And now, who sees not that the Holy One dealt with His hypocritical a.s.sailants, as if they had been the accused parties? Into the presence of incarnate Jehovah verily they had been brought: and perhaps when He stooped down and wrote upon the ground, it was a bitter sentence against the adulterer and adulteress which He wrote. We have but to a.s.sume some connexion between the curse which He thus traced "in the dust of the floor of the tabernacle" and the words which He uttered with His lips, and He may with truth be declared to have "taken of the dust and put in on the water," and "caused them to drink of the bitter water which causeth the curse." For when, by His Holy Spirit, our great High Priest in His human flesh addressed these adulterers,--what did He but present them with living water[581] "in an earthen vessel[582]"? Did He not further charge them with an oath of cursing, saying, "If ye have not gone aside to uncleanness, be ye free from this bitter water: but if ye be defiled"--On being presented with which alternative, did they not, self-convicted, go out one by one? And what else was this but their own acquittal of the sinful woman, for whose condemnation they shewed themselves so impatient? Surely it was "the water of conviction"
([Greek: to hydor tou elegmou]) as it is six times called, which _they_ had been compelled to drink; whereupon, "convicted ([Greek: elegchomenoi]) by their own conscience," as St. John relates, they had p.r.o.nounced the other"s acquittal. Finally, note that by Himself declining to "condemn" the accused woman, our Lord also did in effect blot out those curses which He had already written against her in the dust,--when He made the floor of the sanctuary His "book."
Whatever may be thought of the foregoing exposition--and I am not concerned to defend it in every detail,--on turning to the opposite contention, we are struck with the slender amount of actual proof with which the a.s.sailants of this pa.s.sage seem to be furnished. Their evidence is mostly negative--a proceeding which is constantly observed to attend a bad cause: and they are p.r.o.ne to make up for the feebleness of their facts by the strength of their a.s.sertions. But my experience, as one who has given a considerable amount of attention to such subjects, tells me that the narrative before us carries on its front the impress of Divine origin. I venture to think that it vindicates for itself a high, unearthly meaning. It seems to me that it cannot be the work of a fabricator. The more I study it, the more I am impressed with its Divinity. And in what goes before I have been trying to make the reader a partaker of my own conviction.
To come now to particulars, we may readily see from its very texture that it must needs have been woven in a heavenly loom. Only too obvious is the remark that the very subject-matter of the chief transaction recorded in these twelve verses, would be sufficient in and by itself to preclude the suspicion that these twelve verses are a spurious addition to the genuine Gospel. And then we note how entirely in St. John"s manner is the little explanatory clause in ver. 6,--"This they said, tempting Him, that they might have to accuse Him[583]." We are struck besides by the prominence given in verses 6 and 8 to the act of writing,--allusions to which, are met with in every work of the last Evangelist[584]. It does not of course escape us how utterly beyond the reach of a Western interpolator would have been the insertion of the article so faithfully retained to this hour before [Greek: lithon] in ver. 7. On completing our survey, as to the a.s.sertions that the _pericope de adultera_ "has no right to a place in the text of the four Gospels,"--is "clearly a Western interpolation, though not Western of the earliest type[585]," (whatever _that_ may mean), and so forth,--we can but suspect that the authors very imperfectly realize the difficulty of the problem with which they have to deal. Dr. Hort finally a.s.sures us that "no accompanying marks would prevent" this portion of Scripture "from fatally interrupting the course of St. John"s Gospel if retained in the text": and when they relegate it accordingly to a blank page at the end of the Gospels within "double brackets," in order "to shew its inferior authority";--we can but read and wonder at the want of perception, not to speak of the coolness, which they display. _Quousque tandem?_
But it is time to turn from such considerations as the foregoing, and to inquire for the direct testimony, which is a.s.sumed by recent Editors and Critics to be fatal to these twelve verses. Tischendorf p.r.o.nounces it "absolutely certain that this narrative was not written by St.
John[586]." One, vastly his superior in judgement (Dr. Scrivener) declares that "on all intelligent principles of mere Criticism, the pa.s.sage must needs be abandoned[587]." Tregelles is "fully satisfied that this narrative is not a genuine part of St. John"s Gospel[588]."
Alford shuts it up in brackets, and like Tregelles puts it into his footnotes. Westcott and Hort, harsher than any of their predecessors, will not, as we have seen, allow it to appear even at the foot of the page. To reproduce all that has been written in disparagement of this precious portion of G.o.d"s written Word would be a joyless and an unprofitable task. According to Green, "the genuineness of the pa.s.sage cannot be maintained[589]." Hammond is of opinion that "it would be more satisfactory to separate it from its present context, and place it by itself as an appendix to the Gospel[590]." A yet more recent critic "sums up," that "the external evidence must be held fatal to the genuineness of the pa.s.sage[591]." The opinions of Bishops Wordsworth, Ellicott, and Lightfoot, shall be respectfully commented upon by-and-by.
In the meantime, I venture to join issue with every one of these learned persons. I contend that on all intelligent principles of sound Criticism the pa.s.sage before us must be maintained to be genuine Scripture; and that without a particle of doubt I cannot even admit that "it has been transmitted to us under circ.u.mstances widely different from those connected with any other pa.s.sage of Scripture whatever[592]." I contend that it has been transmitted in precisely the same way as all the rest of Scripture, and therefore exhibits the same notes of genuineness as any other twelve verses of the same Gospel which can be named: but--like countless other places--it is found for whatever reason to have given offence in certain quarters: and in consequence has experienced very ill usage at the hands of the ancients and of the moderns also:--but especially of the latter. In other words, these twelve verses exhibit the required notes of genuineness _less conspicuously_ than any other twelve consecutive verses in the same Gospel. But that is all. The one only question to be decided is the following:--On a review of the whole of the evidence,--is it more reasonable to stigmatize these twelve verses as a spurious accretion to the Gospel? Or to admit that they must needs be accounted to be genuine?... I shall shew that they are at this hour supported by a weight of testimony which is absolutely overwhelming. I read with satisfaction that my own convictions were shared by Mill, Matthaei, Adler, Scholz, Vercellone. I have also the learned Ceriani on my side. I should have been just as confident had I stood alone:--such is the imperative strength of the evidence.
To begin then. Tischendorf--(who may be taken as a fair sample of the a.s.sailants of this pa.s.sage)--commences by stating roundly that the Pericope is omitted by [Symbol: Aleph]ABCLTX[Symbol: Delta], and about seventy cursives. I will say at once, that no sincere inquirer after truth could so state the evidence. It is in fact not a true statement. A and C are hereabout defective. No longer possible therefore is it to know with certainty what they either did, or did not, contain. But this is not merely all. I proceed to offer a few words concerning Cod. A.
Woide, the learned and accurate[593] editor of the Codex Alexandrinus, remarked (in 1785)--"Historia adulterae _videtur_ in hoc codice defuisse." But this modest inference of his, subsequent Critics have represented as an ascertained fact, Tischendorf announces it as "certissimum." Let me be allowed to investigate the problem for myself.
Woide"s calculation,--(which has pa.s.sed unchallenged for nearly a hundred years, and on the strength of which it is now-a-days a.s.sumed that Cod. A must have exactly resembled Codd. [Symbol: Aleph]B in _omitting_ the _pericope de adultera_,)--was far too roughly made to be of any critical use[594].
Two leaves of Cod. A have been here lost: viz. from the word [Greek: katabainon] in vi. 50 to the word [Greek: legeis] in viii. 52: a _lacuna_ (as I find by counting the letters in a copy of the ordinary text) of as nearly as possible 8,805 letters,--allowing for contractions, and of course not reckoning St. John vii. 53 to viii. 11.
Now, in order to estimate fairly how many letters the two lost leaves actually contained, I have inquired for the sums of the letters on the leaf immediately preceding, and also on the leaf immediately succeeding the hiatus; and I find them to be respectively 4,337 and 4,303: together, 8,640 letters. But this, it will be seen, is insufficient by 165 letters, or eight lines, for the a.s.sumed contents of these two missing leaves. Are we then to suppose that one leaf exhibited somewhere a blank s.p.a.ce equivalent to eight lines? Impossible, I answer. There existed, on the contrary, a considerable redundancy of matter in at least the second of those two lost leaves. This is proved by the circ.u.mstance that the first column on the next ensuing leaf exhibits the unique phenomenon of being enc.u.mbered, at its summit, by two very long lines (containing together fifty-eight letters), for which evidently no room could be found on the page which immediately preceded. But why should there have been any redundancy of matter at all? Something extraordinary must have produced it. What if the _Pericope de adultera_, without being actually inserted in full, was recognized by Cod. A? What if the scribe had proceeded as far as the fourth word of St. John viii.
3, and then had suddenly checked himself? We cannot tell what appearance St. John vii. 53-viii. 11 presented in Codex A, simply because the entire leaf which should have contained it is lost. Enough however has been said already to prove that it is incorrect and unfair to throw [Symbol: Aleph]AB into one and the same category,--with a "certissimum,"--as Tischendorf does.
As for L and [Symbol: Delta], they exhibit a vacant s.p.a.ce after St. John vii. 52,--which testifies to the consciousness of the copyists that they were leaving out something. These are therefore witnesses _for_,--not witnesses _against_,--the pa.s.sage under discussion.--X being a Commentary on the Gospel as it was read in Church, of course leaves the pa.s.sage out.--The only uncial MSS. therefore which _simply_ leave out the pericope, are the three following--[Symbol: Aleph]BT: and the degree of attention to which such an amount of evidence is ent.i.tled, has been already proved to be wondrous small. We cannot forget moreover that the two former of these copies enjoy the unenviable distinction of standing alone on a memorable occasion:--they _alone_ exhibit St. Mark"s Gospel mutilated in respect of its twelve concluding verses.
But I shall be reminded that about seventy MSS. of later date are without the _pericope de adultera_: that the first Greek Father who quotes the pericope is Euthymius in the twelfth century: that Tertullian, Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril, Nonnus, Cosmas, Theophylact, knew nothing of it: and that it is not contained in the Syriac, the Gothic, or the Egyptian versions. Concerning every one of which statements I remark over again that no sincere lover of Truth, supposing him to understand the matter about which he is disputing, could so exhibit the evidence for this particular problem. First, because so to state it is to misrepresent the entire case. Next, because some of the articles of indictment are only half true:--in fact are _untrue_. But chiefly, because in the foregoing enumeration certain considerations are actually suppressed which, had they been fairly stated, would have been found to reverse the issue. Let me now be permitted to conduct this inquiry in my own way.
The first thing to be done is to enable the reader clearly to understand what the problem before him actually is. Twelve verses then, which, as a matter of fact, are found dovetailed into a certain context of St.
John"s Gospel, the Critics insist must now be dislodged. But do the Critics in question prove that they must? For unless they do, there is no help for it but the _pericope de adultera_ must be left where it is.
I proceed to shew first, that it is impossible, on any rational principle to dislodge these twelve verses from their actual context.--Next, I shall point out that the facts adduced in evidence and relied on by the a.s.sailants of the pa.s.sage, do not by any means prove the point they are intended to prove; but admit of a sufficient and satisfactory explanation.--Thirdly, it shall be shewn that the said explanation carries with it, and implies, a weight of testimony in support of the twelve verses in dispute, which is absolutely overwhelming.--Lastly, the positive evidence in favour of these twelve verses shall be proved to outweigh largely the negative evidence, which is relied upon by those who contend for their removal. To some people I may seem to express myself with too much confidence. Let it then be said once for all, that my confidence is inspired by the strength of the arguments which are now to be unfolded. When the Author of Holy Scripture supplies such proofs of His intentions, I cannot do otherwise than rest implicit confidence in them.
Now I begin by establishing as my first proposition that,
(1) _These twelve verses occupied precisely the same position which they now occupy from the earliest period to which evidence concerning the Gospels reaches._
And this, because it is a mere matter of fact, is sufficiently established by reference to the ancient Latin version of St. John"s Gospel. We are thus carried back to the second century of our era: beyond which, testimony does not reach. The pericope is observed to stand _in situ_ in Codd. b c e ff^{2} g h j. Jerome (A.D. 385), after a careful survey of older Greek copies, did not hesitate to retain it in the Vulgate. It is freely referred to and commented on by himself[595]
in Palestine: while Ambrose at Milan (374) quotes it at least nine times[596]; as well as Augustine in North Africa (396) about twice as often[597]. It is quoted besides by Pacian[598], in the north of Spain (370),--by Faustus[599] the African (400),--by Rufinus[600] at Aquileia (400),--by Chrysologus[601] at Ravenna (433),--by Sedulius[602] a Scot (434). The unknown authors of two famous treatises[603] written at the same period, largely quote this portion of the narrative. It is referred to by Victorius or Victorinus (457),--by Vigilius of Tapsus[604] (484) in North Africa,--by Gelasius[605], bp. of Rome (492),--by Ca.s.siodorus[606] in Southern Italy,--by Gregory the Great[607], and by other Fathers of the Western Church.
To this it is idle to object that the authors cited all wrote in Latin.
For the purpose in hand their evidence is every bit as conclusive as if they had written in Greek,--from which language no one doubts that they derived their knowledge, through a translation. But in fact we are not left to Latin authorities. [Out of thirty-eight copies of the Bohairic version the _pericope de adultera_ is read in fifteen, but in three forms which will be printed in the Oxford edition. In the remaining twenty-three, it is left out.] How is it intelligible that this pa.s.sage is thus found in nearly half the copies--except on the hypothesis that they formed an integral part of the Memphitic version? They might have been easily omitted: but how could they have been inserted?
Once more. The Ethiopic version (fifth century),--the Palestinian Syriac (which is referred to the fifth century),--the Georgian (probably fifth or sixth century),--to say nothing of the Slavonic, Arabic and Persian versions, which are of later date,--all contain the portion of narrative in dispute. The Armenian version also (fourth-fifth century) originally contained it; though it survives at present in only a few copies. Add that it is found in Cod. D, and it will be seen that in all parts of ancient Christendom this portion of Scripture was familiarly known in early times.
But even this is not all. Jerome, who was familiar with Greek MSS. (and who handled none of later date than B and [Symbol: Aleph]), expressly relates (380) that the _pericope de adultera_ "is found in many copies both Greek and Latin[608]." He calls attention to the fact that what is rendered "sine peccato" is [Greek: anamartetos] in the Greek: and lets fall an exegetical remark which shews that he was familiar with copies which exhibited (in ver. 8) [Greek: egraphan enos ekastou auton tas amartias],--a reading which survives to this day in one uncial (U) and at least eighteen cursive copies of the fourth Gospel[609]. Whence is it--let me ask in pa.s.sing--that so many Critics fail to see that _positive_ testimony like the foregoing far outweighs the adverse _negative_ testimony of [Symbol: Aleph]BT,--aye, and of AC to boot if they were producible on this point? How comes it to pa.s.s that the two Codexes, [Symbol: Aleph] and B, have obtained such a mastery--rather exercise such a tyranny--over the imagination of many Critics as quite to overpower their practical judgement? We have at all events established our first proposition: viz. that from the earliest period to which testimony reaches, the incident of "the woman taken in adultery"
occupied its present place in St. John"s Gospel. The Critics eagerly remind us that in four cursive copies (13, 69, 124, 346), the verses in question are found tacked on to the end of St. Luke xxi. But have they then forgotten that "these four Codexes are derived from a common archetype," and therefore represent one and the same ancient and, I may add, corrupt copy? The same Critics are reminded that in the same four Codexes [commonly called the Ferrar Group] "the agony and b.l.o.o.d.y sweat"
(St. Luke xxii. 43, 44) is found thrust into St. Matthew"s Gospel between ch. xxvi. 39 and 40. Such licentiousness on the part of a solitary exemplar of the Gospels no more affects the proper place of these or of those verses than the superfluous digits of a certain man of Gath avail to disturb the induction that to either hand of a human being appertain but five fingers, and to either foot but five toes.
It must be admitted then that as far back as testimony reaches the pa.s.sage under discussion stood where it now stands in St. John"s Gospel.
And this is my first position. But indeed, to be candid, hardly any one has seriously called that fact in question. No, nor do any (except Dr.
Hort[610]) doubt that the pa.s.sage is also of the remotest antiquity.
Adverse Critics do but insist that however ancient, it must needs be of spurious origin: or else that it is an afterthought of the Evangelist:--concerning both which imaginations we shall have a few words to offer by-and-by.
It clearly follows,--indeed it may be said with truth that it only remains,--to inquire what may have led to its so frequent exclusion from the sacred Text? For really the difficulty has already resolved itself into that.
And on this head, it is idle to affect perplexity. In the earliest age of all,--the age which was familiar with the universal decay of heathen virtue, but which had not yet witnessed the power of the Gospel to fashion society afresh, and to build up domestic life on a new and more enduring basis;--at a time when the greatest laxity of morals prevailed, and the enemies of the Gospel were known to be on the look out for grounds of cavil against Christianity and its Author;--what wonder if some were found to remove the _pericope de adultera_ from their copies, lest it should be pleaded in extenuation of breaches of the seventh commandment? The very subject-matter, I say, of St. John viii. 3-11 would sufficiently account for the occasional omission of those nine verses. Moral considerations abundantly explain what is found to have here and there happened. But in fact this is not a mere conjecture of my own. It is the reason a.s.signed by Augustine for the erasure of these twelve verses from many copies of the Gospel[611]. Ambrose, a quarter of a century earlier, had clearly intimated that danger was popularly apprehended from this quarter[612]: while Nicon, five centuries later, states plainly that the mischievous tendency of the narrative was the cause why it had been expunged from the Armenian version[613].
Accordingly, just a few Greek copies are still to be found mutilated in respect of those nine verses only. But in fact the indications are not a few that all the twelve verses under discussion did not by any means labour under the same degree of disrepute. The first three (as I shewed at the outset) clearly belong to a different category from the last nine,--a circ.u.mstance which has been too much overlooked.
The Church in the meantime for an obvious reason had made choice of St.
John vii. 37-viii. 12--the greater part of which is clearly descriptive of what happened at the Feast of Tabernacles--for her Pentecostal lesson: and judged it expedient, besides omitting as inappropriate to the occasion the incident of the woman taken in adultery, to ignore also the three preceding verses;--making the severance begin, in fact, as far back as the end of ch. vii. 52. The reason for this is plain. In this way the allusion to a certain departure at night, and return early next morning (St. John vii. 53: viii. 1), was avoided, which entirely marred the effect of the lection as the history of a day of great and special solemnity,--"the great day of the Feast." And thus it happens that the gospel for the day of Pentecost was made to proceed directly from "Search and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet," in ch. vii.
52,--to "Then spake Jesus unto them, saying, I am the light of the world," in ch. viii. 12; with which it ends. In other words, an omission which owed its beginning to a moral scruple was eventually extended for a liturgical consideration; and resulted in severing twelve verses of St. John"s Gospel--ch. vii. 53 to viii. 11--from their lawful context.
We may now proceed to the consideration of my second proposition, which is
(2) _That by the very construction of her Lectionary, the Church in her corporate capacity and official character has solemnly recognised the narrative in question as an integral part of St. John"s Gospel, and as standing in its traditional place, from an exceedingly remote time_.
Take into your hands at random the first MS. copy of St. John"s Gospel which presents itself, and turn to the place in question. Nay, I will instance _all_ the four Evangelia which I call mine,--all the seventeen which belong to Lord Zouch,--all the thirty-nine which Baroness Burdett-Coutts imported from Epirus in 1870-2. Now all these copies--(and nearly each of them represents a different line of ancestry)--are found to contain the verses in question. How did the verses ever get there?
But the most extraordinary circ.u.mstance of the case is behind. Some out of the Evangelia referred to are observed to have been prepared for ecclesiastical use: in other words, are so rubricated throughout as to shew where, every separate lection had its "beginning" ([Greek: arche]), and where its "end" ([Greek: telos]). And some of these lections are made up of disjointed portions of the Gospel. Thus, the lection for Whitsunday is found to have extended from St. John vii. 37 to St. John viii. 12; beginning at the words [Greek: te eschate hemera te megale], and ending--[Greek: to phos tes zoes]: but _over-leaping_ the twelve verses now under discussion: viz. vii. 53 to viii. 11. Accordingly, the word "over-leap" ([Greek: hyperba]) is written in _all_ the copies after vii. 52,--whereby the reader, having read on to the end of that verse, was directed to skip all that followed down to the words [Greek: kai meketi hamartane] in ch. viii. 11: after which he found himself instructed to "recommence" ([Greek: arxai]). Again I ask (and this time does not the riddle admit of only one solution?),--When and how does the reader suppose that the narrative of "the woman taken in adultery" first found its way into the _middle of the lesson for Pentecost_? I pause for an answer: I shall perforce be told that it never "found its way" into the lection at all: but having once crept into St. John"s Gospel, however that may have been effected, and established itself there, it left those ancient men who devised the Church"s Lectionary without choice. They could but direct its omission, and employ for that purpose the established liturgical formula in all similar cases.
But first,--How is it that those who would reject the narrative are not struck by the essential foolishness of supposing that twelve fabricated verses, purporting to be an integral part of the fourth Gospel, can have so firmly established themselves in every part of Christendom from the second century downwards, that they have long since become simply ineradicable? Did the Church then, _pro hac vice_, abdicate her function of being "a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ"? Was she all of a sudden forsaken by the inspiring Spirit, who, as she was promised, should "guide her into all Truth"? And has she been all down the ages guided into the grievous error of imputing to the disciple whom Jesus loved a narrative of which he knew nothing? For, as I remarked at the outset, this is not merely an a.s.similated expression, or an unauthorized nominative, or a weakly-supported clause, or any such trifling thing.
Although be it remarked in pa.s.sing, I am not aware of a single such trifling excrescence which we are not able at once to detect and to remove. In other words, this is not at all a question, like the rest, about the genuine text of a pa.s.sage. Our inquiry is of an essentially different kind, viz. Are these twelve consecutive verses Scripture at all, or not? Divine or human? Which? They claim by their very structure and contents to be an integral part of the Gospel. And such a serious accession to the Deposit, I insist, can neither have "crept into" the Text, nor have "crept out" of it. The thing is unexampled,--is unapproached,--is impossible.
Above all,--(the reader is entreated to give the subject his sustained attention),--Is it not perceived that the admission involved in the hypothesis before us is fatal to any rational pretence that the pa.s.sage is of spurious origin? We have got back in thought at least to the third or fourth century of our era. We are among the Fathers and Doctors of the Eastern Church in conference a.s.sembled: and they are determining what shall be the Gospel for the great Festival of Pentecost. "It shall begin" (say they) "at the thirty-seventh verse of St. John vii, and conclude with the twelfth verse of St. John viii. But so much of it as relates to the breaking up of the Sanhedrin,--to the withdrawal of our Lord to the Mount of Olives,--and to His return next morning to the Temple,--had better not be read. It disturbs the unity of the narrative.
So also had the incident of the woman taken in adultery better not be read. It is inappropriate to the Pentecostal Festival." The Authors of the great Oriental Liturgy therefore admit that they find the disputed verses in their copies: and thus they vouch for their genuineness. For none will doubt that, had they regarded them as a spurious accretion to the inspired page, they would have said so plainly. Nor can it be denied that if in their corporate capacity they had disallowed these twelve verses, such an authoritative condemnation would most certainly have resulted in the perpetual exclusion from the Sacred Text of the part of these verses which was actually adopted as a Lection. What stronger testimony on the contrary can be imagined to the genuineness of any given portion of the everlasting Gospel than that it should have been canonized or recognized as part of Inspired Scripture by the collective wisdom of the Church in the third or fourth century?
And no one may regard it as a suspicious circ.u.mstance that the present Pentecostal lection has been thus maimed and mutilated in respect of twelve of its verses. There is nothing at all extraordinary in the treatment which St. John vii. 37-viii. 12 has here experienced. The phenomenon is even of perpetual recurrence in the Lectionary of the East,--as will be found explained below[614].
Permit me to suppose that, between the Treasury and Whitehall, the remote descendant of some Saxon thane occupied a small tenement and garden which stood in the very middle of the ample highway. Suppose further, the property thereabouts being Government property, that the road on either side of this estate had been measured a hundred times, and jealously watched, ever since Westminster became Westminster. Well, an act of Parliament might no doubt compel the supposed proprietor of this singular estate to surrender his patrimony; but I submit that no government lawyer would ever think of setting up the plea that the owner of that peculiar strip of land was an impostor. The man might have no t.i.tle-deeds to produce, to be sure; but counsel for the defendant would plead that neither did he require any. "This man"s t.i.tle" (counsel would say) "is--occupation for a thousand years. His evidences are--the allowance of the State throughout that long interval. Every procession to St. Stephen"s--every procession to the Abbey--has swept by defendant"s property--on this side of it and on that,--since the days of Edward the Confessor. And if my client refuses to quit the soil, I defy you--except by violence--to get rid of him."
In this way then it is that the testimony borne to these verses by the Lectionary of the East proves to be of the most opportune and convincing character. The careful provision made for pa.s.sing by the twelve verses in dispute:--the minute directions which fence those twelve verses off on this side and on that, directions issued we may be sure by the highest Ecclesiastical authority, because recognized in every part of the ancient Church,--not only establish them effectually in their rightful place, but (what is at least of equal importance) fully explain the adverse phenomena which are ostentatiously paraded by adverse critics; and which, until the clue has been supplied, are calculated to mislead the judgement.
For now, for the first time, it becomes abundantly plain why Chrysostom and Cyril, in publicly commenting on St. John"s Gospel, pa.s.s straight from ch. vii. 52 to ch. viii. 12. Of course they do. Why should they,--how could they,--comment on what was not publicly read before the congregation? The same thing is related (in a well-known "scholium") to have been done by Apolinarius and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Origen also, for aught I care,--though the adverse critics have no right to claim him, seeing that his commentary on all that part of St. John"s Gospel is lost;--but Origen"s name, as I was saying, for aught I care, may be added to those who did the same thing. A triumphant refutation of the proposed inference from the silence of these many Fathers is furnished by the single fact that Theophylact must also be added to their number.
Theophylact, I say, ignores the _pericope de adultera_--pa.s.ses it by, I mean,--exactly as do Chrysostom and Cyril. But will any one pretend that Theophylact,--writing in A.D. 1077,--did not know of St. John vii.
53-viii. 11? Why, in nineteen out of every twenty copies within his reach, the whole of those twelve verses must have been to be found.
The proposed inference from the silence of certain of the Fathers is therefore invalid. The argument _e silentio_--always an insecure argument,--proves inapplicable in this particular case. When the antecedent facts have been once explained, all the subsequent phenomena become intelligible. But a more effectual and satisfactory reply to the difficulty occasioned by the general silence of the Fathers, remains to be offered.
There underlies the appeal to Patristic authority an opinion,--not expressed indeed, yet consciously entertained by us all,--which in fact gives the appeal all its weight and cogency, and which must now by all means be brought to the front. The fact that the Fathers of the Church were not only her Doctors and Teachers, but also the living voices by which alone her mind could be proclaimed to the world, and by which her decrees used to be authoritatively promulgated;--this fact, I say, it is which makes their words, whenever they deliver themselves, so very important: their approval, if they approve, so weighty; their condemnation, if they condemn, so fatal. But then, in the present instance, they do not condemn. They neither approve nor condemn. They simply say nothing. They are silent: and in what precedes, I have explained the reason why. We wish it had been otherwise. We would give a great deal to persuade those ancient oracles to speak on the subject of these twelve verses: but they are all but inexorably silent. Nay, I am overstating the case against myself. Two of the greatest Fathers (Augustine and Ambrose) actually do utter a few words; and they are to the effect that the verses are undoubtedly genuine:--"Be it known to all men" (they say) "that this pa.s.sage _is_ genuine: but the nature of its subject-matter has at once procured its ejection from MSS., and resulted in the silence of Commentators." The most learned of the Fathers in addition practically endorses the pa.s.sage; for Jerome not only leaves it standing in the Vulgate where he found it in the Old Latin version, but relates that it was supported by Greek as well as Latin authorities.
To proceed however with what I was about to say.
It is the authoritative sentence of the Church then on this difficult subject that we desiderate. We resorted to the Fathers for that: intending to regard any quotations of theirs, however brief, as their practical endors.e.m.e.nt of all the twelve verses: to infer from their general recognition of the pa.s.sage, that the Church in her collective capacity accepted it likewise. As I have shewn, the Fathers decline, almost to a man, to return any answer. But,--Are we then without the Church"s authoritative guidance on this subject? For this, I repeat, is the only thing of which we are in search. It was only in order to get at this that we adopted the laborious expedient of watching for the casual utterances of any of the giants of old time. Are we, I say, left without the Church"s opinion?
Not so, I answer. The reverse is the truth. The great Eastern Church speaks out on this subject in a voice of thunder. In all her Patriarchates, as far back as the written records of her practice reach,--and they reach back to the time of those very Fathers whose silence we felt to be embarra.s.sing,--the Eastern Church has selected nine out of these twelve verses to be the special lesson for October 8.
A more significant circ.u.mstance it would be impossible to adduce in evidence. Any pretence to fasten a charge of spuriousness on a portion of Scripture so singled out by the Church for honour, were nothing else but monstrous. It would be in fact to raise quite a distinct issue: viz.
to inquire what amount of respect is due to the Church"s authority in determining the authenticity of Scripture? I appeal not to an opinion, but to _a fact_: and that fact is, that though the Fathers of the Church for a very sufficient reason are very nearly silent on the subject of these twelve verses, the Church herself has spoken with a voice of authority so loud that none can affect not to hear it: so plain, that it cannot possibly be misunderstood. And let me not be told that I am hereby setting up the Lectionary as the true standard of appeal for the Text of the New Testament: still less let me be suspected of charging on the collective body of the faithful whatever irregularities are discoverable in the Codexes which were employed for the public reading of Scripture. Such a suspicion could only be entertained by one who has. .h.i.therto failed to apprehend the precise point just now under consideration. We are not examining the text of St. John vii. 53-viii.
11. We are only discussing whether those twelve verses _en bloc_ are to be regarded as an integral part of the fourth Gospel, or as a spurious accretion to it. And that is a point on which the Church in her corporate character must needs be competent to p.r.o.nounce; and in respect of which her verdict must needs be decisive. She delivered her verdict in favour of these twelve verses, remember, at a time when her copies of the Gospels were of papyrus as well as "old uncials" on vellum.--Nay, before "old uncials" on vellum were at least in any general use. True, that the transcribers of Lectionaries have proved themselves just as liable to error as the men who transcribed Evangelia. But then, it is incredible that those men forged the Gospel for St. Pelagia"s day: impossible, if it were a forgery, that the Church should have adopted it. And it is the significancy of the Church having adopted the _pericope de adultera_ as the lection for October 8, which has never yet been sufficiently attended to: and which I defy the Critics to account for on any hypothesis but one: viz. that the pericope was recognized by the ancient Eastern Church as an integral part of the Gospel.
Now when to this has been added what is implied in the rubrical direction that a ceremonious respect should be shewn to the Festival of Pentecost by dropping the twelve verses, I submit that I have fully established my second position, viz. That by the very construction of her Lectionary the Church in her corporate capacity and official character has solemnly recognized the narrative in question, as an integral part of St. John"s Gospel, and as standing in its traditional place, from an exceedingly remote time.
For,--(I entreat the candid reader"s sustained attention),--the circ.u.mstances of the present problem altogether refuse to accommodate themselves to any hypothesis of a spurious original for these verses; as I proceed to shew.