Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadLange Commentary - John 8:1 - 8:11
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
[Christ And The Adulteress, And Their Accusers.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. “Griesbach and Schultz give a list of more than a hundred manuscripts in which the pericope appears. Among them are D. G. H. K. M. U. Jerome, in his day, asserts that the pericope appears in many Greek manuscripts, and some scholia appeal to ἀñ÷áῖá ἀíôßãñáöá ,” etc. Lücke. On the contrary, “the majuscules B. C. L. T. do not contain the passage; neither do the older manuscripts of the Peshito, nor the Nestorian manuscripts; and it is certain that it was not translated into Syriac till the sixth century. Of the manuscripts of the Philoxenian version, in which it occurs, some have it only on the margin, and others have it in the text with the note that it is not everywhere found. So in most manuscripts of the Coptic version, and in the Arabic version which was based upon the Coptic, we seek it in vain. Of the manuscripts of the Armenian version, some have it not, others have it at the end of the Gospel. In the Sahidic and Gothic versions it is also wanting. Among the fathers, the Greek expositors Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, Chrysostom, Nonnus, Theophylact, entirely omit the pericope, and seem to know nothing of it. So the Catenæ, both published and unpublished. Euthymius expounds it, as a ðñïóèÞêç which is not without use. The current mention and use of the pericope in the Latin church begins with Ambrose and Augustine.” Ibid. “Furthermore, several manuscripts in Griesbach contain the passage, but add either the sign of rejection nor of interpolation. Others put the passage at the end of the Gospel; others again, after Joh_7:36, or Joh_8:12; still others place it after Luke 21. It not rarely appears in the manuscripts mutilated.” Ibid.
This position of the authorities presents a great critical problem, which at best makes the section in its present place suspicious; especially when we consider that Origen has not the passage, that Tertullian and Cyprian, when they write on subjects which would bring it in, do not mention it, and that the older manuscripts of the Peshito are without it.
2. The condition of the text. This is the sorest side of the passage. Reading disputes reading. Compare Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf. “We have three very different texts,—an unheard-of case in the Gospel of John. Besides the received text, Griesbach gives two others: first the text of Cod. D., secondly one compiled from other manuscripts.” Lücke. This diversity seems unaccountable, unless a traditional apostolic relic (oral or in Hebrew, or preserved in substance with free variations was scattered through different copies before it resulted in this passage.
[To this unusual number of variations must be added the entire diversity from the narrative style of John, which Meyer and Alford regard as the most weighty argument against the passage. Here belong the terms ὄñèñïõ , ðᾶò ὁ ëáüò , ïἱ ãñáììáôåῖò êáὶ ïἱ öáñ ., ἑðéìÝíåéí , ἀíáìÜñôçôïò , êáôáëåßðåóèáé , êáôáêñßíåéí , which are net otherwise used by John, the absence of his usual ïὗí which occurs but once in this passage, while äÝ is here found eleven times. Hengstenberg misses also the “mystic twilight” which is characteristic of John’s style. Upon the whole, the style is more like that of the Synoptists. Tischendorf (ed. VIII. p.829) says categorically: “Locum de adultera non ab Johanne scriptum esse cerctissimum est.”—P. S.]
3. The historical connection of this with other occurrences in the Gospel.
A. In this respect many doubts have been raised, which must, of course, be carefully weighed.
(a) That Joh_7:53 refers to Sanhedrists returning to their houses, not to festal pilgrims returning to their homes, is obvious. This, however, yields a very suitable connection. They had expected Christ to be brought before their bar, and now were compelled—to go home disappointed and divided.
(b) The statement in Joh_8:1, that Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. It is thought that this method of securing Himself against the snares of His enemies was not employed by Jesus till the time of the last passover. Yet the fact that this was necessary is here evident enough; for the Sanhedrin was seeking to arrest Him. Lücke’s reasoning (p. 255) overlooks this point.
(c) Joh_8:2 : “All the people came unto Him.” Even if the great day of the feast, on which Jesus made His last appearance, was the eighth, there would be nothing to prevent all the people who did not immediately leave Jerusalem, from assembling the next day in the temple.
(d) The Scribes, ãñáììáôåῖò , who do not elsewhere appear in John, are strange here. Their appearance here, however, is in keeping with the immediately succeeding fact that a question of the law comes up; the strangeness of it is not decisive. Other differences of expression are less important (see Lücke, p. 257).
(e) It seems not clear whether the Scribes appear as witnesses, or as accusers, or as judges. Plainly as accusers, or as judges who would refer their decision, in irony, to the tribunal of Jesus; not as zealots, according to Wetstein.
(f) There is no mention of the adulterer (Lev_20:10; Deu_22:22; Deu_22:24). This signifies nothing at all.
(g) According to the Rabbins the legal punishment of adultery was strangulation (Lücke, p. 259). On this point Michaelis has justly denied the authority of the Talmud, and has asserted, on a comparison of Exo_31:14; Exo_35:2 with Num_15:32-35, that the formula put to death, generally means stoned. Besides, strangulation is frequently used first only as an alleviation of the prescribed penalty, as in the burning in the middle ages.
(h) But what temptation was there in the question? Chiefly the fact that Jesus had not yet officially declared Himself Messiah, while He nevertheless was largely acknowledged as such among the people, and seemed Himself to give occasion for such recognition. The procedure with the adulteress was, therefore, in its very form, a temptation to Him to declare Himself concerning His authority (with reference to Moses). Then in the matter of the case lay a further temptation, to wit, in the conflict between the so-called commandment of the law on the one hand, and the prevailing milder practice and the known gentleness of Christ on the other. To this question, however, we must return.
B. But now the apparently strange features are offset by a number, which speak for the genuineness of the narrative.
(a) The feast of tabernacles was pre-eminently a joyous popular feast of the Jews; it was celebrated in the good time of the year; such a sin as the one here narrated, might easily occur.
(b) The writing of Jesus on the ground is so peculiar a feature, that it would hardly have been fabricated.
(c) The same may be said of His challenge; “He that is without sin among you,” etc., and of His closing word to the woman.
[(d) the peculiarity of the whole incident, as presenting to the Lord a case of actual sin on its direct merits, is in its favor. Such an incident might be said to meet a want, or at least to fill a place of its own, in the gospel history. And if such an incident occurred at all, John would be the Evangelist most likely to notice and record it; since he is the one to record the somewhat kindred issue raised by the disciples over the man born blind, chap. 9. With so many cases of actual human misery, and of general sinfulness, brought before the Lord for His treatment, “whether in pretence or in truth,” and with various hypothetical cases of conscience put to Him, it would seem suitable that we should have one case of actual and flagrant crime.—E. D. Y.]
Nothing, therefore, can be adduced against the details of the story or its connection with other facts of the Gospels; it is even a question, whether there are not special data in its favor.
4. As to the connection of the section with the preceding and following portions of the Gospel: It is clear that the story of the adulteress in this place not only introduces no disturbance, but even serves to elucidate the discourse of Christ in Joh_8:12 sqq. The woman had walked in darkness; her judges had admitted that they found themselves in darkness in regard to the disposal of this case; but for the very purpose of making an assault of the power of darkness upon the Lord with their captious question. This connection does not exclude a further reference to the temple-lights and the torch-light festivities in the celebration of the feast of tabernacles.
One of the principal questions is the question of internal criticism: Is it conceivable that the Jewish rulers would so early make a captious attack upon the Lord by an ironical concession of His Messiahship? We must here, in the first place, remember that the enemies of Jesus at the last passover made a whole round, a very storm, of such assaults upon Jesus (Leben Jesu, II. 3, p. 1218). The situation there was this: They first endeavored, by their authority, to confound Him before the people in the temple-enclosure with the question, by what power He thus appeared; but He baffled them with counter-questions. He maintained His position before the people, and seemed unimpeachable; while they were impotent. Then they had recourse to craft; they ironically assumed that He was the Messiah, in order to catch Him in entangling questions. It is now asked, Is it conceivable, that they had already attempted this trick before? In the Synoptical Gospels there could be no mention of this, because they relate only the last attendance of Jesus at a feast. But in John we should expect earlier attacks of the same sort to be mentioned, if any had occurred. A decisive preliminary question, however, is this: How came the Jewish rulers to their diabolical irony and the ensnaring questions which proceeded from it? The history answers: by the sense of impotence which came with the perception that with force and authority they accomplished nothing.
This condition already existed here at the feast of tabernacles, when even the officers who had been sent to take Jesus, returned paralyzed by His word and unsuccessful, and when a division began to appear even in the Sanhedrin itself. The impotent embarrassment of force was there, and with it the devilish counsel of craft.
Accordingly this maneuvre was thrice repeated; first at the feast of tabernacles as recorded in this section; then at the feast of dedication in the winter, as recorded in Joh_10:24; finally at the last passover, when these tempting proposals became so thick, that, we may well infer the rulers of the Jews had accustomed themselves to it by former practice. Of course in this first instance their assumption of His Messiahship is very equivocal; it does not reach the full measure of its insolence till the last passover.
But the same condition of things which brought the rulers of the Jews to this stratagem—that is, the previous failure of their forcible attempt,—led Jesus, for the purpose of security, to withdraw for the night to the mount of Olives. He would therefore be here just in the right place according to Joh_8:1.
That the gospel history thus gains much in lifelike development, connected progress, is palpable. And at the same time the exhibition of the Jewish feasts in their religious and moral degeneracy becomes more complete. We have already observed that, in the view of John, the tragic dissolution of Judaism in the gradual completion of the murderous design of the Jews against Christ at their successive feasts. This is the one side; the other is the religious and moral decay of the people themselves, which comes to light at the great feasts. At the passover, the great passover of the Jews, this decay manifests itself in the transfer of the whole traffic in sacrificial animals and money into the temple itself, chap. 2. At the feast of Purim, the feast of brotherhood and deliverance, it shows itself in the leaving of the sick without attendance, help, or sympathy in their Bethesda, chap. 5. The feast of tabernacles, the great feast of popular thanksgiving and joy, appears defiled by licentiousness, scenes of adultery, and partizan, temporizing policy among the Pharisees (who here let the guilty man run free), chap. 8, while the blind brother is left to beggary and Pharisaic alms, chap. 9, against the law of Deu_15:4. The feast of dedication, Joh_10:22, seems not distinguished by any similar mark of corruption, unless it is symbolical that the storm of winter blows through Spirit-forsaken halls which the Spirit of Christ alone still quickens, and that the multitude of the people, who at other times always gathered to protect the Lord, have fled before wind and weather, so that the Jews can suddenly surround Him, and at last propose to bury him under a heap of stones in the middle of the very court of the temple.
Internal evidence, therefore, speaks decidedly for this, as the proper place for the section in hand. If the alternative is, either that the tradition of the early church for definite reasons partially overlooked and then dropped this section, or that it inserted the passage here as an ancient relic of Ephesian tradition from John,—the former theory is not more difficult than the latter. Indeed the prevalence of the ascetic spirit in the church might almost make the omission of a larger section of this character more probable than insertion. We observe a late interpolation of a few words in 1Jn_5:7-8. We consider the passage, 2Pe_1:20 to 2Pe_3:2, an interpolation, but entirely taken in substance from the Epistle of Jude (Apostol. Zeitalter, I., p. 155). On the other hand, the conclusion of Mark, Joh_16:9, seems to afford an example of omission rather than of interpolation. Now it is easy to imagine that the centuries of ascetic austerity, from the end of the second century to the end of the fourth, might scruple to read in public this passage, in which the guilt of adultery seemed to be so leniently dealt with.
We must, therefore, by all means consider any words of the fathers which speak of such a scruple. Ambrose: Profecto si quis ea auribus otiosis accipiat, erroris incentivum erroris incurrit [quum legit … adulteræ absolutionem, Lubrica igitur ad lapsum via] (Apol. Davidis posterior, chap. 1). Augustine: Hoc infidelium sensus exhorret, ita ut nonnulli modicæ vel potius inimici veræ fidei, credo, metuentes peccandi impunitatem dari mulieribus suis, illud quod de adulteræ indulgentia Dominus fecit, auferrent de codicibus suis, quasi permissionem peccandi tribuerit, qui dixit: “Deinceps noli peccare” (De adulterinis conjugiis, II. 7). Nicon [from the 10th century in Coteler. Patr. Apost., I. 238]: The Armenians expunged the pericope from their version: âëáâåñὰí åἷíáé ëÝãïíôåò ôïῖò ðïëëïῖò ôὴí ôïéáýôçí ἀêñüáóéí (see Lücke, p. 249). Augustine’s declaration we have only to change from one of pastoral animadversion to one of historical criticism. The scruple was begotten not of the interested unbelief of some individual husbands, but of the ascetic, weak faith of a legalistic age. (Against this Lucke, p. 248 and 252, can bring nothing that amounts to more than assertion.)
It may be supposed that the disuse of the passage passed through different stages. 1. The narrative stood in its place, but was left standing and passed over in the public readings, or in discussions of the question of marriage. The ascetic Tertullian could form a very suitable predecessor to Cyprian in such a step, and Origen an equally suitable predecessor to others. 2. Next, perhaps, the pericope began to undergo improvement by other readings (e. g., Cod. D, ἐðὶ ἁìáñôßᾳ instead of ἐí ìïé÷åßᾳ ), and especially abbreviation. 3. Some transcribers then went further, and transferred the pericope to the end of the Gospel as an appendix. 4. This led to the last stage of entire omission. But now the codices which had kept the pericope reacted. The passage came to be inserted again in various places, either where we have it now, or after Joh_7:36, or after Joh_8:12, or, with the view of combining this temptation with those of the last passover, after Luke 21. In this process some accepted it with a mark of addition or even of rejection. From this twofold procedure the critical confusion in regard to this section resulted.
In any case the passage is an apostolic relic.
But another thing in favor of the genuineness of it is the ðÜëéí ïὖí áὐôïῖò ἐëÜëçóåí ὁ Ἰçóïῦò , Joh_8:12, and the åἶðåí ïὖí ðÜëéí áὐôïῖò , Joh_8:21. The words in Joh_8:21 literally refer to the words of Joh_7:34. It is harder to see the reference of the first ðÜëéí , if we have to take in the idea; “I am the light of the world,” The Lord, however, already implied this to them in Joh_5:35-36 sqq. John was a light, and yet only a witness to Christ who was appointed for their deliverance, Joh_8:40. Apart from this, the terms of Joh_8:12 : “Then spake Jesus again unto them,”—must be taken absolutely, meaning simply that He addressed them again. In other words: by their attack upon His life they had, in all reason, already brought His intercourse with them to a close. But then, Joh_8:1-11, they had apparently relented, and though He knew that their question was put to Him in malicious hypocrisy, yet He let it pass in the official form which it assumed before the people. He was committed to the people, after this recognition of the rulers, to resume intercourse with them; but that He might soon say to them once more, that He shall forsake them and give them up. Thus the two occurrences of ðÜëéí in chap. 8 form, in our view, a distinct demand for the section concerning the adulteress.
As to the opponents, as well as the advocates, of the genuineness of this passage, compare Lücke, p. 243, and Meyer [p. 320–323, 5th ed.].
Joh_8:1. Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.—This retirement for the night to the mount of Olives (Gethsemane or Bethany) was caused by the direct demonstration of the Sanhedrin against the freedom and life of Jesus. At the same time it forms a significant counterpart to the words: “Every man went unto his own house.” To them everything, meantime, remained in the old way; but not to Him, for He saw further. During His last residence in Jerusalem this method of spending the night in the mount of Olives appears as a fixed rule, Luk_21:37.
Joh_8:2. And early in the morning.— Ὄñèñïõ . John writes elsewhere ðñùß ̈ (Joh_18:28; Joh_20:1; ðñùß ̈ á , Joh_21:4), Luke, on the contrary, ὄñèñïõ . It is to be observed here, however, that the term ὅñèñïõ denotes more precisely the dawn of morning, and that it is intended to denote just this time. And all the people.— Ðᾶò ὁ ëáüò . If John elsewhere prefers ὁ ὄ÷ëïò , the multitude, or ïἱ ὄ÷ëïé , the multitudes, we must consider that He here intends to signalize the gathering of the whole remaining mass of festal pilgrims to Jesus in the temple. The same may be said respecting the êáèßóáò ἐäßäáóê . áὐô . [which is not used by John]; He again set Himself right down among them, as if He wished to begin again, after He had provisionally foiled the attack of the Sanhedrists. That the ãñáììáôåῖò , the scribes, are here named, though not elsewhere, arises from the fact that a question of scriptural law comes up in the sequel. And the frequently recurring äÝ , too, instead of the Johannean ïὗí , has an internal reason in the great series of unexpected incidents which here begins. That Jesus goes to the mount of Olives, is accounted for by the beginning of the hostile machinations, Joh_8:1. That He returns to the temple in spite of the persecution (Joh_8:2), is due to the fact that the scribes and Pharisees now make as if they would acknowledge Him (Joh_8:3), though they mean only to tempt Him, Joh_8:6. The like may be said of most, of the subsequent occurrences thus introduced. Only the great accumulation of the äÝ seems certainly strange; but in these unusual turns there was less occasion for an ïὖí .
Joh_8:3. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him, etc.—Certainly not as a distinct act of zealotry (Wetstein); nor as a formal deputation of the Sanhedrin. Probably it is the committee of a particular synagogue-court, with which on the one hand the zealots who had taken the woman in her crime, leagued themselves as witnesses, and which, on the other hand, acts in concert with the Sanhedrin. The case was just now brought before a Jewish court; it is thought well fitted to be made a trap for the Lord, by an ironical concession, for reasons above-mentioned, that He is the one to decide it. The party cannot be described as “not official” (Meyer), because in that case it could not have deferred its judgment to the Lord. As the death-penalty was involved, the Sanhedrin must have been in concert.
Joh_8:5. Taken in the very act.— Ἐðáõôïöþñῳ , i.e., ἔðὶ [ ἐð ’] áὐôïöþñῳ , in ipso furto. “The man, who was likewise liable to death (Lev_20:10; Deu_22:24), might have escaped.” Meyer. Though stoning, according to Deu_22:23-24, was ordered for the particular case in which a betrothed bride yielded herself to unchastity (because she was regarded as already the wife of her spouse), it does not follow that this guilty woman must have been a betrothed bride (Meyer), since in the passage referred to the death-penalty uniformly appointed for adulteresses (Lev_20:10; Deu_22:22) seems only to be more particularly described (Michaelis, Tholuck, Ewald, and others). The sentence of the Talmud: Filia Israelitæ si adultera, cum hupta, strangulanda, cum desponsata, lapidanda, on the one hand cannot be decisive for that period, on the other may only mean a modification of the general penalty of stoning for a nupta.
Joh_8:6. Tempting him.—That this means a malicious temptation, not innocent questioning (Olshausen), the clear sense of the term in other places proves. But wherein consisted the precarious alternative, which was to entangle Him? Interpretations: 1. The antagonism between the Roman criminal law, which did not punish adultery with death, and the law of Moses. Their expectation was that He would declare Himself for Moses against the Roman law, and then they would accuse Him to the Romans. Hence the óὺ ïὗí ôß ëÝãåéò , Joh_8:5. A plan, therefore, similar to that of the question about tribute-money, Matthew 22 (Schulthess, Meyer). It is nothing against this, as Lücke thinks, that the criminal law of the Romans in the provinces did not override the peculiar customs or ordinances of the respective peoples. But this interpretation is, no doubt, opposed by the fact that a declaration of the woman’s being worthy of death might be joined with a reference of the plaintiffs to the legal court, besides the fact that they would either have to execute the penalty themselves, or, as informers against Jesus, openly violate the precept of Moses.
2. The issue lay between the traditional tribunal of the people and the supposed new tribunal of the Messiah: the question being, whether Jesus would leave the decision to the ordinary course, or would at once take it upon Himself. Undoubtedly this was a leading point in the temptation; this gave the temptation its form (see above); but it was not the whole of it (Baumgarten-Crusius, et al.).
3. The alternative was the old, strict letter of the law, and the looser popular practice which had gained prevalence, which no longer visited adultery with death; hence the question of a judicial process or none at all (Ebrard). But with this alternative in full view their question would have condemned themselves. The popular practice had a sort of indulgent tradition on its side.
4. The alternative was the Mosaic law literally applied and the known gentleness of Christ. A negative answer would appear, therefore, as in contradiction with Moses; an affirmative answer, as in contradiction with Himself (Augustine, Erasmus, Luther, and others). A modification of this view is, that they certainly expected the lenient decision, in order to charge Him with opposition to Moses (Euthymius, Bengel, Neander, et al.). This modification increases the tangling dilemma. But this was not simply an issue between the rigor of Moses and the mildness of Christ; it had reference to the old legislation of Moses and the new reformation of the law by Christ as opposed to the traditional practice of the Jews. If He had simply affirmed the Mosaic letter, He would have invaded the rabbinical tradition and practice, the existing order of things, the popular opinion and feeling concerning Himself; they would have turned the tradition against Him. If He had affirmed the popular practice, they would have turned the letter of Scripture against Him. But they wished above all things to find out whether He would venture, with Messianic authority, to lay clown a new law. On another interpretation, by Dick (Stud. und Krit., 1832), and Baur’s view, see Meyer.
And with his finger wrote on the ground.—Some manuscripts, such as E. K., add ìὴ ðñïóðïéïýìåíïò [dissimulans], others êáὶ ðñïóðïéïýìåíïò [simulans]; that is, according to Lücke, in the one case: not merely feigning; in the other: only feigning. Manifestly exegetical additions. According to the correct interpretation of Euthymius Zigabenus, the whole act of stooping down and writing on the ground was symbolical, and was meant to express inattention to the questioners before Him. Lücke: “This gesture was familiar to antiquity as a representation of deep musing, perplexity or languor of mind;” see the examples in Lücke, p. 269, note 1, where Wetstein also is quoted. It is, therefore, contrary to the spirit of the text to ask what Jesus might have written (Michaelis: the answer: “As it is written” Bede: the sentence in Joh_8:7; conjectures in Wolf and Lampe).
If we ask, why Jesus does not here enter upon the question, as He did in like cases at the last passover,—it is not enough to answer, that He would not interfere in civil matters (Matthew 22; Luk_12:13 sq., Meyer), or that He would intimate that the question was too malicious to deserve an answer (Luthardt). We have rather to consider that He has not yet received His distinct introduction as Messiah in Jerusalem by the public hosanna, and now abstains from any official offer of Himself as Messiah, and indeed intends not to appear at all as Messiah, according to their idea. Therefore, as this matter is still in suspense, He also leaves His position towards their question in suspense; He neither rejects nor accepts it. But He certainly does already assume the expression of a calm majesty which is not pleased to have its leisure and recreation intruded upon with a street scandal. If they really take Him for the Messiah, they must consent to this.
Joh_8:7. He that is without sin among you, etc.—The test just named, they stand. They continue in their questioning. Hence He now gives them the New Testament decision, “Without sin.” As ἀíáìÜñôçôïò , sinless, occurs only this once in the New Testament (though frequently in classic usage), it cannot be made into an inconsistency with the style of John. How is the word “without sin,” to be understood?
1. Erasmus, Zuingle, Calvin, Baur, Hase [Owen] make it absolute sinlessness. Hase therefore thinks that the answer is a proof of the apocryphal nature of the section; so do Paulus and Baur, since the demand that only sinless men alone should act as judges and pronounce sentence, is utterly inadmissible.
2. Meyer [p. 330], after Lücke: “Whether He means freedom from the possibility of fault (of error or of sin), like Plato in Pol. I., p. 339 B., or freedom from actual fault [comp. ãõíὴ ἀíáìÜñôçôïò Herod. v. 39]; and likewise, whether He means this latter in general (2Ma_8:4), or in respect to a particular category or species of sin (2Ma_12:42; Deu_29:19), is to be decided solely by the context. And here freedom from sin must be understood, not indeed of adultery specifically, because Jesus could not presume this of the whole hierarchy even in view of all their moral corruption; but of unchastity, because one guilty of this stands in question and before the eyes of all as an actual opposite of ἀíáìÜñôçôïò [sinless one]. Compare ἁìáñôùëüò , Luk_7:37. ἉìáñôÜíåéí , Jacobs’ ad Anthol. X., p.111; and in Joh_5:14, in ìçêÝôé ἁìÜñôáôå , a specific sort of sinning is meant; and the same injunction given in Joh_8:11 to the adulteress, is the authentic commentary on this ἀíáìÜñôçôïò .” So De Wette also, and Tholuck [and Alford]. Yet Lücke (and De Wette likewise) takes in addition the moral point of view: Jesus would not trench upon the office of civil justice; He looked at the case solely in its moral aspect and with reference to the âáóéëåßá ôïῦ èåïῦ (Luther: “Therefore we have preaching in the kingdom of Christ, and when this preaching comes, it supersedes swords, judge, and all”).
The question is: In what relation did Christ place Christian morality to the theocratic civil law of Moses? And here it must be remembered that, with the Pharisees, the idea of being a sinner, and of being without sin, had reference to the law. Publicans and sinners are such as are fallen under Levitical discipline, liable to excommunication. But now the Levitical discipline was, according to the spirit of the law, so ideal that, strictly taken, it made every one necessarily unclean (see Hag_2:12 sqq.; our Comm. on Matt. chap. 3). And this is most especially true with regard to sexual impurities and offences. The law, therefore, in its full ideal consistency, could not be carried out; and the mitigations of it in practice partook not only, on the one hand, of laxity, but, on the other, of moral earnestness, which must scorn to apply the law with hypocritical rigor in particular cases, when it could not apply it consistently in all. (Luther and Zwingle had scruples about the discipline of church law in similar consistency.) Christ, therefore, by His word, approves the prevalent leniency, but at the same time leads His hearers back to the principle of the ideal stringency.
His expression means, in the first place: Whosoever among you knows himself to be Levitically clean, particularly in respect of sexual defilements and unchastity, let him begin the execution of the penalty upon the woman. It presumes that no one will venture to proceed, and the conscience of the accusers must sanction this judgment. Then, secondly, in this actual impossibility of restoring the Mosaic rigorism is couched the deeper moral principle, that, in the Christian point of view, any condemnation of a guilty person by a host of accusers and judges who deem themselves guiltless, must be abandoned. For it must be considered that the legal condemnation presupposed this guiltlessness; and, at the same time that theocratic penalty of death stood for damnation (the cutting off of its soul from its people). Christ could no longer recognize either the innocence of those supposed to be clean, nor the liability of the culprit to damnation (which in fact the Mosaic system had only aimed to exhibit symbolically). The Old Testament had now unfolded itself into the New, which laid down on the one hand, the liability of all, even of human judges, to damnation, and on the other hand, the capacity of all even of the fallen, for salvation.
This, however, in the third place, does not supersede human acquittal and condemnation; it only shows that they must proceed upon a new basis (sympathy of the sentence with the sinner) and caution against hasty and over-stringent judgment). How, far, then, this principle should allow the civil punishment of seduced or infatuated women, Christ leaves to the future, but intimates that, on the part of severity, stringency and pride, there is a motive equally ready to hold the culprit to punishment. It was itself a death-penalty, that the adulteress was socially outlawed and condemned.
It must further be considered how singularly Christ distributes His decision between Himself and the appellants or Jewish court. He states the principle, that is the vital idea of the law; but they are left to apply it according to their best knowledge and conscience: First judge themselves, then others.
Let him be the first to cast a stone at her [not the first stone; âáëÝôù , not only permission, but command].—According to Deu_17:7, the witnesses were to cast the first stone. But here the first one means him who will have the courage to condemn as being himself innocent.—According to the Rabbins the first blow struck the breast, often with fatal effect.
Joh_8:8. And again he stooped down.—The Prophet, the Messiah, had solved His problem and returned to His rest, and represented His leisure in symbolical recreation, that they may understand that it now rests with them to act, that is, in the first place to condemn themselves. He is discharged of the matter. And as He has previously not looked nor glanced at the woman in her conscience of guilt, so He now does the same with them. Jerome: He would give them room to make their escape. [Inconsistent with Joh_8:6.]
Joh_8:9. [They went out, ἐîÞñ÷ïíôï , descriptive imperfect.—One by one, åἷò êáè ’ åἷò , or åἶò êáèåῖò (instead of êáè ’ ἕíá ). A later Greek formula.—The preposition is here adverbial. Comp. Mar_14:19; Rom_12:5; Act_21:21; the Hebrew ìְàַçַã àֶçָã , and Winer, p. 234.—P. S.].—Being convicted by their own conscience.—Tholuck: “It is historically attested, that at that time many prominent Rabbins were living in adultery.” Wagenseil on the Sota, p. 525. And some of them must have feared that when He should lift up Himself again, they might hear something further, which would be still less pleasant (Musculus).
Beginning at the eldest.—Fritzsche and others construe so as to make ἀñîÜì . ἀðὸ ô . ðñåóâõôÝñ . substantially a parenthesis; the main statement being, that they went out even to the last; this being more particularly described by the parenthesis; the eldest made the beginning. Winer and Tholuck: They went out, the eldest leading off; and the ἕùò ô . ἐó÷ . is a breviloquent addition. The former interpretation seems clearer; and in many manuscripts this last addition is wanting. The eldest went out first, partly because of a guilty conscience, partly because they were the more shrewd. Is not ðñåóâýôåñïé here an official name? This is at least probable, because the group is a judicial one; hence Lücke, De Wette and others take it of rank. Meyer (and Tholuck, 7th ed.), on the contrary: This is not yielded by the contrast; there would then be no proper antithesis; it is a phrase: from the first to the last. But from the oldest to the last is no antithesis. On the contrary, a sufficiently clear antithesis is: from the elders (of the synagogue) to the last, i.e. the servants, 1Co_4:9. The expression: to the last, might, however, have been afterwards added, to destroy the definiteness of the term elders, which perhaps might have given the section a wrong and offensive bearing in the Christian congregations.
[“They went out—what else could they do? Not stop there, with the people gazing alternately at them, and at the finger moving to and fro on the ground! They retreat, but observe how orderly they do it. The Evangelist is careful to inform us that they ‘went out, one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last.’ Perhaps they hung back for a moment, no one disposed to go first, lest he should thereby seem to betray himself the greatest sinner in the lot. So, to avoid suspicion, they will depart in the order of age. As well-bred men, they give precedence to seniority, the younger bowing out the elder.—‘Not before you, sir, reverend Doctor—Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Jehudi,’ etc. They leave; the people staring after them: their long robes and broad phylacteries not quite so imposing as when they came in. They are gone. The court has adjourned. There has been an adjudication, not precisely that for which the court was called. There has been a conviction not of the accused, but of the accusers, and they, self-convicted, not daring to look the Judge in the face, who could see them through and through.”—From a sermon of Dr. Mühlenberg on the Woman and her Accusers. N. Y., 1867.—P. S.]
Left alone, and the woman.—Only the band of accusers had gotten away; the disciples and the people who were looking on could remain. But that the woman remained standing as if bound, and did not withdraw, seems to show what an impression Jesus made upon her conscience. She stood, as if bound to His judgment-seat.
Joh_8:10. Hath no man condemned thee?—The ïὐäåßò is emphatic; but so is the condemn, êáôáêñßíù [not found elsewhere in John]. It denotes the sententia damnatoria of theocratic judgment, a sentence of death considered at the same time as a religious reprobation. Meyer remarks that since these people came asking advice, the vote of each one is the only thing intended. But in asking advice they wished to refer to the Lord a judicial sentence, which He referred back to them, and this is therefore the thing in question. Hence it is neither, on the one hand, the actual “stoning” (Wolf) which is meant, nor on the other hand a mere moral condemnation (Tholuck), nor any dismissal of the reference (Meyer). The people had left the decision to Him, though in irony; and they did the same again, when He in a conditional way cast the decision back upon them. When He now says: if they have desisted from their condemnation, I also condemn thee not,—unquestionably He means this in the New Testament sense, as in Joh_3:17; Mat_18:11. But in this case her acquittal is included in His decision, so far as He interprets the tacit practical verdict of her accusers. This is proved by His next words. This withholding of moral condemnation is, however, no withholding of moral judgment. Augustine (Tract. xxxiii.): Quid est Domine? faves ergo peccatis? Non plane ita. Attende, quod sequitur: ‘vade, deinceps jam noli peccare.’ Ergo et Dominus damnavit, sed peccatum, non hominem” [Ambrose: Emendavit ream, non crimen absolvit.—P. S.]
2. If the section of the adulteress can be restored to the credit of genuineness, it materially enriches the history of the life of Jesus. A systematic view of the progress of the persecution of Jesus by the Sanhedrin commends the theory of its genuineness according to the rules of internal criticism. It would be natural, that the temptation of Jesus which proceeded upon the ironical assumption that He was the Messiah, should form a series and climax. And the conduct of Jesus perfectly accords with the existing state of the Messianic question, on account of His official position towards the question whether He was the Messiah.
3. The conduct of Christ in this situation exhibits majestic elevation, calmness, prudence, wisdom, and boldness.
4. The only mention of Jesus’ writing; and that in the sand of the earth, no one knows what. His usual form of writing was a writing of the law of the Spirit in hearts with the flame of His word.
5. He that is without sin among you: (1) Acknowledgment of the Mosaic law in their view. Stone her if you please; she has deserved death according to the law of Moses. (2) Assertion of His New Testament ground. But first judge yourselves. Stone her not till one without sin be found who may begin the stoning. (3) Indication of the relation between the Old Testament and New Testament points of view. Christ declares the principle and spirit of the law of Moses. Then they may act according to their best knowledge and conscience. It must not be forgotten that the death penalty according to the letter of the Jewish law was at the same time a reprobation.
The Roman church considers Christ a second Moses, a new law-giver; and according to her He must have given a stricter law of marriage. But with a properly religious legislation a ministry of death also is connected (2 Corinthians 3). And of those who in this view insist on remaining under the law, the words of the apostle in Gal_3:10 hold good.
6. On the other hand, here in the group of accusers and judges are fulfilled the words of 1Pe_4:17 : “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.”
7. Christ can transform the tribunal of the legalists into an asylum of criminals, into a means of repentance and of the call of grace.
8. The New Testament gentleness the source of a New Testament severity in questions of moral conduct.
The conduct of the Lord towards His tempters: 1. Their hypocritical homage to the Messiah He meets with the calm, stately action of Messianic majesty (He stooped down, etc.). 2. Their tempting of His Spirit He meets with the searching of their conscience. 3. Their Pharisaic question concerning the highest grade of punishment He meets with the question of the gospel concerning the innocent Judges 4. Their judgment was to work death and damnation; His judgment aims at deliverance and salvation. 5. They come as accusers and judges, they go as condemned. 6. They intended to destroy a holy one; He rescues a lost sinner.—Or: 1. His silence a condemnation of their craft and excited passion. 2. His stooping and looking down a condemnation of their shameless treatment of the woman’s shame. 3. His writing, a mysterious action, pointing to the wicked mysteries of their life.—Christ and the Pharisees compared as judges of the adulteress: (1) With respect to rigor. Their rigor is an uncharitable delight in the damnation of the sinner after gross outward sins. His rigor delights in salvation, and presses on their conscience with a wholesome condemnation of the Spirit. (2) In respect to gentleness. Their gentleness is carnal laxity which encourages sin. His gentleness is overpowering grace which destroys sin.—Christ is not a new Moses, but the Redeemer from sin by the law of the Spirit.—The position which Christ takes toward civil legislators and judges: (1) He stands distinct from them, in that He makes no civil laws. (2) He stands in connection with them, in that He furnishes them the law of the Spirit, the fundamental principles for their legal administration.—The glorification of the ancient light and law in the new covenant: (1) The perfection of rigor. The perfect knowledge of sins recognizes all as worthy of death and perdition. (2) The perfection of gentleness. The full gracious perception of faith recognizes all as called to the salvation of the children of God. (3) The perfection of administration. The decided life of the Spirit fixes the standard of law and discipline between the perfect rigor and the perfect gentleness.—The judgment of Christ a word of terror for the guilty consciences on both sides: (1) The woman must tremble under the words: “Let him be the first to cast a stone at her.” (2) The accusers under the words: “He that is without sin among you” (i.e. he that is not himself worthy of death).
The guilty woman before the judgment seat of Christ: (1) How she stands bound to the judgment seat, till He has spoken. (2) How she is released with a Saviour’s word: Sin no more.—The Christian spiritual care of released criminals, particularly of penitent fallen ones.—The silence of the woman an intelligible language of penitence to the Lord.—The judgment of the Pharisees in the light and judgment of Christ.
Starke: Nova. Bibl. Tub.: The wickedness of the ungodly knows how to abuse even the law, the punishment of faults, the best and holiest things. Shame, that stupidity and silliness undertake to tempt wisdom itself. It does not become teachers and preachers to try to have one foot in the pulpit and the other in the council chamber.—Hedinger: Thou hypocrite, look into thine own bosom.—Though no magistracy can be without sin it should nevertheless not be chargeable with the sins which it must visit with bodily punishment upon others. Magistrates ought to be honest persons who fear God, Exo_18:21.—Quesnel: Prudence and love require that we should give persons an opportunity to withdraw, without ado and disgrace, from a bad cause, into which their passsion has seduced them.—Zeisius: What a mighty, and in truth irresistible witness is the conscience of man! Thus must they themselves come to shame who seek to put others, especially faithful teachers, to shame; treachery comes home to him that forges it.—Preachers must be no doubt earnest and zealous with great sinners, but not with gross harshness, for this does not improve and edify.—Hedinger: The pulpit should not meddle in secular affairs, and much less should the secular order meddle with spiritual matters.—Canstein: If any one is rescued from the hands of justice, he should be diligently exhorted not to abuse his deliverance, but prove his gratitude to God and men.
Gerlach: The answer of Jesus puts their cunning to shame, without infringing the law, justice, or love.—At the same time His sentence guards the woman against despair by pointing at the sinfulness of all. He does not extenuate the sin of the adulteress; but He hints at inward sin which puts one further from God than gross outward transgressions.—To drive these hypocrites away needs only a word of the Lord which strikes the heart like a hammer that grinds the rock.—Now Jesus could exercise His saving office. He forgives her the sin, etc.—This implies not the slightest disapproval of legal punishments. [But it no doubt does imply a Christian principle for the criticism and reformation of civil punishments].
Braune: Early in the morning, with much watchfulness, Jesus was in the temple, the place where He loved to labor all the day. The thought of His approaching death and the various impressions of His work upon different hearts; it seems as if this doubled His zeal.—The sins which in Christendom also attach to Sundays and feast-days.—The previous evening that session against the Redeemer had been held; then (during the night) this case comes. How natural the thought, that Jesus might be caught by means of it. And now the Pharisees and scribes are in concert, etc.—She says: “Lord;” she feels the majesty of Jesus, and this implies that she certainly condemns herself, Mat_21:31.—Deliverance from the hand of civil justice is not yet deliverance from the almighty hand of the holy God.—Jesus with His meekness showed a greater judicial earnestness than the severest condemnation to death can express.
Heubner: Unto the Mount of Olives. John gives a hint that Jesus is approaching the time of His passion.
Joh_8:3. “But the Scribes and Pharisees” [instead of the Eng. Vers. And], intimates the contrast: these scribes had spent the night in working out new plans against Jesus.—(The woman). To all her shame, to her fear of death which already took hold of her soul, was now added the eye of the pure and Holy One who judged without respect of persons.—It is no good fortune to remain undiscovered in transgressions.—The heavy guilt and shame of adultery are evident from all laws of antiquity against it (and also the evil of that neglect, oppression and improper use of woman, which have been gradually done away with by Christianity alone).—Men may be zealous for the divine law with evil hearts.—Worldlings and hypocrites have a passion for bringing good people into perplexity with entangling questions. But Jesus shows us the way of Christian wisdom to escape the snares of men.—Thunder from a clear sky could not have so terrified the sinners as the word of the Lord, which must have smitten them with the fear that He knew their secret sins.—Cicero Ad Verrem 3. exord.: Vis corruptorem vel adulterum accusare? Providendum diligenter, ne in tua vita vestigium libidinis appareat. Etenim non est ferendus accusator is, qui quod in altero vitium reprehendit, in eo ipso deprehenditur.—The wonderful power of conscience even in hypocrites.—No man, Lord: It sounds like a sigh of anguish, shame and faith.—Christ’s office is not to condemn, but to show mercy and redeem.—We should never uncharitably bring the secret sins of our neighbor into the light.—Despair not of improving those who have fallen very low.—Gossner: He went early to His work; the people came early to hear Him. Early let our souls be given to Him, for He comes early into His temple, the heart.—O poor men, let the stones lie which ye would cast at your fellow-sinners and fellow-pilgrims on this earth.—Besser (after Bengel): Your names are written in the earth, Jer_17:1; Jer_17:13.—(From Luther): They fancy that the stones are looking at them and it seemed long to them before they could find a hole and get to the doors.—The difference between the Pharisees and the woman: They, convicted by their conscience, get away from Jesus; she, convicted by her conscience, stays by Jesus.—The two were left alone: Misery and commiseration (miseria et misericordia, pitiableness and pity), says Augustine.—What malice prompted the Pharisees to do, was made to drive a lost sheep into the arms of the good shepherd.
[Schaff: A suitable text for the Midnight Mission and at the dedication of Magdalene asylums, but to be wisely and cautiously handled. See an excellent sermon on the text by Dr. Muhlenberg, of St. Luke’s Hospital, preached and published in New York, 1867.—The startling contrast: a woman guilty of a most heinous crime and exposed to public ignominy worse than death, confronted with the Purest of the pure, who condemned even an impure look as adultery in germ.—Christ acts here not as an avenging judge, whose duty is to administer the law, but as a merciful Saviour and Sovereign with the privilege of pardoning. So He acted towards the Samaritan woman and Mary Magdalene.—He does not make light of sins against the seventh commandment, but, in His parting word: “Sin no more,” He recognizes the enormity of the woman’s guilt and exhorts her to break off from all sin (not adultery only) at once and forever.—The wisdom of our Saviour in avoiding the snare of the Pharisees and rebuking their conscience, and His tender and holy mercy in dealing with the poor woman.—The heartless cruelty of modern society in turning the seduced adulteress over to perpetual infamy, while winking at the greater crime of the seducing adulterer.—Christ metes out the same truth and justice to great and small, respectable and disreputable alike. “He reverses the judgment of the world which casts the stone of infamy at the ruined and leaves the author of the ruin unharmed.”—Social respectability was the shield of the character of the Pharisees and Scribes, and yet their spiritual pride, hypocrisy and secret unchastities made them more guilty in the eyes of the Lord than the open shame of the poor woman at whom they were ready to cast stones. “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,” Mat_21:31-32.—(From Muhlenberg): The service of the Midnight Mission is to approach fallen women in the spirit of the Saviour, “with the voice of brotherly and sisterly concern; to let them feel that they are not utterly friendless; to address them with unaffected sympathy; to whisper in the ear words of the one true Friend; to be Christ’s missionaries to them by night, like Himself seeking the lost in a benighted world: this is no dark mission, but a mission of blessed light, illumined of heaven, cheered too with the light of penitence and gratitude.”]
Footnotes:
[Wordsworth (p. 309) says that it to found in more than 300 cursive MSS—P. S.]
[Also E. F. S., but in N. the passage is marked with asterisks in the margin, in S. with obeli. Ten cursive copies put it at the end of John, some insert it at the end of Luke 21—P. S.]
[“In multis et Græcis et Latinis codicibus; Adv. Pelag., II. 17. It should also be added that moot of the copies of ties Itala and Vulgata contain the section—P. S.]
[To which must be added Cod. Sin. Tiechendorf (I., p. 826) enumerates the following uncial MSS. as witnesses against the section: à .A.B.C. L. T. X.