The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels / Being the Sequel to The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

by John William Burgon

But on the contrary, survey the context in any ordinary copy of the New Testament, and his meaning is perfectly clear. The last great day of the Feast of Tabernacles is ended. It is the morrow and 'very early in the morning.' The Holy One has 'again presented Himself in the Temple' where on the previous night He so narrowly escaped violence at the hands of His enemies, and He teaches the people. While thus engaged,—the time, the place, His own occupation suggesting thoughts of peace and holiness and love,—a rabble rout, headed by the Scribes and Pharisees, enter on the foulest of errands; and we all remember with how little success. Such an interruption need not have occupied much time. The Woman's accusers having departed, our Saviour resumes His discourse which had been broken off. 'Again therefore' it is said in ver. 12, with clear and frequent reference to what had preceded in ver. 2—'Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world.' And had not that saying of His reference as well to the thick cloud of moral darkness which His words, a few moments before, had succeeded in dispelling, as to the orb of glory which already flooded the Temple Court with the effulgence of its rising,—His own visible emblem and image in the Heavens?... I protest that with the incident of 'the woman taken in adultery,'—so introduced, so dismissed,—all is lucid and coherent: without those connecting links, the story is scarcely intelligible. These twelve disputed verses, so far from 'fatally interrupting the course of St. John's Gospel, if retained in the text[579],' prove to be even necessary for the logical coherency of the entire context in which they stand.

But even that is not all. On close and careful inspection, the mysterious texture of the narrative, no less than its 'edifying and eminently Christian' character, vindicates for the Pericope de adultera a right to its place in the Gospel. Let me endeavour to explain what seems to be its spiritual significancy: in other words, to interpret the transaction.

The Scribes and Pharisees bring a woman to our Saviour on a charge of adultery. The sin prevailed to such an extent among the Jews that the Divine enactments concerning one so accused had long since fallen into practical oblivion. On the present occasion our Lord is observed to revive His own ancient ordinance after a hitherto unheard of fashion. The trial by the bitter water, or water of conviction[580], was a species of ordeal, intended for the vindication of innocence, the conviction of guilt. But according to the traditional belief the test proved inefficacious, unless the husband was himself innocent of the crime whereof he accused his wife.

Let the provisions of the law, contained in Num. v. 16 to 24, be now considered. The accused Woman having been brought near, and set before the Lord, the priest took 'holy water in an earthen vessel,' and put 'of the dust of the floor of the tabernacle into the water.' Then, with the bitter water that causeth the curse in his hand, he charged the woman by an oath. Next, he wrote the curses in a book and blotted them out with the bitter water; causing the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse. Whereupon if she were guilty, she fell under a terrible penalty,—her body testifying visibly to her sin. If she was innocent, nothing followed.

And now, who sees not that the Holy One dealt with His hypocritical assailants, 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 assume 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' (το 'υδωρ του ελεγμου) as it is six times called, which they had been compelled to drink; whereupon, 'convicted (ελεγχομενοι) by their own conscience,' as St. John relates, they had pronounced 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 assailants of this passage seem to be furnished. Their evidence is mostly negative—a proceeding which is constantly observed to attend a bad cause: and they are prone to make up for the feebleness of their facts by the strength of their assertions. 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 λιθον in ver. 7. On completing our survey, as to the assertions 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 assures 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 assumed by recent Editors and Critics to be fatal to these twelve verses. Tischendorf pronounces 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 passage 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 God's written Word would be a joyless and an unprofitable task. According to Green, 'the genuineness of the passage 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 passage[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 passage 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 circumstances widely different from those connected with any other passage 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 assailants of this passage)—commences by stating roundly that the Pericope is omitted by [Symbol: Aleph]ABCLTXΔ, 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 passed unchallenged for nearly a hundred years, and on the strength of which it is now-a-days assumed 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].