Changes

691. We have now considered the principal weak arguments against the pericope, and the strong arguments in favor of it, in internal evidence. Other arguments against it must be briefly considered. Many of the Church Fathers do not mention the pericope in their commentaries. This objection is serious. The lesson of the incident was not palatable, as we have shown, because of the ascetic views of the early Church, teaching that the very face of the chastest woman was a cause of corruption. How much more the presence of an adulteress, brought to the thought of a congregation by discussing her case! How could the leniency of the Lord be accounted for by men who harshly put away from their midst the purest of women as a source of defilement of their imagination? Then, if husbands and brothers, they did not care to teach that a fall in a woman was no worse than a fall in a man,¾especially as they believed that every fall in man was due to some woman. They could understand that the integrity of family life (at least, a man’s ability to know his own children), depended upon the chastity of women; but they could not understand that in the remoter sense it depended even more upon the chastity of men. In fact, few men understand this up to the present hour. Again, many of these Fathers’ writings are comments on the Church lessons, and as the pericope was for a special occasion, and not so well suited to a public address, in their opinion, it would naturally be passed over.

[[Index of Scripture Texts]] |

[[Dictionary]]