Church Fathers Commentary John 8:44-47

"Ye are of [your] father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof. But because I say the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convicteth me of sin? If I say truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth the words of God: for this cause ye hear [them] not, because ye are not of God." — John 8:44-47 (ASV)

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

St. Augustine of Hippo: Here we must guard against the heresy of the Manicheans, who believe in a certain original nature of evil and a nation of darkness with princes at its head, from which the devil derives his existence. From this, they say our flesh is produced. In this way, they interpret our Lord’s words, You are of your father the devil, namely, to mean that they were evil by nature, drawing their origin from the opposite seed of darkness.

Origen of Alexandria: This seems to be the same mistake as saying that an eye that sees correctly is different in kind from an eye that sees incorrectly. For just as there is no difference in kind between these—only that one of them, for some reason, sees incorrectly—so it is in the other case: whether a person receives a doctrine or not, they are of the same nature.

St. Augustine of Hippo: The Jews, then, were children of the devil by imitation, not by birth. Our Lord says, And the lusts of your father you want to do. 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 who has told you the truth, and he envied man and killed him.

He was a murderer from the beginning—that is, of the first man on whom a murder could be committed, for a man could not be killed before man was created. The devil did not go against man armed with a sword; he sowed an evil word and killed him. Therefore, do not suppose that you are not guilty of murder when you suggest evil thoughts to your brother. You rage against the flesh for the very reason that you cannot assault the soul.

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

St. John Chrysostom: He does not say “his works,” but his lusts you want to do, meaning that both the devil and the Jews were bent on murder to satisfy their envy. And when He says, He stood not in the truth, He shows why they continually objected to Him, claiming that He was not from God.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Perhaps it will be objected that if the devil stood not in the truth from the beginning of his existence, then he was never in a state of blessedness with the holy angels. This view would hold that he refused to be subject to his Creator and was therefore always false and deceitful, unwilling to hold by pious subjection to what he was by nature, and attempting in his pride to simulate what he was not. This opinion, however, is not the same as that of the Manichaeans, who believe the devil has his own peculiar nature derived from an opposite principle of evil.

This foolish sect does not see that our Lord does not say the devil “was alien from the truth,” but that he stood not in the truth, meaning he fell from the truth. They also misinterpret the words from John, The devil sins from the beginning, not seeing that if sin is natural, it is not sin at all. But what do the testimonies of the prophets reply? Isaiah, describing the devil under the figure of the prince of Babylon, says, How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! And Ezekiel says, You have been in Eden, the garden of God.

Since these passages cannot be interpreted in any other way, they show that we must take the phrase He stood not in the truth to mean that he was in the truth but did not remain in it. Likewise, the devil sins from the beginning means he was a sinner not from the beginning of his creation, but from the beginning of sin itself. For sin began in him, and he was the beginning of sin.

Origen of Alexandria: There is only one way of standing in the truth, but there are many and various ways of not standing in it. Some try to stand in the truth, but their feet tremble and shake so much that they cannot. Others have not reached that point but are in danger of it, as we read in the Psalms, My feet were almost gone. Still others fall from it.

The reason the devil did not stand in the truth is because the truth is not in him. He imagined vain things and deceived himself. In this, he was far worse than others, because while others are deceived by him, he was the author of his own deception.

Furthermore, does the truth is not in him mean that he holds no true doctrine and that everything he thinks is false? Or does it mean that he is not a member of Christ, who says, I am the truth? It is impossible for any rational being to think falsely on every subject and never be even slightly right in their opinion. The devil, therefore, may hold a true doctrine by the mere law of his rational nature. His nature is not contrary to truth—that is, it does not consist of simple error and ignorance—otherwise he could never have known the truth.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Alternatively, when our Lord says, The truth is not in him, He intends it as an explanation. It is as if we had asked Him how it is apparent that the devil stood not in the truth, and He answered, Because the truth is not in him. For the truth would be in him if he stood in it.

Some have thought from these words that the devil had a father and have asked who that father was. This is the error of the Manichaeans. Our Lord calls the devil the father of a lie for this reason: not everyone who lies is the father of their own lie.

You may tell a lie that you have received from another; in that case, you have lied, but you are not the father of the lie. But the lie with which the devil killed man, as with a serpent’s bite, had no source but himself. Therefore, he is the father of a lie, just as God is the Father of the truth.

Theophylact of Ohrid: For he accused God to man, saying to Eve, But out of envy He has forbidden you the tree. And he accused man to God, as in Job: Does Job serve God for nothing?

Origen of Alexandria: Note, however, that this word “liar” is applied to man as well as to the devil, who originated the 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 from his own nature; but the Holy Spirit speaks the word of truth and wisdom, as Jesus said, He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Alternatively, “the devil” is not a singular but a common name. In whomever 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 that the father of the Jews is Cain, whom they wished to imitate by killing the Savior, for it was he who set the first example of murdering a brother. That he “spoke a lie of his own” means that no one sins except by their own will. And inasmuch as Cain imitated the devil and followed his works, the devil is said to be his father.

Alcuin of York: 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 do not believe.

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

St. John Chrysostom: You wish to kill Me, then, because you are enemies of the truth, not because you have any fault to find in Me. For, which of you convicts Me of sin?

Theophylact of Ohrid: It is as if He were saying: “If you are the sons of God, you ought to hate sinners. If you hate Me when you cannot convict Me of sin, it is evident that you hate Me because of the truth—that is, because I said I was the Son of God.”

Origen of Alexandria: This was a bold statement, which no one could have had the confidence to utter except He Who did no sin—namely, our Lord.

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

St. Augustine of Hippo: Apply this not to their nature, but to their faults. They are both from God and not from God at the same time: their nature is from God, but their fault is not from God. This was also spoken to those who were not only faulty by reason of sin, as all people are, but who, it was foreknown, would never possess the faith that would free them from the bonds of sin.

St. Gregory the Great: Let anyone, then, who would understand God’s words ask themselves whether they hear them with the ears of their heart. For there are some who do not even condescend to hear God’s commands with their bodily ears.

There are others who do this but do not embrace them with their heart’s desire. And there are still others who receive God’s words readily, and are even touched to the point of tears, but who afterward return to their sins again. These, therefore, cannot be said to hear the word of God, because they neglect to practice it.