Christ Crucified, a Stumbling Block

The shock to your hearing and ears, then, is that God was born and God suffered. Then where is that saying of yours, apostle Paul: “But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness; but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”? What is the wisdom and power of God? Certainly it is God. But he preaches Christ crucified as the power and wisdom of God. If, then, Christ is beyond any doubt the wisdom of God, he is therefore beyond any doubt God. “We,” then, he says, “preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness.” So the Lord’s cross, which was foolishness to the Gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews, is both at once to you. Nor indeed is there any greater foolishness than not to believe, or any greater stumbling block than to refuse to listen. [a]

Their ears were wounded then by the preaching of God and of his suffering, just as yours are wounded now. They thought, as you think, that this shocked their ears. That is why, when the apostle was preaching Christ as God, at the name of our God and Lord Jesus Christ they stopped the ears of their heads, as you stop the ears of your understanding. The sin of you both in this might seem equal, were it not that your fault is the greater. For they denied him in whom his suffering still showed the man, while you deny him whom the resurrection has already proved to be God. So they persecuted on earth the one you persecute even in heaven. And more than that, this is crueler and more wicked: they denied him in ignorance, you deny him after receiving the faith; they did not know the Lord, you have confessed him as God; they acted under cover of zeal for the law, you under the cloak of your office as bishop; they denied one to whom they thought they were strangers, you deny the one whose priest you are. What an unworthy act, and one never heard of before! You persecute and attack the very one whose office you still hold.