Souls may be profited if one subject this document to the test of God's word. It professes to come from an infallible man; and after full consultation with all who could render aid, rather than alone, we must presume. It is on a momentous article of faith, on which, if anywhere, infallibility should not falter. “If they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.”
1.-THE FOLD.
Let us begin with an all-important question raised in the first sentence. Pope Leo XIII. speaks of “the fold.” It is no slip of the pen. It re-appears with similar emphasis near the middle of his letter. It is reiterated in the final “appeal to sheep not of the fold,” p. lvii. But the Lord Jesus, whom the Pope acknowledges to be “the Chief Pastor of souls,” has ruled otherwise in John 10 He led His own sheep out of “the fold,” the only such enclosure set up by God; and He forms “one flock” in contradistinction, Himself the “one Shepherd,” as indeed is owned. So it is said in Matt. 16:1818And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18), they are His church; as in the epistles, the church of God.
“The fold” applied to the Christian body is a vulgar mistake, or, if you wish it, as universally current a tradition as could be produced. What can one think of its adoption by the religious chief over 200 millions of baptized? by one who aspires to gather under his authority a still greater number, who bear the name of the Lord but do not accept his title? Is it not strange to find an infallible claim, not only stumbling on the threshold, but persisting in so palpable an error throughout? For the Pope ignores “the flock,” which the Lord of all instituted, and recalls the sheep to “the fold,” out of which the Lord led them. It is no mere quibble of words, but distinctive truth. For “the fold” out of which the Savior led His own sheep was governed by the law, and fenced by ordinances on pain of cutting off; it had a succession of priests; it provided continual repetition of sacrifices, and boasted of a gorgeous sanctuary, splendid vestments, and captivating music, to say nothing of saints such as were found nowhere else. Yet out of this fold the Lord leads His own sheep; and into such a fold, as far as man could imitate it, does the Pope seek to win the sheep now.
“The flock” which the Good Shepherd forms has quite another character. He had entered by the door into the fold of the sheep, as their Shepherd, the Messiah, with the utmost difference from those who claimed them as theirs. Prophecy and miracle, light and love, made Him plain save to those who, being enemies of God, received Him not. The porter opens the door; the sheep hear His voice, and He calls His own sheep by name, but leads them out. The confession of His person (John 8:5858Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. (John 8:58)) provoked from the Jews not worship but an effort to stone Him; whilst His work of gracious and divine power (ch. 9.) drew out their agreement that every confessor of Him should be put out of the synagogue. The Jews thus condemned themselves. Jesus was come that those that see not (like the blind confessor) might see, and those that see (like the unbelieving Jewish leaders) might be made blind.
The Lord further sets forth Himself as the new separating and gathering object; no longer as Messiah entering “the fold,” but as “the door of the sheep “—not of the sheep-fold, as some misinterpret.
“I am the door: by me if anyone enter, he shall be saved, and shall go in and go out, and shall find pasture” (ver. 9). In these divine words we learn who and what they are that compose “the flock.” They follow Jesus because they know His voice; and He came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly. He is the object of faith; not “the flock.” “He is the true God and eternal life.” “He that hath the Son hath life.” If any persons on earth could assuredly assert that they were God's people, theirs the fathers, theirs the covenants, theirs the Messiah, it was the Jews. Yet when proved to reject the Lord, as once for serving idols, God gave them up; and Jesus was the warrant for His own sheep to follow Him outside, where they enjoy salvation, liberty, food, and shelter from the enemy, in Him Who laid down His life for the sheep. “And I have other sheep which are not of this fold [namely, Gentile believers]; those also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice [this is the main criterion]; and there shall be one flock, one shepherd” (ver. 16).
Such is “the flock,” not “the fold.” The flock consists alike of the sheep separated from Judaism, which was “this fold,” and of the sheep scattered among the Gentiles that had no fold: these are the “one flock.” He Who is indeed infallible speaks of no “fold” now for His sheep; the Pope does. Can any child of God hesitate which to believe? The sheep hear His voice; an alien will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of aliens: The sheep follow Him, for they know His voice. “We walk by faith, not by sight.” Blandishment is as vain as threats. Ever before, while “the fold” was owned, Jews and Gentiles were rigidly kept apart; now if they hear His voice, they are “one flock.” It is a new thing, where grace reigns; and Christ is all, and in all. What a contrast with the fold of old or any new one His person and work are the guarantee of every spiritual blessing to those that believe on Him.
Is it said in excuse that not only the loose speech prevalent in Christendom but the Vulgate of Jerome misled? Yet Pope Leo is a student of Scripture, they say, and probably familiar with the Greek original of the N.T. He ought therefore to have known and avoided so flagrant a mistake. In the same verse 16 of John 10 is the word (αὐλὴ) rightly translated “fold", the Jewish enclosure. Here the Lord declares that the sheep He had which were not of this fold should, with those He was leading out of the fold, be “one flock” with one Shepherd. No such gathering into one had been hitherto. It was reserved for Christ when rejected by the Jews. As the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, Who died to gather together in one the scattered children of God (John 11:5252And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. (John 11:52)).
Oh! how the truth has been forgotten, and “the fold” set up again into which the Pope devotes his “endeavor” to bring back “sheep that have strayed.” It is part of that fatal judaizing against which the great apostle of the Gentiles strenuously labored and fought throughout his blessed course. Therein the apostle Peter grievously failed: a feeble foundation for the church, and for the Roman claim of universal jurisdiction. Why should anyone hide that Peter was untrue at Antioch to the divine vision of Acts 10? He had rightly used the keys of the kingdom to admit the Jews, and afterward Gentiles. He at first had eaten with Gentiles, the sign of fellowship; and then when certain came from James, he was drawing back and separating himself: not vacillation and inconsistency only, but schism and despite of the “one flock, one Shepherd.” And it was the more deplorable cowardice now, because he had confronted the narrow Pharisaic brethren in Jerusalem once (chap. 11.) and again (chap. 15); and all the worse, because he was so honored and influential. But the apostle of the uncircumcision was faithful and resisted him to the face, because he was (not merely “reprehensibilis,” as the Vulgate improperly tones it down, but “condemned". Indeed the apostle writes thus severely, “And the rest of the Jews also were guilty of like dissimulation [or hypocrisy], so that even Barnabas was carried away by their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walk not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before all,” &c.
Has Pope Leo XIII. laid this solemn admonition to heart or those who helped Pope Pius IX. to proclaim papal infallibility? To the believer can there be a plainer instance of the care God has taken in scripture to anticipate and condemn human presumption? Holy Peter broke down where not only his faith as a saint should have kept him firm, but where his apostolic authority compromised the faith of the gospel and the unity of the church. It was a brief but sad slip into “the fold” again; but we read his censure for our warning in God's imperishable word. There is a painfully instructive tale of patristic dishonesty that hangs thereby; but to tell it here would cause too great a divergence from the present question, and so it must now be left.
But there is another fact of immediate bearing, which, if not familiar to all, one might expect so experienced a theologian as the present Pope to know. The correct and only tenable rendering we now discuss is given in copies of the old Latin Gospels, both African (or unrevised) and of the Italic revision. Thus in the God. Vercell. we read “fiet una grex, et unus pastor “; in the God. Veron. (with which here agrees God. Corbei.), “fiet unus grex, et unus pastor “; and in the God. Brix., “fient unus grex et unus pastor “: each independent and differing perceptibly, but all agreeing in the sure and weighty truth of “one flock.” This the Hieronymian Version perverted, the Popes' and Councils and clergy ever since sanctioning it, ignorantly or deliberately, for their return more and more to the Jewish fold; as in fact there is none but that one. The blessed difference of the “one flock, one shepherd” they do not appreciate. It is all one to them no doubt.
Let me add that even the Gothic V. of Ulphilas is correct: why Gabelentz and Loebe have given a misinterpretation in Latin is the more strange, because in their note they rightly convict Schultz of error on this point. It is well-known that the Peschito Syriac gives the just sense, as does the later Philoxenian: so also the Aeth., the Anglo-Sax., the Arabic, the Arm., the Georgian, the Memph., the Sah., and the Sclavonic. Luther translated correctly, as did Tyndale; but Cranmer and the later English wrongly followed the Vulgate, which was natural in Wiclif and the Rhemish. Erasmus in his note cites Valla, who knew that ποιμνὴ is “grex” rather than “ovile “; but he left the error uncorrected in all his five editions. Beza corrects it in his fourth and fifth editions, though wrong in the first three. But there can be no question to those who adhere to the word, either of the truth, or of its importance. In Matt. 26:3131Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. (Matthew 26:31), Luke 2:88And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. (Luke 2:8), and twice in 1 Cor. 9:77Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? (1 Corinthians 9:7), the Vulgate gives “flock,” not “fold” without hesitation, and thus condemns itself in John 10:1616And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. (John 10:16), where it is dogmatically of moment.