Our inquiry is of an essentially different kind, viz.

Are these twelve consecutive verses Scripture at all, or not?
Divine or human?
Which?
They claim by their very structure and contents to be an integral part of the Gospel.

And such a serious accession to the Deposit, I insist, can neither have 'crept into' the Text, nor have 'crept out' of it.

The thing is unexampled,--is unapproached,--is impossible.
Above all,--( the reader is entreated to give the subject his sustained attention),--Is it not perceived that the admission involved in the hypothesis before us is fatal to any rational pretence that the passage is of spurious origin?
We have got back in thought at least to the third or fourth century of our era.

We are among the Fathers and Doctors of the Eastern Church in conference assembled: and they are determining what shall be the Gospel for the great Festival of Pentecost.