4o—45.
ili)
44. ὑμεῖς | ἐκ '' πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστὲ, καὶ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τοῦ 1 iii. 5, 6, 31.
πατρὸς ὑμῶν θέλετε ποιεῖν.
καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ οὐχ ἕστηκεν" ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν αὐτῷ.
m Gen. iv.
ἐκεῖνος " ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἦν am ἀρχῆς; το. e j ρχῆ
nt Jo. iii. 15. Gen, ili. 3.
ὅταν λαλῇ τὸ ψεῦδος, ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων λαλεῖ : ὅτι "ψεύστης ἐστὶ καὶ 6 ο Prov. xix.
πατὴρ αὐτοῦ.
added, as ἐλήλυθα εἰς τὸν κόσμον in xvi. 28, almost in the sense in which it is used in the Dramatists, announcing the arrival of one of the ‘‘ personae ’’ on the stage, ““Ι am come from such and such a place and here I am”, The coming itself was the result of God’s action rather than of His own: ovdé
. ἀπέστειλε. This is His constant argument, that as He came forth from God and was sent by Him, they must have welcomed Him had they been God’s children. Their misunderstand- ing had a moral τοὂῖ.---διατί . . . ἐμόν. They did not recognise His speech as Divine, because they were unable to receive the message He brought. ‘In λαλεῖν (= loqui) the fact of uttering human language is the prominent notion ; in Aéyeww (= dicere) it is the words uttered, and that these are correlative to reason- able thoughts within the breast of the utterer ’ (Trench, Synonyms, 271). ΑΙ His individual expressions and the very language He used were misunderstood, because there was in them a moral in- capacity to receive the truth He delivered. —Ver. 44. This was the resultand evidence of their paternity : ὑμεῖς . . . [τοῦ πατρὸς is read by all recent editors]. ‘‘ Ye are of the father who is the devil.” The trans- lation, ‘‘ of the father of the devil,”’ z.¢., the (Gnostic) God of the Jews, is, as Meyer says, thoroughly un-Johannine. Perhaps a slight pause before the cul- minating words τοῦ διαβόλου would emphasise them and show that this had been in His mind throughout the con- versation. Being of this parentage they deliberately purpose [θέλετε] and not merely unintentionally are betrayed into the fulfilment of his desires, Their origin is determined by the fact that “from the first the devil was a man- slayer”. To what does am’ ἀρχῆς refer ? Since the beginning of the human race, or since men first were killed ; not since the devil’s beginning. Cyril and some others think it is the first murder, that of Abel, that is in view (cf. 1 John iii. 15), but far more probably it is the introduc- tion of death through the first sin (Wisd. ii. 23, 24). So almost all recent com- mentators. Some think both references
45. ἐγὼ δὲ ὅτι τὴν ἀλήθειαν λέγω, οὐ πιστεύετέ por.
22. 1 Jo. ντο στα, Gen. iii. 5. are admissible (see Liicke).—xKai ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ οὐχ ἔἕστηκεν, ‘and stands not in the truth”. Κ.Υ. has ‘“‘and stood not’’; so the Vulgate “εί in veritate non stetit”’. W.H. adopt the same transla- tion, reading οὐκ ἔστηκεν, the imperfect of στήκω, I stand; but good reasons against this reading are given by Thayer s.v. ἕστηκεν is the usual perfect of ἵστημι with the sense of a present. The reference therefore is not to the fall of the angels, but to the constant attitude of the devil; οὐκ ἐμμένε, Euthymius. “The truth is not the domain in which he has his footing.”” Meyer, Weiss. He does not adhere to the truth and live in it. The reason being, ὅτι... αὐτῷ, '' because truth is not in him”. There is not in him any craving for the truth. He is not true to what he knows. His nature is so false that ὅταν λαλῇ τὸ ψεῦδος ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων λαλεῖ, “ whenever he speaks what is false, he speaks of his own”. ‘* But the article may mean “ the lie that is natural to him,’ ‘ his lie’ ” (Plummer).— ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων means that he speaks out of that which is characteristically and peculiarly his (cf. Mt. xii. 34); ‘* because he is ”—this is his character and descrip- tion— a liar and his father,” 7.e., he is himself a liar and the father of all liars. This is added to reflect light on the first statement of this verse. So Holtzmann and most recent inter- preters. But Weiss rightly defends the reference of αὐτοῦ to ψεῦδος as in A.V. Westcott proposes to translate: ‘Whenever a man speaketh a lie, hé speaketh of his own, for his father also is a liar”. Paley renders: ‘‘ When (one) utters . . . he is speaking from his own, because he is a liar, and (so is) his father’’. Westcott’s translation makes excellent sense and suits the context and gives a good meaning to the tdteyv, but, as he himself owns, the omission of the subject (ὅταν λαλῇ) is certainly harsh; it may be said, impossible.—Ver. 45. ἐγὼ δὲ. ‘But I”—in contrast to the devil—‘‘ because I speak the truth you do not believe me.” Had I spoken falsehood you would have believed me, because it is your nature to live in what is false (ef. Euthymius).—Ver. 46. τίς