ACC ~ John 10 v5
CAN YOU DISCERN THE VOICE OF THE SHEPHERD?
GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: He offers you a shepherd. For this is what your good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep is hoping and praying forâŚ. Do you on your side offer to God and to us obedience to your pastors? Will you dwell in a place of pasture and be fed by refreshing waters, [1] knowing your Shepherd well and being known by him? [2] Will you follow when he earnestly calls you as a Shepherd through the door? Or will you follow a stranger climbing up into the fold like a robber and a traitor? Will you listen to a strange voice when that voice would take you away by stealth and scatter you from the truth on mountains, [3] and in deserts, and pitfalls, and places that the Lord does not visit? And would you be led away from the sound faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the one power and Godhead whose voice my sheep always heardâand may they always hear itâto follow deceitful and corrupt words that would tear them from their true Shepherd? May we all be kept from this, both shepherd and flock. May we guide and be guided away from such a poisoned and deadly pasture so that we may all be one in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and unto our heavenly rest. ON EASTER AND HIS RELUCTANCE, ORATION 1.6-7. [4]
[1] Ps 23:2 (22:2 LXX).
[2] Jn 10:14.
[3] Ezek 34:6.
[4] NPNF 2 7:204**.
WHAT ABOUT THE STRAYS?
AUGUSTINE: What are we to think? Were all those who heard Christâs voice sheep? Judas heard, and he was a wolf but wore sheepskin as he followed, laying snares for the Shepherd. And sometimes some of the sheep do not hear him, as for instance those who crucified ChristâŚ. Now you might say, When they did not hear, they were not yet sheep so they must have been wolves at the time; the voice, when they heard it, however, changed them from wolves into sheepâŚ.
Still I am disturbed by the Lordâs rebuke to the shepherds in Ezekiel, âNeither have you brought again that which strayed.â [1] He calls it a stray sheep, and yet it never stops being a sheep, although if it strayed, it could not have heard the voice of the Shepherd but the voice of a strangerâthe voice of the thief and robberâŚ.
What I say then is this: The Lord knows those that are his. [2] He knows the foreknown, he knows the predestined. [3] ⌠They are the sheep. For a time they do not even know what they are themselves, but the Shepherd knows them. [4] ⌠According to this divine knowledge and predestination, how many sheep are outside, how many wolves within! And how many sheep are inside, how many wolves without!⌠But these [wolves] are not the sheep, for we speak of those who were predestinedâof those whom the Lord knows are his. And yet, even these wolves, as long as they rightly obey, are still listening to the voice of Christ. In fact they are the ones who hear, the others do not. And yet, according to predestination, they are not sheep while the others are.
This is how we solve the difficulty. The sheep do hear the Shepherdâs voice, and they only. When is that? It is when that voice said, âHe that endures to the end shall be saved.â [5] No one who is his is indifferent to such a voice; a stranger does not hear itâŚ. But maybe there was someone who treated this voice with disdain and heard it as that of a stranger. If he was predestined, he strayed for the time, but he was not lost forever. He returns to hear what he has neglected, to do what he has heard. For if he is one of those who are predestined, then both his very wandering and his future conversion have been foreknown by God. If he has strayed, he will return to hear that voice of the Shepherd and follow him. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 45.10-13. [6]
[1] Ezek 34:4.
[2] See 2 Tim 2:19.
[3] Augustine then quotes Rom 8:29-33.
[4] Eph 1:4.
[5] Mt 10:22.
[6] NPNF 1 7:253-54**.
Jn