This commentary by Alcuin of York closely parallels the commentary of the Venerable Bede on the same passage. This reflects the Carolingian scholarly practice of preserving, adapting, and transmitting patristic exegesis. Alcuin, as a leading scholar of the Carolingian Renaissance, frequently compiled and refined earlier authorities—particularly Bede, Augustine, and Gregory the Great—to make their insights accessible for teaching and pastoral use in the Frankish church. This post was translated by Qwen.
Introduction
He says that he who keeps His word shall not see death forever. And among very many other things, affirming that He existed before Abraham, He went out from the temple.
John 8:46
"Which one of you convicts Me of sin?"
Just as I convict you and your father of sin and lying. Behold the meekness of Christ! He had come to loose sins, and yet He said: "Which one of you convicts Me of sin?" He does not disdain to demonstrate by reason that He is not a sinner, He who by the power of His divinity was able to justify sinners.
He asks them why they are unwilling to believe the truth, saying: "If I have spoken the truth to you, why do you not believe Me?" Is it not because you are sons of the devil, and not of the truth? Sons of the devil—not by nature, but by imitation.
John 8:47
And He rendered and recounted the reason why they would not believe the truth, when He says: "For this reason you do not hear, because you are not of God."
Again, do not look at nature, but at vice. Thus these men are of God and are not of God: by nature they are of God, by vice they are not of God. Nature, indeed, which is good and from God, sinned by will, by believing what the devil persuaded; and being vitiated, let it therefore seek the Physician, because it is not sound. Let nature be recognized, that the Creator may be praised; let vice be recognized, that the Physician may be summoned.
Terrible is what He adds: "He who is of God hears the words of God. For this reason you do not hear, because you are not of God."
For if he himself hears the words of God who is of God, and whoever is not of Him cannot hear His words, let each one ask himself whether he perceives the words of God in the ear of his heart, and understands whence it comes: to desire the heavenly homeland, Truth commands; to crush the desires of the flesh; to shun the glory of the world; not to seize the goods of others; to give freely of one's own.
Let each one of you therefore consider within himself whether this voice of God has prevailed in the ear of his heart, and let him recognize that he is already of God.
John 8:48
"The Jews therefore answered and said to Him: Do we not say well that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?"
But let us hear what the Lord responds after receiving such great contumely.
John 8:49
"I do not have a demon, but I honor My Father, and you have dishonored Me."
For since "Samaritan" is interpreted "keeper," and He is truly the Keeper, of whom the Psalmist says: "Unless the Lord keeps the city, in vain do they watch who guard it" (Ps 126:1); and to whom it is said through Isaiah: "Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?" (Is 21:11)—the Lord was unwilling to respond "I am not a Samaritan," but rather: "I do not have a demon."
For two things had been cast at Him: one He denied, and the other by His silence He accepted. For He had come as the Keeper of the human race, and if He were to say that He was not a Samaritan, He would be denying that He is the Keeper. But He was silent concerning what He acknowledged, and patiently repelled what He heard said falsely, saying: "I do not have a demon."
Here indeed the Lord provided for us in Himself an example of patience. For if He had wished to respond to the Jews, "You have a demon," He would certainly have spoken the truth—because unless they were filled with a demon, they could not speak so perversely about God. But having received an injury, the Truth was unwilling to speak even what was true, lest He seem not to have spoken the truth, but to have returned an insult when provoked.
From which thing, what is indicated to you except that at that time when we receive insults from our neighbors based on falsehood, we should also keep silent about their true evils, lest we turn the ministry of just correction into a weapon of fury?
John 8:50
But what we ought to do in these matters, He still admonishes us by example, when He adds: "But I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges."
We know certainly that it is written that "the Father has given all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22). And yet behold, the same Son, receiving injuries, does not seek His own glory. He reserves the contumelies cast at Him for the judgment of the Father, so that He might surely insinuate to us how patient we ought to be, since He who judges does not yet wish to avenge Himself.
John 8:51
But when the perversity of the wicked grows, not only ought preaching not to be broken off, but it ought even to be increased. Which the Lord admonishes us by His own example, who after He was said to have a demon, bestowed the benefits of His preaching more generously, saying: "Amen, amen, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, he shall not see death forever."
John 8:52
But just as it is necessary for the good that they become even better through insults, so the reprobate always become worse from a benefit. For having received the preaching, they again say: "Now we know that You have a demon."
For because they had clung to eternal death, they did not see that same death to which they had clung, while they looked only upon the death of the flesh; they were in darkness concerning the word of truth, saying: "Abraham is dead, and the prophets, and You say: 'If anyone keeps My word, he shall not taste death forever'."
John 8:53
Whence they themselves, as if venerating that same Abraham and the prophets, prefer them to the Truth itself. But the clear reason is shown to us: that those who do not know God also falsely venerate the servants of God.
"You say," He says, "I have a demon; I call you to life; keep My word, and you shall not die." But they heard: "He shall not see death forever, who shall keep My word," and they were angry—because they were already dead with that death which was to be avoided. For they were not able to avoid that death by which Abraham died and the prophets, that is, the death of the flesh. For Abraham lived in the spirit, and therefore the Truth itself says of him in another place: "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Matt 22:32).
What is this that He says: "He shall not see death forever"? That is, the death of damnation with the devil and his angels. For this death of the body is a kind of migration: for the saints, to a better life; but for the impious, to perpetual punishments—which the Truth wished to designate here by the name of "death."
But by this death which the Lord wishes to be understood, neither was Abraham dead, nor were the prophets dead. For those [the wicked] died and live; these [the righteous] lived and were dead.
"Who do You make Yourself," they ask, "to say: 'He shall not see death forever, who keeps My word,' when You know that both Abraham is dead and the prophets are dead?"
John 8:54–55
"Jesus answered: If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me." He says this on account of that which they had said: "Who do You make Yourself?" For He refers His glory to the Father, from whom He is that He is God.
The Lord Jesus Christ calls Him His Father, whom they called their God, and they did not know Him. For if they had known Him, they would have received His Son.
"But I," He says, "know Him." To those judging according to the flesh, He might have seemed arrogant even from this, because He said: "I know Him." But see what follows: "And if I should say, 'I do not know Him,' I shall be like you, a liar." Therefore arrogance is not to be avoided in such a way that truth is abandoned. "But I do know Him, and I keep His word."
As Son, He was speaking the word of the Father, and He Himself was the Word of the Father, which He was speaking to men.
John 8:56
And it is to be noted that the Lord saw them resisting with open opposition against Him, and yet He does not cease to preach to them with repeated voice, saying: "Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see My day; and he saw it and was glad."
For then Abraham saw the day of the Lord, when in the figure of the supreme Trinity he received three angels as guests (Gen 18). To whom, having been received, he spoke certainly as to three yet as to One—because although in the Persons there is a number of the Trinity, nevertheless in nature there is a unity of divinity.
John 8:57
But carnal minds, not lifting the eyes of their hearers from the flesh, consider in Him only the age of the flesh, saying: "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?"
Whom our benign Redeemer gently removes from the contemplation of His flesh, and draws them to the contemplation of His divinity, saying:
John 8:58
"Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I AM."
For "before" (ante) is of past time; "I AM" (sum) is of the present. And because divinity does not have past and future time, but always has being, He did not say "Before Abraham, I was" (ego fui), but "Before Abraham, I AM" (ego sum).
Whence also it is said to Moses: "I AM WHO AM" and "You shall say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS has sent me to you" (Exod 3:14). Therefore, he has "before" or "after Abraham" who was able both to draw near by the manifestation of His presence and to depart by the course of life. But the Truth always has being, because for Him nothing is either begun in prior time or terminated in subsequent time.
John 8:59
But the minds of the unbelievers, not being able to endure these words of eternity, run to stones, and they sought to overwhelm Him whom they could not understand.
But what the Lord did against the fury of those casting stones is shown when it is immediately added: "But Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple."
It is indeed a great wonder, dearest brethren, why the Lord, by hiding Himself, avoided His persecutors—He who, if He had wished to exercise the power of His divinity, by a silent nod of His mind could have bound them in their own blows, or overwhelmed them with the punishment of sudden death.
But because He had come to suffer, He was unwilling to exercise judgment. Certainly at the very time of His passion He showed how much He could, and nevertheless endured that for which He had come. For when He said to His persecutors seeking Him, "I AM" (John 18:6), by this voice alone He struck down their pride and cast them all to the ground.
He therefore who in that place could have escaped the hands of those casting stones without hiding Himself—why does He hide Himself, except that our Redeemer, having been made man among men, speaks some things to us by word, others by example?
And what does He say to us by this example, except that even when we are able to resist, we should humbly shun the anger of the proud?
CONTINUE.
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