The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 493

our Lord added what hRs by mrmy been GiJthe e1rn:ctly expreese a the ~" ,,..,v iBf.,v regarded as a distinot revelation or the fall of by "mein eigentliches element." :Beoe.uae Ba.to.n himself from the condition of recti- he ill a. liar, 11111d the fa.ther of the liar. This tude (of. Jude 6 ; 2 Pet. ii. 4). Heste.nds not ; translation makes the 11uToii rerer to ,f,,uuT71s, oontinues not--in the truth (i,,.,,..,,,,,v in the which is the most na.tnra.1 antecedent (so perfect is the betterreo.ding, and demanrlsthis Bengel, Meyer, Lange, Godet, etc.), not- transla.tion: the rendoring of the Vulgate, withstanding the difficulty of the construc- ,tetit, favoured by Au.!);nstine, and involving tion. This langaago asserts not only the a reference to the fall of the I/evil, wonld agelong proof which history gives of the ho.ve required ,1,,.,,.1,,,.,, pfoperfect '). Jerns falsehood of this terrible personality, but did not, therefore, explicitly assert anything declares tha.t he exerts an evil po.temity in with reference to the o.ct of original revolt the life of every Jio.r. "Broon or vipers" is of the devil, but declnred tho.t the devil has a. phrase used by John Baptist and Christ no place in truth: he restlessly resists, throw- himself when addressing Pharisees. The ing o. hopeless, perilous glamour of falsehood well-known ima.gery of the first promise, round all he touches. Schaff' suggests, "I will pot enmity between her seed and rightly, that the combination of this state- thy seed," etc., suggests the same thought. ment with that of the prologue (eh. i. 3) Tliere is an awful significance in this power presupposes the fall of this mighty and of the devil to sow his deadly seed in human murderous spirit from a previous condition life, and to produce thus, on the soil of of rectitude, and the dictum of our Lord human na.tur", "children of the wicked ought never to have been charged with the one" ( cf. Paul's language, Acts xiii. 10, admission of an eternal principle of evil. addressed to Elymas, vie li,a/30,\ov, "son of .The fall of the lost angels is not explicitly the devil "). Another translation makes stated. :Because there is no truth in hlm. afroii refer to ,f,ev6os ; He is a liar, and the The absence of the article before "truth" father of /al,sehood, or thereof ( Revised shows that in the previous clause the objec- Version); thus drawing an abstract out of tive truth is meant, that the reality of things the concrete 1/m\,,.,,..,,,, or possibly referring as known by him is referred to. The truth to the first lie which slew the spiritual lifo was that region or sphere of action in which of men-to the " Ye shall not surely die" he elected not- to stand, and, as a matter of of Gen. ill. 4. It is against this view that fo.ot, does not stand nor find place. By onr Lord is here dee.ling with persons rather "truth" is meant subjective truth or thanwithabstractions. Westcottand Moulton "truthfulness," 'the spirit which ·repudiates and Revised Version in margin have given ,falsehood in all its forms and manifestations. indefiniteness to the snbject of the verb There is no consistency with himself, no Aakff, and translate, "Wbensoever one [ or, inward harmony with reality. This is given • a man '] speo.keth e, lie, he speaketh of his as reason why the devil stands not in the own ; for his father also is a. liar ; " the idea. truth. Wheneoever • he speaketh a lie, he being that the evil inheritance from the speaketh (Au1-ei) from (i1t, out of) his own father of lies has even ma.de falsehood the resources-from what is most entirely his essential element, the proprium, of the liar. •own, revealing the depth of his truthless, This, however, appears to involve a -.ery loveless, fate.I, godless nature. Schaff' quotes complicated thought. The ,1,, 'Twv lolwv, ii from Gothe's •Faust' the account which strictly spoken, contradicts the idea of the Mephistopheles gives of his own being. Haze liar's peculiarities being the result of in- it is in Kegan Paul's t-ro.nelo.tion- heritance. Still less satisfactory is the vain " I am the spirit, who aye deny I endeavour of the Gnostics, who found here a. And rightly so; for everything second reference to the father of the devil. Is only good for perishing; They discovered in some Italic Yersions So better 'twere that nought had been, and in the usage of some of tha Father;i: And, therefore, all that you co.11 sin ,ca8ws 1t<1l, in place of ""'• and so took it to Ruin, whate'er with evil's rife mean, "he is a liar, as also his father." Hil- Iii my true element of life." genfeld and Volkmar have fastened upon this text also, and thus found further proof 1 Westcott says, on the authority of N, of Gnostic (Ophite) heresy in the Gospel. Riggenbaoh and Godet have remarked that, B*, D, L, X, the true reading is ob1t (not obx) if ihe father of the devil was spoken of in ll1T'IJ1tev, the imperfect of nf,,,,., (oh. i 26; the previous olause, "his father " would Rom. xiv. 4), and means" stood not." Oux mean "the father of the father of the IIT'M/1t•v ~ found in B', 0, r, etc., in T.R., devil" I We have already seen how ground- and margm of R. T. less suoh a aha.rge age.inst the Gospel is 1 The reading Hs av, "whosoever," instead and how such 11, rendering would tluow th; of lhav, is allowed by Laohmann on very in- entire context into confusion. If we accept •ullioient grounds. the firat translation, we find that our Lord  368 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. [oH. vm.1-li9.