Children, Colts, and Lambs

That the Instructor’s work is the leading of children is plain from the word itself: paidagōgia means a child-leading. What is left is to consider which children the Scriptures point to, and then to put them in the Instructor’s charge. We are the children. Scripture celebrates us in many ways and describes us under many figures of speech, giving variety to the plain simplicity of the faith by calling us by different names. So in the Gospel “the Lord, standing on the shore, says to his disciples” — they happened to be fishing — “and called out, ‘Children, do you have anything to eat?’” — addressing men who were already disciples as children. “And they brought children to him,” it says, “so that he might lay his hands on them and bless them; and when his disciples tried to stop them, Jesus said, ‘Let the children come, and do not keep them from coming to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’” [a]

What that way of speaking means the Lord himself will tell us: “Unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” He is not there speaking figuratively of being born anew. He is setting in front of us, for us to imitate, the simplicity that children have.

The prophetic Spirit marks us out as children too. “Cutting branches of olive and palm,” it says, “the children went out to meet the Lord and cried, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” — light, and glory, and praise, with pleading to the Lord; for that is what the word Hosanna means when it is put into Greek. And Scripture, it seems to me, glancing back at the prophecy just mentioned, reproaches the thoughtless: “Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have made praise perfect’?”

This is also how the Lord spurs his disciples on in the Gospels, urging them to give him their attention, since he was hurrying to the Father. He made his hearers keener by letting them know that in a little while he would be leaving, and he showed them that they had to take hold of the truth more unsparingly than ever before, because the Word was about to go up to heaven. So again he calls them children: “Children, I am with you only a little while longer.” And again he compares the kingdom of heaven to children sitting in the marketplaces and saying, “We piped for you, and you did not dance; we sang a lament, and you did not mourn” — and whatever else he added to the same effect. And it is not the Gospel alone that holds this. Prophecy agrees with it. David says, “Praise the Lord, you children; praise the name of the Lord.” And it says through Isaiah, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.”

Are you surprised, then, to hear that grown men among the nations are children in the Lord’s sight? Then you have not been listening to the Attic dialect, from which you could have learned that beautiful, well-made, freeborn young women are still called paidiskai, “girls,” and servant girls paidiskaria — and that these last, too, because of the bloom of youth, are given the flattering name of young girls.

And when he says, “Let my lambs stand at my right hand,” he means the simple, who are by kind children, like lambs, and not grown men, like sheep; and he counts the lambs worthy of the preference, because of the greater regard he has for the tenderness and simplicity in people that makes them innocent. Again, when he says “like suckling calves,” he is speaking figuratively of us; and “like an innocent and gentle dove” — again the reference is to us. Again, through Moses he commands that “two young pigeons or a pair of turtledoves be offered for sin,” saying in this way that the sinlessness and innocence and freedom from grudges of these tender young birds are acceptable to God, and explaining that like atones for like. And the timidity of the turtledoves stands for fear where sin is concerned.

And that he calls us chicks, Scripture bears witness: “As a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” So we are the Lord’s chicks, the Word describing the simplicity of childhood in this wonderful and mysterious way. Sometimes he calls us children, sometimes chicks, sometimes infants, at other times sons, and “a new people” and “a young people.” “And my servants will be called by a new name” — a new name, he says, fresh and everlasting, pure and simple, childlike and true — a name that will be blessed on the earth.

And again he calls us, figuratively, colts unbroken to vice, not trained in wickedness, but simple, bounding joyfully toward the Father alone: not the sort of horses that “neigh after their neighbors’ wives, yoked and mad for the female,” but free and newborn, exultant through faith, ready to run to the truth, quick to speed toward salvation, trampling and stamping the things of the world under their feet.

“Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; shout aloud, daughter of Jerusalem: look, your King is coming to you, just, gentle, and bringing salvation; truly he is gentle, riding on a beast of burden and on a young colt.” It was not enough to say “colt” alone; he added “young” as well, to show the youth of the humanity in Christ, and the everlastingness of a simplicity that will never know old age. And we little ones, being colts of that kind, are reared by our divine colt-tamer. But if the new man is pictured in Scripture as an ass, this ass too is a colt. “And he bound the colt to the vine,” it says — binding this simple and childlike people to the Word, whom he pictures as a vine. For the vine produces wine as the Word produces blood, and both are drink for people’s health: wine for the body, blood for the spirit.

And that he calls us lambs as well, the Spirit through the mouth of Isaiah is a witness beyond challenge: “He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs with his arm” — using the figure of lambs, which are more tender even than sheep, to express simplicity. And we too, in fact, honor the finest and most complete things in life with a name drawn from the word for a child: we call discipline paideia, and the guiding of a child paidagōgia. And the guiding of a child, we declare, is right leading from childhood on toward virtue.

So our Lord revealed more plainly what the name “children” means. When a question arose among the apostles about which of them was the greater, Jesus set a little child in the middle of them and said, “Whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greater in the kingdom of heaven.” He does not, then, use the name “children” because of the very limited understanding that goes with their age, as some have thought. Nor, when he says, “Unless you become like these children, you will not enter the kingdom of God,” are his words to be taken as meaning “without learning.”

We who are infants no longer roll on the ground or creep on the earth like snakes as we once did, crawling with the whole body after mindless cravings. Instead we stretch upward in soul, cut loose from the world and from our sins, touching the earth on tiptoe so as only to appear to be in the world, and we pursue holy wisdom — though this looks like folly to men whose wits are sharpened for wickedness. Rightly, then, are those called children who know as their Father the one who alone is God, who are simple and infant and free of guile, who are “lovers of the horns of the unicorns.”

To those who have made progress in the word, then, he has announced this saying, telling them to drop anxious care about the things of this world and urging them to hold to the Father alone, in imitation of children. That is why he goes on to say, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow; today’s own trouble is enough for today.” So he orders them to lay aside the cares of this life and to depend on the Father alone. And whoever carries out this command really is a child and a son — to the world and to God alike: to the one as deceived, to the other as loved.

And if we have one Teacher in heaven, as the Scripture says, then by common agreement those on earth will rightly be called disciples. For that is how the truth stands: perfection is with the Lord, who is always teaching, and infancy and childishness with us, who are always learning. So prophecy has honored perfection by applying to it the name “man.” Through David, for instance, he says of the devil, “The Lord abhors the man of blood” — he calls him a man as being perfect in wickedness. And the Lord is called man because he is perfect in righteousness. Exactly to the point is the case of the apostle, who says, writing to the Corinthians, “For I betrothed you to one man, to present you to Christ as a pure virgin” — whether as children or as holy ones, but to the Lord alone.

And writing to the Ephesians he has unfolded the matter in the clearest way: “Until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of God, at a perfect man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by every wind of teaching, by the trickery of men, by their cunning in schemes of deceit; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things.” He says this for the building up of the body of Christ, who is the head and the man, the only one perfect in righteousness — while we who are children guard ourselves against the gusts of the sects, which blow us up with wind. We do not put our trust in those who prescribe other fathers for us, and we are made perfect at the point where we are the church, having received Christ the head.

Then it is worth noticing, about the word for an infant, nēpios, that nēpion is not said of the silly — the silly man is called nēpytios. Nēpios is neēpios, since a tenderhearted man is called ēpios: the word means one who has newly become gentle and mild in his conduct. The blessed Paul pointed this out most clearly when he said, “Though we might have thrown our weight about as apostles of Christ, we were gentle among you, like a nurse cherishing her own children.” The infant, then, is gentle, and so more tender, delicate, simple, free of guile, without hypocrisy, straightforward and upright in mind — which is the foundation of simplicity and truth. For he says, “Whom shall I look upon, if not the man who is gentle and quiet?”

That is what a virgin’s speech is like: tender, and free of fraud. And so a virgin is usually called “a tender bride,” and a child “tender-hearted.” We are tender who yield to the power of persuasion and are easily drawn toward what is good, who are mild and free from the stain of malice and crookedness. For the ancient race was crooked and hard-hearted, but the company of infants, the new people that we are, is delicate as a child. Because of the hearts of the innocent, the apostle admits in the letter to the Romans that he rejoices, and gives a kind of definition of children, so to speak, when he says, “I want you to be wise toward what is good, and simple toward what is evil.”

For we do not understand the name for a child, nēpios, in a privative sense, although the sons of the grammarians make the nē- a negative particle. If those who run down childhood call us foolish, see how they blaspheme against the Lord, in reckoning as fools those who have taken refuge in God. But if — which is the truer sense — they themselves take the name “children” to mean the simple, then we glory in the name. For the new minds are infants: minds newly made wise out of the old folly, which have come into being under the new covenant. God was known only lately, by the coming of Christ: “For no one knows God except the Son, and the one to whom the Son reveals him.”

In contrast, then, to the older people, the new people are called young, because they have learned the new blessings. We have the abundance of life’s morning prime in this youth that knows no old age, in which we are always growing to maturity in understanding, always young, always mild, always new. Those who have come to share in the new Word must necessarily be new; and what shares in eternity is usually made like what cannot decay. So the name that belongs to us is the age of childhood, a lifelong springtime, because the truth that is in us, and our habits saturated with truth, cannot be touched by old age. Wisdom is always in bloom, always stays consistent and the same, and never changes.

“Their children,” it says, “will be carried on the shoulders and fondled on the knees; as a mother comforts her child, so I too will comfort you.” The mother draws her children to herself, and we seek our mother the church. Whatever is weak and tender, and needs help because it is weak, is looked on kindly; it is sweet and pleasant, since God does not withhold his help from one so young. That is how a horse’s colt, a cow’s little calf, the lion’s cub, the stag’s fawn, and a man’s child are looked on with delight by their fathers and mothers. In the same way the Father of the universe cherishes affection toward those who have fled to him. Having fathered them again by his Spirit into the standing of adopted children, he knows them as gentle, loves them and no others, helps them and fights for them; and that is why he gives them the name of child.

The name Isaac I also connect with childhood. Isaac means laughter. He was seen playing with his wife and helpmate Rebecca by the king who was prying. The king, whose name was Abimelech, seems to me to stand for a wisdom above this world, looking on at the mystery of play. Rebecca they interpret as endurance. What wise play — laughter with endurance to help it, and the king as spectator! The spirit of those who are children in Christ, whose lives are ordered in endurance, rejoices. This is the divine play. Heraclitus says that his own Zeus plays a game of this kind. For what other occupation is fitting for a wise and complete man than to play and be glad in enduring what is good, and, in the managing of what is good, to keep festival with God?

What the prophet means may also be taken another way: of our rejoicing over salvation, as Isaac rejoiced. He too, delivered from death, laughed, playing and rejoicing with his bride, who was the type of the Helper of our salvation, the church — to whom the steady name of endurance is given, surely for this reason, that she alone remains through all the generations, always rejoicing, holding together as she does by the endurance of us who believe and who are the members of Christ. And the witness of those who have endured to the end, and the thanksgiving over them, is the mystic play, and the salvation, with its fitting comfort, that comes to our aid.

The King, then, who is Christ, watches our laughter from above, and looking through the window, as the Scripture says, sees the thanksgiving and the blessing and the rejoicing and the gladness, and along with them the endurance that works with them and their embrace. He sees his church, and shows only his face, which was the one thing she lacked, since she is made complete by her royal Head. And where was the door through which the Lord showed himself? The flesh in which he was made visible.

He is Isaac — for the story can be read another way as well — a type of the Lord: a child, in that he was a son, for he was Abraham’s son as Christ is the Son of God; and a sacrifice, as the Lord was, though he was not slaughtered as the Lord was. Isaac only carried the wood for the sacrifice, as the Lord carried the wood of the cross. And he laughed in a mysterious way, prophesying that the Lord would fill us with joy — us who have been ransomed from decay by the Lord’s blood. Isaac did everything but suffer, and rightly so: he yielded the first place in suffering to the Word. Besides, there is a hint of the Lord’s divinity in his not being killed. For Jesus rose again after his burial, having suffered no harm, like Isaac released from the sacrifice.

And in support of the point I am establishing, I will bring forward one more consideration of the greatest weight. The Spirit calls the Lord himself a child, prophesying this way through Isaiah: “Look, a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us, and the government is on his own shoulder; and his name has been called Angel of great Counsel.” Who, then, is this infant child? The one in whose image we are made little children. By the same prophet his greatness is declared: “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace — to increase his discipline; and of his peace there will be no end.”

O the great God! O the perfect child! The Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son. And how will this child’s discipline not be perfect, when it reaches everyone, guiding us his little ones as the Instructor guides children? He has stretched out to us those hands of his that are so plainly worthy of trust. Further witness is borne to this child by John, “the greatest prophet among those born of women”: “Look, the Lamb of God!” For since Scripture calls the infant children lambs, it has also called him — God the Word, who became man for our sake and wished to be made like us in every way — “the Lamb of God”: meaning the Son of God, the child of the Father.