Yesterday we looked at a cartoon riff on the story of the Woman Taken in Adultery. Short take, while I appreciate what the cartoonist was trying to get at, I felt that his attempt to improve on the story only wound up weakening it. Here, for ease of reference, is the actual story as told in John:
Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in their midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?” 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. 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.” And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 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. Jesus looked up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.” (Jn 8:2–11)
Fun fact: this story has no stable home in the MSS of the New Testament. It pops up in some MSS of John and Luke. Its existence and preservation bear witness to the fact that the real way the New Testament documents got to be preserved was because they were the traditions the Church clung to like limpets during the celebration of the real New Testament (or “covenant”), namely, the Eucharist (“This is the new diatheke=(“testament/covenant”) in my blood”). New Testament documents are nothing more or other than the documents from the apostolic circle that were read in close proximity to the celebration of the Eucharist.
If you are troubled by the question, “What right did the Church have to decide what goes in the New Testament?” I ask, “What right does your family have to decide what goes in your family scrapbook?”
It’s your family scrapbook, dude. You know best what expresses who you and your family are, what they love, what they think, believe, hope for, and aspire to, and what their most important memories are. For the early Church, the most important memory she had was summed up by Jesus: “Do this in memory of me” and the story of a seventy two hour period in the life, death, and resurrection of the man they were absolutely convinced was God in the flesh, crucified and raised from death. That’s why the gospels they preserved buzz through three years of his public ministry and then focus a quarter of their ink on the final weekend of his life.
When the gospels do preserve sayings and deeds from his public ministry, they always do so because it always looks forward to and is illuminated by the events of that weekend, and that includes this story, which the Church simply could not let go of. It illuminated too touchingly the mercy of Christ in the face of brutal legalism. But it did not do so either at the expense of respect for the law, nor at the expense of his love for all the sinners involved in the confrontation. But neither did he direct his “Go and sin no more” to all the parties involved. And I think that matters. Jesus directed his words to the woman, not the mob. He modeled for the mob the forgiveness they should have shown the woman. She needed forgiveness, not the lie that she had not sinned.
One of my readers found this difficult and wrote:
“Let thee without sin cast the first stone.” To me this is sufficient as saying sin no more to both parties as it is sufficient to leave it as is. Both emphasizing you are both sinners. Neither party fit to judge as such.
The problem with this? Scripture says the exact opposite:
“and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus looked up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.”(Jn 8:9–11)
It’s not a matter of interpretation. It’s a matter of what the text, in fact, says.
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25 Responses
Fully agree Mark
I notice how right wing Catholics are so focused on other people’s sins, especially sexual sins.
They love to lecture us on the evils of contraception among other things. Who the Hell are they to act like our moral tutors? Unless, you are perfect, knock off the moral posturing and lecturing.
Honestly, Will, I take umbrage at this every time you mention pelvic issues and contraception.
Most right-wingers, Catholic or otherwise, have no problem with contraception. With only 2-3% of Catholics practicing NFP according to most survey data, it would be impossible for all right-wingers to practice NFP, and if you consider some of the most established Catholic voices in defense of NFP (Simcha Fisher, Greg Popcak and many others), none of them are right-wingers. This is a non-partisan issue.
But more broadly, it’s because this applies to every sin.
• Who are *they* to tell me not to lie, the liars?
• Who are *they* to tell me not to steal, the thieves?
• Who are *they* to tell me not to kill, the killers?
How dare they make themselves moral teachers and lecture us on the evils of lies, thievery or murder? Are they all perfect? Have they never told a lie? Have they never took a coin that somebody dropped? Have they never stepped on an ant? Unless they’re *perfect*, knock off the moral posturing and lecturing.
Sins don’t stop being sins just because the one admonishing you isn’t perfect.
By your logic, not a single person in the world is allowed to call you out on your sin. You’re trying to excuse and absolve yourself and demand that all the people around should tell you: “Go and sin some more”.
I agree with your points, but want to note that the 2-3% claim tends to be misleading.
It appears to trace to a Guttermacher Institute survey that reported that 98% of Catholic women have used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning at some point in their life.
That is not the same as finding that only 2% have used natural family planning, just like saying that only people who have never had extramarital sex believe that extramarital sex is wrong. People do fall into temptation. People also change their views behaviors as they learn to better discern right and wrong.
In fact, Guttermacher also reported that 87% of Catholics “currently at risk of an unintended pregnancy” (which means less 87% of all Catholics, as a significant fraction actively intend to get pregnant or do not specifically intend to avoid it) use a method other than NFP. Similarly, a Pew survey found the portion of Catholics who responded that the Church should allow Catholics to use birth control was 84%.
Pew provides clear information on their methodology and questions, and it’s worthwhile to note that this figure includes all those who voluntarily identify as Catholic, including those who are non-practicing. Among those who attend Mass weekly, the percentage who want birth control to be permitted is 72%. They don’t appear to have every gone a step further to differentiated those who want to be permitted, but accept the Church’s authority on the matter.
Unfortunately, if Guttermacher publishes details about their methodology and the exact questions asked, I did not find it. This is potentially important, because unlike Pew, whose mission is to perform neutral research without advocating for specific conclusions, Guttermacher exists specifically to promote abortion and contraception, and may, intentionally or not, have bias in their survey wording or analysis methods.
While that 72% leaves still leaves only a minority agreeing with the Church on this matter, it is still significant in my mind: Almost every single married Catholic will frequently experience an often extremely strong desire for sex without the potential that accompanies it for additional responsibilities. The overwhelming majority of Catholics are surrounded by people with stronger inherent influence than the Church – most peers, teachers, doctors, often even family members, and most significantly, most potential romantic partners – unceasingly teach, model, and even insist the Church is wrong. Not infrequently, lonely young Catholics are presented with a choice between remaining alone or rejecting the Church’s teachings on sexual morality.
The overwhelming message, including from the desires originating from our own bodies, is to reject what the Church teaches. So from that perspective, 27% of routinely practicing Catholics accepting what the Church teaches is a significant success.
Thank you for that reply.
I did not delve deeper to look into the statistics because I never felt it would be necessary. If 2-3% of Catholics use NFP, that only means there is plenty of work needed to advocate for it.
If that doesn’t happen, well, we may soon find that NFP is more popular with non-Catholics because being natural and not interfering with biology is a strong draw for many.
>Not infrequently, lonely young Catholics are presented with a choice between remaining alone or rejecting the Church’s teachings on sexual morality.
Ain’t it the truth. I mean, even the most unequivocal, straightforward and unambiguous proscription against extramarital* sex is questioned. This happens even on Catholic forums, so it’s no wonder that expressing the will to hold off sex for a while at a beginning of a relationship is met with incredulity and waiting until marriage is met with ridicule.
I perused a few online discussion boards to understand this better and I can see people hold a number of mutually exclusive beliefs stemming from that denouncement of sexual morality:
• You have absolute right to consent or deny, but no sex by the third date is considered grounds for a breakup.
This leads to some of the most pernicious forms of coercion out there. “I totally respect your right to consent, but if we don’t have sex by the third date, I’m breaking up. But no pressure, your choice.”
When faced with that ultimatum in every potential relationship, you can’t help but feel pressure. It also leads to a situation where it becomes exceedingly difficult, if not outright impossible, to find a virgin partner.
• Being a virgin is perfectly okay, but wanting a virgin partner is creepy.
People excuse every behavior, but looking for virginity in your partner is unacceptable unless you’re a virgin yourself.
If you do have sex with a virgin by accident, you’re expected to feel disgusted by your partner’s lack of experience and break up because you’d be grooming them by staying with them.
• Sexual incompatibility is grounds for a breakup even if you knew about it before you started having sex and even if you misled your partner.
You’re in a relationship with an asexual person (who told you about that at the outset) and managed to coerce them to have sex so you got a notch on your belt? You can break up now. Sure, you led them on to believe that they will have a relationship with you even if you know that sex will be rare or nonexistent, and they opened up to invite you somewhere where they were very uncomfortable for your satisfaction, but it doesn’t matter. You can’t pressure them to have sex more often, but you can break up.
Since sex is about mutual satisfaction, it’s okay to have kinks and fetishes and to find a partner who will *enthusiastically* share them with you: “Okay, so now that we had sex, here’s my list of kinks. No pressure, but if you don’t agree, we’re not sexually compatible, so we’ll break up.”
It doesn’t matter that the other person is emotional, views sex differently and assigns a much greater weight to it. It doesn’t matter that they opened up and will now feel pressured to keep the relationship at any cost, even degradation and humiliation.
• You are not owed anything. Break up if you don’t feel satisfied. You can break up for any reason or no reason at all.
You’re not “getting” the sex that you “deserve”? You’re in a “dead bedroom” and rather than talk it over with your spouse, possibly seek marriage counselling? So past century. No, you vent to AI, you vent to other people online, vent to your therapist, all will advise you to break up/divorce.
• Your body, your choice, but don’t be surprised if somebody doesn’t like it.
You’re not allowed to have preferences regarding appearance and force them upon somebody else, but since you can break up for any reason, it’s valid to break up and even divorce for very superficial reasons. You can list your appearance preferences to your partner and break up if they don’t follow it to the letter. You can even break up if they do follow them but you dislike it.
• It’s cheating if you don’t break up/divorce before the deed, but if you’re on a break/separated, you didn’t cheat, you don’t have to tell your partner anything and they have no right to call you out on that.
Yes, even if it was only *technically* a breakup. Your boyfriend has another girl in his bed, so he breaks up over text and blocks you? He’s free to do whatever he likes, then kick her out, unblock you in the morning, tell you he was emotional, and ask if you can still be a couple. He *technically* didn’t cheat. You find out later? You can’t call it cheating. He *technically* didn’t cheat. You can still break up for whatever reason, but you can’t call him a cheater. Others may call him a cheater, but he’ll still find people who will find no problem with his behavior.
Sure, it’s the equivalent of childishly keeping your fingers crossed, but immaturity is apparently fair game.
*) I’m using “extramarital” on purpose. For one thing, if there is no intention to marry, sex can’t be considered “premarital”.
For another, people literally justify extramarital sex, polyamory, and cheating with extenuating circumstances. The topic is treated so lightly that it’s considered normal to unironically have “f**k lists”.
I mean contraception is evil so there is a point there.
No. Contraception is not evil. Not everyone should have ten children.
Will, you’re commenting to Catholic readers on a website published by a Catholic author. Whether you believe what the Catholic Church teaches or not, the discussion is going to go nowhere if you don’t at least acknowledge what the Church teaches, and clarify if you are stating your own view, or asserting Church teaching.
The Church does teach that contraception is evil, and those of who share the Church’s belief are naturally going to state this factually in a Catholic context like this site: contraception is evil.
With that said, two additional points:
– Yes, we all need to be careful of moral posturing. That doesn’t mean it might not be necessary to lecture, although when necessary it must be done in charity. Jesus modeled that with the woman in this account. He did lecture, but did not condemn.
– Not using contraception does not generally mean having 10 children (and from a quick check of some UN info on the topic, it looks like the historic average was 5-6). Yes, natural family planning is challenging, but it is generally effective. My wife and I have two, and very, very definitely have not been limited by any fertility issues. It comes down entirely to having acknowledged serious issues in our situation that would be worsened if we had more children, and committing to the challenge of periodic abstinence.
@iamlucky13: Can you link to the source of those historic averages? I’m asking because I’ve seen wildly different figures on that topic and that 5-6 average can be one of, in increasing order:
• total number of children born in a paternal household (so a man can become a widower and remarry any number of times) that made it to maturity
• total number of children born in a paternal household, regardless of the number that died before reaching maturity
• total number of children born to a woman in her lifetime that made it to maturity
• total number of children born to a woman in her lifetime, regardless of the number that died before reaching maturity
• total number of pregnancies per woman, including (early/unknown) miscarriages
Considering the lack of awareness of early pregnancy and difficulty of obtaining data for some of these, I would be leaning to think that the 5-6 figure is something synthetic based on whatever data was available. Considering also the high infant and child mortality as recently as 100 years ago, I’m guessing they set out to explain the relatively low population growth rates around the world despite the lack of contraception, when contrasted with animal population explosions when there is food available.
“He did lecture, but did not condemn.”
Admonish the sin, not the sinner. That’s very true, but there is a risk of temptation here to find loopholes on how you actually admonish the sinner and absolve the sin. Which brings us to another passage “take the beam out of your eye before you want to remove the splinter” — it doesn’t mean that the splinter isn’t there, but it’s easy to be blinded.
Right wing Catholics, especially converts who were Evangelicals tend to be very judgmental. Take all the umbrage you want. My sins are between me and God. Some right wing jackass can judge me at his own peril.
In a certain sense, you’re right: Only God can judge you because only God knows your inmost heart. And yes, there are plenty of right-wing (and left-wing) jackasses out there who put themselves in place of God and condemn others to Hell prematurely because they violated some tribal shibboleth.
But really stop and think about that: God knows your inmost heart, therefore God can judge you. And He WILL judge you, just as He will judge me and every other person on this earth. And if on that day He should look into your inmost heart for signs of faith, hope, and charity, and instead find it brimming over with hatred for all those evil, judgmental right-wingers and/or pride that you yourself are NOT an evil, judgmental right-winger and/or obstinate refusal to accept any fraternal correction (whether from those evil, judgmental right-wingers or anyone else) because “my sins are between me and God”…well, yes, they are. And there’s a reason St. Paul says, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).
I will not accept “fraternal correction” from Trump worshiping, MAGA “Christian” assholes, such as you find in right wing Catholic websites. Perhaps from a homeless man, but not these idolatrous buffoons.
Not sure about that last bit. I mean, obviously your interpretation of the text is correct: The actual words “go and sin no more” were addressed to the woman after everyone else had left. But, based only on your excerpt, since I don’t know the reader you’re quoting, I think they’re trying to say that “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone” strongly implies that the crowd, also, should go and sin no more.
I don’t know if that’s a reasonable interpretation or not, but it’s certainly more reasonable than saying Jesus was addressing them with words he only spoke after they’d all left.
The “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone” has three interpretations. I like the third one best, but I’ll save it for last.
The broad one is that they looked into their hearts and realized that they’re not without sin, so they cannot judge.
But this one doesn’t work. Mosaic Law (the specific passage is Deuteronomy 22:22) did not make this distinction. Regardless of your own personal sin, it was clear what they were supposed to do with adulterers and adulteresses — “Thus shall you purge the evil from Israel” — the Law did not stipulate that those who pass judgment are supposed to be sinless themselves. Indeed, this is about purging evil from Israel, so there’s no question that it’s one of the worst kind of evils (this stipulation was added only to a handful of serious laws, like idolatry and blasphemy, it was not used lightly).
But front and center, the mob lied. “Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such.” No. In the Law, Moses commanded them to stone both the woman and the man. There is nothing in the law that says that Moses commanded them to stone just one of them, except one case, but I’ll get to that in a second.
Before going to the narrower interpretation, let me quote the rest of the Deuteronomy 22:22 passage: “If a man is discovered lying with a woman who is married to another, they both shall die, the man who was lying with the woman as well as the woman.”
They BOTH shall die. The man AS WELL AS the woman. Who was presented before Jesus? Only the woman. The mob was already guilty of absolving the man from sin and they knew they had no case. The woman should not have been stoned precisely because she was discovered with a man, but the man escaped the punishment.
Let me get back to that one case. If you look into other passages in Deuteronomy 22, you’ll find verses 25–27. In case of rape, the rapist was to be put to death — as if he was guilty of murder. Rapists were to be put to death, not the victims. This is the one exception where Moses commanded them to stone just one participant.
So that sin of the mob was that the woman was unable to present her case against the man she slept with. She may have been raped and yelled, and thus caught the attention of some of the mob. This situation is evil beyond measure, the rapist was absolved of the sin for which *he* should have been executed, while the woman was a *victim* that should not have been punished in any way.
Thus the second interpretation: In both of these cases, the man should have been put to death, no questions asked. In one case, both he and the woman were guilty and to be stoned. In the other case, only the man was guilty and only he was to be stoned. The Law clearly stated this. There was no stipulation what to do if one escaped, that you’re supposed to stone the one that you managed to catch.
If the man escaped, the assumption should be that he was a rapist and wanted to escape punishment because the woman was in a privileged position — she could testify rape regardless of the actual situation.
So the second interpretation is that the crowd lied, presented a false case and a false judgment. As in all cases of putting Jesus to test, they had a faulty case — damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If He doesn’t condemn the woman, He’s not purging evil from Israel, how can He be a teacher? If He does condemn the woman, he doesn’t know the Law because she should not be stoned. If He debates this and performs a hearing, they will throw in extra loopholes and hang on every word.
But I like the narrowest interpretation. The woman was an adulteress. She understood the situation and knew she had sinned. The man got away or maybe he was some important figure that condemned her and she was not permitted to accuse him. Maybe he wasn’t anyone important, but he still escaped, but now joined the mob and wanted her to be put to death so she can’t accuse him. Maybe he was a gentile, so Mosaic Law did not apply to him.
In any case, she knew she was already sentenced.
But when Jesus said “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” they all backed away because they all realized they were guilty — in some way — of that woman’s situation. Maybe she was a widow or a castaway divorcee who had no recourse but to go into prostitution. Some interpreters point to this meaning of Matthew 5:32, where ποιεῖ (poiei) is taken to mean “to manufacture a situation”, so a man who divorces his wife creates a situation where she may be forced to commit adultery.
Either way, this interpretation is, in my opinion, the best of the three not because her sin isn’t great, not because she’s not guilty of death, and not because the mob’s sin isn’t lesser. It’s all true. But the mob realizes that it’s precisely their negligence of their duties that led to the woman’s adultery. EVEN IF she’s not a divorcee or a widow, it’s still negligence if she felt she had to commit adultery to support herself.
This cannot be ignored: IT’S PRECISELY THE CROWD’S NEGLIGENCE AND INACTION THAT ALLOWED THE EVIL TO ENTER ISRAEL. Purging evil doesn’t make sense. It will reënter Israel through some other woman if they don’t take action to rectify this situation.
When the woman is told to go and sin no more, it’s not wishful thinking. The rebuked crowd now needs to make amends and cater to the needs of her and other women at risk. If it’s the crowd’s fault that women prostitute themselves, addressing the symptom will not make the problem disappear. The evil will be there, festering under the ostensibly healed scar.
“I thank God that I am not like other men.” Sorry, can’t resist, since this probably applies to all of us.
Touché. I am likely worse than most men.
One part of this passage is always left out when people talk about it. I am not sure how much difference it makes, but I think every part of a passage should be included. “This they said to test him that they might bring a charge against him.” Why was this a test? Because under Roman law the Jews did not have the right to put to death anyone. If Jesus said to put her to death, He would be in trouble with the Romans. If He said not to, He would show that he put expediency ahead of the Jewish law. As in so many other cases He neatly went between the rock and the hard place in which they tried to trap him.
Note to iamlucky13: if you choose to not practice contraception fine and dandy. Just don’t tell me that I cannot. The vast majority of Catholics either have or are practicing contraception. This is a fact. And they will not change due to moral posturing from right wingers.
Just to add a note – thinking that contraception is – well, ‘against nature’ is the phrase I would use, but, therefore, since the Church thinks that God expects us to work with rather than against nature – therefore not a good thing – that thinking that is not a feature of being ‘right wing.’ I don’t personally think that one’s political leanings are part of what one is as a Catholic; but I am definitely not ‘right wing’ politically. I normally vote Labour (I live in New Zealand) – have great sympathy with the Greens but think their politics are too narrow for running a whole country.
My wife and I, long before we imagined being Catholic, felt that contraception was just … well, just really weird. All our four children were born long before we became Catholics – but I was pleased to find, as a Catholic, what I felt to be well-reasoned arguments why artificial contraception is wrong, in reading Humanae Vitae.
Again, if you choose to eschew contraception, good for you. But do not try to force others to do so. Opposing contraception sounds good in theory, but in reality, it does not make sense for most couples. Leave them in peace.
” And they will not change due to moral posturing from right wingers.”
But it is not just right wingers who will weigh in on contraception. I would not rate either Mark or Pope Francis, for examples, as even remotely right wing. They would both say the same thing, and neither of them would take their cue from the vast majority, nor on the other hand from right wingers.
You say that avoiding contraception does not make sense for most people, and that actually gets at the heart of the question: The reason the Church made the effort to provide a clear teaching on contraception wasn’t to provide a bludgeon for the self-righteous to condemn people with. It was precisely to clearly teach what genuinely makes sense according to God’s plan not just for most people, but for all people. It is what is good for us even though we may not recognize it.
Sounds good in theory, but in reality, not so good. Open heart surgery is “unnatural” so should we stop doing it? Ditto antibiotics, vaccines, etc.
Believe what you will, and so will I.
Will, this is a bogus argument.
Greg Popcak has a reply to this in his book “Holy Sex” to when people comment “How does Church not condemn ED drugs when it condems contraceptives?”
The answer is simple: “ED medication [like your example of open heart surgery, antibiotics, vaccines] aims to return the original and natural function of an organ, while contraceptives block those functions.”
I don’t think anything I said suggested I was trying to force anything on anyone. I was objecting to the ‘right wing’ label. I think abortion is killing a human being. I think that, given the very broad support in modern Anglosphere culture for abortion in at least a lot of circumstances, it is foolish, and, indeed, in some sense wrong, to pass Draconian laws against it. Support every reasonable measure to help women not to do what, after all, surely something in them doesn’t want to do; passing laws to somehow punish women for aborting a child – or men for helping that – seems to me really stupid.
Has anyone thought to force you to avoid contraception? I hadn’t seen it.
In fact, rather than any credible movement to ban the sale of contraceptives or other force people to not use them, the current situation is one where we are required through legislation mandating all insurance plans to cover it to help pay for others to use it even though we believe it is wrong.