Peter Kirby

I would like to ask the mods to be rigorous about moderating this thread. If it starts to get off the subject of the Pericope de Adultera, and specifically the external evidence for or against its inclusion in the Gospel of John, please split off those sub-discussions. (Posters are welcome to start spin-off threads themselves as well.)

So, the purpose of this thread is to marshall all the arguments that can be brought to bear on this question:

What is the external evidence that the Pericope de Adultera was or was not part of the original Gospel of John?

If you think that there were sources of the Gospel of John, or multiple recensions of the Gospel of John, indicate when you think the Pericope entered the manuscripts and what the external evidence is for that conclusion.

By "external evidence," I mean considerations such as the manuscripts and patristic citations, or those manuscripts and church fathers whose texts suggest that the passage wasn't there.

Specifically, I would like to do the following, in roughly this order:

1. Collect all the mentioners and omitters (among the church fathers and the important manuscripts) for and against.
2. Find the citations (chapter and verse) for the church fathers.
3. Find the translations for the church fathers (and for the versional evidence, i.e. in languages other than Greek).
4. Find the original language texts of the citations in the church fathers, versions, and Greek manuscripts.

Finally--and this can occur at any stage--I would like to hear ideas and arguments about how to weigh some external evidence over other other external evidence; or more precisely, how to determine what is valid as evidence.

Thank you all for your contributions! I will add my own comments here once I see what you all think about this. Note that ideas and suggestions for lines of investigation are welcome, along with actual arguments or evidence.

The results will be published in an article on Christian Origins.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Peter Kirby

I had some time to look through some of my books, so I started straightaway to work through some commentaries to see what they say on the external evidence.

Edwyn Clement Hoskyns writes: "In the Greek Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, and in the Washington and Koridethi manuscripts, the text of the Fourth Gospel runs continuously from vii. 52 to viii. 12, without any sign of a break; so also in some important cursive manuscripts. Though both Codex Alexandrinus and the Paris Palimpsest are defective at this point, it is nevertheless clear that neither of them can have contained the passage. No Greek commentator on the gospel before Euthymius Zigabenus (twelfth century) makes any reference to the passage (e.g. Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril, Nonnus); and even Euthymius jduges it to be an insertion, since the accurate copies either omitted it or marked it with obelisks. This omission by Patristic commentators is supported by its omission in the Greek Catenae or collections of comments by the Fathers, and by the fact that in the early Lectionaries the passage selected for reading on the Feast of Pentecost runs directly from vii. 52 to viii. 12. The second concerning the Woman taken in Adultery is a separate Lection, and commemorates women saints who had once been wanton sinners; it was presumably added to the older Greek Lectionary, which did not contain the passage. So in the Eastern Versions of the gospels. The earliest Syriac Versions (the Diatessaron, the Sinaitic and Curetonian Syriac, and the earliest form of the Peshitto) do not contain the passage, and Isho'dad does not mention it in his commentary. It is also absent from the Gothic Version and from the earliest manuscripts of the Egyptian, Armenian and Georgian Versions. It is, moreover, not found in some manuscripts of the old Latin Version. This Western omission is supported by the absence of all reference to it in the writings of Irenaeus, Cyprian, and Tertullian, though these Fathers were concerned with the problem which cases of adultery presented to the Church.

"Against this negative evidence must be set Codex Bezae, some manuscripts of the Old Latin Version, the Vulgate, and the great mass of the later Greek manuscripts. According to all these the passage belongs to Saint John's Gospel and follows vii. 52. Pacian of Barcelona (fourth century, Ep. ad Sympronianum) and Ambrose (Ep. xxvi. 2) refer to it as contained in Saint John's Gospel; Augustine comments on the passage in his commentary and deals with it in his tract De Adult. Conjug.; Jerome says, apparently with some surprise, that it is found in the Gospel according to John "in many Greek and Latin Codices" (contra. Pelag. ii. 17). The passage is also added in the later Coptic and Syriac versions.

"The textual tradition, however, has more to say. It is not merely a matter of deciding whether the passage follows John vii. 52 or belongs nowhere in the text of the gopsels, since in the Farrer group of cursive manuscripts it follows Luke xxi. 38; in the twelfth century Basel Manuscript I and in some other cursives it is inserted at the conclusion of the Fourth Gospel, as though it were an appendix not merely to the Fourth Gospel, but to the tradition contained in the four gospels; in one cursive manuscript (225) it follows John vii. 36, and in some Georgian manuscripts it follows John vii. 44." (The Fourth Gospel, pp. 563-564)

J. H. Bernard writes: "The early Greek evidence in favour of the mediaeval view that the section is an authentic part of the Fourth Gospel reduces itself to the witness of Codex Bezae (D), a manuscript with many other Western interpolations. The section is found in the great mass of later uncials and cursives, whatever be the reason of this intrusion into the more ancient text. To be borne in mind, however, is the significant fact that in many of the later MSS. which contain it, the Pericope de Adultera is marked with an obelus (e.g. S) or an asterisk (e.g. E M Lambda).

"The Latin evidence in its favour is considerable. The section appears in several O.L. texts, e.g. b e (saec. v.) and ff2 (saec. vii.), as well as in Jerome's Vulgate. Jerome says expressly "in multis graecis et latinis codicibus inuenitur de adultera," etc. (adv. Pelag. ii. 17). Augustine (de conj. adult. ii. 6) accounts for its omission from some texts, by hinting that the words of Jesus which it records might seem too lenient.

"The section is found also in some late Syriac and Coptic texts, while omitted in the earlier and better versions.

"These facts show that the authorities on the side of the Pericope are almost wholly Western, and do not become numerous in any language until after the acceptance by Jerome of the section as Johannine. Jerome seems to have followed here some Greek MSS. not now extant." (The Gospel According to St. John, vol. 2, pp. 715-716)

Leon Morris writes: "Eusebius reports Papias as having 'expounded another story about a woman who was accused before the Lord of many sins, which the Gospel according to the Hebrews contains' (HE 3.29.17; cited from Loeb edn.). Though Papias speaks of 'many sins' and our narrative of but one, it is not impossible that Papias is referring to another version of this story. No other is known of a woman accused before our Lord of sinning." (The Gospel According to John, p. 779)

Brown notes that the Codex Bezae says that the woman was caught "in sin" rather than "in adultery." This seems like an echo of the story in Papias as reported by Eusebius.

J. H. Bernard writes: "No reason for the ready acceptance in the West of the story as evangelical, and of its incorporation in the Latin Gospels as early as the fourth century, can be assigned with certainty. It is perhaps signficant that in the Apostolic Constitutions (ii. 24), where we find the narrative for the first time, it is cited as a lesson to bishops who are inclined to be too severe to penitents. Now writers like Origen, Tertullian, and Cyprian, who discuss at length the problems of discipline for adultery, never mention this case. Like the rest of the Church, East and West, in the second and third centuries, they held that punishment for fornication ought to be very severe, inasmuch as it seemed essential to mark the divergence of Christian ethics from heathen ethics on this point. But by the time that we reach the fourth century, ecclesiastical discipline began to be relaxed and to be less austere; and a story which had been formerly thought dangerous because of its apparent leniency would naturally be appealed to by canonists and divines as indicating the tenderness with which our Lord HImself rebuked sins of the flesh. It was but a short step from quoting the story as edifying to treating it as suitable for reading in Church. It would thus get into lectionaries, and in the Greek Menology it is the lection for St. Pelagia's day. From its insertion in Evangelistaria, it readily crept into Gospel texts, from which Jerome did not feel it practicable to expel it. Perhaps thus, or somewhat thus, its presence in the textus receptus is to be explained." (The Gospel According to St. John, pp. 716-717)

These are just some of the quotes that I found in my commentaries on John concerning the external evidence surrounding the Pericope de Adultera.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Steven Carr

Does anybody have a translation of what Bezae says the story is, as it has been suggested that it is different to what is read today?

As I don't know how different, I don't know how to weigh the evidence of Beze.

As for Papias and his story of a woman 'accused' of many sins, is the woman in John 8 actually accused of anything? She was caught in the act.

She had been found guilty and so was no longer the 'accused'. It wasn't a question of a trial, or deciding whether she was guilty of what she was accused of. She had been found guilty. It was a question of what sentence she would receive, not whether or not the accusations were true.

Or perhaps this is too much quibbling.......

I write to illustrate the difficulty of being certain that an early reference to a story of a woman 'accused of many sins' is a reference to a story of a woman found guilty of adultery.

Peter Kirby

Photos of the Codex Bezae can be found here:

Codex Bezae, start of Pericope de Adultera

Perhaps someone will help with the translation of this passage from the Codex Bezae. You can see a transcription here, with differences highlighted, on page twenty-five:

http://alpha.reltech.org:8083/cgi-bi...MSS/U5?seq=246

This would be easier to work off than the photos.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

yummyfur

Actually in Luke 7:36-50 the women in the story is essentially accused of many sins by the Pharisee Simon(though in his head, but Jesus "hears" him and responds).

The key line would be
"For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little."

I wish I had more time to respond here in more depth, as this is an interesting topic. There is one area of this that should be looked at. I beleive that Ambrose hints at a possible reason, like Augustine, that people might not like the adultery pericope. My guess is that Augustine was just following Ambrose's thinking.

The Ambrose qoute is, in a sermon on David, though I can't find the exact name of the work. It seems this is probably were Augustine got his idea about the pericope.

"In the same way also the Gospel lesson which has been read, may have caused no small offense to the unskilled, in which you have noticed that an adulteress was brought to Christ and dismissed without condemnation . . . Did Christ err that He did not judge righteously? It is not right that such a thought should come to our minds etc."

Also, Ambrose references the pericope again in "De Spiritu Sancto", Book III Chapter III. this is from "Ambrose: Selected Works and Letters", Phillip Schaff pg 224. The context is that Ambrose is explaining that references to "The Finger" in scripture, represents the Holy Spirit. I guess this gives new meaning to "giving someone the finger".

" With this Finger, also, the Lord Jesus, with bowed head, mystically wrote on the ground, when the adulteress was brought before Him by the Jews, signifying in a figure that, when we judge of the sins of another, we ought to remember our own."

All of this takes place starting in the 4th century, this would be when Constantine made adultery a capitol offense, and later Valentinian and others would use adultery charges as one way to attack senatorial families and collect much needed revenue (a man found guilty of adultery would be fined half his property, a women, a third and half of her dowry). Valentinian was also known for being especially hard on African families for expounding money. Since Ambrose and Augustine are both from senatorial families, and of course Augustine was from Africa, this might be why they are ready to accept the adultery pericope. This could be used to explain why the pericope was removed, or also explain why it was made up, or maybe even changed to be specifically about adultery.

Steven Avery

Excellent Project. We should be able to learn a lot about 'all evidence' :-)

Especially it would be nice to try to explain a bit about why differing schools of textual understanding and analysis have a difference in how they look at insertions and omissions. This is often discussed in particular issues like "conflations" but less often in terms of overall theories of the text. The Reformation textual analysts worked from a very different base than the modern textcrits.

Look forward to the exposition. The following article makes a lot of points about the early church writers, one similar to what you share here in regard to Ambrose.
http://www.holytrinitymission.org/bo...ooks_new_1.htm
Among the Latin Fathers, Sts. Ambrose and Augustine included the pericope in their text, and seek an explanation of its omission from other manuscripts in the fact that the incident might easily give rise to offense (cf. especially Augustine, " De coniugiis adulteris," 2, 7).

Wieland Willker gives two of his quotes http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/TC-John-PA.pdf Epistle 25,7 and 26,2 in Latin, untranslated, and says "several times" so there may be more, including your reference to "De Spiritu Sancto", Book III Chapter III and the sermon on David, the main contender for Augustine predecessor.

I had a little more, the dog ate my homework, so I will review some more and try to post later.

Shalom,
Praxeus
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

yummyfur

Thanks praxeus, those two more qoutes from Ambrose help me out. My one question was, I hadn't found Ambrose saying specifically this was in the Gospel of John. It appears that Epistle 26 has the reference specifically to John.

Epistle 25 and 26 is a letter to Irenaeus, it deals with the question, how far a judge, being a Christian, may lawfully sentence any one to death.

Epistle 27 is also a letter to Irenaeus, addressing various questions.
edited - whoops Epsitle 27 is not one of the epistle referenced sorry if I confused anybody.

Unfortunatley the only book I have on Ambrose, is Schaffs, which only has selected works, he doesn't include these letters but he does give a brief synopses of them in his prologue. Guess I will have to go to the library, as I usually like to read the whole work a qoute is in.

My guess is the first qoute, that I referenced in my first post is from "Apologia Prophetae David ad Theodosium Augustum", but so far I haven't been able to be certain, it was referenced only as "from a sermon on David", and there are several works on David by Ambrose, including "Apologia David altera" which is suspected by Erasmus and others of not being by Ambrose.

Steven Avery

It was taken from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08438a.htm

Which also has a quote on the Commentaries on John which I will rework for clarity. ("Early Christian Times" is stretched)

EARLY CHRISTIAN TIMES:

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM - Homilies
ST. AUGUSTINE - Tractates
ORIGEN - commentaries (extant portions)
ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA "
THEOPHYLACTUS - expositions who generally follow Chrysostom
EUTHYMIUS "
ST. BEDE -exegetical works (Augustine)

NONNUS may be an addition.

MIDDLE AGES: interpretations
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
ST. BONAVENTURE
ALBERTUS MAGNUS
RUPERT of DEUTZ,
ST. BRUNO OF SEGNI.
================
They also include good summaries of information generally overlooked or distorted. I am only going to include information not oft-repeated.

John 7:53-8:11

(this first section is important to compare with the selective non-Greek evidence from Metzger et al, also should be included the majority of Old Latin)

...The authenticity of the passage is also favoured by the Vulgate, by the Ethiopians Arabic, and Slavonic translations, and by many manuscripts of the Itala and of the Armenian and Syrian text.

(This can be combined and compared with the earlier Andrew Criddle post discussing the commentaries.)

Of the commentaries of the Greek Fathers, the books of Origen dealing with this portion of the Gospel are no longer extant; only a portion of the commentary of St. Cyril of Alexandria has reached us, while the homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Fourth Gospel must be considered a treatment of selected passages rather than of the whole text.

(omit Ambrose/Augustine - discussed elsewhere)

Shalom,
Praxeus
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

andrewcriddle

The original Ethiopian translation was probably made c 400 CE.

However IIUC recent work on the earliest surviving Ethiopian manuscripts of the Gospels appear to show that the Pericope is a much later addition to the Ethiopian translation, not part of its original form.

The Slavonic is too late c 850 CE to be important her.

(FWIW among the Latin Patristic evidence one should include Ambrosiaster Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti c 380 CE.)

Andrew Criddle

yummyfur

Does anyone have the actual qoute from Ambrosiaster? and the context?, this is one I don't have a book with, or have been able to find online so far.

Also a note, "Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti" was traditionaly attributed to Augustine, but later decided that it was written by the same author who wrote a commentary on Paul, that was originally atrributed to Ambrose, but later(starting with Erasmus, I think) was considered to be by some other author, thus the name Ambrosiaster or Pseudo-Ambrose was used.

Augustine qoutes some of this commentary on Paul, and atributes it to a Saint Hilary. It's not clear who Augustine means though, It could be Hilary of Poitiers, or Decimus Hilarianus Hilarius, or Hilary of Pavia. It's interesting to note that Hilary of Poitiers and Decimus are from senatorial families, Nicean(as opposed to Arian), and in the case of Poitiers, pagan parents, and in the case of Decimus, proconsul to Africa. Hilary Of Poitiers was definatly involved in conflicts with Valentinian, and the Arian Bishop of Milan, Auxentius, that Ambrose would replace (Ambrose was previous to this, the govenor of Milan). Hilary of Pavia is unclear, as there is not much information about him, except that he was Nicean. Considering the political situation in the 4th century, it seems that these persons would have reasons to want to mention this pericope.