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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth: when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own." He had driven them out of their relationship to Abraham, and when they dared greater things, He then addeth a blow, telling them that they not only are not Abraham's children, but that they are even children of the devil, and inflicting a wound which might counterbalance their shamelessness; nor doth He leave it unsupported, but establisheth it by …
Cyril of Alexandria
Having with reason led them off from their kindred with Abraham and convicted them of having unlikeness to him in their manners, and of being far removed from piety toward God Himself, and yet moreover having explained the reason of their not being able to be obedient to His speech, He again shows who will rather be more fittingly and properly termed their father. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
He said "you cannot hear My word" instead of "you do not want to." Then He gives the reason why they did not want to hear: that they have their own father, namely the devil. Although you madly ascribe yourselves as children to God, as your father, your deeds testify that the devil is a more natural father to you. "You want to carry out his desires." He did not say "deeds," but "desires," showing that they are very inclined toward lying and murder, two kinds of evil which are very characteristic of the devil. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." How 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, "Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite." 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. …
Thomas Aquinas
After showing that the Jews had a certain spiritual origin, and after rejecting the origin they presumed they had, our Lord here gives their true origin, ascribing their fatherhood to the devil. First, he makes his statement; secondly, he gives its reason; and thirdly, he explains this reason. He says: You do the works of the devil; therefore, you are of your father the devil, that is, by imitating him: "Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite" (Ez 16:3). …
Bernard of Clairvaux
But ignorance of yourself begets pride in you in this way: when your deceived and deceiving thought falsely tells you that you are better than you are. This indeed is pride, this is the beginning of all sin, when you are greater in your own eyes than before God, than in truth. And therefore he who first sinned this great sin (I speak of the devil), of him it was said that he stood not in the truth, but is a liar from the beginning; because what he was in his own thought, he was not in truth. …
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