Nearly five years ago, I addressed the “Pericope Adulterae in early church writings.” In doing so, I somehow greatly misread
that Bruce Metzger claimed that the Pericope Adulterae was not referenced by any church father prior to the 12th century, when he clearly wrote about Greek church fathers. (Not sure how the brain works sometimes!)
“No Greek Church Father prior to Euthymius Zigabenus (twelfth century) comments on the passage...”[i]
In continuing to research about this passage, I have discovered more about this. It was available then, but somehow I did not find it. Metzger was wrong about the “Greek church fathers.” I also found a passage in John Burgon’s The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels that addresses the importance of this claim of Metzger and others before him. First, Burgon.
“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.”
Burgon shows that this argument of Metzger and others who say that Tertullian, Origen, Chrystostom, etc. “knew nothing of it...is to misrepresent the entire case…”[ii] Burgon continues to explain the weightiness of the voices of “Patristic authority.” Their words are important, “their approval, if they approve, so weighty; their condemnation, if they condemn, so fatal. But then, in the present instance, they do not condemn. They neither approve nor condemn. They simply say nothing. They are silent: and in what precedes, I have explained the reason why.”[iii] Clearly, these critics are making an argument from silence, and not a good one at that. For more detail from Burgon, see “Appendix I (Pericope de Adultera)” in The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, pp. 232-265.
What was not available to Burgon when he wrote, but was available to Metzger when he wrote, is the testimony of Didymus the Blind of Alexandria – a Greek Church Father. So, Metzger was factually incorrect on this point, even though he should have had access to know the fact. The writings of Didymus of Alexandria (born circa AD 310 died circa AD 398) were among papyri discovered near Tura, Egypt in 1941, including part of his commentary on Ecclesiastes.[iv]
Disclaimer: I have not been able to find access to this commentary on Ecclesiastes itself anywhere online.[v] However, the information related below generally seems to be agreed upon by all sides, and therefore unquestionable to those of either opinion for or against the Pericope Adulterae. The following translation of the relevant parts are found in “Jerome, Paula, and the Story of the Adulteress: Why Did Jerome Overrule His Old Greek Copies,” by Peter E. Lorenz.
We find, therefore, in certain gospels [the following story], A woman, it says, was condemned by the Jews for a sin and was being sent to be stoned in the place where that was customary to happen. The Savior, it says, when he saw her and observed that they were ready to stone her, said to those who were about to cast stones, “He who has not sinned, let him take a stone and cast it.” If anyone is conscious in himself not to have sinned, let him take up a stone and smite her. And no one dared. Since they knew in themselves and perceived that they themselves were guilty in some things, they did not dare to strike her.[vi]
Didymus refers to the Pericope Adulterae when commenting on Ecclesiastes 7:21-22:
Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee: for oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others.
Here a master is encouraged to “take no
heed” to everything he hears. He might hear his servant curse him. However, he is
reminded of his own sins, that he (the master) has cursed others also. Like
those in the story of the woman taken in adultery, whoever has not sinned may
cast the first stone. The master must consider this example; no one dared stone
the adulterous woman because, under the weight of Jesus’s words, they understood
that they were not without guilt.
Didymus, a Greek Church Father, in the fourth century, in Alexandria, knew manuscripts that contained the Pericope Adulterae and referenced the story as authoritative biblical teaching. It was known earlier than has previously been posited some textual critics. It was known in Alexandria, from whence also comes the so-called Alexandrian text type, which omits these verses in John 7:53-8:11.
Some possible resources for further research on this subject include (also try searches for “Didymus of Alexandria Commentary on Ecclesiastes” etc.):
- Donaldson, Amy M. “Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings among Greek and Latin Church Fathers” (PhD dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 2009)
- Ehrman, Bart D. “The New Testament Canon of Didymus the Blind,” Vigiliae Christianae, 37(1), 1983, 1-21.
- Robbins, Jeremy D. “Explicit References to Textual Variants in the Pastoral Epistles by Greek and Latin Church Fathers” (MA dissertation, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2021)
- The Tura Papyri
[ii] The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels (Being the Sequel to the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels), John William Burgon, Edward Miller, Editor. London: George Bell and Sons, 1896
[iii] Ibid., pp. 257-258.
[iv] This discovery was made 30 years before Metzger’s first edition of A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament in 1971. “A cache of papyri discovered in 1941, in Tura, Egypt, contained primarily material eventually ascribed to Didymus. The papyri contain several ‘commentaries’ on Genesis, Job, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms,
and Zechariah, all of which the editors finally ascribed to Didymus…” Kellen Dale Plaxco, “Didymus the Blind, Origen, and the Trinity” (PhD dissertation, Marquette University, 2016).
[v] Die Kölner Tura-Papyri: Ekklesiastes-Kommentar has scans from these papyri, but does not appear to have the one relevant to this discussion.
[vi] Pp. 165-166. Citing Bart D. Ehrman, “Jesus and the Adulteress,” New Testament Studies 34 (1988): 24-44 at 25, translating Didymus of Alexandria, Commentary on Ecclesiastes 223.6b-13a.
