Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus XLVI-L

8. Who is the hireling, who sees the wolf coming and flees? He who seeks his own things, not those of Jesus Christ: he does not dare freely to rebuke one who sins (1 Tim. 5:20). Look, someone or other has sinned, has sinned grievously; he must be rebuked, he must be excommunicated: but once excommunicated, he will be an enemy, he will lie in wait, he will do harm when he can. Now he who seeks his own things, not those of Jesus Christ, so as not to lose what he pursues, the advantage of human friendship, and not to incur the annoyance of human enmities, keeps silent, does not correct. Look, the wolf has seized the sheep by the throat: the devil has persuaded a believer to adultery; you keep silent, you do not rebuke: 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 kept silent; you kept silent, because you were afraid. Fear is the flight of the mind. In body you stood firm, in spirit you fled: which he did not do who said, Though I am absent in body, I am with you in spirit (Col. 2:5). For how was he fleeing in spirit, who even when absent in body rebuked fornicators by letter? Our affections are motions of minds. Joy is the expansion of the mind; sadness, the contraction of the mind; desire, the going forward of the mind; fear, the flight of the mind. For you are expanded in mind when you are delighted; you are contracted in mind when you are troubled; you go forward in mind when you desire; you flee in mind when you fear. See, this is why that hireling is said to flee when he has seen 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? Seeking a temporal reward, and he will not dwell in the house for ever. There are still things here to be inquired into and discussed with you, but it is not my purpose to burden you. For we serve the Lord's food to our fellow servants; in the Lord's pastures we feed the sheep, and are fed together with them. Just as what is necessary is not to be denied, so a weak heart is not to be overburdened with a quantity of fodder. Let it not therefore be troublesome to Your Charity that all the things which I judge still need discussing here I do not discuss today: but the same reading will be recited to us again, in the name of the Lord, on the days for rendering the sermon, and, with His help, will be treated more diligently.

Tractate 47. From that which is written, I am the good shepherd, and I know My sheep, etc., up to this, Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? Chapter 10, verses 14-21.

1. You who hear the word of our God not only gladly but also diligently remember our promise without any doubt. For the very same Gospel reading has been read today too which had been read on the last Lord's day: for this reason, that, being detained by certain necessities, we could not discuss everything that we owed to your understanding. Accordingly, what has already been said and treated we do not inquire into today; lest, by repeating the same things yet again, we should be by no means permitted to reach those things which have not yet been said. You already know, in the name of the Lord, who the good shepherd is, and how good shepherds are His members, and that therefore the shepherd is one:

you know who the hireling is who must be tolerated; who the wolf is, and the thieves and robbers who must be guarded against; what the sheep are, what the door is by which both the sheep and the shepherd enter; how the doorkeeper is to be understood: you know also that whoever has not entered by the door is a thief and a robber, and comes only to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. All these things that were said have, as far as I judge, been sufficiently treated. Today we ought to say, as far as the Lord helps, (since Jesus Christ our Saviour Himself said both that He is the shepherd and that He is the door, and said that the good shepherd enters by the door), how He Himself enters by Himself. For if no one is a good shepherd except one who enters by the door, and He Himself is above all the good shepherd, and He Himself is the door, I cannot understand it except that He Himself enters by Himself to His sheep, and gives them His voice so that they follow Him, and that they, going in and going out, find pasture, which is eternal life.

2. I say it briefly, then. I, seeking to enter to you, that is, to your heart, preach Christ: if I were to preach something else, I would be attempting to climb up by another way. Christ, therefore, is for me the door to you; through Christ I enter, not to your walls, but to your hearts. Through Christ I enter; you have gladly heard Christ in me. Why have you gladly heard Christ in me? Because you are the sheep of Christ, you have been bought with the blood of Christ. You recognize your price: which is not given by me, but is preached through me. For He bought, Who shed precious blood: precious is His blood, being without sin. Yet He Himself made the blood of His own also precious, those for whom He gave the price of His blood: for if He did not make the blood of His own precious, it would not be said, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (Ps. 115:15). Thus also what He says, The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, it is not He alone Who has done this: and yet if those who have done it are His members, He Himself, the one and the same, has done this. For He could do it without them; but whence could they do it without Him, since He Himself has said, Without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5)? Now from this we show that others too have done it, because the apostle John himself, who preached this Gospel that you have heard, said in his Epistle: As Christ laid down His life for us, so we too ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16). We ought, he said; He Who first showed it made us debtors. Therefore it is written in a certain place: If you sit down to dine at the table of a powerful man, understand wisely what is set before you: and put forth your hand, knowing that you must prepare such things (Prov. 23:1–2, according to the LXX). What the table of the powerful man is, you know; there is the body and blood of Christ: whoever approaches such a table, let him prepare such things. And what is, let him prepare such things? As He laid down His life for us, so we too ought, for the building up of the people and the upholding of the faith, to lay down our lives for the brethren. Therefore to Peter, whom He wished to make a good shepherd, He says, not in Peter himself but in His body: Peter, do you love Me? feed My sheep. This once, this again, this a third time, even to his sorrow. And when the Lord had questioned as much as

He judged must be questioned, so that he who had denied three times might confess three times; and when He had commended His sheep to him to be fed a third time, He said to him: When you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you have grown old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish. And the Evangelist explained what the Lord had said: Now this, he says, He said, signifying by what death he was to glorify God (John 21:15–19). To this, then, belongs Feed My sheep: that you lay down your life for My sheep.

3. Now as for what He says, As the Father knows Me, and I know the Father, who does not know it? For He knows the Father through Himself, we through Him. That He knows through Himself, we know; that we too know through Him, this also we know; for this too we know through Him. For He Himself said: No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father; He has made Him known (John 1:18). Therefore we too [know] through Him, we to whom He has made Him known. Likewise elsewhere He says: No one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal Him (Matt. 11:27). As, then, He knows the Father through Himself, while we know the Father through Him, so He enters into the sheepfold through Himself, and we through Him. We were saying that through Christ we have a door to you; why? Because we preach Christ. We preach Christ, and therefore we enter through the door. But Christ preaches Christ, because He preaches Himself; and therefore the shepherd enters through Himself. When light shows other things which are seen in the light, does it need something else in order to be shown? Light, therefore, shows both other things and itself. Whatever we understand, we understand by the intellect; and the intellect itself, by what do we understand it, if not by the intellect? Do you in this way, with the eye of the flesh, see both other things and the eye itself? For although men see with their eyes, yet they do not see their own eyes. The eye of the flesh sees other things; itself it cannot see. But the intellect understands both other things and itself. As the intellect sees itself, so too Christ preaches Himself. If He preaches Himself, and by preaching enters into you, He enters into you through Himself. And to the Father He Himself is the door; for there is no way by which one may come to the Father except through Him. For there is one God and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). By a word many things are said: these very things that I have said, I have said, of course, by a word. If I wish to speak of the word itself as well, by what do I speak of it, if not by a word? And so by a word other things are said, which are not what a word is; and the word itself cannot be spoken except by a word. With the Lord's help we have given examples in abundance. Hold fast, then, how the Lord Jesus Christ is both the door and the shepherd: the door by opening Himself, the shepherd by entering through Himself. And indeed, brethren, what it is to be a shepherd He has given to His members as well: for Peter is a shepherd, and Paul is a shepherd, and the other Apostles are shepherds, and good bishops are shepherds. But none of us calls himself the door; this He has kept as His own, as that by which the sheep may enter. In short, the apostle Paul was fulfilling the office of a good shepherd when he preached Christ, because he was entering through the door. But when undisciplined sheep began to make schisms, and to set up other doors for themselves, not by which they might enter so as to be gathered together, but by which they might stray so as to be divided,

saying, some, I am of Paul; others, I am of Cephas; others, I of Apollo; others, I of Christ: he, struck with dread at those who said, I am of Paul, as though crying out to the sheep, Wretched ones, where are you going? I am not the door: Was Paul, he says, crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul (1 Cor. 1:12–13)? But those who said, I am of Christ, had found the door.

4. Now about the one fold and the one shepherd, you are indeed accustomed to hear constantly already: for we have greatly commended the one fold, preaching unity, so that all the sheep should enter through Christ, and none should follow Donatus. Nevertheless, why the Lord said this in its proper sense is plain enough. For He was speaking among the Jews, and He had been sent to the Jews themselves, not on account of certain ones obstinate in monstrous hatred and persevering in darkness, but on account of certain ones in that very nation whom He calls His sheep: of whom He says, I was not sent except to the sheep that have perished of the house of Israel (Matt. 15:24). He knew them even in the crowd of those raging, and He foresaw them in the peace of those believing. What then does it mean, I was not sent except to the sheep that have perished of the house of Israel, unless that He did not show His bodily presence except to the people of Israel? To the Gentiles He did not go Himself, but sent: but to the people of Israel He both sent and came Himself; so that those who despised Him might receive the greater judgement, because His presence too was shown to them. The Lord Himself was there, there He chose a mother; there He willed to be conceived, there to be born, there to shed His blood; there are His footprints, now venerated, where He last stood, from where He ascended into heaven: but to the Gentiles He sent.

5. But perhaps someone thinks that, since He did not come to us Himself but sent to us, we have not heard His voice, but the voice of those whom He sent. Far from it; let that thought be driven from your hearts: in those whom He sent, He Himself was present. Hear Paul himself, whom He sent; for to the Gentiles He sent Paul above all as apostle: and Paul himself, striking terror not about himself but about Him, says, Do you wish to receive proof of Christ, Who speaks in me (2 Cor. 13:3)? Hear also the Lord Himself. And other sheep I have, that is, among the Gentiles: which are not of this fold, that is, of the people of Israel: them also I must bring. Therefore even through His own it is no other who brings them. Hear further: They will hear My voice. Behold, even through His own He Himself speaks, and through those whom He sends His voice is heard. That there may be one fold and one shepherd. For these two flocks, as for two walls, He was made the corner-stone (Eph. 2:11–22). Therefore He is both the door and the corner-stone: all by likeness, none of these properly.

6. For I have already said, and commended it earnestly, and those who grasp it are wise, or rather those who are wise grasp it; and let those who are not yet wise in understanding hold by faith what they cannot yet understand. By likeness Christ is many things that He is not by propriety. By likeness Christ is both the rock, and Christ is the door,

and Christ is the corner-stone, and Christ is the shepherd, and Christ is the lamb, and Christ is the lion. How many things by way of likenesses, and others, which it would take long to recount! But if you examine the properties of the things which you are accustomed to see, He is not a rock, for He is not hard and without feeling; He is not a door, for a carpenter did not make Him; He is not a corner-stone, for He was not put together by a builder; He is not a shepherd, for He is not a keeper of four-footed sheep; He is not a lion, for He is not a wild beast; He is not a lamb, for He is not a beast of the flock. All these things, then, [are said] by likeness. What then [is He] properly? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. What [is said] of the man who appeared? And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 14).

7. Hear also the rest. Therefore does the Father love Me, He says, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again. What does He say? Therefore does the Father love Me: because I die that I may rise again. For it was said with great weight, I: Because I lay down, He says, I lay down My life, I lay it down. What is, I lay it down? I lay it down: let not the Jews boast; they were able to rage, they were not able to have power: let them rage as much as they can; if I am unwilling to lay down My life, what will they accomplish by raging? By one answer they were laid low: when it was said to them, Whom do you seek? they said, Jesus; and He said to them, I am He: they went backward, and fell down (John 18:4–6). Those who fell down at the single voice of Christ about to die, what will they do under the voice of Him about to judge? I, I, I say, lay down My life, that I may take it again. Let not the Jews boast, as though they had prevailed; He Himself laid down His life. I have slept, He says. You know the Psalm: I have slept, and taken sleep; and I have risen up, because the Lord will take me up (Ps. 3:6). The Psalm itself was read just now, just now we heard: I have slept, and taken sleep; and I have risen up, because the Lord will take me up. What is, I have slept? Because I willed it, I slept. What is, I slept? I died. Did He not sleep, Who, when He willed, rose from the tomb as from a bed? But He loves to give glory to the Father, that He may build us up to give glory to the Creator. For as to what He added, I have risen up, because the Lord will take me up, do you think that here His might, as it were, failed, so that by His own power He was able to die, but by His own power was not able to rise again? For so the words seem to sound when not understood with closer attention, I have slept; that is, because I willed it, I slept. And I have risen up: why? Because the Lord will take me up. What then, wouldst Thou not have been able to rise again of Thyself? If Thou wert not able, Thou wouldst not say, I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again. Hear in another place in the Gospel that not only did the Father raise up the Son, but the Son also raised up Himself. Destroy, He says, this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. And the Evangelist: But this, he says, He spoke of the temple of His body (John 2:19, 21). For that was raised up which was dying. For the Word did not die, that soul did not die. If not even yours dies, would the Lord's die?

8. How do I know, you say, whether mine does not die? Let it not be slain by you, and it does not die. How, you say, can I

kill my soul? To say nothing for the moment of other sins, The mouth that lies kills the soul (Wis. 1:11). How, you say, am I secure, since it does not die? Hear the Lord Himself giving His servant security: Do not fear those who kill the body, and afterwards have nothing they can do. But what indeed does He say? Fear Him Who has power to kill both body and soul in Gehenna (Matt. 10:28, and Luke 12:4–5). See, it dies; see, it does not die. What is it for it to die? What is it for your flesh to die? For your flesh to die is to lose its life; for your soul to die is to lose its life. The life of your flesh is your soul; the life of your soul is your God. Just as the flesh dies when the soul, which is its life, is lost, so the soul dies when God, Who is its life, is lost. Certainly then the soul is immortal. Plainly immortal, for it lives even when dead. For what the Apostle said of the widow who lives in pleasure can be said also of the soul, if it has lost its God: Though living, she is dead (1 Tim. 5:6).

9. How then does the Lord lay down His soul? Brethren, let us inquire into this a little more attentively. The hour that usually presses on us on the Lord's day does not constrain us: we have leisure; let those who gather to the word of God even on this day profit by it. I lay down, He says, My soul. Who lays it down? What does He lay down? What is Christ? The Word and man. Nor man in such a way as to be flesh alone: but since He is man, He consists of flesh and soul, and the whole man is in Christ. For He would not have taken up the inferior part and abandoned the better part: for the better part of man is the soul rather than the body. Since then the whole man is in Christ, what is Christ? The Word, I say, and man. What is the Word and man? The Word, soul and flesh. Hold fast to this, for there have not been lacking heretics even in this matter, driven long ago indeed from the catholic truth: but nevertheless, like thieves and robbers not entering by the door, they do not cease to lie in wait for the sheepfold. They are called the Apollinarian heretics, who dared to dogmatize that Christ is nothing but the Word and flesh: they contend that He did not take up a human soul. Yet some of them could not deny that there was a soul in Christ. See the absurdity and the insanity not to be borne. They would have Him possess an irrational soul, they denied Him a rational one: they gave Him the soul of a beast, they took away that of a man. But they took reason away from Christ by not holding to reason. Far be this from us, nourished and grounded in the catholic faith. On this occasion, then, I would admonish your Charity that, just as in earlier readings we instructed you sufficiently against the Sabellians and the Arians, the Sabellians who say, The Father is the very same as the Son, the Arians who say, The Father is one thing, the Son another, as though the Father and the Son were not of the same substance, we instructed you also, as far as you remember, and you ought to remember, against the Photinian heretics, who

said that Christ was a man only, without God; against the Manichaeans, who said that He was God only, without man: on this occasion let us instruct you about the soul against the Apollinarists as well, who say that our Lord Jesus Christ did not have a human soul, that is, a rational soul, an intelligent soul, the soul, I say, by which we differ from the beast, in that we are men.

10. How, then, did the Lord say here, I have power to lay down My soul? Who lays down the soul, and takes it up again? Does Christ, in that He is the Word, lay down the soul and take it up again? Or, in that it is a human soul, does it lay itself down and take itself up again? Or, in that He is flesh, does the flesh lay down the soul and take it up again? I have set out three [possibilities]; let us examine them all thoroughly, and let us choose that which agrees with the rule of truth. For if we say that the Word of God laid down His soul and took it up again, it is to be feared that a wrong thought may creep in, and it may be said to us: Then at some time that soul was separated from the Word, and at some time that Word, from the time when He took up that soul, was without a soul. For I see that the Word was without a human soul, but when in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. For from the time when the Word was made flesh, that He might dwell in us (John 1:1, 14), and man was taken up by the Word, that is, the whole man, soul and flesh, what did the passion do, what did death do, except separate the body from the soul? But it did not separate the soul from the Word. For if the Lord died, nay rather because the Lord died (for He died for us on the cross), without doubt His flesh breathed out the soul: for a brief time the soul forsook the flesh, but flesh that was to rise again when the soul returned. But I do not say that the soul was separated from the Word. To the soul of the thief He said: Today you will be with Me in paradise (Luke 23:43). He did not forsake the faithful soul of the thief, and was He forsaking His own? Far from it: but the thief's He guarded as Lord, while His own He held inseparably. But if we say that the soul itself laid itself down, and itself took itself up again, the meaning is most absurd: for that which was not separated from the Word could not be separated from itself.

11. Let us say, then, what is both true and easily understood. Behold any man you please, consisting not of the Word and soul and flesh, but of soul and flesh: concerning this man let us ask how any man whatever lays down his soul. Or perhaps no man lays down his soul? You can say to me: No man has power to lay down his soul and to take it up again. If a man could not lay down his soul, the apostle John would not say, As Christ laid down His soul for us, so we too ought to lay down our souls for the brethren (1 John 3:16). Therefore it is permitted to us too (if we too are filled with His strength, for without Him we can do nothing) to lay down our souls for the brethren. When any holy martyr has laid down his soul for the brethren, who laid it down, and what did he lay down? If we understand this, we shall see there in what way it was said by Christ, I have power to lay down My soul.

O man, are you ready to die for Christ? "Ready," he says. Let me say this in other words. Are you ready to lay down your soul for Christ? And to these words he answers me thus, "I am ready"; just as he had answered me when I said, "Are you ready to die?" This, then, is to lay down the soul, which is to die. But for whom is the contest there? For all men, when they die, lay down the soul; but not all lay it down for Christ. And no one has power to take up what he has laid down: but Christ both laid it down for us, and laid it down when He willed, and took it up when He willed. To lay down the soul, then, is to die. So also the apostle Peter said to the Lord, I will lay down my soul for Thee (John 13:37): that is, I will die for Thee. Ascribe this to the flesh: the flesh lays down its soul, and the flesh takes it up again; yet not by its own power does the flesh do so, but by the power of Him Who dwells in the flesh: the flesh, then, lays down its soul by breathing out. Look at the Lord Himself on the cross; He said, I thirst: those who were present soaked a sponge in vinegar, tied it to a reed, and put it to His mouth; and when He had received it, He said, It is finished: what is, It is finished? All the things that had been prophesied of Me as to come before death have been fulfilled. And because He had power to lay down His soul when He willed; after He said, It is finished, what does the Evangelist say? And with head bowed He handed over the spirit (ibid. 19:28–30). This is to lay down the soul. Now let Your Charity attend here. With head bowed He handed over the spirit. Who handed over? whom did it hand over? It handed over the spirit; the flesh handed it over. What is, the flesh handed it over? The flesh sent it forth, the flesh breathed it out. For this is why it is called "to expire", to come to be outside the spirit. Just as "to be exiled" is to come to be outside the soil; "to exorbitate", to come to be outside the track: so "to expire", to come to be outside the spirit; and that spirit is the soul. When, then, the soul goes out from the flesh, and the flesh remains without the soul, then a man is said to lay down the soul. When did Christ lay down His soul? When the Word willed. For the sovereignty was in the Word; there lay the power as to when the flesh should lay down the soul, and when it should take it up.

12. If, then, the flesh laid down the soul, how did Christ lay down the soul? For is not Christ flesh? Quite so: both the flesh is Christ, and the soul is Christ, and the Word is Christ: and yet these three are not three Christs, but one Christ. Question man, and from yourself make a step to the things that are above you, and if they are not yet to be understood, at least to be believed. For just as one man is soul and body, so one Christ is Word and man. See what I have said, and understand. Soul and body are two things, but one man: Word and man are two things, but one Christ. So ask concerning man. Where is Paul the apostle now? If anyone answers, "In rest with Christ", he speaks the truth. Likewise if anyone answers, "At Rome in the tomb", he too speaks the truth. The one answers me concerning his soul, the other concerning his flesh. Yet we do not on that account speak of two apostles Paul, one who rests in Christ, another who is laid in the tomb: although we say that the apostle Paul lives in Christ, and say that the same apostle Paul lies dead in the tomb. Someone dies; we say, A good man, a faithful man, he is in peace with

the Lord: and straightaway, Let us go to his funeral, and let us bury him. You are about to bury the one whom you had already said to be at peace with God: since the soul, which lives on immortally, is one thing, and the body, which lies corruptibly, is another. But since the partnership of flesh and soul received the name of man, now each of them also, taken singly and separately, has kept the name of man.

13. Let no one, then, waver when he hears that the Lord said, I lay down My soul, and I take it up again. The flesh lays it down, but by the power of the Word: the flesh takes it up, but by the power of the Word. And the flesh alone has been called the Lord Christ Himself. How, someone says, do you prove it? I dare to say that even the flesh of Christ alone has been called Christ. We certainly believe not only in God the Father, but also in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord: just now I have said the whole, in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord. Understand the whole there, both the Word, and the soul, and the flesh. But surely you also confess what the same faith holds, that you believe in that Christ Who was crucified and buried. Therefore you do not deny that Christ too was buried: and yet the flesh alone was buried. For if the soul was there, He was not dead: but if it was a true death, so that His resurrection might be true, He had been in the tomb without the soul; and yet Christ was buried. Therefore Christ was also flesh without the soul, since nothing was buried but the flesh. Learn this also in the words of the Apostle. Have this mind in you, he says, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, though He was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God. Who is this, if not Christ Jesus, as far as concerns that which is the Word, God with God? But see what follows: But He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant; made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man. And who is this, if not the same Christ Jesus Himself? But here now all things are present, both the Word in the form of God, which took the form of a servant; and the soul and the flesh in the form of a servant, which was taken by the form of God. He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death (Phil. 2:6–8). Now in death the flesh alone was killed by the Jews. For if He said to the disciples, Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul (Matt. 10:28); could they in His case kill more than the body? And yet, when the flesh was killed, Christ was killed. So when the flesh laid down the soul, Christ laid down the soul; and when the flesh, in order to rise again, took up the soul, Christ took up the soul. Yet this was not done by the power of the flesh, but by the power of Him Who assumed both soul and flesh, in which these things might be fulfilled.

14. This commandment, He says, I have received from My Father. The Word did not receive the commandment by a word, but in the only-begotten Word of the Father is every commandment. But when the Son is said to receive from the Father what He has substantially, as it was said, As the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself (John 5:26), since the Son Himself is life; His power is not diminished, but His generation is shown. For the Father did not add something as if to a son who was born imperfect; but to Him Whom He begot perfect, all things