And, similarly, Christ says (John viii.44) that the Devil was a murderer (literally, manslayer) from the beginning (that is, of man's creation - he could not murder man before man was made), and abode not in the truth (the Greek verb esteke, here rendered abode, is as shown by the oldest manuscripts, and the context here - was a murderer - not the perfect tense of istemi, with a present meani