The Care of the Shepherd

Do not let us boast and vaunt of benefits through repentance and bloodless prayer, knowing that even Aaron, the most tested priest, was drawn toward gods by the people and was caught in the murmuring along with his sister Mary; if the one who murmured had not pleaded, he would not have escaped the punishment.

Another, who is not a priest but one of many, should fear laying on a heavy yoke. For if he who is set to cleansing the people sometimes needs cleansings himself, what will happen to the one who does not even possess the power of ordination?

Let us imitate the pastoral way of the Lord; let us bow to the Gospels and, just as an image is learned in a mirror, let us learn the idea of both care and kindness. For I see there, in parables and in the shaded words, a shepherd of a hundred sheep; who, when one of the flock was torn away and went wandering, did not remain with those in order and those thought to be unerring, but having rushed to the search, pursued many bellies and ravines, and was lifted high by great and lofty obstacles and endured the wildernesses patiently, until he discovered the wanderer.

Having found him, he did not strike him, nor did he drive him back fiercely rushing toward the flock, but having laid hold of the neck and bringing him with mercy to the companions, he restored him, rejoicing more over that one than over the multitude of the others.

Let us then understand the matter that is hidden in riddles. For the sheep is not truly a sheep and the shepherd is altogether something else—not indeed a herder of mute animals—but these things are educational examples for the priests, so that regarding men we neither despair too easily nor become discouraged when they are in danger. Let us seek the one in distress and lead him back into order, and let us rejoice with those returning and mingle with the fullness of those living rightly.

It was fitting for the priest to practice philanthropy instead of excision, so that even if the Lord commands to cut off someone as a useless plant, he must ask as a gardener for mercy and for exceeding hope. For the word presents to us the mind of the unfruitful fig tree, where the farmer, wanting to prune it because of the unfruitfulness, pleads and asks for a regrowth and for exceeding good hopes for it.

The one who cares through his own diligence. Do not strike hastily, since you ought to prevent the one to whom the cutting was entrusted by the Lord, nor judge the uselessness quickly, but work out the diligence. Dig with reproaches, warm with exhortations like dung, water with the flowing of lessons, surround with the protective fences of commands like a trench. Let it be yours to abstain, the judge's to decide.

Let us strive to be called that, which the Lord also is called: for the Father is named Paraclete, appeasing on behalf of the human race; likewise the Spirit of Truth took the name of the zeal for us. For there also he is called Paraclete; and indeed an embassy and an intercession on behalf of the sinners is always striven for, not of the blameless and the unaccused.

Zeal, O priest, for the care of Moses; imitate his concern for those beginning their disposition, who, calling upon God, so that He might not be ill-disposed toward the people having sinned, since he knew a little that grace had passed by, this indeed he entreated: that the people might go forth, so that he might not see the destruction of the one being driven mad.

And nothing is like remembering the word of it: 'I pray, the people have sinned a great sin and have made for themselves golden gods. And now, if you forgive them their sin, let them be; but if not, blot me out from the book which you have written' (Exodus 32:32). Do you see how he sets forth the salvation of the multitude through his own care and seeks to be blotted out, if he does not succeed in obtaining forgiveness for the common people? But those now, being embittered toward the sinners approaching, drive them away, and those falling down, running toward, seeking to be healed, exceeding the limit, do not incline their faces while weeping.

Why then did Luke, and rather the Holy Spirit, write to me about the lost son (Luke 15), who first brought down the one just born, then, having been wasted away by pleasures and drunkenness and becoming a lover of money, emptied all the father's wealth? And since later, having been sufficiently wretched by labors, as if to become a fellow-dweller with hired hands and to share the same food with the pigs, he returned to the father's hearth having become sober, the father did not turn away nor did he shut the doors against him.