John 7:53-11

The story of the woman taken in adultery: 7:53-8:11.

Three questions arise with regard to this section: Does it really belong to the text of our Gospel? If not, how was it introduced into it? What is to be thought of the truth of the fact itself?

The most ancient testimony for the presence of this passage in the New Testament, is the use made of it in the Apostolical Constitutions (John 1:2; John 1:24) to justify the employment of gentle means in ecclesiastical discipline with reference to penitents. This apocryphal work seems to have received its definitive form about the end of the third century. If then this passage is not authentic in John, its interpolation must go back as far as the third or the second century. The Fathers of the fourth century, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, admit its authenticity and think that it was rejected in a part of the documents by men who were weak in faith and who were afraid that “their wives might draw from it immoral inferences” (Augustine). Certain MSS. of the Itala (Veronensis, Colbertinus, etc.), from the fourth century to the eleventh, the Vulgate, the Jerusalem Syriac translation of the fifth century, the MSS. D F G K H U Γ, from the sixth century to the ninth, and more than three hundred Mnn. (Tischendorf), read this passage, and do not mark it with any sign of doubtfulness. On the other hand, it is wanting in the Peschito and in two of the best MSS. of the Itala, the Vercellensis, of the fourth, and the Brixianus, of the sixth century. Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Chrysostom do not speak of it. א A B C L T X Δ, from the fourth century to the ninth, and fifty Mnn., omit it entirely (L and Δ leaving a vacant space); E M S Λ Π and forty-five Mnn. mark it with signs of doubtfulness. Finally, in some documents it is found transposed to another place: one Mn. (225) places it after John 7:36; ten others, at the end of the Gospel; finally, four (13, 69, etc.), in the Gospel of Luke, after chap. 21 Euthymius regards it as a useful addition; Theophylact rejects it altogether. From the point of view of external criticism, three facts prove interpolation:

1. It is impossible to regard the omission of this passage, in the numerous documents which we have just looked at, as purely accidental. If it were authentic, it must necessarily have been omitted of design, and with the motive which is supposed by some of the Fathers. But, at this rate, how many other omissions must have been made in the New Testament? And would such a liberty have been allowed with respect to a text decidedly recognized as apostolic?

2. Besides, there is an extraordinary variation in the text in the documents which present this passage; sixty variants are counted in these twelve verses. Griesbach has distinguished three altogether different texts: the ordinary text, that of D, and a third which results from a certain number of MSS. A true apostolic text could never have undergone such alterations.

3. How does it happen that this entire passage is found so differently located in the documents: after John 7:36, at the end of our Gospel, at the end of Luke 21 finally between chaps. 7 and 8 of our Gospel, as in the T. R.? Such hesitation is likewise without example with respect to a genuine apostolic text.

From the point of view of internal criticism, three reasons confirm this

1. The style does not have the Johannean stamp; it has much more the characteristics of the Synoptical tradition. The οὖν, the most common form of transition in John, is altogether wanting; it is replaced by δέ (11 times). The expressions ὄρθρου (John says πρωΐ), πάς ὁ λαός, καθίσας ἐδίδασκεν, οἱ γραμματεῖς καὶ οἱ φαρισαῖοι, are without analogy in John, and remind us of the Synoptic forms of expression. Whence could this difference arise, if the passage were genuine?

2. The preamble John 7:53 presents no precise meaning, as we shall see. It is of a suspicious amphibological character.

3. Finally, there is a complete want of harmony between the spirit of this story and that of the entire Johannean narrative. The latter presents us in this part the testimony which Jesus bears to Himself and the position of faith and unbelief which His hearers assume on this occasion. From this point of view, the story of the woman taken in adultery can only be regarded as a digression. As Reuss very well says: “Anecdotes of this kind tending to a teaching essentially moral are foreign to the fourth Gospel.” As soon as this passage is rejected, the connection between the testimony which precedes and that which follows, is obvious. It is expressly marked by the πάλιν, again, result: John 8:12, which joins the new declaration, John 8:12-20, to that of the great day of the feast, John 7:37 ff.

The authenticity of this passage is also no longer admitted, except by a small number of Protestant exegetes (Lange, Ebrard, Wieseler), by the Catholic interpreters (Hug, Scholz, Maier), and by some adversaries of the authenticity of the Gospel, who make a weapon of the internal improbabilities of the story (Bretschneider, Strauss, B. Bauer, Hilgenfeld). At the time of the Reformation it was judged to be unauthentic by Erasmus, Calvin and Beza; later, it was likewise expunged by Grotius, Wetstein, Semler, Lucke, Tholuck, Olshausen, de Wette, Baur, Reuss, Luthardt, Ewald, Hengstenberg, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, Weiss, Keil. According to Hilgenfeld (Einleit. ins. N. T.), this passage has in its favor preponderating testimonies; it places us in the very midst of the days which followed the great day of the feast; finally, it is required by the words of John 8:15. These arguments have no need to be refuted.

How was this passage introduced into our Gospel? Hengstenberg attributes the composition of it to a believer who was an enemy of Judaism and who wished to represent, under the figure of this degraded woman, whom Jesus had yet restored, the Gentile world pardoned by grace. In order to give more credit to this fiction, the author inserted it in the text of our Gospel with a preamble, and it found its way into a certain number of copies. But the allegorical intention which is thus supposed does not appear from any of the details of the story; besides, it is not exactly true that the woman was pardoned by Jesus. We shall give attention to the objections raised by Hengstenberg against the internal truthfulness of the story.

It is more simple to find in this passage the redaction of some ancient tradition. Eusebius relates (H. E., 3.40) that the work of Papias contained “the history of a woman accused before the Lord of numerous sins, a history which was contained also in the Gospel of the Hebrews.” Meyer, Weiss and Keil call in question the existence of any relation between this story of Papias and that with which we are occupied. But they have nothing to object against the identity of the two except the expression: of numerous sins, used by this Father, as if this very vague term could not be applied to the woman of whom our narrative speaks. The exhortation of Jesus: “ Go, and sin no more,” undoubtedly does not refer to a single act of sin. For ourselves, it seems to us very difficult not to recognize in this story preserved by Papias that which is related in our pericope. A reader of Papias or of the Gospel of the Hebrews undoubtedly placed it as a note, either at the end of his collection of the Gospels, consequently at the end of John (hence its place in 10 Mnn.), or in a place which seemed to be suitable for it in the Gospel narrative, for example here, as an instance of the machinations of the rulers (John 7:45 ff.), or as an explanation of the words which are to follow John 8:15 (“ I judge no man ”), or indeed after Luke 21:38 (where it is found in 4 Mnn.), a passage which presents a striking analogy to our narrative (comp. especially John 8:1-2 of John with this verse of Luke). It was made the close of that series of tests to which the Sanhedrim, and then the Pharisees and Sadducees had subjected Jesus on that memorable day of the last week of His life. If it was so, we may rank this story in the number of the truly historical, but extra-Scriptural narratives, which the oral tradition of the earliest times has preserved.

Hitzig and Holtzmann have supposed that this passage originally formed a part of the writing which, according to them, was the source of our three Synoptics (the alleged primitive Mark), and that it was found there between the 17th and 18th verses of chap. 12 of our canonical Mark. Our three Synoptics omitted it, because of the indulgence with which adultery seemed to be treated in it. On the other hand, it found entrance into the Gospel of the Hebrews and by this door entered into our Gospels, in different places. But no explanation is given as to how in so short a time the sentiment of the Church could have completely changed, so that to a unanimous rejection there shortly succeeded so general a restoration. Our explanation appears to us at once more natural and less hypothetical. Moreover, Holtzmann himself now gives up the hypothesis of the Proto-Mark.

The question as to whether this story is the tradition of an actual fact or a valueless legend can only be solved by the detailed study of the passage. We will give the translation according to the T. R., indicating only the principal variations.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

7:53-8:11. In addition to the remarks of Godet in his full and able discussion of this passage, the writer of these notes would say only a few words. The recent English commentator, J. B. McClellan (The New Testament, a new translation, etc., etc., Vol. I. The Gospels, London, 1875), takes very strong ground in favor of the genuineness of the passage, and, as one of the latest presentations of that side of the question, the reader may be referred to his work.

The external argument here will depend largely for its force on the weight which is given to the oldest manuscripts. The comparatively small school among critics to which McClellan and Dean Burgon belong depreciate the value of א and B, and, in this case, the former dismisses them with the remark: “We are entitled nay, we are bound entirely to throw out א B, as already discredited and worthless witnesses in a matter of this kind, in consequence of their ignorant or criminal omission of Mark 16:9-20.” If these and the other oldest MSS. are to be allowed a place worthy of respect in the matter of testimony, there can be but little doubt that the external evidence is decidedly against the genuineness of the passage as a part of John's Gospel. As for the internal argument, the following remarks, it is believed, are justified:

(a) The progress of thought from John 7:37 to John 8:12 is so natural, especially if Godet's explanation of the rivers of living water and the light is correct, that the connection of the two verses in the same discourse is antecedently probable. The passage in question seems to break the unity.

(b) It can scarcely be questioned that there is a Synoptical, rather than a Johannean, character in this story, its language and style. No similar phenomenon of so remarkable a character is found in this Gospel.

(c) The peculiarities of expression, and particularly the use of δέ instead of οὖν, are points not easily reconciled with the Johannean authorship. McClellan says, indeed, with regard to δέ, that John uses it nearly as often as οὖν (the former about 204 times and the latter 206 times). He also calls attention to the fact that in chs. 1, John 3:1-24, chap. 14, etc. the particle οὖν is not used at all. The question in such cases is not to be determined by mere numbers, but by careful examination of the several instances which are alleged. The absence of the particle in chs. 1, 14, etc., is connected with the paratactic construction which is so characteristic of John in passages like these, and hence such passages have no bearing on the question now under consideration.

As to the other point, the exclusive use of δέ in this passage, as contrasted with that of οὖν, or οὖν and δέ together, in the preceding and following context, is a matter which cannot fail to be noticed by the careful student. Nowhere else in the Gospel is such a use of δέ in a long passage to be found. If δέ is found at all, it is found in connection with οὖν, as in John 7:37-52.

When the great number of variants is considered. in connection with these peculiarities of expression, the internal evidence must be regarded, like the external, as pointing somewhat strongly towards the view that the verses are an interpolation. It must be added, that the story does not seem to fall, as naturally as do the other narratives of this Gospel in general, into the line of testimony and of the development of belief in the minds of the disciples. This point, however, which is also hinted at by Godet, cannot be insisted upon as by any means decisive. R. V. places this passage in brackets and separates it from the preceding and following verses, with an indication in the margin as to the facts in the case so far as the external evidence is concerned.