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🦋 Rainy Day Women

And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with finger wrote on the ground, So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard, being convicted by conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

-- John 8:2-9

...We are entitled to question whether the world at that time was so hardened by vice that its salvation could only be brought about by the Son of a God, for it is the episode itself about the adulteress which illustrates that things were not going all that badly there in Palestine, not like today when they are at their worst, consider how on that remote day not another stone was thrown at the hapless woman, Jesus only had to utter those fatal words for aggressive hands to withdraw, their owners declaring, confessing and even proclaiming in this manner that, yes, Sir, they were sinners.
This observation is striking. Cutting against it you can say either, Well Jesus uttered those fatal words because of his divinity, it was the saying that exposes him as the Son of God; or, Well Jesus was the Messiah you know, so he had to be pretty damn charismatic. But basically Saramago has got something here: it is a striking aspect of this parable that the persecutors listen to Jesus and heed his reproach. The modern world is not at all lacking in comparable situations, and I can't remember seeing the people throwing the stones stand down when they are reminded of their own all-too-human status.

posted afternoon of Sunday, June 28th, 2009
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