20. John V. 3, 4. ἐκδεχομένων τὴν τοῦ ὕδατος κίνησιν. ἄγγελος γὰρ κατὰ καιρὸν κατέβαινεν ἐν τῇ κολυμβήθρᾳ, καὶ ἐτάρασσε τὸ ὕδωρ; ὁ οὖν πρῶτος ἐμβὰς μετὰ τὴν ταραχὴν τοῦ ὕδατος, ὑγιὴς ἐγίνετο, ᾧ δήποτε κατείχετο νοσήματι. This passage is expunged by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort, obelized (=) by Griesbach, but retained by Scholz and Lachmann. The evidence against it is certainly very considerable: Codd. אBC*D, 33, 157, 314, but D, 33 contain ἐκδεχομένων ... κίνησιν, which alone A*L, 18 omit. It may be observed that in this part of St. John A and L are much together against N, and against B yet more. The words from ἄγγελος γάρ to νοσήματι are noted with asterisks or obeli (employed without much discrimination) in SΛ, 8, 11?, 14 (ἄγγελος ... ὕδωρ being left out), 21, 24, 32, 36, 145, 161, 166, 230, 262, 269, 299, 348, 408, 507, 512, 575, 606, and Armenian manuscripts. The Harkleian margin marks from ἄγγελος to ὕδωρ with an asterisk, the remainder of the verse with obeli. The whole passage is given, although with that extreme variation in the reading which so often indicates grounds for suspicion[394], in EFGHIKMUVΓΔΠ (with an asterisk throughout), and all known cursives not enumerated above[395]: of these [pg 362] Cod. I [vi] is of the greatest weight. Cod. A contains the whole passage, but down to κίνησιν secundâ manu; Cod. C also the whole, tertiâ manu. Of the versions, Cureton's Syriac, the Sahidic, Schwartze's Bohairic[396], some Armenian manuscripts, f l q of the Old Latin, san. harl.* and two others of the Vulgate (vid. Griesbach) are for omission; the Roman edition of the Ethiopic leaves out what the Harkleian margin obelizes, but the Peshitto and Jerusalem Syriac, all Latin copies not aforenamed, Wilkins' Bohairic, and Armenian editions are for retaining the disputed words. Tertullian clearly recognizes them (“piscinam Bethsaidam angelus interveniens commovebat,” de Baptismo, 5), as do Didymus, Chrysostom, Cyril, Ambrose (twice), Theophylact, and Euthymius. Nonnus [v] does not touch it in his metrical paraphrase.
The first clause (ἐκδεχ ... κίνησιν) can hardly stand in Dr. Scrivener's opinion, in spite of the versions which support it, as DI are the oldest manuscript witnesses in its favour, and it bears much of the appearance of a gloss brought in from the margin. The succeeding verse is harder to deal with[397]; but for the countenance of the versions and the testimony of Tertullian, Cod. A could never resist the joint authority of אBCD, illustrated as they are by the marks of suspicion set in so many later copies. Yet if ver. 4 be indeed but an “insertion to complete that implied in the narrative with reference to the popular belief” (Alford, ad loc.), it is much more in the manner of Cod. D and the Curetonian Syriac, than of Cod. A and the Latin versions; and since these last two are not very often found in unison, and together with the Peshitto, opposed to the other primary documents, it is not very rash to say that when such a conjunction does occur, it proves that the reading was early, widely diffused, and extensively received. Yet, after all, if the passage as it stands in our common text can be maintained as genuine at all, it must be, we apprehend, on the principle suggested above, Vol. I. Chap. I. § 11, p. 18. The chief difficulty, of course, consists [pg 363] in the fact that so many copies are still without the addition, if assumed to be made by the Evangelist himself: nor will this supposition very well account for the wide variations subsisting between the manuscripts which do contain the supplement, both here and in chh. vii. 53-viii. 11[398].
21. John vii. 8. This passage has provoked the “bark” of Porphyry the philosopher, by common consent the most acute and formidable adversary our faith encountered in ancient times [d. 304]. “Iturum se negavit,” as Jerome represents Porphyry's objection, “et fecit quod prius negaverat: latrat Porphyrius, inconstantiae et mutationis accusat.” Yet in the common text, which Lachmann, Westcott and Hort, apparently with Professor Milligan, join in approving, ἐγὼ οὔπω ἀναβαίνω εἰς τὴν ἑορτὴν ταύτην, there is no vestige of levity of purpose on the Lord's part, but rather a gentle intimation that what He would not do then, He would do hereafter. It is plain therefore that Porphyry the foe, and Jerome the defender of the faith, both found in their copies οὐκ, not οὔπω, and this is the reading of Tischendorf and Tregelles: Hort and Westcott set it in their margin. Thus too Epiphanius and Chrysostom in the fourth century, Cyril in the fifth, each of them feeling the difficulty of the passage, and meeting it in his own way. For οὐκ we have the support of א (AC hiant) DKMΠ, 17 secundâ manu, 389: add 507, 570, being Scrivener's pw (two excellent cursives, often found together in vouching for good readings), 558, Evst. 234, the Latin a b c e ff2 l secundâ manu, Cureton's Syriac, the Bohairic, Armenian, and Ethiopic versions[399], a minority of the whole doubtless, yet a goodly band, gathered from east and west alike. In this case no hesitation would have been felt in adopting a reading, not only the harder in itself, but the only one that will explain the history of the passage, had not the palpable and wilful emendation οὔπω been upheld by B: ignoscitur isti, even when it resorts to a subterfuge which in any other manuscript would be put [pg 364] aside with scorn. The change, however, from the end of the third century downwards, was very generally and widely diffused. Besides B and its faithful allies LT, οὔπω is read in EFGHSUVXΓΔΛ, in all cursives not cited above, in f g q, in some Vulgate codices (but in none of the best), the Sahidic, Gothic, and three other Syriac versions, the Harkleian also in its Greek margin. Basil is alleged for the same reading, doubtless not expressly, like the Fathers named above. It is seldom that we can trace so clearly the date and origin of an important corruption which could not be accidental, and it is well to know that no extant authorities, however venerable, are quite exempt from the influence of dishonest zeal.
22. John vii. 53-viii. 11. On no other grounds than those just intimated when discussing ch. v. 3, 4 can this celebrated and important paragraph, the pericope adulterae as it is called, be regarded as a portion of St. John's Gospel. It is absent from too many excellent copies not to have been wanting in some of the very earliest; while the arguments in its favour, internal even more than external, are so powerful, that we can scarcely be brought to think it an unauthorized appendage to the writings of one, who in another of his inspired books deprecated so solemnly the adding to or taking away from the blessed testimony he was commissioned to bear (Apoc. xxii. 18, 19). If ch. xx. 30, 31 show signs of having been the original end of this Gospel, and ch. xxi be a later supplement by the Apostle's own hand, which I think with Dean Alford is evidently the case, why should not St. John have inserted in this second edition both the amplification in ch. v. 3, 4, and this most edifying and eminently Christian narrative? The appended chapter (xxi) would thus be added at once to all copies of the Gospels then in circulation, though a portion of them might well overlook the minuter change in ch. v. 3, 4, or, from obvious though mistaken motives, might hesitate to receive for general use or public reading the history of the woman taken in adultery.
It must be in this way, if at all, that we can assign to the Evangelist chh. vii. 53-viii. 11; on all intelligent principles of mere criticism the passage must needs be abandoned: and such is the conclusion arrived at by all the critical editors. It is entirely omitted (ch. viii. 12 following continuously to ch. vii. 52) [pg 365] in the uncial Codd. אA[400]BCT (all very old authorities) LX[401]Δ, but LΔ leave a void space (like B's in Mark xvi. 9-20) too small to contain the verses (though any space would suffice to intimate the consciousness of some omission), before which Δ* began to write ch. viii. 12 after ch. vii. 52.
Add to these, as omitting the paragraph, the cursives 3, 12, 21, 22, 33, 36, 44, 49, 63 (teste Abbott), 72, 87, 95, 96, 97, 106, 108, 123, 131, 134, 139, 143, 149, 157, 168, 169, 181, 186, 194, 195, 210, 213, 228, 249, 250, 253, 255, 261, 269, 314, 331, 388, 392, 401, 416, 453, 473 (with an explanatory note), 486, 510, 550, 559, 561, 582 (in ver. 12 πάλαι for πάλιν): it is absent in the first, added by a second hand in 9, 15, 105, 179, 232, 284, 353, 509, 625: while ch. viii. 3-11 is wanting in 77, 242, 324 (sixty-two cursive copies). The passage is noted by an asterisk or obelus or other mark in Codd. MS, 4, 8, 14, 18, 24, 34 (with an explanatory note), 35, 83, 109, 125, 141, 148 (secundâ manu), 156, 161, 166, 167, 178, 179, 189, 196, 198, 201, 202, 219, 226, 230, 231 (secundâ manu), 241, 246, 271, 274, 277, 284?, 285, 338, 348, 360, 361, 363, 376, 391 (secundâ manu), 394, 407, 408, 413 (a row of commas), 422, 436, 518 (secundâ manu), 534, 542, 549, 568, 575, 600. There are thus noted vers. 2-11 in E, 606: vers. 3-11 in Π (hiat ver. 6), 128, 137, 147: vers. 4-11 in 212 (with unique rubrical directions) and 355: with explanatory scholia appended in 164, 215, 262[402] (sixty-one cursives). Speaking generally, copies which contain a commentary omit the paragraph, but Codd. 59-66, 503, 526, 536 are exceptions to this practice. Scholz, who has taken unusual pains in the examination of this [pg 366] question, enumerates 290 cursives, others since his time forty-one more, which contain the paragraph with no trace of suspicion, as do the uncials DF (partly defective) GHKUΓ (with a hiatus after στήσαντες αὐτήν ver. 3): to which add Cod. 736 (see addenda) and the recovered Cod. 64, for which Mill on ver. 2 cited Cod. 63 in error. Cod. 145 has it only secundâ manu, with a note that from ch. viii. 3 τοῦτο τὸ κεφάλαιον ἐν πολλοῖς ἀντιγράφοις οὐ κεῖται. The obelized Cod. 422 at the same place has in the margin by a more recent hand ἐν τήσιν ἀντιγράφης οὕτως. Codd. 1, 19, 20, 129, 135, 207[403], 215, 301, 347, 478, 604, 629, Evst. 86 contain the whole pericope at the end of the Gospel. Of these, Cod. 1 in a scholium pleads its absence ὡς ἐν τοῖς πλείοσιν ἀντιγράφοις, and from the commentaries of Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theodore of Mopsuestia; while 135, 301 confess they found it ἐν ἀρχαίοις ἀντιγράφοις: Codd. 20, 215, 559 are obelized at the end of the section, and have a scholium which runs in the text τὰ ὠβελισμένα, κείμενα δὲ εἰς τὸ τέλος, ἐκ τῶνδε ὧδε τὴν ἀκολουθίαν ἔχει, and on the back of the last leaf of both copies τὸ ὑπέρβατον τὸ ὄπισθεν ζητούμενον. In Codd. 37, 102, 105, ch. viii. 3-11 alone is put at the end of the Gospel, which is all that 259 supplies, though its omission in the text begins at ch. vii. 53. Cod. 237, on the contrary, omits only from ch. viii. 3, but at the end inserts the whole passage from ch. vii. 53: in Cod. 478, ch. vii. 53-viii. 2 stands primâ manu with an asterisk, the rest later. Cod. 225 sets chh. vii. 53-viii. 11 after ch. vii. 36; in Cod. 115, ch. viii. 12 is inserted between ch. vii. 52 and 53, and repeated again in its proper place. Finally, Codd. 13, 69, 124, 346 (being Abbott's group), and 556 give the whole passage at the end of Luke xxi, the order being apparently suggested from comparing Luke xxi. 37 with John viii. 1; and ὤρθριζε Luke xxi. 38 with ὄρθρου John viii. 2[404]. In the Lectionaries, as we have had occasion to state before (Vol. I. p. 81, note), this section was never read as a part [pg 367] of the lesson for Pentecost (John vii. 37-viii. 12), but was reserved for the festivals of such saints as Theodora Sept. 18, or Pelagia Oct. 8 (see Vol. I. p. 87, notes 2 and 3), as also in Codd. 547, 604, and in many Service-books, whose Menology was not very full (e.g. 150, 189, 257, 259), it would thus be omitted altogether. Accordingly, in that remarkable Lectionary, the Jerusalem Syriac, the lesson for Pentecost ends at ch. viii. 2, the other verses (3-11) being assigned to St. Euphemia's day (Sept. 16).
Of the other versions, the paragraph is entirely omitted in the true Peshitto (being however inserted in printed books with the circumstances before stated under that version), in Cureton's Syriac, and in the Harkleian; though it appears in the Codex Barsalibaei, from which White appended it to the end of St. John: a Syriac note in this copy states that it does not belong to the Philoxenian, but was translated in a.d. 622 by Maras, Bishop of Amida. Maras, however, lived about a.d. 520, and a fragment of a very different version of the section, bearing his name, is cited by Assemani (Biblioth. Orient, ii. 53) from the writings of Barsalibi himself (Cod. Clem.-Vat. Syr. 16). Ridley's text bears much resemblance to that of de Dieu, as does a fourth version of ch. vii. 53-viii. 11 found by Adler (N. T. Version. Syr., p. 57) in a Paris codex, with the marginal annotation that this “σύνταξις” is not in all the copies, but was interpreted into Syriac by the Abbot Mar Paulus. Of the other versions it is not found in the Sahidic, or in some of Wilkins' and all Schwartze's Bohairic copies[405], in the Gothic, Zohrab's Armenian from six ancient codices (but five very recent ones and Uscan's edition contain it), or in a f l (text) q of the Old Latin. In b the whole text from ch. vii. 44 to viii. 12 has been wilfully erased, but the passage is found in c e (we have given them at large, pp. 362-3), ff2 g j l (margin), the Vulgate (even am. fuld. for. san.), Ethiopic, Slavonic, Anglo-Saxon, Persic (but in a Vatican codex placed in ch. x), and Arabic.
Of the Fathers, Euthymius [xii], the first among the Greeks to mention the paragraph in its proper place, declares that παρὰ τοῖς ἀκριβέσιν ἀντιγράφοις ἢ οὐχ εὕρηται ἢ ὠβέλισται; διὸ φαίνονται παρέγγραπτα καὶ προσθήκη. The Apostolic Constitutions [iii or iv] had plainly alluded to it, and Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. iii. 39. fin.) had described from Papias, and as contained in the Gospel of the Hebrews, the story of a woman ἐπὶ πολλαῖς ἁμαρτίαις διαβληθείσης ἐπὶ τοῦ κυρίου, but did not at all regard it as Scripture. Codd. KM too are the earliest which raise the number of τίτλοι or larger κεφάλαια in St. John from 18 to 19, by interpolating κεφ. ι´ περὶ τῆς μοιχαλίδος, which soon found admittance into the mass of copies: e.g. Evan. 482.
Among the Latins, as being in their old version, the narrative was more generally received for St. John's. Jerome testifies that it was found in his time “in multis et Graecis et Latinis codicibus;” Ambrose cites it, and Augustine (de adult. conjugiis, lib. ii. c. 7) complains that “nonnulli modicae fidei, vel potius inimici verae fidei,” removed it from their codices, “credo metuentes peccandi impunitatem dari mulieribus suis[406].”
When to all these sources of doubt, and to so many hostile authorities, is added the fact that in no portion of the N. T. do the variations of manuscripts (of D beyond all the rest) and of other documents bear any sort of proportion, whether in number or extent, to those in these twelve verses (of which statement full evidence may be seen in any collection of various readings)[407], we cannot help admitting that if this section be indeed the composition of St. John, it has been transmitted to us under circumstances widely different from those connected with any other genuine passage of Scripture whatever[408].