Note 69 — Chapter VIII · EVENTS IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS, EXCLUDING THE MIRACLES.

In the Gospel of John (viii. 1–11), the Pharisees and scribes bring a woman taken in adultery to Jesus, that they may obtain his opinion as to the procedure to be observed against her; whereupon Jesus, by appealing to the consciences of the accusers, liberates the woman, and dismisses her with an admonition. The genuineness of this passage has been strongly contested, nay, its spuriousness might be regarded as demonstrated, were it not that even the most thorough investigations on the subject69 indirectly betray a design, which Paulus openly avows, of warding off the dangerous surmises as to the origin of the fourth gospel, which are occasioned by the supposition that this passage, encumbered as it is with improbabilities, is a genuine portion of that gospel. For in the first place, the scribes say to Jesus: Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned: now in no part of the Pentateuch is this punishment prescribed for adultery, but simply death, the mode of inflicting it being left undetermined (Lev. xx. 10; Deut. xxii. 22); nor was stoning for adultery a latter institution of the Talmud, for according to the canon: omne mortis supplicium, in scripturâ absolute positum esse strangulationem,70 the punishment appointed for this offence in the Talmud is strangulation.71 Further, it is difficult to discover what there was to ensnare Jesus in the question proposed to him;72 the scribes quoted to him the commandment of the law, as if they would warn him, rather than tempt him, for they could not expect that he would decide otherwise than agreeably to the law. Again, the decision of Jesus is open to the stricture, that if only he who is conscious of perfect purity were authorized to judge and punish, all social order would be at an end. The circumstance of Jesus writing on the ground has a legendary and mystical air, for even if it be not correctly explained by the gloss of Jerome: eorum videlicet, qui accusabant, et omnium mortalium peccata, it yet seems to imply something more mysterious than a mere manifestation of contempt for the accusers. Lastly, it is scarcely conceivable that every one of those men who dragged the woman before Jesus, zealous for the law, and adverse to his cause as they are supposed to be, should have had so tender a conscience, as on the appeal of Jesus to retire without prosecuting their design, and leave the woman behind them uninjured; this rather appears to belong merely to the legendary or poetical embellishment of the scene. Yet however improbable it may appear, from these observations, that the occurrence happened precisely as it is here narrated, this, as Bretschneider justly maintains,73 proves nothing against the genuineness of the passage, since it is arguing in a circle to assume the apostolic composition of the fourth gospel, and the consequent impossibility that a narrative containing contradictions should form a portion of it, prior to an examination of its several parts. Nevertheless, on the other hand, the absence of the passage in the oldest authorities is so suspicious, that a decision on the subject cannot be hazarded.