Tractates on the Gospel of John 46.1–46.8

The Lord Jesus, speaking to his sheep, both present and future, who were then present—for those were there who were already his sheep and those who would be his sheep—and likewise speaking to present and future, both to them and to us, and to all who even after us will be his sheep, showed who it was that had been sent to them. All, then, hear the voice of their shepherd saying, “I am the good shepherd.” He would not add “good” unless there were bad shepherds. But the bad shepherds are themselves the thieves and robbers, or at any rate, at most, hirelings. For we ought to inquire into, distinguish, and know all the persons he has set here. The Lord has already opened two things which he had set before us as if closed: we already know that he himself is the door; we know that he himself is the shepherd. Who the thieves and robbers are was made clear in yesterday's reading; today we have heard of the hireling, we have heard also of the wolf; yesterday the doorkeeper too was named. Among the good, then, are the door, the doorkeeper, the shepherd, and the sheep; among the bad, the thieves and robbers, the hirelings, the wolf.

We take the door to be Christ the Lord, and the shepherd to be himself. And the doorkeeper—who? For he himself explained these two; the doorkeeper he left for us to seek. And what does he say of the doorkeeper? “To him,” he says, “the doorkeeper opens.” To whom does he open? To the shepherd. What does he open to the shepherd? The door. And who is the door itself? The shepherd himself. If Christ the Lord had not explained it, had he not himself said, “I am the shepherd,” and “I am the door,” would any of us dare to say that Christ himself is both the shepherd and the door? For if he had said, “I am the shepherd,” and had not said, “I am the door,” we would have been seeking what the door was, and perhaps, thinking it something else, we would have stayed in front of the door. By his grace and mercy he explained the shepherd to us: he said it was himself; he explained the door: he said it was himself. The doorkeeper he left for us to seek. Whom shall we call the doorkeeper? Whomever we find, we must take care that he is not thought greater than the door itself; for in men's houses the doorkeeper is greater than the door. The doorkeeper is set over the door, not the door over the doorkeeper, because the doorkeeper guards the door, not the door the doorkeeper. I do not dare to call anyone greater than the door; for I have already heard what the door is. It is not hidden from me; I have not been left to my own guesswork; no room has been given me for human conjecture. God has said it, the Truth has said it; what the Unchangeable has said cannot be changed.

I will say, then, what seems right to me in the depth of this question: let each choose what he pleases, but let him think devoutly, as it is written, “Think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart.” Perhaps we ought to take the doorkeeper to be the Lord himself. For in human affairs a shepherd and a door are much more different from each other than a doorkeeper and a door; and yet the Lord called himself both the shepherd and the door. Why, then, should we not understand him to be the doorkeeper too? For if we consider the proper senses of the words, Christ the Lord is neither a shepherd as we are used to knowing and seeing shepherds, nor is he a door, for no carpenter made him. But if by some likeness, he is both door and shepherd; I dare say he is also a sheep. A sheep, of course, is under a shepherd; yet he is both shepherd and sheep. Where is he a shepherd? See, you have it here; read the gospel: “I am the good shepherd.” Where is he a sheep? Ask the prophet: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.” Ask the friend of the bridegroom: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world.” I am going to say something still more wonderful according to these likenesses. Lamb and sheep and shepherd are friendly to one another, whereas sheep are usually guarded by shepherds against lions; and yet of Christ, though he is sheep and shepherd, we read it said, “The lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered.” Take all these things, brothers, according to likenesses, not according to proper senses. We often see shepherds sitting on a rock and from there guarding the flocks entrusted to them: surely the shepherd is better than the rock on which the shepherd sits; and yet Christ is both shepherd and rock. All this is according to likeness. But if you ask me for the proper sense: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” If you ask me for the proper sense: the only Son of the Father, begotten from eternity into eternity, equal to the one who begets, through whom all things were made, unchangeable with the Father, and not changed by taking the form of man; by the incarnation man, son of man and Son of God. All this that I have said is not a likeness but the reality.

So let it not irk us, brothers, by certain likenesses to take him as the door and the same as the doorkeeper. For what is a door? That by which we enter. Who is a doorkeeper? He who opens. Who, then, opens himself, but he who explains himself? See, the Lord had spoken of a door, and we had not understood; when we did not understand, it was closed: he who opened it is himself the doorkeeper. There is no necessity, then, to seek anything else—no necessity; but perhaps there is a wish. If there is a wish, do not go off the track, do not depart from the Trinity. If you seek another person as doorkeeper, let the Holy Spirit come to mind: for the Holy Spirit will not disdain to be the doorkeeper, when the Son has deigned to be the door itself. See whether perhaps the doorkeeper is the Holy Spirit: the Lord himself says to his disciples of the Holy Spirit, “He will teach you all truth.” What is the door? Christ. What is Christ? The Truth. Who opens the door but he who teaches all truth?

But what do we say of the hireling? He is not mentioned here among the good. “The good shepherd,” he says, “lays down his life for the sheep. The hireling, who is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf seizes and scatters the sheep.” The hireling does not play a good part here, and yet he is useful in some respect; nor would he be called a hireling unless he received wages from the one who hired him. Who, then, is this hireling, both blameworthy and necessary? Here, brothers, may the Lord himself give us light, so that we may both understand the hirelings and not be hirelings. Who, then, is the hireling? There are certain leaders in the Church of whom the apostle Paul says, “seeking their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ.” What is “seeking their own things”? Not loving Christ freely, not seeking God for God's sake; pursuing temporal advantages, gaping after gain, desiring honors from men. When these things are loved by a leader, and God is served for their sake, whoever is such is a hireling; let him not count himself among the sons. For of such the Lord too says, “Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.” Hear what the apostle Paul says of holy Timothy: “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be of good cheer when I know how things are with you. For I have no one so like-minded, who is genuinely anxious for you. For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ.” The shepherd groaned among the hirelings. He sought someone who would sincerely love the flock of Christ, and around him, among those who were with him at that time, he did not find one. Not that there was no one at that time in the Church of Christ, apart from the apostle Paul and Timothy, who was genuinely anxious for the flock; but it had happened that at the time when he sent Timothy he had no other of the sons near him, but only hirelings were with him, seeking their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ. And yet he, genuinely anxious for the flock, preferred to send the son and to remain among the hirelings. We find hirelings too, but only the Lord examines them: he who looks into the heart examines. Yet sometimes they are perceived by us. For not in vain did the Lord himself say even of the wolves, “By their fruits you will know them.” Temptations question many, and then their thoughts appear; but many remain hidden. Let the Lord's fold have as leaders both sons and hirelings. The leaders who are sons are shepherds. If they are shepherds, how is there one shepherd, except that they are all members of the one shepherd, whose own the sheep are? For they too are members of that one sheep, since “as a sheep he was led to the slaughter.”

But hear that hirelings too are necessary. For many in the Church who pursue earthly advantages still preach Christ, and through them the voice of Christ is heard; and the sheep follow, not the hireling, but the shepherd's voice through the hireling. Hear the hirelings pointed out by the Lord himself: “The scribes and Pharisees,” he says, “sit on Moses' seat: what they say, do; but what they do, do not do.” What else did he say but, “Hear the shepherd's voice through the hirelings”? For by sitting on Moses' seat they teach the law of God; so God teaches through them. But if they want to teach their own things, do not hear, do not do. For certainly such men seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ; yet no hireling has dared to say to the people of Christ, “Seek your own things, not the things of Jesus Christ.” For what he does badly he does not preach from the seat of Christ: he does harm by the bad things he does, not by the good things he says. Pick the grape, beware of the thorn. Good—you have understood; but for the sake of the slower I will say the same thing more plainly. How did I say, “Pick the grape, beware of the thorn,” when the Lord says, “Do they gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?” That is entirely true; and yet what I said is also true: “Pick the grape, beware of the thorn.” For sometimes a cluster sprung from the root of the vine hangs in a hedge: the branch grows, entwines itself among the thorns, and the thorn bears fruit not its own. For the vine did not bear a thorn, but the branch lay upon the thorns. Ask only about the roots. Seek the root of the thorn: you find it outside the vine; seek the origin of the grape: the vine produced it from its root. Moses' seat, then, was the vine; the conduct of the Pharisees was the thorns. True teaching through bad men is the branch in the hedge, the cluster among thorns. Pick carefully, lest while you seek the fruit you tear your hand; and when you hear someone saying good things, do not imitate him doing bad things. “What they say, do”: gather the grapes. “But what they do, do not do”: beware of the thorns. Hear the shepherd's voice even through hirelings, but do not be hirelings, since you are members of the shepherd. And the holy apostle Paul himself, who said, “I have no one who is genuinely anxious for you; for all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ,” in another place distinguishes between hirelings and sons; see what he said: “Some preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but some also from good will: some out of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel; but some proclaim Christ out of contentiousness, not purely, thinking to stir up affliction for my chains.” These were hirelings; they envied the apostle Paul. Why did they envy, unless because they were seeking temporal things? But mark what he adds: “What then? Provided that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice.” Christ is the truth: let the truth be proclaimed by hirelings in pretense, let the truth be proclaimed by sons in truth. The sons patiently await the eternal inheritance of the Father; the hirelings hastily desire the temporal wage of the one who hired them. Let my human glory, which I see the hirelings envy, be diminished; and yet let the divine glory of Christ be spread abroad by the tongues of both hirelings and sons, since “whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed.”

We have seen who the hireling is as well. Who is the wolf, but the devil? And what was said of the hireling? “When he sees the wolf coming, he flees, because the sheep are not his own and he has no care for the sheep.” Was the apostle Paul such a man? Far from it. Was Peter such? Far from it. Were the other apostles such, except Judas the son of perdition? Far from it. Were they, then, shepherds? Plainly shepherds. And how is there one shepherd? I have already said: they were shepherds because they were members of the shepherd. They rejoiced in that head, they were in harmony under that head, they lived by one Spirit in the structure of one body; and so they all belonged to the one shepherd. If, then, they were shepherds and not hirelings, why did they flee when they suffered persecution? Explain it to us, O Lord. I saw Paul fleeing in his epistle: he was let down over the wall in a basket, to escape the hands of his pursuer. Had he, then, no care for the sheep, whom he deserted when the wolf came? He plainly had; but he commended them by his prayers to the shepherd sitting in heaven, and kept himself by fleeing for their benefit, as he says in one place, “To remain in the flesh is necessary for your sake.” For they had all heard from the shepherd himself, “If they persecute you in one city, flee to another.” May the Lord deign to explain this question to us. Lord, you said to those whom you certainly wished to be faithful shepherds, whom you were forming to be your members, “If they persecute you, flee.” So you do them wrong when you rebuke the hirelings who see the wolf coming and flee. We ask you to show us what the depth of the question holds. Let us knock: he will be here to open, he who is the doorkeeper of the door which he himself is.

Who is the hireling who sees the wolf coming and flees? He who seeks his own things, not the things of Jesus Christ; he does not dare to rebuke the sinner freely. See, someone or other has sinned, sinned gravely: he must be reproved, he must be excommunicated. But once excommunicated he will be an enemy, he will lay snares, he will do harm when he can. So he who seeks his own things, not the things of Jesus Christ, lest he lose what he is after—the advantage of human friendship—and incur the trouble of human enmities, is silent, does not correct. See, the wolf has seized the sheep by the throat: the devil has persuaded a believer to adultery. You are silent, you do not reprove: O hireling, you saw the wolf coming, and you fled. Perhaps he answers and says, “Look, here I am; I have not fled.” You fled, because you were silent; you were silent, because you were afraid. Fear is the flight of the mind. You stood firm in body, you fled in spirit—which he did not do who said, “Though I am absent in body, I am with you in spirit.” For how did he flee in spirit, who even when absent in body rebuked fornicators by letter? Our affections are movements of our minds. Joy is the expansion of the mind, sadness its contraction; desire is the going forth of the mind, fear its flight. For you are expanded in mind when you are delighted, contracted in mind when you are troubled; you go forth in mind when you desire, you flee in mind when you fear. See, this is why that hireling is said to flee when he sees the wolf. Why? Because he has no care for the sheep. Why has he no care for the sheep? Because he is a hireling. What is “he is a hireling”? He seeks a temporal wage, and he will not dwell in the house forever. There are still things here to be sought and discussed with you, but it is not my intention to burden you. For we serve the Lord's provisions to our fellow servants; in the Lord's pastures we feed the sheep and are fed together with them. As what is necessary must not be denied, so a weak heart must not be overloaded with too much fodder. So let it not trouble your Charity that I do not today discuss everything that I think still needs discussing here; but, in the Lord's name, the same reading will be recited to us again on the days when the sermon is due, and with his help it will be treated more carefully.