jewish-christian gospels recovered Because Eusebius quotes theGospel of the Hebrewsin connection
with the canonical writings and not in the context where he lists Papias’
“legendary accounts,” it seems that the story about the woman who was
accused of many sins was not too far from the style of the canonical
gospels. Perhaps the contents of his story was one of the reasons why
Eusebius was willing to list theGospel of the Hebrewsamong the disputed
and not among the totally heretical writings?
The Origin of the Passage about a Woman Accused of Many Sins
Since Rufinus, the passage referred to by Papias has often been identified
with the story about a woman caught in adultery, which is later on added
to John :–: (or in some manuscripts after John :; : or Luke
:). John’s passage is found for the first time in manuscript D (fifth
century). However, the passage is found even earlier in theDidascalia
Apostolorumwhere the woman is not called an adulteress but a sinner
(DAVII/Lagarde, p. ), as in Papias’ fragment (“accused of sins”).
Notably, also D and manuscript refer to the “sin” (sg.) of the woman
and not to adultery.^85 Moreover, Didymus the Blind also quotes a story
about a woman condemned for a sin:
We find in certain Gospels. A woman, it says, was condemned by the
Jews for a sin and was being sent to be stoned in a place where that was
customary to happen. The Savior, it says, when he saw her and observed
that they were ready to stone her said to those who were about to cast
stones: He who has not sinned let him take a stone and cast it. If anyone is
conscious of himself of not having sinned, let him take a stone and smite
her. And no one dared. Since they knew in themselves and perceived that
they themselves were guilty in some things, they did not dare to strike her.
(Didymus the Blind,Comm. Eccl. .,–; trans. Klijn , ).
The variants in manuscript tradition, theDidascaliaand Didymus’ pas-
sage indicate that several versions of the same basic story were circulat-
ing among Christians in the late fourth and early fifth century (Didymus
died ). Therefore, it possible that Papias had already cited one version
of the story, and that he, as well as Didymus, had found the story in the
Gospel of the Hebrews.^86
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the character of the story
as it is presented in the Johannine tradition would quite well fit with
Hebrewswas known only in Egypt, the similarity with Papias’ passage is striking, and
raises serious doubts about the correctness of one of the basic assumptions of the GH.(^85) Vielhauer & Strecker (^2) ( (^1) ), . Cf. the discussion below, Chapter ...
(^86) Thus, for instance, Frey b, .