he East proves to be of the most opportune and convincing
character. The careful provision made for passing by the twelve verses
in dispute:--the minute directions which fence those twelve verses off
on this side and on that, directions issued we may be sure by the
highest Ecclesiastical authority, because recognized in every part of
the ancient Church,--not only establish them effectually in their
rightful place, but (what is at least of equal importance) fully explain
the adverse phenomena which are ostentatiously paraded by adverse
critics; and which, until the clue has been supplied, are calculated to
mislead the judgement.

For now, for the first time, it becomes abundantly plain why Chrysostom
and Cyril, in publicly commenting on St. John's Gospel, pass straight
from ch. vii. 52 to ch. viii. 12. Of course they do. Why should
they,--how could they,--comment on what was not publicly read before the
congregation? The same thing is related (in a well-known 'scholium') to
have been done by Apolinarius and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Origen also,
for aught I care,--though the adverse critics have no right to claim
him, seeing that his commentary on all that part of St. John's Gospel is
lost;--but Origen's name, as I was saying, for aught I care, may be
added to those who did the same thing. A triumphant refutation of the
proposed inference from the silence of these many Fathers is furnished
by the single fact that Theophylact must also be added to their number.
Theophylact, I say, ignores the _pericope de adultera_--passes it by, I
mean,--exactly as do Chrysostom and Cyril. But will any one pretend that
Theophylact,--writing in A.D. 1077,--did not know of St. John vii.
53-viii. 11? Why, in nineteen out of every twenty copies within his
reach, the whole of those twelve verses must have been to be found.

The proposed inference from the silence of certain of the Fathers is
therefore invalid. The argument _e silentio_--always an insecure
argument,--proves inapplicable in this particular case. When the
antecedent facts have been once explained, all the subsequent phenomena
become intelligible. But a more effectual and satisfactory reply to the
difficulty occasioned by the general silence of the Fathers, remains to
be offered.

There underlies the appeal to Patristic authority an opinion,--not
expressed indeed, yet consciously entertained by us all,--which in fact
gives the appeal all its weight and cogency, and which must now