ultery' are read 'taken in
sin.' In the _Apostolic Constitutions_ [203:1], where this incident is
briefly related, the woman is described as 'having sinned.' And again
Rufinus, who would possibly be acquainted with Jerome's translation of
the Gospel according to the Hebrews, boldly substitutes 'a woman, an
adulteress,' for 'a woman accused of many sins,' in his version of
Eusebius.

But it is equally certain that this pericope is an interpolation where
it stands. All considerations of external evidence are against it. It is
wanting in all Greek MSS before the sixth century; it was originally
absent in all the oldest versions--Latin, Syriac, Egyptian, Gothic; it
is not referred to, as part of St John's Gospel, before the latter half
of the fourth century. Nor is the internal evidence less fatal. It is
expressed in language quite foreign to St John's style, and it
interrupts the tenor of his narrative. The Evangelist is here relating
Christ's discourses on the last day, that great day, of the feast' of
Tabernacles. Our Lord seizes on the two most prominent features in the
ceremonial--the pouring out of the water from Siloam upon the altar, and
the illumination of the city by flaming torches, lighted in the Temple
area. Each in succession furnishes Him with imagery illustrating His own
person and work. In the uninterrupted narrative, the one topic follows
directly upon the other. He states first, that the streams of _living
water_ flow from Him (vii. 37 sq). He speaks 'again' ([Greek: palin]),
and declares that He is the _light of_ _the world_ (viii. 12 sq). But
the intervention of this story dislocates the whole narrative,
introducing a change of time, of scene, of subject.

On the other hand, it will be felt that the incident, though misplaced
here, must be authentic in itself. Its ethical pitch is far above
anything which could have been invented for Him by His disciples and
followers, 'whose character and idiosyncrasies,' as Mr Mill says, 'were
of a totally different sort' [204:1]. They had neither the capacity to
imagine nor the will to invent an incident, which, while embodying the
loftiest of all moral teaching, would seem to them dangerously lax in
its moral tendencies.

But, if so, how came it to find a place in the copies of St John's
Gospel? Ewald incidentally throws out a suggestion [204:2] that it was
originally written on the margin of some ancient manuscript, to
illustrate the words of Christ in John viii