LESSON 85.
“RAGGED ENDS.”
691. We have now considered the principal weak arguments
against the pericope, and the strong arguments in
favor of it, in internal evidence. Other arguments against
it must be briefly considered. Many of the Church Fathers do
not mention the pericope in their commentaries. This
objection is serious. The lesson of the incident was not
palatable, as we have shown, because of the ascetic views of
the early Church, teaching that the very face of the
chastest woman was a cause of corruption. How much more the
presence of an adulteress, brought to the thought of a
congregation by discussing her case! How could the
leniency of the Lord be accounted for by men who harshly put
away from their midst the purest of women as a source of
defilement of their imagination? Then, if husbands and
brothers, they did not care to teach that a fall in a woman
was no worse than a fall in a man,¾especially
as they believed that every fall in man was due to some
woman. They could understand that the integrity of family
life (at least, a man’s ability to know his own children),
depended upon the chastity of women; but they could not
understand that in the remoter sense it depended even more
upon the chastity of men. In fact, few men understand this
up to the present hour. Again, many of these Fathers’
writings are comments on the Church lessons, and as the
pericope was for a special occasion, and not so well
suited to a public address, in their opinion, it would
naturally be passed over.
692. Other modern expositors declare that the chief
difficulties in the way of crediting the pericope are
textual. The story contains words that John uses nowhere
else in his Gospel. This is true; but, on the other hand,
the style of the writing is also much like John’s.
Supposing, then, that John wrote this portion when the event
occurred, and while it was fresh in mind? He did not write
his Gospel until fifty or eighty years afterwards, when he
was living in Ephesus. This would explain a change of words.
Or, supposing the woman herself wrote the account down for
him, and allowed him, long after the event when none could
identify her, to put it in his Gospel, for the encouragement
to repentance of other sinning women; then the pericope
would, as the woman’s account brushed up by John, exhibit
precisely that mixed character which it does. As for its
containing several unusual words and expressions, the entire
nine verses contain scarcely any more than the first two
verses of John 19; and no one has ever questioned the
authenticity of the latter, where nine unusual words (for
John) occur.
693. On the other hand, note how characteristic, for
John, is the expression, “This they said tempting Him,
that they might have to accuse Him.” Compare it with
John 6:6; 6:71; 7:39; 11:13, 51; 12:6, 33; 13:11, 28; 21:19.
We pass over many other points of similarity to John’s own
style, in the pericope, because they could only be
appreciated by those acquainted with the original Greek, for
the most part.
Then there are other doubters who have claimed that this
incident is an
interruption in the text; that the story of Christ at the
Feast of Tabernacles runs more smoothly if it is left
out; but Dean Burgen contends that the exact truth lies
quite at the other extreme: If this pericope is torn
out of this place, either to be put elsewhere (some would
place it at the end of
the Gospel of John, others after Luke 21,¾in
accordance with a few ancient manuscripts), or to be thrown
aside as discarded, then “ragged ends,” he maintains, show
where the violence has been done. Let us see: Let us join up
8:12 next to 7:52, dropping out all between, and study the
result,¾holding
in mind all the time, of course, that this mutilation
represents the wishes of certain critics, not our own view
as to events.
694. But, let us first pause to consider the fact that
no other place or time could better suit such
a story of moral corruption. According to John, the Feast of
Tabernacles was on, and hundreds of thousands of people were
living in tents all about Jerusalem. Life was very
irregular, and afforded opportunities for such a deed. As
for the rest, Jesus had been speaking to the common people,
in the temple precincts, in the informal way which was
allowed to religious instructors. The rulers of the people
were angry, but doubtless as on other occasions feared to
arrest Him openly (Matthew 21:46). They were angry because
they knew He was making great claims for Himself, by such
expressions as, “If anyone thirst, let him come unto Me
and drink.” So the Pharisees and chief priests held a
council and concluded to arrest Him,¾probably
when He ceased to speak, and the people dispersed. They sent
officers to fetch Him (7:32), as they had opportunity to do
so, quietly.
695. Finally the last day of the Feast comes (7:37), and
at its close the Pharisees and priests assemble, confident
that surely, at last, He will be brought. But their officers
return to them without Him, and all they can say regarding
their failure to bring Him is “Never man spake like this
man” (vs. 46). The Pharisees enquire of the officers,
“Have any of the rulers or Pharisees believed on Him?”¾both
in derision at the very idea of it, and yet, perhaps,
because they wished to really know whether the officers had
spied any of their own class and caste in the crowd about
Him. It is to be noted that these Pharisees had disdained to
go and listen to Him for themselves.[2]
Then Nicodemus, who had gone to Him by night, and felt the
force of the officers’ testimony that “Never man spake
like this man,” remonstrated with them, to the effect
that it was contrary to their own principles of justice to
condemn a man wholesale to whom they had never listened, to
know what he had to say for himself. His feeble defense of
the Master in whom he secretly believed, acted like the
“apple of discord” in the meeting, and “every man went
unto his own house.”
696. But according to the theory, after all the assembly
did not break up,¾for
verse 53 must drop out, and all as far as verse 12 of the
next chapter; and we must read to the effect that
immediately after the words of Nicodemus, and the retort of
the others of that council to
him, “Then spake
Jesus again [note the word] unto them” (8:12);
and (v. 13) “the Pharisees” replied to His words. Now
when had He spoken to the Pharisees at this Feast,
that it can be said that He spoke “again” to them? Had not
Nicodemus just declared that they had refused to give Him a
hearing, but were in ignorance of His exact representation
of His case condemning Him? We must account for that
“again” somehow; and
those who rule out the story of the woman cannot do it. But
put that story back in its proper place and all becomes
clear.
697. Convicted by
the words of Nicodemus that they must hear
something from His own
lips that will be His own condemnation,¾“hear
Him for themselves,” to make the testimony sure, the
Pharisees take with them some experts as to points of law¾scribes¾and
dragging a wretched woman into His presence, demand His
decision as to what should be done to her. Thus they accept
the challenge of Nicodemus.
698. This is on the day following the last day of the
Feast, when Jesus is teaching those who have not yet
returned to their country homes. If Jesus rendered a
decision contrary to the Mosaic law, they would have
something of which to accuse Him; if He condemned the woman
to die, they might entangle Him with the Roman law. How
truly they were to experience the fact that “Never man
spake like this man!” They became, in His presence, as
useless as the officers; they “went out one by one.”
Instead of succeeding in bringing Him to judgment, He had
brought them to their own judgment of themselves. The effect
of hearing Him for themselves was what Nicodemus had
anticipated; they could not bring Him to the bar of their
judgment and condemnation. But their Judge did not let them
escape so easily. He followed them, still, in His mercy,
offering them light and life: “Again [later] He
spake unto them,” and a long argument followed, in which
they resisted all His efforts to enlighten their darkness,
until at last, in a rage, they took up stones to cast at the
Judge who would not allow them to be cast at the sinful
woman. This discourse must have occurred later in the day. Additional Note
This decision of the Lord, as regards the adulteress, is
well-founded in O. T. Scripture, as the scribes and
Pharisees must have recognized. Hosea 4:14 (R. V.) reads:
“I will not punish your daughters when they play the
harlot, nor your brides when they commit adultery, for the
men themselves go apart with harlots, and they sacrifice
with prostitutes.” Rabbi Yochanan ben Zachi ordered the
discontinuance of the trial of jealousy, on the authority of
this word, saying, “If you follow fornication yourselves,
the bitter waters will not try your wives.” Indeed the
Sanhedrin had abrogated the ceremony of trial of jealousy,
on this word,¾since
the second Temple, B. C. 520, it is said. But there are
evidences of its use in later times.
[2]
See verse 32. |