Then said Jesus unto them again,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
Read Chapter 10
Alcuin of York
AD 804
As if to say, The sheep hear not them, but Me they hear; for I am the Door, and whoever enters by Me not falsely but in sincerity, shall by perseverance be saved.
The thief comes not but for to steal, and to kill. As if He said, And well may the sheep not hear the voice of the thief; for he comes not but for to steal: he usurps another’s office, forming his followers not on Christ’s precepts, but on his own. And therefore it follows, and to kill, i.e. by drawing them from the faith; and to destroy, i.e. by their eternal damnation.
Lo, the very door which He had shut up, He opens; He is the Door: let us enter, and let us enter with joy.
Understand, All that ever came at variance with Me. The Prophets were not at variance with Him. They came with Him, who came with the Word of God, who spoke the truth. He, the Word, the Truth, sent heralds before Him, but the hearts of those whom He sent were His own. They came with Him, inasmuch as He is always, though He assumed the flesh in time: In the beginning was the Word. His humble advent in the flesh was preceded by just men, who believed on Him as about to come, as we believe on Him come. The times are different, the faith is the same. Our faith knits together both those who believed that He was about to come, and those who believe that He has come. All that ever came at variance with Him were thieves and robbers; i.e. they came to steal and to kill; but the sheep did not hear them. They had not Christ’s voice; but were wanderers, dreamers, deceivers. Why He is the Door...
Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. Maldonatus thinks that Christ here speaks of two doors, the door of the house, i.e, Holy Scriptures, and the door of the sheepfold, which is Christ. He believes that the word door is used in two senses, one by which the shepherds themselves, and the other by which the sheep enter. But this distinction is more subtil than solid. For Christ speaks in both cases of one and the same door, that is of the sheepfold. What He said obscurely and parabolically (ver1) He explained in the parable. "He opened," says S. Augustine, "that which was closed. He is the door. Let us enter that we may rejoice in having so done." This distinction evades indeed one difficulty, i.e, how Christ enters as a shepherd through the door; that Isaiah , how He enters the door of the Church by Scripture witnessing to Him. But it does not escape the other difficulty—how the same person is both the shepherd and the door. We must...
He most thoroughly knew, being by nature God, and beholding that which lies in the depth, that the Pharisees understood none of His sayings, although accustomed to pride themselves greatly on their learning in the Law, and excessively supercilious in thinking themselves wise. Therefore He gives them a very clear explanation, and winding up as it were the long thread of the argument, He tells them in few words the main scope of the parable. For being naturally good, He leads on towards a clear comprehension those even who do not deserve it, that perhaps by some method the light may reach them. And He distinctly says that Himself is the Door of the sheep, teaching something which is generally acknowledged; for only through faith in Him are we admitted into relationship with God, and He Himself is a witness to this, saying: No one cometh unto the Father, but by Me. Either therefore He wishes to signify something of this sort, or, as is more suitable to the questions we are considering He ...
For as he brought down from above the paternal marks, so again he carries up from thence those marks roused from a dormant condition and rendered paternal characteristics, substantial ones from the unsubstantial Being, transferring them hither from thence. This, he says, is what is spoken: "I am the door."
Our Lord, to waken the attention of the Jews, unfolds the meaning of what He has said; Then said Jesus to them again, Verily, verily, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
He said not this of the Prophets, as the heretics think, but of Theudas, and Judas, and other agitators. So he adds in praise of the sheep, The sheep heard them not; but he no where praises those who disobeyed the prophets, but condemns them severely.
Or, He refers to the Apostles who went in and out boldly; for they became the masters of the world, none could turn them out of their kingdom, and they found pasture.
The thief comes not but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; this was literally fulfilled in the case of those movers of sedition, whose followers were nearly all destroyed; deprived by the thief even of this present life. But came, He said, for the salvation of the sheep; That they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly, in the kingdom of heaven. This is the third mark of diffe...
The door admits the sheep into the pasture; And shall go in and out, and find pasture. What is this pasture, but the happiness to come, the rest to which our Lord brings us? .
Or, to go in is to watch over the inner man; to go out, to mortify the outward man, i.e. our members which are upon the earth. He that does this shall find pasture in the life to come.
Mystically, the thief is the devil, steals by wicked thoughts, kills by the assent of the mind to them, and destroys by acts.
