Galatians 4:13
And you know, how through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel to you heretofore: and your temptation in my flesh,
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Scitis autem quia per infirmitatem carnis evangelizavi vobis jampridem : et tentationem vestram in carne mea
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- οἴδατε δὲ ὅτι διʼ ἀσθένειαν τῆς σαρκὸς εὐηγγελισάμην ὑμῖν τὸ πρότερον,
Haydock's commentary
On verses 13 to 16
Through infirmity of the flesh....and your temptation in my flesh. St. Jerome thinks the apostle had some bodily infirmity upon him. St. Chrysostom understands his poverty, and want, and persecutions, and that some were inclined to contemn him and his preaching on these accounts. Yet others among them did not esteem him less: they received him, respected him as an Angel of God, as Christ Jesus; they would have given him their eyes, as one may say, and all that was dear to them. He puts them in mind how happy then they thought themselves, and asketh why they are now so much changed? (Witham)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine On Christian Doctrine, Examples of the Various Styles Drawn from Scripture
44. Again, in writing to the Galatians, although the whole epistle is written in the subdued style, except at the end, where it rises into a temperate eloquence, yet he interposes one passage of so much feeling that, notwithstanding the absence of any ornaments such as appear in the passages just quoted, it cannot be called anything but powerful: “Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all. Ye know how, through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily VI
This again is another topic: for not only are the believers unlearned persons; not only is he that speaketh unlearned; not only is the manner of the teaching of an unlearned cast throughout; not only was the thing preached of itself enough to stagger people; (for the cross and death were the message brought;) but together with these there were also other hindrances, the dangers, and the plots, and the daily fear, and the being hunted about. For the word “weakness,” with him in many places stands for the persecutions: as also elsewhere. “My weakness which I had in my flesh ye did not set at nought:” ( Gal. iv. 13, 14 .) and again, “If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern my weakness.” ( 2 Cor. xi. 30 .) What [weakness]? “The governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes, desirous to apprehend me.” ( 2 Cor. v. …
St John Chrysostom The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians, Galatians 4:1-3
Ver. 13, 14 . “But ye know that because of an infirmity of the flesh I preached the Gospel unto you the first time. And that which was a temptation in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected.” Not to have injured one is indeed no great thing, for no man whatever would choose to hurt wantonly and without object to annoy another who had never injured him. But for you, not only have ye not injured me, but ye have shown me great and inexpressible kindness, and it is impossible that one who has been treated with such attention should speak thus from any malevolent motive. My language then cannot be caused by ill-will; it follows, that it proceeds from affection and solicitude. …