APPENDIX II.

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 spakeJesusunto 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 scruplewas 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 instanceallthe 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 circumstance 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' (αρχη), and where its 'end' (τελος). 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 τη εσχατη 'ημερα τη μεγαλη, and ending—το φως της ζωης: butover-leapingthe twelve verses now under discussion: viz. vii. 53 to viii. 11. Accordingly, the word 'over-leap' ('υπερβα) is written inallthe 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 και μηκετι 'αμαρτανε in ch. viii. 11: after which he found himselfinstructed to 'recommence' (αρξαι). 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 themiddle 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 inspiringSpirit, 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 whomJesusloved a narrative of which he knew nothing? For, as I remarked at the outset, this is not merely an assimilated expression, or an unauthorized nominative, or a weakly-supported clause, or any such trifling thing. Although be it remarked in passing, 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 passage. 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 passage 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 assembled: 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 ourLordto 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 beencanonized 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 circumstance 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 title-deeds toproduce, to be sure; but counsel for the defendant would plead that neither did he require any. 'This man's title' (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 passing 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, pass 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 triumphantrefutation 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 thepericope de adultera—passes it by, I mean,—exactly as do Chrysostom and Cyril. But will any one pretend that Theophylact,—writing inA.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 argumente 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 theyare 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 passageisgenuine: 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 passage; 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 endorsement of all the twelve verses: to infer from their general recognition of the passage, 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 embarrassing,—the Eastern Church has selected nine out of these twelve verses to be the special lesson forOctober 8. A more significant circumstance 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 toa 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 hitherto 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 versesen blocare 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 pronounce; 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 thosemen 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 thepericope de adulteraas 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 circumstances of the present problem altogether refuse to accommodate themselves to any hypothesis of a spurious original for these verses; as I proceed to shew.

Repair in thought to any collection of MSS. you please; suppose to the British Museum. Request to be shewn their seventy-three copies of St. John's Gospel, and turn to the close of his seventh chapter. At that particular place you will find, in sixty-one of these copies, these twelve verses: and in thirty-five of them you will discover, after the words Προφητης εκ της Γαλιλαιας ουκ εγ. a rubrical note to the effect that 'on Whitsunday, these twelve verses are to be dropped; and the reader is to go on at ch. viii. 12.' What can be the meaning of this respectful treatment of the Pericope in question? How can it ever have come to pass that it has been thus ceremoniously handled all down the ages? Surely on no possible view of the matter but one can the phenomenon just now described beaccounted for. Else, will any one gravely pretend to tell me that at some indefinitely remote period, (1) These verses were fabricated: (2) Were thrust into the place they at present occupy in the sacred text: (3) Were unsuspectingly believed to be genuine by the Church; and in consequence of which they were at once passed over by her direction on Whitsunday as incongruous, and appointed by the Church to be read on October 8, as appropriate to the occasion?

(3) But further. How is it proposed to explain whyoneof St. John's after-thoughts should have fared so badly at the Church's hands;—another, so well? I find it suggested that perhaps the subject-matter may sufficiently account for all that has happened to thepericopede adultera: And so it may, no doubt. But then, once admitthis, and the hypothesis under consideration becomes simply nugatory: fails even totouchthe difficulty which it professes to remove. For if men were capable of thinking scorn of these twelve verses when they found them in the 'second and improved edition of St. John's Gospel,' why may they not have been just as irreverent in respect of the same verses, when they appeared in thefirstedition? How is it one whit more probable that every Greek Father for a thousand years should have systematically overlooked the twelve verses in dispute when they appeared in the second edition of St. John's Gospel, than that the same Fathers should have done the same thing when they appeared in the first[615]?

(4) But the hypothesis is gratuitous and nugatory: for it has been invented in order to account for the phenomenon that whereas twelve verses of St. John's Gospel are found in the large majority of the later Copies,—thesame verses are observed to be absent from all but one of the five oldest Codexes. But how, (I wish to be informed,) is that hypothesis supposed to square with these phenomena? It cannot be meant that the 'second edition' of St. John did not come abroad until after Codd. [Symbol: Aleph]ABCT were written? For we know that the old Italic version (a document of the second century) contains all the three portions of narrative which are claimed for the second edition. But if this is not meant, it is plain that some further hypothesis must be invented in order to explain why certain Greek MSS. of the fourth and fifth centuries are without the verses in dispute. And this fresh hypothesis will render that under consideration (as I said) nugatory and shew that it was gratuitous.

What chiefly offends me however in this extraordinary suggestion is itsirreverence. It assumes that the Gospel according to St. John was composed like any ordinary modern book: capable therefore of being improved in the second edition, by recension, addition, omission, retractation, or what not. For we may not presume to limit the changes effected in a second edition. And yet the true Author of the Gospel is confessedlyGodtheHoly Ghost: and I know of no reason for supposing that His works are imperfect when they proceed forth from His Hands.

The cogency of what precedes has in fact weighed so powerfully with thoughtful and learned Divines that they have felt themselves constrained, as their last resource, to cast about for some hypothesis which shall at once account for the absence of these verses from so many copies of St. John's Gospel, and yet retain them for their rightful owner and author,—St. John. Singular to relate, the assumption which has best approved itself to their judgement has been, that there must have existed two editions of St. John's Gospel,—the earlier edition without, the later edition with, the incident under discussion. It isI presume, in order to conciliate favour to this singular hypothesis, that it has been further proposed to regard St. John v. 3, 4 and the whole of St. John xxi, (besides St. John vii. 53-viii. 11), as after-thoughts of the Evangelist.

1. But this is unreasonable: for nothing else butthe absenceof St. John vii. 53-viii. 11, from so many copies of the Gospel has constrained the Critics to regard those verses with suspicion. Whereas, on the contrary, there is not known to exist a copy in the world which omits so much as a single verse of chap. xxi. Why then are we to assume that the whole of that chapter was away from the original draft of the Gospel? Where is the evidence for so extravagant an assumption?

2. So, concerning St. John v. 3, 4: to which there really attaches no manner of doubt, as I have elsewhere shewn[616]. Thirty-two precious words in that place are indeed omitted by [Symbol: Aleph]BC: twenty-seven by D. But by this time the reader knows what degree of importance is to be attached to such an amount of evidence. On the other hand, they are found inall other copies: are vouched for by the Syriac[617]and the Latin versions: in the Apostolic Constitutions, by Chrysostom, Cyril, Didymus, and Ammonius, among the Greeks,—by Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine among the Latins. Why a passage so attested is to be assumed to be an after-thought of the Evangelist has never yet been explained: no, nor ever will be.

(5) Assuming, however, just for a moment the hypothesis correct for argument's sake, viz. that in the second edition of St. John's Gospel the history of the woman taken in adultery appeared for the first time. Invite the authors of that hypothesis to consider what follows. The discovery that five out of six of the oldest uncials extant (to reckon here the fragment T) are without the verses in question; whichyet are contained in ninety-nine out of every hundred of the despised cursives:—what other inference can be drawn from such premisses, but that the cursives fortified by other evidence are by far the more trustworthy witnesses of what St. John in his old age actually entrusted to the Church's keeping?

[The MS. here leaves off, except that a few pencilled words are added in an incomplete form. I have been afraid to finish so clever and characteristic an essay.]

FOOTNOTES:

[576]Compare 1 Sam. xxiv. 22:—'And Saul went home:but David and his men gat them up into the hold.' 1 Kings xviii. 42:—'So Ahab went up to eat and to drink:and Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees.' Esther iii. 15:—'And the king and Haman sat down to drink;but the city of Shushan was perplexed.' Such are the idioms of the Bible.

[577]Ammonius (Cord. Cat. p. 216), with evident reference to it, remarks that ourLord'swords in verses 37 and 38 were intended as aviaticumwhich all might take home with them, at the close of this, 'the last, the great day of the feast.'

[578]So Eusebius:—- Οτε κατα το αυτο συναχθεντες 'οι των Ιουδαιων εθνους αρχοντες επι της 'ιερουσαλημ, συνεδριον εποιησαντο και σκεψιν οπως αυτον απολεσωσιν εν 'ω 'οι μεν θανατον αυτου κατεψηφισαντο; 'ετεροι δε αντελεγον, ως 'ο Νικοδημος, κ.τ.λ. (in Psalmos, p. 230 a).

[579]Westcott and Hort's prefatory matter (1870) to their revised Text of the New Testament, p. xxvii.

[580]So in the LXX. See Num. v. 11-31.

[581]Ver. 17. So the LXX.

[582]2 Cor. iv. 7: v. 1.

[583]Compare ch. vi. 6, 71: vii. 39: xi. 13, 51: xii. 6, 33: xiii. 11, 28: xxi. 19.

[584]Consider ch. xix. 19, 20, 21, 22: xx. 30, 31: xxi. 24, 25.—1 John i. 4: ii. 1, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 21, 26: v. 13.—2 John 5, 12.—3 John 9, 13.—Rev.passim, especially i. 11, 19: ii. 1, &c.: x. 4: xiv. 13: xvii. 8: xix. 9: xx. 12, 15: xxi. 5, 27: xxii. 18, 19.

[585]Westcott and Hort, ibid. pp. xxvii, xxvi.

[586]Novum Testamentum, 1869, p. 829.

[587]Plain Introduction, 1894, ii. 364.

[588]Printed Texts, 1854, p. 341.

[589]Developed Criticism, p. 82.

[590]Outlines, &c., p. 103.

[591]Nicholson's Gospel according to the Hebrews, p. 141.

[592]Scrivener, ut supra, ii. 368.

[593]I insert this epithet on sufficient authority. Mr. Edw. A. Guy, an intelligent young American,—himself a very accurate observer and a competent judge,—collated a considerable part of Cod. A in 1875, and assured me that he scarcely ever found any discrepancy between the Codex and Woide's reprint. One instance ofitalicismwas in fact all that had been overlooked in the course of many pages.

[594]It is inaccurate also. His five lines contain eight mistakes. Praefat. p. xxx, § 86.

[595]ii. 630, addressing Rufinus, A.D. 403. Also ii. 748-9.

[596]i. 291, 692, 707, 1367: ii. 668, 894, 1082: iii. 892-3, 896-7.

[597]i. 30: ii. 527, 529-30: iii1. 774: iii2. 158, 183, 531-2 (where he quotes the place largely and comments upon it): iv. 149, 466 (largely quoted), 1120: v. 80, 1230 (largely quoted in both places): vi. 407, 413: viii. 377, 574.

[598]Pacian (A.D.372) refers the Novations to the narrative as something which all men knew. 'Nolite in Evangelio legere quod pepercerit Dominus etiam adulterae confitenti, quam nemo damnarat?' Pacianus, Op. Epist. iii. Contr. Novat. (A.D.372).Ap.Galland. vii. 267.

[599]Ap.Augustin. viii. 463.

[600]In his translation of Eusebius. Nicholson, p. 53.

[601]Chrysologus,A.D.433, Abp. of Ravenna. Venet. 1742. He mystically explains the entire incident. Serm. cxv. § 5.

[602]Sedulius (A.D.435) makes it the subject of a poem, and devotes a whole chapter to it.Ap.Galland. ix. 553 and 590.

[603]'Promiss.' De Promissionibus dimid. temp. (saec. iv). Quotes viii. 4, 5, 9. P. 2, c. 22, col. 147 b. Ignot. Auct., De Vocatione omnium Gentium (circa,A.D.440),ap.Opp. Prosper. Aquit. (1782), i. p. 460-1:—'Adulteram ex legis constitutione lapidandam ... liberavit ... cum executores praecepti de conscientiis territi, trementem ream sub illius iudicio reliquissent.... Et inclinatus, id est ad humana dimissus ... "digito scribebat in terram," ut legem mandatorum per gratiae decreta vacuaret,' &c.

[604]Wrongly ascribed to Idacius.

[605]Gelasius P.A.D.492. Conc. iv. 1235. Quotes viii. 3, 7, 10, 11.

[606]Cassiodorus,A.D.514. Venet. 1729. Quotes viii. 11. See ii. p. 96, 3, 5-180.

[607]Dialogues, xiv. 15.

[608]ii. 748:—In evangelio secundum Ioannem in multis et Graecis et Latinis codicibus invenitur de adultera muliere, quae accusata est apud Dominum.

[609]'ενος 'εκαστου αυτων τας 'αμαρτιας. Ev. 95, 40, 48, 64, 73, 100, 122, 127, 142, 234, 264, 267, 274, 433, 115, 121, 604, 736.

[610]Appendix, p. 88.

[611]vi. 407:—Sed hoc videlicet infidelium sensus exhorret, ita ut nonnulli modicae fidei vel potius inimici verae fidei, (credo metuentes peccandi impunitatem dari mulieribus suis), illud quod de adulterae indulgentia Dominus fecit, auferrent de codicibus suis: quasi permissionem peccandi tribuerit qui dixit, 'Iam deinceps noli peccare;' aut ideo non debuerit mulier a medico Deo illius peccati remissione sanari, ne offenderentur insani. De coniug. adult. ii. cap. 7. i. 707:—Fortasse non mediocrem scrupulum movere potuit imperitis Evangelii lectio, quae decursa est, in quo advertistis adulteram Christo oblatam, eamque sine damnatione dimissam. Nam profecto si quis en auribus accipiat otiosis, incentivum erroris incurrit, cum leget quod Deus censuerit adulterium non esse damnandum.

[612]Epist. 58. Quid scribebat? nisi illud Propheticum (Jer. xxii. 29-30),Terra, terra, scribe hos vivos abdicatos.

[613]Constt. App. (Gen. in. 49). Nicon (Gen. iii. 250). I am not certain about these two references.

[614]Two precious verses (viz. the forty-third and forty-fourth) used to be omitted from the lection for Tuesday before Quinquagesima,—viz. St. Luke xxii. 39-xxiii. 1.The lection for the preceding Sabbath (viz. St. Luke xxi. 8-36) consisted of only the following verses,—ver. 8, 9, 25-27, 33-36. All the rest (viz. verses 10-24 and 28-32) was omitted.On the ensuing Thursday, St. Luke xxiii was handled in a similar style: viz. ver. 1-31, 33, 44-56 alone were read,—all the other verses being left out.On the first Sabbath after Pentecost (All Saints'), the lesson consisted of St. Matt. x. 32, 33, 37-38: xix. 27-30.On the fifteenth Sabbath after Pentecost, the lesson was St. Matt. xxiv. 1-9, 13 (leaving out verses 10, 11, 12).On the sixteenth Sabbath after Pentecost, the lesson was St. Matt. xxiv. 34-37, 42-44 (leaving out verses 38-41).On the sixth Sabbath of St. Luke,—the lesson was ch. viii. 26-35 followed by verses 38 and 39.

[614]Two precious verses (viz. the forty-third and forty-fourth) used to be omitted from the lection for Tuesday before Quinquagesima,—viz. St. Luke xxii. 39-xxiii. 1.

The lection for the preceding Sabbath (viz. St. Luke xxi. 8-36) consisted of only the following verses,—ver. 8, 9, 25-27, 33-36. All the rest (viz. verses 10-24 and 28-32) was omitted.

On the ensuing Thursday, St. Luke xxiii was handled in a similar style: viz. ver. 1-31, 33, 44-56 alone were read,—all the other verses being left out.

On the first Sabbath after Pentecost (All Saints'), the lesson consisted of St. Matt. x. 32, 33, 37-38: xix. 27-30.

On the fifteenth Sabbath after Pentecost, the lesson was St. Matt. xxiv. 1-9, 13 (leaving out verses 10, 11, 12).

On the sixteenth Sabbath after Pentecost, the lesson was St. Matt. xxiv. 34-37, 42-44 (leaving out verses 38-41).

On the sixth Sabbath of St. Luke,—the lesson was ch. viii. 26-35 followed by verses 38 and 39.

[615]'This celebrated paragraph ... was probably not contained in the first edition of St. John's Gospel but added at the time when his last chapter was annexed to what had once been the close of his narrative,—xx. 30, 31.' Scrivener's Introduction to Cod. D, p. 50.

[616]In an unpublished paper.

[617]It is omitted in some MSS. of the Peshitto.

Some of the most courteous of our critics, in reviewing the companion volume to this, have expressed regret that we have not grappled more closely than we have done with Dr. Hort's theory. I have already expressed our reasons. Our object has been to describe and establish what we conceive to be the true principles of Sacred Textual Science. We are concerned only in a secondary degree with opposing principles. Where they have come in our way, we have endeavoured to remove them. But it has not entered within our design to pursue them into their fastnesses and domiciles. Nevertheless, in compliance with a request which is both proper and candid, I will do what I can to examine with all the equity that I can command an essential part of Dr. Hort's system, which appears to exercise great influence with his followers.

Dr. Hort's theory of 'Conflation' may be discovered on pp. 93-107. The want of an index to his Introduction, notwithstanding his ample 'Contents,' makes it difficult to collect illustrations of his meaning from the rest of his treatise. Nevertheless, the effect of Conflation appears tobe well described in his words on p. 133:—'Now however the three great lines were brought together, and made to contribute to a text different from all.' In other words, by means of a combination of the Western, Alexandrian, and 'Neutral' Texts—'the great lines of transmission ... to all appearance exclusively divergent,'—the 'Syrian' text was constructed in a form different from any one and all of the other three. Not that all these three were made to contribute on every occasion. We find (p. 93) Conflation, or Conflate Readings, introduced as proving the 'posteriority of Syrian to Western ... and other ... readings.' And in the analysis of eight passages, which is added, only in one case (St. Mark viii. 26) are more than two elements represented, and in that the third class consists of 'different conflations' of the first and second[618].

Our theory is the converse in main features to this. We utterly repudiate the term 'Syrian' as being a most inadequate and untrue title for the Text adopted and maintained by the Catholic Church with all her intelligence and learning, during nearly fifteen centuries according to Dr. Hort's admission: and we claim from the evidence that the Traditional Text of the Gospels, under the true name, is that which came fresh from the pens of the Evangelists; and that all variations from it, however they have been entitled, are nothing else than corrupt forms ofthe original readings.

The question is, which is the true theory, Dr. Hort's or ours?

The general points that strike us with reference to Dr. Hort's theory are:—

(1) That it is very vague and indeterminate in nature. Given three things, of which X includes what is in Y and Z, upon the face of the theory either X may have arisen by synthesis from Y and Z, or X and Z may owe their origin by analysis to X.

(2) Upon examination it is found that Dr. Hort's arguments for the posteriority of D are mainly of an internal character, and are loose and imaginative, depending largely upon personal or literary predilections.

(3) That it is exceedingly improbable that the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries, which in a most able period had been occupied with discussions on verbal accuracy, should have made the gross mistake of adopting (what was then) a modern concoction from the originaltext of the Gospels, which had been written less than three or four centuries before; and that their error should have been acknowledged as truth, and perpetuated by the ages that succeeded them down to the present time.

But we must draw nearer to Dr. Hort's argument.

He founds it upon a detailed examination of eight passages, viz. St. Mark vi. 33; viii. 26; ix. 38; ix. 49; St. Luke ix. 10; xi. 54; xii. 18; xxiv. 53.

1. Remark that eight is a round and divisible number. Did the author decide upon it with a view of presenting two specimens from each Gospel? To be sure, he gives four from the first two, and four from the two last, only that he confines the batches severally to St. Mark and St. Luke. Did the strong style of St. Matthew, with distinct meaning in every word, yield no suitable example for treatment? Could no passage be found in St. John's Gospel, where not without parallel, but to a remarkable degree, extreme simplicity of language, even expressed in alternative clauses, clothes soaring thought and philosophical acuteness? True, that he quotes St. John v. 37 as an instance of Conflation by the Codex Bezae which is anything but an embodiment of the Traditional or 'Syrian' Text, and xiii. 24 which is similarly irrelevant. Neither of these instances therefore fill up the gap, and are accordingly not included in the selected eight. What can we infer from this presentment, but that 'Conflation' is probably not of frequent occurrence as has been imagined, but may indeed be—to admit for a moment its existence—nothing more than an occasional incident? For surely, if specimens in St. Matthew and St. John had abounded to his hand, and accordingly 'Conflation' had been largely employed throughout the Gospels, Dr. Hort would not have exercised so restricted, and yet so round a choice.

2. But we must advance a step further. Dean Burgon as we have seen has calculated the differences betweenB and the Received Text at 7,578, and those which divide [Symbol: Aleph] and the Received Text as reaching 8,972. He divided these totals respectively under 2,877 and 3,455 omissions, 556 and 839 additions, 2,098 and 2,299 transpositions, and 2,067 and 2,379 substitutions and modifications combined. Of these classes, it is evident that Conflation has nothing to do with Additions or Transpositions. Nor indeed with Substitutions, although one of Dr. Hort's instances appears to prove that it has. Conflation is the combination of two (or more) different expressions into one. If therefore both expressions occur in one of the elements, the Conflation has been made beforehand, and a substitution then occurs instead of a conflation. So in St. Luke xii. 18, B, &c., read τον σιτον και τα αγαθα μου which Dr. Hort[619]considers to be made by Conflation into τα γενηματα μου και τα αγαθα μου, because τα γενηματα μου is found in Western documents. The logic is strange, but as Dr. Hort has claimed it, we must perhaps allow him to have intended to include with this strange incongruity some though not many Substitutions in his class of instances, only that we should like to know definitely what substitutions were to be comprised in this class. For I shrewdly suspect that there were actually none. Omissions are now left to us, of which the greater specimens can hardly have been produced by Conflation. How, for instance, could you get the last Twelve Verses of St. Mark's Gospel, or the Pericope de Adultera, or St. Luke xxii. 43-44, or any of the rest of the forty-five whole verses in the Gospels upon which a slur is cast by the Neologian school? Consequently, the area of Conflation is greatly reduced. And I venture to think, that supposing for a moment the theory to be sound, it could not account for any large number of variations, but would at the best only be a sign or symptom found everynow and then of the derivation attributed to the Received Text.

3. But we must go on towards the heart of the question. And first to examine Dr. Hort's eight instances. Unfortunately, the early patristic evidence on these verses is scanty. We have little evidence of a direct character to light up the dark sea of conjecture.

(1) St. Mark (vi. 22) relates that on a certain occasion the multitude, when they beheld our Saviour and his disciples on their way in a ship crossing to the other side of the lake, ran together (συνεδραμον) from all their cities to the point which He was making for (εκει), and arrived there before the Lord and His followers (προηλθον αυτους), and on His approach came in a body to Him (συνηλθον προς αυτον). And on disembarking (και εξελθων), i.e. (εκ του πλοιου, ver. 32), &c. It should be observed, that it was only the Apostles who knew that His ultimate object was 'a desert place' (ver. 31, 30): the indiscriminate multitude could only discern the bay or cape towards which the boat was going: and up to what I have described as the disembarkation (ver. 34), nothing has been said of His movements, except that He was in the boat upon the lake. The account is pictorial. We see the little craft toiling on the lake, the people on the shores running all in one direction, and on their reaching the heights above the place of landing watching His approach, and then descending together to Him to the point where He is going to land. There is nothing weak or superfluous in the description. Though condensed (what would a modern history have made of it?), it is all natural and in due place.

Now for Dr. Hort. He observes that one clause (και προηλθον αυτους) is attested by B[Symbol: Aleph] and their followers; another (και συνηλθον αυτου or ηλθον αυτου, which is very different from the 'Syrian' συνηλθον προς αυτον) by some Western documents; and he argues that the entire formin the Received Text, και προηλθον αυτους, και συνηλθον προς αυτον, was formed by Conflation from the other two. I cannot help observing that it is a suspicious mark, that even in the case of the most favoured of his chosen examples he is obliged to take such a liberty with one of his elements of Conflation as virtually to doctor it in order to bring it strictly to the prescribed pattern. When we come to his arguments he candidly admits, that 'it is evident that either Δ (the Received Text) is conflate from [Symbol: alpha] (B[Symbol: Aleph]) and β (Western), or α and β are independent simplifications of Δ'; and that 'there is nothing in the sense of Δ that would tempt to alteration,' and that 'accidental' omission of one or other clause would 'be easy.' But he argues with an ingenuity that denotes a bad cause that the difference between αυτου and προς αυτον is really in his favour, chiefly because αυτου would very likelyifit had previously existed been changed into προς αυτον—which no one can doubt; and that 'συνηλθον προς αυτον is certainly otiose after συνεδραμον εκει,' which shews that he did not understand the whole meaning of the passage. His argument upon what he terms 'Intrinsic Probability' leads to a similar inference. For simply εξελθων cannot mean that 'He "came out" of His retirement in some sequestered nook to meet them,' such a nook being not mentioned by St. Mark, whereas πλοιον is; nor can εκει denote 'the desert region.' Indeed the position of that region or nook was known before it was reached solely to our Lord and His Apostles: the multitude was guided only by what they saw, or at least by vague surmise.

Accordingly, Dr. Hort's conclusion must be reversed. 'The balance of Internal Evidence of Readings, alike from Transcriptional and from Intrinsic Probability, is decidedly'not'in favour of Δ from α and β,'but'of α and β from Δ.' The reading of the Traditional Text is the superior both as regards the meaning, and as to the probability of itspre-existence. The derivation of the two others from that is explained by that besetting fault of transcribers which is termed Omission. Above all, the Traditional reading is proved by a largely over-balancing weight of evidence.

(2) 'To examine other passages equally in detail would occupy too much space.' So says Dr. Hort: but we must examine points that require attention.

St. Mark viii. 26. After curing the blind man outside Bethsaida, our Lord in that remarkable period of His career directed him, according to the Traditional reading, (α) neither to enter into that place, μηδε εις την κωμην εισελθης, nor (β) to tell what had happened to any inhabitant of Bethsaida (μηδε ειπης τινι εν τη κωμη). Either some one who did not understand the Greek, or some matter-of-fact and officious scholar, or both, thought or maintained that τινι εν τη κωμη must mean some one who was at the moment actually in the place. So the second clause got to be omitted from the text of B[Symbol: Aleph], who are followed only by one cursive and a half (the first reading of 1 being afterwards corrected), and the Bohairic version, and the Lewis MS. The Traditional reading is attested by ACNΣ and thirteen other Uncials, all Cursives except eight, of which six with Φ read a consolidation of both clauses, by several versions, and by Theophylact (i. 210) who is the only Father that quotes the place. This evidence ought amply to ensure the genuineness of this reading.

But what says Dr. Hort? 'Here α is simple and vigorous, and it is unique in the New Testament: the peculiar Μηδε has the terse force of many sayings as given by St. Mark, but the softening into Μη by [Symbol: Aleph]* shews that it might trouble scribes.' It is surely not necessary to controvert this. It may be said however that α is bald as well as simple, and that the very difficulty in β makes it probable that that clause was not invented. To take τινι εν τη κωμη Hebraistically for τινι των εν τη κωμη, like theτις εν 'υμιν of St. James v. 19[620], need not trouble scholars, I think. Otherwise they can follow Meyer, according to Winer's Grammar (II. 511), and translate the second μηδεnor even. At all events, this is a poor pillar to support a great theory.

(3) St. Mark ix. 38. 'Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, (β) who doth not follow us, and we forbad him (α) because he followeth not us.'

Here the authority for α is [Symbol: Aleph]BCLΔ, four Cursives, f, Bohairic, Peshitto, Ethiopic, and the Lewis MS. For β there are D, two Cursives, all the Old Latin but f and the Vulgate. For the Traditional Text, i.e. the whole passage, AΦΣN + eleven Uncials, all the Cursives but six, the Harkleian (yet obelizes α) and Gothic versions, Basil (ii. 252), Victor of Antioch (Cramer, Cat. i. 365), Theophylact (i. 219): and Augustine quotes separately both omissions (α ix. 533, and β III. ii. 153). No other Fathers, so far as I can find, quote the passage.

Dr. Hort appears to advance no special arguments on his side, relying apparently upon the obvious repetition. In the first part of the verse, St. John describes the case of the man: in the second he reports for our Lord's judgement the grounds of the prohibition which the Apostles gave him. Is it so certain that the original text of the passage contained only the description, and omitted the reason of the prohibition as it was given to the non-follower of our Lord? To me it seems that the simplicity of St. Mark's style is best preserved by the inclusion of both. The Apostles did not curtly forbid the man: they treated him with reasonableness, and in the same spirit St. John reported to his Master all that occurred. Besides this, the evidence on the Traditional side is too strong to admit of it not being the genuine reading.

(4) St. Mark ix. 49. 'For (α) every one shall be salted with fire, (β) and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.' The authorities are—

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