Are we then to suppose that one leaf exhibited somewhere a blank space equivalent to eight lines?
Impossible, I answer.

There existed, on the contrary, a considerable redundancy of matter in at least the second of those two lost leaves.

This is proved by the circumstance that the first column on the next ensuing leaf exhibits the unique phenomenon of being encumbered, at its summit, by two very long lines (containing together fifty-eight letters), for which evidently no room could be found on the page which immediately preceded.

But why should there have been any redundancy of matter at all?
Something extraordinary must have produced it.

What if the _Pericope de adultera_, without being actually inserted in full, was recognized by Cod.