‘Christ and the woman taken in adultery’ by Vasily Polenov (1844–1927), painted in 1888. The unfortunate woman was a pawn in a game of chess played by the Pharisees, a movement within Judaism which was strongly opposed to the Roman Empire’s colonial occupation of Judaea. The Pharisees, angered by Jesus’s unwillingness to support their cause, hoped to drive a wedge between him and his followers by forcing him to break the Law of Moses or to break the laws of Rome. In the event he managed to avoid doing either, but for a moment it had looked like checkmate.
Part 1 of 2
JESUS went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.*
But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
* The Pharisees had put Jesus in a tight spot, as indeed they meant to. The Law of Moses prescribed death as the penalty for adultery, and specified stoning for a betrothed (i.e. not yet married) virgin and her paramour. But Judaea lay within the Roman Empire, and Roman law did not allow anyone to carry out an execution without official approval. To put Roman law ahead of Jewish law, or to put Jewish law ahead of Roman law, would lose him support, which was the Pharisees’ hope.
Précis
In St John’s Gospel, we hear how Jesus was teaching in the Temple when some Pharisees thrust a young girl in front of him and accused her of adultery. They challenged Jesus to confirm the sentence of death prescribed by the Law of Moses, but Jesus, apparently not hearing them, occupied himself in writing with his finger in the sand. (60 / 60 words)
Part Two
A scene from the Codex Egberti (980-993), showing Christ writing on the ground as the Pharisees accuse a woman of adultery. The artist has chosen for Jesus’s text “terra terram accusat”, Latin for ‘earth accuses earth’. This appears to be a reference to Genesis 3:19 “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”; Christ is marvelling that one earthen pot, one human being, should presume to set a value on another. That is not to suggest he refused to condemn adultery: had he done so he would have transgressed the law, and the Pharisees would have won. He refused to condemn the woman, thus binding her gently in the obligation of repentance as no punishment could ever have done. See Alexander Pope on Vice and Virtue.
So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.*
* Jesus’s solution to the dilemma was characteristically daring yet absolutely faithful to the traditions of Judaism. In Jewish law, a judge could not convict unless two witnesses agreed in their testimony, so he simply disposed of all the witnesses. The case was quite properly dismissed, and the Pharisees had to think of something else. See The Man Born Blind.
Précis
The Pharisees persisted in their demands for a judgement, so at length Jesus broke off from his writing and invited any man without sin to start the execution. To their credit, one by one the woman’s accusers turned away, until she was left alone with Jesus. He then dismissed her, with a gentle reminder not to cross the line again. (60 / 60 words)
