René
Girard’s book - Violence and the Sacred - displays some of his important
themes such as the mimetic desire, rivalry and scapegoat mechanism. I need to
read the book again. His research is very interesting. More interestingly his
article entitled “The First Stone”[1]
beautifully explains his important themes on the reflection of the passage
where Jesus asks the crowd (Jn 8: 3 – 11).
It is a
very interesting article in which Girard analyses the importance of the
significance of the ‘first stone’. Since the Gospel passage does not talk about
the stoning – because stoning’ never occurred – Girard goes on then to compare
another passage in which Apollonius of Tyana motivates the people of
Ephesus to stone at a stranger. When someone is surrounded by a furious crowd,
the first stone is the very important one. All have stones yet all hesitate to
be the first to stone at the culprit or the stranger. When the first stone is
thrown then stones follow – one after another non-stop. This is what is
‘mimetic’. The first stone has no model whereas all other stones have a model
to follow.[2]
Girard
explains how Apollonius does not mention about the first stone at all. He only
motivates them to stone at the beggar, Whereas Jesus talks specifically about
the ‘first stone’. He exposes the importance of the first stone since it is
associated with responsibility. Jesus calls for introspection. Those words of
Jesus and his action put an end to violence. It calls for seeing the stranger
as I am because he has the same flesh and heart like mine and I am in sin like
the stranger. The call reminds that the act is associated with responsibility.
At the end the life of woman is saved whereas in Ephesus the significance of
the first stone was not spoken and the beggar was killed leaving him under the
heap of stones. The gospel then calls for justice which drops the stoning
altogether.[3]
He then
also pays attention to action of Jesus who bends down to write comparing him to
the beggar – the victim in the narrative of Apollonius. It is a very
interesting interpretation. The interpretation can be best understood only when
one reads Girard’s “The First Stone.”
[1] René Girard, “The
First Stone,” Renascence:
Essays on Values in Literature, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Fall 1999): pp. 5 – 17.
[2] Cf. Ibid., pp. 8 – 9.
[3] Cf. Ibid., p. 14.
Pietro, i hav read that book...very interesting analysis and quite critical in its outlook of our hermeneutics.....esp of guilt and sin !
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