John 10:11Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The Master especially reveals Himself in this: He provides for His subjects, tends them, and cares for them.

Therefore Christ did not say, "The good shepherd" receives honor and service, but, "lays down his life for the sheep."

Authority consists in this, and pastoral wisdom consists in this: to despise one's own advantage and care for the good of those subject to one.

A ruler is the same as a physician, or even greater than a physician.

A physician brings healing by his skill, but a ruler does so also by his own dangers.

So Christ acted, enduring blows, crucifixion, and countless sufferings.

Therefore Paul also said, "For Christ did not please Himself, but as it is written: The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me" (Rom 15:3).

Thus He rebukes the leaders of the Jews as unrighteous, as wholly careless of the Mosaic commandments, and as ignorant of the purpose of His coming.

In this way the prophet Isaiah is at last shown to have spoken the truth about them: "Woe," he says, "to those who call evil good and good evil.

Woe to those who call sweet bitter and bitter sweet, who count light as darkness and darkness as light" (Is 5:20).

Indeed, are not those doing this very thing who turn the true Light, our Lord Jesus Christ, into darkness?

They do so by not hesitating to number our good Shepherd among falsely named shepherds, and by even daring, perhaps, to set Him below them in honor.

The supposed rulers of that time showed great honor to those who falsely appropriated to themselves the divine word.

Under the name of prophecy, such a man tried to lay waste the mind of those he shepherded. He turned them from the way to truth and directed them to his own will, not God's.

So Shemaiah the Nehelamite, opposing his own false teaching to the words of God, insolently contested the glory of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was in chains, while Shemaiah was honored by Zedekiah as a reward for his lie (Jer 29:32).

But now the wretched Pharisees go much further than they in impiety.

With shameless audacity they attribute to Christ even what did not exist in the false teachers.

For what do they say of Him before those who gladly listened to His word? "He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to Him?" (Jn 10:20).

Therefore He Himself speaks of them through the prophet Hosea: "Woe to them, for they have departed from Me.

They are miserable, because they have acted impiously against Me. Yet I redeemed them, and they spoke lies against Me" (Hos 7:13).

And again: "Their rulers shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue" (Hos 7:16).

Are they not worthy of every punishment, those who use their tongue so rashly and so insolently?

They dare to assert against Christ what certainly belongs not to us, but only to them and those like them, both to admit to hearing and to speak without sense.

"The good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep." See the commentary on Jn 10:12.

He spoke to them, to us, and to all who after us will become His sheep. He revealed who was sent to them. Therefore all hear the voice of their Shepherd, who says: "I am the good shepherd" (Jn 10:11).

He would not have added "good" if there were not evil shepherds. But evil shepherds are those who are thieves and robbers, or, at best, hirelings. Yes, we must seek out, recognize, and understand all the figures He used here.

The Lord has already opened two questions that He had set forth in a certain mystical way. We already know that He is the door. We know that He is the shepherd. Who the thieves and robbers are became clear in yesterday's reading.

Today we have heard about the hireling, and we have also heard about the wolf. Besides this, yesterday the doorkeeper was mentioned. Thus among the good figures are the door, the doorkeeper, the shepherd, and the sheep. Among the bad are thieves, robbers, hirelings, and the wolf.

We understand the Lord Christ as both the door and the shepherd. But who is the doorkeeper? He explained the first two figures Himself, but left the doorkeeper for us to seek. And what does He say about the doorkeeper?

"To him," He says, "the doorkeeper opens" (Jn 10:3). To whom does he open? To the shepherd. What does he open to the shepherd? The door. And who is the door? The shepherd Himself.

If the Lord Christ had not opened this and said Himself, "I am the shepherd" and "I am the door," would any of us have dared to say that Christ Himself is both shepherd and door? If He had said, "I am the shepherd," and had not said, "I am the door," we would have tried to discover what the door was.

Perhaps we would have erred while standing before the door. His grace and mercy opened the Shepherd to us: He called Himself this. They also opened the Door to us: He called Himself this. But He left the doorkeeper for us to seek.

Whom, then, can we call the doorkeeper? Whoever we find, we must be careful not to think him greater than the door itself. In human houses the doorkeeper is more important than the door. The doorkeeper is set before the door, not the door before the doorkeeper.

The doorkeeper guards the door, not the door the doorkeeper. But I would not dare say that anyone is greater than the door, for I have heard what this Door is. This is no longer hidden from me.

I am not left to my own conjecture, and there is no place in me for human prejudice. God has said it. Truth has said it, and what the Immutable has said cannot be changed.

Because of the depth of this question, I will say how it appears to me. Let each choose what he prefers, but let him think reverently, as it is written: "Think of the Lord in goodness, and seek Him in simplicity of heart" (cf. Wis 1:1).

Perhaps we ought to see the Lord Himself in the doorkeeper. In human affairs, shepherd and door differ from each other far more than doorkeeper and door. Yet the Lord called Himself both shepherd and door.

Why, then, can we not understand Him also as doorkeeper? If we consider the properties of the particular figures, the Lord Jesus is not a shepherd in the way we usually understand and see shepherds. Nor is He a door, since no carpenter fashioned Him.

Only according to a certain likeness is He both shepherd and door. I will dare to say that He is also a sheep. Certainly a sheep is subject to the shepherd. Yet He is both shepherd and sheep.

Where is He the shepherd? Here, read the Gospel: "I am the good shepherd" (Jn 10:11). And where is He the sheep? Listen to the prophet: "As a sheep He was led to the slaughter" (Is 53:7).

Ask the friend of the Bridegroom: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (Jn 1:29). I will say something still more wondrous according to this likeness. The lamb, the sheep, and the shepherd are mutually harmonious.

Sheep are usually guarded by shepherds from lions. Yet we read this written of Christ, though He is Sheep and Shepherd: "The lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered" (Rev 5:5).

Receive all these things, brethren, according to likeness, not according to their properties. We usually see a shepherd sitting on a rock and guarding from there the flock entrusted to him. Certainly the shepherd is worth more than the rock on which he sits.

Yet Christ is both Shepherd and Rock. All this is according to likeness. But if you ask me about His essence, then "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1).

If you ask me about His essence, He is the Only-begotten with the Father unto eternity and from eternity. He is equal to Him who begot Him, through whom all things were made, immutable with the Father. He was not changed, but assumed the form of man.

According to the Incarnation, He is man, Son of Man, and Son of God. All this which I have said is not likeness, but essence.

Therefore, brethren, let us not think it shameful to receive Him, according to a certain likeness, as both door and doorkeeper. What is a door? That through which we enter. What is a doorkeeper? The one who opens it.

Who opens Himself, if not the one who shows Himself? The Lord spoke about the door, and we did not understand. While we did not understand, He remained closed. The One who opened this is the doorkeeper.

Therefore there is no need to seek some other meaning. There is no need, if only there is willingness. If there is willingness, do not turn aside. Do not withdraw from the Trinity.

If you seek another person as doorkeeper, let the Holy Spirit prevent this. The Holy Spirit will not disdain to be doorkeeper, when the Son deemed Himself worthy to be the door. Consider whether the doorkeeper may be the Holy Spirit.

The Lord Himself says to the disciples concerning the Holy Spirit: "He will guide you into all the truth" (Jn 16:13). What is the door? Christ. What is Christ? The Truth. Who, then, opens the door, if not He who guides into all truth?

Then the high priests and Pharisees were meant, and that whole Jewish division.

He called them hireling shepherds because they had assumed the authority of shepherding not for the sake of truth, but for their own gain.

Out of vain hypocrisy they pray so as to devour the bread of widows and orphans (Mt 23:14).

They are hirelings who serve necessity slavishly, chase after the present, and do not keep the future in view. They are hirelings, not shepherds.

Our first duty is mercifully to spend our outward goods on His sheep. The last, if necessary, is even to die for those same sheep.

From this first and lesser duty, one passes to the last and greater.

But since the soul by which we live is incomparably higher than the earthly substance which forms our outward possession, who will not give his substance for the sheep?

For he has the duty to lay down even his soul for them.

Finally, He laid down His life for all in the struggle against sin, death, and the devil, in order to conquer them.

In this self-denial unto death on the Cross, He fully revealed Himself as the good Shepherd, the Messiah (cf. Chrysostom and Theophylact).

In the case of personal danger, he leaves the flock as a sacrifice to the predatory beast.

Would that shepherds, who are obliged to imitate the model of shepherds, would reckon their own advantage as little as possible in carrying out their office.

Would that they would firmly and fearlessly drive wolves and other predatory beasts away from the flock.

Would that they would speak loudly against tempters, who destroy hundreds of souls by their example and thoughts.

A sorrowful picture: hirelings in the place of shepherds. But earthly life is wholly sorrowful.

Blessed Jerome wrote: "Hirelings also are needed. Many, though they seek their own advantage in the Church, preach the one Christ.

From them the voice of Christ is heard, and the sheep follow not the hireling, but the voice sounding through the hireling.

Hear how the Lord sends them to the hirelings. He says, The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat.

Do what they say, but do not do what they do. This means: obey the voice of the Lord sounding through the hirelings.

They seek their own advantage, and not the benefit of Christ. Yet no hireling will dare say to the Christian people: Seek your own advantage, and not the glory of Christ.

He acts badly, but he does not preach evil from the chair of Christ."