John 10:27

And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication. Encænia is the feast of the dedication of the temple; from the Greek word signifying new. The dedication of any thing new was called encænia.

It was the feast of the dedication of the temple, after the return from the Babylonish captivity.

Or, it was in memory of the dedication under Judas Maccabeus. The first dedication was that of Solomon in the autumn; the second that of Zorobabel, and the priest Jesus in the spring. This was in winter time.

Judas Maccabeus instituted an annual commemoration of this dedication.

The Evangelist mentions the time of winter, to show that it was near His passion. He suffered in the following spring; for which reason He took up His abode at Jerusalem.

Or because the season of cold was in keeping with the cold malicious hearts of the Jews.

Christ was present with much zeal at this feast, and thenceforth stayed in Judea; His passion being now at hand. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.

It is called Solomon’s porch, because Solomon went to pray there. The porches of a temple are usually named after the temple. If the Son of God walked in a temple where the flesh of brute animals was offered up, how much more will He delight to visit our house of prayer, in which His own flesh and blood are consecrated;

Be you also careful, in the winter time, i.e. while yet in this stormy wicked world, to celebrate the dedication of your spiritual temple, by ever renewing yourself, ever rising upward in heart. Then will Jesus be present with you in Solomon’s porch, and give you safety under His covering. But in another life no man will be able to dedicate Himself.

The Jews cold in love, burning in their malevolence, approached Him not to honor, but persecute. Then came the Jews round about Him, and said to Him, How long do you make us to doubt? If You be the Christ, tell us plainly. They did not want to know the truth, but only to find ground of accusation.

Being able to find no fault with His works, they tried to catch Him in His words. And mark their perversity. When He instructs by His discourse, they say, What sign show You? When He demonstrates by His works, they say, If you be the Christ, tell us plainly. Either way they are determined to oppose Him. There is great malice in that speech, Tell us plainly. He had spoken plainly, when up at the feasts, and had hid nothing. They preface however with flattery: How long do you make us to doubt? as if they were anxious to know the truth, but really only meaning to provoke Him to say something that they might lay hold of.

They accuse Him of keeping their minds in suspense and uncertainty, who had come to save their souls.

They wanted our Lord to say, I am the Christ. Perhaps, as they had human notions of the Messiah, having failed to discern His divinity in the Prophets they wanted Christ to confess Himself the Messiah, of the seed of David; that they might accuse Him of aspiring to the regal power.

And thus they intended to give Him into the hands of the Proconsul for punishment, as an usurper against the emperor. Our Lord so managed His reply as to stop the mouths of His calumniators, open those of the believers; and to those who inquired of Him as a man, reveal the mysteries of His divinity: Jesus answered them, I told you, and you believed not: the works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me.

He reproves their malice, for pretending that a single word would convince them, whom so many words had not. If you do not believe My works, He says, how will you believe My words? And He adds why they do not believe: But you believe not, because you are not of My sheep.

He saw that they were persons predestinated to eternal death, and not those for whom He had bought eternal life, at the price of His blood. The sheep believe, and follow the Shepherd.

After He had said, You are not of My sheep, He exhorts them to become such: My sheep hear My voice.

i.e. Obey My precepts from the heart. And I know them, and they follow Me, here by walking in gentleness and innocence, hereafter by entering the joys of eternal life And I give to them eternal life.

This is the pasture of which He spoke before And shall find pasture. Eternal life is called a goodly pasture: the grass thereof wither not, all is spread with verdure. But these cavilers thought only of this present life. And they shall not perish eternally; as if to say, you shall perish eternally, because you are not of My sheep.

But how then did Judas perish? Because he did not continue to the end. Christ speaks of them who persevere. If any sheep is separated from the flock, and wanders from the Shepherd, it incurs danger immediately.

And He adds why they do not perish: Neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. Of those sheep of which it is said, The Lord knows them that are His, the wolf robs none, the thief takes none, the robber kills none. Christ is confident of their safety; and He knows what He gave up for them.

This is the speech of conscious power. Yet to show, that though of the Divine nature He has His nativity from God, He adds, My Father which gave Me them is greater than all. He does not conceal His birth from the Father, but proclaims it. For that which He received from the Father, He received in that He was born from Him. He received it in the birth itself, not after it; though He was born when He received it.

The Son, born from everlasting of the Father, God from God, has not equality with the Father by growth, but by birth. This is that greater than all which the Father gave Him b; viz. to be His Word, to be His Only-Begotten Son, to be the brightness of His light. Wherefore no man takes His sheep out of His hand, any more than from His Father’s hand: And no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand. If by hand we understand power, the power of the Father and the Son is one, even as Their divinity is one. If we understand the Son, the Son is the hand of the Father, not in a bodily sense, as if God the Father had limbs, but as being He by Whom all things were made. Men often call other men hands, when they make use of them for any purpose. And sometimes a man’s work is itself called his hand, because made by his hand; as when a man is said to know his own hand, when be recognizes his own handwriting. In this place, however, hand signifies power. If we take it for Son, we shall be in danger of imagining that if the Father has a hand, and that hand is His Son, the Son must have a Son too.

The hand of the Son is spoken of as the hand of the Father, to let you see, by a bodily representation, that both have the same nature, that the nature and virtue of the Father is in the Son also.

Then that you may not suppose that the Father’s power protects the sheep, while He is Himself too weak to do so, He adds, I and My Father are one.

Mark both those words, one and are, and you will be delivered from Scylla and Charybdis. In that He says, one the Arian, in we are the Sabellian, is answered. There are both Father and Son. And if one, then there is no difference of persons between them.

We are one. What He is, that am I, in respect of essence, not of relation.

The heretics, since they cannot gainsay these words, endeavor by an impious lie to explain them away. They maintain that this unity is unanimity only; a unity of will, not of nature, i.e. that the two are one, not in that they are the same, but in that they will the same. But they are one, not by any economy merely, but by the nativity of the Son’s nature, since there is no falling off of the Father’s divinity in begetting Him. They are one whilst the sheep that are not plucked out of the Son’s hand, are not plucked out of the Father’s hand: whilst in Him working, the Father works; whilst He is in the Father, and the Father in Him. This unity, not creation but nativity, not will but power, not unanimity but nature accomplishes. But we deny not therefore the unanimity of the Father and Son; for the heretics, because we refuse to admit concord in the place of unity, accuse us of making a disagreement between the Father and Son. We deny not unanimity, but we place it on the ground of unity. The Father and Son are one in respect of nature, honor, and virtue: and the same nature cannot will different things.

“And other sheep there are also,” saith the Lord, “which are not of this fold”, deemed worthy of another fold and mansion, in proportion to their faith. “But My sheep hear My voice,” understanding gnostically the commandments. And this is to be taken in a magnanimous and worthy acceptation, along with also the recompense and accompaniment of works. So that when we hear, “Thy faith hath saved thee,” we do not understand Him to say absolutely that those who have believed in any way whatever shall be saved, unless also works follow. But it was to the Jews alone that He spoke this utterance, who kept the law and lived blamelessly, who wanted only faith in the Lord. No one, then, can be a believer and at the same time be licentious; but though he quit the flesh, he must put off the passions, so as to be capable of reaching his own mansion.

Again, whose doctrine does He announce, at which all were astonished? Was it His own or the Father’s? So, when they were in doubt among themselves whether He were the Christ (not as being the Father, of course but as the Son), He says to them “You are not ignorant whence I am; and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know not; but I know Him, because I am from Him.” He did not say, Because I myself am He; and, I have sent mine own self: but His words are, “He hath sent me.” When, likewise, the Pharisees sent men to apprehend Him, He says: “Yet a little while am I with you, and (then) I go unto Him that sent me.” When, however, He declares that He is not alone, and uses these words, “but I and the Father that sent me,” does He not show that there are Two, Two, and yet inseparable? Indeed, this was the sum and substance of what He was teaching them, that they were …

If Christ is only man, how is it that He says, “Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: because I know whence I came, and whither I go; ye know not whence I came, and whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh?” Behold, also He says, that He shall return thither whence He bears witness that He came before, as being sent, to wit, from heaven. He came down therefore from whence He came, in the same manner as He goes thither from whence He descended. Whence if Christ were only man, He would not have come thence, and therefore would not depart thither, because He would not have come thence. Moreover, by coming thence, whence as man He could not have come, He shows Himself to have come as God. …

25. Manes said: Not all receive the word of God, but only those to whom it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. And even now I know who are ours; for “my sheep,” He says, “hear my voice.” For the sake of those who belong to us, and to whom is given the understanding of the truth, I shall speak in similitudes. The wicked one is like a lion that sought to steal upon the flock of the good shepherd; and when the shepherd saw this, he dug a huge pit, and took one kid out of the flock and cast it into the pit. Then the lion, hungering to get at it, and bursting with passion to devour it, ran up to the pit and fell in, and discovered no strength sufficient to bring him out again. And thereupon the shepherd seized him and shut him up carefully in a den, and at the same time secured the safety of the kid which had been with him in the pit. …

164. Augustin answered: I should be glad to utter the same sentiment against you, but not in the words which you have used: they are too inappropriate, or rather mad. But what was required was, that you should show that we were wolves and that you were sheep, not by the emptiest of evil-speaking, but by some distinct proofs. For when I too have said, We are sheep, and you are wolves, do you think that there is any difference caused by the fact that you express the idea in swelling words? But listen whilst I prove what I assert. …

This reasoning will carry more weight, after I have collected the mass of Scripture testimonies which I have undertaken to adduce. We have already quoted: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” To the same purport [the Lord] says, on entering the home of Zaccheus: “To-day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” The same truth is declared in the parable of the lost sheep and the ninety and nine which were left until the missing one was sought and found; as it is also in the parable of the lost one among the ten silver coins. …

6. And what cometh to pass when they are all turned back and blush, whether it be they that seek my soul, or they that think evil things to me, or they that with perverse and feigned benevolence with tongue would soften the stroke which they inflict, when they shall have been themselves turned away and confounded; there shall come to pass what? “Let them exult and be joyous in Thee:” not in me, not in this man or in that man; but in whom they have been made light that were darkness. “Let them exult and be joyous in Thee, all that seek Thee” ( ver. 4 ). One thing it is to seek God, another thing to seek man. “Let them be joyous that seek Thee.” They shall not be joyous then that seek themselves, whom Thou hast first sought before they sought Thee. …

Ver. 27-30 . “For My sheep hear My voice, and follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life ; neither can any man pluck them out of My hand. The Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand. I and the Father are One.” Observe how in renouncing He exciteth them to follow Him. “Ye hear Me not,” He saith, “for neither are ye sheep, but they who follow, these are of the flock.” This He said, that they might strive to become sheep. Then by mentioning what they should obtain, He maketh these men jealous, so as to rouse them, and cause them to desire such things.

56. Let us then examine the points one by one. He is good by nature, in the same way as the Father is good, and the Son is good; the creature on the other hand shares in goodness by choosing the good. He knows “The deep things of God;” the creature receives the manifestation of ineffable things through the Spirit. He quickens together with God, who produces and preserves all things alive, and together with the Son, who gives life. “He that raised up Christ from the dead,” it is said, “shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the spirit that dwelleth in you;” and again “my sheep hear my voice,…and I give unto them eternal life;” but “the Spirit” also, it is said, “giveth life,” and again “the Spirit,” it is said, “is life, because of righteousness.” And the Lord bears witness that “it is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.” How then shall we alienate the Spirit from H …

The Epistle of thy Humility testifies to the holiness of thy life; whence we give great thanks to Almighty God, for that we know that there are still some to pray for our sins. For we, under the colour of ecclesiastical government, are tossed in the billows of this world, which frequently overwhelm us. But by the protecting hand of heavenly grace we are raised up again from the deep. Do you, then, who lead a tranquil life in the so great serenity of your rest, and stand as it were safe on the shore, extend the hand of your prayer to us who are on our voyage, or rather who are suffering shipwreck, and with all the supplications in your power help us as we strive to reach the land of the living, so that not only for your own life, but also for our rescue, you may have reward for ever. …