Greek word · G2699

κατατομή

katatomē

mutilation

From kata ('down, against') + temnō ('cut'): a cutting up, incision, mutilation. In ordinary Greek it could mean a cutting into rock or a notch. Here it is used of the flesh.

Appears once in the Greek New Testament. · Updated October 23, 2026

What it means

κατα-τομή, -ῆς, ἡ

[in Sm.: Jeremiah 31:37 (κατατέμνω is used in LXX of forbidden mutilations: Leviticus 21:5, al.) ;]

1. incision.

2. excision, concision, mutilation: in sarcasm, by paronomasia, in contrast to (true) περιτομή (v3), of Judaizing Christians, Philippians 3:2 (see Lft., in l; Cremer, 883).†

(AS)

From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Philippians 3:2

Range of meaning: From kata ('down, against') + temnō ('cut'): a cutting up, incision, mutilation. In ordinary Greek it could mean a cutting into rock or a notch. Here it is used of the flesh.
Against the English: KJV 'concision' (borrowed from the Latin Vulgate's concisio) keeps the pun but means nothing to today's readers. WEB and NASB use 'false circumcision', which explains the target but loses the shock of the word. BSB, NIV and ESV use 'mutilators/mutilate the flesh', which keeps the image; 'flesh' is added to make the sense clear.
How it drifted: 'Concision' died out as an English word for cutting and now sounds like 'conciseness'. 'False circumcision' is an interpretive paraphrase that softens Paul's deliberately grotesque word.
Used elsewhere in the period: Found only here in the New Testament. In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) the related verb katatemnō describes cuttings in the body that the Law forbade: priests must not make cuttings in their flesh (Lev 21:5). The prophets of Baal gash themselves (1 Kgs 18:28, where the LXX uses this verb family). Mourning or pagan gashing is also condemned (compare Deut 14:1; Hos 7:14 LXX). Paul's equally rough joke in Gal 5:12, 'I wish they would cut themselves off', comes from the same quarrel.

Where it appears

Philippians · 1

Philippians 3:2 κατατομήν· false circumcision;

Watch out for those dogs, those workers of evil, those mutilators of the flesh!

Here: A deliberately ugly pun on peritomē, 'circumcision', in the next verse. Imposed on Gentile believers, the rite Paul's rivals prize is in his view no holy covenant cut. It is only a hacking of the flesh, like the pagan self-gashing that the Law forbade.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.