George ZERVOS

University of North Carolina

Wilmington

CAUGHT IN THE ACT :

MARY AND THE ADULTERESS

It has long been recognized by scholars that the famous ``pericope

adulterae '' in John 7, 53 8, 11 did not constitute an original part of

the fourth Gospel. This article reexamines the origins of the Johannine

story of the adulteress and explores the possibility of a literary con-

nection between this controversial passage and the New Testament

Apocryphon known as the Protevangelium Jacobi. Text-, redaction-,

and form-critical methodologies employed in this investigation sup-

port the existence of such a connection and suggest that the Genesis

Mariae, a hypothetical source document underlying the Protevange-

lium, may have served as the prototype for the ``pericope adulterae ''.

On reconna| t depuis longtemps que la pe ricope sur la femme adul-

tere (Jn 7,53 8,11) ne constitue pas un e lement original du qua-

trieme evangile. Cet article reprend l 'analyse des origines du re cit

johannique sur la femme adulte re et explore la possibilite d 'une rela-

tion litteraire entre ce passage controverse et l 'apocryphe appele Pro-

tevangile de Jacques. Des approches critiques sur le texte, sa

redaction et sa forme, de veloppees dans cette analyse, confirment

l 'existence d 'une telle connection, et sugge rent que la Genesis

Mariae, une source hypothe tique du Prote vangile, a pu servir de pro-

totype a la pericope sur la femme adulte re.

In his contribution to the collection of Essays in Honour of

Tjitze Baarda, William Petersen presents a compelling study of

1
the famous pericope adulterae (PA) in John 7 :53-8 :11 . Petersen

first conducts a tour d ' horizon of the textual data for John 7 :53-

8 :11 in which he summarizes the ``very convincing array of evi-

dence and argumentation '' that comprises the ``massive, con-

vincing, and obvious '' reasons for which scholars almost

universally consider the PA to be a later insertion into the

1. ``OUDE EGW SE KATAKRINW. The Protevangelium Jacobi, and the

History of the Pericope Adulterae '', in Sayings of Jesus : Canonical and Non-

canonical (ed. W. L. P etersen , J. S. V os , and Henk J. de J onge ; Leiden,

New York, Ko
ln : Brill, 1997), 191-221.

Apocrypha 15, 2004, p. 57-114

58 g. zervos

2
Gospel of John . Petersen then confronts the issues of the antiq-

uity of the PA and its relationship to the Gospel of John with

fresh evidence in the form of a close literary parallel to the

phrase oude e gwq se [kata]kriqnw (``neither do I [condemn]

judge you '') in John 8 :11 which occurs in the Protevangelium Ja-

cobi (Prot. Jas.) 16 :3 as oude e gwq [kata]kriqnw umaq (``neither

3
do I [condemn] judge you two '') . But in contrast to his thor-

oughgoing and comprehensive survey of the MS tradition of the

text of John 7 :53-8 :11, Petersen 's treatment of the Prot. Jas. ap-

pears to have been influenced by certain questionable secondary

sources upon which he relied heavily in formulating his argu-

4
ments . The purpose of the present article is to re-examine the

problem of the origins of the PA from a wider range of scholarly

opinions on the Prot. Jas. (and its hypothetical sources) and to

illuminate the relationship between John 8 :11 and Prot. Jas.

16 :3 on the basis of research on the textual and compositional

history of the Prot. Jas. of which Petersen was not aware when

he composed his article.

The Textual Evidence against the PA

The extant textual evidence that indicates the absence of the

PA from the original text of John is divided into four categories :

1) the Greek MS tradition of John, 2) the non-Greek versions,

5
3) the patristic witnesses, and 4) the apocrypha .

2. Ibid., 191-203. Such strong terminology is common among the scholars

who have researched the problem of the authenticity of the PA. Cf., e.g.,

Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament

(2d ed. ; Stuttgart : Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2000), 187-89 : ``The evidence

for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelm-

ing '' and ``the case against its being of Johannine authorship appears to be

conclusive ''. Bart Ehrman, ``Jesus and the Adulteress '', NTS 34 (1988) : 24,

also describes as ``overwhelming '' the arguments supporting the ``scholarly

consensus '' that ``the passage did not originally form part of the Fourth

Gospel. '' Cf. also Frederick A. Schilling, ``The Story of Jesus and the

Adulteress '', ATR 37 (1955), 91-92, for a summary of earlier opinions on the

PA problem.

3. The brackets in the texts of John 8 :11 and Prot. Jas. 16 :3 denote the iden-

tical textual variant found among the MS(S) of both documents. The addi-

tion by some witnesses of the prefix kata to the base verb krinw (to judge)

strengthens its meaning from ``judge '' to ``condemn ''. Cf. Sayings, 191, n. 2.

4. See below, pp. 80-82.

5. Petersen, Sayings, 193-208. Cf. Gary M. Burge, ``A Specific Problem in

the New Testament Text and Canon : The Woman Caught in Adultery (John

7 :53-8 :11) '', JETS (1984), 141, n. 5, for a full bibliography. The most ex-
 caught in the act 59

1) The Greek MS Tradition

Among the canonical books of the New Testament the Greek

text of John is exceptionally well attested in the earliest, most

authoritative extant MS witnesses. The most ancient Greek

MS(S) and non-Greek versions of John, and the patristic refer-

ences to this gospel almost universally evince the absence of the

6
PA from its earliest text . These include the two earliest wit-
66
nesses, the papyri Bodmer II (p ) of the second or third century
75
and Bodmer XV (p ) of the third century, as well as the fourth-

century uncial codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus and the fifth-

7
century Washingtonensis . Two of the other major fifth-century

codices, Alexandrinus and Ephraemi, also appear not to have

contained the PA although their text of John is defective at this

8
point . The only early uncial to contain the PA in its text of John

is the fifth- or sixth-century maverick bilingual (Greek and Lat-

in) Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis. But even this witness is mini-

mized by the notoriously problematic nature of the text of

9
Bezae itself and of the MS tradition to which it belongs, of
10
which Bezae is the best representative . Bezae and the eighth-

haustive study of the PA to date is by Ulrich Becker, Jesus und die Ehebre-

cherin : Untersuchungen zur Text- und U berlieferungsgeschichte von Joh. 7 53

- 8 11 (BZNW 28 ; Berlin : Verlag Alfred To pelmann, 1963) ; see pp. 8-25, for

a comprehensive presentation of the textual evidence.

6. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 25, ``Die altesten und wichtigsten griechischen, sy-

rischen, armenischen, georgischen, koptischen und lateinischen Zeugen fu r

den neutestamentlichen Text kennen u bereinstimmend die Ehebrecherinperi-

kope nicht ''.

7. Petersen, Sayings, 194 ; Metzger, Commentary, 187 ; Becker, Ehebre-

cherin, 9. All dates in this study will be CE unless specified otherwise.

8. Metzger, Commentary, 187, ``Codices A and C are defective in this part

of John, but it is highly probable that neither contained the pericope, for ca-

reful measurement discloses that there would not have been space enough

on the missing leaves to include the section along with the rest of the text ''.

9. Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, (3d ed. ; New York :

Oxford University Press, 1992), 50, states : ``No known manuscript has so

many and such remarkable variations from what is usually taken to be the

normal New Testament text. Codex Bezae 's special characteristic is the free

addition (and occasional omission) of words, sentences, and even inci-

dents ''.

10. Metzger, ibid., 51, speaks of ``the characteristic freedom of what is cal-

led the Western text, of which Codex Bezae is the principal representative ''.

According to B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, Introduction to the New

Testament in the Original Greek, (New York : Harper and Brothers, 1882 ;

repr., Peabody, Mass. : Hendrickson, 1988), 122-24, two of the main charac-

teristics of the ``Western '' text are : 1) ``Words, clauses, and even whole sen-

tences were changed, omitted, and inserted with astonishing freedom, '' and

2) this text type had ``a disposition to enrich the text at the cost of its purity
60 g. zervos

century Codex Basilensis are the only Greek MS witnesses prior

11
to the ninth century that contain the PA in their text of John .

Petersen lists thirteen MS(S) of the ninth and tenth centuries in

12
which the PA does occur in the text of John . But Becker points

out in detail that most of the uncials that include the PA do so

in a manner indicating that its place in their text of John is prob-

13
lematic . MS witnesses to the PA in John proliferate after the

tenth century with the spread of the Byzantine text type that

eventually formed the basis of the Textus Receptus. But it is sig-

nificant that the official Constantinopolitan lectionary also

omits the PA from its reading of John 7 :37-8 :12 for the Divine
14
Liturgy of Pentecost Sunday .

2) The Ancient Versions and Non-Greek Patristic Witnesses

Much the same situation exists in the ancient translations of

John and in the patristic quotations of Johannine texts. In the

non-Greek MS tradition, the PA is absent from ``the Sahidic

15
and sub-Achmimic versions and the older Bohairic MS(S) '' ,
16
from the Armenian version before 989 , from the old Georgian
17
version through the tenth century , and from ``the oldest form
18
of the Syriac version '' . ``The Lucianic text, ancestor of the By-

zantine text and traceable to the textual tradition of Antioch

19
back to 300 A. D., does not have it '' . Several later Syriac

MS(S) contain the PA but in different locations, i.e., in its

present position after John 7 :52, in the margin, or as an appen-

20
dix . But there is evidence that the later Syrian readings may

derive from Egypt. Some of the later Syriac MS(S) that contain

by alterations or additions taken from traditional and perhaps from apocry-

phal or other non-biblical sources ''. For the case against the ``so-called

`Western ' text '' see Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New

Testament (trans. Erroll F. Rhodes ; 2d ed. ; Grand Rapids, Michigan :

1995), 54-55, 67-69, 109-110, 189-90.

11. Petersen, Sayings, 194.

12. Ibid. Cf. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 10.

13. Ehebrecherin, 10-11. The text of the PA is set off by obelisks or asterisks,

located in different places in the text of John (or even in Luke), or containing

scholia to the effect that the PA is absent from part of the MS tradition.

14. Westcott and Hort, Introduction, Appendix, 84.

15. Metzger, Commentary, 187-88 ; Becker, Ehebrecherin, 21-23.

16. Even if this late MS contains an abbreviated form of the PA, Petersen,

Sayings, 196 ; Becker, Ehebrecherin, 20.

17. Metzger, Commentary, 188, n. 2 ; Becker, Ehebrecherin, 21.

18. Ibid., 187.

19. Schilling, ``Story '', 92-93.

20. Ehrman, ``Jesus '', 39, n. 18.

 caught in the act 61

the PA include scholia to the effect that an ``Abbot Paul '' found
21
the passage in Alexandria . Further support for a possible

Alexandrian origin of the Syrian reading of the PA is provided

by the earliest Syrian patristic source that references the PA,

bishop Mara of Amida. According to an ancient report, Mara

fled to Alexandria in the early sixth century ; it is thought that

he may have derived his text of the PA from Alexandrian

22
MS(S) . The absence of the PA from early Syria extends also to
23
the eastern Diatessaronic witnesses . The only two Syrian pat-

ristic sources before the twelfth century who even mentioned the

PA appear to have known a different version of the story than

24
that preserved in John .

It is within the Latin MS and patristic tradition that one may

discern the earliest signs of the acceptance of the PA into the

text of John. Although the early Latin writers Tertullian and

25
Cyprian of Carthage did not seem to know the PA , and the

story is also absent from four Vetus Latina MS(S), it is pre-

served at its present location after John 7 :52 in six witnesses of

the Old Latin version - one of which is the Latin text of Codex
26
Bezae (see above) - and in Jerome 's Vulgate . It is only the Lat-

in writers, among the non-Greek patristic sources, who make

reference to the PA as early as the fourth century CE. Petersen

cites five Latin writers of the late fourth and early fifth centuries
27
who demonstrate some degree of knowledge of the PA . The

two earliest of these, Pacian of Barcelona and Ambrose of Mi-

lan, seemed to know the story of the adulteress but did not ex-

pressly state that they knew it from the Gospel of John. Jerome

included the PA in his Vulgate and wrote that in his time many

Greek and Latin MS(S) contained the story, implying that a

21. Gwynn, J., Remnants of the Later Syriac Versions of the Bible (London :

Williams and Norgate, 1909 ; repr., Amsterdam : Philo Press, 1973), 1. lxxi-

lxxii, 41-49 ; Becker, Ehebrecherin, 14-15.

22. Petersen, Sayings, 200 ; Gwynn, Remnants, 41 ; Ehrman, ``Jesus '', 39,

n. 18 ; Becker, Ehebrecherin, 16.

23. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 18-19.

24. Petersen, Sayings, 200-202.

25. Burge, ``Problem '', 142-43, refers that Tertullian, in De Pudicitia, and

Cyprian, in his Epistle 55, surprisingly make no reference to Jesus ' interac-

tion with the adulteress in their judicial directions for cases of adultery ; Bec-

ker, Ehebrecherin, 23-24, concurs and further notes that the Latin MS(S) of

Northern Africa in the time of Cyprian did not contain the PA.

26. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 23 ; cf. Petersen, Sayings, 194-95.

27. Petersen, Sayings, 198-200 ; See Becker, Ehebrecherin, 24-25.

62 g. zervos

28
considerable number did not . Finally, it is thought that the

fourth-century writer Rufinus may have betrayed knowledge of

the PA in his Latin translation of the Ecclesiastical History of

Eusebius. Rufinus altered the text of a reference to a story of a

woman accused of many unspecified sins ( peri gunaikoq e pi

pollaiq amartiqaiq) - that was told by Papias ca. 130 and re-

corded by Eusebius in the fourth century - in such a way that

the accused woman was identified more specifically as an adul-

29
teress (de muliere adultera) .

Furthermore, since it is in the Latin tradition that the Johan-

nine PA first appears, it is the Latin writers also who first ad-

dress the problem of the absence of the PA from other parts of

the MS tradition. Ambrose of Milan states that certain individu-

als, presumably Christians, were disturbed because Jesus ' leni-

ency in the story with regards to the sin of adultery could be

30
construed as an enticement to sinful behavior . Augustine of

Hippo further develops his mentor 's train of thought by blam-

ing the absence of the PA from some MS(S) on ``some who were
31
of slight faith or rather hostile to the true faith '' who wanted

to expunge from the gospel record Jesus ' seeming laxity towards

adultery. The attempt by these two important Latin fathers to

justify the absence of the PA from some MS(S) - in addition to

the witness of Jerome above - verifies the existence of this tex-

28. Adv. Pelag. ii, 17, S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Opera (CCSL 80 ; Turnhout :

Brepols, 1990), 76, ``In Evangelio secundum Iohannem in multis et Graecis et

Latinis codicibus inuenitur de adultera muliere, quae accusata est apud Domi-

num ''. Cf. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 24 ; Petersen, Sayings, 198-99.

29. Hist. eccl. 3, 39, 17 (GCS 8 ; Leipzig : J. C. Hinrichs, 1903), 292-93, ``si-

mul et historiam quandam subiungit de muliere adultera, quae accusata est a

Iudaeis apud dominum. habetur autem in euangelio, quod dicitur secundum He-

braeos, scripta ista parabola ''. Cf. Petersen, Sayings, 199, n. 33 ; Ehrman,

``Jesus '', 29, n. 26. See also the discussion below, pp. 65-71, on Papias ' im-

portant witness to the PA.

30. Apologia Dauid altera, 1, 1, Sancti Ambrosii Opera (CSEL 32 ; Pragae,

Vindobonae, Lipsiae : 1897), 359, ``simul etiam non mediocre scrupulum

mouere potuit inperitis euangelii lectio, quae decursa est, in quo aduertistis

adulteram Christo oblatam eandemque sine damnatione dimissam. Nam pro-

fecto si quis ea auribus accipiat otiosis, incentiuum erroris incurrit, cum legit

sancti uiri adulterium et adulterae absolutionem, humano propemodum diui-

noque lapsus exemplo, quod et homo putauerit adulterium esse faciendum et

deus censuerit adulterium non esse damnandum ''. Cf. Petersen, Sayings, 198,

n. 31, for more such references in Ambrose.

31. De Conj. Adult. ii, 7 (PL 40 :474) ``Sed hoc videlicet infidelium sensus ex-

horret, ita ut nonnulli modicae fidei vel potius inimici verae fidei, credo metuen-

tes peccandi impunitatem dari mulieribus suis, illud quod de adulterae

indulgentia Dominus fecit, auferrent de codicibus suis, quasi permissionem pec-

candi tribuerit qui dixit : Jam deinceps noli peccare ''.

 caught in the act 63

tual problem even in the Latin speaking world of the fourth and

fifth centuries which otherwise was so supportive of the presence

of this passage in the text of John.

3) The Greek Patristic Witnesses

The silence of the Greek patristic tradition on the PA is deaf-

32
ening . The most important early Alexandrian witness to the

absence of the PA from the Gospel of John is the third-century

father Origen who, in his commentary on this gospel, passes

33
from 7 :52 to 8 :12 without mentioning the passage . In the fifth

century Cyril of Alexandria moves directly from 7 :52 to 8 :12 in

34
his commentary on John without mentioning the PA , as does
35
Nonnus of Panopolis in his metrical paraphrase of this gospel .

These Egyptian witnesses are especially significant in view of

the apparent dependence of the later Syrian MS tradition of the

36
PA upon Egyptian MS(S) . The absence of the PA from the

early Syrian texts of John is confirmed by the Syro-Constantino-

politan fathers John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia

who ignore the passage in their line-by-line commentaries on

37
this gospel . And what has until only recently been acknowl-

edged as the first certain Greek patristic comment on the PA ac-

tually constitutes a clear witness against its authenticity. The

twelfth-century writer Euthymius Zigabenus states in his com-

mentary on John that ``in the most accurate manuscripts [the

38
story] either is not to be found or is set off by obeli '' . In the

midst of the otherwise complete silence of the Greek patristic lit-

32. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 11-12 discusses ``das Schweigen der griechischen

Kirchenvater und Ausleger . ''

33. Ibid., 12, n. 15 ; see Ehrman 's refutation, ``Jesus '', 40, n. 21, of Bec-

ker 's argument, Ehebrecherin, 119-24, that Origen may have known of an

adulteress story from non-canonical sources. Clement of Alexandria also

ignores the PA in his writings, Schilling, ``Story '', 93.

34. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 12, n. 18.

35. Burge, ``Problem '', 142.

36. See above, p. 60.

37. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 12. Cf. p. 60, n. 14 above, Westcott and Hort,

Introduction, Appendix, 84, concerning the absence of the PA in the oldest

MS(S) of the Byzantine lectionary.

38. Comm. Io. (PG 129 :1280D). After quoting John 7 :52, Zigabenus writes :

jry de ginwskein oti to enteuhen ajri tou, palin oun elalysen autoiq o
iIysouq legwn Egw eimi to fw q tou kosmou para toiq akribesin anti-

grafoiq y ouj eurytai y w belistai. Dio fainontai pareggrapta kai pro-
shyky kai toutou tekmyrion to myde ton Jrusostomon olwq mnymoneusai
autw
n ; Metzger, Commentary, 188 ; Petersen, Sayings, 198 ; Burge, ``Prob-
lem '', 142 ; Edwyn C. Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel (ed. Francis N. Davey ;

2d rev. ed. ; London : Faber and Faber Limited, 1947), 563.

64 g. zervos

erature, scholars have identified two possible references to the

PA among the Greek patristic sources before Zigabenus : 1) a

story cited by the fourth-century Alexandrian writer Didymus

39
the Blind , and 2) the comment mentioned above by the early

second-century Christian writer Papias that is preserved in Eu-

40
sebius ' Hist. eccl. 3, 39, 16 .

Didymus the Blind

Bart Ehrman has investigated a reference to a story in a re-

cently discovered biblical commentary attributed to the fourth-

41
century Alexandrian father Didymus the blind that may indi-

cate the presence of the PA in the copy of John that was used by
42
that father . Didymus wrote that en tisin euaggelioiq (``in cer-

tain gospels '') a woman who had been condemned by the Jews

epi amartia (``for a sin '') was being sent away lihobolyhynai
(``to be stoned ''). When Jesus saw what was happening he said

to those who were preparing to stone the woman : ``He who has

not sinned, let him take up a stone and cast it. If anyone is con-

scious in himself not to have sinned, let him take up a stone and
43
smite her. And no one dared '' . Obviously Didymus is at least
44
paraphrasing, if not quoting , a story very similar to the canon-

ical PA. But the vagueness of Didymus ' statement that he found

39. Ehrman 's entire article, ``Jesus '' ; Petersen, Sayings, 197-98.

40. Petersen, Sayings, 196-97 ; Schilling, ``Story '', 93-94 ; Ehrman, ``Je-

sus '', 29-30 ; Burge, ``Problem '', 143.

41. ``We now have the good fortune to state that a new discovery has been

made which may shed considerable light on the textual history and pre-lite-

rary form of the pericope de adultera '', Ehrman, ``Jesus '', 24 ; cf. idem, 38, n.

8, for a comprehensive bibliography on the discovery in 1941 of the Toura

papyrus documents which contain Didymus ' relevant remarks, and 39, n. 9,

on the life and works of Didymus.

42. Ehrman, ``Jesus '', 24-29.

43. Barbel Krebber, ed. and trans., Didymus der Blinde, Kommentar zum

Ecclesiastes : kap. 7 - 8,8 (Band 16, Teil IV in Papyrologische Texte und Ab-

handlungen ; eds. Ludwig Koenen and Reinhold Merkelbach ; Bonn : Ru-

dolf Habelt Verlag, 1972), 88, feromen oun en tisin euaggelioiq guny, fysin,

katekrihy upo tw n iIoudaiwn epi amartia

kai apestelleto lihobolyhy-
nai eiq ton topon, opou eiwhei gineshai. o swtyr, fysin, ewrakwq autyn
kai hewrysaq oti etoimoi eisin proq to lihobolysai autyn, toiq mellousin
autyn katabalein lihoiq ei pen oq ouk ymarten, airetw lihon kai baletw
auton. ei tiq sunoiden eautw to my ymartykenai, labwn lihon paisatw au-
tyn. kai oudeiq etolmysen. epistysanteq eautoiq kai gnonteq, oti kai autoi
upeuhunoi eisin tisin, ouk etolmysan kataptaisai ekeinyn.
44. Ehrman, ``Jesus '', 31 ; Ehrman believes that Didymus has actually pre-

served two quotations from his original source, oq ouk ymarten, airetw li

hon kai baletw auton and kai oudeiq etolmysen.

 caught in the act 65

this story e n tisin eu aggelioiq (``in certain gospels '') leaves in

doubt the source from which he derived his version of the narra-
45
tive . Ehrman maintains that even though Didymus does not

specify that he obtained his account of the adulteress from the

gospel of John, his use of the story is fully comprehensible only

46
in its present location after John 7 :52 . Ehrman bases his argu-

ment on what he perceives to be an incongruity between the mo-

ral of the story itself, when read in isolation, and the moral

teaching that Didymus attempts to convey in citing the story for

support : ``the narrative that Didymus paraphrases . . . shows

that sinners never have the right to condemn other sinners . . . In

contrast to this view, Didymus asserts that sinners do have the

47
right of judgment in certain instances '' . Ehrman concludes

that ``this incongruity between the point Didymus wants to

make with the story of the adulteress and the point conveyed by

the story itself suggests that he had found it in its Johannine

48
context '' .

45. Ibid., 25-26.

46. Ibid., 26-29. See especially p. 28 : ``When read in isolation, the PA does

not condemn hypocritical condemnation. It instead prohibits any judgment

of the sins of another. But in its Johannine context the focus of the story is

transformed. Now it serves to illustrate John 's opposition to hypocrisy...

This transformation of the original meaning of the story corresponds to

what happens when Didymus retells the story ''.

47. Ibid., 27, ``Didymus is apparently concerned to warn his reader not to

sin by inappropriately judging another person, i.e. by judging aspects of ano-

ther 's life that have no bearing on his own. Thus a master should not

condemn slaves for their disposition, which is none of his business, but only

for their acts of disobedience, which are. Didymus uses the PA, then, to

show that since we all are guilty before God, we should not be quick to

condemn others, but should react to them only insofar as their actions relate

directly to us ''.

48. Ibid., ``although the PA does not in itself illustrate Didymus ' contention

about executing judgment in a righteous manner, the story does convey

exactly this message when placed between John chs. 7 and 8 ''. E hrman
notes that Jesus is unjustly condemned twice in the seventh chapter of John,

first by the Jews in John 7 :22-23 for healing a man on the Sabbath and again

in John 7 :50-52 - immediately before the modern location of the PA - where

My o
Nicodemus makes the same point to the Pharisees who are condemning Je-

nomoq y mw n krinei ton a nhrwpon e an my a kousy prwton par au tou kai

sus unjustly without allowing him to defend himself as per their law,

gnw ti poiei
'

; (``Does your law judge a man if it does not first hear from him

and knows what he does ? ''). A saying of Jesus in 7 :24 supports this reading

of John 7 and Didymus : ``Do not judge according to the outward appear-

ance, but judge the righteous judgment ''. E hrman 's contextual argument

could be further strengthened by considering the passage immediately fol-

lowing the PA in John 8 :12-20, which makes a similar point. Again the Pha-

risees condemn Jesus, this time on the principle that he bore witness to
66 g. zervos

Ehrman finds it ``easiest to assume what has otherwise

seemed probable enough - Didymus found the story in at least

some of the copies of the Fourth Gospel located in Alexandria.

His retelling of the story, then, would be the earliest evidence

of its acceptance into the Gospel of John by Alexandrian

49
scribes '' . Dieter Lu hrmann takes issue with Ehrman 's inter-

pretation and reasserts the conclusions of previous research

that Didymus was dependent upon apocryphal sources and not

50
upon the Johannine PA . Restating the evidence for the si-
51
lence of the Egyptian textual tradition on the PA and for Di-

dymus ' specific references in other contexts to such

apocryphal documents as the Gos. Heb., Gos. Thom, and Gos.

52
Pet. , Luhrmann rejects the identification of Didymus ' story
53
with the Johannine PA and ultimately concludes that the

story of the sinful woman in Didymus is a new text of apocry-

phal Jesus traditions, an earlier form of the PA that was in-

54
cluded later in the gospel of John .

himself when he asserted in 8 :12 that he was the ``light of the world. '' Jesus

answered that he had the additional witness of the ``father who sent me, ''

(8 :16) and that according to the Pharisees ' own law ``the witness of two men

is true '' (8 :17).

49. Ibid., 28.

50. ``Die Geschichte von einer Su nderin und andere apokryphe Jesusu berlie-

ferungen bei Didymos von Alexandrien '', NT 32 (1990), 289-316.

51. Ibid., 298, ``Gegen eine Identifikation der von Didymos wiedergegebe-

nen Geschichte mit der Perikope von der Ehebrecherin sprechen neben die-

sen inhaltlichen auch Erwagungen zur U berlieferung des Textes Joh. 8 :3-11

. . . diese Perikope in der a gyptischen Texttradition des Johannesevange-

liums eben fehlt ''.

52. Ibid., 292, ``Da Didymos solche kannte, steht schon von der bisherigen

Forschung her auer Frage. Er beruft sich an anderer Stelle auf das He-

braerevangelium als Autorita t, und er erwa hnt ein Thomas-sowie ein Petrus-

evangelium als Apokryphen ''. Lu hrmann believes that by his use of the

term fysin Didymus indicates that he was not simply summarizing but was
reproducing specific texts, ibid., 292-93. Cf. n. 43 above ; Lu hrmann, 290,

reproduces the text with critical apparatus and German translation.

53. Ibid., 297, ``Als Zwischenergebnis ist festzuhalten, da die Geschichte,

die Didymos bietet, nicht die Perikope von der Ehebrecherin Joh. 8 :3-11

ist ''.

54. Ibid., 312, ``Didymos in EcclT IV 223, 6-13 eine Geschichte wiedergibt,

die weder eine in Handschriften des Johannesevangeliums u berlieferte Fas-

sung von Joh. 8 :3-11 noch eine bloe Anspielung darauf ist, sondern eine

urspru
nglichere Form der Perikope von der Ehebrecherin, ein neuer Text

apokrypher Jesusu berlieferung, der alter ist als die Fassung, die spater in

das Johannesevangelium aufgenommen worden ist ''.

 caught in the act 67

Papias via Eusebius

The earliest Greek patristic witness that has been viewed by

some to be an allusion to the Johannine PA technically belongs

to the category of the apocrypha. Although the reference is

found in the Ecclesiastical History (Hist. eccl. 3, 39) of the

church father Eusebius, and Eusebius ' statement itself is only a

citation from a lost work of the early second-century bishop Pa-

pias of Hierapolis, the actual source of the story is named by

Eusebius as the apocryphal Gospel according to the Hebrews

(Gos. Heb.). The value of Papias ' information is compromised

by ambiguities in the details of the story - as it is described by

Eusebius - vis-a-vis the PA :

ekteheitai de kai allyn istorian peri gunaikoq epi pollaiq

amartiaiq diablyheisyq epi tou kuriou, yn to kah ' iEbraiouq
55
euaggelion periejei .

And [Papias] presents another story concerning a woman who

had been accused of many sins before the Lord, which the Gospel

according to the Hebrews contains.

The relevance of the Papias/Eusebius reference for the origins

of the PA has been assessed variously by scholars. Petersen val-

ues the Papias/Eusebius witness as the earliest Greek patristic

reference to a story of a sinful woman, but considers its identifi-

56
cation with the Johannine PA to be ``ambiguous '' . Against the

scholars who in varying degrees view the Papias/Eusebius state-

57
ment as an allusion to the PA , Petersen himself identifies four

``rather obvious reasons for not doing so '' : 1) the complete lack

of any direct quotation or paraphrase from the PA in the text of

the Papias/Eusebius reference, 2) a general congruency and spe-

cific verbal similarities between the reference and the ``Anoint-

ing at Bethany '' story in Luke 7 :36-50, 3) the discrepancy

between the many unspecified sins of the woman in the Papias/

Eusebius account and the ``single instance of adultery '' specified

in the Johannine PA, and 4) the language and context of Euse-

bius ' description of the story that leaves it unclear as to whether

he himself or Papias was the source of the information that the

58
story of the sinful woman was found in the Gos. Heb. . Among

the scholars who reject any connection between the Johannine

55. Greek text from Kurt A land, ed., Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (9 th

ed. ; Stuttgart : Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 1976), 531.

56. Sayings, 197.

57. Ibid., n. 26 ; cf. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 93, n. 7.

58. Sayings, 197.
68 g. zervos

PA and the Papias/Eusebius reference are Schilling and A. F. J.

Klijn. Schilling readily acknowledges the antiquity and impor-

tance of the Gos. Heb. and Papias ' statement, but dismisses the
reference as a ``false clue '' in the quest for answers to the au-
59
thorship, date, and purpose of the PA . Klijn also expresses a

negative opinion of the Papias / Eusebius reference to the PA

by including the story in his category of ``Spurious and Doubtful

60
Texts '' .

In their argumentation for rejecting the identification of the

Papias/Eusebius reference with the Johannine PA, Petersen,

Schilling, and Klijn all emphasize the similarities between the

Papias/Eusebius text and the story of a woman accused of many

sins contained in Luke 7 :36-50. Thus it is not even certain that

the story referred by Eusebius is the PA now found in John, but

61
could just as easily be a reference to the Lucan story . Klijn

notes that there are two canonical stories of encounters between

Jesus and a sinful woman - Luke 7 :36-50 and the PA in John -

but he excludes the Lucan story from consideration as the

source of the PA on the grounds that in the particular passage

where Eusebius is summarizing Papias ' reference, Eusebius is

speaking of traditions found in texts that he himself knows.

Klijn argues cogently that Eusebius would not be referring to ``a

story known to Papias which was part of the canonical Gos-

62
pels '' . He asserts that ``there is reason to suppose that it is

John 7,53-8,11 that is meant '' by Eusebius even though the PA

``was certainly not yet part of the New Testament known to Eu-
63
sebius or his readers '' . Klijn agrees with Petersen that the

woman in the Johannine episode ``was not accused of many sins

but of only one, viz. adultery ; '' but Klijn views this discrepancy

as mitigated by variant readings from the MS(S) of the Prot.

59. ``Story '', 93-94, ``That he [Papias] knew this book [ Gos. Heb. ] cannot
with confidence be inferred from Eusebius ' statement, for he merely says

that the same story circulated in both writings . . . So, this trail to Papias

and the Gospel according to the Hebrews has led nowhere at all ''.

60. Klijn, Jewish-Christian Gospel Tradition (Supplements to Vigiliae

Christianae 17 ; Leiden : E. J. Brill, 1992), 116-19. See below, pp. 69-71, for

Ehrman 's and Lu hrmann 's opposition to this connection.

61. This possibility is supported by the location of the PA after Luke 21 :38

in the MS(S) of the Ferrar group, Petersen, Sayings , 194, n. 14, and by the
placement of the PA immediately after the reading for Luke 21 :12-19 in the

Byzantine lectionary, Ernest C. Colwell and Donald W. Riddle, Prolego-

mena to the Study of the Lectionary Text of the Gospels (Chicago, Ill. : The
University of Chicago Press, 1933), 19. Cf. HEION KAIIERON EUAGGE-
th
LION (6 ed. ; Phoenix : Venice, 1883), 27.

62. Jewish-Christian, 117.

63. Ibid.
 caught in the act 69

Jas. that demonstrate the existence of more than one version of

the story of the adulteress, some speaking of a single sin and

64
some of more than one . Unable to reach a conclusion about

the source of the Papias / Eusebius story, Klijn leaves open the

possibility that Eusebius may have known of the PA from an-

other source, such as a Jewish-Christian gospel that was

65
``known to him by name only '', i.e., the Gos. Heb. .

The foremost scholar who does ``interpret this [Eusebius/Pa-

pias] reference as an allusion to the Johannine pericope adulterae

66
(or some Ur-form of it) '' is Becker who proposes several rea-
67
sons for associating the two passages : 1) Rufinus has in mind

the Johannine PA in his Latin translation of Eusebius ' Hist.

eccl. (ca. 403) in which he renders a woman epi pollaiq a mar-

tiaiq (``of many sins '') specifically as a mulier adultera (``adulter-
68
ous woman '') , 2) several MS(S) and texts explicitly refer to the

PA but do not specify the type of sin of which the woman is ac-
69
cused , and 3) the phrase diablyheisyq epi tou kuriou (``ac-
cused to the Lord '') in Eusebius seems to match the scenario of
70
the Jewish legal process described in John 's PA . Becker joins

64. Ibid.

65. Ibid., 119. See discussion below on the Gos. Heb.

66. P etersen , Sayings, 197, cf. n. 26.

67. Ehebrecherin, 98-99.

68. Ibid, 93, ``Es ist keine Frage, da Rufin bei seiner U bersetzung die Ge-

schichte von der Ehebrecherin, wie sie uns in Joh 7 53 ff. u berliefert ist, vor

Augen hatte ''. Cf. K lijn, Jewish-Christian, 117, n. 149 : ``It is out of the

question that Rufinus is thought to have a better knowledge of this pas-

sage ''.

69. Greek MS(S) D and minuscule 1071, the Syro-Palestinian lectionary,

two Dutch MS(S) of the Diatessaron, and the early third-century Syrian

apocryphal Didascalia. Ehebrecherin, 95-96, ``In allen diesen Texten wird,

wie in unserem Eusebzitat, nie ausdru cklich von der spezifischen Su nde der

Frau gesprochen, obwohl es keinem Zweifel unterliegt, dass in jedem Falle

die Ehebrecherinperikope gemeint ist ''.

70. Ehebrecherin, 96-98. B ecker cites the use of technical legal terminology
(diaballeshai + epi) and the presence of features characteristic of court

proceedings in the Johannine PA : the appearance of Jesus as a judge in a le-

gal hearing, the entrance of witnesses as accusers, the members of the court

seated in a semi-circle with the accused in the middle, Jesus ' initial call for

the penalty of stoning, and his final enunciation of the verdict as the presid-

ing judge. B ecker finds further confirmation of this judicial parallel in what
he considers to be the earliest known exegete of the PA, the late second-, ear-

ly third-century Didascalia apostolorum (see discussion below) that contains

an account of the PA in which the elders specifically transfer their power of

judgment over the sinful woman to Jesus : eteran de tina ymartykuian esty-

san oi presbuteroi emproshen autou, kai ep ' autw

hemenoi tyn krisin
exylhon, ibid., 126. Cf. 98, ``Ohne Zweifel wird bei diesem a ltesten uns be-
70 g. zervos

Schilling and Klijn (see above) in rejecting the notion that Euse-

bius ' sinful woman is not the Johannine adulteress but the wom-
71
an who anointed Jesus ' feet in Luke 7 :36-50 . Among the

reasons given by Becker for his position are : 1) Eusebius knows

the Lucan passage in other contexts, and 2) since Luke 7 :36-50

forms its own section in the Eusebian Gospel Canons and Euse-

bius mentions it, he would not refer to it again as a separate

72
story in Papias ' work . R. Schnackenburg - who considers the

PA to be a ``non-Johannine interpolation '' that ``does not be-

73
long to the original fabric of John 's gospel '' - sees several

agreements between the PA and the story contained in Luke

74
7 :36-50 . Although he finally accepts Becker 's assessment,

Schnackenburg takes Becker to task for not emphasizing suffi-

ciently the Lucan character of the PA : ``Becker is probably right

when he rejects (pp. 70-1) the often-made suggestion of a Lucan

origin for the passage, but its close relationship to the Lucan
75
tradition, both in style and content, remains undeniable '' .
76
Ehrman and Luhrmann also specifically reject Becker 's as-

sociation of the Papias/Eusebius reference with the PA in John.

Ehrman 's analysis of the witness of Eusebius begins with the as-

sertion that Eusebius ' labeling of the story in Papias as allyn

i storian 77
(``another story '') indicates that ``Papias did not sim-

ply allude to an already familiar story but narrated the account

kannten Exegeten unserer Geschichte, wie auch im Eusebzitat, diese juristi-

sche Seite auffa lig betont, und man geht wohl nicht zu weit, wenn man in

dieser U bereinstimmung einen gemeinsamen Zug der a ltesten Auslegen er-

kennen zu ko
nnen glaubt : Im Mittelpunkt steht der Christus iudex ''.

71. Ibid., 68-70.

72. Ibid., 98. ``Aber die Erza hlung aus Lc 7 36 ff. scheidet schon deshalb

von vornherein aus, weil Euseb sie nachweislich kennt. Sie bildet einen eige-

nen Abschnitt innerhalb seiner Kanones und wird in seiner Schrift `U ber die

Theophanie ' (180, 24), wenn auch nur sehr am Rande, erwa hnt. Es ware des-

halb fur Euseb ein Leichtes gewesen, in der Erzahlung des Papias die Szene

von Lc 7 36 ff. wiederzuerkennen - einer besonderen Erwa hnung in seinem

Geschichtswerk hatte es dann nicht bedurft ''.

73. The Gospel According to John (New York : The Seabury Press, 1980),

vol. 2, 162.

74. Gospel, 2 :480, n. 105. ``The unjohannine style of the whole pericope is

so obvious that we may forego detailed demonstration ; Becker gives a thor-

ough treatment, op. cit. pp. 44-74, which also brings out the close relation-

ship to the Lucan style ''.

75. Gospel, 2 :163 ; 480, n. 106. Cf. Ehrman, ``Jesus '', 28-29.

76. ``Geschichte '', 305, ``Euseb konnte aber die Perikope von der Ehebreche-

rin Joh. 8 :3-11 wohl gar nicht als Teil des Johannesevangeliums kennen, und

er konnte sie deshalb auch nicht vergleichen mit dem, was er bei Papias las ''.

77. Hist. eccl. 3, 39, 17.

 caught in the act 71

78
in full '' . Although he agrees with most scholars that ``it is not

clear from Eusebius 's statement whether Papias had found the
story in the Gospel according to the Hebrews or whether Euse-
79
bius himself had '' , Ehrman determines that ``while the syntax

of the sentence allows for either possibility, the context suggests

80
that it was Eusebius who made the identification '' . In support

of this position Ehrman argues that Papias ' stated preference

81
for oral, as opposed to written, tradition ``suggests that his

story of Jesus and the adulteress derived from the reports of the

`elders ' rather than from a written Gospel '' and that ``Eusebius

otherwise relates only those traditions that Papias had drawn

82
from such oral sources '' . Ehrman concludes that ``Papias

probably learned the story of Jesus and the adulteress through

early Christian tradents, and Eusebius recognized it as the story

83
found in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. '' Luhrmann is
84
critical of Ehrman in many respects , but is in essential agree-

ment with him that the story of the sinful woman referred by

Eusebius as being from the Gos. Heb. is the same as that known
85
to Didymus .

4) The Apocrypha

After appropriately demonstrating the dismal lack of support

for the PA in the first three categories of witnesses, i.e., the

Greek MS(S), versions, and patristic references, Petersen rightly

points out that the oldest evidence for the PA lies in the fourth
86
category, the non-canonical documents of early Christianity .

But as the quest for the origins of this enigmatic story reaches

back in time from the patristic to the apocryphal categories of

early Christian literature, the trail divides into two paths, one

leading to Egypt and the Gos. Heb. via the Papias/Eusebius tra-
dition, and the other leading to Syria, the Didascalia apostolo-
rum, and the Prot. Jas.

78. ``Jesus '', 29.

79. Cf. Klijn, Jewish-Christian, 119, n. 157, for the position that ``this in-
formation was not given by Papias himself ''.

80. ``Jesus '', 29.

81. Hist. eccl. 3, 39, 4, ou gar ta ek tw n bibliwn tosouton me wfelei n upe-

lambanon oson ta para zwsyq fwnyq kai menousyq.
82. ``Jesus '', 29.

83. Ibid., 29-30.

84. See above, p. 65-66 ; cf. `` Geschichte '', 291, n. 11, 298, 301, 308.

85. Ibid., 307, ``Mir scheint jedoch die Hypothese begrundet genug, da die
Geschichte von der Su nderin bei Didymos jene Geschichte aus dem He-

braerevangelium ist, auf die Euseb sich bezieht ''.

86. Sayings, 202-203.

72 g. zervos

The Gospel According to the Hebrews

The important role played by the apocryphal Gos. Heb. in the

pursuit of the origins of the PA is clear from its identification by

Eusebius as the source of Papias ' story about a sinful woman.

But Becker, attempting to associate the PA more closely with

the gospel of John, argues against Eusebius ' direct knowledge

87
of the Gos. Heb. in connection with the PA . For Becker, the re-

ports about the Gos. Heb. in the Hist. eccl. are but ``hearsay ''

because he considers Eusebius to be dependent upon other sour-

ces for information about the Gos. Heb. According to Becker

even the title itself is hardly more than a collective name for tra-

ditional Jewish-Christian material that Eusebius took over from

88
Clement of Alexandria and Origen . In Becker 's analysis, Pa-

pias is the earliest witness to the PA ; Eusebius read about the

pericope in Papias ' Exegesis of the Dominical Sayings and

89
thought that the Gos. Heb. was Papias ' source for this passage .

Ehrman, however, successfully challenges Becker 's contention

that Eusebius knew the Gos. Heb. only from non-canonical Jew-

ish-Christian traditions. Ehrman cites several instances in the

Hist. eccl. where Eusebius refers to the Gos. Heb. as a literary

90
work : 1) in Hist. eccl. 3, 25, 5, Eusebius states that the Gos.

Heb. is not canonical but that Jewish Christians take a particu-

91
lar delight in it , 2) in Hist. eccl. 3, 27, 4, Eusebius says that the
92
Gos. Heb. is the only gospel used by the Ebionites and, 3) in

Hist. eccl. 4, 22, 8, Eusebius reports that Hegesippus used the

87. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 100-101 ; Klijn, Jewish-Christian, 11.

88. Ehebrecherin, 101, ``Euseb den Titel to kah ' iEbraiouq euaggelion bei

Clemens Alexandrinus und Origenes schon festgefu gt vorgefunden und so

ubernommen hat. Er kann deshalb fu r ihn kaum mehr als ein blosser Sam-

+
melname fur judenchristliche Traditionsstoffe sein ''.

89. Ibid., 103, ``Papias ( 125) ist der a lteste Zeuge fur die Perikope von der

n exygyseiq hat Euseb sie gelesen.

Ehebrecherin. In seinen logiwn kuriakw

Dabei war er der Ansicht, des Papias Quelle fu r diese Perikope sei das He-

braer-Evangelium gewesen ''.

90. Ehrman, ``Jesus '', 40, n. 28.

91. y dy d ' en toutoiq [toiq nohoiq] tineq kai to kah ' iEbraiouq euaggelion
malista iEbraiwn oi ton Jriston paradexamenoi jairousin.
katelexan, w
92. outoi de tou men a postolou pampan taq epistolaq arnyteaq ygounto
einai dein, apostatyn apokalounteq auton tou nomou, euaggeliw
de monw

kah ' iEbraiouq legomenw
tw jrwmenoi, tw n smikron epoiounto lo-
n loipw
gon.
 caught in the act 73

93
Gos. Heb. along with other, unwritten, Jewish traditions . The

evidence of these passages supports Ehrman 's contention (see

above) that Eusebius recognized Papias ' story of the sinful

woman from the document he knew as the Gos. Heb.

Cumulatively the attestations to the existence of the Gos.
Heb. by the early Egyptian ecclesiastical writers Clement of
94 95 96
Alexandria , Origen , and Didymus suggest that this apocry-

phal gospel was known generally and exclusively in Egypt as

97
early as the second century . The seven fragments of the Gos.
98
Heb. that have survived contain a life of Jesus that seems to

have been a combination of pre-canonical Christian material

99
and Hellenistic Jewish ideas from traditions in the LXX . Of

93. ek te tou kah ' iEbraiouq euaggeliou kai tou Suriakou kai idiwq ek

tyq iEbraidoq dialektou tina tihysin, emfainwn ex Ebraiwn eauton pepis-
`
teukenai, kai alla de w q ex Ioudaikyq agrafou paradosewq mnymoneuei.
94. Strom. , 2, 9, 45, kan tw kah ' iEbraiouq euaggeliw
o haumasaq ba-

sileusei gegraptai kai o basileusaq a napaysetai ; 5, 14, 96, Ou pause-

tai o zytw n, ewq an eur eurwn de hambyhysetai, hambyheiq de basileu
sei, basileusaq de epanapaysetai.
95. Comm. on Jn. 2, 12, iEan de prosiytai tiq to kah ' iEbraiouq euagge-
lion, enha autoq o swtyr fysin iArti elabe me y mytyr mou, to agion
pneuma, en mia tw
n trijw n mou kai apynegke me eiq to oroq to mega
Habwr, epaporysei, pw q mytyr Jristou to dia tou logou gegenyme

non pneuma agion einai dunatai Hom. on Jer. 15, 4, Oimoi egw, myter, w q
tina me etekeq ; tina legei mytera ; ouk en gunaixi dunatai kai tyn vujyn
legein kai tyn Marian ei de tiq paradejetai to arti elabe me y mytyr
mou to agion pneuma, kai anynegke me eiq to oroq to mega to Habwr kai
ta exyq, dunatai autou idein tyn mytera.
96. Michael Gronewald (with A. Gesche ), ed. and trans., Didymus der
Blinde , Psalmenkommentar : Kommentar zu Psalm 29 - 34 (Band 8, Teil III
in Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen ; eds. Ludwig Koenen and Re-

inhold Merkelbach ; Bonn : Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 1969), 198, kai o Hwma q
legetai kai Didumoq. kai pollai ge eisin toiautai diwnumiai ton Mahhaion
dokei en tw kata Loukan Leuin onomazein. ouk estin de autoq alla o ka-
tastaheiq anti tou iIouda. o Mahhiaq kai o Leuiq eiq diwnumoi eisin. en tw

kah ' iEbraiouq euaggeliw
touto fainetai. Cf. Ehrman, ``Jesus '', 30.
97. Philipp Vielhauer and Georg Strecker, ``The Gospel of the He-

brews '', in New Testament Apocrypha (rev. ed. ; ed. Wilhelm Schneemel-
cher ; Eng. trans. ed. Robert McLachlan Wilson ; Louisville, Kentucky :

Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), vol. 1, 172-78 ; Klijn, Jewish-Chris-

tian, 31-33 ; Johannes Quasten, Patrology (Utrecht-Antwerp : Spectrum
Publishers, 1950 ; repr. 1975), 112 ; J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Tes-
tament (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1993), 5.
98. Klijn, Jewish-Christian, 36-40 ; texts and commentary on 47-55, 79-86,
98-102 ; Vielhauer, ``Hebrews '', 177-78.

99. Klijn, Jewish-Christian , 37 ; cf. Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy

in Earliest Christianity (eds. Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Krodel ; trans.
Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins ; Philadelphia : Fortress, 1971 ;

repr., Mifflintown, PA : Sigler Press, 1996) ; trans. of second German edition

74 g. zervos

particular interest is the prominent role played in this document

by James the Just, who is depicted, not100only as the leader of
early Jewish Christianity in Jerusalem , but also as being
present at the last supper and as the recipient of an individual,
personal appearance by the resurrected Jesus who even breaks
communion bread with his brother101. Ambiguous statements
by the ancient witnesses to the Gos. Heb. have made it difficult
to distinguish this document from the other early Jewish-Chris-
tian gospels102, and have caused intriguing questions to be raised
about a possible relationship between the Gos. Heb. (and by as-
sociation the PA) and the Gos. Thom.103. Becker's case in favor

of Rechtglaubigkeit und Ketzerei im altesten Christentum (ed. Georg Strec-

ker; BHT 10; Go ttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1964), 51-53. The Gos.
Heb. is independent of the canonical gospels, but includes New Testament
themes such as the baptism and resurrection of Jesus, Klijn, Jewish-Chris-
tian, 39; Vielhauer , ``Hebrews'', 172-76. The Gos. Heb. is described as a
Jewish-Christian wisdom gospel made up of mythological syncretistic-gnos-
tic elements.
100. In this respect, the Gos. Heb. is in accord with Gal. 2; Acts 15; 21:18f.,
and Hegesippus via Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2, 23, 4-18.
101. Fragment 7, Vielhauer , ``Hebrews'', 178; K , Jewish-Christian,
lijn

79-86.
102. For the confusion between the three generally recognized Jewish-Chris-
tian gospels, the Gos. Heb., the Gos. Eb., and the Gos. Naz., see Bauer, Or-
thodoxy, 51; Klijn, Jewish-Christian, 1-12; Philipp Vielhauer and Georg
Strecker , ``Jewish-Christian Gospels'', in New Testament Apocrypha (rev.
ed.; ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher; Eng. trans. ed. Robert McLachlan Wil-

son ; Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster / John Knox Press, 1991), vol. 1,

134-53; William L. Petersen , ``A New Testimonium to a Judaic-Christian
Gospel Fragment from a Hymn of Romanos the Melodist'', VC 50 (1996),
105.
103. Particularly tantalizing is Eusebius' statement in Hist. eccl. 3, 39, 14
(cf. 4, 7), that Papias' Logiwn Kuriakwn i Exygysewq (Exegesis of the Do-
minical Logia) contained first-hand ``reports on the words of the Lord'' ( tw n
tou Kuriou logwn diygyseiq) from Aristion and traditions from John the el-
der. This text is immediately followed, first, in Hist. eccl. 3, 39, 15-16, by the
famous quotations of Papias on the origin and character of the Gospel of
Mark and on the Logia of Jesus that were composed by Matthew in Hebrew
and interpreted by e kastoq (``each one'') as he was able, Aland , Synopsis,
531, and second, in Hist. eccl. 3, 39, 17, by Eusebius' reference to Papias'
story of an adulteress with its specific attribution to the Gos. Heb. The close
proximity of this series of passages encourages speculation that Aristion -
who was known personally by Papias, and who, together with John the el-
der, is described by Papias as tou Kuriou mahytai (``disciples of the Lord'')
- may have been one of these interpreters of the Logia, since apparently he
was involved in the editing and transmission of early gospel materials. Cf.
Conybeare's speculation on Aristion's literary activities with respect to the
PA, ``Verses'', 409-14.
 caught in the act 75

104
of this possibility is categorically rejected by Ehrman . Lu
hr-

mann, however, assuming a mediating position on this issue,

identifies the Gos. Thom. in question, not as the famous Coptic

text from Nag Hammadi, but as a Manichean document of the

105
same name . Luhrmann 's position effectively neutralizes the

Papias/Eusebius reference as a witness to the PA, thus leaving

to the Didascalia Apostolorum the distinction of being the ear-

liest witness to the story of the adulteress.

The Didascalia Apostolorum

Before the publication of Petersen 's article scholars generally

agreed that, given the ambiguity of the Papias/Eusebius refer-

ence and its connection to the Gos. Heb., the oldest independent

witness to the Johannine form of the PA was the early Greek

106
church order known as the Didascalia apostolorum . Becker re-

gards the Didascalia as the one document above all others that

allows the origins of the PA to be fixed in time and space with

some certainty. Accepting the general opinion of the Didascalia

as an early third-century Syrian document, Becker views the PA

as the product of an environment in which various Jewish and

Jewish-Christian groups existed in close contact - but also in

107 108
sharp disagreement - with each other . Both Ehrman and es-

104. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 145-50, argues for this connection from a mar-
ginal note in the eleventh-century Greek minuscule MS 1006 which states

concerning John 7 :53-8 :11 : to kefalaion touto tou kata Hwman euagge-
liou estin (``this chapter is of the gospel according to Thomas '') ; cf.

Ehrman, ``Jesus '', 40, n. 25 : ``Becker 's claim . . . that at one time or another
the Nag Hammadi GTh probably did contain the story must be considered

nothing short of remarkable ''. See also Vielhauer and Strecker, N.T.

Apocrypha, vol. 1, 173, on the relationship between the Gos. Heb. and the

Gos. Thom.

105. ``Geschichte '', 310, ``Mit der Perikope von der Ehebrecherin Joh. 8 :3-

11 verbindet sich gelegentlich der Hinweis, sie stamme aus einem Thomas

evangelium. Damit kann nicht das in koptischer Sprache ganz, griechisch

teilweise erhaltene Thomasevangelium aus Nag Hammadi gemeint sein, in

dem sich nichts auch nur entfernt Verwandtes findet. Es hat aber wohl bei

den Manicha ern ein anderes Thomasevangelium gegeben '' ; cf. his appendix,

ibid., 312-16.

106. Petersen, Sayings, 202-203, n. 45. Cf. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 124-26,

for more extensive bibliography and parallel texts of the extant versions of

this document.

107. Ehebrecherin, 124-26, ``Man neigt heute allgemein dazu, sie in der ers-

ten Halfte des 3. Jh. Entstanden zu denken... Als Entstehungsort nimmt

man mit guten Gru nden Coelesyrien oder vorsichtiger den Bereich und ju di-

scher zwischen Antiochien und Edessa an, die Heimat verschiedener juden-

christlicher Gruppen, mit denen die Gemeinde der Didaskalia im engen

76 g. zervos

109
pecially Lu hrmann consider the Didascalia apostolorum to be

the earliest reliable witness to the PA, but assess differently its

significance within the history of the adulteress tradition. Ehr-

man maintains that originally the PA existed in two different

forms stemming from two separate traditions ; a third form

110
came into being later as a conflation of the first two . He views

as inauthentic the first form, which originated in the Egyptian

111
Gos. Heb. and was used by Didymus . But Ehrman has a high

opinion of the antiquity and authenticity of the second form of

the PA, which he associates with Papias and the Syrian Didasca-
112
lia apostolorum . Noting the ``radical divergences '' of the ver-

sion of the PA in Didymus from that in the Didascalia, Ehrman

resurrects the hypothesis of Theodor Zahn who ``used some of

these differences to argue that the Didascalia preserves an early

113
pre-literary form of the PA '' .

Kontakt, aber auch in scharfer Auseinandersetzung lebte. Hier ist also zu

Beginn des 3. Jh. die Ehebrecherinperikope bekannt gewesen ''.

108. ``Jesus '', 32, ``The only other exposition of the PA in a source that pre-

dates its incorporation into an extant MS of John : the Didascalia apostolo-

rum ''.

109. ``Geschichte '', 310-11, ``Der fru heste Beleg fur die Perikope von der

Ehebrecherin Joh. 8 :3-11 wa re also die Didaskalia aus dem 3. Jhdt., nicht

Papias ''. Burge, ``Problem '', 143, also cites the Didascalia and the Papias /

Eusebius reference as the only two sources that support the antiquity of the

PA ; he concludes that ``the only certain eastern witness of antiquity comes

from the Syrian Didascalia ''.

110. ``Jesus '', 34-38.

111. Ibid., 35, ``Despite its resemblances to certain traditions found in the

Synoptic Gospels, this account does not bear the marks of historical authen-

ticity. The scene appears contrived and Jesus ' words have an unrealistically

immediate and striking effect ''.

112. Ibid., 35, Ehrman asserts that this story, unlike the first, ``bears a close

resemblance to the controversy dialogues of the Synoptic traditions '' and

``has a decided air of authenticity ''.

113. Ibid., 33 and 41, n. 43. Ehrman is indebted to Zahn, Das Evangelium

des Johannes (Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 4 ; Leipzig : A. Deichert,

1908), 712-18, for his own theory of two earlier versions of the PA, although

he does not accept all the details of Zahn 's argument ; cf. ibid., 716, ``Es

wu
rden hiernach zwei von einander unabha ngige Kana le der Tradition zu

unterscheiden sein. Der eine fu hrte den Stoff aus der mu ndlichen Tradition

der judischen Christenheit Pala stinas in das HE der Nazara er und von da

zum Vf der Didasc. ; der andere aus den mu ndlichen Erza hlungen der ``Ju n-

ger des Herrn '' in der Provinz Asien in das Werk des Papias und wahrschein-

lich aus diesem an die Stelle zwischen Jo 7, 52 und 8, 12 und dadurch

schlielich zur allgemeinen Kenntnis der Christenheit ''. See ``Jesus '', 41-42,

n. 42, for Ehrman 's criticism of Becker 's rejoinder to Zahn ( Ehebrecherin,

128-30) ; and 34, n. 46, for Ehrman 's arguments against suggestions that the

PA found in the Didascalia is merely a paraphrase of the canonical story.

 caught in the act 77

The difference of opinion between Ehrman and Lu hrmann on

the history of the PA is attributable, at least partly, to their di-

vergent assessments of the value of the witness of the Didascalia.

Ehrman 's interpretation of the canonical PA as the conflation of

two earlier versions of the story of the adulteress is founded upon

114
his more positive appraisal of the Didascalia . Lu
hrmann, how-

ever, rejects Ehrman 's identification of the story found in the Di-
115
dascalia as a distinct version of the PA . Luhrmann agrees with

Ehrman in accepting the connection between the versions of the

PA found in Didymus and the Gos. Heb. as related by Euse-

116
bius . But he disagrees with Ehrman 's positive estimation of

the authenticity and antiquity of the underlying tradition of this

adulteress story. Whereas to Ehrman this version of the story

``appears to be very ancient and has as good a claim to authentic-

ity as any of its Synoptic parallels, '' Lu hrmann views the story

found in Didymus and the Gos. Heb., not as a variant, but as an

117
earlier and more original version of the PA . Lu
hrmann be-

lieves that this story underwent a revision in the second half of

118
the second century and later came to be included in the gospel
119
of John . Lu
hrmann objects that Ehrman 's association of the

PA with Didymus and the Gos. Heb. via the Papias/Eusebius

reference would effectively relegate the Didymus story to that of

120
a secondary version . Luhrmann asserts that Didymus ' story

itself does not represent a direct ``Vorlage '' of the Johannine PA

but shows that the canonical PA had a previous history and de-
121
veloped through more intermediate stages .

114. Ibid., 37-38, ``The scope and content of the traditional account suggest

that when the two earlier stories were conflated, one of them - that repre-

sented by the Didascalia - provided the controls for the other ''.

115. Ibid., 301, ``Daher erlaubt der Text nicht den Ru ckschluss, da es eine

Fassung gegeben habe, die nur den Dialog mit der Frau enthielt ''.

116. See above, n. 85.

117. Ibid., 311, ``Die Geschichte aus dem Hebra erevangelium, die Didymos

zitiert, ist nicht eine Variante, sondern eine Vorform davon ''.

118. Ibid., ``Joh. 8 :3-11 ist daher wohl erst in der zweiten Ha lfte des 2.

Jhdt.s. als Neufassung der a lteren Geschichte entstanden ''.

119. Ibid., 312, ``Didymus... eine Geschichte wiedergibt, die weder eine in

Handschriften des Johannesevangeliums u berlieferte Fassung von Joh. 8 :3-

11 noch eine bloe Anspielung darauf ist, sondern eine urspru nglichere

Form der Perikope von der Ehebrecherin, ein neuer Text apokrypher Jesus-

uberlieferung, der alter ist als die Fassung, die spa ter in das Johannesevange-

lium aufgenommen worden ist ''.

120. Ibid., 301, ``Die Geschichte bei Didymos gar keine Rolle mehr spielt,

sondern lediglich als eine sekunda re Fassung behandelt wird ''.

121. Ibid., 302, ``Der neue Fund [Didymus] zeigt hingegen, da die Perikope

von der Ehebrecherin Joh. 8 :3-11 eine Vorgeschichte gehabt hat, auch wenn
78 g. zervos

The Pericope Adulterae and the Protevangelium of James

Petersen criticizes Ehrman and Lu hrmann, and indeed all pre-

vious scholarly attempts to reconstruct the history of the PA,

for proceeding ``on the assumption that the oldest evidence for

the story (excluding the ambiguous Papias/Eusebius report) is

the third-century Didascalia apostolorum ; in doing so, they have

ignored or dismissed the most ancient evidence for the pericope

122
adulterae '' . Petersen 's ``most ancient evidence '' for the PA is

the Prot. Jas. in which occurs a nearly exact parallel to a phrase

in John. 8 :11, ``neither do I [condemn] judge you ''. Prot. Jas.

16 :3 reads, ``neither do I [condemn] judge you [two] ''.

Prot. Jas. 16 :3 oude e gw [kata]krinw umaq

John 8 :11 oude e gw se [kata]krinw

The relevant phrase in Prot. Jas. 16 :3 differs from its Johan-

nine counterpart only in substituting the second person plural

form of the personal pronoun umaq (``you two '') for the second
person singular form se (``you '') in the Johannine verse, and in
displacing the personal pronoun from its position before the

verb [ kata]krinw in John 8 :11 to its location after the same verb
at the end of Prot. Jas. 16 :3. Within the context of John 8 :11

these words are being spoken to the adulteress, whereas in Prot.

Jas. 16 :3 they are directed at Mary and Joseph who were like-

wise under suspicion of adultery. Petersen regards this parallel

phrase in the Prot. Jas. as evidence of the antiquity of the Jo-

hannine version of the PA : ``We are driven to conclude that

some sort of dependence exists between the Protevangelium and

123
the pericope adulterae '' .

Petersen conducts a critical survey of the history of scholarly

disregard for the Prot. Jas. in which he takes to task a series of

researchers who either ignored completely or misinterpreted the

evidence of this apocryphon in their search for the origins of the

124
PA . After attesting that none of the over forty major com-

mentaries in English, French, German, and Dutch that he con-

sulted even mention the parallel between Prot. Jas. 16 :3 and

John 8 :11, Petersen credits F. C. Conybeare as the first scholar

wir mit dieser Fassung nicht eine direkete ``Vorlage '' vor uns haben. Wu rde

man u
berlieferungsgeschichtlich fragen, mu ssten mehrere Zwischenstufen

angenommen werden ''.

122. Sayings, 203.

123. Ibid., 207.

124. Ibid., 208-210.

 caught in the act 79

125
to comment on this connection . But, after Conybeare, Peter-

sen finds little to praise in the efforts of other scholars who com-

mented on this parallel. A. Meyer, whose ``negative appraisal

sets the tone for subsequent scholarship '', dismisses the possibil-

ity of a Prot. Jas. / John connection because he ``presumes the

point under investigation (viz., that John did not originally con-
126
tain the pericope adulterae) '' . Meyer 's flawed reasoning is re-

produced by H. Bakels, who exhibits an ``obvious reluctance ''

to accept any dependence of the Prot. Jas. on John because he

has concluded a priori that the PA was not originally part of

John. Bakels denies the Prot. Jas. / John link, according to Pe-

tersen, because he erroneously dates John around 125 and the

127
Prot. Jas. before the year 100 . These earlier scholars who

wrote before the advent of form criticism are partially excused

by Petersen, but not so W. Michaelis. Michaelis did live in the

age of form criticism but still rejected any connection between

John 8 :11 and the Prot. Jas. with a single terse, unsupported re-
128
mark, ``no connection '' (``kaum Zusammenhang '') . Petersen

asks, ```Kaum ' ? One wonders what is required for `Zusammen-

hang, ' if not the virtually verbatim literary parallel and form-
129
critical congruity between the two sources ! '' .

125. Ibid., 208. In his investigation of certain passages - including the PA -

that were excluded from the earliest Armenian copies of the New Testament,

``On the Last Twelve Verses of Mark 's Gospel '', The Expositor, fifth series

(1895), 405-406, Conybeare observes that only one ancient Armenian

MS(S), the Edschmiadzin codex of 989, contains the PA in its traditional lo-

cation following John 7 :52. Conybeare also notes, ibid., 416, that the

Edschmiadzin codex does not contain the concluding words of Jesus - ``nei-

ther do I condemn thee. Go, and sin no more '' - that are found in the ending

of the ``ordinary text '' of John 8 :11. Within the context of this discussion

Conybeare observes that Jesus ' statement also occurs in the Prot. Jas.

where ``almost the same words are addressed by the priest to Joseph and

Mary, when he is acquitted of the charge of having neglected to guard the

virgin committed to his keeping, and she the charge of having lost her puri-

ty ''. Petersen does not blame Conybeare for failing to pursue this connec-
tion because his purpose was to examine the ending of the gospel of Mark

and not the PA.

126. Ibid., 208-209, Petersen summarizes Meyer 's faulty logic : ``The lite-
rary parallel to John 8 :11 in the Protevangelium need not be taken as evi-

dence of the presence of the pericope adulterae in John, because

``ursprunglich '' [originally] the pericope adulterae was not part of John '', in

``Protevangelium des Jacobus '', Handbuch zu den neutestamentlichen Apo-

kryphen (ed. E. Hennecke ; Tubingen : Mohr, 1904), 124.

127. Sayings, 209, with bibliography for Bakels in n. 64.
128. Ibid., with bibliography for Michaelis in n. 65.

129. Ibid.
80 g. zervos

But Petersen reserves his most severe criticism for Becker

who gives short shrift to the possibility of a relationship between

the Johannine PA and the Prot. Jas. in his monograph which is

130
dedicated entirely to the story of the adulteress. Becker does

make use of form criticism to analyze the John/ Prot. Jas. paral-

lel and succeeds in identifying three ``points of congruity '' be-

131
tween the two texts . However, although acknowledging a

certain similarity (``eine gewisse | hnlichkeit '') in the scenario of

the two stories, Becker rejects the three ``points of congruity '' as

insufficient proof of the use of the PA by the author of the Prot.

132
Jas. . Petersen accuses Becker of rendering the John/ Prot.

Jas. link superfluous by attempting ``to dilute his own form-crit-

ical findings '' with the ``purely rhetorical argument '' that the

Prot. Jas. has the theme of the innocent, defamed woman in

common with the Susanna story in the apocryphal additions to

the Old Testament book of Daniel and with other unspecified

133
``popular narratives '' . Petersen ends his survey of scholars

who ignored or misinterpreted the John/ Prot. Jas. parallel with

Luhrmann, who is worthy of reproach because he ``was aware

134
of the Protevangelium 's evidence, but dismissed it '' , and per-

haps more importantly, because he ``dismissed it, referring the

135
reader to Becker 's argumentation '' .

By discounting ``the fallacious logic of Meyer '', ``the errone-

ous dating of the Protevangelium by Bakels '', and ``Becker 's

purely rhetorical argument '', Petersen ``is left with only one sub-

stantive argument against dependence [of the Prot. Jas. on

John], and that is Becker 's assertion that use of John in the Pro-
136
tevangelium is `nicht nachweisbar ' [not demonstrable] '' . Beck-

er 's ``one substantive argument '' against the Prot. Jas. / John

connection becomes the only obstacle to Petersen 's developing

130. Ehebrecherin, 117-119.

131. Ibid., 118 ; Petersen, Sayings, 209, n. 66.

132. Ehebrecherin, 118, ``Um einen Beweis fu r die Benutzung der Ehebre-

cherinperikope im Protevgl. Jakobi zu fu hren, reichen diese Parallelen frei-

lich nicht aus ''.

133. Petersen, Sayings, 210 ; Becker, Ehebrecherin, 118, ``Die Szene aus

dem Protevgl. Jakobi motivgeschichtlich in einen ganz anderen Zusammen-

hang gehort. Das Motiv der unschuldig verleumdeten Frau hat das Protevgl.

Jakobi mit der Susanna-Geschichte, dem apokryphen Zusatz zu Daniel, und

anderen volkstumlichen Erzahlungen gemeinsam ''.

134. Sayings, 207, n. 60.

135. Ibid., 210 ; cf. ``Geschichte '', 311, n. 103, ``Die in A. 12 gennante Paral-

lele Protevangelium Jacobi 16, 3 kann nicht als Zitat betrachtet warden ; vgl.

Ulrich Becker ''.

136. Sayings, 210 ; cf. Becker, Ehebrecherin, 119, ``Eine Benutzung des vier-

ten Evangelisten im Protevgl. Jacobi nicht nachweisbar ist ''.

 caught in the act 81

position in favor of this connection and with a further inclina-

tion towards a closer association of the PA with John itself. In

support of this position Petersen calls to witness a second possi-

137
ble parallel between the Prot. Jas. and John . The texts in
138
question are John 20 :25, in which the apostle Thomas will

not believe that the other apostles saw the risen Jesus unless he

puts his finger in the holes made by the nails in Jesus ' hands,

and Prot. Jas. 19 :3, in which Salome also will not believe that
Jesus ' mother remained a virgin after giving birth unless she

physically examines her as well. In both cases the doubters, Tho-

mas and Salome, respectively, utter the identical Greek phrase,

e an my balw ton daktulon mou (``unless I put my finger ''), to

declare that they must perform a digital examination of their

subject before they will believe. Petersen rightly observes that

the ``literary parallelism is . . . beyond dispute, '' but he still must

determine ``whether this passage is genuinely part of the Prote-

vangelium and, if so, if there are any textual variants which
139
might affect its use as a parallel for John 20 :25 '' .

While Petersen is certainly justified in criticizing scholars for

neglecting the Prot. Jas. in their reconstructions of the history

140
of the PA , his own approach to the Prot. Jas. has a similar ef-
fect. Even as he is stating his case in favor of the Prot. Jas. as an
important early witness to the PA, Petersen minimizes the sig-

nificance of its witness by conducting his analysis of the rela-

tionship between the Prot. Jas. and John within the constraints
of the ``received '' scholarly understanding of the place of the

Prot. Jas. in ancient Christian literature. Petersen confines his

examination of this important parallel within the parameters of

the ``communis opinion '' that ``the Protevangelium Jacobi is an

apocryphal Christian romance, dating from the second half of
141
the second century '' , Petersen validates this date and charac-

ter of the Prot. Jas. by citing exclusively and without question

the very source that has been most influential in establishing

that consensus of opinion, E mile de Strycker 's La forme la plus

137. Cf. Sayings , 211, n. 70, for a list of previous publications that make
note of this parallel.

138. See discussion below for some interesting references to a possible

connection between the PA and the Thomas tradition.

139. Sayings, 212.

140. Ibid., 219-21.
141. Ibid., 204. See B ecker, Ehebrecherin, 117, ``Um die Mitte des 2. Jh.,
auf jeden Fall vor 200 enstanden '', and n. 1, ``Das ist communis opinio der
neueren Forschung '', with bibliography.
82 g. zervos

142
ancienne du Prote vangile de Jacques . By accepting de Stryck-

er 's date for the Prot. Jas. Petersen in effect ``moves back the

date for the first reference to the [PA] story from the third cen-

tury (the date of the Didascalia apostolorum) to the second half

of the second century - or between fifty and one hundred years

143
earlier '' . But by subscribing to de Strycker 's dating, as well as

to his position on the Prot. Jas. in general, Petersen renders him-

self unable to conduct a fresh, unbiased assessment of the rele-

vance of the Prot. Jas. that could appreciably inform his own
144
attempt to reconstruct the earliest history of the PA .

Had Petersen judged de Strycker by the same stringent stand-

ards that he applied to the other scholars who investigated the

problem of the PA, his work would be even more valuable. But

instead, his acceptance of, and adherence to, de Strycker 's inter-

pretations leads Petersen into the same ``a priori reasoning '' that
145
he finds so reprehensible in Meyer . Commenting on the simi-

lar literary technique by which the two Johannine parallels were

added to the Prot. Jas., Petersen observes : ``In each case, a few

words of direct speech have been lifted from passages which are

now part of John - and only known through John - and are in-

serted into the mouths of different people - but in situations

146
which are form-critically identical - in the Protevangelium '' .

Petersen explains his statement :

142. (Subsidia Hagiographica 33 ; Brussels, 1961). Petersen, Sayings, 204,

n(n). 48, 49.

143. Ibid., 207-208. Petersen thus advances his argument for the antiquity

and originality of the story ; cf. 214, ``By now it should be clear that we can

trace the existence of certain constitutive elements of the Johannine pericope

adulterae - including oude e gw se [kata]krinw - to the last half of the se-

cond century, if not earlier ''.

144. Ironically, at the beginning of his analysis of the compositional and

textual status of verse 16 :3 within the Prot. Jas. as a whole, Petersen seems

to be aware of the insufficiency of de Strycker 's critical edition of the

Greek text of the Prot. Jas. While investigating a variant reading for the text

of Prot. Jas. 16 :3 among the Greek MS(S) Petersen finds a discrepancy be-

tween de Strycker 's 1961 edition, which is generally considered to be the

standard critical Greek text of the Prot. Jas., and C. von Tischendorf 's

1876 critical text, Evangelia apocrypha (Leipzig 1876, 2ed. ; repr. Hildesheim

1966). The reading katakrinw (``condemn '') for krinw (``judge '') in the

eleventh-century MS ``E '' (Paris, Bib. Nat., 1468) is noted in Tischendorf 's

critical apparatus of the Prot. Jas. text (p. 31) but is absent from de

Strycker 's apparatus. Petersen declares : ``I trust in Tischendorf, ''

Sayings, 205, n. 50.

145. See above, p. 79, n. 126.

146. Sayings, 213-14.

 caught in the act 83

We must also clarify our claim that the passage is `only known

through John ' : what we mean is that, in the late second century,

when the Protevangelium was being composed, there is no other

known source from which the ``digital examination '' might be

derived. Similarly for the clause ``Neither do I judge you '' : it is

uniquely Johannine among the gospels, canonical or non-canoni-

147
cal .

In other words, according to Petersen 's ``a priori reasoning, ''

John must be the source of the two parallel quotations in the

Prot. Jas. because it is earlier than the Prot. Jas. which was writ-

ten in the late second century. The Prot. Jas. could not have

been the source of the quotations in John because the Prot. Jas.

was written in the late second century.

To attempt to define the literary relationship between two an-

cient documents before the date and compositional history of

the individual documents themselves have been firmly estab-

lished is an exercise in futility and methodologically unsound.

Conversely, to consider the possible presence of redactional ac-

tivity in an ancient document or underlying sources - each with

its own author, date, provenance, and purpose - not only is a

methodological desideratum, but would significantly expand the

parameters of the investigation. Petersen has demonstrated the

existence of a literary relationship between the parallel passages

in the Prot. Jas. and John, but this relationship need not neces-

sarily apply only to these documents in their present form as

complete gospels. Since all of the passages in question occur in

sections of their respective documents whose authenticity has

148
been challenged , it would be prudent to examine the passages

from the perspective of the particular context in which they oc-

cur. And although it is beyond our purpose to become entangled

in the complexities of the compositional problem of the Prot.

Jas., it seems appropriate to broaden our investigation of the re-

lationship between the Prot. Jas. and the PA so as to include

scholarly opinions from the entire critical tradition on the com-

position of this apocryphon - both before and after the influen-

tial work of de Strycker - until such time as its compositional

history is more firmly established.

The Compositional Problem

When he addresses the compositional issue of the authenticity

of verse 16 :3 within the Prot. Jas., Petersen again exhibits the

147. Ibid., n. 76.

148. See the discussion below on the compositional problem.

84 g. zervos

influence of de Strycker. Petersen 's assertion that ``the section

[of the Prot. Jas.] with this passage [16 :3] is universally regarded
149
as part of the oldest layer of the work, '' is validated by a

reference to de Strycker. To Petersen, ``universally regarded ''

means : ``on the source criticism of the Protevangelium, see de

Strycker, La forme, pp. 6-13 (with bibliography and summary of

150
earlier studies). '' The qualification, ``with bibliography and

summary of earlier studies, '' implies that de Strycker 's word is

final and scholarly work on the composition of the Prot. Jas.

151
after de Strycker can be ignored. And when Petersen turns his

attention to Prot. Jas. 19 :3 he places this verse also in the ``old-

est stratum '' of the document and accepts its authenticity as

well. He justifies this conclusion with the highly subjectiveand

otherwise unsubstantiated - claim that ``the main aim of the

work is to establish Mary 's virginity post partum - for which this
152
examination provides the definitive proof '' . While it is evident

that one of the major themes of the Prot. Jas. is the undefiled
153
purity of Mary throughout her life , it is by no means certain

that the establishment of Mary 's post partum virginity was ``the
154
main aim of the work '' . H. R. Smid speaks definitively to this

149. Sayings, 205.

150. Ibid., n. 52.

151. Petersen 's approach to the Prot. Jas. is typical of most scholars who

have written on this document after de Strycker. Cf. this writer 's

comments on de Strycker 's influence, ``Dating the Protevangelium of Ja-

mes : The Justin Martyr Connection, '' SBL Seminar Papers, 1994, (SBLSP

33 ; Atlanta, Georgia : Scholars Press, 1994), 415-434. This article was un-

known to, or ignored by, Petersen.

152. Sayings, 212.

153. The Prot. Jas. was instrumental in spreading the tradition of the perpe-

tual virginity of Mary in subsequent centuries. Cf. Ernst Benz, ``Die Heilige

Hohle in der alten Christenheit und in der o stlich-orthodoxen Kirche '',

ErJb, 22 (1954), 365-432 ; E mile Amann, Le Protevangile de Jacques et ses

remaniements latins (Les Apocryphes du Nouveau Testament ; Paris : Letou-

zey et Ane, 1910), 109-169.

154. This issue is obscured by the considerable ambiguity displayed by ma-

ny scholars - including de Strycker - in their use of technical terminology

to characterize Mary 's theological ``virginity '' : ante partum (before giving

birth), in partu (in giving birth), and/or post partum (after giving birth). De

Strycker himself does not mention the post partum virginity of Mary when

he specifies her ante partum and in partu virginity as the special concerns of

the Prot. Jas., ``La defense et illustration de la saintete exceptionnelle de Ma-

rie, vue sous l 'angle particulier de la purete , et plus spe cialement encore de

la virginite ante partum et in partu '', ``Le Protevangile de Jacques : Problemes

critiques et exegetiques '', SE III [=TU 88] (Berlin : Akademie-Verlag, 1964),

354 ; Amann, Prote vangile, 31, considers the ``ide e capitale '' of the Prot. Jas.

to be the retention by Mary of her virginity in conceiving and giving birth to

 caught in the act 85

issue after a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the pur-

pose of the 155. Smid identifies a wide variety of objec-
Prot. Jas.

tives in this apocryphon which he categorizes as apologetic,

dogmatic, and biographical ``aspects'' of its purpose; he finds
that ``these three are so entangled156that it is impossible to say
which of these is the main aspect'' .
But it is Michel Testuz who places the purpose of the Prot.

Jas. in its proper perspective by associating it with the composi-

tional problem of this document.157 Testuz views 16:3
Prot. Jas.

and 19:3 as belonging to two originally separate sources of the

Prot. Jas. , each having its own purpose. According to Testuz,
the purpose158of 19:3 - to prove the
Prot. Jas. virgin-
post partum

ity of Mary - is more developed, and therefore later, than that

the Savior, ``Vierge en concevant le Sauveur, Marie n'a point perdu en le

mettant au monde le glorieux privilege de la virginite, telle est l'idee capitale
du Protevangile de Jacques''; cf. J. C. Plumpe, ``Some Little-known Early
Witnesses to Mary's v '', 9 (1948), 570. Other scholars
irginitas in partu TS

clearly distinguish the post partum virginity of Mary: E. Cothenet, ``La

these centrale du livre, c'est la virginite de Marie ante partum, in partu, post

partum '',Dictionnaire de la Bible. Supple ment 8 , ed. Louis Pirot, (Paris: Le-
touzey et Ane, 1928ss.), 1381-82. A. Meyer, ``Protevangelium des Jacobus``
in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen , (ed. E. Hennecke ; Tu bingen und Leip-
zig: Mohr, 1924), 85, ``Die Absicht des urspru nglichen Erza hlers geht
darauf, die makellose Reinheit der Jungfrau Maria von haus aus und na-
mentlich ihre Jungfra ulichkeit auch nach der Geburt festzustellen'', followed
by Benz, Hohle, 367.

155. Protevangelium Jacobi : A Commentary (Apocrypha Novi Testamenti

1; trans. G. E. van Baaren-Pape ; Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum &
Comp. N. V., 1965), 14-20, under the title: ``The author's aim: glorification
of the Virgin Mary'', ., 18: ``The Virgin Birth is a very important theme
ibid

in P.J., but is not the author's only contribution to Mariology''.

156. Ibid ., 14. According to Smid, ibid,18-19, the Virgin Birth of Mary is
only one of six themes in the dogmatic aspect of the Prot. Jas. alone. Smid 's
finding that the post partum virginity of Mary is only one of numerous the-
mes of the Prot. Jas. contradicts Petersen's argument that bases the authen-
ticity of Prot. Jas. 19:3 on the acknowledgment of Mary's post partum

virginity as ``the main aim'' of this apocryphon.

157. Papyrus Bodmer V : Nativite de Marie (Cologny-Geneve: Bibliotheca
Bodmeriana, 1958). Testuz was the editor of the diplomatic editio princeps

of this complete third - century papyrus of the Greek text of the Prot. Jas.

158. Nativite , 16-17, ``Dans le passage qui suit (chap. XVII a XX), l'auteur
entreprend de demontrer un autre point: la virginite de Marie a subsiste
apres la naissance de Jesus''; Testuz argues cogently that ``Le titre de notre
apocryphe: Nativite de Marie, ne convient plus a cette seconde partie, ainsi
que nous l'avions deja releve, et ce fut un des indices qui conduisit les
commentateurs a juger que le recit de ces chapitres constituait a l'origine un
fragment separe ''.
86 g. zervos

159
of 16 :3, which is to demonstrate her perfect purity . Testuz

wrote before the publication of de Strycker 's work, which was

responsible for turning the attention of the scholarly world away

from earlier compositional theories that held the Prot. Jas. to be

160
a compilation of several pre-existing sources . Before de

Strycker, Adolf Harnack 's three-document theory of the compo-

161
sition of the Prot. Jas. held sway among scholars . Harnack

considered the Prot. Jas. to be a combination of three originally

separate parts (``drei zusammengearbeitete Theile '') : 1) Prot. Jas.

1-17, the Gennysiq Mariaq (``Nativity of Mary ''), including the

conception, birth, and early life of Mary, 2) Prot. Jas. 18-20, the

Apocryphum Josephi, relating to the birth of Jesus and the virgin-

ity of Mary ``in partu et post partum, '' and 3) Prot. Jas. 22-24, the
162
Apocryphum Zachariae . From the standpoint of Harnack 's

scheme, the development of Mary 's sexual status from ante par-

tum purity in Prot. Jas. 16 :3 (in the Gennysiq Mariaq ) to post

partum virginity in 19 :3 (in the Apocryphum Josephi) highlights a

major difficulty in Petersen 's assignment of both passages to a

single ``oldest layer '' or ``oldest stratum '' of the Prot. Jas. Such

discrepancies usually betray the presence of redactional activity.

This seemingly trivial terminological distinction between

Mary 's ante partum and post partum virginity actually is quite

important, not only for our present study, but for the history of

early Christian thought in general. This distinction is precisely

the point at which early Christian Mariology begins to advance

beyond the concepts contained in the canonical Gospels. Matt

1 :18-25, which is thought to be the earliest extant Christian nar-

159. Ibid., 15, ``Dans le premie re partie de ce recit. L 'auteur veut demontrer

la purete parfaite de Marie ''.

160. See de Strycker 's overview of scholarly discussion on the compositio-

nal unity of the Prot. Jas. in La forme, 6-13, and 392-404, for de Strycker 's

own contribution to the discussion.

161. Die Chronologie der altchristlichen Literatur bis Eusebius (2 vols. ; Leip-

zig : J. C. Hinrichs, 1904), 598-603. Cf. de Strycker, La forme, 11, ``Cette

prise de position de Harnack eut une influence de cisive. Depuis lors, c 'est a

peine si une voix isole e s 'est e levee pour defendre l 'unite du Protevangile.

Un bon nombre d 'auteurs se rallia a la these des trois documents ''. Cf. n. 5

for bibliography.

162. Chronologie, 600, ``1) die Geschichte der Empfa ngniss, Geburt und des

Lebens der Maria bis zu dem Moment, wo die kanonischen Texte einsetzen.

2) Geschichte der Geburt Jesu, erza hlt von Joseph, also ein Apocryphum Jo-

sephi, 3) ein Apocryphum Zachariae ''. Harnack was unclear as to the place

of ch(s). 21 and 25 in his scheme, but apparently thought that all three parts

of the Prot. Jas. were combined before the middle of the fourth century,

ibid., 602-603, ``Die Zusammenarbeitung der Stu cke ist vor der Mitte des 4.

Jahrh. erfolgt ''. Cf. de Strycker, La forme, 11.

 caught in the act 87

rative of the birth of Jesus, is concerned primarily with Mary's

sexual status before the nativity itself. This passage verifies her
sexual purity at the time of her conception of Jesus by citing the
famous163passage in Isaiah 7:14: ``A virgin will conceive and bear
a son'' . But this prophetic quotation is both preceded and fol-
lowed by statements that could be taken to insinuate that Mary
and Joseph had sexual relations after the birth of Jesus. In Matt
1:18 Mary became pregnant prin y sunelhein autouq (``before
they [Mary and Joseph] came together''), while Matt 1:25 de-
clares that Joseph received Mary as his wife and ouk eginwsken
eteken uion (``did not know her until she gave
autyn ewq ou
birth to a son'')164. Both texts refer only to the ante partum time
period but are phrased in such a way that they at least leave
open the possibility, if not imply, that Mary only remained a
virgin until she gave birth to Jesus. This reading of the Mat-
thean texts seems to be confirmed by Luke 2:7 which states that
Mary eteken ton uion autyq ton prwtotokon (``gave birth to
her first-born son'')165. If Jesus was Mary's ``first-born son,''
other sons must have followed. This is supportd by Mark 6:3
which names Jesus' four brothers - James, Joses, Judas, and Si-
mon166- and mentions, without naming, at least two sisters as
well .

163. Matt 1:23, idou y parhenoq en gastri exei kai texetai uion.

164. ewq ou is generally taken to mean ``until'' when following a negative
``before''. These interpretations are based on a straightforward reading of
the original texts. For an account of the immense literature on this topic,
much of which is driven by confessional concerns, see Raymond E. Brown,
The Birth of the Messiah : A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Mat-
thew and Luke (New York: Doubleday, 1993).
165. A significant portion of the later MS tradition of Matt 1:25 appears to
have been influenced by Luke 2:7. Cf. Metzger, Commentary, 8, ``The Tex-
tus Receptus, following C D* K W mo6st minuscules al, inserts ton before
uion and adds autyq ton prwtotokon (` her firstborn son ') from Lk 2.7''. W.
D. Davies and Dale C. Allison observe most appropriately: ``had Matthew
held to Mary's perpetual virginity (as did the second-century author of Prot.
Jas. 19.3-20.2), he would almost certainly have chosen a less ambiguous ex-
pression - just as Luke would have avoided `first-born son' (2.7)''. A Critical
and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC;
Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 1:219.
toq estin o tektwn, o uioq tyq Mariaq kai adelfoq iIakwbou
166. ouj ou

de
kai iIwsytoq kai iIouda kai Simwnoq kai ouk eisin ai adelfai autou w
proq ymaq; It is interesting that in spite of being the earliest known witness
to the virgin birth, Matt not only reproduces Mark's list of Jesus' four bro-
thers, but refers to ``all'' Jesus' sisters, implying that there were more than
two; cf. Matt 13:55-56 ouj outoq estin o tou tektonoq uioq ; ouj y mytyr
autou legetai Mariam kai oi adelfoi autou iIakwboq kai iIwsyf kai Si-
mwn kai iIoudaq kai ai adelfai autou ouji pasai proq ymaq eisin Cf. the
88 g. zervos

Since the canonical tradition seems to know only the ante par-
tum virginity of Mary, any chronological extension of her sexual
inactivity beyond the time of Jesus' birth to include the birth
process itself (in partu) and its aftermath (post partum) is a sig-
nificant 167
development over the canonical representation of her
virginity . If we allow, on the one hand, Harnack's three-docu-
ment compositional theory, according to which the two Prot.
Jas./John parallels are found in two originally independent
documents - the Gennysiq Mariaq and the Apocryphum Josephi -
and if, on the other hand, we give credence to the associated ob-
servation of Testuz that the ante partum Mariology of the Genny-
siq Mariaq was amplified by the addition of the Apocryphum
Josephi
168 with its focus on Mary's virginitas post partum, the
Prot. Jas. emerges as a unique primary witness to the apparent
progressive ``dogmatization'' of Mariology in early Christian
thought. By this interpretation of the texts, the Gennysiq Mari
aq is the original source document of the Prot. Jas. since it
shares the earlier ante partum Mariology of the canonical nativ-
ity stories of Matt and Luke, whereas the addition of the Apo-
cryphum Josephi to the Gennysiq Mariaq coincides with the
augmentation of Mary's virginitas from ante to post partum
which was taking place in the second century. The Harnack -
Testuz reconstruction is more compatible with what seems to be
the historical development of early Mariology than Petersen's
concept of a single ``oldest stratum'' that contains both of the
Prot. Jas. / John parallels. The analysis of Petersen, based upon
de Strycker's idea of a unitary Prot. Jas., does not account for
the discrepancy between the two texts.
As was shown above, Petersen himself seems to presuppose
the existence of redactional activity in the Prot. Jas. by referring
to the compositional level of this document, which contains
both of the parallels in question, as the ``oldest layer'' or ``oldest
stratum''. Petersen does not elaborate upon these terms; nor
does he pursue their serious implications for the question at
hand. At the very least, ``oldest layer'' and ``oldest stratum'' im-
ply the existence of substantial earlier material in the Prot. Jas.
that predates the final composition of the document which Pe-
detailed study on the relatives of Jesus by Richard B auckham , Jude and the
Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990).
167. This, of course, is predicated on the acceptance of the canonical Mario-
logical concept of virginity as being chronologically earlier than that of non-
canonical documents such as the Prot. Jas.
168. Harnack himself, who is credited with this ``classical'' formulation of
the compositional theory of the Prot. Jas., considers the Gennysiq Mariaq to
be later than the Apocryphum Josephi, Chronologie, 601.
 caught in the act 89

tersen - following de Strycker - believes to have occurred in the

late second century. But if these terms signify a complete origi-

nal source that was later combined with additional materials to

form the Prot. Jas. as we know it today, then these additional

materials may have included anything from minor editorial em-

bellishments and canonical gospel texts to more extensive docu-

ments such as the Apocryphum Josephi and the Apocryphum

Zachariae. It is very difficult to distinguish between the ``oldest
layer '' or ``oldest stratum '' of a second-century document and a

pre-existing source that formed the basis of that document. But

Petersen himself, even as he argues for the dependence of the

Prot. Jas. on John, mentions an alternative interpretation of the

evidence. He states that the possible dependence of Prot. Jas.
19 :3 on John 20 :25 ``suggests that (unless one wishes to posit a

common, pre-Johannine source) the author of the Protevange-

169
lium - pace Becker - both knew and used the Gospel of John '' .

The concept of a ``pre-Johannine source '' as a rationalization

for the common material shared by the Prot. Jas. and John,
although too limited in scope, is a step in a direction that could
170
lead to a more satisfactory explanation of the parallels .

Harnack 's three-source compositional theory of the Prot.

Jas. allows a wider range of potential explanations for the Prot.
Jas. / John parallels than does the unified Prot. Jas. concept of
Petersen - de Strycker. More sources mean more opportunity

for contacts between these sources. It is conceivable that the

parallels in question could have resulted from liaisons between

the source documents that originally contained the four individ-

ual passages in these parallels before they were incorporated in-

to John and the Prot. Jas. The feasibility of such interactions is

greatly enhanced, first, by the obvious literary correspondence

between the passages in question, Prot. Jas. 16 :3 / John 8 :11

and Prot. Jas. 19 :3 / John 20 :25, and second, by the strong ar-
guments that have been made for the independent origin of the

169. P etersen , Sayings, 213.

170. The constraints of de Strycker 's model of a late second-century uni-
fied Prot. Jas. prevented Petersen from exploring this important clue. His
characterization of this hypothetical source as ``pre-Johannine '' reflects a

frame of reference that is limited to three documents : John, the Prot. Jas .,
and this source. And it is only his passing rhetorical allusion to the possibili-

ty of no dependence between John and the Prot. Jas. which gives him the op-
portunity to postulate this tertium quid - the ``pre-Johannine source '' - to
account for the parallels between the two works. Petersen describes this

source in Johannine terms because a late second-century unified Prot. Jas. is

barred a priori from consideration as a factor in the formative stages of the
canonical gospel literature.
90 g. zervos

stories in which they occur - the Gennysiq Mariaq, the Apocry-

phum Josephi , the PA, and the ``doubting Thomas'' episode
(John 20:24-29), whose authenticity within the Gospel also is
disputed171. The prospect of all four passages in our two paral-
lels being from originally discrete narratives hardly inspires con-
fidence in the possibility of a relationship between the Prot. Jas.
and John in their present form. With this relationship in doubt,
it seems reasonable to consider the pre-Johannine and pre- Prot.
Jas. level of composition and the possibility that contacts be-
tween the passages may have occurred in earlier times and in
different environments. However, the task of linking these
source documents with each other on the basis of the parallel
passages that they share is complicated by significant textual
problems that plague some of the individual passages in ques-
tion172. The textual status of the second parallel will be ad-

171. Ernst Haenchen views John 20:24-29 as ``a later insertion into the
source'' that was used by the evangelist to form the Gospel of John, A
Commentary on the Gospel of John (ed. R. W. Funk with Ulrich B usse ;
trans. R. W. Funk ; 2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), vol. 2, 60.
Haenchen cites John 20:24-29 and the PA as two of his four best examples
supporting the composite nature of the Gos pel of John; the other two, the
opening prologue with its ``Hymn to the Logos'', and chapter 21, are widely
regarded as later accretions to the text, ibid., 1:76-77. Rudolf Bultmann
describes John 20:24-29 (together with Luke 24:36-43) as ``late apologetic
formulations'', The History of the Synoptic Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell,
1968), 289, but seems ambivalent as to its origin: ``We must not regard it as
impossible that the source itself already contained this story. Admittedly it
can only have been a secondary appendix, even for the source; for in vv. 19-
23 the continuation in vv. 24-29 is not presupposed, though certainly the lat-
ter fragment does presuppose the former'', The Gospel of John : A Commen-
tary (trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray , R. W. N. Hoare , J. K. Riches ;
Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1971. Robert Fortna, The Fourth
Gospel and Its Predecessor (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 187-200, al-
so considers ``the all-important and crowning Johannine episode of ques-
tioning Thomas (20:24-29)'', ibid., 214, to be ``4E's [the evangelist's]
addition and possibly creation'', 200; cf. Schnackenburg, Gospel, vol. 3,
328-35. Gregory J. Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered : Thomas and John in
Controversy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 69-126, presents a tho-
rough and insightful discussion of the ``doubting Thomas'' story among the
New Testament resurrection narratives, and describes the ``second group ap-
pearance for the benefit of Thomas . . . his demands, confession and domini-
cal rebuke'' as ``innovations of the author'' in his ``recasting of the character
of an historical disciple'', ibid., 99. For the case against the independence of
this passage see Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI
(AB 29A; Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1977), vol. 2,
1031-33.
172. But on the other hand, these textual problems pose interesting ques-
tions relative to the larger issues affected by our study, such as the history of
 caught in the act 91

dressed first since it was referred by Petersen only in support of

the possible Prot. Jas./John connection suggested by the first

parallel.

The Textual Problem

Petersen 's analysis of the textual evidence for the Prot. Jas.

19 :3/John 20 :25 parallel is problematic. On the basis of data

from de Strycker 's critical apparatus, Petersen asserts that the

``explicit Johannine parallel '', ean my balw ton daktulon mou

(``unless I put my finger ''), is ``the text found in the oldest MS of

the Protevangelium (Bodmer Papyrus 5 ; fourth cent.), and most

173
other early manuscripts '' . By ``most other early manuscripts ''

Petersen appears to be referring to ``most '' of the eleven MS(S) -

174
other than P. Bodmer V - that he lists in his footnote 75 . But
b
of the MS witnesses that he lists, only two, D and F (both from
175
the eleventh cent.), agree with P. Bodmer V . The other nine

MS(S) cited by Petersen contain readings that differ in varying

degrees from what he assumes to have been the original text of

176
Prot. Jas. 19 :3, the ``explicit Johannine parallel. '' . Two of

these nine MS(S), G (twelfth cent.) and H (fifteenth-seventeenth

177
cent.), follow Bodmer V but read je|ra (``hand '') for daktulon
178
(``finger '') . The remaining seven of these witnesses exhibit

early Mariology, the date and redactional history of the Prot. Jas. and its

status among the Christians of the first two centuries, and the relationship

of the Prot. Jas. to John and to the Johannine PA.

173. Petersen , Sayings, 212. It is interesting that while de Strycker mini-

mizes the importance of the text of this papyrus, La Forme, 377-92, Peter-
sen bases his argument for the Prot. Jas. / John connection in large part on
the authenticity of this reading of P. Bodmer V.

174. Sayings, 212.

175. The dates provided by Petersen for these MS(S) are ultimately derived
b
from de Strycker. See below, n. 181, for an alternative date for MS F .
176. Throughout his discussion of the variant readings for Prot. Jas. 19 :3

Petersen assumes that the text of this verse as contained in P. Bodmer V is

the original and that the variant readings present in the remaining MS(S)

are alterations of it.

177. H reads jeiran. Petersen 's error here may be at least partly due to a
misleading notation in de Strycker 's critical apparatus, La Forme, 158,
where MS(S) Z (P. Bodmer V), D, Fb, G, and H are listed as supporting the

reading ``ean my ba lw... autyq (cum var.) ''. It is only below this notation

that de Strycker specifies that ``cum var. '' includes the G and H reading
jeira instead of daktulon.

178. The Latin and Georgian versions generally also follow P. Bodmer V,

although one of the two Latin MS(S) cited by de Strycker , La Forme, 158,
b
as Lat agrees with H and G.
92 g. zervos

readings that differ substantially from ean my balw ton daktu-

lon mou (``unless I put my finger '') : three MS(S), A (tenth-four-

teenth cent.), C (tenth cent.), and E (eleventh cent.), read ean my

i dw
179
(``unless I see [I will not believe] '') ; four MS(S), B

(twelfth-thirteenth cent.), I (thirteenth to fourteenth cent.), L

(sixteenth cent.), and R (c. 1600), read ean my ereunysw (``un-

less I examine [her nature] ''). Thus it appears that the textual

data provided by Petersen himself contradicts his position in fa-

vor of the originality of the P. Bodmer V text ; ``most other early

manuscripts '' - in fact nine of the eleven referred by Petersen

himself - present readings that do not support the ``explicit Jo-

b
hannine parallel '' found in P. Bodmer V and MS(S) D and F .

This conclusion is reinforced by the witnesses of over a hun-

dred additional Greek MS(S) of the Prot. Jas. that are not in-

cluded in the critical editions of either Tischendorf or de

180
Strycker . Of these, only seven agree with P. Bodmer V, D,
b181.
and F But a total of ninety-three witnesses, a number of

which are older than those characterized by Petersen as ``most

other early manuscripts, '' differ more or less substantially from

182
the ``explicit Johannine parallel '' . Five of these support the

179. The Ethiopic and Syriac traditions support this reading as well. See be-

low for a discussion of the erroneous reading of MS C by de Strycker - Pe-

tersen .
180. This information was gleaned from two unpublished doctoral disserta-

tions of Duke University, Boyd L. Daniels , ``The Greek Manuscript Tradi-

tion of the Protevangelium Jacobi '' (Ph.D. diss., The Duke University

Graduate School, 1956), a massive three-volume listing of variant readings

from eighty-six unpublished Greek MS(S), and George Themelis Zervos ,

``Prolegomena to a Critical Edition of the Genesis Marias (Protevangelium

Jacobi) : The Greek Manuscripts '' (Ph.D. diss., The Duke University Gra-

duate School, 1986), a similar listing of readings from forty-five more MS(S)

of the Prot. Jas. that were not available to Daniels . These rudimentary sta-
tistics are based solely upon the specific terms used in the MS(S) to describe

Salome 's examination of Mary (`` balw ton daktulon mou '', ``katanoysw '',

``symeiwswmai '', and `` ereunysw ''). They do not reflect itacisms, spelling er-

rors, and minor syntactical variations. It must also be kept in mind that the

witness of these MS(S) may be mitigated by the existence of yet undefined

familial relationships among them.

181. One eleventh-, two twelfth-, one thirteenth-, one fifteenth-, and two
b
sixteenth-century MS(S). MS F is placed in the ninth century by Daniels
in accordance with the opinion of his mentor, Kenneth W. Clark , ``Tradi-
tion '', 64.

182. Petersen , Sayings, 213, views these variant readings as evidence of

``the tendency of history . . . to move away from such a direct demand for a

digital gynecological examination of the Mother of God. '' According to this

``logic of the variants '', later scribes would have modified or even eliminated

the reference to the ``offensive digital examination '' in Prot. Jas. 20 :25 out
 caught in the act 93

jeira daktulon
183
text of G and H, (``hand '') for (``finger '') . MS

C, however, an important tenth-century copy, appears to have

been included in this group mistakenly by Petersen - following

de Strycker. C appears in the edition of Tischendorf as the best

example of a group of eighteen of the new MS(S) that - instead

of ean my balw ton daktulon mou (``unless I put my finger '') -

read ean my katanoysw (``unless I observe [that a virgin gave

184
birth] '') . This reading was not represented in de Strycker 's ap-

paratus. Absent from the editions of both de Strycker and Ti-

schendorf is a cluster of twenty-one of the new MS(S) that

display variations of ean my symeiwswmai autyn (``unless I

ean my ereunysw tyn fu-
185
take note of her '') . Finally, the text

sin autyq (``unless I examine her nature '') of MS(S) B, I, L, and

R is supported by a group of thirty-nine of the new witnesses,

of reverence for the ``Mother of God ''. However, this activity must have oc-

curred later, rather than earlier, in the process of the development of Mario-

logy since the divine motherhood of Mary does not even occur in

ecclesiastical writings until the fourth century, and Mary was not officially

declared to be the Heotokoq (``Mother of God '') until 451 when the third

Ecumenical Council of Ephesus established her status as church doctrine.

Cf. Jaroslav Pelikan , The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (vol. 1 of The
Christian Tradition : A History of the Development of Doctrine ; Chicago :

University of Chicago Press, 1971), 241, 261. But at the time of the composi-

tion of the Prot. Jas. and its hypothetical sources in the first two centuries -

long before Mary achieved ``Mother of God '' status - the ``logic '' of the va-

riants could be taken as indicating movement towards a more definitive de-

monstration of the developing concept of Mary 's sexual purity which was

then in the process of being formulated as the doctrine of her post partum

virginity. In these early centuries Christian evangelists, their redactors, and

scribes would have endeavored to promote a ``digital gynecological exami-

nation '' of Jesus ' mother immediately after she gave birth, in order to au-

thenticate the developing doctrine of the church.

183. One each eleventh-, twelfth-, and fourteenth-, and two fifteenth-centu-

ry MS(S). The translations of the variants provided here are taken from the

standard definitions found in LSJ and BDAG, but further analysis of the

shades of meaning represented by these Greek terms is in order.

184. One each twelfth- and thirteenth-, two fifteenth-, eight sixteenth-, three

seventeenth-, two eighteenth-, and one nineteenth-century MS. Tischen-

dorf 's reading is confirmed by Daniels who collated this MS from ``a posi-
tive photographic print supplied by the Bibliothe que Nationale '',

``Tradition '', 67 ; cf. 798. See Petersen 's comment above, n. 144, expressing
his preference for the critical apparatus ' of Tischendorf over that of de
Strycker .
185. One tenth-, two eleventh-, three twelfth-, two thirteenth-, three each

fourteenth-, fifteenth-, sixteenth-, and seventeenth-, and one nineteenth-cen-

tury MS(S). Tischendorf 's MS N is reported by Daniels , ``Tradition '' 39,

799, to contain this reading although Tischendorf himself does not record
it.
94 g. zervos

eleven of which are as old as any of those that Petersen labeled

186
as ``most other early manuscripts '' . Thus the overwhelming

witness of the MS tradition of the Prot. Jas. confirms the con-

clusion indicated above by a correct analysis Petersen 's textual

evidence : the ``explicit Johannine parallel '' ean my balw ton da-
ktulon mou cannot be considered with any degree of certainty to

be the original reading of Prot. Jas. 16 :3 because of : 1) the lack

of support for this text among the MS(S) of the Prot. Jas., and

2) the large number of MS(S) of the Prot. Jas. that contain via-
187
ble alternative readings .

The Form Critical Problem

It seems, therefore, that Petersen 's argument for the depend-

ence of the Prot. Jas. on John is seriously compromised by the

compositional and textual uncertainty surrounding the possibil-

ity of a connection between the ``doubting Thomas '' (John

20 :24-29) and ``doubting Salome '' (Prot. Jas. 19-20) episodes ;

his attempt to apply form criticism to this parallel is unsuccess-

ful for the same reason. Petersen conducts a comparative form-

critical analysis of the Thomas and Salome stories and detects

four congruencies between them. In both scenes : 1) a ``doubter ''

speaks the words of the parallel, 2) the ``thing doubted '' is one

of the major miracles that ``bracket Jesus ' earthly existence, ''

the virgin birth and the resurrection, 3) the digital method of ex-

amination is discussed, and 4) the doubters become believers as

188
a consequence of their examinations . To Petersen : ``this form

critical congruity indicates that some sort of dependence exists

between the two texts. It suggests that... the author of the Prote-

186. Four tenth-, seven eleventh-, eight twelfth-, one thirteenth-, three four-

teenth-, six fifteenth-, eight sixteenth-, and two eighteenth-century MS(S).

The eleven tenth- and eleventh-century MS(S) in this group alone equal the

total number of Greek MS(S) cited by Petersen in addition to P. Bodmer V

itself (see above).

187. Petersen, Sayings, 213, considers ``the logic of the variants '' (cf. n.

182 above) and ``the dates of the manuscripts '' to be two factors that ``une-

quivocally posit the explicit Johannine parallel as the oldest text ''. If the

``manuscripts '' to whose ``dates '' Petersen is referring are the same ones

that he described earlier as ``most other early manuscripts '' - and which he

inaccurately characterized as supporting the reading of P. Bodmer V - then

his second primary justification for upholding the authenticity of the papy-

rus text of Prot. Jas. 19 :3 is refuted by the witness of the vast majority of the

extant Greek MS(S) of the Prot. Jas. cited above., many of which are as ear-

ly or earlier than Petersen 's ``most other early manuscripts ''.

188. Ibid.
 caught in the act 95

189
vangelium... both knew and used the Gospel of John '' . How-

ever, the third and most important of these congruencies - the

digital examination - is effectively neutralized by the question-

able compositional and textual status of the text of Prot. Jas.

19 :3. And without the digital examination, the remaining three

congruencies - the first, second, and fourth - collectively coin-

cide merely with what Robert Fortna describes as the tradition-

al ``element of initial disbelief on the part of the disciples in the

face of the resurrection, and the subsequent resolution of that

doubt, [which] is found, in a variety of forms, in all the gos-

190
pels '' . The ``doubting Salome '' story - without the digital ex-

amination - could have originated from, or been influenced by,

any one of a number of similar narratives within the canonical

191
texts alone .

With the supporting evidence of the second parallel signifi-

cantly diminished, the original parallel ( Prot. Jas. 16 :3/John

8 :11) again comes into focus as the only remaining indication of

a relationship between John and the Prot. Jas., as well as be-

tween the PA and the story of the exoneration of Mary by the

High Priest in Prot. Jas. 16. Judging by the same criteria that
were applied above to the second parallel, Prot. Jas. 16 :3 ap-
pears to be more compositionally and textually secure than

verse 19 :3. From the perspective of the three-source composi-

tional theory, whereas Prot. Jas. 19 :3 is found in the Apocry-

phum Josephi, an originally independent document, verse 16 :3
forms an undisputed part of the Gennysiq Mariaq which consti-
192
tutes the core of the Prot. Jas. itself . And in contrast to Prot.
Jas. 19 :3, which was shown above to be plagued by textual
problems, the text of verse 16 :3 is free of troublesome variant

readings. Regarding Prot. Jas. 16 :3, Petersen verifies that

``among the many languages and manuscripts in which the Pro-

tevangelium survives, only two variants appear '' : 1) katakrinw
189. Ibid. Petersen then extends this ``dependence '' to include also the

Prot. Jas. 16 :3 / John 8 :11 parallel, justifying his conclusion on the basis of
the similar literary technique by which both parallels were incorporated ``in

situations which are form-critically identical - in the Protevangelium '', ibid.,

213-14.

190. The Gospel of Signs (SNTSMS 11 ; Cambridge : At the University Press,

1970), 142. Fortna cites ``Mt 28 :17, Lk 24 : 11, 41, [Mk] 16 :11-16 '' ; cf. Bult-

mann, History, 288-91, for a fuller list and more detailed discussion.
191. This possibility is supported also by the witness of the MS tradition of

the Prot. Jas. against the authenticity of ``the explicit Johannine parallel ''
(see above). See also Riley 's discussion of traditions of ``physical demons-
tration '' among the resurrection stories, Resurrection, 94-99.
192. See the discussion above on The Compositional Problem of the Prot.
Jas.
96 g. zervos

(condemn '') for krinw (``judge '') ; 193

and 2) the absence of the

critical phrase oude e gw krinw umaq from the text of Prot. Jas.

16 :3 in the Armenian recension designated by H. Quecke as

b194
Arm . Although the second variant appears also in the earlier
195
(989), more important, Edschmiadzin Codex , Quecke 's nega-

tive appraisal of the Armenian MS tradition leads Petersen to

conclude that the absence of John 8 :11 from these witnesses is

196
``of no significance for our investigation '' .

Petersen 's acknowledgement of the existence of ``various

forms '' of the PA necessitates a review of the long-standing dis-

agreement among scholars regarding the form-critical classifica-

tion of this story. Already with his inauguration of the

Formgeschichte methodology, Martin Dibelius recognizes the

multi-faceted history of the PA and characterizes the story as

a more developed, ``hybrid '' example of his basic form-critical

197
category of the ``Paradigm '' . Bultmann rejects the assessment

193. See above, n. 3. Petersen 's assessment is confirmed by the collations

of the hundred plus MS(S) referred in n. 180 above.

194. Petersen, Sayings, 206, n(n). 54, 55 ; cf. de Strycker, Forme, 466-67.

Quecke 's Latin translation of the Armenian texts was published on pp. 441-

473 of de Strycker 's work.

195. See above, p. 79, n. 125. Conybeare, ``Verses '', 405-408, 416-17, va-

lues highly the idiosyncratic witness of the Edschmiadzin Codex whose text

he considers to be so ``remarkable '' and in such an ``archaic form '' that he

provides a full translation, ibid., 406.

196. Sayings, 206, n. 56. Citing Didymus, the anonymous late sixth- or early

seventh-century Syriac Historia ecclesiastica that is associated with the early

fifth-century Bishop Mara of Amida, and the tenth-century version of Aga-

pius of Hierapolis, ibid., 198-201, Petersen concedes that ``the various

forms in which the story is found suggest that it changed over time, either

evolving (with the addition of v. 11, for example) or, alternatively, `shrink-

ing ' (through the suppression of v. 11) '', ibid., 203. In fact, the presence or

absence of verse 8 :11 from the PA has long been one of the determining fac-

tors in scholarly attempts to rediscover the original form of the story. See

Ehrman 's, ``Jesus '', 33, citation of Zahn 's theory of a pre-literary form of

the PA which is ``notable especially for its omission of the dialogue between

Jesus and the accusers ''.

197. Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel (New York : Charles Scribner 's

Sons, 1965), 37-69, discusses ``Paradigms '' in detail but treats the PA toge-

ther with his category of ``New Testament Tales '' ; cf. ibid., 70 : ``There is

found here exactly that descriptiveness which we missed in the Paradigms ;

that breadth, which a paradigmatic application makes impossible ; that tech-

nique, which reveals a certain pleasure in the narrative itself ; and that topi-

cal character, which brings these narratives nearer to the corresponding

categories as they were to be found in the world outside Christianity ''. Re-

ferring to the tendency of certain ``Paradigms '' to be ``transformed '' into

``hybrid forms '' in the ``richer more secular narrative style '' of the ``Tales '',

ibid., 97, Dibelius states concerning the PA : ``The text of the story of the
 caught in the act 97

of Dibelius and classifies the PA generally as an ``apoph-

thegm''198, one199subgroup of which are the Streitgesprache (``con-
flict stories'')200 . Becker also considers the PA to be a
Streitgesprach and attributes what Bultmann refers to as the
``novel-like and secondary'' elements in the story201 to its adap-
tation to the ``practical needs of the Jewish-Christian commun-
ity''202. Both Vincent Taylor and Schnackenburg seem to
emphasize the benign character of the PA as an illustration of
the attitude of Jesus towards sinners and203the Mosaic Law. Tay-
lor views it as a ``Pronouncement-story'' and Schnackenburg
as a ``biographical apophthegm''204. Ehrman evaluates each of
woman taken in adultery is also to be explained by such tendencies, although
it is by no means handed down along one line of tradition... Its form is hy-
brid... Obviously we have here a Paradigm which had been handed on and
filled out independently of the discipline of preaching and the fixation of the
text by the Gospels'', ibid., 98.
198. History, 11-69. Against Dibelius : ``To carry on disputes in this way is
typically Rabbinic. So we have to look for the Sitz-im-Leben of the contro-
versy dialogues in the discussions the Church had with its opponents, and as
certainly within itself, on questions of law. It is quite inappropriate to call
these passages paradigms, i.e. examples of preaching, as Dibelius does'',
ibid., 41.
199. For a general overview of these stories see Arland J. Hultgren, Jesus
and His Adversaries : The Form and Function of the Conflict Stories in the Sy-
noptic Tradition (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1979). The anti-
quity and authenticity of the PA is underscored by its association with the
Streitgesprache which otherwise derive from the earliest strata of the synop-
tic Gospels - Mark, Q, and L - within Mark 14-15 and parallels; cf. ibid., 25-
26.
200. Ehebrecherin , 83, ``Es kann kein Zweifel daru ber bestehen, da die Ge-
schichte von der Ehebrecherin gattungsgeschichtlich den synoptischen
Streitgespra chen zuzuordnen ist''. Petersen, Sayings, 206, n. 57, agrees that
Becker ``correctly classifies it [the PA] as a `confrontation' story''.
201. History, 63, Bultmann mentions the ``initial silence'' of Jesus and the
``circumstantial ending'' as such elements in the story.
202. Ehebrecherin , 88-89; cf. Schnackenburg , Gospel, vol. 2, 168.
203. The Formation of the Gospel Tradition (London: Macmillan & Co.
Ltd., 1960), 84, ``For us to-day the story is precious because it reveals the at-
titude of Jesus toward a sinful woman. So it must have been from the be-
ginning. But among the first Christians it must have been valued because it
disclosed His attitude to the Mosaic Law: Jesus does not annul the Law but
reinterprets it just as he does in some of the great utterances of Mt. v''; cf.
Schnackenburg, Gospel, vol. 2, 169, n. 135. According to Petersen,
Sayings, 206, n. 57, Taylor ``perversely...classifies the pericope adulterae as
a `pronouncement story' ''.
204. Gospel, vol. 2, 169, ``This is not a case of scandal arising over the beha-
viour of Jesus or his disciples...the focus is not on a controversy, but on the
attitude of Jesus toward a sinner and those who are accusing her . . . These
are not mere episodes from the life and activity of the Jesus, but are told
98 g. zervos

the various versions of the PA individually in an attempt to har-

monize the opposing scholarly opinions on the form of the

205
story . Postulating the existence of two originally independent

stories about an adulteress, Ehrman assigns each of these tradi-

tions to a different form-critical category ; the story referred by

206
Didymus is a biographical apophthegm and that ``loosely par-

aphrased by the author of the Didascalia '' is a controversy dia-

207
logue similar to the Streitgesprache of the synoptic Gospels .

Ehrman maintains that these two early stories mutually influ-

enced each other as they were gradually ``combined into the tra-
208
ditional story later incorporated into John 's Gospel '' .

Each of the scholars cited above arrived at their conclusions

concerning the form-critical classification of the PA by compar-

ing the elements present in the story with those of several cate-
209
gories of the various approaches to Formgeschichte , i.e.,

Streitgesprache, paradigms, biographical apophthegms, and

pronouncement stories. The distinctive elements of the PA iden-

tified by these scholars are :

with a kerygmatic or pedagogogical purpose. Jesus ' behaviour becomes a

lesson or admonition to the community ''.

205. See especially his overview and assessment of these positions, ``Jesus '',

42, n. 48. Ehrman initiated this phase of the investigation based on the

``phenomenal contrast '' between the Didymus story and the Didascalia ver-

sion : ``If the story was originally two different stories with different situ-

ations, different focal points, different apophthegms, and different textual

histories, one would naturally expect their later combination to produce just

such ambiguities and complexities '', ibid., 34. See above, pp. 76-78, for the

debate between Ehrman and Lu hrmann on the early history of the canoni-

cal PA. Ehrman provides a more comprehensive treatment, comparing the

Johannine PA with the stories found in Didymus and the Didascalia, and the

latter two versions vis-a -vis each other.

206. Ibid., 35, ``The story, then, is comparable to a biographical apoph-

thegm that instructs, not by advancing a generalized principle, but by por-

traying a concrete action on the part of Jesus ''. Ehrman sees evidence that

Didymus actually was familiar with two forms of the PA, the canonical ver-

sion and ``one that has otherwise perished, presumably from the Gospel ac-

cording to the Hebrews '', ibid., 32.

207. Ibid., 36, ``Unlike our first story, this one bears a close resemblance to

the controversy dialogues of the Synoptic traditions. The focus of attention

is on a controversy between Jesus and the Jewish teachers of the Law who

take exception to his implicit devaluation of the Mosaic tradition ''. Cf.

Lu hrmann, Geschichte, 293.

208. Ibid., 37. According to Ehrman, this convoluted process - including

earlier, accidental, partial conflations and a final complete conflation of the

two early forms - left traces of both versions in the Johannine story, such as

``certain doublets '' and ``certain ambiguities ''.

209. Principally those of Dibelius, Bultmann, and Taylor, see above.

 caught in the act 99

1) an introductory statement giving the time and setting of the

event

2) the identity of the antagonists

3) whether the nature of the woman 's sin is specified

4) the scenario, including

a) where the event took place

b) whether the woman had already been judged

c) how Jesus came to be involved

5) the event itself, including

a) whether Jesus spoke to the woman and/or to the accu-

sers

b) whether he wrote on the ground

c) whether the accusers left the scene

6) whether Jesus ' final statement to the woman (John 8 :11) is

210
present .

Neither of the versions of the story with sufficient text to

211
evaluate - those in the Didascalia, and Didymus - is in com-

plete agreement with the Johannine PA ; nor does either contain

all of the elements listed above. Neither version includes an in-

troductory statement giving the time or setting of the event. In

the canonical PA the antagonists are the Scribes and Pharisees ;

in the Didascalia they are elders ; in Didymus they are Jews. The
woman 's sin in the canonical version is specified as ``adultery ''

( moijeia) ; in the Papias/Eusebius reference she is accused ``of

many sins '' ( e pi pollaiq amartiaiq) ; it is not stipulated in the

Didascalia ; and in Didymus it is generically ``sin '' ( amartia).

There are significant variations in the scenario of the story

among the versions. In the canonical PA Jesus is teaching in the

temple ; the Didascalia has no location ; Didymus ' story occurs

at the place of execution. In the canonical story and the Didas-
calia the woman has been caught but has not yet been judged ; in
Didymus she has been judged and condemned. In the Johannine

PA and the Didascalia the woman is brought to Jesus for

210. These elements have been gleaned from Ehrman , ``Jesus '', 32-34 ;

Luhrmann, Geschichte, 293-96 ; Becker, Ehebrecherin, 118 ; and Petersen,

Sayings, 203, 206-207.
211. Since there is no actual extant text of the adulteress tradition associat-

ed with the Gos. Heb. , its inclusion in this study is based solely upon Euse-
bius ' reference that it contained such a story. The Papias / Eusebius

reference contains only the most rudimentary details. For the conflicting

opinions among scholars on the relationship of the Papias / Eusebius refer-

ence and the Gos. Heb. to the versions of the PA in John 7 :53-8 :11, Didy-
mus, and the Didascalia, see the discussion above, pp. 64-77.
100 g. zervos

212
judgment ; in Didymus Jesus is at the place of execution by

chance and intervenes unsolicited to stop the execution. During

the event itself, in the canonical story and in Didymus Jesus

does not initially address the woman but does speak to her ac-

cusers ; in the Didascalia he speaks to the woman but not to the

accusers. Jesus writes on the ground only in the Johannine PA.

The accusers leave the scene in John 's story and in the Didasca-
lia but not in Didymus. Finally, and most importantly, the can-
onical PA and the Didascalia both contain the final statement of
Jesus to the adulteress as in John 8 :11 ; Didymus does not. Thus,

apparently, the Didascalia story has more in common with the

213
Johannine PA than do the other versions .

It is at this point that Petersen enters the discussion with his

form-critical comparison of the Prot. Jas. with the other ver-

214
sions of the PA . Petersen himself discovers ``a wealth of paral-

lels between the Protevangelium and the Johannine pericope

215
adulterae '' . In both contexts : 1) ``the words are part of a `con-

frontation story ' '', 2) ``the accusation is one of sexual miscon-

duct '', 3) ``the accused is female '', 4) ``religiously scrupulous

Jews '' are the accusers, 5) the accused woman is brought to the

judge ; the judge does not ``interpolate himself into the situa-

tion '', 6) the ``accused woman is brought by a crowd to stand be-

fore a male religious figure '', 7) ``the words are spoken as the
dramatic climax to a tension-filled scene '', and 8) ``the woman is
216
acquitted, despite overwhelming evidence of her guilt '' . For

Petersen, these parallels lead to the conclusion ``that the form of

the pericope adulterae from which the Protevangelium borrowed

these words [Jesus ' statement to the adulteress] must have been

similar to the form the episode now has in the Gospel of

217
John '' . Petersen further identifies ``three distinctive elements

in the story '' : 1) the sin of the woman was ``explicitly sexual in

nature '', 2) she ``was presented by a mob to the authority figure

for judgement '', and 3) Jesus ' concluding statement, `` oude egw

212. The Johannine PA in this respect is a true Streitgesprach ; a trap is set

for Jesus. The Didascalia version is more benign and contains no reference
to a trap set for Jesus by his enemies ; the accusers simply bring the woman

to Jesus and leave her with him.

213. This holds true for the general lines of the story, but not for all the de-

tails.

214. See above, pp. 78-82, where Petersen criticizes previous scholarly in-

vestigations of the PA because they ignored this apocryphon in their assess-

ments.

215. Sayings, 206.

216. Ibid., 206-207.
217. Ibid., 207.
 caught in the act 101

se [kata]krinw '' 218

. Whereas other researchers misconstrue

these elements as ``later accretions, absent from its (sic) earliest

form of the story '', Petersen views them as the ``earliest evidence
219
for the story '' . The Prot. Jas., therefore, displaces the third-

century Didascalia as the oldest witness to the PA, allowing the

composition of the Johannine story to be placed at least in the

220
second half of the second century .

Having thus established the literary and historical connection

between the PA and the Prot. Jas., Petersen proceeds to discuss

the possible origin of the parallel statements spoken by Jesus in

John 8 :11, `` oude e gw se [kata]krinw '', and the high priest in

Prot. Jas. 16 :3, `` oude e gw[kata]krinw umaq ''. However, the
manner with which he poses the question - ``whence did the au-

thor of the Protevangelium Jacobi acquire these words ? '' - and

his approach to its solution, from their inception betray the limi-

tation of his perspective by the de Strycker model of a late sec-

221
ond-century Prot. Jas. that is dependent on John . The equally

viable alternative question - ``whence did the author of the PA

acquire these words ? '' - is not deemed worthy of consideration ;

a priori John is the source and the Prot. Jas. is secondary. Pe-

tersen suggests three options as possible answers to his question :

1) this statement is the original creation of the author of the

Prot. Jas., 2) it is drawn from the Johannine PA which was al-

ready found in the Gospel of John in the second half of the sec-

ond century, and 3) both John and the Prot. Jas. obtained the

statement independently of each other from ``some earlier, now-

222
unknown document '' . Petersen summarily dismisses the first

option as ``untenable '' on the basis of his a priori acceptance of

the dependence of the Prot. Jas. on John ; the exact verbal paral-

lels, the similar context, and the knowledge displayed by the

218. Ibid. It is significant that ``all of these features - while present in the

Protevangelium and in the Gospel of John 's version of the story - are not on-

ly absent from Papias / Eusebius and Didymus the Blind, but specifically

contradict their information ''.

219. Ibid., 203, Petersen attributes this misunderstanding on the part of

Ehrman and Luhrmann to their failure to take the evidence of the Prot.
Jas. into consideration, leading them instead to seek the roots of the PA in

the Didascalia and Didymus ; Petersen seems justified in regarding this po-
sition as no longer tenable ; ibid., 208, ``This earliest evidence for the story

shares recognizable, distinctive elements with the Johannine version of the

story ''.

220. Given : 1) this dating for the Prot. Jas., see above, pp. 83-84, and 2)

that the Papias / Eusebius reference to the Gos. Heb. is not generally identi-

fied with the canonical PA, see the discussion above, pp. 72-75.

221. See above, pp. 83-84.

222. Sayings, 214.

102 g. zervos

Prot. Jas. of proto-canonical gospel traditions - especially the

digital examination in John 20 :24 - can only be interpreted in

223
terms of the dependence of the Prot. Jas. on John. The second

option is ``much more likely '' for the same reason - the assumed

dependence of the Prot. Jas. on John as further substantiated by

224
the second parallel between John and the Prot. Jas. .

Petersen 's third option - ``mutual dependence [of both texts]

upon an earlier, unknown source '' - becomes the subject of his

highly speculative investigation of the possibility that the ``mys-

terious '' Gos. Heb. fulfills what he regards as ``the known pa-

rameters '' for this source ; it must 1) antedate 150, 2) have been

written in Greek, 3) contain narratives and logia about Jesus,

225
and 4) ``have circulated in Egypt at this early date '' . Of these

parameters, the first two are acceptable, but the third and fourth

are doubtful. Regarding the third parameter, the possible pres-

ence of a single ``logion '' in the hypothetical source of John 8 :11

and Prot. Jas. 16 :3 is not adequate proof that this source ``must

preserve narratives about Jesus as well as logia '' (note especially

226
the plural logia) . Several of the extant fragments of the Gos.
227
Heb. do contain ``logia '' of Jesus , but this particular charac-

teristic of the Gos. Heb. cannot be imposed as a compulsory pa-

rameter upon the source under discussion. The fourth

parameter, which requires the source to have circulated in

Egypt, is entirely based upon Petersen 's dependence upon de

Strycker 's opinion of the provenance of the Prot. Jas. Petersen

cites de Strycker exclusively as the authority for the Egyptian

origins of the Prot. Jas., ignoring the many scholars who assign

223. Ibid., 214-15. See above for the compositional, textual, and form-criti-

cal arguments against the originality of the reference to the digital examina-

tion in Prot. Jas. 19 :3. The parallel between the digital examinations in the

``Doubting Thomas '' story of John and the ``Doubting Salome '' story of the

Prot. Jas. is too obvious to be denied ; it is the doubtful compositional and

textual status of Prot. Jas. 19 :3 that compromises the value of this parallel

as evidence for the dependence of the Prot. Jas. upon John. For a discussion

of what Petersen terms the ``knowledge of the ([proto-] canonical) gospel

tradition '' by the Prot. Jas., see George T. Zervos, ``Dating '', 415-34 ; idem,

``An Early Non-Canonical Annunciation Story '', SBL Seminar Papers, 1997

(SBLSP 36 ; Atlanta, Georgia : Scholars Press, 1997), 664-91, where this

writer argues that the editor of the Prot. Jas. incorporated canonical gospel

material in his redaction of this apocryphon.

224. Sayings, 215. The first two options actually are identical and, mutatis

mutandis, approach the same question from opposite directions. Both are

predicated upon the assumed primacy of the PA vis-a -vis the Prot. Jas.

225. Sayings, 215-16.

226. Ibid., 215.

227. Cf. Vielhauer, ``Hebrews '', 177-78.

 caught in the act 103

228
a Syrian provenance to this document . Without the third and

fourth parameters above, the remaining criteria for the source

of John 8 :11 and Prot. Jas. 16 :3 describe a Greek text before

229
150 that contains the statement of Jesus to the adulteress . In

any event the extant material of the Gos. Heb., consisting of on-

ly six or seven disjointed fragments, is too limited in extent to

230
support definitive conclusions as to its nature or contents .

The lack of evidence for the connection between the Gos.

Heb. and the Prot. Jas. underscores Petersen 's own character-

ization of the ``problem of deciding which source... first con-

tained the pericope adulterae '' as ``a very difficult task, fraught

with uncertainty... a problem which, given our present state of

231
knowledge of the sources, cannot be solved '' . Ultimately, Pe-

tersen must admit : ``We have exhausted the evidence available

228. Sayings, 216, n. 83 : ``The Protevangelium 's provenance, according to

de Strycker , La forme, p. 423 ''. For the Syrian provenance of the Prot.

Smid
Jas. see 's criticisms of de Strycker 's arguments, Protevangelium, 20-

22, 29-30, 35 ; Amann , Protevangile, 237 ; cf. Edouard Cothenet , ``Prote -

vangile de Jacques '', DBSup 8 (1972), 1383, following, A. Hamman , ``Sitz-

im-Leben des actes apocryphes du Nouveau Testament '', Studia patristica 8,

Part 2 (TU 93 ; Berlin : Akademie-Verlag, 1966), 66-67, on early Syrian asce-

tic groups as a possible milieu for a document such as the Prot. Jas.

229. In an abortive attempt to ``gauge the likelihood '' that the statement of

the high priest to Mary entered the Prot. Jas. from the Gos. Heb., Petersen
examines the Prot. Jas. in order to find ``elements otherwise known to be

part of the Judaic-Christian gospel tradition '' to which the Gos. Heb. be-

longs. He discovers only a single such passage, the phrase fwq mega (``great
light ''), which appears both at Jesus ' birth in the cave in Prot. Jas. 19 :2 and

at his baptism in Epiphanius ' report concerning ``the Hebrew Gospel '' that

contains these same words in its story of Jesus ' baptism, Sayings, 216, see al-

so Petersen 's Tatian 's Diatessaron : It 's Creation, Dissemination, Signifi-

cance, and History in Scholarship (VCSup ; Leiden, New York, Ko ln : E. J.

Brill, 1994), 14-20. Although there is ample evidence of this reading in the

earliest baptismal traditions, the possibility that this phrase was transposed

into the birth story of the Prot. Jas. is so remote and the supportive evidence

for it so weak, Sayings, 216, n. 85, that its witness in support of the depen-

dence of Prot. Jas. 16 :3 on the Gos. Heb. can be discounted, given the pauci-

ty of verbal material, the generic nature of the phrase itself, the doubtful

relationship between the Jewish-Christian Gos. Heb. and ``the Hebrew Gos-

pel '' (see above, p. 13, n. 102), the fact that this phrase occurs in Prot. Jas.

19 :2 - together with the digital examination in Prot. Jas. 19 :3 - which may

be part of a separate source (see above, pp. 85-91) and therefore unrelated to

Prot. Jas. 16 :3, and Petersen 's own admission that this same tradition of a

light at Jesus ' baptism was fairly widespread in ``very early second-century

Christianity '', occurring also in Justin Martyr (Dial. 88.3), several Diatessa-

ronic witnesses, and two Vetus Latina MS(S), Sayings, 216-17.

230. See above, pp. 73-75.

231. Sayings, 219.

104 g. zervos

to us, and still no answer to the question of the origin of the

232
pericope adulterae is obvious '' . It has been this writer 's con-

tention that Petersen 's dilemma is due to the limitation of the

scope of his investigation of the prospective sources of the PA to

``the Gospel of John, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, or

233
some other as-yet-undiscovered source '' . His a priori exclu-

sion of the Prot. Jas. from consideration in his pursuit of the

elusive ``as-yet-undiscovered source '' leads him to neglect op-

tions that a more comprehensive approach to this apocryphon

may provide. Petersen must be given credit for bringing the sig-

nificant parallels between the PA and the Prot. Jas. to the atten-

tion of the scholarly world thereby illuminating the origins of

the PA and successfully establishing its presence in the second

century. He has introduced important new evidence in his search

for the origins of the PA and has interpreted this information

consistently, albeit within the limits of his understanding of the

character of the Prot. Jas. It remains for future researchers to

further advance the quest for the origins of this enigmatic story

by taking advantage of the great potential of the Prot. Jas. for

clarifying this question by acknowledging more fully the com-

plexities of its compositional, textual, and form-critical history.

A Fresh Old Approach

We have endeavored to understand the relationship between

the Prot. Jas. and the Johannine PA by reviewing the textual,

form-critical, and compositional evidence as presented through

the medium of William Petersen 's very informative article. But

we have noted repeatedly how his interpretation of this evidence

has been influenced by the paradigm of the Prot. Jas. as a uni-

tary document of the late second century, which limits its value

for illuminating the origins of the PA to the mere affirmation of

the existence of the story at that date. We will now attempt to

reassess the witness of the Prot. Jas. from the perspective of a

more flexible view of the date and composition of this docu-

ment. In order to do this we must first strive to clear away the

misconceptions that are due to later developments in the history

of interpretation of the Prot. Jas. and to examine its relationship

232. Ibid., 217.

233. Ibid. Cf. his comments on a hypothetical ``Ur-version of one of the

(proto-)canonical gospels '' such as a ``very early recension of the Gospel of

Matthew '' based upon the readings of two Vetus Latina MS(S).
 caught in the act 105

to the Gospel of John exclusively from the standpoint of the first

two Christian centuries.

The Textual Evidence

First, we must disassociate the PA completely from the Gos-

pel of John. The Gospel of John should not even be mentioned

in connection with the origins of this story. Any thoughts we

might have relating to the later association between these two

texts must be completely cleared from our minds. If the over-

whelming witness of the MS tradition of the Gospel of John tells

us nothing else, it tells us that there was absolutely no relation-

ship between the PA and the Gospel of John in the first two cen-

turies. The MS(S) constitute definitive and irrefutable proof

that the PA was not originally a canonical story since we do not

have a single early MS of John that contains it. But we do have

a complete third-century papyrus of the Prot. Jas. that includes

a parallel to a statement in the modern PA. And this parallel

found in Prot. Jas. 16 :3 and - much more recently - in John 8 :11

cannot be interpreted as proof of a connection between the Prot.

Jas. and some early story of an adulteress similar to the canoni-

cal PA. Excluding the Papias/Eusebius reference, there is no

evidence that a story like the Johannine PA existed independ-

234
ently in the first two centuries . The best evidence pertaining

to the PA in the second century is the Prot. Jas., and it is to the

Prot. Jas. alone that we must turn for information regarding the

status, or lack thereof, of the PA at this early date.

Second, what of the Prot. Jas. itself ? Given the parallel be-

tween John 8 :11 and Prot. Jas. 16 :3, what is the basis for the a

priori precedence of the PA over the Prot. Jas. ? The textual evi-

dence is clear - the total absence of MS support for John 8 :11

235
before the fifth century as opposed to the universal attestation

of verse 16 :3 in the MS(S) of the Prot. Jas., beginning with the

complete third-century papyrus, P. Bodmer V, and continuing

throughout the next sixteen centuries in more than one hundred

236
extant MS witnesses to this document . When Prot. Jas. 16 :3

234. See the discussion above, pp. 66-71. The only other early mention of a

story that even vaguely resembles the PA, Eusebius ' reference to Papias '

comment about a woman accused of ``many sins '', has been disqualified by

most scholars who identify it more with the story of a sinful woman in Luke

7 :36-50.

235. See above, pp. 58-66.

236. In addition to P. Bodmer V, there are two extant fragmentary papyri

of the Prot. Jas. which date to the fourth and sixth centuries, respectively,

P.S.I. 6, Ermenegildo Pistelli , ``Papiri evangelici '', Studi religiosi 6 (1906) :

106 g. zervos

was penned John was not a canonical gospel because there was

no New Testament canon. If the PA had never been included in

the subsequently canonized Gospel of John in later centuries,

would we automatically assume its precedence over a well-docu-

mented, not-yet-apocryphal gospel such as the Prot. Jas. ? Does

our ``canonical myopeia '' so blind us to the possibility of the pri-

ority of Prot. Jas. 16 :3 over John 8 :11 - even in view of the

lavish documentation for the former as opposed to the total ab-

sence of MS evidence for the latter - that we cannot even enter-

tain the idea that John 8 :11 may have derived from Prot. Jas.

16 :3 or that the PA may have been inspired by the Prot. Jas. or

by one of its sources ?

The Compositional Evidence

How can the concept of the Prot. Jas. - as a second-century

compilation of several earlier sources - illuminate the origins of

the PA ? On two separate occasions Petersen alludes to the pos-

sible existence of an earlier source as an explanation for the

common material shared by the Prot. Jas. and John, but he does

not explore this possibility further. First, in our discussion of

the compositional history of the Prot. Jas. (pp. 83-91), it was

noted that Petersen mentions a ``pre-Johannine source '' in his

remarks on the ``oldest layer '' or ``earliest stratum '' of this apoc-

ryphon in which he believes the parallels between John and the

Prot. Jas. occur. And, second, in his treatment of the form-crit-

ical congruity between the PA and the Prot. Jas. he proposes

``some earlier, now-unknown document '' as one of three option-

al sources for the parallel statement in John 8 :11 and Prot. Jas.

16 :3 (p. 102-103). The resemblance between these concepts of a

``pre-Johannine source '' and an ``earlier, now-unknown docu-

ment '' is obvious. It cannot be mere coincidence that the poten-

tial existence of such a source document has emerged within two

separate contexts as a viable solution to the problem of the

relationship between the Prot. Jas. and the Johannine PA.

Although Petersen does not pursue this ``pre-Johannine source ''

129-40, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Gr. Th. g. I (P), B. P. Grenfell,

An Alexandrian Erotic Fragment and other Greek Papyri Chiefly Ptolemaic

(Oxford : at the Clarendon Press, 1896), 13-19, neither of which contains the

text of Prot. Jas. 16 :3. Otherwise, all of the 100 Greek MS(S) of the Prot.

Jas. collated in the combined dissertations of Daniels and Zervos, see

above, pp. 91-93, dating from the eighth to the nineteenth centuries, preserve

the statement of the high priest to Mary, with a small percentage of these ex-

hibiting the usual grammatical, orthographical, and minor syntactical va-

riants.
 caught in the act 107

or the ``earlier, now-unknown document '', it appears that just

such a source document would fulfill many of the criteria re-

quired to resolve the problem of the relationship between the

Prot. Jas. and the Johannine PA.

It is our contention that it is not necessary to seek this docu-

ment elsewhere or to fabricate a hypothetical tertium quid ; such

a document already exists within the Prot. Jas. itself as one of
the sources identified by Harnack from which the Prot. Jas. was
composed. Harnack labeled this source the Gennysiq Mariaq
(``Birth of Mary '') ; but it would be more appropriate to name it

the Genesiq Mariaq (``Genesis of Mary '') in agreement with the

237
unique title given to the Prot. Jas. in P. Bodmer V . It was ar-

gued above (pp. 85-91) that the Genesiq Mariaq and another of

the sources of the Prot. Jas. - the Apocryphum Josephi - bear wit-
ness to the developing Mariological teaching of early Christian-

ity concerning the sexual purity of Jesus ' mother. The Genesiq

Mariaq, which comprises the bulk of the Prot. Jas., seems to

have constituted the original core of this apocryphon since it

shares the early ante partum Mariology of the synoptic nativity

stories, whereas the birth story of the subsequently added Apoc-
ryphum Josephi, with its concern to demonstrate Mary 's sexual
purity after giving birth to Jesus ( viz. the doubting Salome

story), embraces the more advanced post partum virginity of

Mary. This writer has also characterized the Prot. Jas. in a re-
cent publication as the ``missing link '' that fills the documenta-

tion gap between the canonical gospel witnesses to Mary 's

virginitas ante partum on the one hand and the next generation
of texts that exhibit her more developed virginitas post partum
already at the beginning of the second century : the Ascension of
Isaiah, the Odes of Solomon , and the letters of Ignatius of Anti-
238
och .

237. See above, pp. 86-91. It is to Harnack 's credit that his label for this

source approximates part of the composite title - not found in any other MS

containing the Prot. Jas. - of the complete papyrus copy of this document
that was discovered a half century after he wrote. The title itself, Genesiq Ma-

riaq, iApokaluviq iIakwb, indicates the composite nature of the Prot. Jas. ;
see Testuz ' comments above, p. 86. De Strycker, Forme, 212, supports
the authenticity of the title Genesiq Mariaq, but rejects the subtitle iApoka-

luviq iIakwb as secondary.

238. George T. Zervos, ``Seeking the Source of the Marian Myth : Have

We Found the Missing Link ? '' in Which Mary ? The Marys of Early Chris-
tian Tradition (ed. F. Stanley Jones ; SBLSymS 19 ; Atlanta : Society of Bibli-
cal Literature, 2002). See idem, ``Dating, '' and ``Annunciation '' ; Smid,

Protevangelium, 17, writes : ``P.J. is not the only witness to the Virgin Birth
in the second century ; rather is it ( sic) one of a series, of which several testi-

monies are still preserved to us ''. For the relevant texts, see W. Delius,
108 g. zervos

What more fitting pre-existing source of the parallel state-

ments in John 8 :11 and Prot. Jas. 16 :3 can we hope to discover

than the Genesiq Mariaq , a document that was incorporated in-

to the Prot. Jas. when this apocryphon was composed from sev-
239
eral such sources around the middle of the second century ?

And if we must identify an ``earlier, now-unknown document ''

that fulfills Petersen 's valid first two parameters for the source

of the logion in John 8 :11 / Prot. Jas. 16 :3 (see p. 102-103),

there is no better candidate than the Genesiq Mariaq which is

240
``pre-150, '' originally written in Greek , and, even more impor-

tantly, contains the logion itself in what may have been its origi-
nal form - the exonerative statement of the high priest to Mary.

If we are seeking a very early story or tradition of a woman who

was accused of adultery and acquitted of that charge in a legal

proceeding, and if this story must contain a statement similar to

that of the presiding judge in the Prot. Jas. and of Jesus in the

Johannine PA, there seems to be no apparent reason to deny

that that story could have been the Genesiq Mariaq or the tradi-

tion behind it. And it is only a small step from this hypothesis to

the conclusion that the Genesiq Mariaq was the source of the

scenario of the PA at least, if not of the entire PA itself, given

that this document is the earliest extant evidence for the Johan-

nine PA and - with the possible exception of the Papias / Euse-

bius reference - the only such evidence from the second century.

The Form-Critical Argument

A form-critical comparison of the Genesiq Mariaq and the

PA supports our hypothesis of a relationship between these two

documents. Viewed alone, without the second and third sec-

tions, or sources, of the Prot. Jas., the Genesiq Mariaq is noth-

ing but the story of a pregnant, unmarried - and therefore

obviously guilty - woman who is accused and acquitted of the

charge of adultery. It is highly relevant to our argument that all

of the elements of Petersen 's comprehensive form-critical com-

parison of the Prot. Jas. and the PA (pp. 32-33) apply exclu-

sively to the Genesiq Mariaq and not to the latter two parts of

the Prot. Jas. which are concerned with the birth of Jesus and its

Texte zur Geschichte der Marienverehrung und Marienverkundigung in der al-

ten Kirche (KlT 178 ; Berlin : 1956) 5-14. Cf. above, pp. 34-35, n. 241, for the
Syrian provenance of the Prot. Jas.

239. Zervos, ``Annunciation '', 686-88, idem, ``Seeking '', 115-20.

240. De Strycker, Forme, 421. Cf. Testuz, Nativite, 21, 24-25, who views
the occurrence of the semitic spelling Mariammy in the second section of the

Prot. Jas. as evidence of a Syriac or Aramaic source.

 caught in the act 109

aftermath. The Genesiq Mariaq is a confrontation story about a

female accused of sexual misconduct by religiously scrupulous

Jews, who is brought by a crowd to a male religious figure who

judges her, speaks the logion in question as the dramatic climax

of a tension-filled scene and acquits the woman in spite of over-

whelming evidence of her guilt. It is significant to note within

this context that the second verification of Mary 's purity by Sal-

ome in the nativity story in Prot. Jas. 19 - which is part of the

Apocryphum Josephi - seems redundant in the Prot. Jas. as a
whole. If Mary had already been exonerated once by the high

priest in the Genesiq Mariaq (Prot. Jas. 16) - thus establishing

her ante partum virginity in agreement with the agenda of the
early gospel tradition - why would a second validation of her pu-

rity be necessary after the birth of Jesus in the Apocryphum Jose-

phi (Prot. Jas. 19) except to advance her post partum virginity in
accordance with the next generation of Christian documents
241
noted above .

It is instructive for us to consider as well the assessment of

the composition of the Prot. Jas. by the first editor of P. Bodmer

V, Michel Testuz, who was also the last scholar to write exten-

sively on this apocryphon in the era when the multiple-source

compositional theory of the Prot. Jas. held sway, before the de

Strycker juggernaut established the unity of this work as the
242
norm . Working primarily from the text of the papyrus itself,

Testuz placed the dividing line between the Genesiq Mariaq and

the second section of the Prot. Jas. precisely after the logion
243
oude egw krinw umaq . Testuz hypothesized that the present
ending of the Prot. Jas. in chapter 25 originally followed directly
after this statement of the high priest to Mary and was sepa-

rated from it when a variety of materials that now form chapters

244
17-24 were inserted into the original document . There is no

indication that Testuz was aware of the issue of the PA or its

relevance for his conclusions on the composition of the Prot.

241. See n. 251. See also our discussion above, pp. 85-87, concerning the

progressive dogmatization of the Prot. Jas.

242. See above, pp. 84-85.

243.Nativite , 24. Oscar Cullmann, ``The Protevangelium of James '', in

New Testament Apocrypha (rev. ed. ; ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher ; Eng.
trans. ed. Robert McLachlan Wilson ; Louisville, Kentucky : Westminster /

John Knox Press, 1991), vol. 1, 42, also places ch. 17 in the second part of

the Prot. Jas. ; Harnack considers ch. 17 to be part of the Genesiq Mariaq,
see above, p. 22.

244. Nativite , 22, 24-25. Testuz did not regard ch(s). 17-20 to be a unified
document such as the Apocryphum Josephi, but as a combination of various
source materials. But he did label ch(s). 21-24 as the Apocryphum Zachariae.
110 g. zervos

Jas. But if his contention is correct that the Genesiq Mariaq

ended immediately after the final exonerative statement of the

high priest to Mary, the story of Mary as an accused and acquit-

ted adulteress would have been the focal point and dramatic

conclusion of the work as a whole. Consequently, if the Genesiq

Mariaq , as a complete document narrating the early life of

Mary, culminated in the earliest form of the story of the adulter-

ess in existence - which is of such precise form-critical congruity

with the PA - we may conclude that there is every possibility

that this was the source out of which the PA was later formu-

lated.

Was Mary the Adulteress ?

Finally, we must address the question that does not seem to

have occurred to anyone within the context of the investigation

of the origins of the PA : If the Genesiq Mariaq is the source of

the early Christian tradition of the adulteress, meaning that the

original form of the tradition was associated with the mother of

Jesus, does this allow us to speculate that Mary herself may

have been the original adulteress ? This would certainly account

for the impenetrable mystery of the origins of the PA and would

explain why its canonical form suddenly appeared in the late

second or third century in a form completely disassociated from

the mother of the man who was in the process of becoming the

master of the universe. Is this the reason that the PA did not cir-
245
culate in Christian circles in the first two centuries, because

another such story did exist whose content involved the mother

245. Some scholars have conjectured that the PA was temporarily suppres-

sed by the Early Church and accepted in later centuries for a different rea-

son : to emphasize the severity of the sin of adultery and the necessity for its

punishment, see above, pp. 63, n(n). 32-33 ; cf. Harald Riesenfeld, ``The Pe-

ricope de adultera in the Early Christian Tradition '', in The Gospel Tradition

(Philadelphia : Fortress, 1970), 98-99, ``the contents of the account came to

contrast in a disturbing and embarrassing way with the praxis of church dis-

cipline regarding offenses against the sixth commandemnent '' ; Ehrman,

``Jesus '' pp. 66-67, n(n). 53, 58 ; see Burge 's more complete scenario, ``Prob-

lem '' 146-48, of the story 's initial suppression because of conservative

Christian attitudes against sexuality in the second century and its return in

the fourth century when the church was in control of society and bishops

were forced to be more lenient ; Schilling, ``Story '' 96-99, 105-106, agrees

that ``the story circulated independently and found its way early into church

orders, such as the Apostolic Constitutions '' in what he views as an attempt

to entice Christian bishops, who in the fourth century had come to control

Greco-Roman society at large, to be more lenient towards sinners.

 caught in the act 111

of Jesus being accused and exonerated of the charge of adultery?

And is this why the telltale exonerative eventually found
logion

its way into a scenario in which Jesus is addressing an unnamed

adulterous woman, because it was first directed toward the
mother of Jesus? Was the PA originally the concluding scene of
the Genesiq Mariaq - a document narrating the early life of the
mother of Jesus - that had to be detached from this context and
rewritten as a shortened, censored version of the story that even-
tually reappeared in John in a form that had nothing to do with
Mary herself? Does this hypothesis find support in the fact that
the earliest historical association of the PA with John is in the
later Latin tradition, in which also occurs the first stated opposi-
tion to the story, and which also246 soon thereafter banned the
Prot. Jas. via the Gelasian decree ?
Granted that these questions are largely speculative and are
based on the only existing evidence - the present form of the
Prot. Jas. and the later PA as it occurs in John 7:53-8:11. How-
ever, there does exist considerable circumstantial evidence fur-
ther attesting to these possibilities that has best been presented
by Jane Schaberg in her landmark work: The Illegitimacy of

Jesus : A Feminist theological Interpretation of the Infancy Nar-

ratives
247. In this book, which has been described as ``founda-
tional for feminist theology''248, Schaberg argues that the
canonical infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke independ-
ently preserve a tradition that Jesus was conceived normally -

246. See above, pp. 61-63. The PA is conspicuously absent from the earliest
Latin witnesses, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Codex Bobbiensis (k), whose text
may date from the second century; the affirmative Latin witnesses, both MS
and patristic, are from the fourth century and later, cf. Aland, Text , 187-90.
For the Gelasian Decree, see Wilhelm Schneemelcher , ``General Introduc-
tion'', in New Testament Apocrypha (rev. ed.; ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher ;
Eng. trans. ed. Robert McLachlan Wilson ; Louisville, Kentucky: West-
minster / John Knox Press, 1991), vol. 1, 38-40. Cf . Lu hrmann 's linking of
the PA and the Didascalia with Bezae and the Latin MS tradition, `` Ge-

schichte '', 293-94, 302-304, and Petersen 's observation that the witness of
Didymus the Blind should be considered collectively with those of Jerome
and Rufinus in the Latin tradition, since both of the latter were students of
Didymus in the catechetical school of Alexandria, `` Sayings '', 199, n. 34; cf.
Lu hrmann , ``
Geschichte '', 292.
247. San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1987. See also her, ``The
Foremothers and the Mother of Jesus'', in Motherhood : Experience, Institu-

tion, Theology (ed. Anne Carr and Elisabeth Schu ssler Fiorenza ; Edin-
burgh: T. & T. Clark, 1989), 112-19.
248. Luise Schottroff ,Lydia 's Impatient Sister : A Feminist Social History

of Early Christianity (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press,

1995), 200.
112 g. zervos

not miraculously - when his mother was seduced or, more prob-
249
ably, raped while she was engaged . It is not within the scope

of our present discussion to resolve the issue of whether Mary

250
was seduced or raped . Schaberg herself upholds the likelihood

that this tradition is based upon the simple report - probably

originating from Jesus ' mother, brothers, and sisters - that Jesus

was illegitimately conceived and that further interpretation of

this report of illegitimacy in the pre-gospel period does not stem

251
from his family . But what does interest us is that the manner

of Jesus ' conception would have been so troublesome to the

early Christian writers that it would have prompted them to

present that conception in a more favorable light, as witnessed

by the canonical nativity stories and the Genesiq Mariaq / Prot.

Jas., and, if our hypothesis is correct, the formation of the PA

out of the Genesiq Mariaq , its subsequent incorporation into

the canonical Gospel of John, and its eventual universal accept-

ance by the Christian tradition.

The additional evidence of the illegitimacy tradition pre-

sented by Schaberg occurs in a variety of pre- and post-gospel

252
sources : 1) the statement made to Jesus by his opponents in

John 8 :41 that ymeiq e k porneiaq ou gegenymeha (``we were not

born of fornication ''), perhaps implying that Jesus was, 2) the

characterization of Jesus in Mark 6 :3 as o ui oq ty q Mariaq

(``the son of Mary ''), by people in his hometown of Nazareth as

he taught in the synagogue, possibly being an insulting reflec-

249. ``The biological father is absent and unnamed... He plays no role at

all... Joseph becomes the child 's legal father, incorporating him into the Da-

vidic line '', Illegitimacy, 146-47. In her latest publication Shaberg describes

the responses to her conclusions as ranging from acceptance to a ``popular

and academic anti-feminist backlash, some of it violent '', The Resurrection

of Mary Magdalene : Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament (New

York, London : Continuum, 2002), 13-14.

250. Schaberg 's own reading of the canonical stories leads her to conclude

that ``Mary is not at fault in this pregnancy... both evangelists want the read-

er to regard Mary as innocent of cooperation in seduction, that is, adultery.

They are leading the reader to think... of her rape '', Illegitimacy, 146.

251. Ibid., 153-54. She finds further support for this position in early reports

that the family of Jesus was not among his original followers (John 7 :5 ;

Mark 3 :21, 31).

252. Ibid., 156-92. The only sources presented here are those which appear

to be significant for the question of Jesus ' illegitimacy in the first two centu-

ries. Schaberg herself considers the Prot. Jas. to be a late second-century

work and therefore is unaware of its relationship to the PA and the positive

enhancement of her thesis that this relationship may provide, ibid., 188-90.
 caught in the act 113

253
tion on Jesus ' not having a father , 3) the generally negative

depiction of the relationship between Jesus and his family in

Mark : a) in 3 :21 they think Jesus is out of his mind and try to

seize him (kai a kousanteq oi par ' autou exylhon kratysai au-
ton elegon gar oti exesti), b) in 3 :31-35 Jesus ' seeming denial
of his biological family in favor of those around him who do the

will of God, whom he describes as a delfoq mou, kai adelfy

kai mytyr, (``my brother and sister and mother ''), and c) in 6 :4
the addition of the relatives and household of Jesus to his state-

ment concerning those among whom a prophet has no honor

(ouk estin profytyq atimoq ei my en t patridi autou kai en

toiq suggeneusin autou kai en t oikia

autou)
254
, 4) in logion
105 of the second-century Gospel of Thomas , Jesus says, ``He

who will know the father and the mother will be called the son

of a harlot (porny) '', possibly referring to his own birth, 5) Ori-

gen 's third-century report concerning a statement of the pagan

philosopher Celsus (178) - purportedly based on a Jewish source

- to the effect that Jesus ' mother was a poor country spinster

who was accused or convicted of adultery ( elegjheisa epi moi-

) and was driven out by her carpenter fiance (exwsheisa

jeia
apo tou mnysteumenou autyn tektonoq) because she became
pregnant by a soldier named Panthera ( kuousa apo tinoq strat-
255
iwtou Panhyra tounoma) , 6) several references to Jesus as

Yeshu ben Pantera (``Jesus, son of Pantera '') in early rabbinic

sources - the earliest of which involves the first-century Rabbi

Eliezer - which apparently confirm Origen 's information from

256
Celsus ' Jewish source (see 5 above) .

The cumulative effect of these witnesses strongly suggests that

in the first two centuries there was widespread innuendo from

both inside and outside the Christian community regarding the

questionable circumstances surrounding the conception of

Jesus. The extent and intensity of this innuendo was of such

magnitude that various early Christian writers, including the au-

253. Ibid ., 160-63. It is significant that whereas Mark never mentions Jo-

seph (although he names four brothers of Jesus and refers also that he had

sisters, see above, pp. 87, and n. 166 for the texts), Matthew and Luke both

take pains to modify Mark 's omission by inserting Joseph into their texts.

toq estin o tektwn, o uioq tyq Mariaq, Matthew reads :

For Mark 's ouj ou

toq estin o tou tektonoq uioq ouj y mytyr autou legetai Mariam
ouj ou
toq ;
and Luke : ouji uioq estin iIwsyf ou

254. In the parallel passages, both Matthew and Luke soften these harsh

words of Jesus against his relatives ; Matt 13 :57 omits the Markan reference

to Jesus ' relatives, en toiq suggeneusin autou, while Luke 4 :24 omits both

autou.
the reference to Jesus ' relatives and to ``his house, '' en t oikia

255. Against Celsus I. 28, 32 ; cf. 39, 69.

256. See Schaberg , Illegitimacy, 170-174, for references.

114 g. zervos

thors of the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and the composer of

the Ascension of Isaiah, felt compelled to include in their works

a rejoinder to these insinuations of impropriety on the part of

Mary - the idea of her virginal conception of Jesus. The absence

of any traces whatsoever of this concept before Matthew and

Luke raises the possibility that it was produced as a reaction to

the reality of (or to derogatory rumors about) Mary 's problem-

atic conception of her son. As the second century gave way to

the third the innuendo gradually faded from the collective mind

of the church - but not from that of its adversaries - and Mary 's

reputation of ante partum blamelessness came to be enveloped

in the respectability of historical fact with the canonization of

Matthew and Luke. On the other hand the author of the Genesiq
Mariaq and the later editor of the Prot. Jas. composed whole

documents whose primary purpose was to redeem Mary 's image

by portraying her as being endowed with superhuman innocence

and sexual purity from her birth and throughout her entire life

leading up to, including, and even after her conception of and

giving birth to Jesus. Although these latter documents did not

achieve canonical status, their portrait of Mary survived and

was eventually adopted as the doctrine of the perpetual virginity

of the ``Mother of God ''. One can envision in this scenario the

transfer of the stigma of adulteress from Mary to the unnamed

woman in the PA.

Obviously these proposals are hypothetical. But we must keep

in mind that we are working only with vestiges of ancient tradi-

tions, wisps of memory from the earliest times of a religious in-

stitution whose long-standing practice it has been to expunge

any remembrance of these ideas from the historical record. And

since this institution was able to achieve and retain for many

centuries absolute control of the society in which these events

transpired, it succeeded in its expurgatory task with such devas-

tating thoroughness that any relevant traditions and documents

that have survived have long since been purified of the stain of

``unorthodox '' elements in the same way that Mary 's image was

purified of the blemish of adultery. It cannot be confirmed that

Jesus was illegitimately conceived by adultery or rape, or that

the historical Mary was an adulteress whose image was trans-

formed into that of an innocent woman who was accused and

acquitted of adultery. It is probably beyond our capacity to re-

discover the historical truth - across two millennia - concerning

the conception of Jesus or his mother 's moral state on the basis

of the writings of a few, usually prejudiced, ancient authors. We

only hope to have shed new light upon these mysteries and to

have opened new avenues of investigation that may yet yield so-

lutions to these seemingly unanswerable questions.