《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – John (Ch. 4~Ch. 8》(Johann P. Lange) 04 Chapter 4

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

John 7:45. Then came the officers, [οἱὑπηρέται].—The inference is: As, in general, no one ventured to lay hands on Jesus, Song of Solomon, in particular, the officers did not.

To the chief priests and Pharisees.—The latter without the article. The two are here viewed in the Sanhedrin as a unit.

John 7:46. Like this man.—A well-founded addition, expressive of surprise and astonishment. Augustine: “Cujus vita est fulgur, ejus verba tonitrua.”

John 7:47. Are ye also deceived?—Even ye officers of the supreme spiritual college?

John 7:48. In this view the continuation is characteristic: Have any of the rulers, etc.—For them the authority and example of the rulers must be everything. We should not fail to notice that the testimony of the officers makes not the slightest wholesome impression upon the rulers; or rather, it extremely disturbs and excites them.

Or of the Pharisees.—As if they added this out of an evil conscience. Lest ye should not trust your governors alone, see how the whole great orthodox, aristocratic Jewish party is against Him! How inaccurate they are in both points, is immediately afterwards proved by the example of Nicodemus.

John 7:49. But this multitude.—As heroes let themselves out before their valets, so the hierarchical rulers with their ecclesiastical servants. The venerable fathers give themselves up to a fit of rage, and curse. They curse the people intrusted to them; they curse the devout among the people. But their curse is at the same time a threat of excommunication. This Isaiah, however, a cunning means of intimidating the officers, and of seducing them to exalt themselves likewise in hierarchical haughtiness above the people.

Who knoweth not the law.—What genuine hierarchs always think, Judges, and in fact expect of the people in all cases—a laic ignorance—that in special cases they cast up against them as a reproach. These are here on the way to put Christ to death, as they pretend according to law, as a false prophet, while the people are on the way to acknowledge Christ as the Messiah.

Are cursed.—Not a formula of excommunication (Kuinoel), but an intimation that the ban is impending, which in John 9:22 is hypothetically decreed against the followers of Jesus. The threat is intentionally equivocal. The emphasis assists in this: The people who know nothing, i.e., so far as they know nothing, of the law; or, what is the same, who acknowledge Jesus to be the Messiah. To put the people in general under the ban, could not enter the mind of the chief priests. “The hierarchical insolence and theological self-conceit here bears a genuine historical character (comp. Gförer, Das Jahrhundert des Heils, 1Abthlg. p240). The Sanhedrists and the bigoted party of the Pharisees would pass for the supreme authority as to the truth. The common people were called even עַם הָאָרֶץ, even שֶׁקֶץ, vermin; even among the nobler sentences in Pirke Aboth, 2, 5, it is said. ‘The illiterate man is not godly.’ ” Tholuck. The Talmudists went so far in their folly as to assert that none but the learned would rise from the dead. See Lücke II. p339.

[The aristocratic contempt of the people is found everywhere in Church and State. The pride of priestcraft, kingcraft, and schoolcraft is deeply seated in the human heart. The rabies theologorum also reappears in all Christian churches and sects in times of heated controversy (e.g., the trinitarian, Christological, and sacramentarian controversies in the fourth, fifth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). Theological passions are the deepest and strongest, as religious wars (think of the Thirty Years’ War) are the fiercest.—P. S.]

John 7:50-51. Nicodemus saith unto them.—The ground seems more and more to sway under their feet. First the officers spoke in favor of Jesus. Now a colleague does so. It is noted that he had come to Jesus, though he was a member of their Christ-hating body. His words are the first public utterance of his courage to testify, though couched only in an impartial admonition from a judicial point of view. Yet they are not without an edge. The other members had cast up to the people their want of knowledge of the law; Nicodemus reminds their fanatical zeal, that it is conducting itself illegally in condemning the accused under passionate prejudice without a hearing. This was contrary to the law, Exodus 23:1 (against false accusation); Deuteronomy 1:16; Deuteronomy 19:15 (the insufficiency of a single witness). They have assured the officers that no one of the rulers or Pharisees believes in Jesus; he intimates the possibility of this being untrue, at least as concerns himself.—Doth our law judge a Prayer of Manasseh, unless, etc.—Does the law do as ye do? This is an ordinance of the law: First hearing, then judgment. The law itself is here designated as the authority which is to hear the case; and probably with a purpose. Nicodemus wishes to bring out the objective nature of a pure judgment.

John 7:52. Art thou also from Galilee?—A contemptuous designation of the followers of Jesus; for most of them were from Galilee.^[FN66] The angry humor of the council is not calmed but only further inflamed. A striking picture of fanaticism. Calmness and gentleness, admonition of truth and righteousness, admonition of the word of God itself,—all inflame it, because its zeal (being carnal) includes just the suppression of the sense of truth, the sense of justice, and reverence for the word of God, and is on the path of a wilful diabolical blindness and hardness.—From Galilee.—Mockery and threat combined: We should take thee for a countryman and follower of the Galilean, and not for our honorable colleague. “Galilee was despised for its remoteness from the centre of Jewish culture—‘The Galilean is a blockhead,’ says the Talmud authority—and for its mixture of heathen population.”

Search, and see: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.—These words again are characteristic of the blind, rushing unconscionable zeal, which despises everything divine and human [and does violence to history]. Not only Jonah, but Elijah of This be also, and [perhaps] Hosea and Nahum were of Galilee. Tholuck: “It is possible, however, that they followed a divergent tradition respecting the origin of the former two prophets.” [Comp. Winer, Herzog, Smith, etc. sub Elias and Jonas.] Heubner: “According to the tradition Elijah and Elisha, Hosea and Amos were Galileans; it is certain that Nahum and Jonah were. In Tiberias even a seminary was (afterwards) founded, in which were renowned Rabbins like Hakkadosh, etc. The Talmud also came from that quarter, so that the Jews now are ashamed of this proverb (see Olearius: Jesus the true Messiah, p223).”

This gross error, the modern skeptical criticism (since the time of Bretschneider) has absurdly endeavored to use as a mark of the spuriousness of the fourth Gospel. How could the Sanhedrists, with their Scriptural learning, blunder in such fashion? But how often has this criticism held the Gospels responsible for the violent blindness of fanaticism, for the mistakes of Herod, for the stupidity of the devil himself. We must not fail to notice, besides this feature of unconscious or intentional falsification of history in the mouth of the Sanhedrists, the other fact that they make an utterly irreligious point when they say: “Out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” They deny, in the first place, the Galilean Israel, and in the second place, the freedom of God; and in particular the promise in Isaiah 9:1-2. To these add the third reproach, that they take not the slightest pains to ascertain the real origin of Jesus.

John 7:53. And every man went, etc.—This is usually connected with the first section of John 8. But it is a closing word, of great significance, intended to say that the Sanhedrin, after an unsuccessful attempt against the life of Jesus, found themselves compelled to separate and go home, without having accomplished their purpose. For the idea that the words refer to the return of the festal pilgrims, is unworthy of notice. Probably the Sanhedrists were in full session, expecting that Jesus would be brought before them for their condemnation. If this was Song of Solomon, this breaking up of their session was the more mortifying.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The two methods which the members of the council adopted with their officers and with their colleague Nicodemus, a type of obdurate hierarchical fanaticism in its fundamental features: (1) Perfect insensibility to the voice of truth and the dictates of conscience, and a corresponding perfectly fixed prejudice. (2) Haughtiness, rising even to crazy contempt of the people and of an entire division of the country, joined with crafty fawning upon subordinates. (3) Abusive vulgarity, arraying itself in the robe of sacerdotal and judicial dignity in execution of the judgment of God (cursing excommunicators). (4) Browbeating rejection and derision of impartial judgment, joined with impudent, intentional, or half-intentional perversion and falsification of historical fact. Bringing the voice of justice under suspicion of being a prejudiced partisan voice inflamed by partisan hatred. (5) Perpetual frustrations alternating with orders of arrogance.

2. Even in a circle so degenerate as this the Lord has His witnesses. The officers shame their superiors. The minority of one or two voices (Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea) outweighs the large majority of fanatical prejudice, and yet a while delays the judgment of God over the high council.

3. Nicodemus. The voice of impartiality and justice in defence of Christ, a prelude of the act and confession of faith.

4. As the Sanhedrin appeals to the Pharisean party as an authority, so the officers refer to their experience, and Nicodemus appeals to the law.

5. “Never man spake like this man:” the testimony of the bailiffs to the superhuman power of the word of Jesus. The victory of His word over the official order of His enemies.^[FN67]

6. After victoriously withstanding the Jewish taunt, that the Christians were Galileans, and Christ was a Nazarene, Christianity afterwards again triumphs over the heathen taunt (of Celsus), that it was a vulgar religion.

7. The falsification of fact by the chief priests, continued in Matthew 28:13. The Talmudic imitation of this example. Similar frauds of the mediæval hierarchy [e.g. the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals].

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

An hour of helplessness, as an hour of visitation: 1. In itself considered: (a) The helplessness. Unmanageable officers. Opposing colleagues. Impotent adjournment, (b) The call to repentance in this situation. The officers: “Never man spake,” etc. Even ye yourselves and the Pharisees speak not like Him. His word is mightier than your order over us. Nicodemus: Ye condemn the people as not knowing the law, and ye yourselves despise the precepts of the law. (c) The impenitency in the helplessness: in the utterance to the officers, in the utterance to Nicodemus. By these their helplessness becomes a deeper inquisition and advising with hell2. As a historical type. Similar occurrences in the history of Christian martyrdom, and in the persecution of the Reformation.—The portrait of fanaticism. Contemptuous and fawning towards men. Hypocritical and cursing. Casting suspicion and lying. Threatening and taking cowardly refuge. Helpless and obstinate to the last.—Carnal zeal degenerates. It sinks gradually from intentional ignoring and falsification into actual ignorance. It condemns itself with every word: “Are ye also deceived?” etc.—They went home to their houses, but Christ went to the Mount of Olives. They went, to recover themselves in the selfish comfort of their estates; He prepared Himself for self-sacrifice.—Witnesses of the truth in the camp of Christ’s enemies.—The testimony of the officers concerning the words of Christ: 1. As their own excuse2. As an accusation against their superiors3. As a glorification of the superhuman innocence of Jesus.—According to the divine appointment, spiritual and temporal despots in the end fail of instruments.—The passive resistance of the officers.—The double measure of the Jewish rulers: 1. To the sound popular judgment of the officers they oppose the authority of their party faith2. To the sound regard of Nicodemus for authority, appealing to law, they oppose the grossest popular judgment.—“Have any of the Pharisees believed on Him?” A despotic ecclesiastical government supports itself upon a despotic party.—“Out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” Falsifications of sacred history: (a) The Talmud. (b) The mediæval tradition (Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, etc.).

Nicodemus: the silent, sure advances of a true disciple of Jesus: 1. A timid but honest inquirer after truth ( John 3). 2. A calm but decided advocate of justice ( John 7). 3. A heroic confessor of the Lord, bringing his grateful offerings ( John 19).—How Nicodemus meets their boastful bluster with the words of calmness and justice: (1) The boast, that no ruler believes in Jesus. (2) The beast, that they were zealous for the law.—Carnal zeal runs deeper and deeper into blindness and obduracy: 1. To shameless reviling of the justice it professes to administer. (2) To shameless denial of the truth and history, for which it imagines itself contending.—“And every man went unto his own house.” Most of them went from a wandering assembly to a wandering house and a wandering heart, not to commune with the Lord upon their beds.—How differently they went home: 1. The enemies2. Nicodemus.—They went home, but Christ went unto the Mount of Olives.

Starke: Canstein: So the wise God deals with His enemies in the dispensation of grace: He often makes friends among their own people, children, households and servants; and therein the masters may see and should see the finger of God.—Zeisius: No Prayer of Manasseh, however great he may be in the world, is to be obeyed contrary to the word of God and a good conscience.—Quesnel: Those who issue unjust commands from the necessity and demand of their office, without knowing the unrighteousness which pervades them, are not so far from the kingdom of God as those who issue the same from envy, hatred, or other wicked affections.—Zeisius: Unlettered, honest simplicity is much better fitted to know the truth of God, than the swelling, conceited wisdom of the schools.—Hedinger: O wonderful power of a word, which can stop deluded hearts in the current of their wickedness, and convert them. Acts 9:5-6.—Even the means which are intended for an utterly base end, God can turn to the wholesome use of souls.—Bibl. Wirt.: How strangely God works with His enemies; how He makes their schemes miscarry, and confuses the game so curiously that often those who are commissioned to do evil, are compelled to do well to a good man. Numbers 23:11; Proverbs 16:7.—Masters ought to set their servants a good example for imitation, but they are often so ungodly that they rather lead them astray than aright. O what will become of them!—Majus: True conversion and confession of the truth the world calls delusion. Matthew 27:63; 2 Corinthians 6:8.—Quesnel: The world is so corrupt that it even hates those who will not join with it in persecuting the good.—Hedinger: Diabolical pride! Fear of men is less than nothing in matters of faith. Poor souls, which have no other rule of faith than the decrees of blind bishops, etc. The worst is when the state policy prescribes rules of faith.—Shame on the teachers of the law that they have left the people in such ignorance.—Lampe: It is a very small thing to be cursed by men who are themselves under the curse, when God blesses.—Majus: One man may set himself against a whole wicked assembly if only he is equipped with the whole word and Spirit of God.—Zeisius: God still always has His own even among apostate masses.

Braune: Have any of the rulers believed on Him? In the haughty exaltation of their own persons there lies a frightful contempt of others.—This is Pharisaism, which holds the external knowledge of the letter and the law of the Scripture, or theology, above religion.—Art thou also of Galilee? As a disgrace they add the falsehood: Search, and look, etc.—The fiendish joy that no ruler or Pharisee had believed in Jesus, here comes to nought.

Heubner: The humblest servants shame their masters. Those who are sent to take Jesus are themselves taken. The rulers could here see the finger of God. The Lord reigned in the midst of His enemies. To be deceived here means, to give honor to the truth. So living, simple Christians are always considered deceived.—The judgment of men is set up as the rule of faith: Courts, colleges are to decide concerning the truth. But the truth has not always been laid down by them, as we have seen in the councils.—The first trace of the gentle and timid announcement of adhesion to Jesus. Nicodemus merely insists on fair dealing with Jesus: It is unjust to begin the Processus ab exsecutione.—The opponents of revelation act substantially like these Pharisees. They begin with this: There is no Revelation, and can be none; whereas they ought to suppose and investigate at least the possibility of a true revelation.—No tribunals have proceeded more unrighteously than spiritual tribunals.

Gossner: They freely confess against their masters, in whose pay they were and whose song therefore (according to the way of the world) they should have sung—it was not the sound which so struck the people, as if He spoke vehemently, thundered and lightened; but a divine authority always lay in His gentle address. His word, in fact His very presence, struck as lightning to the heart. In this no man could speak like Him.

Schleiermacher (the officers): This is the first beginning. The ground must first be laid in the soul in a holy awe before the doctrine and the person of the Lord.

[The preaching of the gospel sometimes restrains the violence of the hand when it works no change in the heart.—When Christ appeared, the great ones of the world not only refused to believe in Him, but boasted of their unbelief as an argument of their wisdom.—Great in honor and wise in understanding, are a sweet couple, but seldom seen together.—There is no Wisdom of Solomon, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. (From Burkitt.)—Nicodemus an example of the slow but sure work of grace, from the timid seeking of the Lord by night to this manly confession, Different ways to the same Christ, short and long direct and circuitous—Even in high places Christ may have friends of whom we know nothing.—Majorities in counsel may be wrong as well as minorities.—One man with God on his side is stronger than any majority.—One little word spoken in season may avert a persecution.—P. S.]

Footnotes:

FN#55 - John 7:46.—[Codd. א.3 a B. L. T, etc., Origen, etc., Lachmann, Tischendorf (in former edd.), Westcott and Hort. read only: ἐλάλ. οὕτως ἅνθρωπος, never man spoke thus, omitting ὡς οὖτος ὁ ἀνθρ., like this man. Tregelles and Alford retain the last words, but in brackets. Tischendorf, in his eighth ed, adopts the reading of א.* in this form: ὡς οὖτος λαλεῖὁ ἅνθρωπος. Omission is more easily accounted for (by homœotel.) than insertion. Meyer and Lange retain the clause.—P. S.]

FN#56 - John 7:47.—[The οὖν of the text. rec. after ἀπεκρίθησαν is sustained by B. T. Vulg, but omitted by א.D. Alf. Tischend.—P. S]

FN#57 - John 7:48.—[According to the more lively order of the Greek: Hath any of the rulers believed in Him, or of the Pharisees ?—P. S.]

FN#58 - John 7:49.—[Ὄχλος, multitude (Pöbelhaufe), is here used evidently with great contempt, not only to designate the persons, but to indicate their character.—P. S.]

FN#59 - Ibid.—[Some put a comma after νόμον, some a semicolon, the English V. has no stop. Dr. Lange, in his rendering of the text, adopts the semicolon, and construes thus: “But only this rabble who know nothing of the law (believe in Him); cursed are they!]” Meyer also makes ἐπάρατοί είσι ! an exclamation. The whole sentence is certainly a passionate outburst of the rabbinical rabies theologica, but no decree of excommunication (Kuinoel) which was inapplicable to the mass of the people.—P. S.]

FN#60 - Ibid.—Instead of ἐπικατάρατοι, Lachmann and Tischendorf, after [א.] B. T, Origen, etc., read ἐπάρατοι.

FN#61 - John 7:50.—[ΙΙρότερον, according to B. L. T. and others, Lachmann, Alford. But Tischendorf, ed8, with Cod. Sin.* (prima manu) omits the clause ὁ ἐλθὼν νυκτὸς πρὸς αὐτὸν πρότερον, and reads simply: Αέγει Νικόδημος πρὸς αὑτοὐς. Lachm, Alf, Mey. retain the clause with the exception of νυκτό ς; comp. John 19:39.—P. S.]

FN#62 - Ibid.—Νυκτός is only in minuscules [and in א.*]; supplied from John 3.

FN#63 - John 7:52.—Codd. B. D. K. S. [א. Vulg.] read ἐγεί ρεται. So Lachmann, Tischendorf [Alford]. The Coptic and Sahidic Versions have even the future. Meyer: “An inverted attempt to correct a historical error.” Yet ἐγήγερται [text. reel.] seems not sufficiently accredited. It makes no material difference in the sense of the passage; because the word “search” points to the past.

FN#64 - John 7:53.—The reading ἐπορεύθη is preferable to the reading ἐπορεύθησαν in D. M. S.

FN#65 - John 7:53.—[This verse is usually connected with the following section, John 8:1-11, and subject to the same critical doubts (see Text. and Gram. in John 8); hence I have italicized it.—P. S]

FN#66 - Julian the Apostate, in the fourth century, contemptuously called Christ “the Galilean,” and the Christian “Galileans.”—P. S.]

FN#67 - Involuntary witnesses of the innocence or even divinity of Christ, and the truth of the Gospel: Pontius Pilate and his wife, the centurion under the cross, Judas the traitor, Tacitus (in his account of the Neronian persecution), Celsus, Lucian, Porphyry, J. J. Rousseau, Napoleon, Strauss, Renan, etc. A collection of such testimonies to the character of Christ from the mouth or pen of enemies or skeptics see in the Appendix to my book on the Person of Christ, Boston and New York, 1865.—P. S.]
08 Chapter 8
Verses 1-11

A. CHAPTER John 8:1-11

[Christ And The Adulteress, And Their Accusers.]

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Discussion of the genuineness of this section.—The difficulty of handling the question of the genuineness of this section, we have already indicated in the Introduction [p31]; and we have there indicated also the present state of the question. Four points are to be considered: 1. The authorities2. The condition of the text3. The historical connection of the occurrence4. The connection of the section with what precedes and what follows.

1. “Griesbach and Schultz give a list of more than a hundred manuscripts in which the pericope appears.^[FN23] Among them are D. G. H. K. M. U.^[FN24] Jerome, in his day, asserts that the pericope appears in many Greek manuscripts,^[FN25] and some scholia appeal to ἀρχαῖα ἀντίγραφα,” etc. Lücke. On the contrary, “the majuscules B. C. L. T. do not contain the passage;^[FN26] 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 προσθήκη which is not without use.^[FN27] 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 John 7:36, or John 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.^[FN28] “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 ὄρθρου, πᾶς ὁ λαός, οἱ γραμματεῖς καὶ οἱ φαρ., ἑπιμένειν, ἀναμάρτητος, καταλείπεσθαι, κατακρίνειν, which are net otherwise used by John, the absence of his usual οὗν which occurs but once in this passage, while δέ 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. p829) 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 John 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 Baruch, and now were compelled—to go home disappointed and divided.

(b) The statement in John 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 (p255) overlooks this point.

(c) John 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, γραμματεῖς, who do not elsewhere appear in John, are strange here.^[FN29] 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, p257).

(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 ( Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22; Deuteronomy 22:24). This signifies nothing at all.

(g) According to the Rabbins the legal punishment of adultery was strangulation (Lücke, p259). On this point Michaelis has justly denied the authority of the Talmud, and has asserted, on a comparison of Exodus 31:14; Exodus 35:2 with Numbers 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 Song of Solomon -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, chap9. 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 John 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, p1218). 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 John 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 Isaiah, 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 John 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, chap2. 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, chap5. 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), chap8, while the blind brother is left to beggary and Pharisaic alms, chap9, against the law of Deuteronomy 15:4. The feast of dedication, John 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 Isaiah, 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 1 John 5:7-8. We consider the passage, 2 Peter 1:20 to 2 Peter 3:2, an interpolation, but entirely taken in substance from the Epistle of Jude (Apostol. Zeitalter, I, p155). On the other hand, the conclusion of Mark, John 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, chap1). 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 10 th century in Coteler. Patr. Apost., I:238]: The Armenians expunged the pericope from their version: βλαβερὰν εἷναι λέγοντες τοῖς πολλοῖς τὴν τοιαύτην ἀκρόασιν (see Lücke, p249). 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, p248,252, can bring nothing that amounts to more than assertion.)^[FN30]

It may be supposed that the disuse of the passage passed through different stages1. 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 others2. Next, perhaps, the pericope began to undergo improvement by other readings (e. g., Cod. D, ἐπὶ ἁμαρτίᾳ instead of ἐν μοιχείᾳ), and especially abbreviation3. Some transcribers then went further, and transferred the pericope to the end of the Gospel as an appendix4. 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 John 7:36, or after John 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.^[FN31]

But another thing in favor of the genuineness of it is the πάλιν οὖν αὐτοῖς ἐλάλησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, John 8:12, and the εἶπεν οὖν πάλιν αὐτοῖς, John 8:21. The words in John 8:21 literally refer to the words of John 7:34. It is harder to see the reference of the first πάλιν, if we have to take in the idea; “I am the light of the world,” The Lord, however, already implied this to them in John 5:35-36 sqq. John was a light, and yet only a witness to Christ who was appointed for their deliverance, John 8:40. Apart from this, the terms of John 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, John 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 πάλιν in chap8 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, p243, and Meyer [p320–323, 5th ed.].

John 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, Luke 21:37.

[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 γραμματεῖς, 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 δέ, too, instead of the Johannean οὗν, 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, John 8:1. That He returns to the temple in spite of the persecution ( John 8:2), is due to the fact that the scribes and Pharisees now make as if they would acknowledge Him ( John 8:3), though they mean only to tempt Him, John 8:6. The like may be said of most, of the subsequent occurrences thus introduced. Only the great accumulation of the δέ seems certainly strange; but in these unusual turns there was less occasion for an οὖν.

John 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.

John 8:5. Taken in the very act.—Ἐπαυτοφώρῳ, i.e., ἔπὶ [ἐπ’] αὐτοφώρῳ, in ipso furto.^[FN32] “The Prayer of Manasseh, who was likewise liable to death ( Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:24), might have escaped.” Meyer. Though stoning, according to Deuteronomy 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 ( Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 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.

John 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 σὺ οὗν τί λέγεις, John 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 Isaiah, 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 Isaiah, 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.