He had read the Law, and there were still ringing in his ears the execrations and anathemas of Old Israel against prostitutes. “There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel.... Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination to the Lord thy God.” And Simon, the wise burgher, remembered with equal satisfaction the admonition of the author of the Proverbs: “For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.... For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread.” The old Jew would perhaps not have felt so bitterly about prostitutes, if they cost nothing! But they are capable, those shameless women, of eating up a patrimony! The old proprietor could not be reconciled to one of those dangerous women in his house, to the fact that she had touched his guest. He knew that the prostitute Rehab had made victory possible for Joshua and that she was the only one to escape from the massacre of Jericho, but he remembered that the invincible Samson, terror of the Philistines, had been betrayed by a worthless woman. The Pharisee could not understand how a man acclaimed by the people as a prophet should not have understood what sort of woman had come to bestow on Him this discreditable honor; but Jesus had read in the heart of the sinning woman and in the heart of Simon, and answered with the parable of the two debtors. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.” And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon: “Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. “Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. “My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. “And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.... Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”