Subj: JOHN 8:1-11: MONDAY'S GOSPEL FOR REFLECTION
Date: 3/22/99 1:43:40 AM Pacific Standard Time
From: mtuazon@ix.netcom.com (Manuel Tuazon)
Reply-to: daily-word-request@cin.org
To: daily-word@cin.org
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
For: Monday, March 22, 1999
5th Week of Lent
From: John 8:1-11
The Adulterous Woman
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[2] Early in the morning He (Jesus) came again to the temple; all the
people came to Him, and He sat down and taught them. [3] The scribes
and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and
placing her in the midst [4] they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has
been caught in the act of adultery. [5] Now in the law Moses commanded
us to stone such. What do you say about her?" [6] This they said to
test Him, that they might have some charge to bring against Him. Jesus
bent down and wrote with His finger on the ground. [7] And as they
continued to ask Him, He stood up and said to them, "Let him who is
without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." [8] And
once more He bent down and wrote with His finger on the ground.
[9] But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with
the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before
Him. [10] Jesus looked up and said to her, "Woman, where are they?
Has no one condemned you?" [11] She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus
said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again."
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Commentary:
1-11. This passage is absent from many ancient codexes, but it was in
the Vulgate when the Magisterium, at the Council of Trent, defined the
canon of Sacred Scripture. Therefore, the Church regards it as
canonical and inspired, and has used it and continues to use it in the
liturgy. It is also included in the New Vulgate, in the same position
as it occupied before.
St. Augustine said that the reason doubts were raised about the passage
was that it showed Jesus to be so merciful that some rigorists thought
it would lead to a relaxation of moral rules--and therefore many
copyists suppressed it from their manuscripts (cf. "De Coniugiis
Adulterinis", 2, 6).
In commenting on the episode of the woman caught in adultery Fray Luis
de Granada gives these general considerations on the mercy of Christ:
"Your feelings, your deeds and your words should be akin to these, if
you desire to be a beautiful likeness of the Lord. And therefore the
Apostle is not content with telling us to be merciful; he tells us, as
God's sons, to put on `the bowels of mercy' (cf. Colossians 3:12).
Imagine, then, what the world would be like if everyone arrayed
themselves in this way.
"All this is said to help us understand to some degree the great
abundance of the goodness and compassion of our Savior, which shine
forth so clearly in these actions of His, for [...] in this life we
cannot know God in Himself; we can know Him only through His
actions. [...] But it should also be pointed out that we should never
act in such a way in view of God's mercy, that we forget about His
justice; nor should we attend to His justice forgetting about His
mercy; for hope should have in it an element of fear, and fear an
element of hope" ("Life of Jesus Christ", 13, 4).
1. We know that on a number of occasions our Lord withdrew to the Mount
of Olives to pray (cf. John 18:2; Luke 22:39). This place was to the
east of Jerusalem; the Kidron Valley (cf. John 18:1) divided it from
the hill on which the temple was built. It had from ancient times been
a place of prayer: David went there to adore God during the difficult
period when Absalom was in revolt (2 Samuel 15:32), and there the
prophet Ezekiel contemplated the glory of Yahweh entering the temple
(Ezekiel 43:1-4). At the foot of the hill there was a garden, called
Gethsemane or "the place of the oil-press", an enclosed plot containing
a plantation of olive trees. Christian tradition has treated this
place with great respect and has maintained it as a place of prayer.
Towards the end of the fourth century a church was built there, on
whose remains the present church was built. There are still some
ancient olive trees growing there which could well derive from those of
our Lord's time.
6. The question put by the scribes and Pharisees has a catch: our Lord
had often shown understanding to people they considered sinners; they
come to Him now with this case to see if He will be equally
indulgent--which will allow them to accuse Him of infringing a very
clear precept of the Law (cf. Leviticus 20:10).
7. Jesus' reply refers to the way stoning was carried out: those who
witnessed the crime had to throw the first stones, and then others
joined in, to erase the slur on the people which the crime implied
(cf. Deuteronomy 17:7). The question put to Jesus was couched in
legal terms; He raises it to the moral plane (the basis and
justification of the legal plane), appealing to the people's
conscience. He does not violate the law, St. Augustine says, and at
the same time He does not want to lose what He is seeking--for He has
come to save that which was lost: "His answer is so full of justice,
gentleness and truth. [...] O true answer of Wisdom. You have heard:
Keep the Law, let the woman be stoned. But how can sinners keep the
Law and punish this woman? Let each of them look inside himself and
enter the tribunal of his heart and conscience; there he will discover
that he is a sinner. Let this woman be punished, but not by sinners;
let the Law be applied, but not by its transgressors" (St. Augustine,
"In Ioann. Evang.", 33, 5).
11. "The two of them were left on their own, the wretched woman and
Mercy. But the Lord, having smitten them with the dart of justice,
does not even deign to watch them go but turns His gaze away from them
and once more writes on the ground with His finger. But when the woman
was left alone and they had all gone, He lifted up His eyes to the
woman. We have already heard the voice of justice; let us now hear the
voice of gentleness. I think that the woman was the more terrified
when she heard the Lord say, `Let him who is without sin among you be
the first to throw a stone at her,' [...] fearing now that she would be
punished by Him, in whom no sin could be found. But He, who had driven
away her adversaries with the tongue of justice, now looking at her
with the eyes of gentleness asks her, `Has no one condemned you?' She
replies, `No one, Lord.' And He says, `Neither do I condemn you; I who
perhaps you feared would punish you, because in Me you have found no
sin.' Lord, can it be that You favor sinners? Assuredly not. See
what follows" `Go and sin no more.' Therefore the Lord also condemned
sin, but not the woman' (St. Augustine, "In Ioann. Evang.", 33, 5-6).
Jesus, who is the Just One, does not condemn the woman; whereas these
people are sinners, yet they pass sentence of death. God's infinite
mercy should move us always to have compassion on those who commit
sins, because we ourselves are sinners and in need of God's
forgiveness.
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland. Printed in Hungary.
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