Some that are not sheep, i. e. not predestinate, do now hear; 607 X. 8. made them sheep: so when they became sheep, they heard, JOHN and found the Shepherd, and followed the Shepherd: they hoped for the Shepherd's promises, because they did His commands." 4. 11. The question is to a certain extent solved, and perhaps any one may find this sufficient. But to my mind, there is still a difficulty: and what my difficulty is, I impart to you, that in some sort seeking with you, I may by His revelation obtain mercy together with you to find. By the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord reproves the shepherds, and says among other things about His sheep, The sheep that went Ezek. astray, ye have not recovered. He both says that it went 34, + astray, and calls it sheep. If it was a sheep when it went astray, whose voice did it hear that it should go astray? For doubtless it would not have gone astray, if it had been the Shepherd's voice that it heard: but the cause that it went astray, was, that it heard the voice of a stranger; the voice it heard was the voice of a thief and a robber. Now certainly the sheep hear not the voice of robbers: Those who came, saith He, (and we understand, Beside Me,) i. e. those who came beside Me, are thieves and robbers, and the sheep did not hear them. Lord, if the sheep did not hear them, how is it that the sheep go astray? If the sheep hear not any save Thee; and Thou art Truth: whoso heareth Truth does not, of course, go astray. Now those do go astray, and yet are called sheep. For if in the midst of their straying they were not called sheep, it would not be said by Ezekiel, The sheep which went astray ye have not recovered. How does it both go astray, and yet is a sheep? Has it heard the voice of a stranger? Assuredly the sheep did not hear them. Besides, at the present time many are gathered to the fold of Christ, and of heretics become catholics; they are carried off from the thieves, are restored to the Shepherd: and sometimes they murmur, they are annoyed with him that would recover them, and do not understand that there is one cutting their throats; but however, when, even with resistance, they which are sheep have come, they know the Shepherd's voice, and are glad that they have come, and are ashamed that they went astray. Well then; when in their straying they gloried in their very error as in the truth, and of course heard not the voice of XLV. 608 And some that are such, hear not yet Christ's voice : HOMIL. the Shepherd, and therefore followed the stranger, were they sheep or were they not? If they were sheep, how is it said that the sheep hear not strangers? If they were not sheep, why are those reproved to whom it is said, The sheep which went astray ye have not recovered? Nay, even in those who are now become Catholic Christians, hopeful believers, evil things sometimes have place: they are seduced into error, and after error are recovered: when they were seduced into error and were rebaptized, or, after the fellowship of the Lord's fold, fell back into their old error, were they sheep or were they not? Of course, they were catholics. If they were catholic believers, they were sheep. If they were sheep, how could they hear the voice of a stranger, when the Lord saith, The sheep did not hear them? 19. 29-33. Vet. Lat. & Vulg. 12. Ye have heard, my brethren, the height of the 2Tim.2, question. I say then: The Lord knoweth them that are His. Knoweth the foreknown, knoweth the predestinate: Rom. 8, for of Him it is said, For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born 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 yet: He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not with Him 1 donavit also freely given1 us all things? Yea, but whom does he mean by us? The foreknown, predestinate, justified, glorified: of whom it follows, Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? The Lord, then, knoweth them that are His: these are the sheep. Sometimes they do not know themselves: but the Shepherd knows them, in respect of this predestination, in respect of this foreknowledge of God, in respect of the election of the sheep before the foundation Eph. 1, of the world: for this too saith the Apostle, As He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. In respect, then, of this foreknowledge and predestination of God, how many sheep there are without, how many wolves. within! and, how many sheep within, and how many wolves without! What is this that I have said, How many sheep without! How many are now wantoning who shall one day be chaste! how many blaspheming Christ, that shall believe 4. X. 8. But the voice of the Shepherd," Persevere unto the end," 609 in Christ! how many drinking themselves drunken, that JOHN shall be sober! how many plundering other men's goods, who shall give away their own! but at present they hear the voice of a stranger, they follow strangers. Again, how many that are within do now praise, who shall one day blaspheme; are chaste, that will commit fornication; sober, that will hereafter bury themselves in wine; stand, that shall fall! They are not sheep. (For we speak of the predestinate; we speak of these whom the Lord knoweth, who are His.) And yet even they, so long as they are in their right mind, hear the voice of Christ. Lo, these hear, and those do not hear; and yet, in respect of predestination, these are not sheep, those are. 13. Still the question remains; and, methinks, it may now be thus completely solved. There is a voice, there is, I say, some certain voice of the Shepherd, in regard of which they that are sheep do not hear the strangers, they that are not sheep do not hear Christ. What is this voice? Mat. 10, He that shall persevere unto the end, the same shall be saved. 22. This voice, he that is the Shepherd's own neglecteth not, he that is not the Shepherd's own heareth not; for the Shepherd preacheth this also to him, that he should persevere with Him unto the end, but, by not persevering with Him, he doth not hear this voice. He hath come to Christ, hath heard sundry and several words, now these, now those, all true, all sound: among which is also that voice, He that shall persevere unto the end, the same shall be saved. This voice whoso hears, that person is a sheep. But this or that person did hear that voice, and he lost his right mind, waxed cold again, heard the voice of a stranger: if he was predestinated, he went astray for a time, was not lost for ever he returns, to hear that which he neglected, to do that which he hath heard. For, if he is of these which are predestinated, both his going astray was foreknown to God, and his future conversion; if he have strayed away, he returns to hear that voice of the Shepherd, and to follow Him Who saith, He that shall persevere unto the end, the same shall be saved. A good voice, my brethren, and a true; a Shepherd's voice indeed! yea, the very voice of salvation which is in Ps. 118, the tents of the righteous! For it is an easy matter to hear 15. XLV. 25. 610 is heard and fulfilled only by the predestinate. HOMIL. Christ, easy to praise the Gospel, easy to shout applause to the preacher who reasons thereof: to persevere unto the end, this is the character of sheep which hear the voice of the Shepherd. Temptation befals thee; persevere unto the end: for the temptation does not persevere unto the end. Unto what end wilt thou persevere? Until thou end thy life. For, so long as thou dost not hear Christ, thine adversary is in this way, i. e. in this mortal life. But what saith the Lord? Matt. 5, Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him. Thou hast heard, hast believed, hast agreed. If thou wast sometime adverse, agree now. If it have been granted thee to agree, do not wrangle any longer. For thou knowest not how soon the way shall be ended, but yet He knoweth. If thou art a sheep, and if thou persevere unto the end, thou shalt be saved: and for this cause they that are His despise not, and they that are not His hear not, this voice. As I had ability, as He hath bestowed the same, I have either expounded to you, or handled with you, this very deep question. If any have failed to understand, let but piety remain, and truth shall be revealed: but those who have understood, let them not extol themselves as persons of quicker wit above them that are slower, lest by extolling themselves they start aside from the course, and the slower come more easily than they to the goal. And may He bring Ps. 86, all to the goal, to Whom we say: Lead me, O Lord, in Thy way, and I shall walk in Thy truth. 11. 14. Through this, then, which the Lord hath expounded, to wit, that He is the Door, let us enter in to those things which He hath here propounded and not expounded. And as for the Shepherd, Who He is, albeit He hath not said it in this lesson which has been recited to-day, yet in that which follows He saith it most openly, I am the good Shepherd. Nay, if He had not said it, yet what other than Him ought we to underv. 2-4. stand in those words where He saith: He that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep: to him the porter b Or, "He (i. e. Christ) is thine adversary." But the other translation seems preferable, because in St. Augustine's interpretation of this passage "the Judge" means Christ, therefore "the Adversary" some other: viz. "God's commandment, or Holy Scrip ture, which is given to be with us in the way, during this life, and which it behoves us not to gainsay, lest it deliver us to the Judge, but to consent unto it without delay." De Serm. Dom. in Monte 1, 32. And more fully Serm. 251; also Serm. 169. and 387. Christ gives life to His sheep, at their coming in, 611 20. openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his JOHN X.9,10. 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 what other calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them hence to eternal life, but He Who knoweth the names of the predestinate? Whence He saith to His disciples, Rejoice, Luke10, because your names are written in heaven: for it is from hence that He calleth them by name. And what other pulleth them forth, but He Which putteth away their sins, that they may be delivered from their hard bonds, and be able to follow Him? And Who hath gone before them to that place whither they are to follow Him, but He Who rising from the dead now dieth no more, and death shall Rom. 6, no more have dominion over Him: and, while He was here conspicuous in the flesh, said, Father, they whom Thou hast John 17, given Me, I will that where I am, they also be with Me? Whereof also is that which He saith, I am the Door: by Mev. 9. if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. In this He evidently sheweth that not only the Shepherd, but the sheep likewise enter in by the door. 9. 24. 2, 19. 15. But what meaneth, Shall go in and out, and shall find pasture? For to come into the Church through Christ the Door, is a great good: but to go out from the Church, as saith this same John the Evangelist in his Epistle, They! John went out from us, but they were not of us; is clearly no good thing. Consequently such a going out could not be praised by the good Shepherd, that He should say, Shall go in and out, and find pasture. There is, therefore, not only a coming in, but a going out, that is good, through the good Door, which is Christ. But what is this laudable and blessed going out? I might indeed say, that we go in, when we inwardly think some thought; and go out, when we outwardly work some work and since, as the Apostle saith, Eph. 3, Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith, that, to go in through Christ, is, to think according to the faith and to go out through Christ, is, to work by faith abroad also, i. e. in the Ps. 104, sight of men. Whence we read in the Psalm, Man shall go 23. forth to his work and the Lord Himself saith, Let your Matt. 5, : 17. |