約翰福音註釋 第 1 章 第 54/94 段

Accordingly, those who never refused to speak lies, and feigned to have been sent from God, and prophesied, according to what is written, out of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord, and besides these still that Theudas and Judas the Galilean, who drew away people after them, were destroyed together with those who were led astray with them;

but our Lord Jesus Christ, who was to procure for us eternal life, came out of His love toward us.

But those whose aim is contrary, and whose manner of coming is so greatly different—how are their purpose and practice not also contrary? Accordingly, He says that it must be tested from the quality of the facts who those men might be, and who again He Himself is.

For it was thus possible to persuade the leaders no longer to think anything discordant concerning Him—those who supposed Him to be one of the false shepherds, or of those who climb up into the fold of the sheep by some other way—but rather that Christ had come as Door and Introducer and Shepherd, not that the sheep might merely have life, He says;

for over and above the coming back to life of those who believe in Him, there is also the hope, not to be disputed, that they shall be amid all good things.

And it is likely that He calls the 'abundance' even of life itself—that is, the more or rather the more precious thing—the most perfect participation in the Spirit, though He speaks of it very guardedly.

For the coming back to life is common to saints and sinners, to Greeks and Jews and to us ourselves;

'for the dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall be raised, and those in the earth shall rejoice,' according to the unlying promise of the Saviour.

And the divine Paul too signifies this to us, saying: 'Behold, I tell you a mystery;'

'we shall all indeed sleep, but we shall not all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet;'

'for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.' For all indeed shall rise from the dead, because it is given to all nature through the grace of the resurrection;

and in the one Christ, who from the beginning and first dissolved the might of death and was brought to unceasing life, the common limit of humanity is refashioned also unto incorruption—just as in Adam, again in one and first, it was condemned unto death and corruption.

But great, at that time, shall be the difference of those who rise, and much shall be found to be the distinction between them.

For those who rested in faith in Christ, and received the pledge of the Spirit during the time of life with the body, shall carry away the most perfect grace, and shall be changed, receiving the glory that is from God;

but those who disobeyed the Son and counted the far-shining recompense as nothing shall be convicted again by His voice; having only the coming back to life allotted to them along with the rest, they shall pay the penalties for so long a disobedience.

For they shall depart into Hades to be punished, and shall have a profitless afterthought.

'For there,' He says, 'shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.'

'I am the good shepherd.'

Having very well and clearly shown beforehand how much the hypocrisy of the false prophets, or rather false shepherds, had harmed the men of old, and having made manifest the achievements of His own coming, and having already, from the very comparison of the sheep, borne away the victory, and being crowned by the votes that spring from truth, He fittingly proclaims: 'I am the good shepherd.'

'In vain, then,' He says, 'did you devise those things against Me; and being unable to accuse Me as one wishing in any way at all to falsify what is profitable for the sheep, you did not shrink from numbering Me among those wont to do this, but you say that the truly good one is evil—being damaged, through self-love, in your ability to judge rightly in each matter according to the appointment of the Lawgiver.'

Accordingly He convicts the leaders as unjust, as having utterly disregarded the things given through Moses, as having been ignorant of the aim of His sojourning—so that henceforth the prophet Isaiah too may be found to speak truly concerning them.

'For woe,' He says, 'to those who call evil good and good evil, who call the sweet bitter and the bitter sweet, who put light for darkness and darkness for light.' For are they not caught doing this very thing—putting the true light, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, into darkness, by not refusing to rank our good shepherd with the falsely-named shepherds, and perhaps daring to send Him behind in the honour due to them? For those who ascribed to themselves the divine word, and who under the name of prophecy practised to plunder the mind of the flocks, and to steal them away secretly from the road toward truth, and to lead them off somewhere unto what seemed good to them and by no means to God—these the men who then seemed to hold power held in much reverence.

At any rate Shemaiah the Salamite, setting his own false-story against the words that came from God, waxed insolent against the reputation of Jeremiah;

for the one was in bonds, while the other held the honour from Zedekiah as a reward for his lying.

But the wretched Pharisees now, going far beyond the impiety of those men and behaving disgracefully in more youthful insolence, do not even assign to Christ what belonged to those who taught falsely.

'Why do you listen to him?' For on this very account He too says concerning them through the prophet Isaiah: 'Woe to them, for they have leapt away from Me;'

'they are wretched, because they have been impious against Me;'

...of their tongue. For how are they not worthy of every penalty, who have so senselessly cultivated so sharp a tongue as to dare to say against Christ those things which by no means befit us, but befit those alone who are like them to admit within their own hearing, and recklessly to utter? 'The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep;'

'but the hireling, who is not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees;'

'and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.'

That he is a hireling, and cares nothing for the sheep.

Having skillfully set over against the idle babblings and lawless audacities of certain men the splendor that shines forth from his own works, and having declared and named those men to be robbers and thieves and such as climb up some other way into the sheepfold, while proclaiming himself the truly Good Shepherd, he now passes over to the very teachers of the Jews, and shows his own governance to be better than the leadership of the Pharisees.

And again by comparison he makes the demonstration to them most manifest.

For over against their sloth he sets, as it were, his own vigilance and love; and he again convicts them of having taken no thought whatever for the flock, whereas he declares that to this end his own concern for it has come—so much so that he made light even of the soul that is most dear to all.

He defines, as it were, in what manner the good shepherd ought to be proved; for he determines that such a one must not shrink from laying down his very soul in fighting for the salvation of the flock—which indeed was accomplished through Christ.

For man leaped away from the love toward God, turning aside into sin; on this account he was banished from the sacred and divine fold—I mean, from the enclosures of paradise—and, falling sick with this calamity through the devil who beguiled him into sin and through the death that sprang up out of sin, he was hunted down by wolves truly bitter and not to be charmed away.

But when Christ was manifested as the Good Shepherd over all, he laid down his soul for us, doing battle with the pair of untamed beasts; he endured the cross for our sake, that by death he might slay death; and he was condemned for our sake, that he might deliver all from the condemnation due to transgression, having through faith abolished the sin that had tyrannized us, and having nailed to his own cross the bond that stood against us, as it is written.

Therefore the father of sin set us like sheep in Hades, giving us over to be shepherded by death, according to that which is spoken in the Psalms.

But the truly Good Shepherd died for us, that taking us out of the lightless pit of death he might prepare us to be gathered together with the heavenly choirs, and that, in place of pens lying in the depths of the abyss and the recesses of the sea, he might grant us the mansions above and with the Father.

For this reason he also says somewhere to us: 'Fear not, little flock; for it has been the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.' But in these things are set forth what is accomplished through Christ.

Let us now see in what things the deeds of those men consist.

Therefore, to one who scrutinizes the matters concerning them with upright eyes, they will be caught out as nothing other than hirelings and false shepherds and cowards and traitors and sluggards, who have never at any time taken any account of the benefit of the sheep, but have been eager to procure from every quarter whatever is pleasant and seems agreeable to each man.

For they were hirelings, according to the word of the Savior; the sheep were not their own, but rather belonged to Christ who had hired them at the beginning, and who with the highest honors had appointed the priests as overseers over the peoples of the Jews.

But that so bright and...

Utterly neglecting the fold of the flock, they betrayed the sheep to the wolf. And in what way, or how, shall we tell it more concisely?

For in the more ancient times, the numerous people of the Jews inscribed God alone as king; to him they paid the didrachma, to him they offered sacrifices, and as a kind of tribute they brought the manner of life prescribed in the Law.

Casting on them a yoke, compelling them somehow to be transferred to a lawless and unwonted mode of life, exacting taxes, plundering them of the kingdom under God.

For there was indeed a necessity that those who had been reduced to this state of wretchedness should yield to the ordinances of the one who held power.

There came the foreigner, removing the rule that is from God—that is, the tribe that had obtained the lot of the priesthood, to which the judging and the giving of verdicts had been entrusted by God—transposing everything and using force, causing himself to be stamped upon the coinage, and bringing in every kind of covetousness.

Against so intolerable an outrage the shepherds did not keep watch.

They saw the wolf coming, and forsaking the flock they fled, for the sheep were not their own; they did not call upon him who was able to defend, who had once saved them from the Babylonians and overthrown the Assyrian, who by the hand of an angel slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the foreigners.

And that it did no small injury, and paralyzed those of Israel into an anxious dread, that they accepted the rule of aliens—I mean, the rule under the foreigners—this too you will learn from the matter itself.

For when Pilate once reproached the Jews for their irrational insolence—when they were urging that the Lord be crucified—and said without concealment, 'Shall I crucify your king?'—then, then indeed, having shaken off the servitude under God and having burst the bonds of the ancient lordship, they went over, as it were, to new yokes, crying out unrestrainedly, 'We have no king but Caesar.' And these things seemed right to those who led them, both in what was done and in what was cried aloud.

To them, then, one must ascribe the causes of all their evils.

And they are condemned, and very rightly so, as betrayers of the flocks, as cowards and unmanly and utterly quarrelsome, and as having wholly refused to be willing to shield and to fight in defense of the flocks under their hand.

For this reason God also brings a charge against them, saying: 'Because the shepherds acted foolishly, and did not seek out the Lord.'

For this reason the whole pasture had no understanding, and they were scattered. Therefore it has been demonstrated from the facts themselves that Christ is truly the Good Shepherd of the sheep, while those men are destroyers rather than good, and are very far removed indeed from the praises given for genuineness.

I am the Good Shepherd.

Again he leaped up, as one who had found the winning cause, and who had carried off the verdict that he ought to be set before the rule of the Jews—a verdict proclaimed not by the testimonies of certain men, but already from the very examination of the facts themselves.

For in the same manner in which, setting his own deeds over against the villainies wrought through the false prophets, he showed the outcome of his own right accomplishments to be better than their lying speech;

for those men, he says, became deserters unto lying and unto things it is not lawful to speak, having come only to steal and to slay and to destroy, whereas he himself has arrived so that the sheep might not only have life, but might have something more abundant.

Rightly and truly did he proclaim, 'I am the Good Shepherd'; so here too, having defined the truly good shepherd as consisting in dying beforehand for the sake of the sheep, and in readily laying down his soul for them, and having spoken of the hireling and the alien overseer as cowardly and a fugitive—and indeed as everything of that kind—since he knows that he himself will lay down his soul for the flocks, again with good reason he cries aloud, 'I am the Good Shepherd.'

For it was necessary—yea, necessary—that the One who is preeminent in all things should conquer all, that the psalmist too might again be shown to speak truly when he says somewhere to him: 'That you might be justified in your words, and might prevail when you are judged.' But in addition to what has been said, that also must be carefully considered.

For I myself think that the Lord, having set before the peoples of the Jews the things that would be of great benefit to them, urges them—not only from his own words, but also through the oracular utterance of the prophets—to hasten to think what is fitting, and to know clearly that he himself is the Good Shepherd, whereas those others are so no longer.

How so? For it was not unlikely to suppose that, if they were not persuaded by the words from him, they would yet, even unwillingly, give way to those spoken through the prophets.

He says, therefore, 'I am the Good Shepherd,' as it were recalling the mind of the Jews to a remembrance of the things spoken by the voice of the prophet Ezekiel.

For he speaks thus concerning both Christ and those who had obtained the lot of leading the flock of the Jews: 'Thus says the Lord God: O shepherds of Israel, do the shepherds feed themselves? Do not the shepherds feed the sheep? Behold, you eat the milk and clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the fat, but my sheep you do not feed.'

'You did not strengthen the weak, nor did you make whole that which was sick, nor did you bind up that which was broken, nor did you turn back that which had strayed, nor did you seek out that which was lost, and the strong you worked hard with toil.'

'And my sheep were scattered because there were no shepherds, and they became food for all the beasts of the field, and my sheep were scattered upon every mountain and upon every high hill, and over the face of all the earth, and there was none who sought them out or turned them back.' For the aim of the teachers of the Jews was one thing: to look only to love of gain, and to make money from the offerings brought by their subjects, and to gather taxes, and to impose burdens beyond the Law, while taking no account whatever of him who was going to profit them, or who was mighty to save the peoples under their hand.

For this reason again the truly Good Shepherd speaks thus concerning them: 'Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will seek out my sheep from their hands, and I will turn them away from feeding my sheep, and the shepherds shall feed them no longer.'

For a covenant of peace has been established through him—namely, the evangelical and divine proclamation, which brings us up into friendship toward God and procures for us the kingdom of heaven.

And through him likewise, in the same way, is the rain of blessing—that is, the firstfruit of the Spirit, which renders the soul, in whomever it may come to be, like a kind of fruitful earth.

But since the Pharisees had done no small harm to the sheep—by no means feeding them, but rather in many ways giving them over to be maimed—whereas Christ preserved them, and was shown to be both the giver and the procurer of the blessing from on high, he fittingly makes plain that which he is, confessing: 'I am the Good Shepherd.'

Fittingly, then, according to the form he had taken, he has been so called by God the Father.

And I know my own, and my own know me;

even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. On this someone might say, quite without excessive subtlety, that the Lord meant to signify nothing else than that he himself will be clear to his own, and to those who believe in him he will freely grant an unlaborious knowledge concerning himself, while he too will recognize his own, making the being known by no means unprofitable to those who have obtained this lot.

…to God? But since the saying demands upon itself a more searching scrutiny, especially because there is added, 'even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father'—

come, let us proceed to such an understanding of the matter set before us.

For no one, I think, of those who have their mind sound will say that any of created beings is able to take such a knowledge concerning Christ as would perchance be that which is in God the Father concerning him.

For the Father alone knows his own Offspring, and is known by his own Offspring alone.

For no one knows the Son except the Father, nor again does anyone know what the Father is except the Son, according to the word of the Savior himself.

For that the Father is God, and that the Son likewise is truly God, we both know and have believed;

but what the ineffable nature is according to its essence is wholly unattainable both to us and to the other rational creatures.

How then shall we know the Son in equal measure with the Father? For it must be considered how he affirms that he will recognize us, and will be recognized by us, even as he himself knows the Father and the Father him.

We must then work out further what contemplation we shall fit to what has been said, one that does not depart from the aim set before us;

and what has come into my mind I for my part will not conceal; but let it be acceptable to those who are willing.

For I think that in these words he does not simply call knowledge mere acquaintance, but rather takes it in place of intimacy—whether that which is according to kind and natural, or that which is as by participation in grace and honor.

For it is the custom among the children of the Greeks to call 'known' not only those who are one's own according to kindred, but also brothers of the same blood.

And that divine Scripture too knows knowledge to be intimacy, we shall learn from these things.

For Christ says somewhere concerning those who have been made intimate with him in no way at all: 'Many will say to me in that day:

Lord, Lord, did we not in your name do many mighty works, and cast out demons? Then I will confess to them that, truly I say to you, I never knew you.' But if knowledge signifies to us only acquaintance, how did he who has all things naked and laid open to his eyes—as it is written—fail to know any of the things that are?

he who even before their generation knew all things? It is therefore utterly senseless—nay rather, even impious—to suppose that the Lord was ignorant of any; but we shall rather think that he said this because they in no way at all bring toward him any intimacy or relation to himself.

For I do not know, he says, those who have become lovers of virtue, nor those who have honored my word, nor even those who have been joined to me through good deeds.

In accordance with what has been said above, you will understand this also in the case of the all-wise Moses, when God says to him: 'I know you above all, and you have found grace with me'—instead of, 'you have been set in intimacy above all with me, and you have procured great grace.'

And we say such things not by way of doing away with the fact that knowledge is also taken in the sense of the power of acquaintance, but rather devising for the contemplations the more fitting manner.

Therefore, 'I know my own,' he says, 'and I am known by my own, even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father'—

instead of: I shall be made intimate with my own sheep, and my own sheep shall be made intimate with me, in this same manner in which the Father is intimate with me, and I in turn am intimate with the Father.

For in the same manner in which God the Father knows his own Son and the fruit of his essence, having a genuine travail, and in which the Son in turn knows the Father, having God truly as Father, inasmuch as he is begotten of him—in that same manner we too, having been made intimate with him, are named his race and are called children, according to what is spoken by him: 'Behold, I and the children whom God has given me.' And we are and are named the genuine race of the Son, and through him of the Father, since he who exists as God, of God, the Only-begotten, became man, taking up the same nature as ours, though apart from all sin.

…to us is the force of the matter.

For the Word of God is a divine nature even with flesh, while we are his race, although he is God according to nature, on account of his having taken the same flesh as ours.

The manner of this kinship, then, is analogous.

For just as He Himself is made intimately one with the Father, and the Father in turn with Him by reason of the identity of nature, so also are we made His own inasmuch as He became man, and He in turn becomes ours.

And through Him, as through a Mediator, we are joined to the Father.

For Christ is as it were a boundary between the highest Godhead and manhood, being both at once in Himself, and as it were holding together in Himself things so widely separated; and He is joined, as God by nature, to God the Father, and again to men as being in truth man.

But perhaps someone will say: Do you not see, sir, whither your argument once more runs into danger? For if we are to suppose that He knows what is His own inasmuch as He became man—that is, that He comes into kinship with His own sheep—who then remains outside the flock? For all will be His own, inasmuch as they too are men, even as He is.

What then is the surplus meaning still in His saying 'what is Mine'? And what is the distinctive privilege of those who are truly His own? For if all are His own on account of the reason already stated, what will the greater portion be for those who are His acquaintance? To this we say that the manner of kinship is indeed common to all, both to those who have known Him and to those who have been ignorant of Him;

for He became man, not bestowing His grace on some in part while withholding it from others, but taking pity on the whole fallen nature.

Yet the manner of kinship will profit nothing those who insult Him by their disobedience, but rather it will be apportioned as a distinctive reward to those who love Him.

For just as the doctrine of the resurrection extends to all, on account of the resurrection of the Saviour, who raises up together with Himself the whole nature of man, yet it will profit nothing those who love sin;

for they shall depart into Hades, receiving a return to life only for the purpose of being punished;

but to those who have practised a life of distinction it will be of great profit;

for they shall receive the resurrection unto the participation of the good things that transcend understanding.

In this manner, I think, the doctrine of kinship comes to all, both evil and good, yet is not present in equal measure to all; but to those who believe in Him it is an occasion of true kinship and of the things owed thereby, while to those who are otherwise it is a graver charge of ingratitude and impiety.

And this much we have said concerning these matters;

but let each one ponder for himself things more perfect.

We must observe, moreover, how the saying is at once both true and secure; for He is not seen to speak confusedly about these things, but sets each of the matters in its own and most fitting order.

For He did not say, 'What is Mine knows Me and I know what is Mine,' but He first introduces Himself as knowing His own sheep, and then says that thus He shall be known by them.

Now if knowledge be taken in the sense of cognition, as indeed we said at the beginning, you will understand it somewhat thus: It is not we who first came to know Him, but He first came to know us.

'But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ.' For out of His measureless gentleness Christ brought Himself near to the Gentiles, and He foreknew us rather than was known by us.

But if knowledge be understood in the sense of kinship and relationship, again we say this: It was not we who began the matter, but the Only-begotten, God of God;

for it was not we who laid hold of the Godhead that is above nature, but He Himself, God by nature, took hold of the seed of Abraham, as Paul says, and became man, that being made like unto His brethren in all things, apart from sin, He might take into kinship him who does not possess it of himself—that is, man.

'And I lay down My life for the sheep.'

As for those who are now His own and His kin, He is made ready to shield them in every way, and He promises to be prompt even to face danger on their behalf, at the same time establishing, by the repetition, that He Himself is truly the Good Shepherd.

For those who abandon the sheep to the wolves were on this account very rightly named cowards and hirelings; but He, since He knew that He must contend so greatly on their behalf as not even to shrink from death itself, would with good reason be understood to be the Good Shepherd.

And in saying 'I lay down My life for the sheep, since I am the Good Shepherd,' He rebukes the Pharisee, and somehow gives him to understand that he will one day so rave and be called to such madness against Him as to encompass with death Him who least of all ought to suffer this, but rather ought to be counted worthy of all praise and wonder, both on account of the very things He wrought and of His skilful knowledge in shepherding.

It is to be noted, moreover, that Christ endured the death that was for us and on our behalf not unwillingly, but is seen going to it of His own accord, though He was quite able to escape suffering had He not willed to suffer.

We shall therefore behold the beauty of His love toward us and the surpassing greatness of His gentleness in this very thing—that He willingly suffered on our behalf.

'And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold;

them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one flock, one shepherd.'

In manifold ways He confounds the disorderly Pharisee;

for by many words He intimates that He will soon by no means be thrust aside from the oversight of the sheep, but will rather Himself rule and lead them.

And He signifies that, having mingled with the more well-disposed among those of Israel the flocks from the Gentiles, He will not rule over Judaea alone, but the light of His own glory will now extend over the whole earth, and He will call to the knowledge of God the peoples everywhere—not being content to be known in Judaea alone, as at the first, but setting forth rather to the whole world under heaven the knowledge of the true knowledge of God for their enjoyment.

And that Christ was shown forth as a tutor unto godliness for the Gentiles, one may learn very easily indeed;

for the God-inspired Scripture is full of testimonies to this, and it would not perhaps have been unfitting to pass this by, leaving the inquiry into it to the more diligent students;

yet nevertheless, having set forth two or three sayings of the prophets concerning this, I will again take up what follows.

God the Father, then, says somewhere concerning Him: 'Behold, I have given Him as a testimony to the nations, a ruler and commander to the nations.' For Christ solemnly testified to the nations, giving them the saving instruction, and telling without concealment the means by which they must be saved.