Fathers

John 10

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“Most certainly, I tell you, one who doesn’t enter by the door into the sheep fold, but climbs up some other way, is a thief and a robber. But one who enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. Whenever he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. They will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him; for they don’t know the voice of strangers.” Jesus spoke this parable to them, but they didn’t understand what he was telling them. Jesus therefore said to them again, “Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep’s door. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture. The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep, and scatters them. The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand, and doesn’t care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own; even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd. Therefore the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down by myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. I received this commandment from my Father.” Therefore a division arose again among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, “He has a demon, and is insane! Why do you listen to him?” Others said, “These are not the sayings of one possessed by a demon. It isn’t possible for a demon to open the eyes of the blind, is it?” It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon’s porch. The Jews therefore came around him and said to him, “How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you don’t believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, these testify about me. But you don’t believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” Therefore Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?” The Jews answered him, “We don’t stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy: because you, being a man, make yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods?’ If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can’t be broken), do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’ If I don’t do the works of my Father, don’t believe me. But if I do them, though you don’t believe me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” They sought again to seize him, and he went out of their hand. He went away again beyond the Jordan into the place where John was baptizing at first, and he stayed there. Many came to him. They said, “John indeed did no sign, but everything that John said about this man is true.” Many believed in him there.

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What the Fathers say

John 10:30

Eastern Fathers

Cyril of Alexandria

For Christ, having admitted what pertained to His humanity, recurs to His God-befitting dignity, taking pleasure in the advantages of His Nature for the profit of the faithful and for the sake of sound faith, which is, never at all to suspect that the Son is inferior to the Father. For thus He is shown to be the undamaged Image of the Father, preserving in Himself whole and sound the Very Impress of the Father. …

Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 7 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

For My hand and the Father's hand are one; I and the Father are one, that is, in authority and power. By "hand" He means authority and power. So then, I and the Father are one in Nature and in Essence, and in authority. The Jews also understood it this way, that by these words He declares Himself Consubstantial with God, and because He makes Himself the Son of God, they picked up stones to stone Him.

Commentary on John ↗

Alexander of Alexandria

But of those words which signify His natural glory and nobility, and abiding with the Father, they have become unmindful. Such as this: "I and My Father are one," which indeed the Lord says, not as proclaiming Himself to be the Father, nor to demonstrate that two persons are one; but that the Son of the Father most exactly preserves the expressed likeness of the Father, inasmuch as He has by nature impressed upon Him His similitude in every respect, and is the image of the Father in no way discrepant, and the expressed figure of the …

Epistles on the Arian Heresy, I.9 ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

...that the Father is not anything in respect to His own substance; and that not only that He is the Father, but that He is, is said relatively to the Son. How then can the Son be of the same essence as the Father, seeing that the Father, in respect to Himself, is neither His own essence, nor is at all in respect to Himself, but even His essence is in relation to the Son? …

On The Trinity 7.1.2 ↗

Gregory the Dialogist

The Lord himself also says: "I and the Father are one." And again he says: "The Father is greater than I." Of whom it is also written that he was subject to his parents. What wonder then if from his humanity he asserts himself less than the Father in heaven, from which he was also subject to his parents on earth?

Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 25 ↗

Hilary of Poitiers

The heretics, since they cannot gainsay these words, endeavour by an impious lie to explain them away. They maintain that this unity is unanimity only; a unity of will, not of nature; i. e. that the two are one, not in that they are the same, but in that they will the same. But they are one, not by any economy merely, but by the nativity of the Son's nature, since there is no falling off of the Father's divinity in begetting Him. …

Catena Aurea by Aquinas ↗