hops 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]ABCLTX[Symbol: Delta], and about
seventy cursives. I will say at once, that no sincere inquirer after
truth could so state the evidence. It is in fact not a true statement. A
and C are hereabout defective. No longer possible therefore is it to
know with certainty what they either did, or did not, contain. But this
is not merely all. I proceed to offer a few words concerning Cod. A.

Woide, the learned and accurate[593] editor of the Codex Alexandrinus,
remarked (in 1785)--'Historia adulterae _videtur_ in hoc codice
de