Galatians 5:11

It seems strange in view of Paul's later career that he should have needed to repudiate, however briefly and scornfully, the charge of still preaching circumcision as he had before his conversion. After his open breach with the synagogue, indeed, at Corinth and at Ephesus it would have been hardly possible to advance such a plea. But he had recently, before writing this Epistle, taken two steps open to this misconstruction on which agitators could fasten. He had deposited with the Galatians for their guidance the resolution adopted by the Church at Jerusalem which recommended scrupulous regard for the Law in certain matters, and he had himself circumcised a Galatian convert whose father had been a Greek. Paul contents himself with pointing for answer to the persecutions which he was still enduring at the hands of Jews, probably those which befel him in Macedonia. ἆρα. The interrogative ἆρα is far more appropriate to the context than the inferential ἄρα. The Apostle, being accused of currying favour with the Jews, points indignantly to the persecutions he was suffering from them and exclaims, “Hath the stumbling-block of the Cross been done away?”