He concurs that the devil has a father but stretches the sense of “father.” For Archelaus, a father is anyone who “gives birth” to Satan; and one “gives birth” to Satan simply by doing his works. In this way, the Edenic serpent becomes the devil's father, as did Cain, Pharaoh, Judas (although Judas had an “abortion”).
Awaken your dormant DNA ability to attract wealth effortlessly
The simple yet scientifically proven Wealth DNA method laid out in the report allows you to effortlessly start attracting the wealth and abundance you deserve.
Abstract This article argues that John 8:44 helped to inspire the early Christian view that the creator was an evil being. John 8:44 has at least four possible readings allowed by grammar. In two of these readings, taken by a variety of early Christian groups (including early catholics), there is indication that the devil has a father. Since the desires of this father are known from the parallel desires of his children, some early Christians inferred the hostility of the devil’s father toward Christ, and thus his evil nature.
Introduction For centuries, readers have understood John 8:44 to mean that the father of “the Jews” is the devil. Nevertheless, it is still possible to understand the logic of an early, alternative Christian reading, one that supported—and I believe inspired—the notion that the devil had a wicked father identified with the Jewish deity. Recently, April D. DeConick has argued that “the devil’s father” is the “clear,” “plain,” or “literal” reading of John 8:44a.1 Although this reading is hardly “clear,” the earliest reception of John 8:44 (from the second to the fifth century CE) shows that many early Christians—whether deemed orthodox or not—saw the devil’s father in John 8:44.2 Although they came to different conclusions about his identity, they all agreed that the devil’s father was evil.
Literary Context The fourth gospel depicts Jesus’s fictional Jewish opponents as unable to accept his identity as the Logos.3 Jesus is sent from his father and does his father’s works (John 10:36-37). His opponents fail to recognize him and despise his works. Jesus accuses them of recalcitrant spiritual blindness (John 9:41; 12:39-40). Their blindness is naturalized by the cultural practice of genealogizing. These Jews cannot understand Jesus because they have a different father. Their father is revealed in a heated speech during the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:2). Jesus begins by declaring himself to be “the light of the world” (8:12), a claim that his opponents take as invalid self-testimony. Jesus invokes his “father” as a second witness, a being whom “the Jews,” according to Jesus, do not and have not known (8:19, 55). Similarly in John 5:37, Jesus told them that they have never heard the voice of his father “nor seen his form.”4 If Jesus’s father is taken to be the biblical creator, Jesus asserts that “the Jews” do not know their own God. The statement seems to fly in the face of tradition. What about the revelation at Sinai—when Yahweh spoke from the mountain—not to mention the prophetic oracles?5 Isaiah testified, “I saw the Lord” (6:2; cf. Ascensio Isaiae 3:8-9) and “the word of the Lord came to me” is a prophetic mantra.6 One is led to infer that Jesus’s father is a different being than the creator. Only in this case can “the Jews” know their own God, yet fail to know Jesus’s father. “The Jews” claim to be Abraham’s children (John 8:33). Jesus seems to acknowledge this point (8:37), but later denies it because they fail to perform Abraham’s works (8:39). The patriarch was known for hospitality, but Jesus’s opponents, though they deny it, seek to murder him (7:1; 8:40; 10:39; 11:55). Escalating their defense, “the Jews” claim God (ὁ θεός) as their father (8:41). Jesus denies that God is their father, for if he were, the Jews would “love” Jesus (8:42). He explicitly says that his opponents are not from God (ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἐστέ, v.47), though he knows that they would identify Jesus’s father with their God (ὁ πατήρ µου … ὃν ὑµεῖς λέγετε ὅτι θεὸς ἡµῶν ἐστιν, 8:54). Jesus himself is not prepared to identify his father with the being the Jews call θέος. He implicitly identifies the God (ὁ θεός) with his father. But he refuses to acknowledge this being as the father of the Jews here portrayed (8:47).7 Instead, Jesus tells them: (a) You are from the father of the devil [or: from the father, the devil] (ὑµεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστέ)
(b) And the desires of your father you want to do;
(c) He (ἐκεῖνος) was a murderer from the beginning,
(d) And stands not in the truth, since the truth is not in him;
(e) Whenever he speaks the lie (τὸ ψεῦδος), he speaks from his own resources
(f) Because he is a liar, as well as his father [or: the father of it] (ὅτι ψεύστης ἐστὶν καὶ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ). Ambiguity occurs in two clauses, (a) and (f). In clause (a), Jesus either says: “You are from the devil’s father” (the relational reading) or “You are from your father, the devil” (appositional).8 In clause (f), one could understand either the devil’s father as a liar (possessive), or take the devil as the father of the understood antecedent in clause (e), namely “the lie.”9 These readings have four possible combinations: Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide View Full Size Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide DeConick supports the relational possessive reading as “primary,” stating: “In 8:44a, the Greek is clear ὑµεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστέ. With the article preceding πατρός, the phrase τοῦ διαβόλου is a genitive phrase modifying the nominal phrase ἐκ τοῦ πατρός. Thus: ‘You are from the father of the Devil.’ If the statement were to mean … ‘You are of the father, the Devil,’ then the article preceding πατρός would not be present.”10 DeConick closely follows the logic and indeed language of Rudolf Bultmann, who wrote that John 8:44, “clearly speaks not only of the devil but of the father of the devil. For grammatically ὑµεῖς ἐκ τ[οῦ] πατρ[ὸς] τ[οῦ] διαβ[όλου] ἐστέ can only mean: ‘you come from the father of the devil.’ If what was meant was ‘… from the devil, your father,’ then the article before πατρός … would have to be omitted.”11 This reading has recently been countered by Stephen Robert Llewelyn, Alexandra Robinson, and Blake Edward Wassell, who argue that the whole predicate is a prepositional phrase (ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστέ), which means that the presence or absence of an article within the phrase is “otiose.”12 Though this point comes with philological examples, it does not undermine the possibility of a relational reading. It simply undercuts the claim that the Greek is “clear.” Regarding John 8:44f, DeConick observes: the “literal reading … straightforwardly acknowledges the presence of two beings, the Liar and his father.” Conversely, the reading which takes the antecedent of αὐτοῦ to be “the lie” in 8:44e is “strained, … referring to an unnamed singular antecedent such as ‘lying.’ ”13 Again, Bultmann already argued: “The conclusion [8:44f] could only mean ‘for his (namely the devil’s) father also is a liar.’ It is illegitimate to find in the individual ψεύστης a general ψεύστης as the antecedent of αὐτοῦ to give the sense: ‘for he (the devil) is a liar and the father of every liar.’ Even less could one take from the ψεύστης the concept of ψεῦδος and understand it as the antecedent of αὐτοῦ: ‘for he is a liar and the father of the lie.”14 Llewelyn et al. respond that the antecedent, namely “the lie,” is “in the text and within the same sentence.” Moreover, “the reference to that antecedent is facilitated by naming the subject himself as a liar (ψεύστης).” So because “the underlying topic of the sentence concerns lying,” the “lie” as an antecedent is not “unnamed.”15 Llewelyn et al. undermine DeConick’s argument, but they miss Bultmann’s point that a general or abstract antecedent (“the lie”) does not fit the individual subject in the immediate vicinity (“he is a liar”). As in the former case, their critique does not show that the possessive reading (“he is a liar as is his father”) is ruled out. They succeed only in showing that DeConick is incorrect in determining which reading “straightforward.” The text can be read either way, and philology accentuates this point.
The Fate of the Argument Despite his argument for the relational-possessive reading, Bultmann ended up rejecting both: “There is no sense here in referring to the father of the devil. For it is the devil who is described as” a murderer and a liar.16 But if John 8:44a refers to the devil’s father, then it is the devil’s father who is the liar and murderer, as Bultmann knew.17 Like many commentators, he appealed to 1 John 3:8 where the sinner is described as the devil’s child.18 This is not, however, the context of John, but of a separate letter, by another author with a significantly different theology, and writing at a different time.19 Bultmann opted for text-critical excisions. He suggested that we assume that τοῦ διαβόλου is an explanatory gloss or that we omit τοῦ πατρός, an omission attested in a few manuscripts.20 Since the devil’s father would still appear in 8:44f, one would need to make “further corrections.”21 Nevertheless, emending a text to agree with what we think the text must have said is not acceptable exegesis. After Bultmann, the relational and/or possessive reading of John 8:44 was typically ignored or dismissed.22 I note two partial exceptions. In her 2015 commentary on John, Gail R. O’Day observed that a “literal translation [of 8:44a] would read, ‘You are from the father of the devil,’ because the definite article appears before both ‘father’ and ‘devil’ in the Greek.” Nevertheless, she remarked, this “literal translation does not fit the Fourth Evangelist’s argument, … As the rest of the verse makes clear, Jesus is not concerned with speculation about the devil’s origins, but with the devil himself as the Jews’ father.”23 O’Day’s reading, however, asserts what it needs to prove—that the devil is the Jews’ father. To be sure, John 8 is not a treatise on the devil’s origins, but it could still refer to the devil’s father with virtually the same point established (that Jesus’s enemies belong to a genealogy of evil). If it does not do so in 8:44a, then it may do so in 8:44f, a phrase whose ambiguity O’Day fails to flag. Urban C. von Wahlde recognized the possessive reading of John 8:44f (“he is a liar as is his father”) but rejected it because “the context [of John 8:44] speaks of the origin of lying.”24 More exactly, the context speaks of the origin of murder (8:44c). Moreover, mentioning the devil’s lying father would still fit a discussion about the origin of lying. Von Wahlde stated that if the possessive meaning of John 8:44f is taken, “it would refer, not to the father of the devil, but to the devil as the father of a human being who lies.”25 This is a common ancient way of interpreting, as we shall see. Unfortunately, however, the one referred to in John 8:44b-e can only be the devil in von Wahlde’s appositional reading of 8:44a, so the devil’s father must be the referent in a possessive reading of 8:44f (“he [the devil] is a liar, as is his father”). Thus we arrive at a hermeneutical fork: on the authority of the Johannine Jesus, the Jews’ father could either be the devil or the devil’s father. The devil’s father is probably an unfamiliar character to most modern readers, but we should not assume he was unfamiliar to the earliest readers of John. Many ancient interpreters saw the devil’s father in John 8:44, an interpretive decision which influenced their theology. Some of these interpreters I treat below.
Heracleon Heracleon was a Valentinian Christian, perhaps a personal disciple of Valentinus.26 Clement of Alexandria describes him as the most esteemed in Valentinus’s school.27 He was esteemed in part for his Commentary on John, evidently the first of its kind, written around 175 CE. This commentary is lost, but almost fifty fragments of it survive in Origen’s Commentary on John, written between 230 and 248. What was Heracleon’s reading of John 8:44a? DeConick takes it to be relational.28 Problematically, Origen never credits the “father of the devil” interpretation to Heracleon. He stated that John 8:44a is ambiguous (ἀµφίβολος), a point Origen makes, as he does elsewhere, without addressing Heracleon.29 Still, one could argue that Origen mentioned the ambiguity because he was prompted by Heracleon since (1) the latter is mentioned shortly before this passage,30 and (2) Origen elsewhere shadowboxes with Heracleon without mentioning him explicitly. But if Origen intended to oppose a relational reading of John 8:44a, he put up an unusually weak defense. He mentioned only that the appositional reading was “better” (βέλτιον) and would be clearer if the first definite article were removed (which, given scriptural authority, is impossible).31 Other issues trouble DeConick’s interpretation. If the devil’s father is the father of the Jews, then the devil’s father must be the referent of John 8:44b: “the desires of your father you want to do.” But Heracleon said that it is the devil who has the desires.32 Thus Heracleon thought that the devil is the father. Furthermore, Heracleon interpreted John 8:44 to refer to people who are “from the substance of the devil.”33 It is true that, semantically, Heracleon here takes a relational reading, insofar as “from the father of the devil” is interpreted to mean “from the substance of the devil.”34 Nevertheless, DeConick goes too far when she observes that Heracleon “seems to be arguing that, because these people have the same father as the Devil, they are kin.”35 They are kin, but Heracleon never said that these people are children of the devil’s father. He specifically observed that the referents are the devil’s adoptive children (θέσει υἱοὺς διαβόλου).36 DeConick also argues that Heracleon’s reading of 8:44f was possessive: “because he [the devil] is a liar and also his father.” This is the understanding “that Heracleon uses to argue that the Devil is an unfortunate character whose father is to blame for evil.”37 This reading is also suspect. For according to Origen, Comm. Jo. 20.253, Heracleon took John 8:44f (“for he is a liar, καὶ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ)” to refer not to the devil’s father, but to the devil’s nature (ἰδίως «πατὴρ αὐτοῦ» ἐκλαµβάνων τὴν φύσιν αὐτοῦ).38 Heracleon apparently understood: “The devil is a liar, as is his nature,” which indicates that he understood the verse to mean “the devil is a liar and the father of lying.” Saying that the devil is the “father of lying” is a figurative way of saying that he is a liar by nature. I conclude that Heracleon did not take a possessive reading of 8:44f.39 If Heracleon had no special reason for supporting a relational and/or possessive reading of John 8:44, he had reason not to support these readings. As a Valentinian, Heracleon did not view the creator as wicked. In general, the Valentinian creator is ignorant and misguided, not evil.40 This point is illustrated by Heracleon’s allegorization of John the Baptist and the “petty king” of John 4:46-54.41 When discussing the latter, Heracleon said that the creator was disposed to believe in Jesus (εὔπιστος) after observing his works.42 But if Heracleon took a relational and/or possessive reading, he would be compelled to say that the devil’s father (the creator) was a murderer and liar, and thus wicked. Yet even though Heracleon cannot be invoked as a proponent of the appositional-possessive reading, other early Christian readers can.
Peratai The Peratai were Christians active probably in the mid to late second century CE. Their theology is discussed by the anonymous author of the Refutation of All Heresies, head of a Roman church who finished his work by 222 CE.43 This author understood the name “Peratai” to derive from the Greek verb περᾶσαι, “to traverse.”44 In English, the Peratai are thus the “Traversers.” What did the Peratai traverse? Just as the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, the Peratai hoped to cross the regions of corruption to attain the realm of pure being above the stars. The true exodus was the one out of this world.45 The exit door for the universe was through the constellation Draco, the revolving snake in the sky taken to be a symbol of Christ.46 That a snake could symbolize Christ was proved by Moses’s bronze snake, the sight of which healed the Israelites (John 3:14).47 The Peratai believed that the son of God, the divine snake, was the mediating link between the unborn father and the corruptible world. The son communicates the powers of incorruption to matter like colors leaking from a rainbow. Thus matter is formed into an ordered whole. Humans strong enough to discern the father’s colors in themselves ascend after death to be born into the father’s realm.48 When Jesus mentioned his heavenly father, he referred to his transcendent father. This father is distinguished from—to quote the Peratai—“Your father [who] murders humans from the beginning” (John 8:44c). They called this father “the ruler and creator of matter” (τὸν ἄρχοντα καὶ δηµιουργὸν τῆς ὕλης). Since the devil is not a creator, this is evidently a reference to the biblical creator.49 We can thus chart the Peratic position: Download Figure
What kills ants overnight?
They consist of the following: Vinegar-apply via spray bottle. ... Chalk-simply draw a line across the area where the ants are entering. ......
Awaken your dormant DNA ability to attract wealth effortlessly
The simple yet scientifically proven Wealth DNA method laid out in the report allows you to effortlessly start attracting the wealth and abundance you deserve.
Download figure as PowerPoint slide View Full Size Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide The logic appears to be as follows. The Peratai took a relational reading of John 8:44a (“you [Jews] are from the devil’s father”) and took the devil’s father to be the creator (the biblical father of the Jews). This creator is a murderer (8:44c) in the sense that he makes humans mortal.50 All creations are mortal because the creator worked with matter (ὕλη), subject to decay. To call the creator a “murderer” implies a degree of hostility toward him. Given Peratic theology, this hostility is understandable, since their aim was to transcend the world of the creator, depicted as the planet Saturn, and be born anew in the heights of the transcendent father.
Irenaean “Others” In chapter 30 of his Against Heresies, Irenaeus treats “other” Christian opponents (alii), later called “Ophite.” According to them, the creator (called Yaldabaoth) generates a son from matter. This son is called Mind and exists in the form of a serpent.51 This is the same serpent in paradise who convinced Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. As a result, this serpent—named devil—was expelled from heaven. In short, Yaldabaoth is depicted as—and directly called—the father (pater) of the devil.52 Irenaeus never revealed how this tradition arose. One immediately detects an exegesis of Gen 1-3 (for we read of primal light, spirit, waters, humanity’s creation and fall). Yet another passage inspiring the narrative, I propose, was John 8:44. There are several indications of this. First, John 8:44a is the only biblical passage which, in the relational reading, says that the creator has the devil for a son. Nothing in Genesis would independently suggest this point. Second, even though Yaldabaoth wished to call himself father, this name was stripped from him, “since there was already the incorruptible father” above him.53 The logic of this theology was suggested by Jesus in John, namely that the true God is not the father of these Jews. Third, the father of the devil (Yaldabaoth) is depicted as a liar and murderer. He lies by claiming to be the only deity; he murders by killing Adam and Eve.54 He later tries to drown humanity with a flood. His murderous character culminates in his conspiracy to kill Jesus.55 I submit that the “others” of Irenaeus mapped the theology of John 8:44 (relational reading) onto their exegesis of Gen 1-6, such that the devil had a father who is the archetypal liar and murderer.
Other Sects In the context of discussing the so-called Cainites, Epiphanius of Salamis (about 375 CE) mentions other Christians who, basing themselves on John 8:44, traced the ancestry of the devil to the creator who was seen not as the devil’s father, but as his grandfather. To translate the passage: The other sects on the basis of this passage [John 8:44] claim that the father of the Jews is the devil, and that he has another father, and that his father has a father in turn … Indeed, they trace the devil’s family relation to the master of all—God of Jews, Christians, and all people—affirming that he is the father of his [the devil’s] father. This is the one who gave the law through Moses …56 These—otherwise unidentified—“sects” are significant because they reveal that several different Christian groups proposed relational possessive readings of John 8:44, perhaps independently. Two points in Epiphanius’s report are striking. First, even though these Christians supported a relational reading of 8:44a (the devil has a father), they still made the devil the father of the Jews. Technically the reading of 8:44a ought to indicate that the Jews’ father is the devil’s father. Either these sects supported a “multivalent” reading (DeConick57), or Epiphanius erred. I support the latter view based on this heresiologist’s often loose and careless style of exposition.58 Second, the creator is made not the devil’s father, but his grandfather. DeConick inferred the exegetical origin of this theology.59 The devil has a father according to the relational reading of 8:44a: “You are from the devil’s father.” “He”—referring to the devil’s father—“was a murderer from the beginning” (8:44c) and “his father” (possessive) is a liar (8:44f). These Christians, in short, preferred the relational possessive reading of 8:44, and so counted two fathers: the father of the devil, and the father of the father of the devil. The devil’s grandfather was identified as the Jewish lawgiver (the creator).60 Fascinatingly, Epiphanius agreed with the relational possessive reading. He concurred that the devil has a father, and that the devil’s father has a father. In this case, the devil is Judas, according to John 6:70 (“one of you is a devil”); the devil’s father is Cain; in turn, Cain’s father is the devil (Satan).61 Structurally speaking, then, Epiphanius’s understanding mirrors that of the “other sects,” even if the characters are different: Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide View Full Size Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide
Archontics The Archontics were a Christian group with roots in Palestine but most active, according to Epiphanius, in Armenia.62 The Archontics were interested in a reading of Genesis 4. They viewed Cain as the literal son of the devil, sired on Eve. Cain attacked Abel out of jealousy, since they both romantically loved their sister. In support of their reading, the Archontics cited John 8:44. Epiphanius—who had already dealt with this verse—cited an abbreviated version of 8:44a which favored the appositional reading: “You are from Satan.” We should not assume that the Archontics read 8:44a appositionally, however, since their interpretation as a whole supports a relational understanding. From this passage [John 8:44] they say that Cain is the devil, since he [Jesus] has said that he [Cain] was a murderer from the beginning. [They cite it] also to show that his [Cain’s] father is the devil, and that the devil’s father is the lying ruler whom … they say is Sabaoth.63 Again we have a relational possessive reading, though tweaked: Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide View Full Size Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide The Archontic interpretation is parallel to Epiphanius’s, though traced back a generation further. The devil has a father, the creator (Sabaoth). Nicene Christians normally did not wish to speculate about the devil’s father, even if they generally traced all reality back to the creator.64 Sabaoth, according to the Archontics, is the Jewish deity, distinguished from the incomprehensible God whom the Archontics, perhaps following the logic of John, called “father.”65
Severians Severian Christians also seem to have favored a relational reading of John 8:44. Eusebius mentioned the Severians in his Ecclesiastical History (early fourth century CE). Severus is said to be a follower of Tatian (flourished around 170 CE), and to have interpreted scripture (including the gospels).66 For his part, Epiphanius made Severus a “successor” to Marcion’s student Apelles and informs us that Severians survived until the late fourth century.67 According to Epiphanius, Severus posited a good, unnamable God. The creator, according to Severus, was called Yaldabaoth or Sabaoth. He had a son, the devil (διάβολον υἱὸν εἶναι), a snake later cast to earth.68 The idea of the devil as the creator’s son probably goes back to John 8:44 for reasons already stated: (1) 8:44a is the only biblical text which indicates, on the relational reading, that the devil’s father is the Jewish deity, and (2) John already suggested that there was a father superior to the Jewish deity. Epiphanius linked the Severians to the Archontics on the basis of their shared doctrine that women are the work of Satan.69 Perhaps they were also linked by their relational reading of John 8:44. If so, perhaps the Severians were one of those “other sects” Epiphanius mentioned who supported a relational reading of 8:44.
“Mani” Mani was a Persian prophet who lived from 216 to 277 CE.70 Some sixty years after his death (between 330 and 348 CE), a document appeared claiming to be a transcription of a debate between Mani and a catholic bishop in the city of Carchar (a disputed location in Mesopotamia).71 The document, which survives complete in Latin, is called the Acts of Archelaus after the catholic bishop of Carchar. The character Mani, albeit fictional, still represents “authentic Manichaean readings of the New Testament.”72 In the debate, Archelaus invites “Mani” to quote biblical texts “written against the [Jewish] Law.” When Mani quotes John 8:44, he presents an appositional possessive reading. “You are from your father the devil (vos ex patre diabolo estis) … he is a liar just as his father (mendax est sicut et pater eius).”73 Here sicut (“just as”) demands that one understand the devil’s father (possessive reading). Archelaus disputes neither Mani’s text nor his possessive reading of 8:44f. He concurs that the devil has a father but stretches the sense of “father.” For Archelaus, a father is anyone who “gives birth” to Satan; and one “gives birth” to Satan simply by doing his works. In this way, the Edenic serpent becomes the devil’s father, as did Cain, Pharaoh, Judas (although Judas had an “abortion”).74 Archelaus ends by demonizing Mani, suggesting that he, too, is the devil’s father.75 “Mani” did not approve of Archelaus’s reading. For him, the devil’s father is the creator. At least this is how Epiphanius understood the text (he read the Acts of Archelaus in Greek). After quoting Mani’s reading of 8:44, Epiphanius explained that Mani meant that “the creator of heaven and earth is father of the devil.”76 The reason why Jesus spoke John 8:44, according to “Mani,” is “because whatever the ruler of this world wished and desired, he wrote through Moses and gave to humans as acts that must be performed.”77 “Mani’s” mention of the “ruler of this world” indicates a wider knowledge of John (12:31; 14:11; 16:30).78 For “Mani,” the ruler of this world is the creator and lawgiver, Satan’s father. From these data it is evident that “Mani” knew that: (1) the devil had a father based on John 8:44f, (2) this father was in league with the devil mentioned in 8:44a, (3) the devil’s father is the creator, and (4) that he is evil.79
Preliminary Results These six witnesses (the Peratai, Irenaeus’s “others,” Epiphanius’s “other sects,” the Archontics, Severians, and “Mani”) indicate that several early Christian groups saw the devil’s father in John 8:44. It would be tendentious, I think, to dismiss their readings as secondary supports for preconceived notions about an evil creator. John 8:44—a scriptural text putatively from the lips of Jesus—played a role as a generative source for early Christian theologies. Jesus himself revealed that the devil had a father, and this father was wicked. I turn to examine the logic of these readings in part because the interpretive bias against them remains strong. To illustrate: Llewelyn et al. argue against what they call DeConick’s “pro-gnostic” reading (the appositional possessive reading).80 Their choice of terminology is significant. The reading of Llewelyn et al. is implicitly anti-gnostic. Indeed, they treat DeConick as something of a modern scholarly heretic whose interpretation, though amply justified in reception history, is philologically illegitimate.81 Reception history shows that native Greek speakers often took relational and/or possessive readings of 8:44, and their (again, Greek-speaking) opponents did not protest against these readings on the basis of grammar.
Early Catholic Readings Early catholics themselves in several cases preferred relational and/or possessive readings. We have already observed Epiphanius who, interpreting John 8:44, says that Satan is the father of Cain who is the father of Judas. The author of the Acts of Archelaus, moreover, says that the devil’s father is any murderer and liar. Macarius Another example is Macarius, contemporary of Epiphanius, and writer of the Apocriticus.82 In this apologetic work, Macarius rebutted the charge of a “Hellene” who took an appositional reading of John 8:44a.83 So Macarius: The devil is not the father of the Jews. For if the passage demanded this sense, it would have been written: “You are from your father, who is the devil” (ὑµεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς ὑµῶν τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστέ). But it is actually written: “You are from the father of the devil” (ὑµεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστέ) to indicate that the devil has a father.84 Macarius is the only writer to argue for the relational reading of John 8:44a on the basis of grammar—and he was a catholic. Similar to other early catholics, he introduced secondary figures to play the role of the devil. For Macarius, the devil was the Edenic serpent whose father was Satan.85 Structurally speaking, Macarius’s reading is close to those mentioned above. There are three powers in heaven: (1) one superior, (2) one inferior, and (3) the son of the inferior. For Macarius, the superior power is the creator; the inferior power is Satan, and the son of Satan is the serpent. If we compare Macarius with the Peratai, for instance, we can chart the similarities and differences: Download Figure
What's the most magical number?
137 Those three digits, as it turns out, have long been the rare object of fascination that bridges the gulf between science and mysticism. "137...
Awaken your dormant DNA ability to attract wealth effortlessly
The simple yet scientifically proven Wealth DNA method laid out in the report allows you to effortlessly start attracting the wealth and abundance you deserve.
Download figure as PowerPoint slide View Full Size Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide Download Figure
Download figure as PowerPoint slide In these readings, there are four generations. The first is the transcendent father. Both early catholics and their foes assumed the existence of this being. Early catholics asserted that the father is the creator. Peratics, among other Christians, denied this. They did so, I believe, partially on the basis of John. The Johannine Jesus, as we saw, denies that his father is the father of the Jews. Since according to Hebrew tradition, the father of the Jews is the creator, Jesus’s father cannot be the creator. For the Peratai (among others), this meant that the creator appears in the second generation. This generation comes from the father, but the production is indirect (hence the squiggly line in the diagram). The creator emerges from the father as the result of a fall. Likewise, the catholic version of Satan emerges from the creator as an angel who falls. Both Peratic and catholic Christians agreed that between the first and second generations there is a moral and ontological rift. The first generation (the father) is good, while the second and later generations become evil of their own accord. In Macarius’s understanding, Satan produced the serpent—a secondary figure of evil that makes up an intervening generation. But for other early catholics, this secondary figure could be Cain, Judas, and so on. For the Peratai, the secondary figure is the devil (Satan) himself. But the Archontics, too, envisioned intervening generations (Cain). If Cain is made to intervene, he is typically identified as a devil, son of the devil (Satan).86 Ambrosiaster Sometime between 366 and 384, the Roman clergyman now called Ambrosiaster interpreted John 8:44. His text read: the devil “is a liar just as his father” (mendax est sicut et pater eius).87 (Note again the sicut, which demands a possessive reading.)88 He went on to ask: “How then is he [the devil] said to have a father (quomodo ergo patrem habere dicetur) who is held to be the author of his crime?” He answered that all those who imitate the works of the devil are called devils. The devil referred to in 8:44 is Cain (no surprise by now). John Cassian John Cassian (360-435 CE) wrote his Conferences in Marseilles in the early fifth century CE. Here he quoted the “gospel testimony” concerning the devil, namely John 8:44f: “he is a liar as is his father” (mendax est et pater eius). In the person of the monk Germanus, John asks: “we want to hear who his father is supposed to be.”89 The answer is that “he had no one as his father but God his creator.”90 But since this reading might imply that evil was traced back to the creator, the antecedent interpretation was preferred, that the devil is father of an abstract “lie.”91 Cyril of Alexandria A similar reading occurs in Cyril’s Commentary on John (written in the 420s CE). Cyril preferred an appositional reading in John 8:44a, but he took a possessive reading of 8:44f, since his text read: ὅτι ψεύστης ἐστὶ καθὼς καὶ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ (“because he is a liar just as his father”).92 Cyril admitted that this latter phrase “confuses us … Who would we reasonably suppose is the devil’s father?”93 He decided that the devil in 8:44a refers to Cain, while the devil’s father is Satan.94 Nonnus of Panopolis Finally, Nonnus (fourth to fifth century CE), in his Paraphrase of the Gospel of John, took an appositional possessive reading. In his poetic rephrasing of 8:44: “You indeed are children of a foreboding offspring, a demon antagonist … he is himself a liar by nature, from a lying begetter (ψευδήµονος ἐκ γενετῆρος).”95 The last phrase indicates that Nonnus took πατὴρ αὐτοῦ in 8:44f to refer to a personal “begetter” of the devil.96 To sum up: Epiphanius, Macarius, Cassian, Ambrosiaster, Cyril, and Nonnus show us that Nicene Christians took relational (Macarius, Epiphanius) or possessive (Ambrosiaster, Cassian, Cyril, Nonnus) readings of John 8:44. I conclude that Llewelyn et al. wrongly label DeConick’s relational-possessive reading “pro-gnostic.” Despite their seemingly pure philological argument, Llewelyn et al. appear to assume a development in Augustinian theology. To undercut the perceived Manichean idea that the devil (that is, Satan) had a father, Augustine (354-430 CE) mounted a defense of the appositional-antecedent reading.97 Although this reading has been naturalized in modern English translations of John 8:44, there is nothing natural about it.98 In fact, I would propose that it might have seemed theologically strange, at least in terms of the first three centuries CE. Consider: for Jesus to say that the father of the Jews—whom the Jews claim to be their God (8:41)—is the chief demon is unprecedented. No previous tradition, to my knowledge, identifies Yahweh with the devil. Yet it was Jewish—and early catholic—tradition to say that both the devil and the Jewish people ultimately stem from the creator. All creation derives from the creator, and the devil fell of his own accord. The fallen devil is still created by his divine “father.” Moreover, the creator says, “Israel is my son” (Hos 11:1), even “my firstborn son” (Exod 4:22); with Israel affirming: “you, Yahweh, are our father” (Isa 63:16). In short, there is a long tradition of Jews being the children of Yahweh.99 There is thus theological grounds for choosing the relational reading. In this case, the father of the Jews is the father the Jews have always known—the creator. It turns out that the creator is not the father of Jesus, but of the devil (τοῦ διαβόλου)—where the definite article shows that we are dealing with Satan.
Implications What are the implications of a reading in which the Jews, siblings of the devil, are children of their father the creator? The creator, we discover, is evidently wicked. The Jews wish to do the desires of the devil’s father (the creator). What are the creator’s desires? In this case, we can only infer his desires from the similar desires of his children. The fictional Jews covertly wish to kill Jesus (John 18:31; 19:6, 15). The implication is that the creator also (secretly) wants to murder him—a point directly made by Irenaeus’s Christian “others.”100 In the Johannine gospel, Jesus opposes “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30). This figure could be Satan, but he could also be Satan’s father (the creator).101 Given that lying and murdering ran in the family, the choices are not mutually exclusive. In later reception history, the ruler of this world is the creator Yaldabaoth.102 The Apocryphon of John, evidently dependent on John’s gospel, presents Yaldabaoth in the position of world ruler, a position he earns by virtue of creating the world.103 One cannot but think that the author of the Apocryphon understood the Johannine “ruler of this world” to refer to the creator. The Peratai apparently made the same deduction from 8:44: the devil’s father is “the creator and ruler of matter.”104 Assuming that the ruler of this world is the creator, then the creator attacks Jesus directly before the crucifixion. “The ruler of the world is coming,” says Jesus in John 14:30. Even though the world ruler has no cause against Jesus, he succeeds in having him crucified. But if the creator succeeded in killing Jesus, then he is not the true God, but—as Jesus himself said—a liar and a murderer. He is a liar because he posed as the true God, and the fictional Jews accepted him as such (John 8:54). But they were in error, an error motivated by Yahweh who declared: “I am God and there is no other!” (Isaiah 45:5-6; 46:9). If this God is not the father of Jesus, then he is a liar, and his boast is the primal lie—much older than the devil’s promise, “You shall be as gods!” (Gen 3:5).
Awaken your dormant DNA ability to attract wealth effortlessly
The simple yet scientifically proven Wealth DNA method laid out in the report allows you to effortlessly start attracting the wealth and abundance you deserve.
Awaken your dormant DNA ability to attract wealth effortlessly
The simple yet scientifically proven Wealth DNA method laid out in the report allows you to effortlessly start attracting the wealth and abundance you deserve.
Affluent Savvy
Photo: Kindel Media
