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Jesus and the Adulteress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Bart D. Ehrman
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Extract

The story of Jesus and the Adulteress (John 7. 53–8. 11) is fraught with historical and literary problems, many of which have seemed insoluble. On only two points is there a scholarly consensus: the passage did not originally form part of the Fourth Gospel, and it bears a close resemblance to Synoptic, particularly Lukan, traditions about Jesus. The arguments for these judgments are overwhelming and do not need to be repeated here. In some respects these unanimous conclusions have themselves brought into sharp focus the thorny problems of the story's textual and pre-literary history: (1) Textual. Since the oldest and best textual witnesses of the Gospel of John do not contain the passage, how should the allusive references to it from the second and third centuries be evaluated? Did Papias know this story? If so, did he find it in the Gospel according to the Hebrews? Or was it Eusebius, who informs us of Papias's knowledge of this or a similar story, who found it there? What form of the story was known to the author of the Didascalia and his subsequent editor, the author of the Apostolic Constitutions? Did Origen know the story? If not, when was it first accepted into the Alexandrian canon? (2) Preliterary. How should this story be classified form-critically? And in what Sitz im Leben of the early church would it have thrived? Does the story preserve authentic tradition from the life of Jesus? Scholarship has reached an impasse on these questions because the early evidence is so sparse. Martin Dibelius's famous pronouncement from a different context applies here as well: ‘Enlightenment is to be expected not from new hypotheses but only from new discoveries.’

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Articles
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New Testament Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , January 1988 , pp. 24 - 44
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

NOTES

[1] See the commentaries. The fullest discussion is found in Becker, Ulrich, Jesus und die Ehebrecherin (Berlin: Alfred Topelmann, 1963) 8–74Google Scholar. Helpful summaries of the textual evidence are given by Metzger, Bruce M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York: United Bible Societies, 1971) 219–22Google Scholar; Schilling, Frederick A., ‘The Story of Jesus and the Adulteress’, ATR 37 (1955) 91–106Google Scholar; and Burge, Gary M., ‘A Specific Problem in the New Testament Text and Canon: The Woman Caught in Adultery (Jn 7.53–8.11)’, JETS 27 (1984) 141–8. See further n. 32 below.Google Scholar

[2] The oft-repeated assertion that the third Evangelist composed the story is intriguing on stylistic grounds, but has proved untenable in view of the textual history of the passage. This particular issue need not concern us further here. For a full discussion see Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 43–74, and esp. the literature he cites on pp. 68–9Google Scholar. In addition, see Salvoni, Fausto, ‘Textual Authority for John 7.53–8.11’, ResQ 4 (1960) 11–15.Google Scholar

[3] The story is also riddled with exegetical ambiguities and historical enigmas (Had the authorities already tried and condemned this woman, or were they bringing her to Jesus for judgment? What, if anything, did Jesus write on the ground? Was death by stoning the penalty for adultery in fast-century Palestine?). Although these questions are not directly germane to our discussion at this point, they will have a bearing on the form-critical evaluation of the story. See below, pp. 34–38 and nn. 48, 50. See further the comments and literature cited by Brown, Raymond (The Gospel According to John [AB, 29. New York: Doubleday, 1966], 1. 332–38)Google Scholar, and Schnackenburg, Rudolf (The Gospel According to St. John [New York: Crossroad, 1982], 1. 162–8).Google Scholar

[4] On these questions, see the discussion and literature cited on pp. 25–30 below.

[5] On these form-critical issues, see pp. 34–38 and nn. 48, 50 below.

[6] See pp. 35–36 below.

[7] Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1926), 1. 55.Google Scholar

[8] Portions of five OT commentaries of Didymus were discovered in 1941 by soldiers digging out a grotto for use as a munitions depot near Toura, Egypt. The first notice of the Toura discovery was made by Guerand, O., ‘Note préliminaire sur les papyrus d'Origène découverts à Toura’, RHR 131 (1946) 85–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Shortly thereafter a number of brief appraisals of the find were published: Altaner, B., ‘Ein grosser, aufstehen erregender patrologischer Papyrusfund’, TQ 127 (1947) 332–3Google Scholar; Cullmann, O., ‘Die neuesten Papyrusfunde von Origenestexten und gnostischer Schriften’, TZ 5 (1949) 153–7Google Scholar; Ghellinck, J. de, ‘Récentes découvertes de littérature chrétienne antique’, NRT 71 (1949) 83–6Google Scholar; Klostermann, E., ‘Der Papyrusfund von Tura’, TLZ 73 (1948) 47–50Google Scholar; Puech, H.-Ch., ‘Les nouveaux écrits d'Origène et de Didyme découverts à Toura’, RHPR 31 (1951) 293–329Google Scholar. The best discussion of the find prior to the publication of any of the texts was by Doutreleau, Louis, ‘Que savons-nous aujourd'hui des Papyrus de Toura?’ RSR 43 (1955) 161–93Google Scholar. Doutreleau updated this discussion twelve years later with the assistance of Koenen, Ludwig, ‘Nouvelle inventaire des papyrus de Toura’, RSR 55 (1967) 547–64.Google Scholar

[9] Didymus's life, work, and teachings have been the subject of three monographs in modern times: Bardy, G., Didyme l'Aveugle (Paris: Beauchesne, 1910)Google Scholar; Leipoldt, J., Didymus der Blinde von Alexandria (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1905)Google Scholar; and Gauche, William J., Didymus the Blind: An Educator of the Fourth Century (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1934)Google Scholar. Other helpo ful sketches include Bienert, Wolfgang A., ‘Allegoria’ und ‘Anagoge’ bei Didymos dem Blinden von Alexandrien (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1972) 1–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Doutreleau, Louis, ed., Sur Zacharie. Texte inédit d'après un papyrus de Toura: Introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes (SC 244; Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1978) 2. 1–128Google Scholar: Kramer, Bärbel, ‘Didymus von Alexandrien’, Theolagische Realenzyklopädie (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1981) 8. 741–6Google Scholar; Quasten, Johannes, Patrology (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1966), 3. 85–100Google Scholar; and Young, Frances, From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and Its Background (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 83–91.Google Scholar

[10] Cf. Metzger, , Textual Commentary, 220Google Scholar: ‘No Greek Father prior to Euthymius Zigabenus (twelfth century) comments on the passage, and Euthymius declares that the accurate copies of the Gospel do not contain it.’

[11] None of the Primary Alexandrian witnesses attests the passage, and of the Secondary Alexandrians, only MS 892 preserves it. On the Alexandrian character of Gospel, Didymus's text, we the present writer's Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels (Atlanta: Scholars, 1986).Google Scholar

[12] On the appropriateness of the PA for Didymus's exposition at this point, see pp. 26–28 below.

[13] I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Theodore Brunner of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae for his helpful assistance in procuring a comprehensive listing of Didymus's use of the word εύαγγέλων.

[14] Kramer, Johannes and Krebber, Bärbel, Didymos der Blinde, Kommentar zum Ecclesiastes (Papyrologische Texte and Abhandlungen, 16. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 1972) 4. 89.Google Scholar

[15] Ibid., 89, n. 1.

[16] See the listing in LPGL.

[17] Thus, as was suggested by Paul W. Meyer of Princeton Theological Seminary in a private conversation, Didymus may simply mean that if someone were to go to a Christian library in Alexandria and choose several Gospel books off a shelf, he could find the PA in some of these books but not others.

[18] The evidence derives from scholia found in several Syriac MSS of the Gospels (see Gwynn, John, Remnants of the Later Syriac Versions of the Bible [London: Williams and Norgate, 1909] 1. lxxi–lxxii, 41–2)Google Scholar. Although the oldest Syriac versions of John omit the PA, some later Syriac MSS include it either after John 7. 52, in the margin, or as an appendix to the entire Gospel. In several of these MSS, ranging from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries, the passage is accompanied by a note claiming that it derived from a certain ‘Abbot Paul’, who found it in Alexandria (Syriac and English translation in Gwynn, 41). The same scholion is independently attested by a thirteenth-century Arabic MS of the Gospels (see Horner, G., The Coptic Version of the New Testament in the Northern Dialect [Oxford, 1898] 2. 429 ff.)Google Scholar. It remains unclear whether this scholion refers to Paul of Tella, the translator of the Syro-Hexaplar of the OT, who was known to have accompanied Thomas Harkel on his journey to Alexandria, or, as is somewhat less likely, the ‘Abbot Paul’ who translated the works of Gregory Nazianzus into Syriac on Cyprus (Gwynn, , lxxiGoogle Scholar; Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 15)Google Scholar. In either case, the scholion indicates that the PA was found in Alexandrian MSS of John by the early seventh century.

A notably different form of the PA in Syriac is preserved in the Church History of Zacharias Scholasticus, the Monophysite Bishop of Mitylene (d. after 536) (Gwynn, , Remnants, lxxi–lxxii, 46–7Google Scholar; Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 15–16)Google Scholar. A Syriac translation of this original Greek composition was expanded and later incorporated into a larger work that still survives. In a portion of this expanded edition, completed in the year 569, the story of Jesus and the adulteress is told with a note that it ‘was found in the Gospel of Mara, Bishop of Amid’ (Syriac and English translation in Gwynn, , Remnants, 47)Google Scholar. In 525 C.E. this Bishop Mara fled to Alexandria, where he acquired a large library and composed, among other things, a Greek preface to the Fourth Gospel (see Ahrens, K. and Kruger, G., Die sogenannte Kirchengeschichte des Zaharias Rhetor [Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1899] 155)Google Scholar. Thus there can be little doubt that Mara found the PA in the Gospel books of Alexandria in the early sixth century (thus Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 16)Google Scholar. If the interpolation was common knowledge by the early sixth century – so that visitors to Alexandria became acquainted with it – would it not have occurred in a much earlier period?

[19] See, for example, Brown, , The Gospel According to John, 1.336.Google Scholar

[20] To the best of our knowledge, Didymus never left his home city of Alexandria even as an adult. Thus all MSS of John at his disposal were necessarily Alexandrian MSS. See the literature cited above, n. 9.

[21] Becker, (Ehebrecherin, 119–24) argues that Origen had known the story a century and a half earlier, but only from non-canonical traditionsGoogle Scholar. It is clear that Origen did not consider the PA to be part of the Fourth Gospel, since in his commentary on John he moves directly from 7. 52 to 8. 12 without a break in his exposition. But Becker finds it significant that in his Comm. on Rom. 7.2b Origen cites the penalty for adultery as death by stoning. Neither the OT nor the Mishnah (codified some years before Origen) specifies stoning as the mode of execution for adultery. So, in the opinion of Becker, Origen must have had some other authority for his statement, presumably the PA.

This is obviously a very slim argument. For one thing, it has been convincingly demonstrated that death by stoning was the normal penalty for adultery among Jews, at least during NT times. On this see Blinzler, J., ‘Die Strafe für Ehebruch in Bibel and Halacha. Zur Auslegung von Joh viii, 5’, NTS 4 (1957–1958) 32–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Derrett, J. Duncan, ‘Law in the New Testament: The Story of the Woman Taken in Adultery’, NTS 10 (1963–4) 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. And even if Origen was not aware of first-century practices, it could easily be argued that he simply assumed stoning was implied in Deut 22. 22, either because that was the traditional means of execution among the Jews or, even more likely, because other sexual offences in the context of Deut 22 are specifically punishable by stoning (cf. 22. 13–21!). Thus Origen's Romans Commentary provides no grounds for assuming that he knew the PA.

For a convincing demonstration that Origen's Homily on Jer xvi, 5 also does not attest his knowledge of the PA, see Läuchli, Samuel, ‘Eine älte Spur von Joh 8:1–11?’ TZ 6 (1950) 151.Google Scholar

[22] On the method of discerning canonical Scripture in the works of Didymus, we my article, ‘The New Testament Canon of Didymus the Blind’, VC 37 (1983) 1–21.Google Scholar

[23] See the literature cited above, n. 2.

[24] See n. 60 below.

[25] At a much later period, in a scholion from an eleventh-century MS of the Gospels (MS 1006), the PA is said to have been derived from the Gospel of Thomas: τò κεøάλαιον το ūθμαν εύαγγέλιον ο τ ω(for the text, see Lake, Kirsopp, Texts from Mount Athos [Studia biblica et ecclesiastica, 5/2. Oxford, 1903] 173)Google Scholar. We now know of two ‘Gospels of Thomas’ – one the so-called infancy Gospel, which records incidents from Jesus' childhood, the other the Gnostic record of Jesus' sayings discovered at Nag Hammadi. Neither Gospel, of course, contains the PA, nor, given their emphases and literary character, could they have. Becker's, claim (Ehebrecherin, 145–50)Google Scholar that at one time or another the Nag Hammadi GTh probably did contain the story must be considered nothing short of remarkable.

[26] As is frequently noted, Rufinus's translation of Eusebius, E.H. III, 39, 17 specifically labels the woman an adulteress: ‘simul et historiam quandam subiungit de muliere adultera, quae accusata est a Judais apud dominum…’.

[27] Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 93–9.Google Scholar

[28] The specificity of Eusebius's reference shows that he is not merely claiming to have heard of the PA from non-canonical Jewish-Christian traditions, as is sometimes asserted (e.g., Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 100–1Google Scholar). Wherever else Eusebius mentions the Gospel according to the Hebrews, he clearly has in mind a distinct literary work. Thus he states that this Gospel is not canonical, although Jewish Christians take a particular delight in it (E.H. III, 25, 5); it is the only Gospel used by the Ebionites (E.H. III, 27, 4); and Hegesippus used it along with other Jewish traditions, which unlike the Gospel, were not written (E.H. IV, 22, 8).

[29] Clem. Alex. Strom. II, ix, 45Google Scholar; V, xiv, 96; Origen, , Comm. on Jn. 2, 12Google Scholar; Hom. on Jer. 15, 4.Google Scholar

[30] See Vielhauer, P., ‘Jewish-Christian Gospels’, in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963) 1. 163Google Scholar. While the problem of differentiating the Jewish-Christian Gospels has proved notoriously difficult, the best evidence suggests that three existed at a fairly early date: the Gospel of the Nazarenes, the Gospel of the Ebionites, and the Gospel of the Hebrews (ibid., 118–38). Of these, the third is most readily assigned to Alexandria on precisely the grounds just enumerated: it is quoted by early Alexandrian sources and appears to preserve theological views amenable to an Alexandrian environment (ibid., 162–3). Thus Walter Bauer's conjecture of more than half a century no still has much to commend it: the title of this work served to differentiate it from a competing Gospel also known to have existed in Alexandria, the Gospel of the Egyptians. These titles, then, did not signify the languages in which the two Gospels were written, but rather their respective audiences: one was used by the Alexandrian Jews, the other by native Egyptians. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (2nd ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) 50–3.Google Scholar

[31] See n. 22 above.

[32] For an exhaustive analysis of the textual traditions of the PA, see Soden, Hermann von, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt hergestellt auf Grund ihrer Textgeschichte (Berlin: Alexander Duncker, 1902) 1. 486–524Google Scholar. A more recent treatment of the MS tradition is given by Aland, Kurt, Studien zur Überlieferung des Neuen Testaments and seines Textes (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1967) 39–46Google Scholar. An extensive critical apparatus can be found in Aland, Kurt, ed., Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (11th ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 1976) 325Google Scholar. In regard to John 8. 7, most MSS read Jesus' challenge as óάναμάρτητος ύμν πρτος έ παύτήν βαλέτω λίθον (with some variation in word order in the second part of the clause, and some disagreement over the presence of the article before λίθον and the case of αύτήν). Contrast Didymus, δς ούκ μαρτεν, αίέτω λίθον καίτω αύτήν.

[33] Although the MSS preserve numerous variations in John 8. 9, in every instance the Jewish antagonists are portrayed as leaving Jesus and the woman.

[34] Thus for γυναīκα έπί (or έν) μοιχεί in the majority of MSS, D and d read έπίαμαρτίγυναīκα and MS 1071 reads γυναīκα έπίαμαρτί. It should be noted, however, that in all MSS of Jn 8. 4 the sin is specified as adultery, whereas here it is not.

[35] The conclusion is particularly apt in its Johannine context as an illustration of John 8. 15, where Jesus states ‘I judge no one.’

[36] Thus Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 82–91.Google Scholar

[37] Thus Campenhausen, Hans Freiherr von, ‘Zur Perikope von der Ehebrecherin (Joh 7. 53–8. 11)’, ZNW 68 (1977) 164–75.Google Scholar

[38] See, e.g. Quasten, , Patrology, 2. 147–52Google Scholar, and Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 124–5, and the literature cited there.Google Scholar

[39] The Syriac comes from the early part of the fourth century, the Latin from the late.

[40] Translation of the Syriac by Vööbus, A., The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac (CSCO, Scriptores Syri, vol. 177)Google Scholar. A handy synopsis of the Syriac (in German translation), Latin, and Greek is given with a detailed comparison in Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 126–7.Google Scholar

[41] See his particularly cogent discussion of the PA, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Leipzig: A. Deichert, 1908) 712–18.Google Scholar

[42] Thus Becker, (Ehebrecherin, 128–30)Google Scholar, whose rejoinder is itself open to question, since the dominical injunction, ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone’, seems particularly apt to the Didascalia's exhortation to bishops to be merciful in light of the Lord's own example, making it hard to explain its omission had it been known to the author.

[43] Without, however, committing ourselves to the particulars of Zahn's reconstruction. On the basis of his more limited evidence, Zahn concluded that the PA survived in two independent streams of tradition: one stemming from Palestinian Jewish-Christians, later incorporated into the Gospel according to the Hebrews and used by the author of the Didascalia, the other deriving ultimately from Jesus' own disciples, circulated in Asia Minor, taken up by Papias in his Expositions, and from there into the MS tradition of the Fourth Gospel. As will be seen, our reconstruction of the prehistory of the PA differs at significant points.

[44] These stark contrasts do not, of course, mean that the stories are totally dissimilar. Both concern Jesus' act of mercy towards a sinful woman in the face of the Jewish system of justice. But this mutual interest is of the broad-based kind that would cause the stories to be associated in the common mind, as frequently happens, for example, with the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. The general similarity of the stories must not blind us to their vast differences at virtually every point. It is worth pointing out that a strikingly similar confusion of independent stories occurred in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' anointing in Bethany. See Brown, , Gospel According to John, 1.449–54 and the literature cited there.Google Scholar

[45] It should be noted, in this regard, that on form-critical grounds the version preserved in the Didascalia looks to be at least as ancient as that recounted by Didymus. Here too there is a notable scarcity of novelistic features and here too the story comes to a climax with a striking dominical pronouncement.

[46] Several readers of an earlier draft of this article have proposed that while Didymus evidences a different version of the PA from that found in the MS tradition of the Fourth Gospel, the Didascalia simply contains a paraphrase of this more familiar account. Although this proposal is plausible, three points must constantly be borne in mind: (1) There is no independent evidence which suggests that the familiar story even existed at such an early date. This counter proposal, therefore, is not inherently more plausible than that being advocated here. (2) The stories in Didymus and the Didascalia are absolutely unique in terms of content. The counter proposal has to explain this circumstance as a matter of sheer coincidence, which seems to me unlikely in the extreme. (3) The counter proposal cannot at all explain how the passage's famous enigmas came into existence, as discussed below (p. 37).

[47] Jeremias, J., e.g., argues that she had been condemned (‘Zur Geschichtligkeit der Verhörs Jesu vor dem Hohen Rat’, ZNW 43 [1950–1951] 148–50)Google Scholar, while most commentators think not (see, e.g., Brown, , Gospel According to John, 1. 337Google Scholar and Schnackenburg, , Gospel According to St. John, 2. 164).Google Scholar

[48] Thus most form critics categorize the passage as a controversy dialogue, but acknowledge that it represents a ‘hybrid form’. It is striking that Dibelius and Bultmann disagreed on the paradigmatic core of the story. Dibelius found the focus of the passage in v. 11, which represented for him an elaboration of the original paradigm (From Tradition to Gospel [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1965] 98)Google Scholar. Bultmann, , on the other hand, saw the climax in the apophthegm of v. 7, and concluded that Jesus' dialogue with the adulteress was novelistic and secondary (History of the Synoptic Tradition [New York: Harper and Row, 1963] 63)Google Scholar. Becker, concurs with this judgment, but concedes the problem created by the ‘addition’ of w. 8–11.Google Scholar

Auffälig deshalb, weil unser Streitgesprach auf diese Weise eigentlich zwei Höhepunkte erhalt: Nach der das Gespräch mit den Gegnern abschliessenden Antwort Jesu in v. 7 folgt erneut ein Gespräch, nun mit der Ehebrecherin, das wiederum in einem Wort Jesu seinen Höhepunkt and Abschluss findet (v. 11). (Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 88).Google Scholar

Schnackenburg, , on the other hand, refuses to classify the PA as a controversy dialogue at all (The Gospel According to St. John, 2. 168–9)Google Scholar. Here there is no condemnation of Jesus or his disciples for their questionable behaviour (as in the controversies of Mark, 2. 1–3. 5)Google Scholar nor is there a controversial matter of doctrine which Jesus resolves by stating a general principle (as in Mark 10. 1–45; 12. 13–37). The PA does not focus on a controversy at all, in the normal sense, but rather on a concrete situation of a sinful woman and God's reaction to her through Jesus. Hence Schnackenburg classifies the story as a biographical apophthegm and sees it functioning in a catechetical context as a paradigm for Christian attitudes toward those within the community who have suffered ethical lapses. Thus while the concluding dialogue may seem awkward, in Schnackenburg's opinion, it does fit with the rest of the story.

Schnackenburg's statement of his general frustration with the form-critical classification of the PA is instructive for our purposes here: ‘Possibly our schematic form-critical categories are too rigid for this type of material in the gospel tradition’ (ibid., 169). See n. 50 below.

[49] It is normally assumed that the widespread discrepancies derive from the story's inordinately long circulation in the oral tradition, where it failed to achieve a fixed verbal form. The numerous variants generated and perpetuated during its oral history would have continued to exert their influence when the story had achieved relative fixity in its written form. This line of argument is on the right track, but it does not explain why this particular story evidences so much greater variation than other late interpolations into the text of the NT (the last twelve verses of Mark, e.g., which must have had a comparable oral history, evidence far less corruption). If, on the other hand, our present theory is correct and the PA represents three textual histories rather than one (see p. 37 below), then the relatively greater preponderance of textual divergence is more readily explicable.

[50] The conflated story, then, would be a ‘hybrid’ (see n. 48 above), but in a radically different sense than normally supposed. Instead of representing an original story with secondary expansions, the PA would comprise two different stories, each with unique formal characteristics, combined into one. Thus Bultmann, et al., are right to we a controversy dialogue here. But the striking irony is that v. 7 does not belong to that dialogue, and the controversy is resolved by the apophthegm of v. 11! Similarly Schnackenburg is justified in seeing a biographical apophthegm here. But this apophthegm climaxes in v. 7! See further pp. 34–37 below.

[51] See pp. 28–30 above.

[52] See n. 48 above. On the category of biographical apophthegm more generally, see Bultmann, , Synoptic Tradition, 55–61.Google Scholar

[53] Riesenfeld, Harald is no doubt correct that the PA came to be suppressed by churches that wanted to emphasize the need for penance for grievous sins (‘The Pericope de adultera in the Early Christian Tradition’, in The Gospel Tradition [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970] 95–110)Google Scholar. But this suppression dates after the turn of the first century and is understandable only in a context where the Mosaic Law is no longer considered applicable by the Christian community. The ancient story we have posited here predates that context and, in fact, presupposes a community which is just now realizing that the prescriptions of Torah no longer apply to the contemporary situation. Only after this issue is resolved does the PA prove potentially embarrassing for Christians who take sin seriously.

[54] See the criticisms of von Campenhausen on these aspects of the Johannine story. ‘Zur Perikope’, 164–75.

[55] See Bultmann, , Synoptic Tradition, 39–69 (esp. 61–9).Google Scholar

[57] The closest parallel, of course, is the controversy over the tribute money (Mark, 12. 13–17)Google Scholar. It is worth pointing out, in this connection, that the ‘trap’ set for Jesus in our reconstructed story could easily be construed in political rather than religious terms. As is sometimes suggested for the Johannine form of the story, the Jewish leaders may want Jesus to (a) agree that the woman must be put to death, and thereby incur the wrath of Rome (since the Romans reserved the right of judgment in capital offences) or (b) disallow Torah in the face of political realities, and thus be shown to violate the standard of all Jewish faith and practice. If this understanding of the entrapment story is correct, the scene corresponds even more closely to the story of the tribute money, and makes sense only in a pre-70 context.

[58] The official church position on penance, of course, represents a much later development. But this later doctrine had its roots in the primitive community's understanding of the gravity of sin and the need of godly remorse. See Riesenfeld, , ‘The Pericope de adultera’, 99–105Google Scholar. This circumstance could not be used to argue for the necessary antiquity of our other story since, as we saw, that account had no word to say concerning the plight of the sinner or her future life.

[59] On the juridicial implications of δ ιαβλήθεις in the Eusebius quotation, see Becker, , Ehebrecherin, 96–7.Google Scholar

[60] A supporting piece of evidence deserves mention here. Some researchers have argued for the antiquity of the traditional version of the PA because of its remarkable affinities to certain Lukan traditions about Jesus (see n. 2 above). It is particularly striking that all of these Lukan parallels must have derived from this, the second of our two stories. Thus Jesus comes from the ‘Mount of Olives’ (δρος τ,ν έλαιν found three times in both Matthew and Mark, never in John, but five times [including cognates] in Luke), ‘early in the morning’ (δρθρου, unique to Luke-Acts [four occurrences, including cognates] ). He ‘arrives’ (παραγίνομαι, found once in both Mark and John, three times in Matthew, but twenty-eight times in Luke-Acts) in the Temple, where ‘all the people’ (πς ό λαός, found once in Matthew, never in Mark or John, but eleven times in Luke) come to him. The details of this setting fit perfectly in the story preserved in Papias and the Didascalia, but not at all that found in Didymus: in the latter story Jesus is not in the Temple teaching the crowds, but is passing by the place of execution outside the walls of the city. So too the address of Jesus as δάσκαλε, (found in John only as a translation of its Aramaic equivalent, but occurring six times in Matthew, ten times in Mark, and twelve times in Luke) makes sense only in the Didascalia account where the Jewish leaders question Jesus (in Didymus's story Jesus cries out to them). The leaders' ulterior motive (ἲναἔχωσω κατηγορε αύτόν, with its closest NT parallel in Luke 6. 7 ὣα εûρωσωκατηγορεν αύτόν) could obviously derive only from an entrapment story, i.e. again that narrated by the Didascalia, just as Jesus' exhortation to the woman to sin ‘no more’ (άπ τοû νūν found five times in Luke but in no other Gospel) must derive from the account in which he speaks to her, again the one attested by the Didascalia.

That the Lukan features of the traditional story of the PA are unique to one of our two early accounts may corroborate our view of its great antiquity. Might they also indicate that this particular story was transmitted by the community standing behind the Third Gospel?

[61] See n. 44 above.

[62] For the various interpretations of Jesus' writing see Schnackenburg, , Gospel According to St. John, 2. 165–6Google Scholar and the literature cited there. It should be noted that some of the solutions to this enigma of the Johannine story cannot apply to the account of Jesus' intervention in an execution proceeding, the story attested in Didymus's commentary. Thus, e.g., Manson, T. W.'s theory (‘The “Pericope de Adultera” [Jo 7.53–8.11] ZNW 44 [1952–1953] 253–6) that Jesus followed normal Roman juridicial procedure by writing out his judgment before pronouncing it would make no sense here, since Jesus is not asked to render a verdict.Google Scholar Nor would the common view that Jesus simply doodled on the ground to forestall having to make a decision, although this view does work for our second hypothetical account. On the other hand, theories which claim that Jesus' writing related somehow to his condemnation of the woman's accusers (he wrote down their sins, or a Scripture verse such as Jer 17. 13 or Ex 23. lb) accord well with the story presupposed by Didymus.

[63] The final conflation was made, no doubt, in order to give a fuller account of Jesus and the adulteress.