So when they continued asking him, he lifted himself up, and said unto them,
He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
When therefore they continued asking Him. Because they did not see clearly what He had written, or pretended they did not. They therefore urge Him to reply explicitly to their captious question, believing that He could not escape from the horns of a dilemma by going against the law if He acquitted the woman or against His own compassion, were He to condemn her.
He lifted up Himself and said, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Ye Scribes and Pharisees have committed greater sins than this woman, as your conscience testifies; do not therefore so rigidly and importunately urge her condemnation, but rather have pity for her, as sinners for a sinner, as guilty for a guilty one, as criminals for a criminal. For otherwise, if ye condemn her, ye ought to condemn yourselves; if ye wish to stone her, ye yourselves ought to be stoned, nay more, to be burned. Observe Christ"s prudence. He maintains the law in conceding that an adulteress was guilty of death, but ...
We cannot with any propriety reprehend or condemn faults in others, if we ourselves be guilty of the same, or other great faults, St. Cyril, in Joan.
See annotations on Matthew vii,
