Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery

What It Really Means to "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin"

The story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery is one of the most famous and controversial in all of Scripture. Some people think it means that we should never correct anyone’s sinful choices, linking it to Christ’s command, “Judge not, that you may not be judged”. (Mt 7:1 DRA) But others, confused about what the story means and scandalized by this popular interpretation, prefer to just ignore it entirely or even to say that it’s only a late addition to the text that doesn’t really belong in the Bible anyway.

As Catholics, we aren’t confined to only these approaches. We have two thousand years of tradition, as well as a wealth of biblical scholarship in more recent decades, to help us understand, appreciate and live out this important passage of Scripture more perfectly. In this series of bulletins, I will explore the different ways that the saints and scholars of the Church have peeled back the layers of meaning, symbolism and implication in this story, beginning with its historical context, then following with the Church Fathers, early medieval commentators, St. Thomas Aquinas and more modern exegetes. Through these helps, all of us can study this narrative from Scripture without biased misinterpretation, confusion or fear and can better imitate the truth, justice and mercy which Christ demonstrates for us in it.

The story of Christ and the woman caught in adultery is not found in many of the Greek manuscripts of St. John’s Gospel we have today. For this reason, some people say it’s just a late addition or isn’t an authentic passage of Scripture. Thankfully, however, as Catholics we have not only Scripture itself but also Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium to guide us. While the commentaries on this gospel by Sts. John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria didn’t mention it, St. Jerome, who included it in its present location in his Latin Vulgate translation, said that he knew of it in many Latin and Greek manuscript copies, and St. Ambrose reported that the story was well-known throughout the Church. His student, St. Augustine, even commented on it.[1]

Although the canon of Scripture had been decided by the Church within a couple centuries of the apostles, its official canon was proclaimed infallibly by the Council of Trent – including this story with its placement according to St. Jerome’s Vulgate.[2] So we can rest assured that this story is genuine and begin to allow the Word of God to be communicated through its words to us as we would any other part of Scripture, guided by the exegesis of Catholic saints and scholars over the past two thousand years of Church history.

The earliest Church Fathers to give an in-depth commentary on this story are Sts. Jerome and Ambrose. They give some ideas for what Jesus might’ve written on the ground. Jerome suggests, “None of the accusers of the woman taken in adultery were without sin. Christ wrote their names in the earth”,[3] referencing Jeremiah 17:13. Ambrose, however, says, “What then did He write? This, Thou beholdest the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye.” Ambrose proposes that Jesus wrote the names of the sinners the second time He bent down to write, after pronouncing His sentence, since “Sinners' names are written in the earth, those of the just in heaven”. He also observed: “It is well said that they went out who chose not to be with Christ. Without is the letter, within are the mysteries. For in the Divine lessons they sought, as it were, after the leaves of trees, and not after the fruit; they lived in the shadow of the Law, and could not discern the Sun of Righteousness.”

On the other hand, for the woman caught in adultery, “What is the meaning then of, Go, and sin no more? It is this; Since Christ hath redeemed thee, suffer thyself to be corrected by Grace; punishment would not reform but only afflict thee.”[4] And again: “Being the Redemption, He refuses to condemn her, being the Life He restores her, being the Fountain He washes her. And since Jesus, when He stoops down stoops that He may raise up the fallen, He says, as the Absolver of sins, Neither do I condemn thee.”[5]

Two of the most important patristic sources we can use to better understand this story are Sts. Augustine and Gregory the Great. They show how this story reveals Jesus’s moral perfection as the Messiah, in fulfillment of Psalm 44:5: “proceed prosperously, and reign. Because of truth and meekness and justice”. Jesus had demonstrated His other virtues many times, but the Pharisees thought that He was too lenient; they hoped to show that He is not the Messiah because He is unjust.

Like He did elsewhere, (e.g. Mt 15:19) Jesus shifts the focus from outer deeds to the heart: “For he who judges not himself first, cannot know how to judge correctly in the case of another.” (Gregory) But Jesus doesn’t condemn the adulteress either – He shows that the perfection of justice is mercy. As St. Augustine explains, “We heard above the voice of justice; let us hear now that of mercy… What then, Lord? Dost Thou favour sin? No, surely. Listen to what follows, Go, and sin no more. So then our Lord condemned sin, but not the sinner. For did He favour sin, He would have said, Go, and live as thou wilt: depend on my deliverance: howsoever great thy sins be, it matters not: I will deliver thee from hell, and its tormentors. But He did not say this. Let those attend, who love the Lord’s mercy, and fear His truth.”[6] So we should always love the sinner but hate the sin, in ourselves and others.

In the early medieval period, Alcuin and Venerable Bede interpreted this story in a more mystical light. Alcuin connects the fact that Jesus had previously gone to the Mount of Olives with the Greek text, which “denotes the height of our Lord’s pity, olive in the Greek signifying pity.” Jesus then coming down to the Temple represents “the giving and unfolding of His mercy, i. e. the now dawning light of the New Testament in the faithful, that is, in His temple” and “His returning early in the morning, signifies the new rise of grace.” Bede also points out that the verse, “and all the people came to him, and sitting down he taught them”, (Jn 8:2) signifies “that after He began to dwell by grace in His temple, i. e. in the Church, men from all nations would believe in Him”. Alcuin says that Christ sitting down to teach the people “represents the humility of His incarnation”, as He became human so that people could know Him as their friend, while the prideful schemed to try and trap Him.

Christ writing on the ground has always been hard to understand, since Scripture doesn’t explain it for us. Alcuin gives an interesting take on it:

The ground denotes the human heart, which yieldeth the fruit either of good or of bad actions: the finger jointed and flexible, discretion. He instructs us then, when we see any faults in our neighbours, not immediately and rashly to condemn them, but after searching our own hearts to begin with, to examine them attentively with the finger of discretion.[7]

For St. Thomas Aquinas, the story of the woman caught in adultery shows that Christ is the divine Teacher, perfect both in virtue and in the power to enlighten others with His words. In this instance, the Evangelist shows Christ fulfilling the teacher's twofold purpose: “to instruct the devout or sincere, and to repel opponents.” Jesus shows His wisdom and the gentleness of the New Law by correcting the unjust casuistry of Jewish legal proceedings. He wrote on the soft earth “to show the sweetness and the softness of the New Law that he gave to us.”

Jesus rebukes both the crowd and the woman with kindness and discretion and by appealing to conscience. He answers the challenge of the scribes and Pharisees to His justice and upholds the Law by judging them, rather than the woman, for whose contrition He shows His mercy. The men leave out of embarrassment, since He showed that they as sinners have no right to judge her for the same sins they commit; He looked down and wrote again to reiterate His sentence against them, which is what St. Thomas believes he most likely wrote on the ground, and out of consideration to let them leave quietly and freely. St. Thomas clarifies that Christ does not invalidate the Sacrament of Penance by fully absolving the adulteress, nor does He excuse or approve of her sin, but exercises His power over the Sacraments by forgiving her on His own authority and inspiring sufficient sorrow for her sins that her penance was also satisfied.[8]

Modern Catholic biblical scholarship tends to focus on historical and linguistic aspects of the text. They point out that Jesus wasn’t rejecting the death penalty, which would be to deny the Law of Moses, and He also didn’t dismiss the adulteress’s charges simply because the witnesses to her crime departed. Rather, the scribes and Pharisees used a logical dilemma to entrap Jesus between the horns of Roman law, which forbade the Jews to execute anyone, and the Law of Moses which required stoning for those caught in adultery. But Jesus didn’t fall into the trap: he went between the horns of the dilemma by turning it around on his challengers. If the Pharisees, who considered themselves sinless, decided to stone the woman, they would violate Roman law; if they left, as they did, they would be admitting their sinfulness and weakness in compromising with Jesus. He thus defeated their challenge with brilliance and justice.[9]

In his theology of the body, Pope St. John Paul II wrote that this story corrects some common Jewish notions about adultery. While upholding its sinfulness by telling the woman to “sin no more,” Jesus also developed the Jewish understanding of the Sixth Commandment by teaching the Pharisees that a spouse is not mere property or adultery a violation of property rights; instead, He appealed to their conscience: “The discernment of good and evil inscribed in human conscience can turn out to be deeper and more correct than the content of a legal norm.”[10]

The story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery is one of the most powerful and memorable in all of Scripture. It challenges us always to walk the fine line between justice and mercy, in imitation of Christ, never compromising the truth of God’s Law but also remembering the traditional adage: Love the sinner, hate the sin. Jesus exemplifies this perfectly in His correction and mercy toward the adulteress and in His justice and patience toward her accusers. We should learn the lesson of humility which Jesus teaches us in this story, keeping in mind that He came not “to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him” (Jn 3:17) and that we are collaborators in His saving mission. So we should judge only in charity and truth, never with pride, self-righteousness or vengefulness, and judge ourselves first through frequent examinations of conscience. We should live in charitable solidarity with sinners, recognizing that “all have sinned, and do need the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23)

As the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture teaches,

Jesus shows loving-kindness to a person involved in sexual immorality. Many men and women are in a similar situation today. Turning away from such sinful activity can be very difficult. The gentle mercy of Jesus, which is infinitely greater than the worst of our sins, is available to all in the sacrament of reconciliation, through which he pardons all our sins, even the most serious ones.[11]

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[1] George Leo Haydock, Haydock Catholic Bible Commentary (New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1859), at e-Catholic 2000, https://ecatholic2000.com.

[2] Council of Trent, Session 4, Decree concerning the Canonical Scriptures (8 April 1546), in Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, trans. Theodore Alois Buckley (1851), at Wikisource, https://en.wikisource.org.

[3] Jerome, Against the Pelagians, II, 17, trans. W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, vol. 6 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature, 1893), at New Advent, www.newadvent.org.

[4] Ambrose, The Letters of S. Ambrose, XXVI, 13-15, 20 (Oxford: James Parker and Co., and London, Oxford and Cambridge: Rivingtons, 1881).

[5] Ambrose, The Letters of S. Ambrose, XXV, 7.

[6] Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on John, 8, 1-11, at e-Catholic 2000, https://ecatholic2000.com.

[7] Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on John, 8, 1-11.

[8] Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, I, 1118, 1124, 1131-1136, 1138, ed. Joseph Kenny, trans. Fabian Larcher (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1998), at CalibreLibrary, at https://isidore.co.

[9] Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2010), 177-178.

[10] Pope John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, trans. Michael Waldstein (Boston, MA: Pauline, 2006), 35:5. Kindle.

[11] Francis Martin and William Wright, The Gospel of John, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, Peter Williamson and Mary Healy (eds) (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015), 153.