The Shepherd and the Sheep

Wounds between your two hands? Regarding that which he says: 'She was struck in the house of my beloved,' even those who begot me are not enduring it as a prophet, as if bringing wounds against me.

It is possible to call the house of the beloved the house of the false prophet, knowing the multitude loved by him who divines, in order to subject him to afflictions. And these things are to be applied to those who hold different opinions in Christianity.

The false repentance of one wearing sackcloth is brought in the context of Isaiah against those fasting and praying, becoming a rebuke against the hypocrites: 'For if you bow your neck like a yoke and bend your neck and put on sackcloth and ashes, you will not even call it a pleasing fast' (Isa 58:5). I do not say this as if no one benefits from the painful discipline and harsh diet, which then becomes beneficial when it is accomplished along with repentance.

The Ninevites, indeed, having repented with much wickedness according to the preaching of the prophet Jonah (Jonah 3), have escaped after the threat of a great destruction of their city. The hymn-writer also agrees, where he says: 'In that they were bothering me,' making the enemies both visible and invisible apparent, 'I put on sackcloth and they were humbling my soul in fasting' (Ps 69:13), and in another Psalm: 'I made my clothing sackcloth, and I became a parable to them' (Ps 69:34).

From this state thus occurring, of gloominess for the sake of acquiring good things, he who attains them, having changed into joy, says: 'You have turned my mourning into joy, you have torn my sackcloth and girded me with gladness' (Ps 30:11).

Zechariah XII, 7: 'A sword, has arisen against my shepherd and against the man, the citizen of him, says the Lord of hosts: Strike the shepherd and let the sheep be scattered, and I will strike my hand upon the shepherds.'

From this prophecy, the evangelist Matthew took up what was said in the Gospel according to him, when, Jesus having been seized, the disciples having been scandalized and having fled, he said: 'So that what was said through the prophet might be fulfilled: I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered' (Matt 26:31), saying strike and wound the death of the shepherd of the true flock, who is above reason, 'having laid down his soul.'

"himself for the sheep," "given as a ransom for many." Regarding the assault that occurred in this way, where the hands of the excellent lawgiver were struck and his feet were dug up, it is his own to hear the Father saying: "Whom you struck, they themselves persecuted, and upon the pain of my wounds they themselves added" (Psalm 21:6). For the murderers, having struck the one whom God delivered over to them, added to the pain of his wounds, increasing the assault while pursuing him.

The holy thing attempted by the wicked—the one who, setting himself forward for the sheep, stood as a protector, having the Hebrew people as his citizen—the drawn sword was raised against his own shepherd and his citizen. Thus, the drawn sword killed indeed the citizen, but did not harm the shepherd of the flock, having accepted death for the sake of the sparing of the flock.

For how could he, the one affirming to God, "Save my soul from the sword" (Psalm 34:13), not remain free from all harm? This voice is carried in the twenty-first Psalm, spoken from the person of the whole Savior being brought forth. Having had the soul saved from the sword after sending up the prayer, his citizen fell by the sword of execution, according to that which was said in Amos the prophet: "Let all sinners of the people perish by the sword" (Amos 9:4). The same punishment is alluded to by the prophet in Wisdom by God: "You, Ethiopians, are wounded by my sword" (Wisdom 9:13).

Those being struck by the sword of God are called Ethiopians, those who shared in the wickedness and sin of the devil, being named so from his blackness. For in the Shepherd and in the Epistle of Barnabas, Satan is approached as black, having fallen from brightness and virtue and the intellectual whiteness which only the one being whitened by God can have.

Having the shepherd struck in the said manner and because of this the sheep being scattered, he stretches out his hand toward the shepherds, the high priest and the elders and the Jewish law-teachers who agreed against the good shepherd having been set forth for the sheep, so that they might have his soul's salvation. And the scattering of the sheep has increased, and the hand of God being stretched out upon them and the flock under them...