2--'Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world.' And had not that saying of His reference as well to the thick cloud of moral darkness which His words, a few moments before, had succeeded in dispelling, as to the orb of glory which already flooded the Temple Court with the effulgence of its rising,--His own visible emblem and image in the Heavens ?...

I protest that with the incident of 'the woman taken in adultery,'-- so introduced, so dismissed,--all is lucid and coherent: without those connecting links, the story is scarcely intelligible.

These twelve disputed verses, so far from 'fatally interrupting the course of St.
John's Gospel, if retained in the text[579],' prove to be even necessary for the logical coherency of the entire context in which they stand.
But even that is not all.

On close and careful inspection, the mysterious texture of the narrative, no less than its 'edifying and eminently Christian' character, vindicates for the _Pericope de adultera_ a right to its place in the Gospel.

Let me endeavour to explain what seems to be its spiritual significancy: in other words, to interpret the transaction.
The Scribes and Pharisees bring a woman to our Saviour on a charge of adultery.