it we are reborn into the new life by the Holy Spirit: ‘When You send forth Your
Spirit, they are created and You renew the face of the earth’ (Ps 104:30) and by
the Cross of Christ: ‘So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things
have passed away, new things have come.’ In this way, then, by a new creature,
i.e. by the faith of Christ and the charity of God which has been poured into
hearts, we are made new and are joined to Christ (Commentary on Galatians,
374).
Paul wrote: “I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body” (Gal 6:17). Thomas reflects
that slaves were branded with certain marks by means of a hot iron, so that no one else
could claim them. Thomas concludes: “… the Apostle says he bears the marks of the
Lord, branded, as it were, as a slave of Christ; and this, because he bore the marks of
Christ’s passion, suffering many tribulations in his body for Him, according to the saying:
‘Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps’ (1 Pt
2:21); ‘Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus
may be manifested in our body’ (2 Cor 4:10) (Commentary on Galatians, 379).

The quotations from Thomas Aquinas are from Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Saint
Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, translated by F. R. Larcher, O.P., (Albany, NY: Magi
Books Inc., 1965), pp. 202-206.
Denis Vincent Wiseman, O.P.