The Instructor

Since, then, we have shown that all of us are by Scripture called children; and not only so, but that we who have followed Christ are figuratively called babes; and that the Father of all alone is perfect, for the Son is in Him, and the Father is in the Son; it is time for us in due course to say who our Instructor is.

He is called Jesus. Sometimes He calls Himself a shepherd, and says, “I am the good Shepherd.” According to a metaphor drawn from shepherds, who lead the sheep, is hereby understood the Instructor, who leads the children— the Shepherd who tends the babes. For the babes are simple, being figuratively described as sheep. “And they shall all,” it is said, “be one flock, and one shepherd.” The Word, then, who leads the children to salvation, is appropriately called the Instructor (Pædagogue).

With the greatest clearness, accordingly, the Word has spoken respecting Himself by Hosea: “I am your Instructor.” Now piety is instruction, being the learning of the service of God, and training in the knowledge of the truth, and right guidance which leads to heaven. And the word “instruction” is employed variously. For there is the instruction of him who is led and learns, and that of him who leads and teaches; and there is, thirdly, the guidance itself; and fourthly, what is taught, as the commandments enjoined.

Now the instruction which is of God is the right direction of truth to the contemplation of God, and the exhibition of holy deeds in everlasting perseverance.

As therefore the general directs the phalanx, consulting the safety of his soldiers, and the pilot steers the vessel, desiring to save the passengers; so also the Instructor guides the children to a saving course of conduct, through solicitude for us; and, in general, whatever we ask in accordance with reason from God to be done for us, will happen to those who believe in the Instructor. And just as the helmsman does not always yield to the winds, but sometimes, turning the prow towards them, opposes the whole force of the hurricanes; so the Instructor never yields to the blasts that blow in this world, nor commits the child to them like a vessel to make shipwreck on a wild and licentious course of life; but, wafted on by the favouring breeze of the Spirit of truth, stoutly holds on to the child's helm—his ears, I mean—until He bring him safe to anchor in the haven of heaven.

What is called by men an ancestral custom passes away in a moment, but the divine guidance is a possession which abides for ever.

They say that Phœnix was the instructor of Achilles, and Adrastus of the children of Crœsus; and Leonides of Alexander, and Nausithous of Philip. But Phœnix was women-mad, Adrastus was a fugitive. Leonides did not curtail the pride of Alexander, nor Nausithous reform the drunken Pellæan. No more was the Thracian Zopyrus able to check the fornication of Alcibiades; but Zopyrus was a bought slave, and Sicinnus, the tutor of the children of Themistocles, was a lazy domestic. They say also that he invented the Sicinnian dance. Those have not escaped our attention who are called royal instructors among the Persians; whom, in number four, the kings of the Persians select with the greatest care from all the Persians and set over their sons. But the children only learn the use of the bow, and on reaching maturity have sexual intercourse with sisters, and mothers, and women, wives and courtesans innumerable, practiced in intercourse like the wild boars.

But our Instructor is the holy God Jesus, the Word, who is the guide of all humanity. The loving God Himself is our Instructor. Somewhere in song the Holy Spirit says with regard to Him, “He provided sufficiently for the people in the wilderness. He led him about in the thirst of summer heat in a dry land, and instructed him, and kept him as the apple of His eye, as an eagle protects her nest, and shows her fond solicitude for her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, and bears them on her back. The Lord alone led them, and there was no strange god with them.” Clearly, I trow, has the Scripture exhibited the Instructor in the account it gives of His guidance.

Again, when He speaks in His own person, He confesses Himself to be the Instructor: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” Who, then, has the power of leading in and out? Is it not the Instructor? This was He who appeared to Abraham, and said to him, “I am your God, be accepted before Me;” and in a way most befitting an instructor, forms him into a faithful child, saying, “And be blameless; and I will make My covenant between Me and you, and your seed.” There is the communication of the Instructor's friendship. And He most manifestly appears as Jacob's instructor. He says accordingly to him, “Lo, I am with you, to keep you in all the way in which you shall go; and I will bring you back into this land: for I will not leave you till I do what I have told you.” He is said, too, to have wrestled with Him. “And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled with him a man (the Instructor) till the morning.” This was the man who led, and brought, and wrestled with, and anointed the athlete Jacob against evil. Now that the Word was at once Jacob's trainer and the Instructor of humanity [appears from this]— “He asked,” it is said, “His name, and said to him, Tell me what is Your name.” And he said, “Why is it that you ask My name?” For He reserved the new name for the new people— the babe; and was as yet unnamed, the Lord God not having yet become man. Yet Jacob called the name of the place, “Face of God.” “For I have seen,” he says, “God face to face; and my life is preserved.” The face of God is the Word by whom God is manifested and made known. Then also was he named Israel, because he saw God the Lord. It was God, the Word, the Instructor, who said to him again afterwards, “Fear not to go down into Egypt.” See how the Instructor follows the righteous man, and how He anoints the athlete, teaching him to trip up his antagonist.