You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and the father of lies.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 44. You are of your father, the devil, and have made yourselves his slaves.—He was a murderer from the beginning of the world, having brought both a corporal and a spiritual death by sin, upon all mankind.—He abode not in the truth, in the ways of truth and obedience to God.—He is a liar, and the father thereof: that is, the father of lies. I speak truth, being truth itself. Witham.—Saint Augustine compares heretics, who drive Christians out of the Church, to the devil, who was the cause of our first parents’ banishment from paradise. Cont. lit. Petil. l. ii. chapter 13.