Suzanna and the Elders 4 (2022) 图画 由 Edwin Loftus

Suzanna and the Elders is a famous story from the Book of Stephen, part of the 'Apocrypha', proposed books of the Bible that were rejected by the Ancient Church of Rome.
Evil elders have contrived to coerce the fair and virtuous Suzanna into having sex with them. They spy on her in her bath and then threaten to accuse her of soliciting them if she won't yield to their desires. She refuses and is tried and found guilty of adulterous behavior based on the elders' reputations and description of a blemish in an intimate area that Suzanna admits to having. They have intimate knowledge and how it was obtained is their word against hers.
As she is being led to execution, God whispers in the ear of Stephen, one of the judges. Stephen orders her brought back in for further examination and proceeds to rip her gown from her body. Lo and behold, God has removed her blemish and she stands naked before the court, her body as pure and unblemished as her soul.
Stephen proclaims her innocence, and the elders are subjected to the same fate they would have seen her suffer.
Civilization depends on trust in the good faith of human beings. When honesty is given great value, civilization tends to work. But when it is not given great value, civilization tends to crumble. Giving false testimony to the enforcers of law or the judges of guilt has been considered among the greatest violations of civil order since as far back as we have any records.
In Hammurabi's codex it is the 3rd Law that they who give false testimony shall be subject to the penalty their falsehood would have imposed on their victim.
In the Laws of the Roman Republic, it is the 10th and it calls for false testifiers to "be cast down from the top of the Tarpean cliffs." (No one knows where that is today, but presumably, it was a sentence to death or disability).
In the Ten Commandments it is the 9th and considered a "mortal sin."
Today, in many countries, there are efforts to ignore or eliminate penalties for false testimony, mostly in those societies dominated by central government power. They do not want any authority to compete with their own and that includes God, tradition, and even Common Sense. There are few powers of governments over their subjects more potent and more common than the power to lie about their opponents without concern that they will be punished for it. You probably all know examples of this from your own governments, as do I, from mine.

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PerjuryFalse AccusationDishonestyLiesInjustice