man, except it first hear from himself and know what he doeth?' From the Rabbinic point
of view, no sounder judicial saying could have been uttered. Yet such common-places
impose not on any one, nor even serve any good purpose. It helped not the cause of
Jesus, and it disguised not the advocacy of Nicodemus. We know what was thought of
Galilee in the Rabbinic world. 'Art thou also of Galilee? Search and see, for out of
Galilee ariseth no prophet.'
And so ended this incident, which, to all concerned, might have been so fruitful of good.
Once more Nicodemus was left alone, as every one who had dared and yet not dared
for Christ is after all such bootless compromises; alone - with sore heart, stricken
conscience, and a great longing.40
40. The reader will observe, that the narrative of the woman taken in adultery, as also the
previous verse (St. John vii. 53 -viii. 11) have been left out in this History - although with great
reluctance. By this it is not intended to characterise that section as Apocryphal, nor indeed to
pronounce any opinion as to the reality of some such occurrence. For, it contains much which we
instinctively feel to be like the Master, both in what Christ is represented as saying and as doing.
All that we reluctantly feel bound to maintain is, that the narrative in its present form did not exist
in the Gospel of St. John, and, indeed, could not have existed. For a summary of the external
evidence against the Johannine authorship of the passage, I would refer to Canon Westcott's
Note, ad loc., in the 'Speaker's Comment ary.' But there is also internal evidence, and, to my mind
at least, most cogent, against its authenticity - at any rate, in its present form. From first to last it
is utterly un-Jewish. Accordingly, unbiased critics who are conversant either with Jewish legal
procedure, or with the habits and views of the people at the time, would feel obliged to reject it,
even if the external evidence had been as strong in its favour as it is for its rejection. Archdeacon
Farrar has, indeed, devoted to the illustration of this narrative some of his most pictorial pages.
But, with all his ability and eloquence, his references to Jewish law and observances are not such
as to satisfy the requirements of criticism. To this general objection to their correctness I must
add a protest against the views which he presents of the moral state of Jewish society at the time.
On the other hand, from whatever point we view this narrative - the accusers, the witnesses, the
public examination, the bringing of the woman to Jesus, or the punishment claimed - it presents
insuperable difficulties. That a woman taken in the act of adultery should have been brought
before Jesus (and apparently without the witnesses to her crime); that such an utterly un-Jewish,
as well as illegal, procedure should have been that of the 'Scribes and Pharisees'; that such a
breach of law, and of what Judaism would regard as decency, should have been perpetrated to
'tempt' Him; or that the Scribes should have been so ignorant as to substitute stoning for
strangulation, as the punishment of adultery; lastly, that this scene should have been enacted in
the Temple, presents a veritable climax of impossibilities. I can only express surprise that
Archdeacon Farrar should have suggested that the 'Feast of Tabernacles had gr own into a kind
of vintage-festival, which would often degenerate into acts of licence and immorality,' or that the
lives of the religious leaders of Israel 'were often stained' with such sins. The first statement is
quite ungrounded; and as for the second, I do not recall a single instance in which a charge of
adultery is brought against a Rabbi of that period. The quotations in Sepp's Leben Jesu (vol. v. p.
183), which Archdeacon Farrar adduces, are not to cases in point, however much, from the
Christian point of view, we may reprobate the conduct of the Rabbis there mentioned.
Book IV
THE DESCENT: FROM THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION INTO THE VALLEY
OF HUMILIATION AND DEATH.