Sermons to the People 46.20–46.35

“Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord.” But which shepherds are to hear? “Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep from their hands.” Hear and learn, sheep of God: God requires his sheep from the bad shepherds, and from their hands he will require their death. For he says in another place through the same prophet: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; you will hear a word from my mouth and warn them from me. When I say to the sinner, You shall surely die, and you have not spoken to warn the wicked man away from his way, that wicked man shall die in his wickedness, but his blood I will require from your hand. But if you have warned the wicked man of his way, so that he may turn from it, and he has not turned from his way, he shall die in his wickedness, and you will have saved your soul.” What does this mean, brothers? Do you see how dangerous it is to keep silent? He dies, and he dies justly: he dies in his ungodliness and his sin, for his own negligence killed him. For he could have found the living Shepherd, who says, “As I live, says the Lord.” But since he was negligent, and the one who was set over him and made a watchman for the very purpose of warning him did not warn him, the one dies justly and the other is justly condemned. “But if you say,” he says, “to the wicked man, You shall surely die, the man against whom I have threatened the sword, and he neglects to avoid the sword that threatens him, and the sword comes and kills him, he shall die in his sin, but you have saved your soul.” For this reason it is our part not to be silent; it is yours, even if we are silent, to hear the words of the Shepherd from the holy Scriptures.

Let us see, then, as I had proposed, whether he takes the sheep away from the bad shepherds and gives them to good shepherds. I see him taking the sheep away from the bad shepherds. For he says this: “Behold, I myself am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep from their hands, and I will turn them away from them, so that they do not feed my sheep; and the shepherds will no longer feed themselves.” For when I say, “Let them feed my sheep,” they feed themselves, not my sheep. “I will turn them away, so that they do not feed my sheep.” How does he turn them away, so that they do not feed his sheep? “Do what they say, but do not do what they do.” As if he said, “They speak what is mine; they do what is theirs.” If he had said, “Do without fear what they do; I will condemn them for living badly, but I will spare you, because you followed your leaders”: if he had said this, he would have frightened the bad shepherds, who feed not the sheep but themselves. But since he frightens not only the blind man leading but also the blind man following (for he does not say, “The leader falls into the pit and the follower does not fall,” but, “If a blind man leads a blind man, both fall into the pit”), he warned the sheep, saying, “Do what they say; do not do what they do.” For when you do not do what the bad shepherds do, it is not they who feed you; but when you do what they say, I feed you; for they speak what is mine and do not do it. “We follow our bishops without fear,” they say. The heretics often say this when they are refuted by the plainest truth: “We are sheep; they will give account for us.” They will certainly give a bad account of your death. For the death of a bad sheep the bad shepherd will give a bad account. Does a sheep live because its skin is produced with the mark on it? The shepherd is rebuked because he neglected the straying sheep, so that it ran into the wolf’s jaws to be devoured. What good is it to him that he brings back the marked skin? The householder requires the life of the sheep. But see, the bad shepherd has brought the skin: let him give account of the skin. Will he perhaps lie? He who afterward judges was watching from above. He to whom the shepherd recites his made-up words looks into his thoughts. Let the bad shepherd give account of the skin of the dead sheep. “I cried out your words to it, and it would not follow; I took pains that it should not stray from the flock, and it would not obey.” Certainly, if he says this and says it truly (and God knows whether he says it truly), he gives a good account of a bad sheep. But if God sees that he neglected the straying sheep, that he did not seek the perishing one, what good is it that he found the skin to bring back? He should have called back the sheep itself, rather than show the skin of a dead one. If, then, the one who did not seek the straying does not give a good account, what account will the one give who made it stray? This is what I mean: if a bishop set in the Catholic Church does not give a good account of a sheep, if he has not sought the one straying from God’s flock, what account will the heretic give, who not only did not call it back from error but even drove it into error?

But let us see, as I said, how God calls back the sheep from the bad shepherds. I have already mentioned it: “Do what they say, but do not do what they do.” And it is not they who feed you, but God; because, whether the shepherds like it or not, in order to get the milk and the wool they will speak the words of God. “You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal?” says the apostle to those who say good things and do bad things. As for you, listen to the preacher so as not to steal; do not imitate the thief. If you choose to imitate the thief, he feeds you with his deed: he serves you poison, not food. But if you hear from him what he says not from his own but from God’s, it is true that grapes cannot be gathered from thorns (for this is the Lord’s own sentence: “No one gathers grapes from thorns or figs from thistles”). Yet do not on that account as it were slander your Lord and say, “Lord, you did not want me to gather, since it cannot be done, grapes from thorns; and again you said to me about certain people, Do what they say, but do not do what they do. Surely those who do evil are thorns. How do you want me to gather the grape of your word from thorns?” The answer will be: “That grape does not belong to the thorns; but sometimes a growing branch entangles itself in a hedge, and the grape hangs among the dense thorns, but it does not spring from the root of the thorns. If you are hungry and have nothing else to eat, put out your hand carefully, so as not to be torn by the thorns, that is, so as not to imitate the deeds of the wicked; and pick the grape that hangs among the thorns but grows from the vine.” Let the nourishment of the cluster come to you; the torment of fire is kept for the thorns.

“And I will rescue my sheep from their mouth and from their hands, and they will no longer be food for them.” This is said in the psalm too: “Will not all who work iniquity know, who devour my people as they eat bread?” “And they will no longer be food for them; for thus says the Lord God: Behold, I myself.” I have taken my sheep away from the bad shepherds by warning them, as I said, not to do what they do; that is, so that careless and negligent sheep may not do what the bad shepherds do. And what does he say? To whom does he give what he has taken from them? To good shepherds, perhaps? That is not what follows. And what shall we say, brothers? Are there no good shepherds? Is it not said in another place of the Scriptures, “And I will set over them shepherds after my own heart, and they will feed them with discipline”? How is it, then, that the sheep he takes from the bad shepherds he does not give to good ones, but says, as if no good ones remained anywhere, “I will feed them”? He had said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” What, then, are we to make of this? When the sheep were entrusted to Peter, the Lord did not say there, “I will feed my sheep, not you,” but, “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.” Or is it perhaps that, since Peter is not found now (for he has been taken up into the rest of the apostles and martyrs), there is no one to whom the Lord of the sheep can say without anxiety, “Feed my sheep,” and that, as it were by necessity, he has come down to the office of feeding his sheep, having no one to entrust them to and yet not abandoning them? For this seems to follow: “Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I myself.” It is he to whom we said, “You who shepherd Israel, give ear; you who lead Joseph like a flock,” the people set in Egypt. Israel, now spread among the Gentiles, is Joseph himself. For you know that Joseph went down into Egypt: it came about by his brothers selling him. The Jews sold Christ: not without reason was there a seller among the apostles too, Judas. Christ began to be among the Gentiles; there he was honored, there his people grew; his Shepherd does not abandon him. “Stir up,” he says, “your power, and come to save us.” He certainly does so, and will do so. For he says, “Behold, I myself, and I will seek my sheep, and I will visit them as a shepherd visits his flock.” The bad shepherds did not care, for they did not redeem them with their own blood. “As a shepherd visits his flock,” he says, “in the day.” In what day? “When there is storm and cloud”: that is, both in rain and in fog. The rain and the fog are the error of this world: a great darkness rising from people’s desires, and a thick fog covering the earth. And it is hard for the sheep not to stray in that fog; but the Shepherd does not abandon them. He seeks them; he pierces the fog with his keenest eyes; he is not hindered by the darkness of the clouds; he sees; he calls back the straying from everywhere; so much so that what he says in the Gospel comes about: “My sheep hear my voice and follow me.” “In the midst of the scattered sheep, so will I seek my sheep and lead them out from every place where they have been scattered, in the day of cloud and storm.” When it is hard for them to be found, then I will find them. The fog is thick, the storm is heavy: nothing escapes his eyes.

“And I will lead them out from the nations and gather them from the regions, and I will bring them into their own land and feed them on the mountains of Israel.” The mountains of Israel have been established: they are the authors of the divine Scriptures. Feed there, so that you may feed without fear. Whatever you hear from there, let it taste good to you; whatever is outside, spit it out. So as not to stray in the fog, hear the voice of the Shepherd: gather yourselves to the mountains of holy Scripture. There are the delights of your heart; there is nothing poisonous there, nothing foreign; it is the richest pasture. Only come healthy, and feed in health on the mountains of Israel. “And in the streams, and in every dwelling place of the land.” For from the mountains we have pointed out flowed the streams of the Gospel preaching, when their sound went out into all the earth; and every dwelling place of the land became glad and fruitful for the feeding of the sheep. “In good pasture I will feed them, and on the high mountains of Israel. Their folds will be there”: that is, where they may rest, where they may say, “It is good”; where they may say, “It is true, it is plain, we are not deceived.” They will rest in the glory of God, as in those folds. “And they will sleep,” that is, rest, “and they will rest in good delights.”

“And they will feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.” I have already said what the mountains of Israel are: good mountains, to which we lift our eyes so that help may come to us from there. “But our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Therefore, so that our hope might not be even in good mountains, after he had said, “I will feed my sheep on the mountains of Israel,” lest you should place your hope in the mountains, he added at once, “I will feed my sheep.” Lift up your eyes to the mountains, from where your help will come; but listen to him who says, “I will feed them.” For your help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

“And I will make them rest, says the Lord God.” But to make them rest, he first healed them. What he did first he mentions afterward: “Thus says the Lord God: What was lost I will seek; and what strayed I will call back; and what was crushed I will bind up; and what was lifeless I will strengthen; and what is fat and what is strong I will guard.” This is what the bad shepherds did not do, feeding themselves and not the sheep. The Lord did not say, “I will appoint other, good shepherds to do these things,” but, “I,” he says, “will do it; I will entrust my sheep to no one.” Be without fear, brothers; be without fear, sheep. Are we to think there is something to fear, as though a good shepherd were lacking?

He concludes thus: “And I will feed them with judgment.” See that he alone feeds with judgment in this way. For what man judges rightly about a man? Everything is full of rash judgments. Someone we had despaired of is suddenly converted and becomes excellent; someone we had great hopes of suddenly falls away and becomes very bad. Neither our fear is certain nor our love. What each man is today the man himself scarcely knows; yet he knows somehow what he is today, but what he will be tomorrow, not even he knows. He, then, feeds with judgment, giving to each his own: these things to these, those to those, what is due to each to whom this or that is due. For he knows what he is doing: with judgment he feeds those whom, having been judged himself, he redeemed. He himself, then, feeds with judgment.

For in the prophet Jeremiah he says, “The partridge cried out; it gathered what it did not hatch, making its riches not with judgment.” Against this partridge, which makes its riches not with judgment, this Shepherd feeds with judgment. Why is that one without judgment? Because it gathered what it did not hatch. Why is this one with judgment? Because he cherishes what he has begotten. Yet we are speaking of a good shepherd. Good shepherds either do not exist or are hidden. If they do not exist, what are we doing? If they are hidden, why is nothing said of them? That partridge has been understood by certain elders and expositors of the Scriptures before us to be the devil, gathering what he did not hatch. For he is not a creator but a deceiver, making his riches not with judgment. For it does not matter to him who strays in this way and who in that; he wants all to stray, by any errors whatever. However various the heresies, however various the errors, he wants people to stray in all of them. The devil does not say, “Let them be Donatists, let them not be Arians”: whether they are here or there, they belong to him who gathers without judgment. “Let him worship idols,” he says: “he is mine. Let him remain in the superstition of the Jews: he is mine. Let him abandon unity and go off into this heresy or that: he is mine.” So he gathers without judgment, making his riches. But what follows? “In the middle of his days they will leave him, and at his end he will be a fool.” He came gathering his sheep from everywhere. “In the middle of his days,” sooner than he hoped, before he expected, “they will leave him, and at his end he will be a fool.” Why was he wise at his beginning and a fool at his end? Listen, brothers. In the Scriptures “wisdom” is sometimes used for cunning, by a misuse of the word, not in its proper sense. Hence it is said, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” And this partridge, the same as the dragon, the same as the serpent, was as it were wise when he deceived Adam through Eve: he was thought to speak the truth, he was supposed to give good advice, he was believed against God. That “wisdom” is used by a misuse of the word and in a bad sense, according to the usage of our Scriptures (for what is it to us how the authors of the world speak?), you have in the same book: “Now the serpent was wiser than all the beasts.” He, wiser than all the beasts, is recognized as cunning and sharp to deceive. Afterward he is not believed, and it is said to him, “We renounce you; it is enough that you deceived the unwary at first.” So at his end he will be a fool; his frauds will be exposed, and so they will be frauds no longer. At his end he will be a fool, who gathered what he did not hatch and made his riches not with judgment. Against him our Redeemer feeds with judgment.

Let some heretic arise, even if not the devil’s brother, certainly his helper and son; and him I would call the partridge, a contentious creature. For this creature, as fowlers know, is caught even through its eagerness to fight. These people fight against the truth, and have fought ever since they divided themselves off. Now they say, “We do not want to fight”: because they have already been caught. He has nothing to say but, “I do not want to fight.” O captured one, surely it was you who once, in the first days of your sedition, accused traditors, condemned the innocent, sought the emperor’s judgment, refused to accept the bishops’ judgment, appealed again and again when you were defeated, litigated most zealously before the emperor himself, and gathered what you had not hatched. Where now is your proud neck? Where is your tongue? Where is your hissing? Certainly at your end you have become a fool: you have fed without judgment. For you do not want to judge truly, either about your error or about the truth. Against you Christ feeds with judgment; he distinguishes his sheep from the sheep that are not his. “My sheep,” he says, “hear my voice and follow me.”

Here I find all the good shepherds in the one Shepherd. For good shepherds are not really lacking; but they are in the one. Many are those who are divided; here one is proclaimed, because unity is commended. For it is not really because the Lord now finds no one to whom to entrust his sheep that the shepherds are passed over in silence and “shepherd” is said; nor did he entrust them then because he found Peter: rather, in Peter himself he commended unity. There were many apostles, and to one it is said, “Feed my sheep.” Far be it that good shepherds should be lacking now: far be it from us that they should be lacking; far be it from his mercy that he should not beget and establish them. Certainly, if there are good sheep, there are also good shepherds; for good shepherds come from good sheep. But all good shepherds are in the one; they are one. They feed: Christ feeds. For the friends of the bridegroom do not speak with their own voice, but rejoice greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So he himself feeds when they feed, and he says, “I feed,” because in them is his voice, in them is his love. For even Peter, to whom he was entrusting his sheep as one to another, he wanted to make one with himself, so as to entrust the sheep to him in such a way that he would be the head and Peter would bear the figure of the body, that is, the Church, and they would be like bridegroom and bride, two in one flesh. So, in order to entrust the sheep to him, what does he say first, so as not to entrust them to him as to another? “Peter, do you love me?” And he answered, “I love you.” And again: “Do you love me?” And he answered, “I love you.” And a third time: “Do you love me?” And he answered, “I love you.” He confirms love, so as to consolidate unity. He himself, then, the one, feeds in them, and they in the one; and the shepherds are passed over in silence, and yet they are not passed over. The shepherds glory; but “let him who glories glory in the Lord.” This is to feed for Christ, to feed in Christ, to feed with Christ: not to feed one’s own apart from Christ. Nor did the prophet say, “I will feed my sheep; I have no one to entrust them to,” because of a dearth of shepherds, as though he were foretelling these bad times to come. Even when Peter himself was here, and the apostles themselves were still in this flesh and this life, that one, in whom all are one, said, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them too, so that there may be one flock and one shepherd.” Let all, then, be in the one Shepherd, and speak the one voice of the Shepherd, which the sheep may hear and follow their Shepherd: not this one or that one, but the one. And let all in him speak one voice; let them not have different voices. “I beseech you, brothers, that you all say the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you.” Let the sheep hear this voice, cleansed of every schism, purged of every heresy, and follow their Shepherd, who says, “My sheep hear my voice and follow me.”

Do you want to know, heretic, that you do not have the Shepherd’s voice, and that the sheep follow you at their peril, you who are covered with sheep’s clothing and inwardly are a ravening wolf? Let them hear your voice; let us see whether it is Christ’s. A weak sheep straying from the flock, not knowing where the flock is, looks for the Church; it looks for where to join, where to go in. Speak: let us hear whether your voice is Christ’s; let us hear whether it is a lamb’s or a partridge’s. A sheep of God looks for its flock. Suppose a sheep has come from the East to Africa; it looks for its flock, runs into you, wants to enter your basilica. You are disturbed by the unfamiliar face, you or your minister standing or sitting at the door; he questions the sheep that is looking for its flock, or rather for God’s flock, wanting to go in with its flock where it thinks the flock is. You ask, “Are you a pagan or a Christian?” It answers, “A Christian”; for it is a sheep of God. You ask, lest perhaps it is a catechumen and might intrude on the sacraments: it answers, “One of the faithful.” You ask of what communion it is: it answers, “Catholic.” Do you reject a Christian, a believer, a Catholic? Then who are those you keep inside? Go on, then, throw him out, reject him. Rejected by you, he is approved by Christ. Would that those who are with you might recognize you, and leave you in the middle of your days! Some of our brothers went yesterday to their basilica: to bad brothers, it is true, but still to brothers. Notice, my brothers, what a difference there is between the confidence of truth and the fear of falsehood. When you recognize some of them among this congregation, how glad you are! Because he who seeks what was lost is in you. Sometimes it is suggested to you, “He will listen and go away.” And you say, “Let him listen and go away.” “He will listen and laugh.” “Let him listen and laugh.” Some day he will understand; some day he will recognize the truth; some day he leaves his people; he remains with his heart, renounces his error, gives thanks to his God. But what about them? “Who are you?” “We are Christians.” “No, you are spies.” And they: “We are Catholics.” They tried to do them harm; on better advice they thought better of it. And would that they would think better of remaining there, as those who went in to do harm thought better of it. Yet whom did they throw out? Christians, believers, Catholics. Whom they kept in, I will not say. Whom they threw out, I see; whom they kept in, let them say.

Let them speak their voice, then; let us see whether it is Christ’s voice, whether it is the voice of the Shepherd that the sheep should follow. Whether this voice comes through a good man or a bad one, let us attend to whether it is the Shepherd’s voice. The weak man looks for the Church; the straying man looks for the Church. What do you say? “The Church is the party of Donatus.” I am looking for the voice of the Shepherd. Read it to me from the prophet; read it to me from the psalm; recite it to me from the Law; recite it from the Gospel; recite it from the apostle. From these I recite to you the Church spread throughout the whole world, and the Lord saying, “My sheep hear my voice and follow me.” What is the voice of the Shepherd? “And that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” See, this is the voice of the Shepherd: recognize it and follow it, if you are a sheep.

“But those men handed over the books, and those men offered incense to idols, this one and that one.” What is this one and that one to me? If they did it, they are not shepherds; you, give me the voice of the Shepherd, for you are not proclaiming the Shepherd’s voice about them either. You accuse them, not the Gospel; you accuse them, not the prophet, not the apostle. The one about whom this voice speaks to me, him I believe; others I do not believe. “But you bring forward official records.” I bring forward records too. Shall I believe yours? Then believe mine too. I do not believe yours: do not believe mine. Let human papers be put away; let divine voices sound. Give me one voice of Scripture for the party of Donatus; hear countless ones for the whole world. Who can count them? Who can set a limit to them? Yet, to mention a few, attend to the Law, God’s first covenant: “In your seed all nations will be blessed.” In the psalm: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession.” “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before him; for the kingdom is his, and he will rule over the nations.” “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.” “And all the kings of the earth will worship him; all nations will serve him.” Who could count them all? Almost every page sounds nothing but Christ and the Church spread throughout the whole world. Let one voice come forth for me for the party of Donatus. What great thing am I asking? They say that the Church spread throughout the whole world was going to perish. Was she foretold to perish, who was foretold by so many testimonies to remain? There is not one such voice of the Shepherd, in the Law, in the Prophets, in the Psalms. For they could not speak the truth without the Word of God, which is Christ.

Hear the voice of the Word, and from the mouth of the Word. Marveling at the faith of the centurion, he said: “Amen, I say to you, I have not found such faith in Israel. Therefore I say to you that many will come from the East and the West and will recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Many will come from East and West: see the Church of Christ; see the flock of Christ: see whether you are a sheep. For the flock that is everywhere is not hidden from you. You will have nothing to answer your judge, whom you do not want as your Shepherd; you will have nothing, I say, to answer your judge: “I did not know, I did not see, I did not hear.” What is it that you did not know? “There is no one who hides himself from its heat.” What is it that you did not see? “All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” What is it that you did not hear? “Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”

But you are rightly asked for the voice of Christ, the voice of the Shepherd, which the sheep may hear and follow. You find nothing to say; you do not have the voice of the Shepherd. Hear, and follow: leave the voice of the wolf; follow the voice of the Shepherd; or give us the voice of the Shepherd. “We give it,” they say. Let us hear. We too give the voice of the Shepherd. Let us hear. “In the Song of Songs,” they say, “the bride speaks to the bridegroom, the Church to Christ.” We know the Song of Songs: holy songs, songs of love, of holy love, of holy charity, of holy sweetness. Certainly I want to hear from it the voice of the Shepherd, the voice of the sweetest bridegroom. Give it, if you have anything; let us hear. “The bride,” they say, “says to the bridegroom, Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you lie down. And he,” they say, “answers, At noon,” that is, in the South. I was bringing forward plain testimonies to you, which there was no way for you to interpret otherwise: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession.” “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord.” What is this that you bring me from the Song of Songs? Something perhaps you do not understand. For those songs are riddles, known to the few who understand them, opened to the few who knock. Hold fast to what is plain and receive it devoutly, so that what is obscure may rightly be opened to you. How will you penetrate the obscure while you despise the plain?