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 inspiring Spirit, 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 whom Jesus loved 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 our
Lord to 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