John 8:46

Our Lord, having already cut off the Jews from relationship to Abraham, overthrows now this far greater claim, to call God their Father, You are of your father the devil.

Here we must guard against the heresy of the Manicheans, who hold a certain original nature of evil, and a nation of darkness with princes at their head, whence the devil derives his existence. And thence they say our flesh is produced; and in this way interpret our Lord’s speech, You are of your father the devil: viz. to mean that they were by nature evil, drawing their origin from the opposite seed of darkness.

And this seems to be the same mistake, as if one said, that an eye which saw right was different in kind from an eye which saw wrong. For just as in these there is no difference of kind, only one of them for some reason sees wrong; so, in the other case, whether a man receives a doctrine, or whether he does not, he is of the same nature.

The Jews then were children of the devil by imitation, not by birth: And the lusts of your father you will do, our Lord says. You are his children then, because you have such lusts, not because you are born of him: for you seek to kill Me, a man that has told you the truth: and he envied man, and killed him: he was a murderer from the beginning; i.e. of the first man on whom a murder could be committed: man could not he slain, before man was created. The devil did not go, girt with a sword, against man: he sowed an evil word, and slew him. Do not suppose therefore that you are not guilty of murder, when you suggest evil thoughts to your brother. The very reason why you rage against the flesh, is that you cannot assault the soul.

Consider too, it was not one man only that he killed, but the whole human race, inasmuch as in Adam all die; so that he is truly called a murderer from the beginning.

He does not say, his works, but his lusts you will do, meaning that both the devil and the Jews were bent on murder, to satisfy their envy. And stood not in the truth. He shows whence sprang their continual objection to Him, that He was not from God.

But it will be objected perhaps, that if from the beginning of his existence, the devil stood not in the truth, he was never in a state of blessedness with the holy angels, refusing, as he did, to be subject to his Creator, and therefore false and deceitful; unwilling at the cost of pious subjection to hold that which by nature he was; and attempting in his pride and loftiness to simulate that which he was not. This opinion is not the same with that of the Manichaeans, that the devil has his own peculiar nature, derived as it were from the opposite principle of evil. This foolish sect does not see that our Lord says not, Was alien from the truth, but Stood not in the truth, meaning, fell from the truth. And thus they interpret John, The devil sins from the beginning, not seeing that if sin is natural, it is no sin. But what do the testimonies of the prophets reply? Isaiah, setting forth the devil under the figure of the prince of Babylon, says, How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! Ezekiel says, You have been in Eden, the garden of God. Which passages, as they cannot be interpreted in any other way, show that we must take the word, He stood not in the truth, to mean, that he was in truth, but did not remain in it; and the other, that the devil sins from the beginning, to mean, that he was a sinner not from the beginning of his creation, but from the beginning of sin. For sin began in him, and he was the beginning of sin.

There is only one way of standing in the truth; many and various of not standing in it. Some try to stand in the truth, but their feet tremble and shake so, they cannot. Others are not come to that pass, but are in danger of it, as we read in the Psalms, My feet were almost gone: others fall from it. Because the truth is not in him, is the reason why the devil did not stand in the truth. He imagined vain things, and deceived himself; wherein He was so far worse than others, in that, while others are deceived by him, he was the author of his own deception. But farther; does the truth is not in him, mean that he holds no true doctrine, and that every thing he thinks is false; or that he is not a member of Christ, who says, I am the truth? Now it is impossible that any rational being should think falsely on every subject and never be even ever so slightly right in opinion. The devil therefore may hold a true doctrine, by the mere law of his rational nature: and therefore his nature is not contrary to truth, i.e. does not consist of simple error and ignorance; otherwise he could never have known the truth.

Or when our Lord says, The truth is not in him, He intends it as an index: as if we had asked Him, how it appeared that the devil stood not in the truth; and He said, Because the truth is not in him. For it would be in him, if he stood in it. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Some have thought from these words that the devil had a father, and asked who was the father of the devil This is the error of the Manichaeans. But our Lord calls the devil the father of a lie for this reason: Every one who lies is not the father of his own lie; for you may tell a lie, which you have received from another; in which ease you have lied, but are not the father of the lie. But the lie wherewith, as with a serpent’s bite, the devil slew man, had no source but himself: and therefore he is the father of a lie, as God is the Father of the truth.

For he accused God to man, saying to Eve, But of envy He has forbidden you the tree: and to God he accused man, as in Job, Does Job serve God, for wrought?

Note however this word, liar, is applied to man, as well as to the devil, who begat a lie, as we read in the Psalm, All men are liars. If a man is not a liar, he is not an ordinary man, but one of those, to whom it is said, I have said, you are Gods. When a man speaks a lie, he speaks of his own; but the Holy Spirit speaks the word of truth and wisdom; as he said below, He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it to you.

Or thus: The devil is not a singular, but a common name. In whomsoever the works of the devil are found, he is to be called the devil. It is the name of a work, not of a nature. Here then our Lord means by the father of the Jews, Cain; whom they wished to imitate, by killing the Savior: for he it was who set the first example of murdering a brother. That he spoke a lie of his own, means that no one sins but by his own will. And inasmuch as Cain imitated the devil, and followed his works, the devil is said to be his father.

Our Lord being the truth, and the Son of the true God, spoke the truth; but the Jews, being the sons of the devil, were averse to the truth; and this is why our Lord says, Because I tell you the truth, you believe not.

But how is this said to the Jews, who believed in Him? Consider: a man may believe in one sense, not believe in another; e.g. that our Lord was crucified by Pontius Pilate, but not that He was born of the Virgin Mary. In this same w way, those whom He is speaking to, believed in Him as a worker of miracles, which they saw Him to be; but did not believe in His doctrines, which were too deep for them.

You wish to kill Me then, because you are enemies of the truth, not that you have any fault to find in Me: for, which of you convinces Me of sin?

As if to say: If you are the sons of God, you ought to hold sinners in hatred. If you hate Me, when you cannot convince Me of sin, it is evident that you hate Me because of the truth: i.e. because I said I was the Son of God.

A bold speech this; which none could have had the confidence to utter, but he Who did no sin; even our Lord.

Observe here the condescension of God. He who in by virtue of His Divinity could justify sinners, deigns to show from reason, that He is not a sinner. It follows: He that is of God hears God’s words; you therefore hear them not, because you are not of God.

Apply this not to their nature, but to their faults. They both are from God and are not from God at the same time; their nature is from God, their fault is not from God. This was spoken too to those, who were not only faulty, by reason of sin, in the way in which all are: but who it was foreknown would never possess such faith as would free them from the bonds of sin.

Let him then, who would understand God’s words ask himself whether he hears them with the ears of his heart. For there are some who do not deign to hear God’s commands even with their bodily ears; and there are others who do this, but do not embrace them with their heart’s desire; and there are others again who receive God’s words readily, yes and are touched, even to tears: but who afterwards go back to their sins again; and therefore cannot be said to hear the word of God, because they neglect to practice it.

Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly begotten of God and of the Virgin, but not after the same manner. For indeed God and man are not the same. He truly assumed a body; for “the Word was made flesh,” and lived upon earth without sin. For says He, “Which of you convicteth me of sin?” He did in reality both eat and drink. He was crucified and died under Pontius Pilate. He really, and not merely in appearance, was crucified, and died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. By those in heaven I mean such as are possessed of incorporeal natures; by those on earth, the Jews and Romans, and such persons as were present at that time when the Lord was crucified; and by those under the earth, the multitude that arose along with the Lord. …

4. That the perfection of his love and the sincerity of his deserved affection formed for it this inseparable union with God, so that the assumption of that soul was not accidental, or the result of a personal preference, but was conferred as the reward of its virtues, listen to the prophet addressing it thus: “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” As a reward for its love, then, it is anointed with the oil of gladness; i.e., the soul of Christ along with the Word of God is made Christ. Because to be anointed with the oil of gladness means nothing else than to be filled with the Holy Spirit. …

9. “Against Thee alone have I sinned, and before Thee an evil thing have I done” ( ver. 4 ). What is this? For before men was not another’s wife debauched and husband slain? Did not all men know what David had done? What is, “Against Thee alone have I sinned, and before Thee an evil thing have I done.” Because Thou alone art without sin. He is a just punisher that hath nothing in Him to be punished; He is a just reprover that hath nothing in Him to be reproved. “That thou mayest be justified in Thy sayings, and conquer when Thou art judged.” To whom he speaketh, brethren, to whom he speaketh, is difficult to understand. To God surely he speaketh, and it is evident that God the Father is not judged. What is, “And conquer when Thou art judged”? He seeth the future Judge to be judged, one just by sinners to be judged, and therein conquering, because in Him was nothing to be judged. …

But the law He fulfilled, not in one way only, but in a second and third also. In one way, by transgressing none of the precepts of the law. For that He did fulfill it all, hear what He saith to John, “For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” And to the Jews also He said, “Which of you convinceth me of sin.” And to His disciples again, “The prince of this world cometh, and findeth nothing in me.” And the prophet too from the first had said that “He did no sin.”

[3.] But first it is worth while to hear what those who are infected with the Manichæan doctrines say here, who are both enemies to the truth and war against their own salvation. What then do these allege? By death here, they say, Paul means nothing else than our being in sin; and by resurrection, our being delivered from our sins. Seest thou how nothing is weaker than error? And how it is taken by its own wings, and needs not the warfare from without, but by itself it is pierced through? Consider, for instance, these men, how they too have pierced themselves through by their own statements. Since if this be death, and Christ did not take a body, as ye suppose, and yet died, He was in sin according to you. For I indeed say that He took unto Himself a body and His death, I say, was that of the flesh; but thou denying this, wilt be compelled to affirm the other. …

What then? tell me. Did He put away the flesh, and is He now not with that body? Away with the thought, for He is even now clothed in flesh; for “this Jesus Who is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come. So? How? In flesh, with His body. How then doth he say, “Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth no more?” ( Acts i. 11 .) For in us indeed “after the flesh” is being in sins, and “not after the flesh” not being in sins; but in Christ, “after the flesh” is His being subject to the affections of nature, such as to thirst, to hunger, to weariness, to sleep. For “He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.” ( 1 Pet. ii. 22 .) Wherefore He also said, “Which of you convicteth Me of sin?” ( John viii. 46 .) and again, “The prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in Me.” ( ib. xiv. …

Ver. 46 . “Which of you convinceth Me of sin?” Then they said, “We be not born of fornication.” Yet in fact many of them were born of fornication, for they practiced unbefitting unions. Still He doth not convict them of this, but setteth Himself to the other point. For when He hath proved them to be, not of God, but of the devil, by all these signs, (for to do murder is of the devil, and to lie is of the devil, both which ye do,) then He showeth that to love is the sign of being of God. “Why do ye not understand My speech?” Since they were always doubting, saying, “What is it that he saith, ‘Whither I go ye cannot come’?” therefore He telleth them, “Ye do not understand My speech,” “because ye have not the word of God. …

Observe in how many ways they attempt to obscure and take away the miracle. But this is the nature of truth, by the very means by which it seems to be assailed by men, by these it becomes stronger, it shines by means of that by which it is obscured. For if these things had not taken place, the miracle might have been suspected by the many; but now, as if desiring to lay bare the truth, so do they use all means, and would not have acted otherwise, supposing they had done all in Christ’s behalf. For they first attempted to cast Him down by occasion of this mode (of cure), saying, “How opened he thine eyes?” that is, “was it by some sorcery?” In another place also, when they had no charge to bring against Him, they endeavored to insult the mode of the cure, saying, “He doth not cast out devils save by Beelzebub.” ( Matt. xii. …

“Why then did ye not convict Him when He said, ‘Which of you convinceth Me of sin?’ ( c. viii. 46 .) Whence know ye that He is a sinner?” After that they had said, “Give God the glory,” and the man had made no reply, Christ meeting praised him, and did not rebuke him, nor say, “Wherefore hast thou not given glory to God?” But what said He? “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” ( ver. 35 ), that thou mayest learn that this is “to give glory to God.” Now had He not been equal in honor to the Father, this would not have been giving glory; but since he that honoreth the Son honoreth the Father also, the blind is with good reason not rebuked. Now while they expected that the parents would contradict and deny the miracle, the Pharisees said nothing to the man himself, but when they saw that they profited nothing by this, they again return to him, saying, “This man is a sinner.”