St John Chapter viii : Verses 35-44
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| You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. J-J Tissot. Brooklyn Museum. |
36 If therefore the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.
37 I know that you are the children of Abraham: but you seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.
38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and you do the things that you have seen with your father.
39 They answered, and said to him: Abraham is our father. Jesus saith to them: If you be the children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham.
40 But now you seek to kill me, a man who have spoken the truth to you, which I have heard of God. This Abraham did not.
41 You do the works of your father. They said therefore to him: We are not born of fornication: we have one Father, even God.
42 Jesus therefore said to them: If God were your Father, you would indeed love me. For from God I proceeded, and came; for I came not of myself, but he sent me:
43 Why do you not know my speech? Because you cannot hear my word.
44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.
35 ὁ δὲ δοῦλος οὐ μένει ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα· ⸀ὁ υἱὸς μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.
35 Servus autem non manet in domo in aeternum : filius autem manet in aeternum.
36 ἐὰν οὖν ὁ υἱὸς ὑμᾶς ἐλευθερώσῃ, ὄντως ἐλεύθεροι ἔσεσθε.
36 Si ergo vos filius liberaverit, vere liberi eritis.
37 οἶδα ὅτι σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ ἐστε· ἀλλὰ ζητεῖτέ με ἀποκτεῖναι, ὅτι ὁ λόγος ὁ ἐμὸς οὐ χωρεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν.
37 Scio quia filii Abrahae estis : sed quaeritis me interficere, quia sermo meus non capit in vobis.
38 ⸂ἃ ἐγὼ⸃ ἑώρακα παρὰ τῷ ⸀πατρὶ λαλῶ· καὶ ὑμεῖς οὖν ⸂ἃ ἠκούσατε⸃ παρὰ ⸂τοῦ πατρὸς⸃ ποιεῖτε.
38 Ego quod vidi apud Patrem meum, loquor : et vos quae vidistis apud patrem vestrum, facitis.
39 Ἀπεκρίθησαν καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ· Ὁ πατὴρ ἡμῶν Ἀβραάμ ἐστιν. λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Εἰ τέκνα τοῦ Ἀβραάμ ⸀ἐστε, τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ ⸀ἐποιεῖτε·
39 Responderunt, et dixerunt ei : Pater noster Abraham est. Dicit eis Jesus : Si filii Abrahae estis, opera Abrahae facite.
40 νῦν δὲ ζητεῖτέ με ἀποκτεῖναι, ἄνθρωπον ὃς τὴν ἀλήθειαν ὑμῖν λελάληκα ἣν ἤκουσα παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ· τοῦτο Ἀβραὰμ οὐκ ἐποίησεν.
40 Nunc autem quaeritis me interficere, hominem, qui veritatem vobis locutus sum, quam audivi a Deo : hoc Abraham non fecit.
41 ὑμεῖς ποιεῖτε τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν. ⸀εἶπαν αὐτῷ· Ἡμεῖς ἐκ πορνείας ⸂οὐ γεγεννήμεθα⸃· ἕνα πατέρα ἔχομεν τὸν θεόν.
41 Vos facitis opera patris vestri. Dixerunt itaque ei : Nos ex fornicatione non sumus nati : unum patrem habemus Deum.
42 ⸀εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Εἰ ὁ θεὸς πατὴρ ὑμῶν ἦν ἠγαπᾶτε ἂν ἐμέ, ἐγὼ γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθον καὶ ἥκω· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ ἐλήλυθα, ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνός με ἀπέστειλεν.
42 Dixit ergo eis Jesus : Si Deus pater vester esset, diligeretis utique et me; ego enim ex Deo processi, et veni : neque enim a meipso veni, sed ille me misit.
43 διὰ τί τὴν λαλιὰν τὴν ἐμὴν οὐ γινώσκετε; ὅτι οὐ δύνασθε ἀκούειν τὸν λόγον τὸν ἐμόν.
43 Quare loquelam meam non cognoscitis? Quia non potestis audire sermonem meum.
44 ὑμεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστὲ καὶ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν θέλετε ποιεῖν. ἐκεῖνος ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ⸂οὐκ ἔστηκεν⸃, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν αὐτῷ. ὅταν λαλῇ τὸ ψεῦδος, ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων λαλεῖ, ὅτι ψεύστης ἐστὶν καὶ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ.
44 Vos ex patre diabolo estis : et desideria patris vestri vultis facere. Ille homicida erat ab initio, et in veritate non stetit : quia non est veritas in eo : cum loquitur mendacium, ex propriis loquitur, quia mendax est, et pater ejus.
Annotations
35. Now the servant abideth not in the house for ever; but the son abideth for ever. He who is the servant [slave] of sin, like you Jews, has not the right of remaining in his Master’s house (that is the Church of God) for ever: for after death he will be cast into the outer darkness of hell, as ye too will be cast out. But the Son abideth for ever in His Father’s house, that is, I ever abide with My Father in heaven. But if through Me and My grace ye have been delivered from the bondage of sin, ye will abide for ever with me as adopted children, in the house of God, that is in the Church militant by grace, and in the Church triumphant, for ever happy and glorious in heaven. So S. Augustine, Bede, and others.
36. If therefore the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. I alone can make you free, not Abraham or Moses, though most beloved servants of God. So S. Chrysostom and others.
37. I know that you are the children of Abraham: but you seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. By nature ye are Abraham’s children, but in your deeds ye are degenerate. Your descent from Abraham will not therefore profit you. It will increase your damnation, for he will say at the last day, I acknowledge you not as my children, for ye have crucified Christ, my son and your brother.
because my word hath no place in you. Because ye will not take it in. Origen and S. Chrysostom think that these words were said to those who had before feebly believed in Christ, but who, on hearing themselves called “servants,” were incensed against Him and wished to kill Him. But it is more probable that they were addressed to unbelievers who had before that plotted His death.
38. I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and you do the things that you have seen with your father. Ye not only speak, but do that which ye have learnt from your father, the devil, especially in seeking to kill Me, implying that Abraham was not their father. See this more clearly declared verse 44.
39. They answered, and said to him: Abraham is our father. Because Christ seemed to imply that they had another father, they wished to learn from Him who he was. We own Abraham, and none other as our father.
Jesus saith to them: If you be the children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham. It is so in the Vulgate. But some Greek MSS. read as in the English version. He does not deny their extraction, but condemns their doings. Says S. Augustine, “Your flesh may be from Abraham, but not so your life.”
40. But now you seek to kill me, a man who have spoken the truth to you, which I have heard of God. This Abraham did not. Abraham did not injure any one, but saved Lot, and as many as he could. But the Jews were eager to kill Christ. The Jews (Perke. Avoth. cap. v.) draw the same contrast between a disciple of Abraham and of Balaam.
41. You do the works of your father. He persists in saying that they were not Abraham’s children, but does not say whose children they were.
They said therefore to him: We are not born of fornication: we have one Father, even God. Origen, Cyril, and Leontius think that in these words they implicitly reproached Him with His own birth. An atrocious statement, which the Pharisees studiously propagated, to detract from our Lord’s credit and authority. But it would have been atrocious blasphemy.
(2.) Euthymius and Rupertus suppose it to be only an assertion of their descent from Sarah, and not from Hagar, and thus not spurious, or in a secondary rank.
(3.) We are not born of spiritual fornication, i.e., idolatry. We are not Hagarenes, who were idolaters. Rupertus objects that to make out this meaning the word “but” should have been inserted. But Maldonatus maintains that such particles are often omitted, adding that fornication in the prophets means idolatry, as being spiritual fornication, drawing away the soul from its true Spouse (see Hos. i. 2). Theophylact explains it to mean, “We are not born of mixed marriages of Jews and Gentiles, which were forbidden, and counted illegitimate by the Jews.”
(4.) The Jews reply in a straightforward manner, Abraham is our true earthly father; and one is our Father, even God in heaven. Your charge is therefore false. You unjustly claim the God of Abraham for thyself alone, and exclude us from sonship with Him, and hand us over to another father, the devil, making us spurious, and consequently infamous.
42. Jesus therefore said to them: If God were your Father, you would indeed love me. For from God I proceeded, and came; for I came not of myself, but he sent me: Put syllogistically, our Lord’s argument runs this, “He who loves God, loves also the Son of God. But ye do not love Me, who am the Son of God. Therefore ye love not God. Just as the Arians, who by denying Christ to be the Son of God, deny the Father also; for if He has not a Son, He cannot be called God the Father.
For from God I proceeded (ἐξῆλθον) and came (ἥκω), I am here. S. Augustine, S. Hilary (de Trin. vi.), consider that the twofold generation of our Lord is here set forth. I came forth by eternal generation. I am come into the world by My Incarnation. “That the Word proceeded forth from God, is His eternal procession” (says S. Augustine), but He came to us, because He was made flesh; His advent was His being made man.
But Jansen, Maldonatus, and others refer both the expressions to the Incarnation, but yet as implying and presupposing His eternal generation. “I came forth from God, and came into the world, though I had before come forth from God, and was in heaven as God” (see chap. xvi. 27).
for I came not of myself, but he sent me. He teaches that He was not self-originate, says S. Hilary (de Trin. vi.) Origen adds, He says this on account of some who came of themselves, and were not sent of the Father (see Jer. 33:21). A warning to such as Lutherans, Calvinists, and others, who have no true mission.
43. Why do you not know my speech? Because you cannot hear my word. Because cleaving to your pride, avarice, hatred, and enmity against Me, ye will not hear Me and understand. “They could not hear,” says S. Augustine, “because they refused to be corrected by what they heard;” but (as says the Gloss) ye are of the devil, and have elected to go on with him. S. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iv., de Theol.) tells us that in Scripture “I cannot” sometimes means “I will not.” (See Matt. xix. 12.) But secondly, and more properly and forcibly, “Ye do not understand My words because ye cannot endure My teaching, and will not let My words enter your ears, so hateful am I to you, and so obstinately have you from hatred hardened your hearts against Me.” Thus Emmanuel Sa.
44. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof. “Not by descent but by imitation,” says S. Augustine, quoting Ezek. 16:4; and adding, “The Jews, by imitating their impieties, found for themselves parents, not of whom to be born, but with whom they would be lost, by following their evil ways.”
S. Epiphanius (Her. 38, 40) by the devil in this place understands Judas Iscariot, whom our Lord also calls a devil. But the author of “Questions on the Old and New Testament” (apud S. Augustine) understands Cain. ➤But it is certain that the devil must be taken literally to mean Lucifer. For the Jews in persecuting Jesus followed him as their father; “not by succession in the flesh, but in sin,” says S. Ambrose (Lib. iv. in loc.)
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. “In order to kill Me.” He explains that they are of the devil, by following his suggestion. S. Chrysostom says he speaks not of “works,” but of desires (or lusts), showing that both he and they greatly delighted in murders. ➤For the devil has an ardent desire to destroy all men, both because he grudges them the glory from which he himself fell, but also to injure God, whom he hates as his torturer, and wishes to tear away men from Him whom He created in His own image, and called and pre-destinated to His own eternal grace and glory.
He was a murderer from the beginning. For as soon as Adam was created, Lucifer, the very same day through envy destroyed both him and all his posterity, by persuading him to eat of the forbidden fruit. And in like manner does he endeavour through you, O Jews, to kill Me, by Whom all men are to be redeemed from death. For he ever persists in his eager desire to destroy men, as the leopard and wolf, which feed on human flesh. ➤He urged on Cain to kill Abel, and ➤Joseph’s brethren to destine him to death. ➤And even now instigates all murderers to commit their murders. ➤And much more does he thirst for the death and destruction of souls, though bodily death is here more properly meant, for this it was they plotted against Christ. Euthymius and S. Augustine (Contra Petib. ii. 13).
and he stood not in the truth; i.e., in the integrity and perfection, the grace, righteousness, and sanctity in which he was created. True means pure and unadulterated. As Nathaniel is called “a true Israelite, in whom is no guile.” Again “in the truth” means in that which was his duty. In S. John, David, and Solomon “the truth” commonly means this (see John iii. 21).
👉There is a threefold truth, in heart, word, and deed. The truth of the heart is opposed to error; the truth of word is opposed to a lie, the truth of deed is when a man acts in accordance with what is practically right, and this is opposed to iniquity and sin.
Now the devil did not stand in the truth because he did not persevere in what he ought to have done. He refused to be under God. He claimed to be His equal, a kind of second god, and rose up against Him through pride. Hence he fell from his state of grace, and was cast down to hell (see Is. xiv. 12). And so S. Chrysostom (Hom. liv.; S. Leo, Ser. de Quadr., and others). Hence
(1.) S. Augustine (contr. Adimantum iv. 4), understands by the “truth,” the law, meaning that the devil did not abide in the Law of God. Others by “truth” understand fidelity, or the obedience due to God as the Creator.
(2.) S. Irenæus (v. 22, 23) understands it to mean “veracity,” as our Lord says below he is “a liar, and the father of it.” Christ seems to charge the Jews with two faults, which they had learned from the devil, murder and mendacity and calumny.
(3.) Origen (Tom. xxiv.) understands it to mean “truth in practical matters,” which Lucifer abandoned when he sinned by pride, which practically was a false step. This resulted from his not abiding in truth of act, and thus he departed from truth in heart and word, and thus by his lies deceived mankind.
Hence S. Augustine (de Civ. xi. 13) rightly infers that he was created in grace and righteousness, and that the Manichees were wrong in asserting that he was naturally wicked or created by an evil god. They inferred this wrongly from 1 John iii., “The devil sinneth from the beginning.” The true meaning of this passage is explained in loco.
because truth is not in him,. Neither in thought, word, or deed, for those three kinds of truth have a sisterly relation to each other. But here “truth” rather signifies veracity.
When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof. When he fell from his original beauty as an angel and became a hideous demon, it was innate in him to deceive; his special and proper business was to lie, and to this he entirely devotes himself.
(2.) “of his own,” means of his own special invention. But men lie from imitating him, and by his suggestion.
(3.) “of his own,” from his own inward delight in it. He delights in it, as a thief in his thefts.
for he is a liar. From his constant habit of lying, he is altogether made up of lies. And if he ever speaks truth, it is by compulsion, or else by means of truth to persuade men to what is false.
and the father thereof. “His father,” says Nonnus. The Cainian heretics understood the devil to mean Cain. But the Manicheans on S. Augustine’s authority (in loco) said that the devil had a father, even the evil god, and that both he and his son were liars. But I maintain that “thereof” refers to the word “lie,” which is understood in the term liar which occurs just before. ➤ And he is the father of a lie. (1.) Because he first invented the act of lying. (2.) Because he fashions and forms lies, as the potter moulds the clay. So S. Augustine and others. It is a Hebraism. Origen says, “The devil begot a lie. He was seduced by himself, and in this respect was worse, because others are deceived by him, whereas he is the author of his own deception.” And S. Augustine, “Not every one that lies is a father of a lie, but he only who, like the devil, received it not from any other quarter.”
➤And hence the devil is the father and author of heresies, and therefore heresiarchs have had a devil at their side who suggested their heresies, as well as arguments to uphold them. So Luther confessed of himself. Such a suggester had Arius, Eunomius, Calvin, &c. The Apostle (1 Tim. iv. 1) speaks of heresies as “doctrines of devils” (see notes in loco).
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SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.
The Vladimirskaya Icon. >12th century.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
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