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1. Our Lord's discourse to the Jews began in connection with the
man who was born blind and was restored to sight. Your Charity
therefore ought to know and be advised that today's lesson is
interwoven with that one. For when the Lord had said, "For
judgment I am come into this world; that they who see not might see,
and they who see might be made blind," which, on the occasion of its
reading, we expounded according to our ability, some of the Pharisees
said, "Are we blind also?" To whom He replied. "If ye were
blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; [therefore]
your sin remaineth." To these words He added what we have been
hearing today when the lesson was read.
2. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the
door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a
thief and a robber." For they declared that they were not blind; yet
could they see only by being the sheep of Christ. Whence claimed they
possession of the light, who were acting as thieves against the day?
Because, then, of their vain and proud and incurable arrogance, did
the Lord Jesus subjoin these words, wherein He has given us also
salutary lessons, if we lay them to heart. For there are many who,
according to a custom of this life, are called good people, good men,
good women, innocent, and observers as it were of what is commanded in
the law; paying respect to their parents, abstaining from adultery,
doing no murder, committing no theft, giving no false witness against
any one, and observing all else that the law requires yet are not
Christians; and for the most part ask boastfully, like these men.
"Are we blind also?" But just because all these things that they
do, and know not to what end they should have reference, they do to no
purpose, the Lord has set forth in today's lesson the similitude of
His own flock, and of the door that leads into the sheepfold. Pagans
may say, then, We live well. If they enter not by the door, what
good will that do them, whereof they boast? For to this end ought
good living to benefit every one, that it may be given him to live for
ever: for to whomsoever eternal life is not given, of what benefit is
the living well? For they ought not to be spoken of as even living
well, who either from blindness know not the end of a right life, or
in their pride despise it. But no one has the true and certain hope of
living always, unless he know the life, that it is Christ; and enter
by the gate into the sheepfold.
3. Such, accordingly, for the most part seek to persuade men to
live well, and yet not to be Christians. By another way they wish to
climb up, to steal and to kill, not as the shepherd, to preserve and
to save. And thus there have been certain philosophers, holding many
subtle discussions about the virtues and the vices, dividing,
defining, drawing out to their close the most acute processes of
reasoning, filling books, brandishing their wisdom with rattling
jaws; who would even dare to say to people, Follow us, keep to our
sect, if you would live happily. But they had not entered by the
door: they wished to destroy, to slay, and to murder.
4. What shall I say of such? Look, the Pharisees themselves were
in the habit of reading, and in what they read, their voices
re-echoed the Christ, they hoped He would come, and recognized Him
not when present; they boasted, even they, of being amongst those who
saw, that is, among the wise, and they disowned the Christ, and
entered not in by the door. Therefore would such also, if they
chanced to seduce any, seduce them to be slaughtered and murdered, not
to be brought into liberty. Let us leave these also to themselves,
and look at those who glory in the name of Christ Himself, and see
whether even they perchance are entering in by the door.
5. For there are countless numbers who not only boast that they see,
but would have it appear that they are enlightened by Christ; yet are
they heretics. Have even they somehow entered by the gate? Surely
not. Sabellius says, He who is the Son is Himself the Father;
but if the Son, then is there no Father. He enters not by the
door, who asserts that the Son is the Father. Arius says, The
Father is one thing, the Son is another thing. He would say rightly
if he said, Another person; but not another thing. For when he
says, Another thing, he contradicts Him who says in his hearing,
"I and my Father are One." Neither does he therefore enter by the
door; for he preaches a Christ such as he fabricates for himself, not
such as the truth declares Him. Thou hast the name, thou hast not
the reality. Christ is the name of something; keep hold of the thing
itself, if thou wouldst benefit by the name. Another, I know not
from whence, says with Photinus, Christ is mere man; He is not
God. He enters not in by the door, for Christ is both man and
God. But why need I make many references, and enumerate the many
vanities of heretics? Keep hold of this, that Christ's sheepfold is
the Catholic Church. Whoever would enter the sheepfold, let him
enter by the door, let him preach the true Christ. Not only let him
preach the true Christ, but seek Christ's glory, not his own; for
many, by seeking their own glory, have scattered Christ's sheep,
instead of gathering them. For Christ the Lord is a low gateway: he
who enters by this gateway must humble himself, that he may be able to
enter with head unharmed. But he that humbleth not, but exalteth
himself, wishes to climb over the wall; and he that climbeth over the
wall, is exalted only to fall.
6. Thus far, however, the Lord Jesus speaks in covert language;
not as yet is He understood. He names the door, He names the
sheepfold, He names the sheep: all this He sets forth, but does not
yet explain. Let us read on then, for He is coming to those words,
wherein He may think proper to give us some explanation of what He has
said; from the explanation of which He will perhaps enable us to
understand also what He has not explained. For He gives us what is
plain, for food; what is obscure, for exercise. "He that entereth
not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way."
Woe to the wretch, for he is sure to fall! Let him then be humble,
let him enter by the door: let him walk on the level ground, and he
shall not stumble. "The same," He says, "is a thief and a
robber." The sheep of another he desires to call his own sheep, his
own, that is, as carried off by stealth, for the purpose, not of
saving, but of slaying them. Therefore is he a thief, because what
is another's he calls his own; a robber, because what he has stolen
he also kills. "But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd
of the sheep: to him the porter openeth." Concerning this porter we
shall make inquiry, when we have heard of the Lord Himself what is
the door and who is the shepherd. "And the sheep hear his voice: and
he calleth his own sheep by name." For He has their names written in
the book of life. "He calleth his own sheep by name." Hence, says
the apostle, "The Lord knoweth them that are His." "And he
leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth
before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And
a stranger do they not follow, but do flee from him: for they know not
the voice of strangers." These are veiled words, full of topics of
inquiry, pregnant with sacramental signs. Let us follow then, and
listen to the Master as He makes some opening into these obscurities;
and perhaps by the opening He makes, He will cause us to enter.
7. "This parable spoke Jesus unto them; but they understood not
what He spoke unto them." Nor we also, perhaps. What, then, is
the difference between them and us, before even we can understand these
words? This, that we on our part knock, that it may be opened unto
us; while they, by disowning Christ, refused to enter for
salvation, and preferred remaining outside to be destroyed. In as
far, then, as we listen to these words with a pious mind, in as far
as, before we understand them, we believe them to be true and divine,
we stand at a great distance from these men. For when two persons are
listening to the words of the gospel, the one impious, the other
pious, and some of these are such as neither perhaps understands, the
one says, It has said nothing; the other says, It has said the
truth, and what it has said is good, but we do not understand it.
This latter, because he believes, now knocks, that he may be worthy
to have it opened up to him, if he continue knocking; but the other
still hears the words, "If ye believe not, ye shall not
understand." Why do I draw your attention to this? Even for this
reason, that when I have explained as I can these obscure words,
or, because of their great abstruseness, I have either myself failed
to arrive at an understanding of them, or wanted the faculty of
explaining what I do understand, or every one has been so dull as not
to follow me, even when I give the explanation, yet should he not
despair of himself; but continue in faith, walk on in the way, and
hear the apostle saying, "And if in anything ye be otherwise minded,
God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless whereto we have
already attained, let us walk therein."
8. Let us begin, then, with hearing His exposition of what we have
heard Him propounding. "Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep." See, He
has opened the very door which was shut in His former description. He
Himself is the door. We have come to know it; let us enter, or
rejoice that we are already within. "All that ever came are thieves
and robbers." What is this, Lord, "All that ever came"? How
so? hast Thou not come? But understand; I said, "All that ever
came," meaning, of course, exclusive of myself. Let us recollect
then. Before His coming came the prophets: were they thieves and
robbers? God forbid. They did not come apart from Him, for they
came with Him. When about to come, He sent heralds, but retained
possession of the hearts of His messengers. Do you wish to know that
they came with Him, who is Himself ever existent? Certainly He
assumed human flesh at the time appointed. But what means that
"ever"? "In the beginning was the Word." With Him,
therefore, came those who came with the word of God. "I am," said
He, "the way, and the truth, and the life." If He is the
truth, with Him came those who were truthful. As many, therefore,
as were apart from Him, were "thieves and robbers," that is, had
come to steal and to destroy.
9. 'But the sheep did not hear them." This is a more important
point, "the sheep did not hear them." Before the advent of our
Lord Jesus Christ, when He came in humility in the flesh,
righteous men preceded, believing in the same way in Him who was to
come, as we believe in Him who has come. Times vary, but not
faith. For verbs themselves also vary with the tense, when they are
variously declined. He is to come, has one sound; He has come, has
another: there is a change in the sound between He is to come, and
He has come: yet the same faith unites both, both those who believed
that He would come, and those who have believed that He is come. At
different times, indeed, but by the one doorway of faith, that is,
by Christ, do we see that both have entered. We believe that the
Lord Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin, that He came in the
flesh, suffered, rose again, ascended into heaven: all this, just
as you hear verbs of the past tense, we believe to be already
fulfilled. In that faith a partnership is also held with us by those
fathers who believed that He would be born of the Virgin, would
suffer, would rise again, would ascend into heaven; for to such the
apostle pointed when he said, "But we having the same spirit of
faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I
spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak." The prophet said,
"I believed, therefore have I spoken:" the apostle says, "We
also believe, and therefore speak." But to let you know that their
faith is one, listen to him saying, "Having the same spirit of
faith, we also believe." So also in another place, "For I would
not have you ignorant, brethren, how that all our fathers were under
the cloud, and all passed through the sea: and were all baptized unto
Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual
meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink." The Red Sea
signifies baptism; Moses, their leader through the Red Sea,
signifies Christ; the people, who passed through, signify
believers; the death of the Egyptians signifies the abolition of
sins. Under different signs there is the same faith. It is with
different signs as with different words [verbs]; for verbs change
their sounds through the tenses, and verbs are indeed nothing else than
signs. For they are words because of what they signify: take away the
meaning from a word, and it becomes a senseless sound. All,
therefore, have become signs. Was not the same faith theirs by whom
these signs were employed, and by whom were foretold in prophecy the
very things which we believe? Certainly it was: but they believed
that they were yet to come, and we, that they have come. In like
manner does he also say, "They all drank the same spiritual drink;"
"the same spiritual," for it was not the same material [drink].
For what was it they drank? "For they drank of the spiritual Rock
that followed them; and that Rock was Christ." See, then, how
that while the faith remained, the signs were varied. There the rock
was Christ; to us that is Christ which is placed on the altar of
God. And they, as a great sacramental sign of the same Christ,
drank the water flowing from the rock: what we drink is known to
believers. If one's thoughts turn to the visible form, the thing is
different; if to the meaning that addresses the understanding, they
drank the same spiritual drink. As many, then, at that time as
believed, whether Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or Moses, or the
other patriarchs or prophets who foretold of Christ, were sheep, and
heard Christ. His voice, and not another's, did they hear. The
Judge was present in the person of the Crier. For even when the
judge speaks through the crier, the clerks does not make it, The
crier said; but the judge said. But others there are whom the sheep
did not hear, in whom Christ's voice had no place, wanderers,
uttering falsehoods, prating inanities, fabricating vanities,
misleading the miserable.
10. Why is it, then, that I have said, This is a more important
point? What is there about it obscure and difficult to understand?
Listen, I beseech you. See, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself came
and preached. Much more surely was that the Shepherd's voice which
was uttered by the very mouth of the Shepherd. For if the
Shepherd's voice came through the prophets, how much more did the
Shepherd's own tongue give utterance to the Shepherd's voice? Yet
all did not hear Him. But what are we to think? Those who did
hear, were they sheep? Lo? Judas heard, and was a wolf: he
followed, but, clad in sheep-skin. he was laying snares for the
Shepherd. Some, again, of those who crucified Christ did not
hear, and yet were sheep; for such He saw in the crowd when He
said, "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know
that I am He." Now, how is this question to be solved? They that
are not sheep do hear, and they that are sheep do not hear. Some,
who are wolves, follow the Shepherd's voice; and some, that are
sheep, contradict it. Last of all, the sheep slay the Shepherd.
The point is solved; for some one in reply says. But when they did
not hear, as yet they were not sheep, they were then wolves: the
voice, when it was heard, changed them, and out of wolves transformed
them into sheep; and so, when they became sheep, they heard, and
found the Shepherd, and followed Him. They built their hopes on the
Shepherd's promises, because they obeyed His precepts.
11. That question has been solved in a way, and perhaps satisfies
every one. But I bare still a subject of concern, and what concerns
me I shall impart to you, that, in some sort inquiring together, I
may through His revelation be found worthy with you to attain the
solution. Hear, then, what it is that moves me. By the Prophet
Ezekiel the Lord rebukes the shepherds, and among other things says
of the sheep, "The wandering sheep have ye not recalled." He both
declares it a wanderer, and calls it a sleep. If, while wandering,
it was a sheep, whose voice was it hearing to lead it astray? For
doubtless it would not be straying were it hearing the shepherd's
voice: but it strayed just because it heard another's voice; it heard
the voice of the thief and the robber. Surely the sheep do not hear
the voice of robbers. "Those that came," He said, and we are to
understand, apart from me, that is, "those that came apart from me
are thieves and robbers, and the sheep did not hear them." Lord, if
the sheep did not hear them, how can the sheep wander? If the sheep
hear only Thee, and Thou art the truth, whoever heareth the truth
cannot certainly fall into error. But they err, and are called
sheep. For if, in the very midst of their wandering, they were not
called sheep, it would not be said by Ezekiel, "The wandering sheep
have ye not recalled." How is it at the same time a wanderer and a
sheep? Has it heard the voice of another? Surely "the sheep did not
hear them." Accordingly many are just now being gathered into
Christ's fold, and from being heretics are becoming catholics. They
are rescued from the thieves, and restored to the shepherds: and
sometimes they murmur, and become wearied of Him that calls them
back, and have no true knowledge of him that would murder them;
nevertheless also, when, after a struggle, those have come who are
sheep, they recognize the Shepherd's voice, and are glad they have
come, and are ashamed of their wandering. When, then, they were
glorying in that state of error as in the truth, and were certainly not
hearing the Shepherd's voice, but were following another, were they
sheep, or were they not? If they were sheep, how can it be the case
that the sheep do not listen to aliens? If they were not sheep,
wherefore the rebuke addressed to those to whom it is said, "The
wandering sheep have ye not recalled"? In the case also of those
already become catholic Christians, and believers of good promise,
evils sometimes occur: they are seduced into error, and after their
error are restored. When they were thus seduced, and were
rebaptized, or after the companionship of the Lord's fold were turned
back again into their former error, were they sheep, or were they
not? Certainly they were catholics. If they were faithful
catholics, they were sheep. If they were sheep, how was it that they
could listen to the voice of a stranger when the Lord saith, "The
sheep did not hear them"?
12. You hear, brethren, the great importance of the question. I
say then, "The Lord knoweth them that are His." He knoweth those
who were foreknown, He knoweth those who were predestinated; because
it is said of Him, "For whom He did foreknow, He also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might
be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did
predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He
also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified. If
God be for us, who can be against us?" Add to this: "He that
spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath
He not with Him also freely given us all things?" But what "us"?
Those who are foreknown, predestinated, justified, glorified;
regarding whom there follows, "Who shall lay anything to the charge
of God's elect?" Therefore "the Lord knoweth them that are
His;" they are the sheep. Such sometimes do not know themselves,
but the Shepherd knoweth them, according to this predestination, this
foreknowledge of God, according to the election of the sheep before
the foundation of the world: for so saith also the apostle,
"According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the
world." According, then, to this divine foreknowledge and
predestination, how many sheep are outside, how many wolves within!
and how many sheep are inside, how many wolves without! How many are
now living in wantonness who will yet be chaste! how many are
blaspheming Christ who will yet believe in Him! how many are giving
themselves to drunkenness who will yet be sober! how many are preying
on other people s property who will yet freely give of their own!
Nevertheless at present they are hearing the voice of another, they
are following strangers. In like manner, how many are praising within
who will yet blaspheme; are chaste who will yet be fornicators; are
sober who will wallow hereafter in drink; are standing who will by and
by fall! These are not the sheep. (For we speak of those who were
predestinated, of those whom the Lord knoweth that they are His.)
And yet these, so long as they keep right, listen to the voice of
Christ. Yea, these hear, the others do not; and yet, according to
predestination, these are not sheep, while the others are.
13. There remains still the question, which I now think may
meanwhile thus be solved. There is a voice of some kind, there is,
I say, a certain kind of voice of the Shepherd, in respect of which
the sheep hear not strangers, and in respect of which those who are not
sheep do not hear Christ. What a word is this! "He that endureth
to the end, the same shall be saved." No one of His own is
indifferent to such a voice, a stranger does not hear it: for this
reason also does He announce it to the former, that he may abide
perseveringly with Himself to the end; but by one who is wanting in
such persevering continuance with Him, such a word remains unheard.
One has come to Christ, and has heard word after word of one kind and
another, all of them true, all of them salutary; and among all the
rest is also this utterance, "He that endureth to the end, the same
shall be saved." He who has heard this is one of the sheep. But
there was, perhaps, some one listening to it, who treated it with
dislike, with coldness, and heard it as that of a stranger. If he
was predestinated, he strayed for the time, but he was not lost for
ever: he returns to hear what he has neglected, to do what he has
heard. For if he is one of those who are predestinated, then both his
very wandering and his future conversion have been foreknown by God:
if he has strayed away, he will return to hear that voice of the
Shepherd, and to follow Him who saith, "He that endureth to the
end, the same shall be saved." A good voice, brethren, it is;
true and shepherd-like, the very voice of salvation in the tabernacles
of the righteous. For it is easy to hear Christ, easy to praise the
gospel, easy to applaud the preacher: but to endure unto the end, is
peculiar to the sheep who hear the Shepherd's voice. A temptation
befalls thee, endure thou to the end, for the temptation will not
endure to the end. And what is that end to which thou shalt endure?
Even till thou reachest the end of thy pathway.
For as long as thou hearest not Christ, He is thine adversary in the
pathway, that is, in this mortal life. And what doth He say?
"Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with
him." Thou hast heard, hast believed, hast agreed. If thou hast
been at enmity, agree. If thou hast got the opportunity of coming to
an agreement, keep not up the quarrel longer.
For thou knowest not when thy way will be ended, and it is known to
Him. If thou art a sheep, and if thou endurest to the end, thou
shalt be saved: and therefore it is that His own despise not that
voice, and strangers hear it not. According to my ability, as He
gave me the power, I have either explained to you or gone over with
you a subject of great profundity. If any have failed fully to
understand, let him retain his piety, and the truth will be revealed:
and let not those who have understood vaunt themselves as swifter at the
expense of the slower, lest in their vaunting they turn out of the
track, and the slower more easily attain the goal. But let all of us
be guided by Him to whom we say, "Lead me, O Lord, in Thy way,
and I will walk in Thy truth."
14. By this, then, which the Lord hath explained, that He
Himself is the door, let us find entrance to what He has set forth,
but not explained. And indeed who it is that is the Shepherd,
although He hath not told us in the lesson we have read today, yet in
that which follows He very plainly tells us: "I am the good
Shepherd." And although He had not said so, whom else but Himself
ought we to have understood in those words where He saith, "He that
entereth in by the door is the Shepherd of the sheep. To Him the
porter openeth: and the sheep hear His voice: and He calleth His
own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when He putteth forth
His own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him: for
they know His voice"? For who else calleth His own sheep by name,
and leadeth them hence unto eternal life, but He who knoweth the names
of those that are fore-ordained? Hence He said to His disciples,
"Rejoice that your names are written in heaven;" for from this it is
that He calleth them by name. And who else putteth them forth, save
He who putteth away their sins, that, freed from their grievous
fetters, they may be able to follow Him? And who hath gone before
them to the place whither they are to follow Him, but He who, rising
from the dead, dieth no more; and death shall have no more dominion
over Him; and who, when He was manifest here in the flesh, said,
"Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me
where I am"? Hence it is that He saith, "I am the door: by me
if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and
find pasture." In this He clearly shows that not only the
Shepherd, but the sheep also enter in by the door.
15. But what is this, "He shall go in and out, and find
pasture"? To enter indeed into the Church by Christ the door, is
eminently good; but to go out of the Church, as this same John the
evangelist saith in his epistle, "They went out from us, but they
were not of us," is certainly otherwise than good. Such a going out
could not then be commended by the good Shepherd, when He said,
"And he shall go in and out, and find pasture." There is therefore
not only some sort of entrance, but some outgoing also that is good,
by the good door, which is Christ. But what is that praiseworthy and
blessed outgoing? I might say, indeed, that we enter when we engage
in some inward exercise of thought; and go out, when we take to some
active work without: and since, as the apostle saith, Christ
dwelleth in our hearts by faith, to enter by Christ is to give
ourselves to thought in accordance with that faith; but to go out by
Christ is, in accordance also with that same faith, to take to
outside works, that is to say, in the presence of others. Hence,
also, we read in a psalm, "Man goeth forth to his work;" and the
Lord Himself saith, "Let your works shine before men." But I am
better pleased that the Truth Himself, like a good Shepherd, and
therefore a good Teacher, hath in a certain measure reminded us how we
ought to understand His words, "He shall go in and out, and find
pasture," when He added in the sequel, "The thief cometh not, but
for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might
have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." For He
seems to me to have meant, That they may have life in coming in, and
have it more abundantly at their departure. For no one can pass out by
the door that is, by Christ to that eternal life which shall be open
to the sight, unless by the same door that is, by the same Christ he
has entered His church, which is His fold, to the temporal life,
which is lived in faith. Therefore, He saith, "I am come that
they may have life," that is, faith, which worketh by love; by
which faith they enter the fold that they may live, for the just liveth
by faith: "and that they may have it more abundantly," who,
enduring unto the end, pass out by this same door, that is, by the
faith of Christ; for as true believers they die, and will have life
more abundantly when they come whither the Shepherd hath preceded
them, where they shall die no more. Although, therefore, there is
no want of pasture even here in the fold, for we may understand the
words "and shall find pasture" as referring to both, that is, both
to their going in and their going out, yet there only will they find
the true pasture. where they shall be filled who hunger and thirst
after righteousness, such pasture as was found by him to whom it was
said, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." But how He
Himself is the door, and Himself the Shepherd, so that He also may
in a certain respect be understood as going in and out by Himself, and
who is the porter, it would be too long to inquire today, and,
according to the grace given us by Himself, to unfold in the way of
dissertation.
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