“Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?”
Then answered the Jews unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? — the authorities resort to insult and accusation: they call Jesus a 'Samaritan' (perhaps meaning a heretic or schismatic) and claim he 'hast a devil' (is demon-possessed). The insults are attempts to silence him by discrediting him. The Samaritan epithet may suggest he is outside the true Israel; the demon-possession charge is the standard accusation against prophetic figures (cf. Mark 3:22). Jesus's relentless exposure of their sin and blindness drives them to personal attack.
Church Fathers on John 8:48
Whenever our Lord said any thing of lofty meaning, the Jews in their insensibility set it down madness: Then answered the Jews and said to Him, Say we not well that you are a Samaritan, and have a devil?
But how, we may ask, when the Samaritans denied a future life, and the immortality of the soul, could they dare to call our Savior, Who had preached so much on the resurrection and the judgment, a Samaritan? Perhaps they only mean a general rebuke to Him for teaching, what they did not approve of.
The Samaritans were hated by the Jews; they lived in the land that formerly belonged to the ten tribes, who had been carried away.
Read all 23 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
Publish a reflection on this verse
No reflections on this verse yet. Be the first to write one!