The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
St Ambrose, on the words of Psalm cxix. 94, “ I am thine, O save me,” says strikingly, “the worldling cannot say to Him, I am Thine, for he has many masters. Lust comes, and says, Thou art mine, for thou desirest the things of the body. Avarice comes, and says, Thou art mine, for the silver and gold thou hast is the price of thy bondage. Luxury comes and says, Thou art mine, for one day's feasting is the price of thy life. Ambition comes, and says, Thou art clearly mine, for knowest thou not that I have set thee over others that thou mightest serve me? knowest thou not that I have conferred power on thee, in order to subject thee to mine own power? All the vices come, and say severally, Thou art mine. What a vile bond-slave is he whom so many compete for ? And moreover the sinner who cannot say to God, I am Thine , hears from the devil, Thou art mine.” For as S. Ambrose adds, “ Satan came and entered into him, and began to say, he (Judas) is not thine, O Jesus, but mine. He thinks those things that are mine, he ponders my thoughts in his heart ; he feasts with Thee, and feeds with me ; he receives bread from Thee, and money from me ; he drinks with me, and sells me Thy Blood ; he is Thy Apostle, but my hireling.”
Ver. 35 . — The servant abideth not, &c. He who is the servant of sin, like you Jews, has not the right of remaining in his Master's house (that is the Church of God) for ever : for after death he will be cast into the outer darkness of hell, as ye too will be cast out. But the Son abideth for ever in His Father's house, that is, I ever abide with My Father in heaven. But if through Me and My grace ye have been delivered from the bondage of sin, ye will abide for ever with Me, as adopted children, in the house of God, that is in the Church militant by grace, and in the Church triumphant, for ever happy and glorious in heaven. So S. Augustine, Bede, and others.
Ver. 36. — If therefore the Son , &c. I alone can make you free, not Abraham or Moses, though most beloved servants of God. So S. Chrysostom and others.
Ver. 37. — I know, &c. By nature ye are Abraham’s children, but in your deeds ye are degenerate. Your descent from Abraham will not therefore profit you. It will increase your damnation, for he will say at the last day, I acknowledge you not as my children, for ye have crucified Christ, my son and your brother.
Because My word, &c. Because ye will not take it in. Origen and S. Chrysostom think that these words were said to those who had before feebly believed in Christ, but who, on hearing themselves called “servants,” were incensed against Him and wished to kill Him. But it is more probable that they were addressed to unbelievers who had before that plotted His death.
Ver. 38. — I speak, &c. Ye not only speak, but do that which ye have learnt from your father, the devil, especially in seeking to kill Me, implying that Abraham was not their father. See this more clearly declared verse 44.
Ver. 39. — They answered, &c. Because Christ seemed to imply that they had another father, they wished to learn from Him who he was. We own Abraham, and none other as our father.
Jesus saith unto them. If ye are the children of Abraham , do the works of Abraham. It is so in the Vulgate. But some Greek MSS. read as in the English version. He does not deny their extraction, but condemns their doings. Says S. Augustine, “Your flesh may be from Abraham, but not so your life.”
Ver. 40. — But now ye seek, &c. Abraham did not injure any one, but saved Lot, and as many as he could. But the Jews were eager to kill Christ The Jews ( Perke . Avoth. cap. v.) draw the same contrast between a disciple of Abraham and of Balaam.
Ver. 41. — Ye do the works of your father. He persists in saying that they were not Abraham’s children, but does not say whose children they were.
Then said they unto Him, We be not born of fornication, &c.
Origen, Cyril, and Leontius think that in these words they implicitly reproached Him with His own birth. An atrocious statement, which the Pharisees studiously propagated, to detract from our Lord’s credit and authority. But it would have been atrocious blasphemy. (2.) Euthymius and Rupertus suppose it to be only an assertion of their descent from Sarah, and not from Hagar, and thus not spurious, or in a secondary rank. (3.) We are not born of spiritual fornication, i.e., idolatry. We are not Hagarenes, who were idolaters. Rupertus objects that to make out this meaning the word “but” should have been inserted. But Maldonatus maintains that such particles are often omitted, adding that fornication in the prophets means idolatry, as being spiritual fornication, drawing away the soul from its true Spouse (see Hos. i. 2). Theophylact explains it to mean, “ We are not born of mixed marriages of Jews and Gentiles, which were forbidden, and counted illegitimate by the Jews.” (4.) The Jews reply in a straightforward manner, Abraham is our true earthly father; and one is our Father, even God in heaven. Your charge is therefore false. You unjustly claim the God of Abraham for thyself alone, and exclude us from sonship with Him, and hand us over to another father, the devil, making us spurious, and consequently infamous.
Ver. 42. — Jesus said, &c. Put syllogistically, our Lord’s argument runs thus, “ He who loves God, loves also the Son of God. But ye do not love Me, who am the Son of God. Therefore ye love not God. Just as the Arians, who by denying Christ to be the Son of God, deny the Father also ; for if He has not a Son, He cannot be called God the Father.”
For I proceeded forth (ἐξῆλθον) and came (ἥκω), I am here. S. Augustine, S. Hilary (de Trin. vi.), consider that the twofold generation of our Lord is here set forth. I came forth by eternal generation, I am come into the world by My Incarnation. “That the Word proceeded forth from God, is His eternal procession” (says S.
Augustine), but He came to us, because He was made flesh ; His advent was His being made man.
But Jansen, Maldonatus, and others refer both the expressions to the Incarnation, but yet as implying and presupposing His eternal generation. “I came forth from God, and came into the world, though I had before come forth from God, and was in heaven.”
For I came not of Myself but He sent Me. He teaches that He was not self-originate, says S. Hilary (de Trin. vi.). Origen adds, He says this on account of some who came of themselves, and were not sent of the Father (see Jer. xxxiii. 21). A warning to such as Lutherans, Calvinists, and others, who have no true mission.
Ver. 43. — Why do ye not understand , &c. Because cleaving to your pride, avarice, hatred, and enmity against Me, ye will not hear Me and understand. “They could not hear,” says S. Augustine, “ because they refused to be corrected by what they heard;” but (as says the Gloss) ye are of the devil, and have elected to go on with him. S. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iv., de Theol.) tells us that in Scripture “ I cannot ” sometimes means “I will not.” (See Matt. xix. 12.) But secondly, and more properly and forcibly, “ Ye do not understand My words because ye cannot endure My teaching, and will not let My words enter your ears, so hateful am I to you, and so obstinately have you from hatred hardened your hearts against Me.” Thus Emmanuel Sa.
Ver. 44. — Ye are of your father the devil. “Not by descent but by imitation,” says S. Augustine, quoting Ezek. xvi 4 ; and adding, “The Jews, by imitating their impieties, found for themselves parents, not of whom to be born, but with whom they would be lost, their evil ways.”
S. Epiphanius (Her. 38, 40) by the devil in this place understands Judas Iscariot, whom our Lord also calls a devil. But the author of “Questions on the Old and New Testament” (apud S. Augustine) understands Cain. But it is certain that it must be taken literally to mean Lucifer. For the Jews in persecuting Jesus followed him as their father; “not by succession in the flesh, but in sin,” says S. Ambrose (Lib. iv. in loc .)
Ye are of, &c. “ In order to kill Me.” He explains that they are of the devil, by following his suggestion. S. Chrysostom says he speaks not of “ works,” but of desires (or lusts), showing that both he and they greatly delighted in murders. For the devil has an ardent desire to destroy all men, both because he grudges them the glory from which he himself fell, but also to injure God, whom he hates as his torturer, and wishes to tear away men from Him whom He created in His own image, and called and predestinated to His own eternal grace and glory.