They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said unto them,
If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.
All Commentaries on John 8:39 Go To John 8
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
O great unlearning and mind withered unto unbelief and looking to only wrangling! For while our Saviour Christ consenteth and saith openly, I know that ye are Abraham's seed, they persist in the same, and as though one were holding out and contradicting and saying that they were not of Abraham's seed after the flesh, they again say, Our father is Abraham, and blush not going oft through the same words, who think that they ought not to yield even to Battus, but are but most excellent emulators of that man's babbling. But perchance they had some most unreasoning plea for this, and what, we will tell. For when the Lord says, I speak that which I have seen with My Father, they did not imagine that He hereby intended God the Father, but thought that He spoke of either the righteous Joseph, or some other of those on the earth, ridiculing and deeming and thinking exceeding little things of Him. For the holy Virgin conceived in her womb the Divine Babe, not of marriage but of the Holy Ghost, as it is written. And the blessed Joseph knowing not at first the mode of the economy was minded to put her away privily, as Matthew saith. But it was not by any means unknown by the Jews that the holy Virgin conceived in her womb before marriage and coming together, yet they understood not that it was of the Holy Ghost, but thought that she had been corrupted by one of the nation, whence they had no right conceptions of Christ. For they deemed that He was a child begotten of some other father who had corrupted (according to their madness) the holy Virgin, and that He was attributed only to Joseph, being a bastard and not son in truth. When then He says, I speak that which I have seen of My Father, they took in no thought at all of God, but that He meant some one of earthly fathers and fancied that He was trying to move them from their honour to their ancestor, and suspecting that He was apportioning to His own kin the honour due to another, and that most ancient glory of the Patriarchate, they meet Him in a more contentious and vehement manner saying, Our father is Abraham. For just as though they were saying, Albeit, sir, you drench us with clever words, and din around us with portentous marvels, and strike us hard with mighty deeds beyond speech, you will not remove us from our pristine boast, we will not register Thy father as the head of our race, we will not attribute such a glory to another, nor will we take new ancestors in exchange for the elder ones. It is no marvel, nor hard to believe, that the Jews should fall into such folly, when they imagined that He is even a bare man and in manifold wise holding Him cheap would call Him the carpenter's son and rank as though nought the King and Lord of all.
But that they had no right opinion as to the holy Virgin also, as though she had been denied, we shall know full well by what follows.
