Charles Ellicott Commentary John 8:48

"The Jews answered and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a demon?" — John 8:48 (ASV)

Do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a devil?—The words imply that this saying was customary among the Pharisees. The knowledge of this, and the simple way in which the fact is told, is one of many instances of the writer’s detailed acquaintance with what was said and done by the leaders of the Jerusalem party.

There is no instance given of the term “Samaritan” being applied to our Lord, but the term itself is frequently used by the Rabbis as one of opprobrium.

The history of the fourth chapter is at once suggested to our minds, and was probably not absent from theirs. (Compare Note on John 7:35.) There may have been facts more immediately connected with this very Feast of Tabernacles present to their minds, which are unknown to us.

His going up secretly (John 7:10) must almost certainly have been through Samaria. He had kept the last Passover in the despised Galilee (John 6:4). Had He kept Tabernacles in the hated Samaria?

It is worth noting that the word “Samaritan,” in the singular, as applied to an individual, occurs only twice elsewhere, besides its use here and in John 4. One instance is in the parable spoken not long after the present discourse (Luke 10:25–37). The other tells us that the only one of the ten lepers who turned back to glorify God was a Samaritan (Luke 17:16).

The rendering, and have a devil, is one which probably cannot now be improved. Wiclif’s word here is “fiend,” which in this sense is obsolete. But every reader of the Greek must feel how little our English word can represent the two distinct ideas, represented by two distinct words here and in John 8:44. “Demon,” used originally for the lower divinities, and not infrequently for the gods, passed in the Scriptures (which taught the knowledge of the true God) into the sense of an evil spirit.

Thus, the word that could represent the attendant spirit of Socrates came to express what we speak of as demoniacal possession and the supposed power of witchcraft and sorcery.

Socrates is made to say, “For this reason, therefore, rather than for any other, he calls them demons, because they were prudent and knowing” (daçmones, Plato, Cratylus, xxiii.).

The history of Simon Magus reminds us that the people of Samaria, from the least to the greatest, had for a long time been under the influence of his sorceries (Acts 8:9 and following), and it is probable that there is a special connection in the words here: “You are a Samaritan and have a demon.” (Compare Excursus III. on Notes to St. Matthew’s Gospel, p. 185.)