ates, as far back as the written records of her practice
reach,--and they reach back to the time of those very Fathers whose
silence we felt to be embarrassing,--the Eastern Church has selected
nine out of these twelve verses to be the special lesson for October 8.
A more significant circumstance it would be impossible to adduce in
evidence. Any pretence to fasten a charge of spuriousness on a portion
of Scripture so singled out by the Church for honour, were nothing else
but monstrous. It would be in fact to raise quite a distinct issue: viz.
to inquire what amount of respect is due to the Church's authority in
determining the authenticity of Scripture? I appeal not to an opinion,
but to _a fact_: and that fact is, that though the Fathers of the Church
for a very sufficient reason are very nearly silent on the subject of
these twelve verses, the Church herself has spoken with a voice of
authority so loud that none can affect not to hear it: so plain, that it
cannot possibly be misunderstood. And let me not be told that I am
hereby setting up the Lectionary as the true standard of appeal for the
Text of the New Testament: still less let me be suspected of charging on
the collective body of the faithful whatever irregularities are
discoverable in the Codexes which were employed for the public reading
of Scripture. Such a suspicion could only be entertained by one who has
hitherto failed to apprehend the precise point just now under
consideration. We are not examining the text of St. John vii. 53-viii.
11. We are only discussing whether those twelve verses _en bloc_ are to
be regarded as an integral part of the fourth Gospel, or as a spurious
accretion to it. And that is a point on which the Church in her
corporate character must needs be competent to pronounce; and in respect
of which her verdict must needs be decisive. She delivered her verdict
in favour of these twelve verses, remember, at a time when her copies of
the Gospels were of papyrus as well as 'old uncials' on vellum.--Nay,
before 'old uncials' on vellum were at least in any general use. True,
that the transcribers of Lectionaries have proved themselves just as
liable to error as the men who transcribed Evangelia. But then, it is
incredible that those men forged the Gospel for St. Pelagia's day:
impossible, if it were a forgery, that the Church should have adopted
it. And it is the significancy of the Church having adopted the
_pericope de adultera_ as the lect