From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
Ver. 17. From henceforth let no man] Here he takes upon him as an apostle, and speaks with authority, Σεμνως και δεινως .
I bear in my body the marks] As scars of honour. Paul had been whipped, stocked, stoned, &c. The marks of these he could better boast of than those false apostles of their circumcision. And hereby it appeared that he refused not, as they did, to suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. In the year 1166, the Synod held at Oxford in the reign of Henry II banished out of England 30 Dutch doctors (which taught the right use of marriage, and of the sacraments), after they had first stigmatized or branded them with hot irons. (Alsted Chron.) John Clerk of Melden, in France, being for Christ's sake whipped three different days, and afterwards having a mark set in his forehead, as a note of infamy, his mother beholding it (though his father was an adversary) encouraged her son, crying with a loud voice, Vivat Christus eiusque insignia, " Blessed be Christ, and welcome be these prints and marks of Christ." The next year after, sc. A. D. 1524, he brake the images without the city, which his superstitious countrymen were to worship the next day. For the which he was apprehended, and had his right hand cut off, his nose pulled off with pincers, both his arms and both his breasts torn with the same instrument; and after all he was burned at a stake. In his greatest torments he pronounced that of the Psalmist, "Their idols are silver and gold, the works of men's hands," &c. (Scultet. Annul.) I conclude this discourse with that saying of Pericles, "It is not gold, precious stones, statues, that adorns a soldier, but a torn buckler, a cracked helmet, a blunt sword, a scarred face." Of these Biron, the French marshal, boasted at his death. And Sceva is renowned for this, that at the siege of Dyrrachium, he so long alone resisted Pompey's army, that he had 220 darts sticking in his shield, and lost one of his eyes, and yet gave not over till Caesar came to his rescue. a Mr Prinne's Stigmata Laudis are better known than that they need here to be related.
a Densamque ferens in pectore silvam. Lucan.