7. Hear also what follows. " Therefore doth my Father love me," He saith, "because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. " What is this that He says? " Therefore doth my Father love me:" because I die, that I may rise again. s For the " I '' is uttered with special emphasis: "Because / lay down," He saith, "/lay down my life,'* " 7 lay down." What is that " I lay down "? I LAY it down. Let the Jews no longer boast: they might rage, but they could have no power: let them rage as they can; if I were unwilling to lay down my life, what would all their raging effect } By one answer of His they were prostrated in the dust: when they were asked, "Whom seek ye?" they said, "Jesus;" and on His saying to them, "I am He, they went backward, and fell to the ground."^ Those who thus fell to the ground at one word of Christ when about to die, what will they do at the sound of His voice when coming to judgment? "I, I," I say, " lay down my life, that I may take it again."
Let not the Jews boast, as if they had prevailed; He Himself laid down His life. "I laid me down [to sleep]," He says [elsewhere]. You know the psalm: "I laid me down and slept; and I awaked [rose up], for the Lord sustaineth me." What of that — "I lay down "? Because it was my pleasure, I did so. What does " I lay down " mean? I died. Was it not a lying down to sleep on His part, who, when He pleased, rose from the tomb as He would from a bed? But He loves to give glory to the Father, that He may stir us up to glorify our Creator. For in adding, " I arose, for the Lord sustaineth me;" think you there was here a kind of failing in His power, so that, while He had it in His own power to die. He had it not in His power to rise again? So, indeed, the words seem to imply when not more closely considered. " I lay down to sleep; " that is, I did so, because I pleased. '/And I arose:" why? "Because the Lord sustaineth [will sustain] me."'' What then? wouldst Thou not have power to rise of Thyself? If Thou hadst not the power. Thou wouldst not have said, "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again.'' But, as showing that not only did the Father raise the Son, but the Son also raised Himself, 5 Migne says that " there is, perhaps, in this passage somethingeither superfluous or lacking." But there does not seem any real cause for such a supposition. —Tr.
6 Chap, xviii. 4-6.
7 Ps. iii. 5. It need scarcely be said that this psalm cannot bear the Messianic interpretation attached to it by Augu.stin, any more than Prov.. x.xiii. i, 2, similarly applied in Sec. 2 of this lecture; and frequently elsewhere. But the accommodation at the will of the writer of all Old Testament Scripture equally to such a purpose was characteristic of the age.— Tr.
Tractate XLVII.]
hear how, in another passage in the Gospel, He saith, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And the evangelist adds: "But this He spake of the temple of is body."' For only that which died was restored to life. The Word is not mortal, His soul is not mortal. If even thine dieth not, could the Lord's be subject to death?
8. How can I know, thou wilt say, tliat mine dieth not? Slay it not thyself, and it cannot die. How, thou asketh, can I slay my soul? To say nothing meanwhile of other sins, " The mouth that lieth, slayeth the soul." = How, thou sayest, can I be sure that it dieth not? Listen to the Lord Himself giving security to His servant: " Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do." But what in the plainest terms does He say? " Fear Him who hath power to slay both soul and body in hell."^ Here you have the fact that it dieth, and that it doth not die. What is its dying? What is dying to thy flesh? Dying, to thy flesh, is the losing of its life: dying to thy soul, is the losing of its life. The life of thy flesh is thy soul: the life of thy soul is thy God. As the flesh dies in losing the soul, which is its life, so the soul dieth in losing God, who is its life. Of a certainty, then, the soul is immortal. Manifestly^ immortal, for it liveth even when dead. For what the apostle said of the luxurious widow, may also be said of the soul if it has lost its God, " she is dead while she liveth." * 9. How, then, does the Lord lay down His life [soul]? 5 Let us, brethren, inquire into this a little more carefully. The time is not so pressing as is usual on the Lord's day: we have leisure, and theirs will be the profit who have assembled to-day also to wait on the Word of God. " I lay down my life," He says. Who lays down? What lays He down? What is Christ? The Word and man. Not man as being flesh alone: but as man consists of flesh and soul, so, in Christ there is a complete humanity. For He would not have assumed the baser part, and left the better behind, seeing that the soul of man is certainly superior to the body. Since, then, there is entire manhood in Christ, what is Christ? The Word, I repeat, and man. What is the Word and man? The Word, soul, and flesh. Keep hold of that, for tliere has been no lack of heretics on this point also, expelled as they were some time ago from the catholic truth, but still persisting, 5 The word aniiiia, accordinii to AuKUStin's explanation of it above, may be rendered in tiiese sections cither "soul "or "life." The original also is i/(uxi- — '"xlike thieves and robbers who enter not by the door, to lay their snares around the fold. These heretics are termed Apollinarians,'^ and have ventured to a-ssert dogmatically that Christ is only the word and flesh, and contend that He did not assume a human soul. And yet some of them could not deny that there was a soul in Christ. See their intolerable absurdity and madness. They would have Him to possess an irrational soul, but deny Him a rational one. They allowed Him a mere animal, they deprived Him of a human, soul. But they took away Christ's reason by losing their own. Let it be otherwise with us, who have been nourished and established in the catholic faith. Accordingly, on this occasion I would remind your Charity, that, as in former lectures, we have given vou sufficient instruction against the Sabellians and Arians, — the Sabellians, who say. The Father is the same as the Son — -the Arians, who say. The Father is one being, the Son is another, as if the Father and Son were not of the same substance-- and also, provided you remember as you ought, against the Photinian heretics, who have asserted that Christ was mere man, and destitute of Godhead: 7 and against the Manicheans, who maintain that He was God only without any true humanity: we may, on this occasion, in speaking about the soul, give you some instruction also in opposition to the Apollinarians, who say that our Lord Jesus Christ had no human soul, that is, a rational intelligent soul, — that soul, I mean, by which, as men, we differ from the brutes.
10. \\\ what sense, then, did our Lord say here, " I have power to lay down my soul [life]"? Who lays down his soul, and takes it again? Is it as being the Word that Christ does so? Or is it the human soul He possesses that lays down and resumes its own existence? Or is it His fleshly nature that lays down its life and takes it again? Let us sift each of the three, questions I have suggested, and choose that which conforms to the standard of truth. For if we say that the Word of God laid down His soul, and took it again, we should have to fear the entrance of a wicked thought, and have it said to us: Then there was a time wlien that soul was separated from the Word, and a time, after His assumption of that soul, wlien He was without a soul. I see, indeed, that the Word ^ From Apollinaris, bishop of Alexandria, who held th.it the body which Christ assumed had only a sensitive, and not a rational soul, and that His divine nature supplied the plac<- of the latter. His doctrines were condemned by the Council of Alexandria, A.n. 362, and he himself was deposed by the Council of Rome, a.d.
378. -tr.
7 Sine ilfo: which, however, is wantiii).,' in all the MSS.
[Tractate XLVII.
was once without a human soul, but only so, when " in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." But from the time that the Word was made flesh, to dwell amongst us,' and manhood was assumed by the Word, that is, our whole nature, soul and flesh, what more could His passion and death do than separate the body from the soul? It separated not the soul from the Word. For if the Lord died, yea, because He died (for He did so for us on the cross), doubtless His flesh breathed out that which was its life: for a short time the soul forsook the flesh, although destined by its own return to raise the flesh again to life. But I cannot say that the soul was separated from the Word. He said to the soul of the thief, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." - He forsook not the believing soul of the robber, and did He abandon His own? Surely not; but when the Lord took that of the other into His keeping. He certainly retained His own in indissoluble union. If, on the other hand, we say that the soul laid down and reassumed itself, we fall into the greatest absurdity; for what was not separated from the Word, was inseparable from itself.
II. Let us turn, then, to what is true and easily understood. Take the case of any man, who does not consist of the word and soul and flesh, but only of soul and flesh; and let us inquire how any such man lays down his life. Can no ordinary man do so? Thou ' mayest say to me: No man has power to lay 1 down his life [soul], and to take it again.! But were not a man able to lay down his life,! the Apostle John would not say, "As Christ' laid down his life for us, even so ought we ' also to lay down our lives for the brethren." 3; Therefore may we also (if only we are filled i with His courage, for without Him we can do nothing) lay down our lives for the brethren, i When some holy martyr has laid down his ^ life for the brethren, who laid it down, and what laid he down? If we understand this, we shall perceive in what sense it was said by Christ, " I have power to lay down my life." Art thou prepared, O man, to die for Christ? I am prepared, he replies. Let me repeat the question in other words. Art thou prepared to lay down thy life for Christ? And to these words he makes me the same reply, I am prepared, as he had, when I said, Art thou prepared to die? To lay down one's life [soul], is, then, the same as to die. But in whose behalf is the sacrifice in this case?! For all men, when they die, lay down their life; but it is not all who lay it down for Christ. And no one has power to resume what he has laid down. But Christ both laid it down for us, and did so when it pleased Him; and when it pleased Him, He took it again. To lay down one's soul then, is to die. As also the Apostle Peter said to the Lord: " I will lay down my life [soul] for Thy sake;"'* that is, I will die for Thy sake. View it, then, as referable to the flesh: the flesh layeth down its life, and the flesh taketh it again; not, indeed, the flesh by its own power, but by the power of Him that inhabiteth it. The flesh, then, layeth down its life in expiring. Look at the Lord Himself on the cross: He said, "I thirst: " those who were present dipped a sponge in vinegar, fastened it to a reed, and applied it to His mouth; then, having received it, He said, " It is finished; " meaning. All is fulfilled which had been prophesied regarding me as, prior to my death, still in the future. And because He had the power, when He pleased, to lay down His life, after He had said, " It is finished," what adds tne evangelist? "And He bowed His head, and gave up the spirit. "5 This is to lay down the soul [life]. Only let your Charity attend to this. " He bowed His head, and gave up the spirit." Who gave up? what gave He up? He gave up the spirit; His flesh gave it up..What means, the flesh gave it up? The flesh sent it forth, breathed it out. For so, in becoming separated from the spirit, we are said to expire. Just as getting outside the paternal soil is to be expatriated, turning aside from the track is to deviate; so to become separated from the spirit is to expire; and that spirit is the soul [life]. Accordingly, when the soul quits the flesh, and the flesh remains without the soul, then is a man said to lay down his soul [his human life]. When did Christ lay down His life? When it pleased the Word. For sovereign authority resided in the Word; and therein lay the power to determine when the flesh should lay down its life, and when it should take it again.
12. If, then, the flesh laid down its life, how did Christ lay down His life? For the flesh is not Christ. Certainly in this way, that Christ is both flesh, and soul, and the Word; and yet these three tnings are not three Christs, but one. Ask thine own human nature, and from thyself ascend to what is above thee, and which, if not yet able to be understood, can at least be believed. For in the same way that one man is soul and body, is one Christ both the Word and man.
5 Chap. xix. 28-30.
Tractate XLVII.]
Consider what I have said, and understand. The soul and body are two things, but one man: the Word and man are two things, but one Christ. Apply, then, the subject to any man. Where is now the Apostle Paul? If one answer, At rest with Christ, he speaics truly. And likewise, should one reply. In the sepulchre at Rome, he is equally right. The one answer I get refers to his soul, the other to his flesh. And yet we do not say that there are two Apostle Pauls, one who rests in Christ, another who was laid in the sepulchre; although we may say that the Apostle Paul liveth in Christ, and that the same apostle lieth dead in the tomb. Some one dieth, and we say, He was a good man, and faithful; he is in peace with the Lord: and then immediately, Let us attend his obsequies, and lay him in the sepulchre. Thou art about to bury one whom thou hadst just declared to be m peace with God; for the latter regards the soul which blooms eternally, and the other the body, which is laid down in corruption. But while the partnership of the flesh and soul has received the name of man, the same name is now applied to either of them, singly and by itself.
13. Let no one, then, be perplexed, when he hears that the Lord has said, " I lay down my life, and I take it again.'' The flesh layeth it down, but by the power of the Word: the flesh taketh it again, but by the same power. Even His own name, the Lord Christ, was applied to His flesh alone. How can you prove it? says some one. We believe of a certainty not only in God the Father, but also in Jesus Christ His Son, our only Lord: and this that I have just said contains the whole, in Jesus Christ His Son, our only Lord. Understand that the whole is here: the Word, and soul, and flesh. At all events thou confessest what is also held by the same faith, that thou believest in that Christ who was crucified and buried. Ergo, thou deniest not that Christ was buried; and yet it was the burial only of His flesh. For had the soul been there, He would not have been dead: but if it was a true death, and its resurrection real, it was previously without life in the tomb; and yet it was Christ that was buried. And so the flesh apart from the soul was also Christ, for it was only the flesh that was buried. Learn the same likewise in the words of an apostle. " Let this mind," he says, "be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, tiiought it not robbery to^be equal with God." ^^'ho, save Christ Jesus, as respects His nature as the Word, is God with God? But look at what follows: " But emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant; being made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man." And who is this, but the same Christ Jesus Himself? But here we have now all the parts, both the Word in that form of God which assumed the form of a servant, and the soul and the flesh in that form of a servant which was assumed by the form of God. " He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death."' Now in His death, it was His flesh only that was slain by the Jews. For if He said to His disciples, " Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul," '^ how could they do more in His own case than kill the body? And yet in the slaying of His flesh, it was Christ that was slain. Accordingly, when the flesh laid down its life, Christ laid it down; and when the flesh, in order to its resurrection, assumed its life, Cnrist assumed it. Nevertheless this was done, not by the power of the flesh, but of Him who assumed both soul and flesh, that in them these very things might receive fulfillment.
14. "This commandment," He says, " have I received of my Father.'" The ^\'ord received not the commandment in word, but in the only- begotten Word of the Father every commandment resides. But when the Son is said to receive of the Father what He possesses essentially in Himself, as it is said, "As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself," 3 while the Soli is Himself the life, there is no lessening of His authority, but the setting forth of His generation. For the Father added not after-gifts as to a son wliose state was imperfect at birth, but on Him whom He begat in absolute perfection He bestowed all gifts in begetting. In this manner He gave Him equality with Himself, and yet begat Him not in a state of inequality. But while the Lord thus spake, for the light was shining in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not,* "there was a dissension again created among the Jews for these sayings, and many of them said. He hath a devil, and is mad: why hear ye him? " This was the thickest darkness. Others said, " These are not the words of him that hath a devil; can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" The eyes of such were now begun to be opened.
[Tractate XLVIII.
TRACTATE XLVIII.
Chapter X. 22-42.
I. As I have already charged you, beloved, you ought steadfastly to bear in mind that Saint John the evangelist would not have us be always nourished with milk, but fed with solid food. Still, whoever is hardly able as yet to partake of the solid food of God's word, let him find nourishment in the milk of faith; and the word which he cannot understand, let him not hesitate to believe. For faith is the deserving: understanding, the reward. In the very labor of intent application the eye of our mind struggles ' to get rid of the foul films of human mists, and be cleared up to the word of God. Labor, then, will not be declined if love is present; for you know that he who loves his labor is insensible to its pain. For no labor is grievous to those who love it. If cupidity on the part of the avaricious endures so great toils, what in our case will not love endure?
2. Listen to the Gospel: *'And it was at Jerusalem the Encoenia."^ Encoenia was the festival of the dedication of the temple. For in Greek kainos means new; and whenever there was some new dedication, it was called Encoenia.^ And now this word is come into common use; if one puts on a new coat, he is said "encoeniare" (to renovate, or to hold an encmiia). For the Jews celebrated in a solemn manner the day on which the temple was dedicated; and it was the very feast day when the Lord spake what has just been read.
3. " It was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about Him, and said unto Him, How long dost thou keep our mind in suspense? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." They were not desiring the truth, but preparing a calumny. " It was winter," and they were chill; because they were slow to approach that divine fire. For to approach is to believe: he who believes, approaches; who denies, retires. The soul is not moved by the feet, but by the affections. They had become icy cold to the sweetness of loving Him, and they burned with the desire of doing Him an injury. They were far away, while there beside Him. It was not with ' Desiidat, struggles to sweating.
2 Jinccenia, iyxaivia, from iv and Kaivo';, new.
3 It was a feast, however, instituted by Judas Maccabaeus, to commemorate his purification of the temple, after its profanation by Antiochus. — Tr.
them a nearer approach in believing, but the pressure of persecution. They sought to hear the Lord saying, I am Christ; and probably enough they only thought of the Christ in a human way. The prophets preached Christ; but the Godhead of Christ asserted in the prophets and in the gospel itself is not perceived even by heretics; and how much less by Jews, so long as the vail is upon their heart?* In short, in a certain place, the Lord Jesus, knowing that their views of the Christ were cast in a human mould, not in the Divine, taking His stand on the human ground, and not on that where along with the assumption of humanity He also continued Divine, He said to them, " What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?" Following their own opinion, they replied, "Of David.'' For so they had read, and this only they retained; because while they read of His divinity, they did not understand it. But the Lord, to pin them down to some inquiry touching the divinity of Him whose apparent weakness they despised, answered them: "How, then, doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on my right hand, till I put Thine enemies under Thy feet? If David, then, in spirit call Him Lord, how is He his son?"^ He did not deny, but questioned. Let no one think, on hearing this, that the Lord Jesus denied that He was the Son of David. Had Christ the Lord given any such denial, He would not have enlightened the blind who so addressed Him. For as He wa^ passing by one day, two blind men, who were sitting by the wayside, cried out, " Have mercy upon us, thou Son of David." And on hearing these words He had mercy on them. He stood still, healed, enlightened them;* for He owned the name. The Apostle Paul also says, "Who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; " ^ and in his Epistle to Timothy, " Remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, [He that is] of tne seed of David, according to my gospel.'"* For the Virgin Mary drew her origin, and hence our Lord also, from the seed of David. 4 4. The Jews made this inquiry of Christ, 6 Matt. XX. 30-34.
Tractate XLVIII.]
chiefly in order that, should He say, I am Christ, they might, in accordance with the only sense they attached to such a name, that He was of the seed of David, calumniate Him with aiming at the kingly power. There is more than this in His answer to them: they wished to calumniate Him with claiming to be the Son of David. He replied that He was the Son of God. And how? Listen: " Jesus answered them, I tell you, and ye believe not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me: but ye believe not; because ye are not of my sheep." Ye have already learned above (in Lecture XLV.) who the sheep are: be ye sheep. They are sheep through believing, sheep in following the Shepherd, sheep in not despising their Redeemer, sheep in entering by the door, sheep in going out and finding pasture, sheep in the enjoyment of eternal life. What did He mean, then, in saying to them, " Ye are not of my sheep "? That He saw them predestined to everlasting destruction, not won to eternal life by the price of His own blood.
5. " My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life." This is the pasture. If you recollect, He had said before, "And he shall go in and out, and find pasture." We have entered by believing — we go out at death.' But as we have entered by the door of faith, so, as believers, we quit the body; for it is in going out by that same door that we are able to find pasture. The good pasture is called eternal life; there no blade withereth— all is green and flourishing. There is a plant commonly said to be ever-living; there only is it found to live. " I will give," He says, "unto them,'' unto my sheep, "eternal life." Ye are on the search for calumnies, just because your only thoughts are of the life that is present.
6. "And they shall never perish:" you may hear the undertone, as if He had said to them, Ye shall perish for ever, because ye are not of my sheep. " No one shall pluck them out of my hand." Give still greater heed to this: "That which my Father gave me is greater than all."= What can the wolf ' The ^asi ure, and the g-or>i,c inanti out, refer rather to Christ's guidance and nourishment of His people in this present life. — 'I'r.
2 There is a considerabh; difference in these words, as rendered by Aujriistin, from that which is found in our Kn^Iish version: " My Father who Kave them me is ^jreater than all." The latter is certainly the more intellij^ible and suitable to the context. Hut the variation of the Mss. between the two rea(lin.i,'s, " b.. fitl^ov" and "09.. ixti^utv,'" is somewhat remarkable. The far larger number are certainly in favor of the latter, as followed by our EnKlish liibles, but the former is ciiiuitcnaiiced by some of the more important; while others which have b« have at the sxime time /aei^oi' (neut.), and Ti'ct- 7'irsa. 'I'hus the.Sinaitic reads b (neut.), and nei^ioi' (masc.); while the Alexandrian has b? (masi. I, and iJ.eliov (ut-iil.}. The Vulgate, and some of the other early do? What can the thief and the robber? They destroy none but those predestined to destruction. But of those sheep of which the apostle says, "The Lord knoweth them that are His;"^ and "Whom He did foreknow, them He also did predestinate; and whom He did predestinate, them* He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified; " •» — there is none of such sheep as these that the wolf seizes, or the thief steals, or the robber slays. He, who knows what He gave for them, is sure of their number. And it is this that He says: " No one shall pluck them out of my hand; " and in reference also to the Father, " That which my Father gave me is greater than all." What did the Father give to the Son that was greater than all? To be His own only-begotten Son. What, then, means " gave "? Was He to whom He gave previously existent, or gave He in the act of begetting? For if He previously existed to whom He gave the gift of Sonship, there was a time when He was, and was not the Son. Far be it from us to suppose that the Lord Christ ever was, and yet was not the Son. Of us such a thing may be said: there was a time when we were the sons of men, but were not the sons of God. For we are made the sons of God by grace, but He by nature, for such was He born. And yet not so, as that one may say. He did not exist till He was born; for He, who was coeternal with the Father, was never unborn. Let him who is wise understand: and whoever understands not, let him believe and be nourished, and he will come to understanding. The Word of God was always with the Father, and always the Word; and because the Word, therefore the Son. So then, always the Son, and always equal. For it is not by growth but by birth that He is equal, who was always born, the Son of the Father, God of God, coeternal of the Eternal. But the Father is not God of 5 the Son: the Son is God of ^ the Father; therefore in begetting the Son, the Father " gave " Him to be God, in begetting He gave Him to be coeternal with Himself, in begetting He gave Him to be His equal. This is that which is greater than all. How is the versions, have AuRustin's reading; but the Peshito (Syriac), which is the earliest of them all, supports the other, its literal rendering being, " For my P'ather, who j,'ave to me, than all greater |is] He." Modern critics have generally adopteil the masc. reading,- Griesbach, Hengel, and others, almost ignoring the other, and Stier dismissing it as wholly inadmissible; while Alford, in a very strange and un.s;(tisfa<tory way, gives the neuter in his (Ireek text, anil not a syllable of exjilanation in his notes, ll seems to us that the transcriber had first let b creep into the text, perhaps from the pri'vioiis similar expression in chap. vi. ^g; and tlien ^«i<,'oi' was made neuter by some other to agree with it. This is more likely than the reverse; and our luiglLsh reading is everyway more satisfactory than.Vugustin's, — J'k.
[Tractate XLVITI.
Son the life, and the possessor of life? What He has, He is: as for thee, thou art one thing, thou hast another. For example, thou hast wisdom, but art thou wisdom itself? In short, because thou thyself art not that which thou hast, shouldst thou lose what thou hast, thou returnest to* the state of no longer having it: and sometimes thou re-acquirest, sometimes thou losest. As our eye has no light inherently in itself, it opens, and admits it; it shuts, and loses it. It is not thus that the Son of God is God — not thus that He is the Word of the Father; and not thus is He the Word, that passes away with the sound, but that which abides in its birth. In such a way hath He wisdom that He is Himself wisdom, and maketh men wise: and life, that He is Himself the life, and maketh others alive. This is that which is greater than all. The evangelist John himself looked to heaven and earth when wishing to speak of the Son of God; he looked, and rose above them all. He thought on the thousands of angelic armies above the heavens; he thought, and, like the eagle soaring beyond the clouds, his mind overpassed the whole creation: he rose beyond all that was great, and arrived at that which was greater than all; and said, "In the beginning was the Word," But because He, of' whom is the Word, is not of the Word, and the Word is of Him, whose Word He is; therefore He says, " That which the Father gave me," namely, to be His Word, His only-begotten Son, the brightness of His light, " is greater than all." Therefore, "No one," He says, " plucketh my sheep out of my hand. No one can pluck them out of my Father's hand."