A woman kneels and weeps. Darkness like a great cavern surrounds her. A shaft of light picks her out on the stone steps. Behind her, huge gold columns and a tall gilded altar loom out of the shadows cast by glimmering candles. They tower up into the gloom, dwarfing the people gathered below.
Blurred figures of worshippers by the altar follow an ancient ritual, but the woman is alone in a crowd of men – old men in black with beards, and one in red velvet with a huge, glittering turban. A gnarled hand, caught in the light, indicates her. An armed soldier grasps the fragile veil that almost slips from her bowed head. Her long hair tumbles over her shoulder onto her white shift, an undergarment – her shame is made visible, with not even a simple robe to cover her.
The men’s eyes are on a single figure. His brown robe, his red beard and long hair have become an image widely recognisable: Christ. Calm and unmoving, he looks down at the woman. He waits, as does one of his disciples with a shorn head, hand grasping his robe.
This is a moment from the story of the woman taken in adultery, as told in the Gospel of John. The Sadducees and Pharisees – members of the Jewish ruling council – were afraid and jealous of Christ’s preaching and growing influence in the community, and planned to trick him into transgressing the Jewish law. They said to him: ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. What do you say about her?’ (John 8: 3–7)
The tension in the group of men, Christ’s thoughtful air and the woman’s continuing tears suggest that Rembrandt has depicted the moment of decision that could entrap the dangerous young preacher. A man in black puts a finger to his lips, as if hushing the crowd. Will Christ plead for mercy or will he uphold the law? It seems that either way, he is condemned as well as the woman.
His reply became one of the most famous quotations in the history of Christianity. ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ The woman was released, the accusers confounded. Christ was free to preach again – but not without a parting word to the repentant woman: ‘Go and sin no more.’
In seventeenth-century Holland, the Church had rejected the Catholic practice of decorating churches with holy images and statues of saints, which for centuries had served to illuminate Bible texts for ordinary worshippers. The walls in Protestant churches were whitewashed and unadorned, but there was still a market for pictures that told stories from the Bible. The pictures told a moral tale, but the drama in them also entertained and provided a talking point. They were also a symbol of wealth but not least were they appreciated and treasured for their artistic merit. The young Rembrandt was acclaimed for his striking ability to portray drama in a way that struck to the heart.
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