The Wickedness of Unfaithful Shepherds

One must avoid this way of thinking, as the seventy-first Psalm regarding men and evil powers says: 'Their wrath is like the likeness of a serpent, like a deaf and plunging shield whose ears will not hear the voice of a singer or a pharmacist being medicated by a wise man. God crushed their teeth in their mouth; the molars of lions the Lord has broken' (Ps 68:15). For we do not think it pleasant to suppose only the molars of the sensory lions are being crushed by God, while all their bodies remain without harm.

Thus says the Lord of Hosts: 'Shepherd the sheep of the slaughter, which those who owned them were slaughtering and did not care, and those selling them said: Blessed is the Lord and we have become rich, and their shepherds suffered nothing upon them' (Zech 11:4-5).

Regarding those appointed to instruct and shepherd the rational flock, some preside according to the will of God, while others preside impiously and erringly. Concerning both of the ranks of shepherds, it is possible to gather testimonies from the Scripture.

Concerning those who excellently perform the oversight they were handed, it is said by God: 'I will give to them'—clearly to the flocks—'shepherds according to my heart, and they shall shepherd them, shepherding with knowledge' (Jer 3:15). Concerning those who thus shepherd the flock with knowledge, the Christ-bearing Apostle remembers those placed in the Church with the apostles and prophets, as teachers and evangelists. And perhaps apostles and prophets, teachers and evangelists, are those who gnostically and prudently instruct the assembly of Christ, shepherding those possessing a practical life and presiding over good works, not unskillfully returning the faith and the understandings of Christians, while those who oppose the skilled shepherds through faultiness are named impious; the God...

For he says regarding them and that other wickedness is at work: 'The priests did not say: Where is the Lord?' And those holding to my law did not believe me, and the shepherds were impious toward me,' and the following.

4.52 Those impious in this way and fornicators turn out to be, perhaps also licentious, but certainly also mixing with diverse and foreign doctrines, they subject people to demons and to 'the wisdoms of the rulers of this age' (Eph 2:2). Immediately, for instance, 'those not having tested God to have in knowledge, having been handed over to a reprobate mind (Rom 1:28), do what is not fitting, licentiously reproaching one another, men performing indecency with men, but also their females having abandoned the natural use of womanhood contrary to nature and suffering, but also women licentiously approaching women.'

4.53 Regarding the impious shepherds' sensual licentiousness toward God, and lusting with evil powers, according to that which is said in the Psalms toward the provider of piety: 'Behold, those distancing themselves from you shall perish, you having destroyed all the fornicating one from you. But for me to cling to God is good' (Ps 73:2).

4.54 Concerning the impious law-keepers, in Jeremiah it is brought as being announced toward the fornicating soul: 'And you had many shepherds as a hindrance to yourself' (Jer 2:36), and also: 'You have fornicated with many shepherds; and you returned pretending toward me, says the Lord' (Jer 2:8).

4.55 Having separated the good law-keepers from the handlers, a command is given to those who are skilled, having this character: 'Shepherd the sheep of the slaughter,' either those already slaughtered or those worthy of this suffering or those unjustly being plotted against. The latter is shown in the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm, of those being plotted against unto death, saying toward the benefactor God: 'Because of you we are being killed all the day, we were counted as sheep of the slaughter' (Ps 119:71), and also: 'You gave us as sheep for food' (Ps 119:75).