{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/107/1070045.htm","path":"chr/ecf/107/1070045.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/107/1070045.htm","text":"1. Our Lord, in the form of a servant, yet not a servant, but even in servant-form the Lord (for that form of flesh was indeed servant-like; but though He was \u201cin the likeness of sinful flesh,\u201d 775 yet was He not sinful flesh) promised freedom to those who believed in Him. But the Jews, as if proudly glorying in their own freedom, refused with indignation to be made free, when they were the servants of sin. And therefore they said that they were free, because Abraham\u2019s seed. What answer, then, the Lord gave them to this, we have heard in the reading of this day\u2019s lesson. \u201cI know,\u201d He said, \u201cthat ye are Abraham\u2019s children; but ye seek to kill me, because my word taketh no hold in you.\u201d I recognize you, He says; \u201cYe are the children of Abraham, but ye seek to kill me.\u201d I recognize the fleshly origin, not the believing heart. \u201cYe are the children of Abraham,\u201d but after the flesh. Therefore He says, \u201cYe seek to kill me, because my word taketh no hold in you.\u201d If my word were taken, it would take hold: if ye were taken, ye would be enclosed like fishes within the meshes of faith. What then means that\u2014\u201ctaketh no hold in you\u201d? It taketh not hold of your heart, because not received by your heart. For so is the word of God, and so it ought to be to believers, as a hook to the fish: it takes when it is taken. No injury is done to those who are taken; since they are taken for salvation, and not for destruction. Hence the Lord says to His disciples: \u201cCome after me, and I shall make you fishers of men.\u201d 776 But such were not these; and yet they were the children of Abraham,\u2014children of a man of God, unrighteous themselves. For they inherited the fleshly genus, but were become degenerate, by not imitating the faith of him whose children they were.\n2. You have heard, indeed, the Lord saying, \u201cI know that ye are Abraham\u2019s children.\u201d Hear what He says afterwards: \u201cI speak that which I have seen with my Father; and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.\u201d He had already said, \u201cI know that ye are Abraham\u2019s children.\u201d What is it, then, that they do? What He told them: \u201cYe seek to kill me.\u201d This they never saw with Abraham. But the Lord wishes God the Father to be understood when He says, \u201cI speak that which I have seen with my Father.\u201d I have seen the truth: I speak the truth, because I am the Truth. For if the Lord speaks the truth which He has seen with the Father, He has seen Himself\u2014He speaks Himself; because He Himself is the Truth of the Father, which He saw with the Father. For He is the Word\u2014the Word which was with God. The evil, then, which these men do, and which the Lord chides and reprehends, where have they seen it? With their father. When we come to hear in what follows the still clearer statement who is their father, then shall we understand what kind of things they saw with such a father; for as yet He names not their father. A little above He referred to Abraham, but in regard to their fleshly origin, not their similarity of life. He is about to speak of that other father of theirs, who neither begat them p. 236 nor created them to be men. But still they were his children in as far as they were evil, not in as far as they were men; in what they imitated him, and not as created by him.\n3. \u201cThey answered and said unto Him, Abraham is our father;\u201d as if, What hast thou to say against Abraham? or, If thou canst, dare to find fault with Abraham. Not that the Lord dared not find fault with Abraham; but Abraham was not one to be found fault with by the Lord, but rather approved. But these men seemed to challenge Him to say some evil of Abraham, and so to have some occasion for doing what they purposed. \u201cAbraham is our father.\u201d\n4. Let us hear how the Lord answered them, praising Abraham to their condemnation. \u201cJesus saith unto them, If ye are Abraham\u2019s children, do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.\u201d See, he was praised, they were condemned. Abraham was no manslayer. I say not, He implies, I am Abraham\u2019s Lord; though did I say it, I would say the truth. For He said in another place, \u201cBefore Abraham was, I am\u201d (John 8.58); and then they sought to stone Him. He said not so. But meanwhile, as you see me, as you look upon me, as alone you think of me, I am a man. Wherefore, then, wish you to kill a man who is telling you what he has heard of God, but because you are not the children of Abraham? And yet He said above, \u201cI know that ye are Abraham\u2019s children.\u201d He does not deny their origin, but condemns their deeds. Their flesh was from him, but not their life.\n5. But we, dearly beloved, do we come of Abraham\u2019s race, or was Abraham in any sense our father according to the flesh? The flesh of the Jews draws its origin from his flesh, not so the flesh of Christians. We have come of other nations, and yet, by imitating him, we have become the children of Abraham. Listen to the apostle: \u201cTo Abraham and to his seed were the promises made. He saith not,\u201d he adds, \u201cAnd to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. And if ye be Christ\u2019s, then are ye Abraham\u2019s seed, and heirs according to the promise.\u201d 777 We then have become Abraham\u2019s seed by the grace of God. It was not of Abraham\u2019s flesh that God made any co-heirs with him. He disinherited the former, He adopted the latter; and from that olive tree whose root is in the patriarchs, He cut off the proud natural branches, and engrafted the lowly wild olive. 778 And so, when the Jews came to John to be baptized, he broke out upon them, and addressed them, \u201cO generation of vipers.\u201d Very greatly indeed did they boast of the loftiness of their origin, but he called them a generation of vipers,\u2014not even of human beings, but of vipers. He saw the form of men, but detected the poison. Yet they had come to be changed, 779 because at all events to be baptized; and he said to them, \u201cO generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance. And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.\u201d 780 If ye bring not forth fruits meet for repentance, flatter not yourselves about such a lineage. God is able to condemn you, without defrauding Abraham of children. For He has a way to raise up children to Abraham. Those who imitate his faith shall be made his children. \u201cGod is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.\u201d Such are we. In our parents we were stones, when we worshipped stones for our god. Of such stones God has created a family to Abraham.\n6. Why, then, does this empty and vain bragging exalt itself? Let them cease boasting that they are the children of Abraham. They have heard what they ought to have heard: \u201cIf ye are the children of Abraham,\u201d prove it by your deeds, not by words. \u201cYe seek to kill me, a man;\u201d\u2014I say not, meanwhile, the Son of God; I say not God; I say not the Word, for the Word dies not. I say merely this that you see; for only what you see can you kill, and whom you see not can you offend. \u201cThis,\u201d then, \u201cdid not Abraham.\u201d \u201cYe do the works of your father.\u201d And as yet He says not who is that father of theirs.\n7. And now what answer did they give Him? For they began somewhat to realize that the Lord was not speaking of carnal generation, but of their manner of life. And because it is the custom of the Scriptures, which they read, to call it, in a spiritual sense, fornication, when the soul is, as it were, prostituted by subjection to many false gods, they made this reply: \u201cThen said they to Him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.\u201d Abraham has now lost his importance. For they were repulsed as they ought to have been by the truth-speaking mouth; because such was Abraham, whose deeds they failed to imitate, and yet gloried p. 237 in his lineage. And they altered their reply, saying, I believe, with themselves, As often as we name Abraham, he goes on to say to us, Why do ye not imitate him in whose lineage ye glory? Such a man, so holy, just, and guileless, we cannot imitate. Let us call God our Father, and see what he will say to us.\n8. Has falsehood indeed found something to say, and should not truth find its fitting reply? Let us hear what they say: let us hear what they hear. \u201cWe have one Father,\u201d they say, \u201ceven God. Then said Jesus unto them, If God were your Father, ye would [doubtless] love me; for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but He sent me.\u201d Ye call God Father; recognize me, then, as at least a brother. At the same time He gave a stimulus to the hearts of the intelligent, by touching on that which He has a habit of saying, \u201cI came not of myself: He sent me. I proceeded forth and came from God.\u201d Remember what we are wont to say: From Him He came; and from whom He came, with Him He came. The sending of Christ, therefore, is His incarnation. But as respects the proceeding forth of the Word from God, it is an eternal procession. Time holds not Him by whom time was created. Let no one be saying in his heart, Before the Word was, how did God exist? Never say, Before the Word of God was. God was never without the Word, because the Word is abiding, not transient; God, not a sound; by whom the heaven and earth were made, and which passed not away with those things that were made upon the earth. From Him, then, He proceeded forth as God, the equal, the only Son, the Word of the Father; and came to us, for the Word was made flesh that He might dwell among us. His coming indicates His humanity; His abiding, His divinity. It is His Godhead towards which, His humanity whereby, we make progress. Had He not become that whereby we might advance, we should never attain to Him who abideth ever.\n9. \u201cWhy,\u201d He says, \u201cdo ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word.\u201d And so they could not understand, because they could not hear. And whence could they not hear, but just because they refused to be set right by believing? And why so? \u201cYe are of your father the devil.\u201d How long do ye keep speaking of a father? How often will ye change your fathers,\u2014at one time Abraham, at another God? Hear from the Son of God whose children ye be: \u201cYe are of your father the devil.\u201d\n10. Here, now, we must beware of the heresy of the Manicheans, which affirms that there is a certain principle of evil, and a certain family of darkness with its princes, which had the presumption to fight against God; but that God, not to let His kingdom be subdued by the hostile family, despatched against them, as it were, His own offspring, princes of His own [kingdom of] light; and so subdued that race from which the devil derives his origin. From thence, also, they say our flesh derives its origin, and accordingly think the Lord said, \u201cYe are of your father the devil,\u201d because they were evil, as it were, by nature, deriving their origin from the opposing family of darkness. So they err, so their eyes are blinded, so they make themselves the family of darkness, by believing a falsehood against Him who created them. For every nature is good; but man\u2019s nature has been corrupted by an evil will. What God made cannot be evil, if man were not [a cause of] evil to himself. But surely the Creator is Creator, and the creature a creature [a thing created]. The creature cannot be put on a level with the Creator. Distinguish between Him who made, and that which He made. The bench cannot be put on a level with the mechanic, nor the pillar with its builder; and yet the mechanic, though he made the bench, did not himself create the wood. But the Lord our God, in His omnipotence and by the Word, made what He made. He had no materials out of which to make all that He made, and yet He made it. For they were made because He willed it, they were made because He said it; but the things made cannot be compared with the Maker. If thou seekest a proper subject of comparison, turn thy mind to the only-begotten Son. How, then, were the Jews the children of the devil? By imitation, not by birth. Listen to the usual language of the Holy Scriptures. The prophet says to those very Jews, \u201cThy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.\u201d 781 The Amorites were not a nation that gave origin to the Jews. The Hittites also were themselves of a nation altogether different from the race of the Jews. But because the Amorites and Hittites were impious, and the Jews imitated their impieties, they found parents for themselves, not of whom they were born, but in whose damnation they should share, because following their customs. But perhaps you inquire, Whence is the devil himself? From the same source certainly as the other angels. But the other angels continued in their obedi p. 238 ence. He, by disobedience and pride, fell as an angel, and became a devil.\n11. But listen now to what the Lord says: \u201cYe,\u201d said He, \u201care of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.\u201d This is how ye are his children, because such are your lusts, not because ye are born of him. What are his lusts? \u201cHe was a murderer from the beginning.\u201d This it is that explains, \u201cthe lusts of your father ye will do.\u201d \u201cYe seek to kill me, a man that telleth you the truth.\u201d He, too, had ill-will to man, and slew man. For the devil, in his ill-will to man, assuming the guise of a serpent, spoke to the woman, and from the woman instilled his poison into the man. They died by listening to the devil, 782 whom they would not have listened to had they but listened to the Lord; for man, having his place between Him who created and him who was fallen, ought to have obeyed the Creator, not the deceiver. Therefore \u201che was a murderer from the beginning.\u201d Look at the kind of murder, brethren. The devil is called a murderer not as armed with a sword, or girded with steel. He came to man, sowed his evil suggestions, and slew him. Think not, then, that thou art not a murderer when thou persuadest thy brother to evil. If thou persuadest thy brother to evil, thou slayest him. And to let thee know that thou slayest him, listen to the psalm: \u201cThe sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.\u201d 783 Ye, then, \u201cwill do the lusts of your father;\u201d and so ye go madly after the flesh, because ye cannot go after the spirit. \u201cHe was a murderer from the beginning;\u201d at least in the case of the first of mankind. From the very time that murder [manslaughter] could possibly be committed, he was a murderer [manslayer]. Only from the time that man was made could manslaughter be committed. For man could not be slain unless man was previously made. Therefore, \u201che was a murderer from the beginning.\u201d And whence a murderer? \u201cAnd he stood [abode] not in the truth.\u201d Therefore he was in the truth, and fell by not standing in it. And why \u201cstood he not in the truth\u201d? \u201cBecause the truth is not in him;\u201d not as in Christ. In such a way is the truth [in Him], that Christ Himself is the Truth. If, then, he had stood in the truth, he would have stood in Christ; but \u201che abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.\u201d\n12. \u201cWhen he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.\u201d 784 What is this? You have heard the words of the Gospel: you have received them with attention. Here now, I repeat them, that you may clearly understand the subject of your thoughts. The Lord said those things of the devil which ought to have been said of the devil by the Lord. That \u201che was a murderer from the beginning\u201d is true, for he slew the first man; \u201cand he abode not in the truth,\u201d for he lapsed from the truth. \u201cWhen he speaketh a lie,\u201d to wit, the devil himself, \u201che speaketh of his own;\u201d for he is a liar, and its [his] father.\u201d From these words some have thought that the devil has a father, and have inquired who was the father of the devil. Indeed this detestable error of the Manicheans has found means down to this present time wherewith to deceive the simple. For they are wont to say, Suppose that the devil was an angel, and fell; and with him sin began as you say; but, Who was his father? We, on the contrary, reply, Who of us ever said that the devil had a father? And they, on the other hand, rejoin, The Lord saith, and the Gospel declares, speaking of the devil, \u201cHe was a murderer from the beginning, and abode 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 his father.\u201d\n13. Hear and understand. I shall not send thee far away [for the meaning]; understand it from the words themselves. The Lord called the devil the father of falsehood. What is this? Hear what it is, only revolve the words themselves, and understand. It is not every one who tells a lie that is the father of his lie. For if thou hast got a lie from another, and uttered it, thou indeed hast lied in giving utterance to the lie; but thou art not the father of that lie, because thou hast got it from another. But the devil was a liar of himself. He begat his own falsehood; he heard it from no one. As God the Father begat as His Son the Truth, so the devil, having fallen, begat falsehood as his son. Hearing this, recall now and reflect upon the words of the Lord. Ye catholic minds, consider what ye have heard; attend to what He says. \u201cHe\u201d\u2014who? The devil\u2014\u201cwas a murderer from the beginning.\u201d We admit it,\u2014he slew Adam. \u201cAnd he abode not in the truth.\u201d We admit it, for he lapsed from the p. 239 truth. \u201cBecause there is no truth in him.\u201d True: by falling away from the truth he has lost its possession. \u201cWhen he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.\u201d He is both a liar, and the father of lies. For thou, it may be, art a liar, because thou utterest a lie; but thou art not its father. For if thou hast got what thou sayest from the devil, and hast believed the devil, thou art a liar, but not the father of the lie. But he, because he got not elsewhere the lie wherewith in serpent-form he slew man as if by poison, is the father of lies just as God is Father of truth. Withdraw, then, from the father of lies: make haste to the Father of truth; embrace the truth, that you may enter into liberty.\n14. Those Jews, then, spake what they saw with their father. And what was that but falsehood? But the Lord saw with His Father what He should speak; and what was that, but Himself? What, but the Word of the Father? What, but the truth of the Father, eternal itself, and co-eternal with the Father? He, then, \u201cwas a murderer from the beginning, and abode 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,\u201d\u2014and not only a liar, but also \u201cthe father of it;\u201d that is, of the very lie that he speaks he is the father, for he himself begat his lie. \u201cAnd because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convicteth me of sin,\u201d as I convict both you and your father? \u201cIf I say the truth, why do ye not believe me,\u201d but just because ye are the children of the devil?\n15. \u201cHe that is of God heareth God\u2019s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.\u201d Here, again, it is not of their nature as men, but of their depravity, that you are to think. In this way they are of God, and yet not of God. By nature they are of God, in depravity they are not of God. Give heed, I pray you. In the gospel you have the remedy against the poisonous and impious errors of the heretics. For of these words also the Manicheans are accustomed to say, See, here there are two natures, 785 \u2014the one good and the other bad; the Lord says it. What says the Lord? \u201cYe therefore hear me not, because ye are not of God.\u201d This is what the Lord says. What then, he rejoins, dost thou say to that? Hear what I say. They are both of God, and not of God. By nature they are of God: by depravity they are not of God; for the good nature which is of God sinned voluntarily by believing the persuasive words of the devil, and was corrupted; and so it is seeking a physician, because no longer in health. That is what I say. But thou thinkest it impossible that they should be of God, and yet not of God. Hear why it is not impossible. They are of God, and yet not of God, in the same way as they are the children of Abraham, and yet not the children of Abraham. Here you have it. It is not as you say. Hearken to the Lord Himself; it is He that said to them, \u201cI know that ye are the children of Abraham.\u201d Could there be any lie with the Lord? Surely not. Then is it true what the Lord said? It is true. Then it is true that they were the children of Abraham? It is true. But listen to Himself denying it. He who said, \u201cYe are the children of Abraham,\u201d Himself denied that they were the children of Abraham. \u201cIf ye are Abraham\u2019s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that telleth you the truth, which I have heard from God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the works of your father,\u201d that is, of the devil. How, then, were they both Abraham\u2019s children, and yet not his children? Both states He showed in them. They were both Abraham\u2019s children in their carnal origin, and not his children in the sin of following the persuasion of the devil. So, also, apply it to our Lord and God, that they were both of Him, and not of Him. How were they of Him? Because He it was that created the man of whom they were born. How were they of Him? Because He is the Architect of nature,\u2014Himself the Creator of flesh and spirit. How, then, were they not of Him? Because they had made themselves depraved. They were no longer of Him, because, imitating the devil, they had become the children of the devil.\n16. Therefore came the Lord God to man as a sinner. Thou hast heard the two names, both man and sinner. As man, he is of God; as a sinner, he is not of God. Let the moral evil 786 in man be distinguished from his nature. Let that nature be owned, to the praise of the Creator; let the evil be acknowledged, that the physician may be called in to its cure. When the Lord then said, \u201cHe that is of God heareth the words of God: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.\u201d He did not distinguish the value of different natures, or find, beyond their own soul and body, any nature in men which had not been vitiated by sin; but foreknowing those who should yet believe, them He called of God, p. 240 because yet to be born again of God by the adoption of regeneration. To these apply the words \u201cHe that is of God heareth the words of God.\u201d But that which follows, \u201cYe therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God,\u201d was said to those who were not only corrupted by sin (for this evil was common to all), but also foreknown as those who would not believe with the faith that alone could deliver them from the bondage of sin. On this account He foreknew that those to whom He so spake would continue in that which they derived from the devil, that is, in their sins, and would die in the impiety in which they resembled him; and would not come to the regeneration wherein they would be the children of God, that is, be born of the God by whom they were created as men. In accordance with this predestinating purpose did the Lord speak; and not that He had found any man amongst them who either by regeneration was already of God, or by nature was no longer of God.\nIn some editions, \u201cto be cleansed.\u201d\n236:780 237:781 238:782 238:783 238:784\nIn this and the following paragraph, Augustin deals with the rendering given to these words by the Manich\u00e6ans in support of their heresy, stated in section 10. The words \u201cpater ejus\u201d (\u1f41 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u1f74\u03c1 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6), taken by themselves, might of course mean either \u201chis father\u201d or \u201cthe father of it\u201d [i.e. of falsehood]. Both the Greek idiom and the context require the latter, but the Manich\u00e6ans adopted the former, and made the passage run, \u201cfor he [i.e. the devil] is a liar, and [so is] his father.\u201d Hence the question they are made to put afterwards, \u201cWho was his [the devil\u2019s] father?\u201d and our author\u2019s exposition of the passage.\u2014Tr.\n239:785\nThat is, in man. Compare section 10.\u2014Tr.\n239:786","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII: Lectures or Tra...","type":"page"}