At that time, Jesus said to the Pharisees: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. But the hireling, and he who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees; and the wolf snatches and scatters the sheep. But the hireling flees, because he is a hireling, and it belongs not to him concerning the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and mine know me. As the Father knows me, and I know the Father, so I lay down my life for my sheep. And other sheep I have that are not of this fold, and them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
You have heard, dearest brethren, from the gospel lesson your instruction; you have heard also our peril. For behold, He who is good not by an accidental gift but essentially, says: I am the good shepherd. And He adds the form of that same goodness which we should imitate, saying: The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. He did what He admonished, He showed what He commanded. The good shepherd laid down his life for his sheep, that in our sacrament He might turn His body and blood, and satisfy the sheep whom He had redeemed with the nourishment of His flesh. There has been shown to us the way of the contempt of death which we should follow; there has been set before us the form to which we should be conformed. Our first duty is mercifully to expend our outward things upon His sheep;
but lastly, if it be necessary, even to lay down our life for those same sheep. From this first and least, one arrives at the last and greater. But since the soul by which we live is incomparably far better than the earthly substance which we possess outwardly, he who does not give his substance for the sheep, when will he give his soul for them? And there are some who, while they love earthly substance more than the sheep, deservedly lose the name of shepherd. Of whom it is straightway added: But the hireling, and he who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees. He is called not a shepherd but a hireling, who feeds the Lord's sheep not from inmost love, but for temporal wages.
For a hireling is he who indeed holds the place of a shepherd, but does not seek the gain of souls: he gapes after earthly advantages, rejoices in the honour of prelacy, is fed by temporal gains, and is gladdened by the reverence paid to him by men. For these are the wages of the hireling, that for the very fact that he labours in governance, here he may find what he seeks, and hereafter remain a stranger to the inheritance of the flock. But whether one be a shepherd or a hireling cannot be truly known if occasion of necessity be absent. For in a time of tranquillity, very often, both the true shepherd and likewise the hireling stand at the guard of the flock; but the coming of the wolf shows with what mind each was standing over the guard of the flock.
For the wolf comes upon the sheep when any unjust man and plunderer oppresses whosoever are faithful and humble. But he who seemed to be a shepherd and was not leaves the sheep and flees, because while he dreads peril to himself from him, he does not presume to resist his injustice. He flees, however, not by changing place, but by withdrawing his aid. He flees, because he saw injustice and kept silent. He flees, because he hides himself under silence. To whom it is well said through the prophet: You have not gone up against the enemy, nor set up a wall for the house of Israel, to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord (Ezek. 13:5). For to go up against the enemy is to withstand any powers acting wickedly with the free voice of reason.
And in the day of the Lord we stand in battle for the house of Israel, and set up a wall, if we vindicate the faithful innocent against the injustice of the perverse by the authority of justice. Because the hireling does not do this, when he sees the wolf coming, he flees. But there is another wolf which without ceasing daily tears in pieces not bodies but minds, namely the malignant spirit, who, lying in wait, prowls about the folds of the faithful, and seeks the deaths of souls. Of which wolf it is soon added: And the wolf snatches and scatters the sheep. The wolf comes, and the hireling flees, because the malignant spirit tears the minds of the faithful in temptation, and he who holds the place of the shepherd has no care of solicitude. Souls perish, and he himself is gladdened by earthly advantages.
The wolf snatches and scatters the sheep when he drags one to lust, kindles another to avarice, lifts another up into pride, divides another through anger, goads this one with envy, trips up that one by deceit. As a wolf therefore he scatters the flock when the devil slays the people of the faithful through temptations. But against these things the hireling is kindled by no zeal, roused by no fervour of love: because while he seeks only outward advantages, he negligently allows the inward losses of the flock. Whence too it is soon added: But the hireling flees, because he is a hireling, and it belongs not to him concerning the sheep. For the sole cause why the hireling flees is that he is a hireling. As though it were plainly said:
He cannot stand firm amid danger to the sheep who, in being set over the sheep, does not love the sheep but seeks earthly gain. For while he embraces honour, while he delights in temporal advantages, he is afraid to set himself against danger, lest he lose what he loves. But because our Redeemer had made known the faults of the false shepherd, he again shows the pattern to which we ought to be conformed, saying: 'I am the good shepherd.' And he adds: 'And I know my sheep' — that is, I love them — 'and mine know me.' As if he said plainly: Those who love me obey me. For whoever does not love the truth has as yet by no means known it. Since therefore you have heard, dearly beloved brethren, our danger, weigh also, in the Lord's words, your own danger.
See whether you are his sheep, see whether you know him, see whether you perceive the light of truth. But I say you perceive it, not by faith, but by love; I say you perceive it, not by mere belief, but by action. For the very one who speaks this, John the Evangelist, bears witness, saying: 'He who says that he knows God, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar' (1 John 2:4). Wherefore also in this place the Lord immediately adds: 'As the Father knows me, so I too acknowledge the Father, and I lay down my life for my sheep.' As if he said openly: By this it is manifest that I both acknowledge the Father and am known by the Father, because I lay down my life for my sheep; that is, by that same love with which I die for the sheep, I show how greatly I love the Father.
But because he had come to redeem not only Judaea but also the Gentiles, he adds: 'And I have other sheep that are not of this fold, and those also I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.' The Lord had looked upon our redemption — we who have come from the Gentile people — when he said that he would bring other sheep also. This you see coming to pass daily, brethren; this you see done today in the reconciled nations. For, as it were, out of two flocks he makes one fold, because he joins the Jewish and the Gentile people in one faith in himself, as Paul testifies, who says: 'He himself is our peace, who has made both one' (Eph. 2:14).
For while out of each nation he chooses the guileless unto eternal life, he leads the sheep into his own fold. Concerning these sheep he says again: 'My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life' (John 10:27). And of them he says a little above: 'By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and shall find pasture' (ibid., 9). He shall go in, indeed, to faith; he shall go out from faith to open vision, from belief to contemplation; and he shall find pasture in the eternal refreshment. His sheep therefore find pasture, because whoever follows him with a guileless heart is nourished with the food of eternal freshness.
But what are the pastures of these sheep, save the inward joys of the ever-verdant paradise? For the pasture of the elect is the very countenance of God, which, when beheld without failing, satiates the mind endlessly with the food of life. In these pastures they are gladdened with the fullness of eternity who have already escaped the snares of pleasurable transience. There are the hymn-singing choirs of angels, there the fellowship of the citizens on high. There is the sweet solemnity of those returning from the sad toil of this pilgrimage. There are the foreseeing choirs of the prophets, there the judging number of the apostles, there the victorious army of countless martyrs — the more joyful there as they were the more harshly afflicted here; there the steadfastness of confessors, consoled by the receiving of their reward;
there are the faithful men whom the pleasure of the world could not soften from the strength of their manliness; there are the holy women who together with the world overcame also themselves; there are the children who here surpassed their years by their conduct; there are the aged whom here their age had rendered feeble, yet whom the virtue of good works did not forsake. Let us seek therefore, dearly beloved brethren, these pastures, in which we may rejoice with the solemn festival of so many citizens. Let the very festivity of the rejoicing ones invite us. Surely, if somewhere a people were holding a fair, or if, at the announcement of a solemn feast, they were flocking to the dedication of some church, we would all hasten to be found there together, and each one would be busy to take part, and he would count himself grievously wronged if he did not behold the solemnity of the common gladness.
Behold, in the heavens the gladness of the elect citizens is being celebrated, and one by one all in their assembly rejoice over each other; and yet we, lukewarm toward the love of eternity, burn with no desire, do not seek to take part in so great a solemnity, are deprived of joys — and are glad about it! Let us therefore kindle our soul, brethren; let faith grow warm again in that which it has believed; let our desires blaze toward things above; and thus to love already is to go. Let no adversity call us back from the joy of the inward solemnity, since even if a man desires to go to a set place, no roughness of the way changes his desire. Let no flattering prosperity seduce us, since he is a foolish traveller who, catching sight of pleasant meadows on the way, forgets to go where he was heading.
With all our desire, therefore, let the soul pant after the heavenly homeland; let it crave nothing in this world, which it is certain it will soon leave behind — so that, if we are truly the sheep of the heavenly Shepherd, we may, because we are not fixed in the delight of the way, be satiated at our arrival with the eternal pastures. 'At that time, when a very great crowd was gathering and hastening to Jesus from the cities, he spoke by a parable: A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and it was trodden down, and the birds of the air devoured it. And other fell upon the rock, and having sprung up it withered away, because it had no moisture. And other fell among thorns, and the thorns springing up together choked it.'
'And other fell on good ground, and sprang up and bore fruit a hundredfold.' Saying these things, he cried out: 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.' But his disciples asked him what this parable might be. To whom he himself said: 'To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to the rest in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. Now this is the parable: The seed is the word of God. And those by the wayside are they who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, lest believing they should be saved. Now those upon the rock are they who, when they hear, receive the word with joy. And these have no roots, because for a time they believe, and in the time of temptation they fall away. But that which fell among thorns' —
'these are they who have heard, and going on their way are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But that which fell on good ground, these are they who, hearing the word with a good and excellent heart, hold it fast, and bring forth fruit in patience.' The lesson of the holy Gospel which you have heard, dearly beloved brethren, needs not exposition but admonition. For that which Truth himself has expounded, human frailty does not presume to discuss. Yet there is something in this very exposition of the Lord that you ought carefully to weigh: for if we ourselves were to say to you that the seed signifies the word, the field the world, the birds the demons, the thorns riches, your mind would perhaps hesitate to believe us.
Wherefore the Lord himself deigned to expound in his own person what he was saying, that you might know to seek the significations of things even in those matters which he himself would not explain. By expounding, therefore, what he had said, he made known that he was speaking figuratively, so that he might make you certain when our frailty should open to you the figures of his words. For who would ever believe me, if I wished to interpret thorns as riches — especially since the former prick and the latter delight? And yet they are thorns, because by the prickings of their thoughts they lacerate the mind, and when they drag it all the way to sin, they cause bleeding as though by an inflicted wound. On which point, well does the Lord — as another Evangelist testifies — call them not riches, but deceitful riches (Matt.
13:22). For deceitful are they which cannot long remain with us; deceitful are they which do not drive away the poverty of our mind. But the only true riches are those which make us rich in virtues. If therefore, dearly beloved brethren, you desire to be rich, love the true riches. If you seek the height of true honour, strive toward the heavenly kingdom. If you love the glory of dignities, hasten to be enrolled in that supernal court of the angels. Retain in your mind the words of the Lord which you receive with your ears. For the word of God is the food of the mind. And just as food that is taken is cast up again by an ailing stomach, so the word that is heard is not held down in the belly of the memory. But whoever does not retain his nourishment, of his life indeed there is despair.
Fear therefore the peril of eternal death, if indeed you receive the food of holy exhortation, but do not keep the words of life — that is, the nourishment of righteousness — in your memory. Behold, all that you do passes away, and daily, willing or unwilling, you hasten to the final judgment without the interposition of a single moment. Why then is that loved which is left behind? Why is that neglected to which we come? Remember what is said: 'If any man has ears to hear, let him hear.' For all who were present there had ears of the body. But he who, when all had ears, says 'If any man has ears to hear, let him hear,' assuredly requires the ears of the heart. Take care, therefore, that the word received may remain in the ear of the heart.
Take care lest the seed fall beside the way, lest the malignant spirit come and take away the word from the memory. Take care lest the stony ground receive the seed, and send forth the fruit of good work without the roots of perseverance. For to many the things they hear are pleasing; they propose the beginnings of good work; but as soon as they begin to grow weary under adversities, they abandon what they have begun. The stony ground, then, had no moisture, whereby it did not bring what had sprouted to the fruit of perseverance. For many, when they hear the word against avarice, detest that avarice and praise the contempt of all things; but as soon as the soul sees what it may covet, it forgets what it was praising.
Many, when they hear the word against lust, not only do not desire to commit the defilements of the flesh, but even blush at those they have committed; yet as soon as the beauty of the flesh appears to their eyes, the mind is so snatched away to its desires, as though nothing had ever been resolved against these very desires; and it does what is to be condemned, that which whatever it remembers having done it has already itself condemned. Often too we are pierced with remorse against our faults, and yet after weeping we return to the same faults. So Balaam, beholding the tents of the people of Israel, wept, and begged to be made like them in death, saying: 'Let my soul die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like theirs' (Num. 23:10);
but as soon as the hour of compunction passed, he blazed up into the wickedness of avarice. For on account of the promises of the world he gave counsel toward the death of that people to whom he had wished to be made like; and he forgot what he had bewailed, since he would not extinguish that which through avarice he burned with. It is to be noted, moreover, that the Lord, expounding, says that the cares and pleasures and riches choke the word. For they choke, because by their importunate thoughts they strangle the throat of the mind; and while they do not allow the good desire to enter the heart, they kill, as it were, the passage of the vital breath.
It is also to be noted that there are two things which he joins to riches, namely cares and pleasures, because assuredly they both oppress the mind by anxiety and dissolve it by abundance. For by a contrary effect they make their possessors both afflicted and slippery. But because pleasure cannot agree with affliction, at one time they afflict through the anxiety of guarding themselves, and at another they soften toward pleasures through abundance. But the good ground renders fruit through patience, because clearly there are no good things that we do, if we do not also equanimously bear the evils of our neighbours.
For the higher each one has advanced, the more he finds in this world something harder to bear, because as the love of our mind for the present world fails, the adversity of that same world grows. Hence it is that we see very many both doing good and yet sweating under a heavy burden of tribulations. For they now flee earthly desires, and yet are wearied with harsher scourges. But according to the voice of the Lord they render fruit through patience, because when they humbly receive the scourges, after the scourges they are sublimely received into rest. So the grape is crushed underfoot and is dissolved into the savour of wine. So the olive, pressed by beatings, forsakes its bitterness and grows fat into the liquor of oil.
So by the threshing of the floor the grains are separated from the chaff, and purified come to the barn. Whoever therefore desires to overcome his vices fully, let him study humbly to endure the scourges of his purification, so that he may come the cleaner to the Judge afterwards, the more the fire of tribulation now purges away his rust. In that porch which lies open to those going to the church of blessed Clement, there was a certain Servulus, a man of no rank, whom many of you knew together with me — poor in goods, rich in merits, whom a long sickness had wasted (Book IV of the Dialogues, chap. 14). For from his earliest age to the end of his life he lay a paralytic. Why should I say that he could not stand?
He who could never rise up on his bed, not even to sit; who could never bring his hand to his mouth; who could never turn himself onto his other side. To serve him his mother was present with his brother, and whatever he could receive from alms, this he distributed to the poor by their hands. He knew no letters at all, yet he had bought for himself copies of the sacred Scripture, and receiving into his hospitality any religious men, he had these read before him without ceasing. And it came to pass that, to the measure proper to himself, he learned the sacred Scripture fully, though, as I said, he was utterly ignorant of letters. He was zealous to give thanks always in his pain, to devote himself day and night to hymns and praises of God.
But when the time had now come that so great a patience of his ought to be rewarded, the pain of his limbs returned to his vitals. And when he perceived himself now near to death, he admonished the pilgrim men, received into his hospitality, that they should rise and sing psalms with him in expectation of his departure. And while he himself, dying, sang psalms with them, he suddenly checked the voices of those singing, with the terror of a great cry, saying: 'Be silent! Do you not hear how great praises resound in heaven?' And while he bent the ear of his heart toward those same praises which he had heard within, that holy soul was loosed from the flesh.
But as that soul departed, so great a fragrance of sweet odour was shed abroad, that all who were present were filled with an inestimable sweetness, so that by this they plainly recognized that the praises of heaven had received it. At this event a monk of ours was present, who lives even now, and who is wont with much weeping to testify that, until his body was given over to burial, the fragrance of that odour did not depart from their nostrils. Behold with what an end he departed from this life, who in this life equanimously bore the scourges. According therefore to the voice of the Lord, the good ground rendered fruit through patience, which, ploughed by the ploughshare of discipline, came to the harvest of reward.
But I beg you, dearly beloved brethren, consider what argument of excuse we shall have in that strict judgment — we who, sluggish toward good works, have received both means and hands — if one destitute and without hands has fulfilled the Lord's commandments. Then the Lord will not point out against us the apostles, who by preaching drew crowds of the faithful to the kingdom with him; nor will he set against us the martyrs, who by pouring out their blood came to the heavenly homeland. What then shall we say, when we shall see this Servulus of whom we have spoken, whose arms a long infirmity held bound, yet did not bind them from good work?
These things, brethren, do among yourselves; so stir yourselves up to the pursuit of good work, that when you now set before yourselves the good for imitation, you may then be able to be their companions.