Sermons to the People 47.20–47.30

“And I will raise up over them one shepherd.” Had he not himself said in the earlier reading, “I will feed them”? Now he who feeds raises up one shepherd. Or perhaps, within so short a space of reading, he grew weary of feeding, and raised up a shepherd to whom he might entrust the care of the sheep so that he himself could be free of care? Let us hear what shepherd he means; and there we shall understand why the shepherd himself, even when this shepherd has been raised up, himself feeds, and alone feeds. “I will raise up over them one shepherd, and my servant David will feed them; he will feed them.” That this is a prophecy of Christ coming to men from the seed of David you quickly understand, brothers, if you know the times. This prophet Ezekiel lived at the time of the captivity, which came about through the deportation of the people to Babylon. From the time of David to the time of this deportation there are fourteen generations. See how long afterwards he says, “And David will feed them.” If this were said in the time of Noah, or of Abraham, or of Moses, or at least of Saul himself, whom David succeeded as king, we would rightly understand it to have been said of David himself, the son of Jesse, that he would be the shepherd of God’s flock, since that people was entrusted to him as king. But by now David had already reigned, had already departed this life, had already been gathered to his fathers, was already at rest according to his merit. What, then, does he mean by saying, “I will raise up David, and make him one shepherd for them,” unless that David is he who came from the seed of David? How, then, does God raise up a shepherd for us? What one shepherd? “And my servant David will feed them.” For a long time he himself was feeding us; God was feeding us; now his servant David feeds us. Why as if he were another? For surely, when he fed, God fed; and when God fed, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit fed. Now he is raised up and becomes as it were another shepherd; but not another. Not another according to the form of God, because in the form of God he and the Father are one God; but in the form of a servant he is raised up as it were another, to feed, because the Father is greater. Hear the one who feeds, and Christ feeding: “I and the Father are one.” Hear Christ raised up to feed: “The Father is greater than I.” So one feeds, because “though he was in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal with God.” But he is raised up to feed, because “he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” The very words here testify to this too: “My servant David will feed them.” Servant, in the form of a servant. Servant, because “he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men and found in appearance as a man; he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Let him be raised up, then, to feed. “Therefore,” it says, “God raised him up” from the dead, “and gave him the name that is above every name.” Now that his servant David has been raised up, now that the form of a servant has been raised up, which he set at his right hand, he gave him the name that is above every name. See how he feeds, how widely he feeds: “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.” Into what narrow corner, heretical vanity, do you drive the owner of so wide a domain? Do you trust your proud shoulders and your horns so much that you not only fail to gather the flock to the shepherd but even try to shut the shepherd himself out of the flock? “My servant David will feed them.” Hear, you sheep, David feeding you: hear the voice of David your shepherd, not the voice of robbers, not the howling of wolves. “My servant David will feed them. He will feed them.” O word to be prized! “He will feed them.” Let no one say that he feeds, except him: “He will feed them.” Whoever wants to feed, let him feed in him; for he will feed them. A little earlier God was saying, “I will feed”; now he says, “He will feed them.” Let the Son answer and tell us: “Both were truly said: I and the Father are one.” He who says, “I will feed,” does not lie in saying, “He will feed”; and when he says, “He will feed,” he does not lie in saying, “I will feed.” “Do you not believe,” he says, “that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father.” Rightly it is said, “I will feed”; rightly it is said, “He will feed.” It is a distinction, not a separation: “He will feed them.” Do not be afraid, you sheep; he who said, “He will feed them,” will not leave you. God feeds, Father and Son and Holy Spirit: God himself feeds. But the form of a servant had to be distinguished, not separated and estranged and set up as another person. The Creator took the creature into himself; the Creator was not changed into the creature: he assumed what he was not; he did not lose what he was.

“My servant David will feed them. He will feed them, and he will be their shepherd; and I the Lord will be their God.” Pay attention, brothers: see the unity of the Godhead and yet the distinction of the persons, so that we do not say that the one who is the Father is the Son, or that the one who is the Son is the Father. See, he said, “He will feed them,” who a little earlier had said, “I will feed them.” “And he will be their shepherd,” he says, “and I the Lord will be their God.” Explain it to us, Lord; let no one muddy the water; let us drink what flows pure from a pure spring. Why did you say it as if separately, “He will be their shepherd, I will be their God”, as though he were our shepherd and you our God? Why, Lord, are you not our shepherd, and why is he not our God? Listen calmly; be gentle in hearing the word, so that you may understand. For perhaps some ear is listening to me now that holds a different view and is wasted by heretical poison, and mocks me for saying that the Father and the Son are one God, though it does not mock so many thousands of brothers who had one soul. And he says to me: “See, God says plainly, My servant David will be their shepherd, and you yourself took him to be Christ, nor can he be understood otherwise; for you gave the reason, that these words were said when David had already fallen asleep. So Christ will be their shepherd; and I the Lord, he says, will be their God: the one as shepherd, the other as God.” Then you explain to me what “I will feed” means. Who was saying, “I will feed”? Certainly God was speaking when he said, “I will feed.” As he did not separate Christ from feeding when he said, “I will feed,” so he did not separate Christ from the Godhead when he said, “I God.” See, Christ is shepherd, and the Father too is shepherd. So too the Father is God, and Christ too is God. As you do not separate the Father from Christ the shepherd, so do not separate Christ from God the Father. The Father has with the Son the compassion that feeds; the Son has with the Father equality of divinity. But if he had not spoken in this way, you would think that the one who is the Son is the Father. So he has pointed you both to the unity of the Godhead and to the distinction of the persons: so that, when he says, “He will feed, and I will be their God,” not separating himself from the Son who feeds nor separating the Son from himself who rules, you may understand the Son as God in the Father, and the Father as shepherd in the Son. “I the Lord,” he says, “will be their God, and my servant David a prince in their midst.” Why in their midst? Because “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” “A prince in their midst.” Hence he is also the mediator between God and men: because he is God with the Father, because he is man with men. Not a mediator as man apart from the Godhead; not a mediator as God apart from humanity. See the mediator: divinity without humanity is not mediator; humanity without divinity is not mediator; but between divinity alone and humanity alone, the mediator is the human divinity and the divine humanity of Christ. “And my servant David a prince in their midst. I the Lord have spoken”: not some heretic or other. “I the Lord have spoken.”

“And I will establish with them a testament of peace”: surely through him who says, “My peace I give you, my peace I leave you.” This is the testament of our father, a testament of peace. Any other inheritance may be divided among co-heirs; the inheritance of peace cannot be divided. Our peace is Christ. Peace makes both one, not two out of one. “For he is our peace,” it says, “who made both one.” The testament is God’s; the inheritance is peace. Let it be possessed by co-heirs in harmony, not divided by litigants. “And I will establish with them a testament of peace.” Wake up, heretics; hear the testament of peace from the shepherd; come to peace. You are angry with the Christian emperors because your testaments could not stand in your houses: see how fitting the penalty is. And what does it amount to, that your testament does not stand in your house? What is it? How much is it? This pain is a warning, not yet a condemnation. For God willed that you should share in the suffering of his testament of peace. You grieve for your testament if your testament does not stand in your house. Certainly you are going to die, and you will not know what is done in that house afterwards. “For on that day,” it says, “all his thoughts will perish; and he will no longer know his place.” So although you will not know what is done in your house after you are dead, you still grieve that your testament does not stand in your house. Christ died, rose again, and looked down from heaven, so that his testament might stand. Wake up from your pain; be corrected by your torment. You know that heat is usually applied to wood that is badly bent: let this pain correct you. It is not yet the flame of the eternal fire; it is as if the heat of a hearth has been applied to your bent heart, so that by it the heart may be warned and straightened. Grieve; you grieve quite rightly that your testament does not stand in your house. God’s house is your heart. If you want your testament to be valid in your house, why do you not want God’s testament to be valid in his house? You leave walls to your children, and if you knew that your children would divide them otherwise than you had disposed, you would grieve. Over one very cheap house, over a roof that will fall in, how much care you take, how much anxiety you feel! How, in burning fevers, under the pressure of disease, you resist death itself as it presses on you, as far as you can, gasping out your last words, so as to complete your testament! How many lawyers you consult, how many tricks you search out, so that your testament may stand even against the law of the emperor! From close at hand God answers you: “Do not seek tricks, do not hunt for captious formulas: do you want your testament to stand? Let mine stand in you. You grieve because someone you did not want takes what you acquired: what of my inheritance, so broad, so full of love? In your seed all nations shall be blessed: I said this to my servant,” God says to you, “and he believed when he did not see these things: you see them, and you deny them.” See, he kept the testament when it was made; you tear it up when it has been opened. For the testament was kept when it was heard; it was opened when it was fulfilled. The testament was kept until it came into your hands. Certainly you want to be an heir: does your co-heir quarrel with you in such a way as to say to you, “You take this part, I that one”, or, “You take the smaller, and I the larger”? He does not say, “Let us divide it together,” but, “Let us have it together.” For this is what the testator willed. Open it and read. And you cry out: “It was I who saw to it that it was not burned; it was I who kept it from being burned.” You kept it from being burned? Open it and see that you have kept the very thing that condemns you to be burned; though far be it from me to believe that you kept it, when I see that you do not keep what it commands. “And I will establish with them a testament of peace.”

“And I will exterminate the evil beasts from the land.” Beasts: the enemies of the testament of peace. Of these beasts it is said in the psalm, “Rebuke the wild beasts of the reed.” What are “the wild beasts of the reed”? Beasts hostile to holy Scripture, because the Scriptures were written with a reed. “I will exterminate the evil beasts from the land; and they will dwell in the desert in hope.” What does “in the desert” mean? In solitude. What does “in solitude” mean? Within, in the conscience. A great solitude, through which no man passes, and which no man even sees. There let us dwell in hope, because not yet in reality. For everything of ours that is outside is tossed about by the storms and temptations of the world. There is an inner desert; there let us question our faith; let us ask whether there is love within; let us see whether not only the lips but also the heart speaks when we say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” If it rings true, if we speak the truth where no man sees, there is the desert where we rest in hope; because all this tribulation passes, and what was hope will become reality, and all that is ours will be at rest. Then we shall be clearly seen by one another; and thought will not be hidden as it were from you; and the conscience will not be a desert, because all will be known to one another, and they will not have their thoughts unknown, when the Lord comes and lights up what is hidden in darkness, and discloses the thoughts of the heart, and then each will have his praise from God. But now you see two men in tribulation; you cannot see their hearts. Perhaps one is gnawed by his conscience, while the other rests in his conscience as in a desert. “And they will dwell in the desert in hope, and they will sleep”: that is, they will rest, their senses as it were withdrawn from all the noise of the world; within, there, they will rest “in the streams.” In that very desert within there are certain streams of memory flowing, divine waters welling up from the mind of one who holds Scripture fast and ponders it. For what you have read, what you have heard, if you have committed it to memory pure and clear and holy, then when you begin to rest in that inner desert, that is, in a good conscience, it trickles out from the depths of your mind, and the remembrance of the word of God flows in a certain way, and you rest with the others in hope, and say: “It is true; it is well with me; this is my hope; God promised me this; he does not lie; I am secure.” And this security is sleep in the streams. “And they will sleep in the streams.”

“And I will give them a blessing round about my hill.” Whether it is a mountain or a hill, may it be well with us round about it. The hill is Christ himself. For he is thus in our midst, and we are round about him. For he had said a little earlier, “David a prince in their midst.” And because he is a prince, he is therefore a hill: gentle, not steep and hard for the one who climbs, provided that one does not try to set one’s feet on it from on high. “And I will give them a blessing round about my hill; and I will bring down rain in its season”: the rain of the word of God. For there is also an evil rain, which throws down the house built upon sand, against which it is a great thing for the house founded upon the rock to stand firm; for that is the rain of temptation, seeking ruin, not watering the land. This rain which the Lord says he brings down will not be like that. For what does he say? “There will be showers of blessing.” The mention of rain had made you wary: there will be showers of blessing, not of temptation. “There will be showers of blessing.”

And see what that rain achieves. “And the trees that are in the plain will yield their fruit.” In the plain: on a kind of level ground, not on the heights; in a certain easiness of life. By “plain” he meant a certain easiness of this life that has nothing steep, laborious, or difficult in it: such is the life of many believers in the Church of God who have wives, children, and houses of their own; like trees in a plain, they have not been able to climb to anything steep. But let them receive the rain, and these trees too will yield their fruit. The fruit of these trees is: “Break your bread for the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house.” To such trees the Apostle said, “Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit.” “And the trees that are in the plain will yield their fruit”: even if they do not have greater fruit, they still have a certain fruit of their own. “And the land will yield its produce”: the whole land. “And they will dwell in their land.” Now plains, hills, and mountains will yield their produce. What can a plain do? What can a hill? What can a mountain? Let the farmer alone be acknowledged. “And they will dwell in their land in hope.” You see that he promises things that he gives us in this present time. As long as he says “in hope,” I understand him still to mean this present time. For when we have reached what was promised, there will no longer be hope; it will be the reality itself.

“And they will know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the forks of their yoke”: the forks by which their neck is pressed down. Lord, break the forks with which heretics press down the necks of the weak. For what is so confining, so tightly pressed by a fork, as: “Do not listen to Christ; listen to me”? Take away the fork, let me breathe. I do not know what you are saying. I hear the voice of my shepherd: “Through all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Let me follow the shepherd. Why do you press me down? Take the fork off my neck; I will take up the gentle yoke of my Lord. He hears this, and presses down. Lord, the heretic will not lift the fork; break the fork yourself. The Lord’s cross lifts up; the heretic’s fork presses down. But they will be broken: “when I have broken the forks of their yoke.” For they want to impose their own domination on people, wanting them to be under themselves, not under God. “When I have broken the forks of their yoke, and rescued them from the hand of those who were reducing them to slavery.” What does “were reducing them to slavery” mean? They were driving them to sin. For “everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.” See, brothers, what they have persuaded them of, so that they say: “They will give an account for us; we are sheep; wherever they lead, we follow.” Are you a sheep? Listen to the shepherd, not to the wolf.

“And they will no longer be plundered by the nations.” For in all nations they are not lacking, some here, some there; not the same ones there as here; but still, neither here nor there are there lacking those who press down the necks of the faithful with forks. They disagree among themselves; against unity they all agree. But unity does not disagree with itself; rather it fights everywhere against all who disagree with it, it labors everywhere; but there is rest in the desert. “And they will no longer be plundered by the nations, and the beasts of the land will no longer devour them.” Hearing the voice of the shepherd, they will be rescued from the teeth of the wolves. Those beasts of the reed will not devour them, those who want to turn the Scriptures to their own sense, turning ears away from the plain Scriptures, wanting themselves to be heard and the Scriptures not to be heard. “And the beasts of the land will not devour them, and they will dwell in hope.” See how often he shows that what he promises now, he promises for this present life: God is speaking of things that he still provides here. “There will be no one to terrify them.” How will there be no one to terrify them? There will be no one at all. “In the Lord I trust.” Now when a man begins to say, “In God I will praise the word, in the Lord I will praise the saying,” not in myself. They praise the word in themselves, saying, “Believe what we tell you”; we praise the word in the Lord, saying, “Let us believe what the Lord tells us.” There will be no one to terrify us; because “In God I will praise the word, in the Lord I will praise the saying; in God I have hoped; I will not fear what man may do to me.” “There will be no one to terrify them.” “And I will raise up for them a planting of peace.” A testament of peace, a planting of peace. Let what God plants sprout, and let what the heretic sowed be rooted out. What God planted, he planted of himself and of his Church: of himself in heaven, of the Church on earth; of himself above all the heavens, of the Church through all lands. This God planted. But come here, be in the party of Donatus: the Church is in Africa alone. God did not plant that; I do not recognize it as God’s planting. What you say is to be rooted out, not watered. “And I will raise up for them a planting of peace, and there will no longer be any who perish by famine in the land.” Truly, brothers, there is a famine; look and see how great a famine they suffer. And what is worse, they have food right at their mouths, but they do not eat; just as the sick often die of loathing, not because they lack something to eat, but because they do not want to eat and turn away from it. For surely the Scriptures say these things too; and here as well as there the psalm rings out: “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship in his sight.” See, the food is set out in the dish: if you were healthy and ate, would you stay where you are? “And there will no longer be any who perish by famine in the land, and they will no longer bear the reproach of the nations.” Truly, brothers, the Church has been raised to such a height in the name of Christ that all the revilers are now confounded and do not dare to revile. This alone is left for them to say against us: “Why do you not agree among yourselves?” The pagan Gentiles who remain, having nothing to say against the name of Christ, throw the dissension of Christians in the faces of Christians. So whoever passes over from the heretics to the Catholic Church will not have this reproach from the nations, nor will they bear the reproach of dissension, because they remain in the root of unity, in the planting of love. “They will not bear the reproach.”

“And they will know that I am the Lord their God, and they are my people, the house of Israel, says the Lord God.” See, here are sheep; see, there is also a vineyard. When Isaiah spoke of the vineyard, rebuking a certain bad vineyard, so that they could not say, “We did not understand,” he explained at the end, saying, “But the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,” so that they could not say, “It was not said to us, but to some vineyard or other.” So here too, having spoken of the sheep, at the end, so that no one could say, “Perhaps there are some sheep of God somewhere or other whom God cares for, and I do not know them” (although anyone who thought this would be far too absurd for human sense), yet that shepherd, compassionate toward the weak, came down even to such thoughts, and explained most plainly who his sheep were: “And you, my sheep, and the sheep of my flock, are men.” But which men? All men? No. For “Blessed is he whose hope is the Lord God”; and, “How good is the God of Israel to the upright in heart!” “Blessed is the man whose God is the Lord himself.”

God is above all; and yet somehow no one readily dares to say, “My God,” except one who believes in him and loves him; such a one says, “My God.” You have made him your own; and he whose you are loves this. So, with all the sweetness of your affection, and with secure and confident love, say, “My God.” You say it securely, you say it truly: because he is yours, and you have not made it so that he is not someone else’s. For you do not say “My God” in the way you say “My horse.” For your horse is yours and not someone else’s horse. But God is both yours and also the God of anyone else who says “My God” as you say it. Each one says “My God,” and “My God”: he belongs to all, offering himself in common to all to be enjoyed, whole in all, whole in each. For those who say “My God” do not divide him among themselves. If this word that I throw out with my tongue, in a sound made of letters and syllables, reaches each person whole, and those who hear it do not divide it among themselves; if a word that sounds bodily to the ears of the body, more clearly close by and more faintly far off, is nevertheless received whole by all who hear it, not divided among them syllable by syllable, but received whole by all; how much more is that God, present everywhere and filling all things, not more clearly close by and more faintly far off, but “reaching mightily from end to end and ordering all things sweetly,” possessed equally by all? This light, my brothers, which is certainly bodily, shines from the sky; it rises, it sets, it goes round, it moves from place to place; and yet the eyes of all go out to it and are directed to it, and the eyes of all possess it equally and do not divide it. No rich man has fixed a boundary in it, nor, by seizing it first in order to see, has he shut out or narrowed the eyes of the poor. Let the poor man say, “My God”; let the rich man say, “My God”: the one has less, the other more; but of silver, not of God. To come to God, the rich man Zacchaeus gave half of his patrimony; to come to him, Peter left his nets and his boat; to come to him, the widow gave two small coins; to come to him, someone poorer still offered a cup of cold water; to come to him, someone utterly poor and needy gave only a good will. They gave different things, but they came to the one God, because they did not love different things. So you too, men, God’s sheep, sheep of God’s flock, do not be troubled by your differences in this life: that some are in honor and others without honor, some with money and others without money, some beautiful in body and others less beautiful, some worn out with age and others young, some boys, some men, some women: God is present to all equally. He has more room with God who has brought more, not of silver but of faith. “And you,” he says, “my sheep, and the sheep of my flock, are men; and I am your God, says the Lord God.” O how happy we are in such a possession and such a possessor! For he both possesses us and we possess him: he possesses us to cultivate us; we possess him to worship him. But we worship him as God; he cultivates us as a field. He cultivates us so that we may bear fruit; we worship him so that we may yield fruit. All of it comes back to us; he has no need of us. “I will give you,” he says, “your inheritance, and as your possession the ends of the earth.” See, we are his possession. “The Lord,” it says, “is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup.” See, he is our possession; but with what distinction? “You are men; I am the Lord your God, says the Lord our God.”