John 8:25
They said therefore to him: Who art thou? Jesus said to them: The beginning, who also speak unto you.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Dicebant ergo ei : Tu quis es ? Dixit eis Jesus : Principium, qui et loquor vobis.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- ἔλεγον οὖν αὐτῷ· Σὺ τίς εἶ; εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅ τι καὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν;
Haydock's commentary
Who art thou? Jesus said to them: The beginning,3 who also speak to you. This text and the construction of it is obscure, both in the Latin and in the Greek. St. Augustine and some of the Latin Fathers, expound it in this manner: I am the beginning of all things, who now being made man, speak to you. But this does not seem the construction, if we consult the Greek text; (where the beginning is not in the nominative, but in the accusative case) and therefore St. Augustine having considered more attentively the Greek, thinks that something must be understood, as believe me to be the beginning: he looks upon this to be the sense and the construction, as being connected with what was said two verses before; to wit, if you believe not that I am he, the true Messias, you shall die in your sins. "That they might," says St. Augustine (tract. 38, num. 11, p. 560) "know what they were to believe," he made them this answer, as if he had said: believe me to be the beginning, the cause, the author of all things, who am now become man, and speak to you. Other later interpreters are of opinion that the beginning is here a Grecism, and signifies that same as at first, or from the beginning. The sense therefore and construction may be, I am, what I said and told you at first, and from the beginning; that is, I am your Messias, the true Son of God, sent into the world, &c. (Witham)
The Pharisees, indignant at the liberty with which Jesus spoke to them, demand of him in a rage, Who art thou, to speak to us in this imperious manner, to say that we shall die in our sins? Jesus answered them, that he was the Beginning, Author, Creator, and Ruler of all things. This is the more orthodox and more becoming interpretation. Or, I am, in the first place, what I have already told you; viz. (ver. 12.) I am the light of the world; he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Or, it may mean, I am what I have always from the beginning told you. I am the Son of God, the Messias, &c. (Calmet)
3 Principium qui et loquor vobis. St. Augustine reads, quia loquor vobis, as we find in some Greek manuscripts and in St. Cyril, p. 511. In the common copies wer read, ten archen, oti kai lalo umin. And as ten archen is in the accusative case, so we may take principium; and to be taken adverbially, to signify the same as primùm, à principio, imprimis. Maldonatus is of the same opinion, as well as many others, and brings examples to shew that ten archen (i.e. kata ten archen) is often taken for primùm: and so the sense will be, I am what I told you from the beginning, i.e. the Messias, and this I now tell you again. We may also take notice, that the Greek construction is hard to be accounted for, ten archen oti, not os, qui, nor e, to agree with arche.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Catena Aurea on verses 25-27
Our Lord having said, You believe not that I am, you shall die in your sins; they inquire of Him, as if wishing to, know in whom they are to believe, that they might not die in their sin: Then said they to Him, Who are You? For when you said, If you believe not that I am, you did not add, who you are. But our Lord knew that these were some who would believe, and therefore after being asked, Who are You? that such might know what they should believe Him to be, Jesus said to them, The beginning, who also speak to you; not as if to say, I am the beginning, but, Believe Me to be the beginning; as is evident from the Greek, where beginning is feminine. Believe Me then to be the beginning but you die in your sins: for the beginning cannot be changed; it remains fixed in itself, and is the source of change to all things. But it is absurd to call the Son the beginning, and not the Father also. And yet there are not two beginnings, even as these are not two Gods. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son; not being either the Father, or the Son. Yet Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, one Light, one beginning. He adds, Who also speak to you, i.e. Who humbled Myself for your sakes, and condescended to those words. Therefore believe Me to be the beginning; because that you may believe this, not only am I the beginning but I also speak with you, that you may believe that I am. For if the Beginning had remained with the Father in its original nature, and not taken upon it the form of a servant, how, could men have believed in it? Would their weakly minds have taken in the spiritual Word, without the medium of sensible sound?
St Bede Catena Aurea on verses 25-27
In some copies we find, Who also speak to you; but it is more consistent to read for (quia), not, who (qui): in which case the meaning is: Believe Me to be the beginning, for your own sakes have I condescended to these words.
St John Chrysostom Catena Aurea on verses 25-27
See here the madness of the Jews; asking after so long time, and after all His miracles and teaching, Who are You? What is Christ’s answer? From the beginning I speak with you; as if to say, you do not deserve to hear any thing from Me, much less this thing, Who I am. For you speak always, to tempt Me. But I could, if I would confound and punish you: I have many things to say, and to judge of you.
St Augustine Catena Aurea on verses 25-27
Above He said, I judge no man but, I judge not, is one thing, I have to judge another. I judge not, He says, with reference to the present time. But the other, I have many things to say, and to judge of you, refers to a future judgment. And I shall be true in My judgment, because I am truth, the Son of the true One. He that sent Me is true. My Father is true, not by partaking of, but begetting truth. Shall we say that truth is greater than one who is true? It we say this, we shall begin to call the Son greater than the Father.
St John Chrysostom Catena Aurea on verses 25-27
He says this, that they may not think that He allows them to talk against Him with impunity, from inability to punish them, or that He is not alive to their contemptuous designs.
Theophylact Catena Aurea on verses 25-27
Or having said, I have many things to say, and to judge of you, thus reserving His judgment for a future time, He adds, But He that sells Me is true: as If to say, Though you are unbelievers, My Father is true, Who has appointed a day of retribution for you.
St John Chrysostom Catena Aurea on verses 25-27
Or thus: As My Father has sent Me not to judge the world, but to save the world, and My Father is true, I accordingly judge no man now; but speak thus for your salvation, not your condemnation: And I speak to the world those things that I have heard of Him.
Alcuin Catena Aurea on verses 25-27
And do hear from the Father is the same as to be from the Father; He has the hearing from the same sense that He has the being.
St Augustine Catena Aurea on verses 25-27
The coequal Son gives glory to the Father: as if to say, I give glory to Him whose Son I am: how proudly you detract from Him, whose servant you are.
Alcuin Catena Aurea on verses 25-27
They did not understand however what He meant by saying, He is true that sent Me: they understand not that He spoke to them of the Father. For they had not the eyes of their mind yet opened, to understand the equality of the Father with the Son.
St Augustine On the Holy Trinity, In What Manner the Son is Said Not to Know the Day and the Hour Which the Father Knows. Some Things Said of Christ According to the Form of God, Other Things According to the Form of a Servant. In What Way It is of Christ to Give the Kingdom, in What Not of Christ. Christ Will Both Judge and Not Judge
24. According to the form of God, it is said “Before all the hills He begat me,” that is, before all the loftinesses of things created and, “Before the dawn I begat Thee,” that is, before all times and temporal things: but according to the form of a servant, it is said, “The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways.” Because, according to the form of God, He said, “I am the truth;” and according to the form of a servant, “I am the way.” For, because He Himself, being the first-begotten of the dead, made a passage to the kingdom of God to life eternal for His Church, to which He is so the Head as to make the body also immortal, therefore He was “created in the beginning of the ways” of God in His work. …
St Augustine On the Holy Trinity, How the Word Beginning (Principium) is Spoken Relatively in the Trinity
14. The Father is called so, therefore, relatively, and He is also relatively said to be the Beginning, and whatever else there may be of the kind; but He is called the Father in relation to the Son, the Beginning in relation to all things, which are from Him. So the Son is relatively so called; He is called also relatively the Word and the Image. And in all these appellations He is referred to the Father, but the Father is called by none of them. And the Son is also called the Beginning; for when it was said to Him, “Who art Thou?” He replied, “Even the Beginning, who also speak to you.” But is He, pray, the Beginning of the Father? For He intended to show Himself to be the Creator when He said that He was the Beginning, as the Father also is the beginning of the creature in that all things are from Him. For creator, too, is spoken relatively to creature, as master to servant. …
St Augustine Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, Chapter VIII. 26, 27
1. The words of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He had addressed to the Jews, so regulating His discourse that the blind saw not, and believers’ eyes were opened, are these, which have been read to-day from the holy Gospel: “Then said the Jews, Who art thou?” Because the Lord had said before, “If ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins.” To this accordingly they rejoined, “Who art thou?” as if seeking to know on whom they ought to believe, so as not to die in their sin. He replied to those who asked Him: “Who art thou?” by saying, “The beginning, for [so] also I speak to you.” If the Lord has called Himself the beginning, it may be inquired whether the Father also is the beginning. …
St Augustine Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, Chapter VIII. 26, 27
8. I see I must speak more plainly. And, not to detain you long, let me treat only of this point to-day. When I have finished what, with God’s help, I wish to say, my discourse shall close. I have said this, then, to enlist your attention. Every soul, as being a thing, is mutable; and although a great creature, yet a creature; though superior to the body, yet made. Every soul, then, since it is changeable, that is, sometimes believes, sometimes disbelieves; at one time wishes, at another time refuses; at one time is adulterous, at another chaste; now good, and again wicked, is changeable. But God is that which is, and so has retained as His own peculiar name, “I am who am.” Such also is the Son, when He says, “If ye believe not that I am;” and thereto pertains also, “Who art thou? The Beginning” ( ver. 25 ). God therefore is unchangeable, the soul changeable. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CX
8. What meaneth, “With Thee is the beginning”? Suppose anything you please as the beginning. Of Christ Himself, it would rather have been said, Thou art the Beginning, than, With Thee is the beginning. For He answered to those who asked Him, “Who art Thou?” and said, “Even the same that I said unto you, the Beginning;” since His Father also is the Beginning, of whom is the only-begotten Son, in which Beginning was the Word, for the Word was with God. What then, if both the Father and the Son are the beginning, are there two beginnings? God forbid! For as the Father is God, and the Son is God, but the Father and the Son are not two Gods, but one God: so is the Father Beginning and the Son Beginning, but the Father and the Son are not two, but one Beginning. “With Thee is the beginning.” Then it shall appear in what sense the beginning is with Thee. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John, John 8.20
Ver. 25 . “Then said they unto Him, Who art thou?” Oh folly! After so long a time, such signs and teaching, they ask, “Who art thou?” What then saith Christ? “The same that I told you from the beginning.” What He saith, is of this kind; “Ye are not worthy to hear My words at all, much less to learn who I am, for ye say all that ye do, tempting Me, and giving heed to none of My sayings. And all this I could now prove against you.” For this is the sense of,
St Cyril of Jerusalem On the Clause, And Shall Come in Glory to Judge the Quick and the Dead; Of Whose Kingdom There Shall Be No End
27. And shouldest thou ever hear any say that the kingdom of Christ shall have an end, abhor the heresy; it is another head of the dragon, lately sprung up in . A certain one has dared to affirm, that after the end of the world Christ shall reign no longer; he has also dared to say, that the Word having come forth from the Father shall be again absorbed into the Father, and shall be no more; uttering such blasphemies to his own perdition. For he has not listened to the Lord, saying, The Son abideth for ever. He has not listened to Gabriel, saying, And He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end. Consider this text. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).