John 8:44Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

He excluded them from kinship with Abraham. But since they dared to claim something greater, He now strikes them by saying that they are not only not children of Abraham, but sons of the devil.

By this He inflicted on them a wound equal to their shamelessness. And He does not leave this without testimony, but confirms it with proofs. For murder, He says, belongs to the malice of the devil.

He did not simply say, "You do his works," but, "You do his desires," showing that both he, the devil, and they are exceedingly inclined to murder, and that envy is the cause of this.

Indeed, the devil destroyed Adam not because he could accuse him of anything, but solely from envy. Christ indicates this here as well.

He said, "You cannot hear My word," instead of, "You do not wish to." Then He gives the reason why they did not wish to hear: they have their own father, namely the devil.

Although in your madness you ascribe yourselves to God as children, as though He were your Father, your works testify that the devil is a father more truly your own.

You wish to fulfill his desires. He did not say "works," but "desires," showing that they were strongly inclined toward falsehood and murder, the two kinds of evil especially proper to the devil.

"He was a murderer from the beginning." Therefore you also, in seeking to kill Me, become like him who killed Adam.

With perfect justice He had removed them from kinship with Abraham. He had exposed them as unlike him in character and as estranged from piety toward God Himself. He had also explained the reason for their inability to hear His word.

He now shows again who should most justly and naturally be called their father. “You,” He says, “are of your father the devil.” He, He says, “was a murderer” from the beginning, “and does not stand in the truth. He is a liar.”

The liar also has a father, whom He clearly defines in the words that follow. This saying, contained in few words, has great obscurity and requires especially exact investigation. The discourse is profound, and I think it is hard for many to understand.

As for the simpler and more readily intelligible meaning, He appoints no other father for the Jews than Satan, who fell from heaven. Yet the words that follow, as though about this father appointed for them, disturb us somewhat.

They cause us no small perplexity: “because he is a liar, as also, ϰαϑώς ϰαί, his father.” Of whom, if we reason soundly, can we suppose that he was father to the devil?

Did another fall before him, to whom this second one would be like in form and character? It is impossible to present any passage from the sacred and divine Scriptures as proof of this. What is not said by the God-inspired Scriptures is by no means acceptable for faith.

On the contrary, every spirit among the demons is called and is a child of Satan the devil, according to what our Savior Christ said: “If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself” (Mt 12:26).

But we know one who is foremost and chief among the rest. It is he to whom it was said through the prophet Ezekiel: “You were the seal of likeness and the crown of beauty, born in the delight of the paradise of God. You were clothed with every precious stone” (Ezek 28:12-13).

Whom else, then, may we suppose without danger of error to be the one according to whom this one is stamped? I mean the likeness in wickedness.

Some of the ancient interpreters explained this place finely by saying this. That original Satan, considered the ruler of all the other demons, was bound, as it is said, by the power of God and cast into Tartarus as punishment for his insolence against God (Mt 12:29; 2 Pet 2:4; Jude 6).

After him, they say, another appeared, uniform with his father in abominations, the present prince of this age (Jn 12:31; Jn 14:30; Jn 16:11; Mt 9:34; Mt 12:24; Eph 6:12, and others). They say that it is of him that the Savior says he “was a murderer from the beginning,” and that “he is a liar, like, ὥσπεϱ, his father.”

Although at first sight this explanation appears very simple and natural, the following point chiefly prevents us from agreeing with it. From the time of the coming of our Savior, the devil’s dominion began to fall, and evil and unclean spirits began to be sent into the abyss.

Thus the demons, coming to Him, begged “that He would not command them to depart into the abyss,” as it is written (Lk 8:31). We remember that they cried out loudly about this, saying, “Let us alone. What have we to do with Thee, Jesus of Nazareth? We know who Thou art, the Holy One of God. Hast Thou come here before the time to torment us?” (Mk 1:24; Mt 8:29).

They themselves undoubtedly knew that our Lord Jesus Christ had come to strike and crush them in various ways, from the great report about Him among the Israelites. Yet they accused Him of coming at the wrong time, arrogantly and maliciously blaming the hour of His appearance.

They say “before the time,” not as though they had been tormented at some other time, but because they awaited one time of coming. At that time, without doubt, they were to suffer what was expected.

We shall also say this. If, while that one is bound according to some interpreters, someone else deceived Adam and still has not ceased from the rage for which he is accused, then the first will be entirely blameless toward us.

He would rightly have to be freed from every charge. He killed no one, deceived no one, and deluded no one. The words of God would not rightly refer to him: “As a garment stained with blood will not be clean, so you will not be clean, because you destroyed My land and killed My people” (Isa 14:19-20).

If, then, we admit that the one called first had no share in the crimes just listed, whom shall we say the second imitates? Whose image does he bear, if he surpasses his leader in wickedness and has even coarser marks of evil than he?

It might not be uninteresting to enter into a broader inquiry on this subject. Yet we consider it needless to speak at too great a length about what we do not now greatly need.

We must therefore turn to another interpretation. We must carefully examine whom Christ appoints as father for the Jews, one of the same character and mind as they, whose father the demon should rightly be considered, namely Satan, the well-known author of evil.

Thus the Lord refers them to Cain as their father. Cain was the first of all men to be exposed for lack of love toward the chaste Abel. After Satan, he became the beginning of envy, murder, deceit, falsehood, and delusion.

He can with perfect justice be called Satan’s son, since he stamped in himself the whole image of his wickedness. For as God is understood to be the Father of every holy and righteous man, the beginning of sanctification and righteousness for all, so, I think, Satan should rightly be considered the father of every evildoer, the beginning of every evil deed.

Since Cain is given as father to the Jews, and Satan to Cain himself, as we have said, we shall follow their own words and try again to prove this clearly. First, Satan rises up against God’s rebukes.

Then, he is a deceiver and a liar. Finally, he is a murderer through envy. When we have shown that Cain is of one character and one mind with him, we shall then transfer the argument to the third party, the Jews, who bear in themselves the whole image of Cain’s evil.

Satan did not regard his dignity as honorable, but desired what was far above his nature. He did not keep the boundary of his rank. He was cast down and fell, as though convicted by God through this and taught to know the measure of his nature.

Yet in his stubbornness he gained no benefit from this. He began to suffer from an even worse wickedness. He cared nothing for a movement toward correcting his disposition, but strove to remain in the immobility of his own evil.

When the first man was created by God, according to Moses’ narrative, he still continued to keep the commandment given him in paradise, I mean concerning the tree. Then Satan was the first to burn with envy.

He was as though convicted in his transgression and disobedience to God by the first-formed, so long as they still kept the commandment that had been given. By intricately woven deceits he tried to draw them into disobedience.

Knowing what must follow from despising the ordinances of the Great King, he persuaded them to do this. Thus he cast into extreme calamities those who had done him no harm.

That Adam’s transgression was the work of the devil’s delusion and envy, and that through it death appeared, both the nature of the matter itself will teach and the following saying of wise Solomon will show most clearly: “God did not make death, but through the devil’s envy death entered the world” (Wis 1:13; Wis 2:24). This clearly speaks about him.

Let Cain next come before us. He was Adam’s firstborn, a farmer by occupation. Abel was born to him second, and he was a shepherd of sheep.

Since natural law, without instruction, implanted in them knowledge of the Creator and commanded them to bring sacrifice to God, for every good thing is sown and implanted in nature by God, “Cain brought of the fruits of the earth,” as it is written.

“And Abel brought of the firstborn of the sheep and of their fat. God looked upon Abel and his gifts, but to Cain and his sacrifices He did not attend. Cain was grieved and his face fell. The Lord God said to Cain, ‘Why have you become grieved, and why has your face fallen? If you did not bring rightly and did not choose rightly, have you not sinned? Be still.’”

Then to Abel He said, “To you shall be his turning, and you shall rule over him” (Gen 4:3-7).

Cain was rebuked for having wrongly divided what was brought in sacrifice. Abel was rightly deemed worthy of praise and honor, and this became food for Cain’s envy.

Like Satan, he hardened himself against the rebukes that admonished him. Then, possessed by unrighteous envy, as we have said, he pursued his brother with deceit, having already conceived an impious murder.

“Cain said to Abel his brother, ‘Let us go to another field, better than this’” (Gen 4:8). Pretending to invite him to a pleasant and luxuriant valley, he savagely killed him while he suspected nothing.

For the first time he gave the earth a dead man. It seems he thought that he would surely gain honor for himself, since he no longer had a rival. Yet even after the murder he lied.

When God asked him, “Where is Abel your brother?” (Gen 4:9), he answered, “I do not know.” In his extreme madness he immediately added, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

He all but says this: You who unjustly crowned him, what good did You do him by guarding him? Therefore you can already see in him, quite clearly, the whole image of diabolical evil exactly reflected and the complete likeness of his moral form.

Now let our discourse pass directly to the impiety of the Jews. By ascribing to them likeness to Cain’s wickedness, we shall show that they undertook against Christ the same things that he did against Abel. Thus Cain may with full justice and reason be called their father.

Cain was firstborn, as we said. But Israel also was firstborn by adoption among the children of God, according to what was said to Moses: “Israel is My firstborn son” (Ex 4:22).

Cain brought sacrifice to God from the fruits of the earth, but God “did not attend to his sacrifices,” as it is written (Gen 4:5). Yet Israel’s service under the Law is also, as it were, earthly, through bulls, sheep, and fruits of the earth. God likewise does not accept this service.

“Why,” He says, “do you bring Me frankincense from Sheba and cinnamon from a distant land?” (Jer 6:20). Likewise, through the voice of Isaiah He cries aloud, “Who required this from your hands?” (Isa 1:12).

Then after Cain appears righteous Abel, intending to bring sacrifice from sheep. For after the service under the Law, and with the prophets ceasing, Christ came, the true Righteous One.

He offered to God the Father not fruits of the earth, but Himself. He raised Himself as a sweet fragrance to Him, an unblemished sacrifice for the life and salvation of all.

Rejecting the service under the Law as earthly, God the Father “attended to” the sacrifice of our Savior Christ. “Attended to” means “approved.” What then follows?

Cain was reproved because he divided, or chose, wrongly. When he was rebuked, he was seized by the sickness of envy. He even rushed senselessly toward murder.

So also, through the Son, God admonished the Jewish people. He required from the Jews something better for an offering, commanding them to pass from service under the Law to spiritual fruit-bearing, and urging them to change the letter into truth.

But when they were exposed, they grew indignant. They were struck by their ancestral envy. They burned with murder, and unjustly, against our Savior Christ.

Cain deceived Abel and, leading him out into the field, killed him. In the same way the Jews, so far as it lay with them, deceived Christ. Under the guise of a friend they sent the betrayer.

He came to betray Him and kissed Him treacherously, saying, “Hail, Rabbi!” (Mt 26:49). And they led Him out into the field, that is, outside the gates, and killed Him. For Christ suffered “outside the gate” (Heb 13:12) for us and on our behalf.

From this you see how they are in no way like Abraham or his descendants. Rather, they bear the image of their own father, who truly befits them.

Can anyone perhaps say that what the Lord said about the devil in the Gospel, “He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth” (Jn 8:44), should be understood only in this sense?

Namely, that he was a murderer from the beginning, that is, from the beginning of the human race, from the moment when man was created, whom he could kill by deception.

But, they say, he did not stand in the truth from the beginning of his creation. Therefore he was never blessed together with the holy angels. He refused to be subject to his Creator and took proud pleasure in a kind of private power of his own.

Through this he became hypocritical and false. He could never escape the power of the Almighty, and he did not wish to preserve in pious submission what truly is.

Rather, through proud arrogance he strove falsely to represent what did not exist. In this sense, they say, one must understand what the blessed Apostle John said: “From the beginning the devil sinned” (1 Jn 3:8).

That is, from the moment he was created, he renounced the truth, which only a pious will devoted to God can possess. Whoever is satisfied with this opinion is not yet of one mind with those heretics, the Manichaeans.

Yet certain other harmful heresies also hold the view that the devil received his own evil nature, in some sense, from a principle opposed to God.

In their vanity they reach such madness that, although they honor the Gospel words cited above as we do, they do not notice that the Lord did not say, “The devil was alien to the truth.” He said, “He did not stand in the truth.”

By this He meant that the devil fell away from the truth. If he had stood in it, then by becoming a participant in it he would have remained blessed with the holy angels.

Until now He has not named their father. A little earlier He mentioned Abraham, meaning descent according to the flesh, not imitation of his life.

He will speak of another father of theirs, who neither begot them nor created them as human beings. Yet they were his sons with respect to what is evil, not with respect to humanity; by imitation, not by creation.

How long will you keep recalling the Father? How long will you change fathers, now Abraham, now God? Hear from the Son of God whose sons you are: “Your father is the devil.”

This is why you are his sons: because you desire similar things, not because you were born from him. What are his desires? “He was a murderer from the beginning.”

This is what it means: “You wish to do the desires of your father. You seek to kill Me, a Man who tells you the truth” (Jn 8:40). He too envied man and killed man.

When the devil envied man, he came to the woman in the form of a serpent, and through the woman poisoned the man also. They died by listening to the devil, whom they would not have listened to if they had wished to hear the Lord.

For man was placed between Him who created and him who fell. He ought to have obeyed the Creator, not the deceiver. Thus he was a murderer from the beginning.

See the kind of murderer, brothers. The devil is called a murderer without being armed with a sword or girded with iron. He came to man, sowed an evil word, and killed.

Therefore do not think you are not a murderer when you advise your brother to evil. If you advise your brother to evil, you kill. So that you may know that you kill, hear the psalm: “sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and whose tongue is a sharp sword” (Ps 56:5).

“Your father is the devil.” How long will you keep recalling a father? How long will you change your fathers, now Abraham, now God? Hear from the Son of God whose children you are: “Your father is the devil.”

Here one must beware of the Manichaean heresy. It claims that there is some nature of evil and some race of darkness with its princes, which dared to wage war against God.

It claims that God, lest the hostile race subdue His Kingdom, sent against it the princes of His Light, as though they were His children, and that this race was defeated. From there, they say, the devil takes his origin.

They assert that our flesh takes its origin from there. On this basis they think God said, “Your father is the devil,” because those people were evil by nature and derived their origin from a race of darkness hostile to God.

Thus they err, thus they are blinded, and thus they turn themselves into a race of darkness, believing what is false concerning their own Creator.

For every nature is good, but human nature was perverted by an evil will. What God created cannot be evil; man himself became the source of evil for himself.

Yet the Creator is certainly the Creator, and the creature is the creature. The creature cannot be equal to the Creator. Distinguish Him who made from what He made.

A bench cannot be equal to the carpenter. A column cannot be equal to the builder. And yet the carpenter, even if he made a bench, did not create the wood.

But the Lord our God, because He is almighty, created by the Word what He created. He did not have any material from which He created all things, and yet He created.

All things were made because He willed it. They were created because He spoke. But the created cannot be compared with the Creator. Do you seek what you may compare with Him? Direct your mind to His only Son.

In what way, then, were the Jews children of the devil? By imitation, not by birth. Hear the usual language of the Holy Scriptures. The prophet says to the Jews themselves, “Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite” (Ezek 16:3).

The Amorites were a certain people from whom the Jews did not derive their origin. The Hittites also had their own race, wholly different from the race of the Jews.

But because the Amorites and Hittites were impious, and the Jews imitated their impiety, the Scriptures call them parents of the Jews. This does not mean that the Jews were born from them, but that they were likewise worthy of condemnation by imitating their ways.

But perhaps you ask, where then is the devil himself from? Certainly from the same place as the other angels. But the other angels do not depart from obedience. He, through his own disobedience and pride, fell as an angel and became the devil.

Now hear what the Lord said: “Your father is the devil, and you wish to do the lusts of your father.” This is why they are his children, because they had the same lusts, not because they were begotten by him.

What are his lusts? “He was a murderer from the beginning.” See what “you wish to do the lusts of your father” means. “You seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth” (Jn 8:44, 40).

He also envied man and killed man. When the devil envied man, he took the form of a serpent and entered into conversation with the woman. From the woman he poisoned the man also (Gen 3:6).

They died because they listened to the devil. They would not have listened to him if they had wished to hear the Lord.

For man, standing between his Creator and the fallen angel, ought to have obeyed the Creator, not the deceiver. Therefore he was a murderer from the beginning.

Look at the manner of the murder, brothers. The devil is called a murderer, though he is not armed with a sword and has no knife at his belt. He came to man, sowed false words in him, and killed.

So do not think you are not a murderer when you suggest evil to your brother. If you suggest evil to your brother, you kill him. To understand that you kill him, hear the psalm: “Sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and whose tongue is a sharp sword” (cf. Ps 56:5).

Therefore “you wish to do the lusts of your father,” and you rage against the flesh because you can do nothing against the spirit.

“He was a murderer from the beginning,” at least from the first man. He could become a murderer only when murder could occur. Murder could occur only when man was created.

For a man could not be killed before man existed. Therefore he was a murderer from the beginning. And why did he become a murderer? “And he did not stand in the truth.”

Therefore he was in the truth, but by not standing he fell. Why did he not stand in the truth? “Because there is no truth in him.”

Not as in Christ, in whom truth abides so that Christ Himself is the truth. If he had stood then in the truth, he would have stood in Christ. But he did not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

“When he speaks what is false, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar and its father” (cf. Jn 8:44). What does this mean? You have heard the words of the Gospel and have taken them seriously.

See, I repeat them so that you may understand what you are thinking about. The Lord said about the devil what had to be said about the devil by the Lord.

“He was a murderer from the beginning.” This is true, because he killed the first man. “He did not stand in the truth,” because he fell away from the truth.

“When he speaks what is false, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar and its father.” Because of these words some began to think that the devil has a father, and they tried to find out who his father is.

Even now this detestable error of the Manichaeans finds the untrained and draws them away. They commonly say, “I think the devil was an angel and fell. From this sin took its beginning, as you also say. But who was his father?”

We, on the contrary, say, “Which of us has ever said that the devil has a father?” They answer, “The Lord says it. The Gospel affirms it, saying of the devil: ‘He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks what is false, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar and its father.’”

Listen and try to understand. I do not send you far away. Understand from these words. The Lord called the devil the father of what is false.

What does this mean? Hear what it means. Speak the words themselves, and you will understand. Not everyone who lies is the father of his own lie.

If you hear a lie from someone and repeat it, you certainly lie by spreading the lie. Yet you are not the father of the lie, because you received the lie from another.

But the devil was a liar from himself. He himself begot his own lie. He did not hear it from anyone. As God the Father begot the Son, who is Truth, so the devil, by falling, begot falsehood as though it were a son.

Having heard this, now speak and consider the Lord’s words. O catholic mind, think about what you have heard, and pay attention to what He says.

“He,” who? The devil. “Was a murderer from the beginning.” We have understood that he killed Adam. “And did not stand in the truth.” We have understood that he fell away from the truth.

“Because there is no truth in him.” This is true. After falling away from the truth, he did not have truth.

“When he speaks what is false, he speaks from his own.” He did not receive from somewhere else what he spoke. “When he speaks what is false, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar and its father.”

He is a liar and the father of what is false. Perhaps you too are a liar, because you speak what is false, but you are not its father.

For if what you speak you received from the devil and believed the devil, then you are a liar, but not the father of the lie. He is the father of the lie because he did not receive from somewhere else the lie by which, like poison, the serpent killed man.

Likewise God is the Father of truth. Withdraw from the father of lies. Hasten to the Father of truth. Embrace the truth, that you may obtain freedom.

Those Jews, then, spoke what they had seen with their father. And what is that, if not falsehood? But the Lord spoke what He had seen with His Father (cf. Jn 8:38).

And what is that, if not He Himself? What is it, if not the Word of God? What, if not the eternal truth of the Father, coeternal with the Father?

Therefore he was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks what is false, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar.

"You are of your father the devil." This is your father.

"And the desires of your father you wish to do." The desires of this father of theirs are murder and falsehood, as will then be said.

"He was a murderer from the beginning," having killed the first man, Adam, since he caused him death. Then he put his son Abel to death, since he stirred up Cain his brother against him, arousing envy in him.

"And he does not stand in the truth." That is, he did not remain standing. He does not abide on the straight path, but hates such a life.

"Because there is no truth in him," but, on the contrary, falsehood.

XXIII. He had already grown accustomed to lying about God in order to deceive men. In the beginning, when God gave man many kinds of food and forbade him to eat from only one tree, Scripture says that God said to Adam: “Of every tree in paradise we may eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of it you shall not eat. In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die” (Gen 2:16-17).

Then the serpent, lying about God, tempted man. According to Scripture, he said to the woman: “Why has God said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of paradise’?”

Jesus said to them: If God were your Father, you would love Me, because I proceeded and came from God.

"But you do not wish to understand Me. You cannot even hear My word. And why? Because your father is the devil, and you wish to fulfill the desires, that is, the will, of your father.

He was a murderer from the beginning of the creation of the human race. He revealed his hatred and malice toward men by tempting the first people. He did this because he did not stand firm in the truth of God, and now there is no truth in him.

He speaks only falsehood, for he is a liar and the father of falsehood. And you fear the truth. You seek to kill Me because I speak the truth." On the devil, see the commentary on Mt 4:1. On the right to call God Father, see Mt 6:9.

Our forefathers, driven out of Paradise, preserved true knowledge of God and handed it down to their descendants. They lived on earth as in a land of exile, storing up in it only repentance.

But afterward all men gradually became captivated by the world. The number of true worshipers of God became extremely small. Even the religion of the chosen people lost its power. It was limited to outward rites and the traditions of the elders, while the commandments of God were abandoned.

Through such a false view of true religion, the Jews, the people chosen by God, passed under the dominion of the devil and became his children. The Lord said to them: “You are of your father the devil.”

“Your father is the devil.” After denying the sonship of the Jews to Abraham and to God, the Lord now directly and positively indicates whose children they are and who their father is.

You, Christ says, who dare to consider yourselves children of God, are in fact, by your moral dispositions, strivings, and qualities, children of the enemy of God and of the good, the devil. You act as he acts, imitate him, and therefore may be called his children (cf. 1 Jn 3:8, 12; Acts 13:10).

“The devil”: see the note on Mt 4:1 and parallels.