THIS SAYING OF JESUS, like many memorable sayings, is not original and novel in the way that the modern world appreciates when it demands of its writers and artists an originality in the sense of what has never been said or heard—novelty at all costs. The response of Jesus to the challenge thrown up to him is not original in that sense. Jesus does not invent the idea of the first stone, but he draws it from the Bible; he is inspired by his religious tradition.
